I'm disturbed by the co-optation of video games in the museum and art spheres, especially since it's pushing a good moment of gaming into a Historicaltrash.bin. You don't have to be a painter to appreciate a painting, you don't have to be a gamer to appreciate gaming, but the experience of being a "User" definitely helps intensify the understanding of craft. What's great and relief to me, however, is that I have yet to see a widespread response of the gaming industry as catering to the cultural institution of Art. That's cool.
I kinda doubt it ever will. I remember the 'Art of Gaming' stuff, and my impression from the outside looking in was, "oh hey the Art world picked up on the fact that videogames have a visual component...aaaaaaaaaaaand that's as far as they've gotten. Like they understand that if you dissect a game you can root around in its innards and pull out some Art. But seem not to to quite get that the game as a sum of its parts has value as well.
Take Dark Souls. You're in Blighttown, you start at the top and are looking down. This in iteslf is quite cool since you were already at the bottom of the Depths(?) which seemed pretty much like they would be the bottom. Nevertheless here you are, peering off the edge of a massive aqueduct to the dimly-seen water below. You don't think you'll ever go there. It seems like just the background. Nevertheless as you advance through the path of the level it takes you lower and lower until you emerge only a couple stories above it. Now you can see greater detail, and you see that it is a place you will go. Then you get there and find out it's not even the bottom. There's a great deal of art in that, but it relies on the expectations a seasoned player has about how videogames work.
