#its2017

I’ve been thinking about digital interactive exhibitions recently, as a result of being enrolled in ITS, and I got thinking - is there anywhere where people are just exhibiting games? Like, just a dedicated gaming station in a library or a museum or art gallery or something?

I think it would work really well. But I haven’t found any examples yet. Then again, I’m crap at finding that kind of thing.

Searching for video game museums or exhibits or something like that just gives me museums showing off old video game consoles, or exhibits showing the early history of arcade games and stuff. Any games available to play are mostly old arcade ones - nothing against those, in fact, they definitely belong in a museum for everyone to be able to witness. But alone, they’re a little limited.

What I’d love to see is a dedicated gallery or museum exhibit that happens to be a game, with controllers custom made to control the game as easily as possible, a custom display to fit the game’s aesthetic (and maybe even enhance it), so any member of the public can enjoy that kind of art they way they enjoy other art forms that exist in museums and galleries.

Another thing I’d like to see: video game libraries. Like, libraries where you can check out a copy of Halo or Super Mario 64 or something, and you have to return it in X amount of days. I know regular libraries have these, but you have to pay for them, which almost defeats the point of libraries. But maybe I’m just an entitled millennial who just wants free stuff.

I just think it’s weird how the only way we can really play video games is by buying them from a physical or digital shop. Some are available for free online in various forms, but most games force you to pay money - often a lot of it. Then again, they’re a lot cheaper than a movie ticket, per hour of enjoyment.

I guess we have set ways of enjoying certain art media - we get books from a library or from Amazon or something, we buy personal copies of games, we use subscription services for music and TV shows, we see movies in theatres, etc. Then there’s art we see in person, like live theatre and art exhibits.

There’s a lot of overlap, of course - I could buy a DVD of a movie easily or see my favourite band perform live, and subscription services for games are being experimented with (which is great). But I think games are being a bit shorthanded by this system, probably more than the others - but all other media are too, to some degree.