Are Video Games Art?

Video games are not art. Is pure design from start to end and the product that emerge from that design is a utility for people can entertainment. In that sense video games are not created to be contemplated, but played. All the things in a video games are worked for a public target and is completelly metric and calculated. There is no difference between a digital app and a video game 'cause both are a software product waiting to be purchased.

I just have one word.

Halo.

I consider Pong to be beautiful art myself

we need a full playthrough of michael jackson the experience from him lmao

No it is a plebian from of entertainment to keep people occupied and apathetic - nothing more.

as someone who spend most of my life gaming
i have too played games that i personally consider to be either artistic or work of art
i find Dark Souls to be art in the way its telling the story
i find Bioshock 1 to be a work of art when it comes to Andrew Ryan and his descend into madness

movie viewers have theirs work of art
gamers have their version of it too

Botw is definitely art

One of the best examples of risk-taking and experimentation is Undertale.




It is full of colorful and unique characters that don't mess with the protagonist as much as they mess with the player directly, and call into question your morals and behavior.

Killed someone and reverted to a previous save to undo it? They'll call you out.

Doing the genocide run? They'll call you, the player, out for the monster you are.

Are you watching a let's play of the genocide run? They will call you out for it.

I would like to know if Doug found something in the last 6 years to definitely found that games are high art.

God damm Roger ebert

I remember reading an article where a guy said that novels, TV shows and movies are a better story telling medium than games and because of that games should stick to just being about game play. He offered no argument as to why that is, he just said it as though it was a fact. That's what I hate about this debate, no one on the other side ever actually has any rational argument as to why they aren't art, it's just that "movies, books and TV shows are more impactful and therefore they get to be called art and video games don't". Also the people who say this often have very little experience with games and therefore should be discredited. If I hated movies, would I be taken seriously if it was found out that I had little experience with them?

Video games have been getting better at storytelling for years now.

I never really stopped to think about this question until the very first time I ever played Metal Gear Solid on the PS1.

Keanu Reeves during an interview about Cyberpunk 2077 was asked if he thought video games could be art, and he said no, but elaborated that video games from their very inception were always art, and that they don't need to imitate movies to be artistically viable.

In The Sims 3, I created a purple sim and have been having her live out all the crazy, irresponsible decisions I would never make in real life! 😂

Mario Paint brings the two factions together

I think Skyrim might be a major piece of a art that wasnt realized till years later. It moves people intensely giving a thrill and adventure so unique people replay it and rebuy it endlessly it seems. But in terms of high art. Ghost of Tsushima or Red Dead 2 may have hit that bar.

Trust me I played enough games that I would definitely call "art" Persona 4G & 5R, Nier Automata, Sonic Unleashed, Sonic Frontiers, the PS Spider-Man games, Final Fantasy VII & XV, and Portal 2. All of the games I listed made me feel emotions for theses characters like a good movie or show did following these characters through these journeys made me actually feel like I actually was saying farewell after completing them for the first time. In short I do think games do classify as art now and that this video has aged nicely

No gods or kings. Only man. Question answered

CupHead exists. That game is hundreds of hand drawn cell by bell animation. If that ain’t art than I don’t know what is

I think videogames are capable of being a form of expression as movies or music. That said i also think that how they reach that level goes beyond graphics or storytelling. Videogames make the player a part of the work, and sure a linear platformer like Mario is full of expression and creativity, however i think this goes beyond, your choices in the Game can change the outcome of how You experience the work, this means a game can be a different piece every time You play, a new canvas to paint and enjoy in manny ways.

Dark souls I is one of the most artistic games I've ever played. To create ridiculous blanket statements like 'video games are not art' devalues the obvious masterpieces that some games are.

yes, but "the man" is trying to make them not be

One video game which comes to mind when this question is posed is Shadow of the Colossus. The somberness, the realization that you are more monstrous than the giant monsters you slay, and the emptiness that makes you feel like the rapture has just happened all combine to make a game that you simultaneously feel awful for completing, yet also leaves you awestruck at what you saw and experienced.

The irony of him saying that the medium of games doesn't have a breakthrough like 2001, and the last of us came out a few weeks later 😂

One word: Minecraft. Don't get me wrong, I think story driven games have potential to become the next form of art like movies and books. They can people feel emotions and people can become attached to characters. Mincraft is art because of it's unlimited potential. You can build something phenomenal in creative or experience a unique survival experience with it's randomly generated worlds. It is the unlimited potential and simple to advance gameplay that balances the appearance of a blocky setting. It proves that you don't need the best graphics to make a great game. It's why people still play Mincraft to this day, because it's simple yet fun.

Great dancing. It looks like you are enjoying yourself and that is all that matters. I think video games are art. Especially if you consider what it takes to make them.

I like how after "the last of us" we just kinda overall close the conversation

I would say Ori and The Blind Forest would be a great example.

Doug, if u read this: I miss these kind of Editorials about general artistic topics 😌

Mgs 2 predicting the societal problems that come with internet access a decade before the problems became a real thing: hello there

On my perspective, games are a form of art to be played, yeah. But then you get games these days like elden ring (Ngl a good one) and breath of the wild, and even the new upcoming sonic. BUT they lose a little somthing in each generation made. Since BOTW was so popular with its open world, games have more recently melded bits of it into themselves, so what’s lost in this generation in my opinion? Originality. I’m not sure if BOTW was the first majorly open world game where nothing was limited in its map, but I know everyone has their flavor (elden ring being mine). But I’m not going to lie and say I hate the idea being reused, I’m welcome to it, but i can’t say that I wouldn’t want to see somthing new coming next, no matter what it becomes, wether it’s another game like what everyone does with Minecraft, mod to your liking, or if it’s something new, something that captures a wider audience, or something that shows the most beautiful landscapes in a 3D environment. That’s why I want to make my own games, and it’s games like these that inspire me as I grow, even with my autism, I even use that to my advantage; see what people would WANT to see and try to forge something from it. I probably wouldn’t call it art, ever. But I’ll just call it more akin to a dream to be shared, something to bring to life in a way people would want most of all.

Edit: I don’t mind if my comment is never read…. I just wanted to give my voice unto the internet, like a message in a bottle to be read by… well anyone

People that made bad movies and games (TMNT 3, Doogal, Action 52, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde etc.) do it for money, not to interest critics and fans.

a game that really made me realise they are is outer wilds.
there are still big hits and innovators years on, they are 100% art

Great video, and I couldn't agree more on the fact that, yes, video games can truly be art, in the same aspect of movies. But what I consider for a video game to be art is many things:

1: They tried some new for people to attempt

2: They use a common feature among video games but put an experience in it that feels new.

3: They maintain a sense of interactivity so that the players can choose what to do, and affect how the rest of the game goes.

With that said, a lot of video games really do fall into that category, and it's not really because of what the video game did that was new; it was how they made it and how it was made to feel new.

That's why I love playing video games, to see new things be done, or see when a typical formula for video games was first introduced. And look at what video games did these kinds of things:

Half-Life 2
Shadow of the Colossus
Dark Souls
The Last of Us
Bioshock
Portal 2
Mass Effect 2
Skyrim
Knights of the Old Republic
Super Mario 64

All of these games have done at least one of the three things I mentioned above, and it's why I consider each of them art, whether they were revolutionary or not revolutionary but made something feel new.

This is why I love sandbox games. My personal favorite being Roller Coaster Tycoon

I'd say games like Journey would be considered High Art. It's only goal is to make you understand the struggles of the character, their motivations, what they had to do.... and their ultimate failure and attempt to try again. There's a twist at the end of the game which tells you the entirety of the story in a single moment of clarity, a truth the character probably knew from the beginning.

Art is and forever will be subjective. I'll forever say a single car will be more artful than a splatter of paint on a wall ever will be. Gears and chains, belts and wires, combining perfectly to create something of use to everyone. Art has use, whether it's to make you think or calm and clarify your emotions, art has use. The more useful something is to more people, the more it qualifies as art. If it's only use is to make a statement on itself, like a banana taped to a wall. I don't think it's more qualifying for the title of art than a videogame that lets you let out your frustrations at life in a healthy, unobtrusive way.

I think of videogames as movies with visual art incorporated into it to be blunt and simple. Look at games like final fantasy 9. Great animation with an engaging story.

Six years later and this video still holds up big time

If yoko ono can be an artist, any videogame development, can be

Okami, Subnautica, Papers Please, Final Fantasy VII (original), ABZU, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, StarCraft, and StarCraft 2...enough said.

Given the amount of effort put into a lot of them if the answer isn't 'yes' or at least 'can be' I donno what art really is. Art is used to communicate emotions to the person observing it (Even if that emotion is 'meh') its easy to say that it is. Also like paintings, books, music, and movies the amount of passion often put into these games is unreal and often takes several years to accomplish not to mention the cost in itself. Much like film a story is being told the only difference is the person watching can influence the story in some why.

If people making sandwiches is considered an art form then why isn’t video games

Anyone who wonders if video games are art, I got four words for you: Red Dead Redemption 2

Syberia comes to mind, Lost Eden, Another World - a lot of games from french designers seem to be on the right path. Japanese as well. For example, the sheer scope of MGS games is mindblowing. MGS games have their odd parts, the campy stuff, the occasional anime-like dialogues, but i almost learned more about communism in Central America from PSP game Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker than from actual history lessons. If Kojima's setting, his interesting mix between real and fictional isn't art then i don't know what art is. And don't get me started on Death Stranding. It's super weird, i don't get everything that's happening in there, but what happened between the game was released, that's pure art. Subversive, guerilla art, but art. The way the trailers were connected, there was so much thought that went into it... Mindblowing. Death Stranding had almost Lynch-like vibes.

Some of them, yes.

Short answer: yes
Long answer: yes they are

Honestly for video games, I think that the question on if it is or if it isn't art is alot more complex in America
The gaming community has been attacked many many times by both political and none political mediums, and most of the time the only shield has been the first amendment, as its considered Art

Just something I feel that needs to be addressed in these conversations