Like any artist, the video game maker benefits from reflection on the successes of all past productions in his field. In Western painting, the "technology" being improved upon was the ability to render perspective, to resolve a rational space. Giotto's oeuvres in egg tempera were once revolutionary for their use of planar space, their subtle but profound progress beyond the brutal frontality of the populist Gothic works that preceded them. Masaccio's Foreshortened Christ continued the neo-classical motive that was a growing theme in the art of the burgeoning Renaissance, and further restored our understanding of how to realize depth on a two-dimensional surface. Brunelleschi's subsequent publication of his Scientific Perspective was a breakthrough akin to the game industry's first use of polygons to show three-dimensionality.

Therefore, when Raphael stood to paint his School of Athens--what the archaic artistic equivalent of GameSpot would have labeled a "Superb" piece—he was privy to some two-hundred years of "technological" development within his field. Unlike Giotto, he had access to the Flemish invention of oil paint, which allowed for much greater expression. He also had seen originals or copies of all the major painted works of the past several generations. These are huge advantages, and his work must have been held to a higher standard as a result.

Certain artistic creations, be they frescoes or games, will always inspire awe. For the former, we have our museums and Roman duomos. For the latter, we have GameSpot's running Greatest Games of All Time feature. For the most part, though, standards rise with the years, and artists are expected to have a knowledge and mastery of the techniques put forth by their forebears.