Warren Spector, the game designer behind Deus Ex and the current designer of Epic Mickey, was the PAX Prime 2010 keynote speaker.  He did an excellent job, but unlike previous speakers addressed the crowd with a challenge more so than with congratulations.

Games, he said, are art.  They have won in some sense, they have already proved their worth to society.  Those who don’t see them as such now will soon be irrelevant as cultural advisers.  Every new medium, according to Spector, goes through an initial period where they will be discounted or even judged harmful.  Games are now emerging through this period and are gaining widespread acceptance from grandmothers, corporate executives, and elementary school children.

The problem facing game makers and game players is to be accepting of these new groups.  If we fail to embrace new members of different cultural groups into our hobby then we too will become irrelevant.  He closed by mentioning that one day a new medium, entirely different than games, will emerge and we will be the ones to judge it harshly.  What will this new medium be?  No one knows (VR?  AR?  Some kind of interactive AI?), but Spector seemed to think that at least one person at PAX will probably be at the forefront of creating it.

As a side note, both Ron Gilbert and Warren Spector mentioned in their speeches that Star Wars had a profound effect on their careers.  It inspired them, they both said.  I wonder for how many other developers this is true; my guess is lots.

Tags: games as art, penny arcade expo 2010, warren spector