On my bookshelf sits a pile of books – shocker, I know. Artbooks, to be exact. These tomes are filled with incredible worlds, the conceptualisation of unending imagination, and examples of beauty our own world cannot produce of its own accord. Books that sing the praises of video games as an art form, in the most raw, sincere way: a showcase of the art itself.
But why waste time dusting off that shelf when you can have your artbooks digitally stored as a licensed slideshow on your favourite capitalistic game machine that came with your other license for the game you “bought”?
Down with corporate greed and all that, but I wanted to highlight the missing medium for appreciating this art form. It’s not entirely gone just yet, and there are still companies and publishers that will push physical media of this sort, but the decline is a sore reminder that we’re slowly losing the art that actually makes these games art. Flicking through the pages and admiring the earliest sketches and dreams that were the foundations; learning about unused ideas, and where they could have gone; and seeing the worlds on paper before they came to life in the way we know them now.
But no, it’s easier and cheaper to bundle it up into something you’ll never bother to even look at on your console or PC. Why would you? You can already see the whole world that has been created on your screen, and though the art still represents everything I’ve mentioned, the reality is that it’s a pointless way to provide people with that art. Somewhere between the screen and paper, there’s a path that some passions can’t tread.
The Slow Death Of Games, Long Live Games
The biggest conversations are always around the more obvious media changes over time. Losing out on game manuals and booklets for, if we’re lucky, a black and white sheet of small print. Even now, we’re starting to lose out on discs themselves, with more and more collector’s editions failing to include a disc in favour of a code, and even then still, some failing to include the game at all.
And I happily join in these conversations: I remember buying a game as a kid, from a game store that no longer exists, excitedly reading the little game manual on the car ride home. I would look at the printed screenshots, study the controls, and imagine playing it. It was part of the experience that made video games so magical and exciting. I remember getting the collector’s edition for Starfield, and while it’s a Very Cool™ gimmick that the code comes laser etched into a Cred Stick from the game, a disc would still be nice, you know?
Somewhere between the screen and paper, there’s a path that some passions can’t tread.
But then art books are a topic that rarely gets discussed in quite as bright a spotlight. They’ve always been supplementary, something you can buy additionally or as part of special editions. Something that, if you’re like me, you’ll find a great appreciation for when you love every aspect of video games, and in every stage of a game’s life. But then that’s it. My extra love for video games isn’t what sells it. There’s no quarterly number that can be slapped onto passion and reported to shareholders. Why print picture when PNG does trick?
It’s All About The Magic Money
Am I sour about this? Yes, absolutely, and I wish it were a bigger point of discussion. We keep losing every part of the things we love, but only physically, so they keep doing it – and it makes me sad. It feels harder and harder to enjoy games sometimes, and while I can try to pin down varying reasons for this, I know a big part of it is this: the magic of video games didn’t die with my childhood, it died when magic became financially evaluated.
I don’t want more live service games. I don’t want to put in a pre-order on a storefront to get a special coat for a character. I don’t want to say ‘thank you, sir’ for a string of numbers and letters that comes with my over-expensive statue or cloth map.
I want video games to mean something. I want to see the passion and love that went into making them. I want the art form to be something that we can keep and hold in our hands.