Why arn't video games as respected as other mediums? - Games

I would like to know, how come people don't respect video games as much as other media? Saying to people that you love to play a lot of video games is gong to get frowned on. But if you were to tell people that you spend a lot of your free time working, or reading, or watching movies than you get a lot of respect for it. I would like to know, why is it that a lot of people see video games as "childish" or "waste of time"?

Because they're arguably the newest form of media entertainment. People thought comics were juvinile too. Once the generations of people who haven't grown up with videogames die out, they will be accepted more.

Because working earns you money and reading is seen as being a more intelligent way to spend your free time. People aren't particularly going to look down on people who are movie addicts, or at least in my experience they don't, but they're not going to glorify them either. People don't respect video games for the same reason a lot of people don't respect modern art. When the most popular video game out is one that glorifies mindless and random violence and allows you to do things like fucking hookers, then people aren't going to take the medium seriously. Just like when a modern art piece is one [URL="http://i.imgur.com/8Rj6Ma9.gif"]where a guy is jacking off into his own mouth[/URL], people aren't going to take it seriously and they're going to ignore the actual good pieces of art. [b]EDIT[/b] It's the same thing for any non-popular entertainment medium, for example anime. People are going to look at the shitty and disgusting animes, like oriemo where the plot centers around incest, and ignore the good ones with actually good plots and characters.

People think that video games are mindless time wasters, where you mindlessly kill wave after wave of enemy, or get to the end of the goal, when video games are much more than that.

I'd say it has made a few steps in the last few years though.

Because whenever a dev tries to make something serious, he or she completely ignores the factor that should make games art, namely the gameplay, and instead goes for a story with the deepest themes that the writer can pull out of his or her ass. And then movie critics go "eya its very nice games are so like movies now it really solidifies them as an art form :~)" no you dumbasses, the art is in the gameplay, not the narrative.

[QUOTE=G-Strogg;43214388]Because whenever a dev tries to make something serious, he or she completely ignores the factor that should make games art, namely the gameplay, and instead goes for a story with the deepest themes that the writer can pull out of his or her ass. And then movie critics go "eya its very nice games are so like movies now it really solidifies them as an art form :~)" no you dumbasses, the art is in the gameplay, not the narrative.[/QUOTE] I'll just go ahead and say you're wrong to take your opinion out as some sort of fact, you can't look at a large industry with such a narrow mindset. It's just like if i would say, "movies aren't respected because everyone focuses on the cinematography, instead of just the narrative!" Games aren't such a narrow medium that you can pin them down like that. Besides, the question wasn't even if games were respected as an "art form", it was if games were respected as a medium for entertainment in general.

Games are seen as childish partly because of general misconceptions on the part of the general public, and partly because so many gamers act childish every time their hobby is criticized. Lots of people see games as just being mindless solo entertainment instead of a medium that can tell stories and bring people together. This is obviously wrong, but when a game is criticized and the critics get rape threats for it, or when shit like "gamer fuel" exists, the "childish" label begins to look a little more accurate.

If art never existed, walking up to a fellow and asking him to appreciate a stick figure would get you laughed at. In a similar way, people who have seen the evolution of video games started out by dismissing its first, rudimentary forms.

[QUOTE=Zeke129;43214674][B]Games are seen as childish partly because of general misconceptions on the part of the general public,[/B] and partly because so many gamers act childish every time their hobby is criticized. Lots of people see games as just being mindless solo entertainment instead of a medium that can tell stories and bring people together. This is obviously wrong, but when a game is criticized and the critics get rape threats for it, or when shit like "gamer fuel" exists, the "childish" label begins to look a little more accurate.[/QUOTE] The recent disastrous VGX awards unfortunately nails this misconception pretty hard. Thankfully this years event wasn't broadcasted on television but instead as a livestream. Stuff like this is yet another reason as to why games are usually viewed as a childish form of entertainment. This video helps explain it pretty well: [url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj7LYwOjOX0[/url]

[QUOTE=Zeke129;43214674]Games are seen as childish partly because of general misconceptions on the part of the general public, and partly because so many gamers act childish every time their hobby is criticized. Lots of people see games as just being mindless solo entertainment instead of a medium that can tell stories and bring people together. This is obviously wrong, but when a game is criticized and the critics get rape threats for it, or when shit like "gamer fuel" exists, the "childish" label begins to look a little more accurate.[/QUOTE] In all fairness though most videogames are kind of childish. There is indeed a strong undercurrent of juvenility that pervades the broader gaming community, but you'd be fooling yourself if you think that a bunch of gynophobic bro-speak is capable of limiting the already diminutive artistic potential of most games.