the Lessons of Film Theory

Quick history lesson. As some of you may know, the 1970's gave us some of the most deep, evocative and overall incredible films. Films from "The Godfather" to "Jaws", from "Taxi Driver" to "Star Wars". Now, I don't know all that much about the history of film, (admittedly I'm getting a lot of this information from this video), but I can tell you that one of the major reasons for this is that the directors creating these incredible projects had all studied "Film Theory" when they were college. They didn't just study how to get the lighting to work for them, but also how the lighting added to the theme and feeling of the story itself. In other words they looked deeply at how the elements of film interacted with one another and a genuinely unique experience. The reason I bring this up is because the best way for video games to advance as an art form is for them to be studied, looked at and understood by academics as, if not art, at least as something with a theory to be studied and postulated about.

I'm sure that there are people out there who don't think this is a good idea, people who played "Braid" (the classic, oft cited "art game"), thought is was boring and went back to "Call of Duty 4". And to you I say, fear not: there will always be our FPSs. Studying something legitimately doesn't in any way take away from the fun that it holds. Studying the anti-corporate and messianic subtexts of "Robocop" doesn't make it any less of an awesome movie (trust me). And likewise, studying what makes Halo or Call of Duty tick doesn't make a day killing people on line any less enjoyable. It couldn't hurt either way. Nothing has ever benefitted from not being studied

Let me try this whole thesis thing again (plead read this, Mr. McCormick)

It recently occurred to me that I don't really have that much of thesis for this report, which is bad. So let me give this a try. Here's my thesis:

"I think that video games are both culturally relevant enough as a medium of art and have evolved enough over the years and have an interesting enough of a history to be considered something studied academically as a form of art the way someone studies both film and literature theory."
Please let me know what you think.

The blunt awkwardness of my argument

The more I pursue this particular topic, the more I realize just how tough it is to describe the particulars of why games can be enriching, especially when it comes to what it is that games do that other mediums don't. I suppose the main reason I haven't been providing particular examples of statistics is that video games are such volatile issue that needless to say, they tend to range from "beyond a reasonable doubt" to "a definitely reasonable doubt" in my experience. And these aren't just extremes like angry old people on the "are" and young people as "aren't" as to whether this or that video game caused this or that school killing, or controversy. Upon googling the topic "violent video game study", for example, on the first page you get both a PBS and CNN study on opposite ends of the spectrum. In essence, this is such a hotly debated topic that even major news media is arguing over it. But let's say, hypothetically, video games somehow have negative effects (at the very least there's clear evidence that World of Warcraft does) then, let's face facts, there are plenty of things in this world that are possibly harmful, if not clearly addictive, yet have flourishing sub cultures based on them. And no, I don't mean the whole movement of people trying to legalize mary-jane, although that is something of a noble goal. I mean people like wine connoisseurs and the people like we read about in that last article we had to read for this class.
The main source of the controversy is, in not just my opinion, that it's just a reaction from people who don't understand it or haven't had much experience with it having a visceral reaction to something new and scary to them. Like rock and roll, or violent movies. Heck, although I have my doubts that I could find a decent source, even books at one point.
All of that being said, it's hard to deny the cultural impact that games have had, especially now that a good generation has gone by that grew up to video games. This goes without saying the incredible community that has formed up among fans (as tempting as it is to use "gamer", this doesn't really hold up), people who share their love of video games with one another and engage in almost philosophical arguments on internet forums. Hell, if you doubt the cultural significance of video games then just follow this link for iam8bit. Trust me, it's a sight to see.