The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), which is an organization/program under the US federal government, is now officially considering video games as worthy of artistic merit.
The organization has started accepting applications for grants of up to $200,000 to “support the development, production, and national distribution of innovative media projects about the arts and media projects that can be considered works of art” on “all available media platforms such as the Internet, interactive and mobile technologies, digital games, arts content delivered via satellite, as well as on radio and television.”
Sure, $200k isn’t a huge sum of money when it comes to game development, but staving, innovative, aspiring designers could certainly use it to make art.
I’m excited about the possibilities this creates, and it’s about time video games got some recognition as an integral part of society.
