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Think Bloodborne/TLOU/Journey should be in a museum? Take a look at this. [V&A Museum in London]
- Thread starter Scuttlefluff
- Start date
Thanks for this, just ordered it :-)You can get the book of the expo on amazon :
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/185177940X/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
it's not as interactive of course but it's cool nonetheless :
Damn. I wish this would have been earlier or later, since we visited London last September, and are planning to go there again around the same time. :(
18 quid seems pretty steep. Which is a pity, as iits not far to South Ken for me. Does Art Pass or similar get you in?
A UK museum dedicated to American & Japanese games, with no Rare or any other UK devs in sight, got to say that grinds my gears a bit, the diversity stuff is pretty interesting though, i agree that would catch me off guard since you don't see it being discussed often.
Bloodborne is Art, From it's Godly soundtrack too its design, It deserves to be in any sort of spotlight due to it being a masterpiece.
Oh hey, I was there last September when on holiday.
The normal museum that is, not the video game part.
I wish I could have seen it, but I was with family. I don't even remember if it was open yet or not.
The normal museum that is, not the video game part.
I wish I could have seen it, but I was with family. I don't even remember if it was open yet or not.
I went to the exhibition, and I really liked it, particularly the Bloodborne stuff. I bought two of the Splatoon prints as well. I'll have to upload some pictures sometime.
Wait.... only 3 out of 15-20 in a game design course actually play games?? Surely that can't be right...Welcome to the prestigious Victoria and Albert in London, the largest museum of decorative arts and design in the world, with over 2.27 million permanent objects including those by the likes of Rembrandt and Michaelangelo.
Also has the craziest fucking chandelier you'll ever see in your life, and quite possibly a future Bloodborne II boss, but I digress:
So they have an annual Video Game Exhibition, and I went as part of my uni course (currently doing a game design module, wahey), and I was really surprised to find how good it was. I didn't get a pic of the Journey exhibit as I was too excited when I first went in there and was running around like a wee bairn in a pool full of novelty coloured spheres, but there was concept art and production notes mounted in a glass display whilst the game played on a big screen. As soon as you walked into the exhibit, Journey was the first thing you saw, and I knew this shit was going places. I was expecting like a small framed photo of Tetris on a table in an empty spare room, with some Fortnite shirts and plush Creepers on sale in a nearby basket, but instead I got some brilliantly savvy and progressive gaming tributes and I thought of you, Era.
The Bloodborne and TLOU exhibits - my two favourite games of all time, no less, occupied the same room. Sorry about the pic quality as I only had my phone and was in a fairly dark series of rooms. The Last of Us was production notebooks, a live-action proof-of-concept type video they made in production (it was two actors sneaking around zombies), an isolated look at Ellie's character model and what her AI looks like in pure code (blown up on a big screen next to gameplay). There's even the fucking motion capture suit that Ashley Johnson wore, although the pic I got of it is terrible so I won't offend your eyes with it. Then there was concept and production art, and a MASSIVE pin-up board of the entire game's plot as it was in early development. Well, just look:
ENHANCE! I'll let you guys reel over the 'Snape kills Dumbledore' type reveals happening here. Some of this was already known from other production diaries and stuff like Grounded, but there's definitely new info here that I didn't know, like Tess's brother Dan, and Ellie ending up killing her. Got damn. I'll show you some more.
But I know y'all really came here for Bloodborne. I know its deserved but still pretty awesome to see it here and taking precedence over Dark Souls. They had the game running with commentary, concept art, production maps, the original sheet music, and you could put on headphones and watch a video of the orchestra playing the Cleric Beast theme.
There was some Splatoon as well, Kentucky Route Zero and No Man's Sky.
NMS (I can post a bit more if you like, I know this beautiful game has quite a few fans here)
There was much more than these going on as well - an indie arcade, a MASSIVE screen playing vids about E-sports (LoL tourney), Minecraft, Eve Online and the Overwatch fan base. This screen was bigger than God and curved around the room. It looked something like this:
Then here is one of my favourite parts that caught me off guard: A section about progressive representation of race, sexuality and gender in games. Several personalities were giving interviews on another big screen about inclusiveness in games, and there were small exhibits about gender, race etc.
(Mafia III took centre stage here)
It was truly fucking wonderful, guys. Moreover, my class is basically a big crowd of 19-20yo's of massively diverse origins and types. Out of a crowd of 15-20, myself and two others are the only straight white guys. Those three guys, are also the only gamers - big surprise. The others have some knowledge but are very very new to it all. This exhibit really spoke to them and they were talking about trying TLOU and the likes of God of War afterwards. It's an absolutely glorious isolated example of why shining a light on these issues and trying to open games up a bit, is so damn important. Good on you V&A and whoever organised it all, for doing games RIGHT.
Anyway, soap box over, great day out, go and take a look if you're in town and get a moment. It stops on Feb 24, so you've got all month to go and see Bloodborne in a museum. Details and everything you need to know is here https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/videogames
Thank you for the great post and for the reminder, OP. I had seen the ads for the exhibition but wasn't sure if it was worth it or just a cash grab. Of course the fact that it's at the V&A should be enough for me to go. I will go see it in the next few days. :)
That's pretty cool, too bad i can't go there. Gonna checking out the book, might pick it up for myself.
OP
OP
Well to elaborate a bit, it's a Digital Media Arts course. So it's made up of many, many different modules, from filmmaking, visual effects, graphic design, 3D modelling, animation, coding in JS, and we're now doing a Game Design module. So the kinds of people it attracts are massively varied, but all creative. Some of them are more arty, designers, photographers, some are more film student-y. One girl really wants to be a radio DJ, another is way into film colour-grading! And only then do you have a few gamer geeks. It's a massively broad course where directionless creative types get to just try everything.
So yeah, quite a few are actually like 'okay I'm learning how to make games but DON'T play them', which is kinda funny. But I've learnt that sometimes crazy hype fans like me aren't the best people to actually make the damn things. You see some amazing stuff going on here because of that broadness and diversity, like for example a girl who wants to get into graphic design or photography, never even played Super Mario Bros, but ends up coding up a fucking STORM in javaScript or C# and actually delivering a way better project than us gamer geeks.
God I wish it wasn't so expensive to get a train to London, I'd love to see this. Wouldn't mind some high res images of all the incredible design work - are there any image collections online anyone knows about?
What does this actually contain?
You can get the book of the expo on amazon :
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/185177940X/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
it's not as interactive of course but it's cool nonetheless :
What does this actually contain?
I should definitely check this out - I think a colleague of mine went along and said it was a really brilliant trip.
Ah shit, it finished in February? I know it's been going on for a while, but I've recently had an opportunity to fly to London pop up and going to the V&A for this was a big part of why I'd bite the bullet. Shame that won't be for a couple months...
Thanks for this, OP. As a matter of fact i'm doing a midweek trip to London with my girlfriend next week. The Last of Us is her favorite game in the world so she'll adore this.
Definitely bookmarked. Can't wait.
Definitely bookmarked. Can't wait.
