As with other art forms, video games encompass large art worlds of their own. An art world is the processes and methods, tools, materials, institutions and personnel encompassing an art form. Becker discussed the difficulties involved with deciding who to include in the production credits for art forms such as film. Video games have many of the same issues now that films do when it comes to production credits since they employ so many personnel in their creation.
Video games have greatly evolved from their humble origins as pet projects put out by one or two programmers working out of a basement and selling their game by mail orders. Today large budget studio video games are made by dozens, if not hundreds of people. From the developers writing the code that creates the game world and its levels, to the person composing the game’s soundtrack, to the graphic artists creating and rigging the 3D models used for the game art and animation, to the voice actors behind each character, modern games are a complex network of systems. Video games are increasingly using actors in motion capture suits to create lifelike character animations, such as the Uncharted series.
In addition to the massive amounts of technology and personnel used in creating video games, you also have several institutions including marketing teams that must sell the game to the audience prior to its release. Whether it is through television or radio commercials, social media campaigns using the internet, or printed ads in Christmas toy catalogues and video game magazines, players will not buy your game if they do not know about it. Several other industries have sprung up around the video game art world as well, such as beta game play testers and the Entertainment Software Rating Board, or ESRB for short. There is also the growing quantity of museums that have exhibits dedicated to video games.