Are You Really Paying Too Much For Video Games?

As long as I can remember, I've had a desire to express myself - to take an idea born of my own mind and give life to it. I ended up choosing music as my creative outlet and I've been writing original pieces all my post-adolescent life. Because of this, I've grown to appreciate art in all it's forms. Be it movies, novels, pictures - it's all rich with creative expression, and what these artists charge for their work, I deem extremely fair, even generous. With that in mind, I'd argue that no other medium is richer in creative content than video games. With most other creative works, you can only bear witness; hear it, sense it. But with games you're interacting with the artists' creations. You're controlling it, manipulating it, becoming an integral part of a product birthed by multiple minds. Take The Last Of Us, for example. Many talented people wrote the dialogue, voice actors spoke the lines and musicians wrote and performed the songs. Then you have the game developers, who created a world for you to navigate and survive countess tense and emotional scenarios in. We play games because they're entertaining, sure, but we should also view video games for what they really are: an amalgamation of interactive art forms. I want you to take your time when you play your next game. Really soak it in. Stop to admire the big twisting tree you were about to walk past; notice how it bends in the digitally represented breeze, sun shining through gaps in the branches. Listen to the sound of the grass beneath your feet while a dog barks in the distance, minimalist music playing seamlessly in the background. These are the little things we often overlook that takes people hundreds of hours to create, all to immerse us in these convincing worlds. If you really took notice of all the contributions contained in the games you buy (regardless of if they take 10 or 100 hours to complete), I believe you'd rarely feel cheated of your money. This isn't an argument of whether computer games are art, as we widely accept this view now. It's to state that if we dissected a game and had to place a fair value on the music, the story and the visual art as individual sellable items, well, we'd likely only be able to afford one modern game a year. Wouldn't you agree?