Gaming Is UNRECOGNISABLE In 2024

And finally, gaming is now at a point where it doesn't have to beat its chest about its legitimacy as an art-form. 

The medium's potential for richly emotional storytelling and gorgeous aesthetic design means any lingering debate about gaming's worthiness as "art" is basically over - only the most ill-informed would argue that gaming isn't art in 2024.

Between this and Hollywood finally taking gaming IP seriously where adaptations are concerned, it's safe to say that games have reached a peak of approval where they've got nothing left to prove.

In decades past, gaming was desperate to prove itself worthy of other art forms genuinely deemed superior, like movies, TV, and books, ensuring an artistic hunger which resulted in some of the most bold, provocative, and unforgettable games ever made.

But there's a clear feeling of comfort in the modern gaming sphere, that with its place as a worthy art form now firmly cemented there's no need to push the bar anymore.

And so, that may well explain why we've seen such a grotesque ramp-up in money-grabbing practices over the last decade-or-so - microtransactions, live service nonsense, and a severe decline in purely single-player experiences.

This isn't to declare that all developers are cashing in on gaming's mainstream acceptance, but rather that those continuing to push things forward - the Naughty Dogs and Remedies of the world - are few and far between.

Gaming has never felt more safe and sanitised than it does right now, with risk-averse publishers driven to the industrious pursuit of profit, complacent in the knowledge that gaming is no longer sniffed at as the lesser of all the art forms.