November 29, 2012 | By Frank Cifaldi
13 comments
More: Console/PC, Social/Online, Smartphone/Tablet, Indie, Programming, Art, Audio, Design, Production, History
Following in the footsteps of The Smithsonian's 'Art of Games' exhibition, the Museum of Modern Art has selected 40 video games that will be displayed at its New York installation.
Games chosen run the gamut of our history, going as far back as 1962's Spacewar! to 2011's Minecraft.
The museum says that its criteria "emphasize not only the visual quality and aesthetic experience of each game, but also the many other aspects—from the elegance of the code to the design of the player’s behavior—that pertain to interaction design."
Fourteen titles have already been acquired, and will be on display this March. They are as follows:
Pac-Man
Tetris
Another World
Myst
SimCity 2000
vib-ribbon
The Sims
Katamari Damacy
EVE Online
Dwarf Fortress
Portal
flOw
Passage
Canabalt
The remaining games the museum hopes to acquire in the coming years are, according to a blog post, "Spacewar! (1962), an assortment of games for the Magnavox Odyssey console (1972), Pong (1972), Snake (originally designed in the 1970s; Nokia phone version dates from 1997), Space Invaders (1978), Asteroids (1979), Zork (1979), Tempest (1981), Donkey Kong (1981), Yars’ Revenge (1982), M.U.L.E. (1983), Core War (1984), Marble Madness (1984), Super Mario Bros. (1985), The Legend of Zelda (1986), NetHack (1987), Street Fighter II (1991), Chrono Trigger (1995), Super Mario 64 (1996), Grim Fandango (1998), Animal Crossing (2001), and Minecraft (2011)."
More on the MoMA Inside/Out blog.
|
Can't a PS3 play audio CDs ? They could just include an ISO disc image of the original PS1 disc as part of the download (its only a few hundred megs). Yeah, I guess it would take *some* effort to port, but its a great classic game that deserves more exposure outside of Japan. The only way I can play it these days, is on an emulator..
The only reason I even know about Vib-Ribbon, is that I had a co-worker with a Japanese PS1 and dozens of import games and he brought it in so we could all play it. Along with PaRappa the Rapper, this game was the beginning of the rythym genre. It certainly deserves more recognition than it gets!
With the amount of digital artists that do interesting projects in it, I'm wondering if Second Life is also being considered for this exhibit.
This sounds like Journey in a nutshell. I'm surprised that's not on the list.
I'm so happy to see games like EVE Online and Dwarf Fortress on the list. It's great that an organization like MoMA recognizes games as more than visuals, sound or story.
I hope that one day they'll add Doom & Command & Conquer.
Is like judging Picasso based on the way he stores his paint.