The video documentation for the GameCityPrize launch has just been posted up. It was a really interesting discussion, capping off a day which went disarmingly well for us.
The Blue Room venue at BFI Southbank is fantastic, and they supported the event technically really well. It’s pretty much unprecedented for us to be ready for an event two and a half hours before its due to start.
For an event largely full of media and trade, the debate spanned a very wide set of issues – to my delight, managing to avoid being sidelined into prolonged discussions about the ‘art-ness’ of not of games.
Videogames remain one of the largest Creative Industries in the World, one the widest consumed, one of the fastest growing.
And yet…
Their ability to participate in the mainstream cultural landscape continues to be fraught with tension.
When they’re not being vilified in the mainstream media for their alleged bad influence on younger players, they might stand accused of self-trivilalising marketing strategies.
Much of the mainstream debate about videogames as a form then, fixates on their cultural validity – their status as ‘art’ or ‘not-art’ – but that isn’t what concerns us here tonight.
Tonight isn’t about proof apparent of the presence of art, it’s about exploring the role of videogames in our lives, in our culture – about how they’re interesting.
We’re here tonight to launch the GameCityPrize, a unique platform established last year, which exists to bring videogames into a broader cultural conversation.
It’s a conversation which engages the world of videogames with writers, actors, musicians, journalists, artists – practitioners from all walks of the creative industries – and a conversation we’re going to start tonight.