Video Games Program | Old and New, Culture and Entertainment, Art and Industry
Video games are the leading entertainment media industry in the world – one can now talk about generations of people that video games are a part of their youth, adolescence and now – life. There’s no doubt they have become part and parcel of our cultural surroundings.
The festival has a long-standing hard-coded and multi-layered relationship with the video games world and audience. Film and video games communicate both in form and function; creating entire worlds with functioning internal rules and logic is a key element in both sci-fi / fantasy and computer games development, and there’s mutual inspiration – the world and aesthetics created for film, literature and comics appear in video games, and vice versa; finally – the connection is there at the audience level as well – geeks who enjoy both worlds, are interested in new technologies and the latest installment of whatever it may be.
Video games once had a place in the public sphere – back in the 80’s the average teenager would spend a substantial amount of time at the arcade – but they were pushed to the sidelines, hidden away from the public domain, in living rooms and home computer rooms or corners. With the amazing technological trends and advancements of the past decade and recent years, video games are now reclaiming their rightful place in the public sphere – as vessels for everything now – from entertainment, to marketing tools, education, and also as works of art.
At the festival we provide commentary and critique, analyzing the past, present and future, discuss trends, present new works by independent game-designers, celebrate the art, industry and community of video games, and most importantly – we game. Do you?
Welcome to the New Arcade.
