VIDEO GAME MODDING

Since the dawn of video games, people have also questioned its validity as an art form.

- Jose Alvarez

Game executives such as controversial former Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick (who majored in art history) have called video games an art form in several interviews. The magazine Video Games Player said that video games “are as much as an art form as any other field of entertainment” in 1983. Personally, I believe that video games are an art form, as there are numerous mods of popular video games that have existed for over 40 years, and new mods have popped up in modern games as well. How have people successfully argued the case for video games as an art form through mods?

The first game to have mods was Lode Runner (1983), which may have also been the first game to have a level editor, as players could create their own levels and share them on the same computer.

While modding was generally restricted to PC gaming at this time, this kickstarted the 40+ year history of modifying video games. Later on, id Software’s Wolfenstein 3D (1992), Doom (1993) and Quake (1996) offered robust mod tools, with players creating their own levels on a regular basis for their respective communities.