10 Popular Video Game Debates That Need To Die – WhatCulture

Video games eh? What a lovely, open-minded, welcoming community that deals with differences of opinion in a safe, constructive and supportive manner.

LOL.

Yeah, turns out the 21st century's defining hobby inspires a lot of the 21st century's other defining hobbies: Bitching, moaning and most of all, arguing.

It can be about anything, from the minutiae of League of Legends lore and whether Smash Bros is an E-Sport, to if VR gaming will ever take off and which games are worth pre-ordering, along with everything in between.

Now, if any industry is worth this level of scrutiny, it's gaming. God knows there's more than enough shady practises to go around and a consumer base this switched on and opinionated could be an asset to it.

The problem is a number of the most well-worn video game arguments have more or less been ended already. And yet on they go, droning, stumbling and thrashing like a zombie with added "well actually".

Well, call me Jill Valentine, because I'm about to mow these arguments down. Not with a weapon, but with a top ten list. And I always double tap.

This is an argument that has been thrown around since the very birth of the medium. And I do mean the very beginning!

The first video games weren't just Pong and Space Invaders - text-based role playing games were asking serious questions of their players way back in the late seventies.

Today, mainstream, multi-million dollar franchises like Mass Effect ask its players to think about what constitutes humanity. Bioshock builds entire worlds to examine extreme libertarianism and extreme communitarianism. Untitled Goose Game lets you be a horrible goose.

And people question the artistic validity of the medium?!

Seriously though, at their best, video games offer an artistic experience like no other: The ability to examine yourself through choice.

When playing Dishonoured, is your first instinct to kill your enemies or sneak past? In Fallout, who do you ally with and who do you oppose? What does Harry Du Bois become in your hands, in Disco Elysium?

If that doesn't make gaming an art form to you, perhaps you should think about what *does* constitute an art form.

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10 Popular Video Game Debates That Need To Die - WhatCulture