Why Are There No Highbrow Video Games?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on Tuesday August 8, 2006 @04:35AM from the easier-to-do-boobs-and-guns dept.

simoniker writes "In his latest 'Designer's Notebook' question, columnist Ernest Adams asks a very simple question: are video games' lack of cultural credibility partly due to the fact that "we don't have any highbrow games"? Titled 'Where's Our Merchant Ivory?', Adams asks: 'Almost every other entertainment medium has an elite form... We produce light popular entertainment, and light popular entertainment is trivial, disposable, and therefore culturally insignificant, at least so far as podunk city councilors and ill-advised state legislators are concerned.' Do games have an image problem compared to other popular media, and how do we fix it?"

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Re:Isn't art highbrow? by sottitron · 2006-08-08 04:45 · Score: 5, Interesting

These are EXACTLY the two games that came to mind for me, too. The problem with saying there are no highbrow games is that makes it seem like the author has seen them all... So maybe this is a stretch, but, who is to say a game like Rallisport Challenge 2 isn't highbrow?? First of all, its gorgeous and doesn't have anyone killing anyone else with a machette. And do you know what the bankroll of someone who is really into Rally racing is like? I mean if you can travel to another country or even another continent to see a race, you are not exactly sweating it.