The debate over whether games are art has raged even more fiercley since the next generation of consoles hit the market. They have offered developers greater freedom in story telling and art design, allowing them to produce beautiful, grand and epic games that some believe deserve a place next to those films, books and symphonies that are classified as art. Currently this debate is young and over time it will intensify as more and more games present themselves as candidates for furthering the game's as art debate, presenting a more complete package of amazing art design in terms of soundtrack, design and storytelling instead of only currently excelling in one of these aspects.

One development which is sure to help the video game industry as it strives to be recognised as art is the magazine Amusement. The French based video game magazine, which is only in its 6th issue, is helping to develop an art culture surrounding video game culture. The magazine's website states that:

AMUSEMENT redefines the video game magazine with style and precision. Cultural and political references as well as surprising artistic connections.

It is these artistic connections that are causing a stir, and great interest, in the video games community. The magazine undertakes several photo-shoots each issue that are related to gaming culture. The best part about it, the photo-shoots are actually really good. My personal favourite is the latest shoot called 'Overheating'. It features a girl throwing popular media devices through walls and glass to showcase the frustration consumers feel when they experience bugs and problems with their technology. The shot of the Nintendo DS, in two parts flying through the air after coming through a wall, is particularly cool.

Meanwhile other shoots like Fair eTale and God Game tell little stories about people's experiences with technology or how they act when playing a game and I particularly liked the effect of the guys cigarette ash turning into meteors in the game world. They are all very cool and definetley arty and if you look at the people in the photos they also say something about the industry. There are lots of men, not children, in the shoots reflecting the average of gamers and they also have lots of women in the shoots which also reflects another growing demographic in the game industry.

Basically these are some seriously cool pictures which show that gamers and gaming culture isn't all about geeky guys sitting in their basement owning noobs online. It can be sophisticated, cool and dare I say it arty in its depiction to the world and is certainly a positive step in trying to get games recognised as art.