Phaidon’s survey of the art of video games evokes wonder and nostalgia

Phaidon’s survey of the art of video games is an exercise in imagination and nostalgia. A personal study of 300 of the most influential electronic game titles over the past 70 years, Game Changers: The Video Game Revolution is a colourful romp through the static frames of classics old and new.

Arranged alphabetically – so pixel count and clarity shift wildly from page to page – the book is prefaced by essays from The New Yorker contributor Simon Parkin and India Block of Disegno, setting out the history and cultural impact of gaming. There’s also that old chestnut – can a game be considered art? (See more on the art-and-gaming relationship in the current exhibition ‘Worldbuilding: Gaming and Art in the Digital Age’ at Julia Stoschek Foundation, Dusseldorf.)

The global video game industry is fast approaching annual revenues of $200 billion, a fair distance ahead of global cinema box office of around $26 billion (in 2022). The language and mechanisms of gaming, whether casual, social, diehard, competitive or escapist, infuses every other form of digital interaction. The world’s drug of choice is dopamine.

The video game design choices in every screenshot

Game Changers doesn’t dwell too much on the addictive qualities of the medium, focusing instead on the characters and environments that gaming has introduced into the culture. Every screenshot represents thousands upon thousands of design choices, first from the artists and coders, then from the players themselves, who manoeuvre themselves through the rules of these worlds. 

Gaming in the modern era is more diverse and varied than ever before, with the tools available to represent any artistic style or era of gaming, from retro through to near photo-realism, and Game Changers does a good job of highlighting milestones of technology and gameplay. 

Whether they’re the pixel-perfect backdrops of a retro platform game or the infinite reaches of space in sprawling online multiplayer games like Eve, the endlessly pliable world of Minecraft, or the meticulous puzzles of Monument Valley, you’re likely to find a familiar place within this book. 

As a form of armchair travel, without the need to fire up a console and dust the cobwebs from your reflexes, Game Changers is a welcome physical chronicle of time spent in virtual worlds. 

Game Changers: The Video Game Revolution, £39.95, Phaidon.com, is released 7 September 2023

Also available from amazon.co.uk and waterstones.com