It seems that Gaming is on a steady rise for cultural relevance. How will this change Storytelling and how will it affect other mediums?
Some days ago I went through Munich Central Train Station, when I realized a large video advertising billboard right in the middle of the big hall, showing exclusively advertising for Overwatch 2^[overwatch-2-review]. The look of these huge gaming characters looming above an urban crowd rushing to their trains caused some uncanny vibes with me - it felt at the same time familiar from various Sci-Fi Movies but also new, because this was happening in real life now. These advertisement spaces would usually feature luxury fashion or the latest iPhone - to see Gaming take this prime spot in the race for attention seems to signify a change of its cultural status.
Gaming as an entertainment medium has grown tremendously, even though this is not know to everybody. In 2020, the market for video games had grown to 170 billion dollars - larger than Music and Cinema Movies COMBINED.^[warum-sind-videospiele-wie-cyberpunk-2077-oft-so-duester-17088689.html] Back in the days, gaming spin-offs to successful movie franchises were a common thing. Nowadays, the opposite seems to be happening increasingly often: Super Mario, Mortal Kombat, Prince of Persia, War Craft, Assins Creed and Angry Birds all got their own little side-gig as a movie event ^[video-game-movies]. Secondary exploitation of existing IP is a safe bet and a capitalist no-brainer, but it tells something about the medium it takes place in. Star Wars lunch boxes, Pokemon Trading cards and Turtles Action figures formed the mundane foundation of my youth and I remember these things not in their particularity, but as a whole, as the disposable bagage of 1990’s material culture. It seems, as if Gaming Universes being recycled into movies (often worse then the gaming original) also tells a story about the changing cultural relevance of Cinema.
Going along with the increased cultural relevance of Gaming, the aesthetics of Gaming Subculture are floating into mainstream. Anime Movies and Series, once also a nerdy niche genre with strong overlaps to Gaming culture, is on a global rise in popularity, causing Netflix and the other big streamers to invest heavily^[streamers-want-on-anime-s-growing-global-audience]. Celebrities like Grimes are promoting fashion styles that used to be associated with niche and formerly inherently „uncool“ cosplay subculture. Upcoming Genres like K-Pop tend to heavily utilize CGI aesthetics in a bold and rough form, without trying to hide its digital origins ^[Example for digital aesthetics in K-Pop:
“In 2020, aespa debuted with a full metaverse concept, heavily CGI’d video, a shiny chrome logo, and their own set of metaverse avatars. It’s not just a futuristic look, but an aesthetic fully inspired by the notion of virtual worlds. Both of aespa’s albums have maintained this look, with Savage designs showing a snake wrapped up around a half-rendered mountainscape. The teasers used gradients, cool tones, and a metallic snake-like skeleton to create the vision that aespa (and their avatars, called ae’s) are hunted by their virtual nemesis, Black Mamba.“
cause-i-i-i-i-know-what-you-like-the-design-trends-catching-gen-zs-attention].
My guess: the establishment of virtual aesthetics into mainstream culture will gradually lead to a change of attitude towards CGI imagery. While there used to be a lot of scepticism towards „non-real“ content generated „by computers“ and early animation studios had to work hard to make real world things like hair look acceptable to the viewer, I assume that the suspension of disbelief needed to tell stories with CGI will decrease. Todays most popular Gaming Titles draw their success primarily from their game mechanics and their community dynamics. Hyper realistic renderings seem to be much less of a dealbreaker as they used to be, even though todays computers would be much more capable in delivering this.
Gaming is growing in economic and cultural influence and it seems as if it is becoming a leading medium. This is interesting, even though it is probably bad for original author-style Cinema, which struggles for its relevance anyways^[barbie-oppenheimer-barbenheimer-hollywood-future]. On the other hand, maybe an underdog secondary medium position could also provide surprising hits. Many Cinema-Franchise-bases games were actually quite good back in the days (Jedi Knight, Knights of the Old Republic), so maybe we can also hope for some surprise cinema hits which were „actually better then the original game“.
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Last updated: 2023-08-07