There may be some people out there who still insist that video games aren’t actually art, but they are becoming fewer and fewer. The Smithsonian, though not a “person” per se, disagrees and opened its Art Of Video Games exhibit today. The exhibit is not devoted to exploring art in video games, but rather exploring video games as their own artform. There’s a pretty wide variety of video games out there, but the Smithsonian seems devoted to touching on as many as possible, incorporating everything from Pac-Man to Doom II to Mario Galaxy. The exhibit will be featured from March 16 until September 30th before taking a 10-stop national tour. Sure video games are art, but now they’re high brow art. At least, so long as they’re in a museum instead of on a crappy TV in my filthy apartment.
A list of the games featured in the exhibit:
- Atari VCS
- Pac-Man
- Space Invaders
- Pitfall!
- Combat®
- ColecoVision
- Donkey Kong™
- Zaxxon
- Pitfall II: Lost Caverns
- Star Trek: Strategic Operations Simulator
- Intellivision
- TRON: Maze‐Atron
- Star Strike
- Advanced Dungeons and Dragons
- Utopia (Tactics)
- Commodore 64
- Jumpman
- Attack of the Mutant Camels
- The Bard’s Tale III: Thief of Fate
- Pirates!
- Nintendo Entertainment System
- Super Mario Brothers 3
- 1943: The Battle of Midway
- The Legend of Zelda
- Desert Commander
- SEGA Master System
- Marble Madness
- After Burner
- Phantasy Star
- Spy vs Spy
- SEGA Genesis
- Earthworm Jim
- Gunstar Heroes
- Phantasy Star IV
- Dune II: Battle for Arrakis
- Super Nintendo Entertainment System
- Super Mario World
- Star Fox™
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
- SimCity
- SEGA Saturn
- Tomb Raider
- Panzer Dragoon II: Zwei
- Panzer Dragoon Saga
- SimCity 2000
- DOS/Windows
- DOOM II
- Diablo II
- Fallout
- StarCraft
- PlayStation
- Metal Gear Solid
- Einhander
- Final Fantasy VII
- Final Fantasy Tactics
- Nintendo 64
- Super Mario 64
- Star Fox 64
- The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
- Worms Armageddon
- SEGA Dreamcast
- Sonic Adventure
- Rez
- Shenmue
- ChuChu Rocket!
- PlayStation 2
- Shadow of the Colossus
- Gradius V
- Ōkami
- Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty
- Microsoft XBox
- Halo 2
- Panzer Dragoon Orta
- Fable
- Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell
- Nintendo GameCube
- Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
- Star Fox™: Assault
- The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
- Pikmin 2
- Modern Windows
- Portal
- flOw
- Fallout 3
- Minecraft
- Microsoft XBox 360
- Bioshock
- Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2
- Mass Effect 2
- Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle Earth II
- Nintendo Wii
- Super Mario Galaxy 2
- Boom Blox
- The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
- Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros’ Treasure
- PlayStation 3
- Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
- Flower
- Heavy Rain
- Brütal Legend
(via American Art)
- An online “museum” of video game maps drawn from memory
- Berlin’s computer game museum
- A video card museum in Ukraine
