Video Games are an Art

Yes. Video games are an art. Well why not? Cinema, originally just a means to entertain people is now an art. Writing, originally created to convey ideas, is now an art, and art itself originally fulfilled the same purpose writing did, communication.

Creating a true work of art takes an incredible amount of skill in all three of the aforementioned art forms. The ability to tell a story, but meld it with art, make it immersive and interactive, the ability to create an entire world is an incredible skill. I respect anyone with the ability to make a quality game. That's also why most video games are made by a whole team of people. The best games are made by several masters of story, art, design and music. All of these qualities come together to form a beautiful world for the appreciator to experience.

I hardly see making a video game as just making a product, it's much more than that.

When you make a quality game, you're creating an world, you're making people and environments that interact in unique and sometimes unpredictable ways. 

You know you've made a good game when it involves players emotionally, when they make an intimate connection with them and brings them to tears. Examples of games like that are Portal 2 or Bioshock. I'll be honest, I cried at the end of both of those games. Another excellent feature I love to see in games is dystopia. I'm a sucker for dystopias. I loved the books Anthem by Ayn Rand, Orwell's 1984 and Brave New World by Huxley. Dystopias fascinate me, and I would jump at any opportunity to experience one. Bioshock has definitively become my favorite games for these reasons.
Another excellent quality is atmosphere, the feel a game gives you. Whether it's tragic, rebellious or epic, the atmosphere is really what pulls a game together and makes it real.

This is why I'm going to start a weekly post, every Saturday (or Sunday, depending on my laziness), a spotlight on games. I'm going to choose a game that I've truly enjoyed, but with a few rules. To keep it interesting  I will NOT be doing mainstream games. Instead I'm going to look at flash games, obscure playstation games, indie games, retro games, mods, anything that hasn't received much spotlight. It's going to be a challenge, but it will give me an excuse to hunt around the places I've always wanted to go to find games I've never heard of, and hopefully ones I will enjoy. First Spotlight on Games will be this weekend, so stay tuned.