Developer & Publisher: HippoSoft
Director: Fat “The Patriarchy” Hippo
System: Pathfinder 2e
Music: Basil Poledouris, Yuka Tsujiyoko, Ram Jam, Niko
Genre: dark fantasy, religious drama, screwball comedy
Long-time readers and easily distracted law students will already be very familiar with the ongoing debate as to the legitimacy of video games as a form of art. As obvious as it is to an insider that the medium has outgrown the primitive design and storytelling philosophy of the likes of Final Fantasy and The Legend of Zelda, gaming falls victim to practices that damage its reputation as a domain of artistic expression. On the consumer level, there is no such thing as an “enthusiast” player in the same way that we would describe a connoisseur of music or cinema with actual things to say; the closest equivalent are pro gamers, who express their passion for the medium not through constructive discourse, but by throwing a fit whenever they find out you can’t harass underage women at a Smash tournament. On the journalistic level, most gaming “news” authors hold such contempt for the pro gamer audience (and rightfully so) that they spend more time shitting on them than cultivating any sort of interest in the art form. More harmful than either of these, however, is the industry itself. Although it matters little to companies if the format is seen as art or not, gaming’s current image problem allows them to capitalize on tryhards who want to be seen as more refined than your average Doom II-playing proletarian. These gimmicks are not just exploitative; they seek to undermine gaming’s natural identity, and the worst of them may well be the video game orchestral concert.
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