Why Video Games Are the Most Important Cultural Form of the Century
October 15, 2025 · Frisian News
Video games have surpassed film and music as the dominant form of cultural expression, generating more revenue and engagement than any other medium. Their rise reflects a fundamental shift in how people consume stories, solve problems, and build communities.
A teenager in Stockholm spent forty hours last week solving puzzles in a game made by twelve people in Montreal. She paid nothing. The developers earned money through a store that sold cosmetic items, not gameplay advantages. This scene, replicated millions of times daily across the planet, shows how games function as both art and commerce in ways that older media cannot match. Games generate 180 billion dollars yearly, more than film and music combined. That money flows to creators of wildly different sizes and types, from one-person studios to massive corporations.
Film told stories to audiences sitting in theaters or on couches. Games let people live inside stories, fail, learn, and try again. This shift from passive watching to active doing changes what stories can say and how they shape people. A game about grief forces the player to grieve. A game about poverty makes the player make impossible choices. No film achieves this with the same force because film viewers remain outside the action. Games collapse that distance. Players build the world in their mind while the computer builds it on screen, and the two meet in real time.
Critics who dismiss games as violent toys miss the full range of what the medium produces. Games explore mathematics, architecture, philosophy, and the mundane details of running a farm or a shop. Some games have no combat at all. Others tell nothing but stories. The form contains multitudes, and it grows faster than institutions can understand. Universities scramble to build game design programs. Publishers push for game adaptations because they know where cultural relevance lives now. That relevance belongs to the medium itself, not to any single work within it.
The power of games also lies in how they build communities without gatekeepers. A person in rural Kenya and one in Copenhagen can play together, speak, plan, and create inside the same space. They need no television network or radio station or film studio to mediate their interaction. This bypasses the old cultural machinery, which is why traditional media institutions treat games with a mix of envy and suspicion. Games let ordinary people become creators in ways that film and music still restrict.
Yet games also face real problems. Exploitation of developers, addiction mechanics designed into products, and the concentration of power in a few corporate hands all threaten the form's future. The question is not whether games matter as culture, but whether the people who make and play them can keep control of that culture. That answer depends on choices made in the next few years, not on the medium's importance, which is already settled.
In tiener yn Stockholm brochte foarjûn wike fjirtich oeren troch mei it oplosse fan puzeljen yn in spul makke troch tolve minsken yn Montreal. Se betelle neat. De ûntwikkelders fertsjinsten jild troch in winkel dy't kosmetike items ferkocht, net gameplay-foardielen. Dizze sksne, miljoensfold deistich op hiele planeet werhelle, lit sjen hoe spullen fungearje as sawol keunst as hannel op wizen dy't alder media net oankunne. Spullen generearje jillich 180 miljard dollar, mear as film en muzyk tegelyk. Dat jild stream nei skeppers fan heul ferskillend grutte en soarten, fan ien-persoan studios oant massale bedriuwen.
Film fertelle ferhalen oan sjoggers dy't yn sineamen of op banken sieten. Spullen litte minsken yn ferhalen libje, ferleaze, leare en nij probearje. Dizze ferskowing fan passyf sjoggen nei aktyf dwaan ferswiklet wat ferhalen sizze kinne en hoe't se minsken foarme. In spul oer droefhiet dwingert de spelder om droef te wêzen. In spul oer armoede dwingert de spelder om ûnmooglike keaskes te meitsjen. Gjin film berikt dit mei deselde krêft, om't filmsjoggers bûten de aksje bliuwe. Spullen slute dy ôfstân. Spelers bouwe de wrâld yn har holle wyl it kompjûter dy op skerm bouwt, en de twa ûntmoetsje yn echttiid.
Kritikasters dy't spullen ôflean as gewelddedige spielguod misse it folsleine reach fan wat it medium foartbringt. Spullen ferkenne wiskundige, arsjitektuер, filosofy en aldergaoiske details fan it rinne fan in hoeve of winkelbedriuw. Guon spullen hawwe hielendal gjin striid. Oaren fertelle allinnich ferhalen. De foarm befettet mannichheid en wuks rapst as ynstellingen begripje kinne. Universiteiten sikje spiulentwikkelingsprogramma's op te bouwen. Útjouwers dringe oan op spulladaptaasjes, om't se wite wêr kulturele relevânsje no libbet. Dy relevânsje heart ta it medium sels, net ta ien wurk dêryn.
De krêft fan spullen leit ek yn hoe't se mienskippen bouwe sûnder poardewachters. In persoan yn plattelalân Kenia en ien yn Kopenhagen kinne tegearre spylje, sprekke, planne en skepje yn deselde romte. Se hawwe gjin televyzjestasjon, radiostaasjon of filmstudio nedich om har ynteraksje te tuskenmediearje. Dizze ferby giet de aude kulturele masine, dêrom't tradisjonele media-ynstellingen spullen mei in mingeling fan ynv en tsjinwaan behankelje. Spullen litte gewoane minsken op wizen skeppers wurde, dy't film en muzyk noch altyd beheinje.
Och spullen kêmje ek tsjin echte problemen. Útbûting fan ûntwikkelders, ferslanving-masines ynbouwd yn produkten, en konsentraasje fan macht yn hânje fan in pear bedriuwen bedreigje de takomsttêst fan de foarm. De fraach is net oft spullen important binne as kultuer, mar oft de minsken dy't dêroan meitsje en spylje dy kultuer behâlde kinne. Dit antwurd hingget fan keaskes ôf dy't yn de kommende jierren makke wurde, net fan it belang fan it medium, dy't al fêst stiet.
Published October 15, 2025 · Frisian News · Ljouwert, Fryslân