After examining the historical progression and theories surrounding the relationship between music and games, it is natural to explore recent advancements and contemporary perspectives in this field. Investigating current research and emerging trends will provide insight into the dynamic interplay between music and games in the present era.
It is worth recalling, as mentioned before, that the history of games as a discipline recognized within the artistic realm is relatively recent. The steps leading to the general consideration of "ludology" as an academic field of study date sporadically from the 1970s and 1980s, gaining more regularity from the 1990s onwards, closely corresponding with the development and widespread adoption of video games, a culturally and economically significant phenomenon. Before then, game studies were confined to the realm of anthropology, as evidenced by Huizinga's famous text. A sort of timeline can be identified for the incorporation of games into academic and cultural spheres:
- 1982: first appearance of the term "ludology" in academic circles, in Does Being Human Matter - On Some Interpretive Problems of Comparative Ludology by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi;1
- 1983: video game magazine Video Games Player states that video games "are as much an art form as any other field of entertainment”;2
- 1989: Hot Circuits: A Video Arcade exhibition by the Museum of the Moving Image in New York marks the beginning of considering video games as visual art;3
- 1990: Board Games in the Ancient World colloquium at the British Museum organized by English philologist Irving Finkel (still ongoing, celebrated 25th edition in 2023);4
- 1998: first publication of Board Game Studies, one of the earliest academic journals;5
- 1999: Gonzalo Frasca stands for the use of the term “ludology" in academic papers;6
- 2001: publication of Game Studies academic journal;7
- 2003: First mention in a formal conference in Arcade Classics Span Art? Current Trends in the Art Game Genre by Tiffany Holmes at Melbourne DAC Conference, stating that video games are part of digital art culture;
- 2003: foundation of DiGRA (Digital Games Research Association);8
- 2006: French Minister of Culture definition of video games as “cultural goods” and “a form of artistic expression", providing the genre with a tax subsidy. The article who mention it in USA also compared video games to film industry.;
- 2011: United States National Endowment for the Arts expanded the allowable projects to include "interactive games” in accepting grants for art projects for 2012;
- 2012: The Art of Video Games, exhibition at The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.9
The impact of considering games as a culturally valid form of artistic expression with the development of new digital technologies is not a random phenomenon, but rather, co-causal, mutually influential. The widespread popularity of video games owes much to the development of technologies that have enabled their functioning, and these technologies, in turn, have experienced a strong boost in production driven by the insistent demand for new games from the emerging gamer subculture.