Sunday 30 October 2011

Video Game Arts Prize

The inaugural GameCity video game arts prize, announced at the finale of the GameCity video game culture festival in Nottingham, has been awarded to Minecraft, created by Swedish firm Mojang (title link). The game involves placing blocks to build anything you fancy. Monsters creep out at night, so you need to build shelters. Although still in beta mode, the game has sold nearly four million downloads (CLICK). It will be released next month. I'm not sure its chunky graphics deserve an art prize, but art without gameplay isn't much use to gamers. The prize also encompasses music.

2 Comments:

At 18/12/11, Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm not sure Minecraft is awesome enough graphically or visually to be awared an art prize. DOn't get me wrong I am a masive mInecratf fan with a site dedicated to minecraft adventure maps. But game artists such as Marek Okon who mainly paints of - The Last of Us. Crysis 2. Star Wars: Old Republic. Uncharted 3, I mean his work is clearly art!

 
At 18/12/11, Blogger Unknown said...

Hi

Thanks for your comment. I've seen many stunning pictures from computer games that deserve an art prize, but I wouldn't put Minecraft among them. It reminds me of Populous on the old Atari ST, a great game but not overly artistic. Still, the judges marked Minecraft on everything: game play, music, concept.

I wish art in computer games was truly recognized. It's one of the occasional campaigns on my blog.

 

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