Playing it safe

Abstract

For the past 30 years museums and art galleries on both sides of the Atlantic have been resistant to exhibiting digital games as art and have instead embedded them in exhibitions and displays that have portrayed them as exemplars of design. This conservative approach has largely failed to achieve the stated purpose of many of these exhibitions: to foster a wider public appreciation for games and encourage more sophisticated conversations about gaming. This article argues that curators for video game exhibitions have been co-opted by the ideological norms of the tech sector which has produced a reluctance to engage critically with their subject matter and a willingness to overlook ethical problems within the videogame industry.