Low to High Culture.

Nielson talked about the culture of video games through the eyes of the masses. Often times, these new products of society are subjected to judgment by the public eye. In this case, games as a whole was placed in the low culture or as Nielson stated “pop culture”. The idea of labeling games as low culture has little reasoning behind it other than the shear fact that people think it is inferior when compared to other forms of media. It is true that games are underrated art form but it has slowly correct itself with new technology and GPUs that can power and generate more complex and intricate images such as the multi-layer tessellation image generation technology.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCPMHIDpT88 – NVIDIA GPU demo of multi-layer tessellation

Personally, I think video gaming is associated with low or pop culture is due to some of the violent content and how playing games has negative press all the time (especially in Asia). The severity of these press reviews ranges from “kids hiding in internet-café to play games” to “couple starved their baby to raise their online baby”. As Neilson suggested, the society attribute teen shooting events to shooting video games but what they do not realize is that movies (video games predecessors) could be the culprit as well. The truth is that there is no concrete research in the world indicating that violent video games are the reason behind violent teens. If anything, kids are exposed to violent television and movies, which led them to play violent video games.

Given the unfair judgments and opinions the gaming industry has suffered, will there still be a chance for it to rise to the top? Honestly, I do not think games will rise as high culture. First of all, one very important characteristic of high culture is exclusivity. Games are readily available in the market. If the game industry hopes to or strives to re-market themselves, they can do so within their own industry. For example, PS3 consoles can promote themselves as three machines in one along with superior hardware and selective software. This automatically makes PS3 stands out from their competitors.

My question is: What do you think attributes to these bad presses from the media about gaming? And do you think gaming DOES create violent criminals and eccentric personalities?