The upcoming art exhibit will feature everything from Pac-Man to Portal.
The polls are closed, and we now know which video games will be presented when The Art of Video Games exhibit debuts at the Smithsonian American Art Museum on March 16, 2012. The exhibit will run until September 30, 2012 and will look at the 40-year evolution of video games as an art form and as a medium. The Smithsonian allowed people to vote to select 80 games (from a pool of 240) to represent different consoles, eras, and genres, and the final list can be seen here. Some of the more notable entries include Super Mario Bros. 3, Portal, Shadow of the Colossus, Flower, and Mass Effect 2.
The exhibit will also feature five games that visitors will be able to play for a few minutes at a time. The games weren’t a part of the voting process and include Pac-Man, Super Mario Brothers, The Secret of Monkey Island, Myst, and World of Warcraft.
Needless to say, the Smithsonian exhibit represents an important milestone for the medium. Video games are starting to get their due recognition as art, and gamers everywhere should be proud to be a part of the culture that made the exhibit possible.
Source: Smithonian American Art Musseum
