If you are reading this, then you are probably a fan of video games and if you are, it probably came a time when you wished you could just capture a cool moment and share it. Now you can, and you will become addicted to it.
A quick Google search, on the history of video game photography, leads me to its Wikipedia page where it's stated: "In-game photography (also known as screenshot art, screenshot photography and professional gaming photography) is a form of new media art which consists of photographing video game worlds." (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-game_photography - Dec 6th, 2018).
The same article states that one of the earliest works presented as video game photography and as a piece of art was back in 2006. This was before photo modes and share buttons were even a thing.
What is considered a photo mode?
It's a mode where players can capture screenshots of what they are doing and have free control over how to tweak, calibrate and adjust them.
Recently, we had a growth of games with photo mode. In 2018 alone, we had God of War, Marvel's Spider-Man, Forza Horizon 4, Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Red Dead Redemption 2. (Spider-Man being the game that started my addiction to photo modes.)
Three of these games broke sales records and the other two are part of some of the biggest franchises in the gaming history. Meaning that triple-A developers know there is a market that wants this mode, in their games.
But, after giving this some thought, I came to the conclusion that this is one of the most brilliant marketing strategies for a studio. Any studio. Let me give you an example: Horizon Zero Dawn a game that was released all the way back at the beginning of 2017, is one of the games with a huge (and I really mean HUGE) community of Virtual Photographers. This leads to the game being the most spoken game in the Video Game Photography community. At the same time, it is leading people, who never played the game, to buy it in order to experience the world in the eyes of a Virtual Tourist.
But what about games with no photo mode?
Virtual Photography is an art and, as such, there are multiple options in creating your artwork.
I was inspired to write this post because I have come across people with great talent recently. People who went into great lengths to capture a perfect moment, in their favorite game. When those games don't have a dedicated mode only allowing the users to capture screenshots.
I'm a huge fan of the Kingdom Hearts series and I recently started playing the games again. After I discovered Virtual Photography, all I wanted was to share my experience with everyone but unfortunately, the game doesn't have a dedicated photo mode. So, I tried capturing some epic moments in the cutscenes. For the most part, I'm happy with it.
But I have been collecting stories, from different people, for the last weeks and fans will go to great extents to share their best moments in the games. Some people play, through the same part of the game, over and over again until the right element is in place. Some capture different parts of their screen in order to photoshop them together and make a giant set piece of epic proportions. But, my favorite is people who create mods for games that allow free roaming with the camera, in order to capture that perfect moment with the perfect angle and the perfect lighting. Am I saying “perfectly” too much? Well, it’s because most of the shots I see people sharing are exactly that: perfect! And every shot is unique.
It helped me expand my game library
I'm an RPG (Role-Playing Game) fan so for many years I only played RPG Games.
Since I can remember, me and my group of friends mostly played games with Role-Playing mechanics. Some liked sports games, others racing games but the majority were fans of the RPGs one’s. When the whole group was together, we went and played some multiplayer games like Tekken, Need for Speed or Killzone. This was back in 2006. So, for more than 10 years, my gaming library was limited.
This month, a racing game called ONRUSH is offered for free with the PlayStation Plus subscription and it has a photo mode in it. I installed the game just to see the differences in photo modes and I genuinely had a lot of fun playing it!
All of this just to say that: Video Game Photography helps you expand your scope too and that's an awesome consequence to a great hobby. Don’t you think?
Video Gamer Photographers Unite is a community of dedicated gamers that share their experiences in gaming, on Twitter, with other people.
When Marvel's Spider-Man came out, back on September 7th, I went a little insane with this photo mode and tried to share my photos on Facebook. I failed miserably... It wasn't the right crowd for this type of content. Then, I reactivated my Twitter account and started sharing my photos with different hashtags and tagging different accounts.
I found a great place to feel included. I found hundreds of people that have a passion for gaming and support each other in this journey. Having people, that you might never have spoken to, starting to share your content in their accounts and praising your work, it's just unbelievable.
Some pages, that you should definitely follow if you want to get cool content from all the community, are @VirtuaCam_, @Urban_Tentacles, and @GamerGram_GG. They put out challenges and greatly support everyone from the community with likes, comments, and retweets.
If this small appreciation convinces you to join the community: Welcome!
Also, you are invited to my gallery!
Follow me on Twitter at @DotPone and share your opinions with me.
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