History of Game Art

Easter Eggs

Jun 13, 1434

(Artistic Development)
Year is correct, the rest of the date probably isn't. So, this one may be a bit of a stretch (please, feel free to ignore it) but this painting contains several easter eggs. One example, if you look in the mirror, you can see two other people, one of which is probably the artist himself.. One thing game artists do a lot is include easter eggs in their art, little things that say "Look, I made this. See if you can catch all the little things I put in here."

Vitruvian Man

Jun 17, 1490

(Artistic Development)
Approximate Date. All that's known for sure is that Leonardo Da Vinci's version was finished in 1490. This was possibly the first, but it is definately the most well known visualization of human proportions. This lead the way to more realistic art, allowing the creation of hyperrealistic art today.

Yoshitaka Amano

Mar 26, 1952

Date Of Birth. Yoshitaka Amano was the character designer, illistrator and concept artist for the first 6 Final Fantasy games. Final Fantasy is the quintessential JRPG and helped to define the genre. As such, the artistic style of Yoshitaka Amano is characteristic of JRPg's in general and the Final Fantasy game in particular.

Ken Sugimori

Jan 27, 1966

(Significant Artist)
Date Of Birth. Ken Sugimori. You may not know the name, but I'm sure you've heard of his work. He's only the character designer and art director for the entire Pokémon franchise. Yeah. He designed all 151 original Pokémon. An entire generation of video gamers basically have this man to thank for their childhood memories.

PONG!

Jun 14, 1966

(Significant Work)
Correct year, actual date unknown. Not really an example of art, but widely considered to be the first video game (not much video in it) so I feel it deserves a spot in this presentation.

Yoji Shinkawa

Dec 25, 1971

(Significant Artist)
Date of Birth. Yoji Shinkawa is the creative artist force behind the Metal Gear Solid games. As character and concept artist he has had a hand in creating characters such as Solid Snake, Big Boss, and Raiden. If you know the series than I guarantee you know at least one of those characters.

So Many Firsts

Jun 14, 1973

(Significant Work)
The year is correct, the date is approximate. The game maze brought many innovations to the gaming industry (and, by proxy, game art). Maze was the first First Person Shooter and the first multplayer network game. Without this little known game, games like Call of Duty and Halo may never have existed. Sorry, no good images for this one.

Doom

Jun 14, 1993

(Significant Work)
Oddly enough, this date is accurate (happy birthday to Doom!). This is, to me at least, the moment when games started getting big. And though it's still pixilated, this is an example of when games started becoming more visually oriented, focusing on how enemies looked. It was also one of the earliest examples of a first person shooter (the actual first first person shooter was created almost 20 years before Doom, but I doubt many people know that one).

Evil. Resident Evil.

Mar 22, 1996

(Artistic Development)
Correct date. Resident Evil was one of the first survival horror games. It spawned an entire genre and, as a result, an entire art style. It may be single handedly responsible for the entire sub-genre (there's a bit of debate in some gaming communities whether alone in the dark (1992) was the first true survival horror game) of survival horror. Sorry, all the images I found of Resident Evil had copywrite, and I'm not sure if this would fall under fair use laws.

Charles Zembillas

Nov 21, 1996

(Significant Artist)
Release Date of Crash Bandicoot. Charles Zembillas was the lead artist on Crash Bandicoot and Crash Bandicoot: Warped, as well as a character designer for Spyro and Spyro: Year of The Dragon. Crash Bandicoot and Sypro the dragon were two of the most easily recognized chraracters in the late 90's and were a huge part of my childhood. As such I feel this man deserves a place in this timeline.

Tradgedy

Apr 20, 1999

(World Event)
Actual Date of the Columbine Massacre. Violent video games were a popular reason people assumed for this national tradgedy. I'll keep my opinion to myself on this one, but whether or not it was caused by violent video games, it affected the way we percieve media and realistically depicted violence forever. No picture provided out of respect for the fallen.

Masahiro Ito

Sep 24, 2001

(Significant Artist)
The date when Silent Hill 2 was released in the US. Masahiro Ito was the Art Director for the game, and designed the most iconic character of the series, Pyramid Head. He helped define the genre and added some of the creepiest character designs and game asthetics that I've ever seen. The image should be available under fair use.

Andrew "Android" Jones

Nov 17, 2002

(Significant Artist)
Release Date of Metroid Prime. Andrew Jones was a concept artist for Metroid Prime, a fun and creative shooter game in 2002. Mr. Jones was integral to almost all of the concepts used in the game, using design ideals which are still popular today.

A Cure For AIDS?

Sep 19, 2011

(World Event)
Approximate date. It was either the 18th or the 19th. Gamers may have solved in 10 days what scientists couldn't in over a decade of research. Foldit is a puzzle game based on protien folding, designed by the University of Washington's Center for Game Science in collaboration with the UW Department of Biochemistry. As stated above, in the game Foldit you try new ways to fold virtual molecular structures. A closer look at those new protiens found by gamers may help cure AIDS.