How To Overthink Online Games: An Introduction

Since the Internet's beginning, there have been online games. From Pipe Dream to Farmville, it's likely that nearly everyone has played a game on the Internet before. After all, if I'm surfing the web to entertain myself, why not play a game? They make for excellent distractions and time killers (not to mention procrastination tools for college students), and that's how I viewed them for a long time.

As I've gotten older, I've started to view games as something more. Video games combine a spectrum of potential communication tools. They're a visual medium, offering tantalizing artwork for our eyes. They're a literary medium, providing intriguing tales for our minds. Most importantly, they're an interactive medium, giving us the ability to personally invest ourselves in the story and images. All of this, tucked away in something originally intended as an entertaining toy.

The Internet is a breeding ground for games that truly take advantage of this potential artform. By taking advantage of online game's low barrier of entry where money is concerned, individual creators design and release works directly to the public. These artists work magic on the computer screen, drawing gamers into worlds and delivering messages to them through experiences, not just through words or through images like other mediums.

These sort of games deserve far more publicity than they receive. They cry out to not only be found and played, but to be analyzed and discussed. By treating these works of art as works of art, we can begin to foster a respect for this growing medium and fan the flames of its potential.

Game artists deserve more. Playing Digital Art is an attempt to give it to them.