As is tradition around the time of E3, The Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) have announced a selection of pieces for the Into the Pixel exhibition, a collection of some of the best concept and promotional art in video games.
Every year, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences (AIAS) get together to select the very best in professional video game art. Here are their picks for 2014.
Into the Pixel is an annual competition which seeks to award and highlight the best video game art in the business.
Video game art folks will be taking over San Francisco's Hotel Des Arts, on Thursday, packing the five-floor boutique hotel with art from Dante's Inferno and inspired by other video games.
Into the Pixel is a juried art exhibition that selects sixteen works of video game art to be displayed both digitally and in actual exhibits, like the one currently at E3. The exhibit is an opportunity for video and computer game artists to showcase their work and receive critical feedback from both digital and fine art experts; it also showcases the actual visual art of games in creative and unique ways. The pieces range from playful to serious, and utilise a variety of visual styles to convey their subjects. Now in its fifth year, the selected entries are usually quite impressive, and this year was no exception.
Into the Pixel is an exhibit featuring 16 works of game-related art, and Gamasutra has a discussion with three of the sixteen up Ryan Stevenson (Rare Ltd.), Mike McCarthy (Lionhead Studios), and Cheol Joo Lee (Relic Entertainment) are all concept artists, and who each bring a unique take on their media to the table. The topic of the discussion is (of course) video game art, the process of creation, and video games-as-art. Unsurprisingly, there are several different takes on that currently popular question:
"I think some games are art and some are just entertainment, just like in the film industry," he says. "There are action movies that don't really say anything but entertain you, while there are films that can move you, make you laugh and cry, change your life.
"Maybe we've become too obsessed with the question 'are games art?' and should just appreciate it as a medium like no other," Stevenson suggests. "The industry is always changing, so it's going to be interesting to see what happens once people see past the technology we use to produce the game and see the care and love we put into the art."
The ITP show will be exhibited to the public at the E for All Expo, but you can take a look at the current crop (as well as the 2004-2006 collections) on the ITP website.
