LaShauna and I have agreed about this topic since we met. We both enjoy art in some way, shape, or form. I consume it in music, novels, graphic novels, and video games. I will say her points are valid and I respect her for disagreeing with me, but a little civil feud never hurts. 

      Though people think of big companies paying some desk monkeys to smash a keyboard eight hours a day to make the latest SHOOT KILL KABOOM 2017 Edition for the X-Box One; should we think less of it just because they are getting salary. These Call of Duty games aren't my cup of tea, but they still started off as a group of geeks wanting to make something out of nothing for our enjoyment. I will never say that if you play games you are an artist, but I will say that if you see behind the gore, guns, grenade, and  gameplay. You will find that a writer wrote the story no one paid attention too, a music producer set up the score, a computer coder made the code to make it work the way it does, and artists designed that grenade out of a million little triangles. 

     Now let's talk about games that even gamers think are pitiful excuses of code and memory on your phone. Again, these games are not my cup of tea either. The app store is full of Candy Crush games that are free but require you to buy a million lives just to get through a couple levels. They are easy and honestly are all ripping off a old game, Bejeweled. That is a issue I agree on that their are few innovations in mainstream gaming, but they still had eager artists design that bright appealing colors of the candy, the coders made sure that the game was simple enough that even your grandmother can drain her smartphone, and the music was peaceful and inviting to all ages. It still took work and people with a vision. 

     Last but not least, the things that are considered artistic are as follows: music, traditional art (paintings/drawings), novels and motion pictures art. I also consider video games in this category. It is simple,  it encompasses all art forms. Even if the music is bad, some artist still took time to compose it for the masses. All video game art starts on paper, and in DOOM's case, the mutants started out as clay models, made by a professional, and then scanned into a computer. There are games that have changed me personally in the way I look at life; one example of this that has changed me and millions of others in how they look at religion, politics and society is American Idiot . Not all games set out to make a social argument, but they all do set out to entertain the same way movies do. For instance, look at Marvel; they took a childish past time, and made it into an multi billion dollar movie franchise with fighting, morality, and BIG KABOOMs. They are still recognized as art by many.

     The one downfall of this art is the glitches; they are patched because the art of coding is very difficult to perfect. Once you try to code, you will see the skill level and precision these people have had to learn and perfect. There will always be bugs; therefore, it's best to find comedy in the tragedy which are the glitches in the game. My send off is that I do not care if you like video games or not and I do not care if you play Call of Duty or Bioshock Infinite, Candy Crush or Start Dew Valley. Just remember that this is the first time in a long time that art has had a major shift. Video games are not just SHOOT EVERYTHING REPEAT... Here is some games of all types that I recommend to anyone.

-Start Dew Valley                                                                                                                                                                                                         

-Bioshock Infinite                                                                                                                                                                                                          
-Outlast  

-Fez

 -Skyrim 

-Any Zelda

-Jouney (the Thumbnail)