I suppose a better course of action is just to drop the high art designation altogether. It creates too many problems. Who is to say what is high art? Well, consensus built around evaluation and emotional feeling certainly, but then what's consensus? I have to admit my conceptions of greatness are colored by what my own ideology posits as great.
Anyways, I'm here second-guessing myself because of a particularly brilliant analysis from someone who knows how to critically talk about video games, which is relatively rare. You won't find anything like this on any of the online magazines.
I keep forgetting about the covert radicalism of Valve's games, a radicalism that shouldn't come as a shock when you consider their internal organization (it employs several anarchist organizational principles without going full anarchist). I've also never seen Valve's games discussed in that way. That is partially why they have slipped under the radar as well. No one talks about the hidden radical meaning within the multiple layers of play mechanic and surface plot. Plus, consciousness has to spread. One has to become aware of the hidden themes embedded in said works to identify them, a consciousness which I think is spreading.
I sit here complaining about the archaic, stagnant nature of the first-person shooter, but what I have forgotten is the very conservative nature of this mechanic (along with its mass popularity) allows one to bury some very radical ideas within its husk as secret messaging to those sympathetic souls that experience the game. Of course, that is also part of the reason why these things don't get discussed: many people just miss them altogether, which is ok. That's really been a constant pattern throughout history when it comes to the social transmission of radical ideas.
