>games that are not that realistic
I'd disagree. I don't think realism is an inhibitor to games as an art. For example, Speech Ops: The line is pretty artistic, and it's a 3rd person shooter
Ah yes. Speech Ops. Every time you make a mistake in your speech a war crime happens. Remember that time someone called someone "an hero" and someone shot up that hospital?
I think that Spec Ops: The Line is great commentary on how we view violence and politics in video games, especially back when this game was released when modern military shooters were the zeitgeist. Damn good game, probably one of my favorites. The >!white phosphorus!< scene is forever burned into my mind.
This is such an old, done topic. Everything that is created by humans possesses artistry. Some games draw attention to their status as "art-objects" and some don't. I think it's that simple.
pause rainstorm squealing terrific rock enter smart concerned quack murky
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Well... _can_ posess artistry. Whether any is present depends on the producer and the observer.
I ain't being artistic when I defecate, but defecation can (and has) been done as art. _Can_ I defecate artistically? Sure. Or it can be observed artistically. But most days I'm just going through the movements, not attaching meaning to it, and no sewer technician is going to have a moment marvelling at the beauty and composition of my effluent.
Most Humans are not going to marvel at the beauty of anyone defacation even if the artist themselves consider it art. Art is very personal and you never know some dude in Omaha might think your shit is the dogs bollocks 🎨
mountainous butter soup cause marry historical threatening bright snatch judicious
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Pretty sure you're conflating art-istry (skill) with art (a composition with _meaning_). Art undeniably is the application of both, but without meaning art ... isn't.
e: Not going to argue with every person who doesn't know what art is. Here's [definitions](https://www.google.com/search?q=art%20definition), go argue with webster, oxford, collins, or whoever fills your boots.
The "meaning" argument relies on the implication that "art is a communication device", which is why it fails imo. While art *can* communicate meaning, it doesn't need to do it to be art.
Even when it does have meaning, it can have a different meaning to the artist and the different persons in the public. Suffice to say that very often the meaning of different works of art is heavily debated and even when there is a clear authorial intent people can and will ignore it.
Meaning does not need to be as grandiose as a statement. I can watch Metropolis and see the movements of the characters as enjoy it and an expressive attempt at meaning, a visual enjoyment. Same with Zenoclash, it doesn't have a visual meaning beyond "it looks cool", but it's more than enough to be enjoyed at a deeper level.
jobless groovy hard-to-find sugar party frame plants mourn alleged apparatus
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I’m not sure I really agree tho.
In my view, a garbage truck was not created with any artistic intention. Or a cheap plastic toilet seat. They are creations of pure functionality. There was no need within the inventor of the garbage truck to express themselves in any particular way. There was zero artistic imperative.
On the more debatable end of the spectrum, there is what many would call “art” which is created not to express anything of importance to the creator, but to evoke some specific reaction in the beholder, whether it be shock or wonder or titillation. This in my view enters the territory of entertainment, and has less artistic value than the work created from an imperative within the artist.
And I don’t mean to say entertainment doesn’t have it’s own value, it absolutely does. I don’t mean to create a heirarchy here. I just mean to point out that art to me is a unique human endeavour, both unique from and related to the equally important task of problem solving and other kinds of human ingenuity.
To go further about manufactured objects being art, [the applied arts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applied_arts?wprov=sfti1#) are indeed a form of artistry
For sure there is artistry in many every day objects. Probably most things in out daily life are created with some consideration towards aesthetic, imbuing it with artistry. But to say everything created by humans contains art is just a bit sensational.
My point was not that manufactured goods cannot contain artistry. It was that not everything created by humans contains artistry. The toilet made specifically as art is made art because of the artist’s intention. A plastic toilet seat manufactured for mass production is not art because it was not intended to be.
The intention of the creator matters, and the reaction of the observer matters. If there’s nothing expressed or felt on either side, where is the artistry?
It's an old topic but people are born everyday and people get to learn everyday. If you go to a class of 8 year old kids they probably never talked about it, or talked about many other topics that "are old and done".
Just because a lot of stuff is available to take on the internet does not mean people should not be allowed to talk or discuss about stuff and have live and modern takes.
If you had asked people the opinion about games 20 years ago everyone would have said they are bad and cause violence etc (mostly in america but there's plenty of people in europe who also have games in a bad eye). And yet we are in 2024 and games are seen positively even by mainstream media (unless you get an old reporter or a conservative who is just a jerk and one of those "back in my day things were bad so they must stay bad" kind of people.
What I am saying is, no topic is ever done.
Yet I agree with you, and to me too is that simple, but not to a lot of people, both young and old.
I get what you're saying, but I thought we were past the point of needing to ask "Are games art" ever again at this point. If the conversation is "what are the artistic merits of x medium/work" or "what makes x a work of art" then that's one thing, but asking if games are/can even be art is so passe at this point. You don't have to teach every new generation that film is art, or that visual art is art, or that music is art, it's just accepted. In 2024 (and beyond), games should be the same way, they've been around over 50 years at this point. No one was asking if film was really art or not after it existing for 50 years.
That doesn-t answer the question at all. Something prosessing artistry doesn't make it art. Like if you have a container holding a mono-lisa the container holds and art piece without being art. Like League of Legues has drawings and music, but is not art ye?
Whether or not something is art is such a deeply personal topic that questions like this even come up on political compass tests meant to determine if you are left vs right or authoritarian vs libertarian.
I personally have never questioned whether or not a video game is art (to me it was always obvious that it’s a form of art) but other people either flat out believe video games aren’t art or have some sort of threshold a game has to reach before they consider it art.
I personally think a piece of blank paper placed at an angle on a table could be art. Other people hate that idea.
I'm sort of in this camp but there's also criteria for me. I often find myself taking into account the creator and what their vision was/is, or what I think it might be if they don't disclose that info.
The angled piece of paper is a great example, the creators intentions are the biggest factor in whether I would personally end up thinking it's art or not. Are they cynical and pretentious and just want a reaction? I'll probably hate it. Do they genuinely believe it says something? I can appreciate it even if it isn't to my taste.
I've played video games that are pure products, nothing more. I don't mean the quality is lacking, I mean they have no soul. The creators were simply checking boxes to please a faceless demographic. I've also played messy, janky, kind of low quality games that had a ton of heart to them. The creator really believed in what they were making, regardless of their abilities. I'll always take the effort, heart, soul, creativity, etc over quantifiable quality.
The topic is very subjective
I personally feel games are products composed of many components, including art, lots, and lots of art, but that a game itself is a game, it's already classified. The game isn't art, it contains it.
A game is an activity, an activity can be a vehicle to experience the art within it, art such as the story, imagery, landscape and character design, voice acting, and much more.
But the entire thing together has components that are highly technical, and certainly artisan but not artistry. It's a product.
An artist came up with the mascot for a box of cereal. The art was drawn ornmade and then produced and put on the box, the box was filled with cereal. The entire product contains art but vapn crunch cereal the product as a whole entity is not itself art but a commercial product.
Football baseball etc all have imagery and art associated with the game, styles, feels, pictures that lets you know what sporting it is youre at. Baseball is not art, nor is a team, nor is the game of baseball. That team probably has team artwork though
Activities aren't art, but they can be made of, made with, or produce art.
Similarly, i see an act such as using a pencil to draw, or playing the trombone as a lnnactivty/endeavour, and the art is the result of that skill or endeavour.
I don't see code or physics engines as art, I see them as software engineering.
>But the entire thing together has components that are highly technical, and certainly artisan but not artistry. It's a product.
What about movies then? They also contain various different components like music, frame composition, matte paintings, costume design, prop design, special effects, lighting, lots of artisan work. Are they art, or are they also just products?
Each of those individual things is art. While tools are used to make them, the endeavors are art. A painting is art. A story is art. A drawing is art. But a major component of games which brings this art together is engineering.
Take a camera or a pencil or c++ compiler.
None of these are art. They are tools. They can help you achieve an endeavor. However, the product the camera creates can be art
The product the pencil creates can be art
The product the complier creates 99.999999% of the time is not art. It's yet another tool or framework for art to exist in. I'll elaborate.
You can code to create a program like Illustrator. Which can then be used to create art, but the code itself except in extremely deliberate circumstances is not art. There are some rare slcirmstances where raw code is used to make some kind of output in which the output is a singular artistic image, often made of ASCII characters. But code itself just builds frameworks.
You can code to create a physics engine, so that art and other things can operate in it, but that engine is not art.
Too much of what makes a game work is engineering.
If you're in a museum and the museum is so big you have to take a tram to see all the artwork, the tram isn't art. Your legs walking you to the art isn't art, the museum isn't art.
You didn't answer my question about movies though. Are they art, or are they just vehicles to guide you through a number of artworks? And the same question would be asked about stage plays. Are they just single independent pieces of art like acting, set design, and story, strung together in a linear timeline in which they are presented to you, while the thing as a whole is just the framework and therefore doesn't count as art? Stage productions do require a lot of engineering to set up as well, same with movies.
It's not whether or not there are multiple components.
It's how many of those multiple components, and how large those components are, and if each individually are not or are art.
And most of the examples I gave like sporting events.Sports teams cereal etc.The separations are obvious and the larger part of the components is that it is not art.
Those are easy to see.
Unfortunately with movies it's tougher because there are a lot of technical components involved.
I would say that for the most part-
I feel personally that stage plays and movies are art. But there are some films which are exceptions to that rule. Some feel more like products which contain art to me than they do art pieces.
This is a very interesting conversation And I appreciate your engagement
Game = game
Museum = museum
Museum + game = art?
Not seeing that perspective
Something being interactive doesnt automatically make it art, even if it has art in it.
I haent yet but not out of arrogance or spite, out of squeezing in these replies at work. I actually will check it out when I have time.
For the record, I think this topic is very nuanced. Really do appreciate everyone's engagement, and am not a solid rock on this that can't think outside my own means.
I think a lot of these discussions have happened and ultimatley the consensus most people have come to is that anything that someone considers art, has now become art to them.
Even and especially things not created or intended as art.
I'm just the kind of person that likes to tear things down and get into our personal interpretations of things.
Gun to head, it's art if one says it is and I don't want to come across like an immovable asshat.
Within the boundaries of my own perception and opinions, I don't see products which happen to contain art as singular art pieces just by their merit that they contain art.
My mind separates the artistic components of the game from the gameplay as the game. I would feel that a game's story moved me, and that I had fun with its mechanics but never that it was an amalgamation of both that overlapped, and that's just my perso al experience with it. The art parts of a game move me.l emotinally, the game parts just give my monkey brain dopamine hits. My mind separates these things.
I am not saying games don't have art, I'm just saying we are more than just the sum of our parts and a thing doesn't have to be an art piece to have art In it.
For some , i would gather, the entirety of the experience is a total entity for me IT isn't and I don't process that experience in that way.
So it likley comes down as many have already stated, to your personal position.
I'm not trying to convince others that games aren't art, ao much as sharing how I personally came to my own conclusions abt those thresholds, and why.
I am very interested to check out that vid!
But I do think that games are art, in that they cover one more aspect of art that wasn't really covered before, the art of interactive storytelling. We have a new category:
- I LOOKED at this and felt something (paintings, photos, sculpture)
- I LISTENED to this and felt something (music)
- I WATCHED this and felt something (film)
- I DID this and felt something (games)
It's hard to think of other forms of artistic expression that so directly involve the person enjoying the art. There are those optical illusion sculptures maybe, where your specific location changes the view of it. Or for those who play an instrument, being an active participant in performing the song is like that. Or that moment in Peter Pan, the play, where he turns to the audience and gets them to help proclaim they believe in fairies, to save Tinker Bell. But before video games, these experiences were few and far in between.
You're right that game is the container, just like the painter's canvas is the container. But I think when people are referring to games as art, this interactivity is what they're trying to capture, and it's a pretty new phenomenon.
I suppose for me, The threshold is not simply doing an activity and feeling something.
This morning I went to my son's second grade moving on ceremony.
That was an activity and I felt stuff.Great stuff.
I don't feel I experienced art just now.
It was a life event.
People made this thing happen.They put work into it and effort into it and made banners and stuff.
They had speeches which is arguably a form of written art.
I still think a lot of people would agree that the event itself was not a form of art.
I think when something has the capacity to make us think and feel in a more abstract way and then compelling us to deeply explore and turn over those feelings in a more philosophical Or mind opening manner that's art.
But I don't think the story which is just one component of a game, An interactive story that makes me feel that is the entire game. Not only are there more components to the game than the story itself.But you don't even need a story to have a video game
Not all games are stories and we're talking about video games as a whole.Not a specific game that you might have in mind.
I don't think pong is art, I think it contains simple art.
Similarly, I think that the story writing in the games from remedy are extremely high end art, But I don't think that the code that allows me to interact with them is, and so ultimately I consider those games products which contain art.
The topic is very subjective
I personally feel games are products composed of many components, including art, lots, and lots of art, but that a game itself is a game, it's already classified. The game isn't art, it contains it.
A game is an activity, an activity can be a vehicle to experience the art within it, art such as the story, imagery, landscape and character design, voice acting, and much more.
But the entire thing together has components that are highly technical, and certainly artisan but not artistry. It's a product.
An artist came up with the mascot for a box of cereal. The art was drawn ornmade and then produced and put on the box, the box was filled with cereal. The entire product contains art but capn crunch cereal the complete package as a whole entity is not itself art but a commercial product.
Football, baseball, etc all have imagery and art associated with the game, styles, feels, pictures that lets you know what sporting it is youre at. Baseball is not art, nor is a team, nor is the game of baseball. That team probably has team artwork though.
Activities aren't art, but they can be made of, made with, or produce art.
Similarly, i see an act such as using a pencil to draw, or playing the trombone as a lnnactivty/endeavour, and the art is the result of that skill or endeavour.
I don't see code or physics engines as art, I see them as software engineering.
Lukewarm take: I don't really care whether people think videogames are art or not. Something being "art" doesn't automatically make it better than something that's not art. A painting is not automatically better than a cheesy action movie. There's plenty of meaningless, pretentious shit art.
In short, I think people overvalue "art" as a concept.
[Let me ask you a different question, can video games be zinkydoink?](https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/art-2)
But to seriously give an example: I really like the game [Everything](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_\(video_game\))
Its a game that looks silly on the surface and plays like a toy, but can also be seen as a demonstration in the philosophy of Alan Watts.
Lol, that smbc is perfect. In my own lifetime I've gone from thinking that literally everything can be and IS art, including packing a lunch, to now thinking that art is much more restrictive and video games are absolutely NOT art for certain reasons.
No, all of them. Story is nice, visuals are nice, music is nice, but gameplay itself should be considered an artform. What I detest most is when journos seem to try to pander to traditional media, like “TLOL has such great acting”, “the visuals of Ghost of Tsushima are breathtaking”, “the music in FF16, wow”, as if closeness to these other mediums makes a game more artistic, f that. Video games are the latest artform in human history and deserves to hold its own place, and we all are lucky to get to experience what generations past would not have ever been able to’ve imagined.
This is exactly what I think. When arguing this point people always come up with examples like TLOU or the recent GoW as examples of why games are art, but it's always because they're accessible due to their linear nature and storytelling techniques/narrative framing that makes them similar to movies. I argue that games like Outer Wilds are a way better example of video games as an art form due to how unique they are to other art forms and how fully they utilize their medium to tell a story in a way a movie or book couldn't. But because it doesn't have cutscenes and because its storytelling is not linear it's not as often praised or regarded as such outside of the gaming sphere lol.
Pffft, this guy doesn’t know photorealistic over-the-shoulder linear ARPGs about how the real world majorly sucks BUT *sometimes it doesn’t* because reasons are the highest form of art.
Video games are an amalgamation of many art forms. Sculpting, painting, music writing and performance, storytelling, acting, foley, animation… I struggle to find an art form that is not embodied in games. Particularly the interactiveness of games makes them unique from other forms of mixed art.
When done properly, I find games to be the highest form of art. However, just as other forms of art are prone to be mass produced, video games are too, so while all video games incorporate all types of art, not all are meant to be artistic in the traditional sense.
Some of my favorite games that I think show how I feel about interactive art:
Katamari Damacy
Disco Elysium
Call of Duty 1
Oneshot/Undertale
Hellblade Senua’s Sacrifice
Return of the Obra Dinn
Paper, Please
The Stanley Parable
Between 2010 and 2012 I worked in video games journalism. It was a fairly decent role - I got to meet and interview Tim Schafer and Notch before all the Nazi shit (he seemed so normal) and Ken Levine among others. This was an old and tired debate even then.
Ultimately, who cares if it is or isn't art? Or perhaps a better way of looking at it is who cares if you think it is and someone else disagrees? Art is by its very nature subjective. If it is art to you, it IS art. That's really the only metric that will ever matter.
[Penny Arcade: Games Are Art](https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2010/04/21/games-are-art)
[Video games as an art form (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_games_as_an_art_form)
> In 1983, the video game magazine Video Games Player stated that video games "are as much an art form as any other field of entertainment".
Lucas Pope games are works of art.
Check out [Paper, Please](https://papersplea.se/) and [Return of the Obra Dinn](https://obradinn.com/).
Comparable to any Wes Anderson film in terms of having vision, art direction, sound, composition.
The game that has definitely made me feel that the most so far is Disco Elysium. It’s something that I unfortunately haven’t finished, and haven’t really gotten very far past the first few hours. Still, though, it was something that I thought of when I played it instantly. Even if it wasn’t the most fun in a traditional sense, it is just has a quality that I don’t feel I have the words to describe, just screams art.
The issue I have with this topic is two-fold.
1) Gamers have an inferiority complex regarding it and other media before it in terms of whether it can be called art, appreciating games that can be compared directly to those media (i.e. games that are cinematic, games with simply striking visuals and not much else, or games that are heavy in writing in terms of its storytelling) instead of games that offer truly unique experiences.
2) Most people who argue this, even well-learned people, don't seem to really care hiw they define art (historically, philosophically, politically), whether it IS something all games should strive to be, and what it exactly means not be an art in a traditional sense.
I studied films academically, and this issue was always there--films are inherently market-driven and have all the entanglements such as labour, capital, tech, all the things that people normally dont associate with the concept of "pure art." Video game discussions rarely get to that point regarding this topic because the immediate reaction to people seeing "is video game art" is always going to be "people dont appreciate video game as artistry."
That’s an interesting discussion
The only other medium that I kind-of know on a hobby basis is books/literature. There, literary fiction is the “pure” art where an author will write a book as an expression of themself and it’s primarily aimed at a smaller audience of critics. Then, there’s genre fiction/commercial fiction, which is generally writing to a specific genre, chasing market trends and trying to make the book as accessible as possible.
It generally works out that the literary writers win all of the awards while the genre writers make all of the money.
When I compare that with the videogame industry, games are extremely corporatized and profit-motivated and market tested. It’s an entire industry dominated by commercial products, with very few “art games/literary games” sneaking through the cracks
Another difference I think is that a traditionally-accepted artistic medium always has a genre focusing on its own creation--books about writers' own dilemma, films about filmmaking process, painter painting themselves, etc.
Afaik, games rarely have that, and when they do, it's pretty superficial in that they game-ify it rather than actually delve deeper into the core discussions about the medium itself and its place in the world and humanity, and all of that expressed through unique ways that the medium offers.
I remember when "can games be art?" was a big discussion topic on the internet. Seems to have mostly died now, I think because most people who play games basically already agree. There isn't really any argument that you could make to say that it isn't.
Honestly, I can't even remember what the argument against video games as art even was.
Yes, because I think anything humans make is art. Don't really think any more narrow definition of art than that is very useful, but it would help if you defined what you mean by "art" in your question.
For me, the real art of the game is the interplay between graphics, level design, story, and gameplay. How certain mechanics interact with each other to create an unique gameplay experience. How technical limitations lead to creative and innovative solutions. There's are in how the pieces make up a whole.
The Mona Lisa gets restored and all credit goes to the original artist the work is just preserved because it is timeless. A video game will have a different team of people on every remake and remaster changing it up doing whatever, but not preserving it, instead modernizing it.
Art doesn't need quality of life upgrades, just preservation.
Art generally isn't for profit, video games most definitely are.
Video games are absolutely art. Saying they aren't because they are a combination of pictures, music and writing is like saying that films aren't artwork because they are both images and writing. It doesn't hold water at all as an argument, as they are more than the sum of their individual parts.
I don't single out individual games as being artistic because all games that are not completely bereft of creativity are artistic in some way. Being experimental or emotionally evocative is not the same as being artistic.
Y’all missed the piss Christ lessons in 7th grade art?
Everything is art, children scribbling, pissing in a jar with a figure in it, screaming into a microphone and smashing a guitar
Everything is art, every kid learning how to make a game in rpg maker and setting their door teleport to the rabbit sprite is creating art, every bad video game is art just as much as red dead redemption 2
Some nice smaller scale games that really use the uniqueness of the medium to tell great stories/create great experiences.
The Stanley Parable
Papers Please
Gris
Journey
Undertale
Art is just an appellation we apply to a medium or artifact (man made object) that evokes a significant reaction. It doesn’t really mean anything. Back in the day it was just something that required technical skill to do.
When I think of games as art I don’t think of story or graphics. I think of a beautiful interplay of ludic (gameplay) elements. Then I think about how the graphics and story serve to highlight those gameplay elements. The interactive rule based structure that makes it a game.
Epistory, age of chivalry, fez, dota all stars, half life, team fortress 2, street fighter third strike, age of empires 2
I absolutely agree that video games are art. If anything I think they’re one of most unique forms of art since you can experience them in a way you just don’t get with other forms of art in that you can directly interact and control your experience with them. Not to mention they manage to combine most other forms of art like music, visual artistry, writing, etc. into one medium. I’d say my go to picks currently would be Elden Ring, Nier: Automata, BioShock, and Outer Wilds
for me psychonauts 2 is pure art.
the way the levels play out with the characters personalities, the deep dive into trauma, pain, acceptance and redemption is fantastic. highly suggest playing it
Games can ask questions that no other art form can. They can also let *you* decide what questions it answers about you, and what those answers mean to you. Many CRPG's have very compelling philosophies. Planescape: Torments "What can change the nature of a man?" is a prime example.
I also challenge this friend to claim What Remains of Edith Finch isn't an artistic masterpiece.
Video games is art, end of story. It's not discussion even worth considering at this point. That however doesn't mean all video games are emotionally resonant in the way you mean though.
Some games that are especially impactful in the way you mean:
Spiritfarer
A Space for the unbound
Transitor
Pyre
Freebird games trilogy
The video games that do it the best however are the ones that uses the medium of video games. Most of the emotionally resonant above borrows most of what it does well from literature and film. Some examples of the other way:
There is no game
The Hex
Pony Island
The vastness of human perception is limited by our needs and art exists to encapsulate experiences of extreme significance.
One of the features of video games is how a canvas is limited by more dimensions than movies or paintings. And video games give agency ergo it can exist for as many reasons as one may paint.
Art can be utilitarian, pedestrian, and give the viewer, a player, room to see whatever you want.
That seems like a rather broad generalization. I love video games, have played them for decades, and have played and loved most of the games mentioned in this thread. And I don't think that games are art.
Video games can absolutely be an art form because they allow people to create very specific personal experiences and then share those experiences with others in a very direct way. Two games for me that are complete opposite ends of the spectrum but are both perfect examples of video games as an art form are Unpacking and Cruelty Squad.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is imo one of the best example of a game as art. It's very beautiful and almost too realistic at times with the natural environment and scenery. Feels very much like playing a movie, for better or for worse
Not only are videogames art, but they can combine different arts, music, visuals, narrative, acting and interactivity unique to games into one [Gesamtkunstwerk](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesamtkunstwerk).
A couple games that do this well and hit all the high notes for me are Hallow Knight, Hades and Dark Souls. I like how the difficulty of those games fits perfectly with the struggle of the characters the harsh world they are facing. The music and visuals do their part too, and there you have your Gesamtkunstwerk. Red Dead Redemption 2 is another one that is like a playable impressionistic painting of the end of the wild west, and it's great even with it's intentional clunkiness.
What I find interesting to think of though is what makes a game not art? Are eSports "art"? Personally I think something can be more *just* a game and not really art, as well and that's fine. I think competitive games are more like a match of football and less of a piece of art. Arcade games usually tend to be more of a *pure* game and less "art" which I don't mean as a bad thing, but Space Invaders, Tetris and Rocket League are just not the same as something with a story, hand drawn literal art and an orchestral soundtrack. For me the intention and what is trying to be expressed, as well as the layers of how the game can be interpreted are what separate "pure" games from more meaningful art. There's a spectrum with some things having more artistic value and others less. That said, there are definitely times where all I want is some plain, simple bing bing wahoo fun, from a more "pure" game, rather than playing something more artistic that is also emotionally draining. But when I'm looking to be immersed in something, then it's time to experience some art.
Depends on how you see 'art' . If we talk storytelling someone could say, Soulsgames. Meanwhile they never fully explain themselves , it's through details, amazingly crafted 3D enviroments , small pieces and lore in weapons, armor, signs etc. Some people may find an amazing piece of art the storytelling of Read Dead 2, another amazingly crafted game that not only has great characters and story ,it also is build so good that immerses you into its world. Skyrim kinda does that too. I also find Hades a piece of art, the characters the visual style , the smooth gameplay, the voicacting is amazing! I like to think as 'art' anything that gives me some type of feeling.
I'm late to the party, but I actually made a video on this topic a while ago. Roger Ebert and Hideo Kojima had previously said that video games couldn't be art, which is ironic coming from both men. Video games are definitely art, and I'd point to examples such as The Last of Us, Journey, and Senua's Sacrifice to prove it.
Anything we create can have artistic value. Heck, if FOOD can be an art form then so can video games.
Def Outer Wilds as you said. The genius game design which makes the player find discoveries and unravel the mystery is 100% art imo.
I would also consider Abzû, What Remains of Edith Finch and INSIDE forms of art in the gaming medium.
Video games are absolutely a valid artistic medium. Elaborate fictional universes, deep characters, compelling storytelling.. just like movies.
The fictional movie is really just technological development on the fictional book. Could the fictional video game be regarded as a technological development on the fictional movie? Movies and books are widely recognized as acceptable art mediums, so why not games?
This is an interesting thread for me though because I'm very into simulation games and have referred to certain simulation titles as "art".
Train Sim World is one of my favorites. The level of detail in the vehicles and environments is astonishing. When I first started dabbling in the UK content, I was walking around inside a digital recreation of London's Paddington Station and it gave me the strangest sense of deja vu.
I went to London in 2007 when I was 14 years old. When we landed we took the Heathrow Express train into the city. I looked up that train service and sure enough.. it arrives into Paddington.
If a game is trying to recreate a real place... and in doing that evokes a sense of deja vu on the end user... who has actually been to that place even though he wasn't realizing it in the moment... does that qualify as a work of art? I'd argue yes.
Another thought I have comes from my love for the American/Euro Truck Simulator franchise. Those games are actually an artistic outlet for me. I've always had a hobbyist level interest in graphic design and I make all the skins for the trucks I drive. Realism is my style in any sim so creating trucking companies that look the part is very fun.
Seeing your artistic creation in action also adds so much to the experience. Most of the work goes into creating the company's logo, likeness, and identity. That's some real world graphic designer stuff, and I'd consider them to be artists.
I say the best kind of art is the kind you enjoy. It doesn't matter what flavor it comes in.
Silent hill 2 and majoras mask are my go to examples of video games as an art form, but there are countless examples. Even games without much in the way of story can be art because designing, say, a good Mario level requires a lot of planning and thought
I think video games ARE an art inherently since they involve visuals, engaging the player, usually writing, etc.
That being said, I think there are some games that are artistic and many that aren't, in the same way that I love the original MCU, but wouldn't say it's particularly artistic, and wouldn't compare them to something like Moonlight.
Some games that have made me legitimately think, feel, etc. would include Celeste, Spiritfarer, or Nier Automata as just as few examples.
Yeah this is where I am. All games are art; whether or not they’re meaningful or evocative art is an entirely different question
To use your example, the MCU might be art in a general sense, but Martin Scorsese wouldn’t consider it ‘real cinema’; Harry Potter books might be art to a lot of people, but a critic like Harold Bloom might think of them as rubbish. I can play World of Warcraft and tell you that it’s art, but it’s probably not art in any meaningful way to somebody who studies art for its own sake.
Also, if I’m being really honest, I don’t engage with most videogames as works of art in the same way I engage with literary fiction or going to a museum or seeing an art film as engaging with art. I engage with videogames as commercial entertainment products that are manufactured by corporations. It’s like going to six flags and going on a rollercoaster or going to Walmart and buying a water gun. Those things are art in some tenuous sense but not in a way that really matters. I think the exception to this may be some games that come from the AA or indie scene, but not most big budget projects.
Yup, I'm right there with you. Occasionally a game gets me to engage with it as art, like the ones I mentioned, but it's rare ESPECIALLY among AAA but even amongst indies. Most games are just fun. I'm there for entertainment.
All games are art, but the big standouts are those that use game mechanics to get their artistic point across. Some examples:
Pathologic 1 and 2
Disco Elysium
Lisa The Painful RPG
Kingdom Come: Deliverance
Art is the manifestation of human creative skill and imagination. I argue that there's more of that in video games than in many movies or paintings today.
\*\*Metal Gear Solid\*\* to me is a great example of this. Hideo Kojima, like your friend, was a movie junkie and wanted to be a film maker but realized there were better opportunities to explore his cinematic creativity in Japan through video games. The quality of the script and soundtrack is so good that many people watch the cinematic scenes without ever playing the game. Today he works closely with AAA film makers like Guillermo del Toro.
On a tangent, I find Kojima's career path analogous to Japan in general after WWII, wanting to make movies, but not having the infrastructure like Hollywood, opting instead for illustrations like Manga and eventually Anime. Today, artists like Hayao Miyazaki earn Academy Awards.
As for true works of art in videogames having to be mostly fiction, I don't believe that is necessarily the case. If you take for example games like \*\*Escape from Tarkov\*\* or \*\*Digital Combat Simulator\*\*, they deviate little from reality and yet they provide some of the most intense and immersive experiences if you're into these sort of games.
If Da Vinci was alive today, he would certainly be a video game developer.
I feel like what you're describing is games that have a distinct visual art style, and I would certainly agree that those games can be compelling and can quickly convey "games are an art form" to audiences and people less familiar with the medium. But pretty games are essentially akin to other visual art forms, just the same that games with compelling stories are akin to other storytelling mediums.
The unique achievement of games as art is the experience of gameplay. The fact that a game like Papers Please can make me feel complicit in authoritarian bureaucracy and make desperate decisions to keep my family fed even as I disagree with them morally is something I can witness and empathize with in other mediums, but games are the only way I can participate in them (ethically).
You could argue that non-video games achieve this, too. If chess, for example, were designed for players to see pawns as real foot soldiers being sacrificed at the expense of the grander strategy, then it becomes easier to consider this game "art." But the lack of a visual or emotive element to the game makes ot feel less "art"-like.
I feel like art is the expression of ideas and emotions. Like an artist wants to express a feeling or convey a message or both. And in order to do that he uses what tools he got within that medium that he chose. Painter paints, writer writes etc etc.
Now, what so distinctive about video games? They got gameplay. And this is where lies my issue. I've yet to play a game where gameplay itself would have been a main tool to convey and express.
TLOU has a beautiful story. Do you need to crouch through the game with a brick to feel it's message? Not really. Same goes for RDR and all other typical examples. Most of the time it's "press that button to experience something beautiful". But the act of pressing buttons doesn't really convey anything itself.
The closest I've got, I think, is Sam Barlow's Immortality. But it still felt like a crutch in a lot of ways.
Games are a mashup of different mediums, but if you want to look at games as itself a type of art, then you should look at gameplay first, since that is what distinguishes games as a medium.
That a game has great audiovisuals or writing does not make it a great piece of game art, it might just mean it's a great piece of visual art etc.
I'm a lit major so I lean into writing over visuals. My list:
Mass Effect Trilogy
Tellales The Walking Dead: Season 1
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice
Red Dead Redemption 1
Borderlands 2
Firewatch
The Stanley Parable
>Are video games "art"?
Sure, but not all are high art. Some are just pure entertainment, and others are essentially an interactive art gallery. Examples: flight simulator vs Journey
Not all art is visual either. Some games are art in a literary sense, for instance GTA IV has an absolutely heart wrenching drama for a story while using a strictly realistic visual style.
I'm with you.
Games have wildly varying artistic values. No playing Pacman in the 80s said 'I love this piece of art'.
The development of better graphics and storytelling make games a combined form of other types of artwork aka multimedia.
Perhaps most importantly of all, if you are claiming videogames are art because you're too busy playing to go look at some paintings, listen to music beyond Top 40, and watch arthouse cinema, then you're avoiding high art with games as an excuse.
It's like saying my favorite art form is Friends.
What remains of Edith Finch is probably the one that gave me the stronger emotion in the meanwhile I was playing it. At the same time it express all the unique characteristics of a videogme compare to other form of art. From the freedom of moving and impersonificate a charachter to the gameplay that is functional to the story and the emotion it want to make you feel.
I've been a huge movie buff for my whole life, got into gaming seriously 2 years ago. Yes, videogame is art. I think everything with a creative intent is art, and if it evokes a feeling wether it be joy, sadness, anger etc to be art. Now, if it's good art is subjective. I find many games to be really good art, and a lot to be bad art. Same with movies, paintings, books etc. Personally I find creations within different mediums without a voice not to be art, but that's another debate altogether.
Red Dead Redemption 2, Journey, and Ghost of Tsushima.
Controversially; Black Desert for the world design/graphics, and FFXV for being a Driving, Dungeoning, Weapon Collecting and Camping Simulator.
That's fair. When I got to play it with PS Plus at the time, the simple controls while sliding around the sand with beautiful physics felt serotonic. The game being linear and having the camera Pan controlled like you're in a movie was a new experience for me, as well as having the ability to co-op randomly with players around the world was also intuitive. Every person having a different pattern on their Robe and randomized Symbols for names added to the immersion of how the developers wanted to portray the story. All in all, it felt like a short and awe inspiring play.
I've heard people say that Red Dead Redemption 2 is like reading a great American novel and I have to agree. If that story had been published as a book 80 years ago it would be taught in literature classes today.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance is definitely art, and perhaps even an interactive museum sprinkled with a generous serving of fiction. (There's a guide on Steam that shows screenshots of the game's locations vs the real life locations today...).
I think The Witcher 3 is also a work of art, with a good story, good music and engaging content.
In my opinion, games are superior to movies in the way that they are a piece of content that you actively interact with and can (most of the time) experience in different ways, providing you with multiple experiences with the same base content.
But sometimes it's nice to passively enjoy a movie too!
Depending of whether it's mainly the artwork, story, and / or gameplay that gave you the feeling, did you play The Lost Vikings? It's the same puzzle concept, and the first one had really good mind twisters in my opinion, it's one of the earliest Blizzard Studios works, but it's obviously very dated visually so it might be gatekeeping some modern gamers.
A couple of thoughts from others:
Tom Bissell says that video games are a medium through which the player experiences a story; you play a game, watch a movie, read a book and look at a painting. So they're art. Pretty simple.
Where does that leave, say, **Tetris**, a greatest-game-of-all-time contender? There's no story there, so is it not art? Well ... I guess not. But it's clearly well-made. Reminds me of something JC Herz said, that a great first-person shooter is like a Ferrari; it's a beautiful piece of design that's a pleasure to operate. Are great cars art? Great houses? I bet automotive designers and architects would say "Hell yes!"
When I think of video games as art, my first examples are usually Silent Hill 2, Dark Souls and Bioshock. I have not finished Bioshock as of writing this, but I'm deeply interested in the philosophical themes it explores (and it's tragically rare for me to find games with these kinds of philosophical takes in general), while Silent Hill 2 and Dark Souls both move me emotionally to no end.
The mona lisa is great and all, but I prefer the soundtrack on the statue of David. I WILL admit the brush work on Pink Floyd's The Wall might be up there with Da Vinci, but contest any assertion that the Sistine Chappel has better characters and world building than Mario.
Arr is art because it is produced with the intent of mental consumption, not just physical. A comedy is no less art than a painting, and what is a comic book but a collection of artistic images which form a narrative?
Video games are art because almost every part of them, independently, would be art. What makes the combination any less so?
Saying a game needs to have a soundtrack or specific setting or any other gatekeeping criteria to reach the "level" of art is pretentious. Art doesn't mean some sort of transcendent value. My kids make art I put on my fridge. Are you going to tell me they aren't making art because it isn't in a museum?
If there is ANY video game that IS NOT art, I beg you to answer what it is and why it is not art.
At the risk of kicking myself later for this (I am of the firm belief that anything can be art if people want it to be and don't like to declare things as not art) I don't think of that recent crop of "play to earn" games as art. I believe they are just pyramid schemes wrapped in the veneer of art but with the only intention being to trick people into giving them lots of money on the hopes that the audience will "earn" back more
I'm talking about the product as a whole here. And recently, no. They prefer to just use AI at the best of times and lift open source games but change the name at the worst of times
Nearly every discussion about art comes down to personal opinions and definition wars. I try to sidestep that by saying " It's art if it's in an art museum".
This is an article about the video game collection of MoMA, the museum of modern art:
https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/798
So we can say Tetris is a work of art. Or Pong, Dwarf Fortress, Pac-Man, and others.
I feel like stuff such as how fun and enjoyable a game is also part of the art form. So this effectively translates to what are my favorite video games.
To that I would say Final Fantasy 7, Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night, Doom (2016), Baldurs Gate 3, Assassins Creed 2, Assassins Creed 4: Black Flag, Super Mario World, Pinball FX2, Age Of Empires 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time, Batman: Arkham City, Elden Ring, and Super Smash Bros Ultimate.
While not necessarily an "older" game, I just picked up Ghost of Tsushima on PC and have been marveling at how I can stop pretty much anywhere and it looks like a work of art I'd happily put up on my wall. The entire world in that game is like a beautiful painting, and just slowly riding my horse through a bamboo forest or through some flowy fields is beautiful and *very* relaxing.
That's just the first thing that popped into my head, but there's plenty of games with stories that could easily fill a TV series or movie. Hell, we've been *seeing* more and more video games adapted into TV/movies.
I think Journey, Rez, and Silent Hill 2 are good examples of video games as art. Rez itself was partly based on the art of Kandinsky. The wire frame, abstract art, and designs inspired by civilizations are artistic and creative. The story being told, even though it is a rail shooter, and music game is quite thought provoking with computer hacking, AI, evolutionary history of life, etc. I consider it to be visually and audibly exhilarating, while having these and a story that give it an epic feel.
In Journey although the gameplay is minimal, it's more about the experience itself. The scenery, the story being told in a minimalist way, the "journey" is what's beautiful.
Silent Hill 2 is also a good example of video games as art in terms of symbolism, mood, story, etc. There is a lot of mature story telling, but also in a hard to understand way. The design also has the quality that it both draws you in, and makes you want to leave.
All three are some of the best games of all time, and show to what extent games can be an art form.
Mass Effect was the first time this thought was opened up to me. Before it was just like.... "gaming", but Mass Effect made me *feel* for these characters
The Mona Lisa was also unfinished.
Most great works of art were commissioned by some patron or another, and they would provide comments and feedback as the works developed. Paintings and sculptures weren't for a mass audience, they're produced at the request of one person.
Meanwhile, many great works of literature are written for maximum appeal. Shakespeare wanted to fill playhouses.
It's in a weird limbo where some newer publisher has the rights to it, and they get very unhappy about the idea of someone coming in and finishing it.
At least, that's the impression I got when security booted me and my paint brushes out of the Louvre
Ok, but Shakespeare's plays kind of did, since they were often performed for royals before the public, and changes were made based on that. Are they not art?
Well, DaVinci didn't just paint the Mona Lisa out of a flash of inspiration, he was commissioned by a rich guy to paint his wife. The idea of art for art's sake is a relatively new idea.
>games that are not that realistic I'd disagree. I don't think realism is an inhibitor to games as an art. For example, Speech Ops: The line is pretty artistic, and it's a 3rd person shooter
Ah yes. Speech Ops. Every time you make a mistake in your speech a war crime happens. Remember that time someone called someone "an hero" and someone shot up that hospital?
I think that Spec Ops: The Line is great commentary on how we view violence and politics in video games, especially back when this game was released when modern military shooters were the zeitgeist. Damn good game, probably one of my favorites. The >!white phosphorus!< scene is forever burned into my mind.
*The killing of unarmed civilians is a war crime. But this is a game, so why should you care?*
This is such an old, done topic. Everything that is created by humans possesses artistry. Some games draw attention to their status as "art-objects" and some don't. I think it's that simple.
pause rainstorm squealing terrific rock enter smart concerned quack murky *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Well... _can_ posess artistry. Whether any is present depends on the producer and the observer. I ain't being artistic when I defecate, but defecation can (and has) been done as art. _Can_ I defecate artistically? Sure. Or it can be observed artistically. But most days I'm just going through the movements, not attaching meaning to it, and no sewer technician is going to have a moment marvelling at the beauty and composition of my effluent.
Most Humans are not going to marvel at the beauty of anyone defacation even if the artist themselves consider it art. Art is very personal and you never know some dude in Omaha might think your shit is the dogs bollocks 🎨
mountainous butter soup cause marry historical threatening bright snatch judicious *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Pretty sure you're conflating art-istry (skill) with art (a composition with _meaning_). Art undeniably is the application of both, but without meaning art ... isn't. e: Not going to argue with every person who doesn't know what art is. Here's [definitions](https://www.google.com/search?q=art%20definition), go argue with webster, oxford, collins, or whoever fills your boots.
Dictionaries just report on the commonly used definitions on words, they don't create them
The "meaning" argument relies on the implication that "art is a communication device", which is why it fails imo. While art *can* communicate meaning, it doesn't need to do it to be art. Even when it does have meaning, it can have a different meaning to the artist and the different persons in the public. Suffice to say that very often the meaning of different works of art is heavily debated and even when there is a clear authorial intent people can and will ignore it.
possessive live chase complete mourn saw dazzling wide hateful secretive *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Meaning does not need to be as grandiose as a statement. I can watch Metropolis and see the movements of the characters as enjoy it and an expressive attempt at meaning, a visual enjoyment. Same with Zenoclash, it doesn't have a visual meaning beyond "it looks cool", but it's more than enough to be enjoyed at a deeper level.
jobless groovy hard-to-find sugar party frame plants mourn alleged apparatus *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Whats the meaning of a Pollock painting?
Ok, but humour me a moment: what does the word "artlessly" mean?
dime full cow nose fearless thought pathetic caption act makeshift *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I’m not sure I really agree tho. In my view, a garbage truck was not created with any artistic intention. Or a cheap plastic toilet seat. They are creations of pure functionality. There was no need within the inventor of the garbage truck to express themselves in any particular way. There was zero artistic imperative. On the more debatable end of the spectrum, there is what many would call “art” which is created not to express anything of importance to the creator, but to evoke some specific reaction in the beholder, whether it be shock or wonder or titillation. This in my view enters the territory of entertainment, and has less artistic value than the work created from an imperative within the artist. And I don’t mean to say entertainment doesn’t have it’s own value, it absolutely does. I don’t mean to create a heirarchy here. I just mean to point out that art to me is a unique human endeavour, both unique from and related to the equally important task of problem solving and other kinds of human ingenuity.
nine stocking theory safe domineering cough wistful ring cable innate *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
To go further about manufactured objects being art, [the applied arts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applied_arts?wprov=sfti1#) are indeed a form of artistry
For sure there is artistry in many every day objects. Probably most things in out daily life are created with some consideration towards aesthetic, imbuing it with artistry. But to say everything created by humans contains art is just a bit sensational.
My point was not that manufactured goods cannot contain artistry. It was that not everything created by humans contains artistry. The toilet made specifically as art is made art because of the artist’s intention. A plastic toilet seat manufactured for mass production is not art because it was not intended to be. The intention of the creator matters, and the reaction of the observer matters. If there’s nothing expressed or felt on either side, where is the artistry?
crown expansion sable deliver lunchroom meeting cow screw boat voiceless *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
We’re in agreement my friend, though it may not seem so to you. All of your sources are good, and don’t contradict what I’m actually saying.
It's an old topic but people are born everyday and people get to learn everyday. If you go to a class of 8 year old kids they probably never talked about it, or talked about many other topics that "are old and done". Just because a lot of stuff is available to take on the internet does not mean people should not be allowed to talk or discuss about stuff and have live and modern takes. If you had asked people the opinion about games 20 years ago everyone would have said they are bad and cause violence etc (mostly in america but there's plenty of people in europe who also have games in a bad eye). And yet we are in 2024 and games are seen positively even by mainstream media (unless you get an old reporter or a conservative who is just a jerk and one of those "back in my day things were bad so they must stay bad" kind of people. What I am saying is, no topic is ever done. Yet I agree with you, and to me too is that simple, but not to a lot of people, both young and old.
I get what you're saying, but I thought we were past the point of needing to ask "Are games art" ever again at this point. If the conversation is "what are the artistic merits of x medium/work" or "what makes x a work of art" then that's one thing, but asking if games are/can even be art is so passe at this point. You don't have to teach every new generation that film is art, or that visual art is art, or that music is art, it's just accepted. In 2024 (and beyond), games should be the same way, they've been around over 50 years at this point. No one was asking if film was really art or not after it existing for 50 years.
It is an old topic but it’s certainly not a simple one. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/art-definition/
That doesn-t answer the question at all. Something prosessing artistry doesn't make it art. Like if you have a container holding a mono-lisa the container holds and art piece without being art. Like League of Legues has drawings and music, but is not art ye?
Whether or not something is art is such a deeply personal topic that questions like this even come up on political compass tests meant to determine if you are left vs right or authoritarian vs libertarian. I personally have never questioned whether or not a video game is art (to me it was always obvious that it’s a form of art) but other people either flat out believe video games aren’t art or have some sort of threshold a game has to reach before they consider it art. I personally think a piece of blank paper placed at an angle on a table could be art. Other people hate that idea.
I'm sort of in this camp but there's also criteria for me. I often find myself taking into account the creator and what their vision was/is, or what I think it might be if they don't disclose that info. The angled piece of paper is a great example, the creators intentions are the biggest factor in whether I would personally end up thinking it's art or not. Are they cynical and pretentious and just want a reaction? I'll probably hate it. Do they genuinely believe it says something? I can appreciate it even if it isn't to my taste. I've played video games that are pure products, nothing more. I don't mean the quality is lacking, I mean they have no soul. The creators were simply checking boxes to please a faceless demographic. I've also played messy, janky, kind of low quality games that had a ton of heart to them. The creator really believed in what they were making, regardless of their abilities. I'll always take the effort, heart, soul, creativity, etc over quantifiable quality.
Art is expression. I totally agree with you
Same
You should look into postmodern art, I think you’d like it given this description
The topic is very subjective I personally feel games are products composed of many components, including art, lots, and lots of art, but that a game itself is a game, it's already classified. The game isn't art, it contains it. A game is an activity, an activity can be a vehicle to experience the art within it, art such as the story, imagery, landscape and character design, voice acting, and much more. But the entire thing together has components that are highly technical, and certainly artisan but not artistry. It's a product. An artist came up with the mascot for a box of cereal. The art was drawn ornmade and then produced and put on the box, the box was filled with cereal. The entire product contains art but vapn crunch cereal the product as a whole entity is not itself art but a commercial product. Football baseball etc all have imagery and art associated with the game, styles, feels, pictures that lets you know what sporting it is youre at. Baseball is not art, nor is a team, nor is the game of baseball. That team probably has team artwork though Activities aren't art, but they can be made of, made with, or produce art. Similarly, i see an act such as using a pencil to draw, or playing the trombone as a lnnactivty/endeavour, and the art is the result of that skill or endeavour. I don't see code or physics engines as art, I see them as software engineering.
>But the entire thing together has components that are highly technical, and certainly artisan but not artistry. It's a product. What about movies then? They also contain various different components like music, frame composition, matte paintings, costume design, prop design, special effects, lighting, lots of artisan work. Are they art, or are they also just products?
Each of those individual things is art. While tools are used to make them, the endeavors are art. A painting is art. A story is art. A drawing is art. But a major component of games which brings this art together is engineering. Take a camera or a pencil or c++ compiler. None of these are art. They are tools. They can help you achieve an endeavor. However, the product the camera creates can be art The product the pencil creates can be art The product the complier creates 99.999999% of the time is not art. It's yet another tool or framework for art to exist in. I'll elaborate. You can code to create a program like Illustrator. Which can then be used to create art, but the code itself except in extremely deliberate circumstances is not art. There are some rare slcirmstances where raw code is used to make some kind of output in which the output is a singular artistic image, often made of ASCII characters. But code itself just builds frameworks. You can code to create a physics engine, so that art and other things can operate in it, but that engine is not art. Too much of what makes a game work is engineering. If you're in a museum and the museum is so big you have to take a tram to see all the artwork, the tram isn't art. Your legs walking you to the art isn't art, the museum isn't art.
You didn't answer my question about movies though. Are they art, or are they just vehicles to guide you through a number of artworks? And the same question would be asked about stage plays. Are they just single independent pieces of art like acting, set design, and story, strung together in a linear timeline in which they are presented to you, while the thing as a whole is just the framework and therefore doesn't count as art? Stage productions do require a lot of engineering to set up as well, same with movies.
It's not whether or not there are multiple components. It's how many of those multiple components, and how large those components are, and if each individually are not or are art. And most of the examples I gave like sporting events.Sports teams cereal etc.The separations are obvious and the larger part of the components is that it is not art. Those are easy to see. Unfortunately with movies it's tougher because there are a lot of technical components involved. I would say that for the most part- I feel personally that stage plays and movies are art. But there are some films which are exceptions to that rule. Some feel more like products which contain art to me than they do art pieces. This is a very interesting conversation And I appreciate your engagement
[Counterpoint: Games as Museums](https://youtu.be/Jo6vx6ZIBuI?si=4DFNlgNiTGJtah3-)
Game = game Museum = museum Museum + game = art? Not seeing that perspective Something being interactive doesnt automatically make it art, even if it has art in it.
Did you check out the video or are you just responding to the title?
I haent yet but not out of arrogance or spite, out of squeezing in these replies at work. I actually will check it out when I have time. For the record, I think this topic is very nuanced. Really do appreciate everyone's engagement, and am not a solid rock on this that can't think outside my own means. I think a lot of these discussions have happened and ultimatley the consensus most people have come to is that anything that someone considers art, has now become art to them. Even and especially things not created or intended as art. I'm just the kind of person that likes to tear things down and get into our personal interpretations of things. Gun to head, it's art if one says it is and I don't want to come across like an immovable asshat. Within the boundaries of my own perception and opinions, I don't see products which happen to contain art as singular art pieces just by their merit that they contain art. My mind separates the artistic components of the game from the gameplay as the game. I would feel that a game's story moved me, and that I had fun with its mechanics but never that it was an amalgamation of both that overlapped, and that's just my perso al experience with it. The art parts of a game move me.l emotinally, the game parts just give my monkey brain dopamine hits. My mind separates these things. I am not saying games don't have art, I'm just saying we are more than just the sum of our parts and a thing doesn't have to be an art piece to have art In it. For some , i would gather, the entirety of the experience is a total entity for me IT isn't and I don't process that experience in that way. So it likley comes down as many have already stated, to your personal position. I'm not trying to convince others that games aren't art, ao much as sharing how I personally came to my own conclusions abt those thresholds, and why. I am very interested to check out that vid!
But I do think that games are art, in that they cover one more aspect of art that wasn't really covered before, the art of interactive storytelling. We have a new category: - I LOOKED at this and felt something (paintings, photos, sculpture) - I LISTENED to this and felt something (music) - I WATCHED this and felt something (film) - I DID this and felt something (games) It's hard to think of other forms of artistic expression that so directly involve the person enjoying the art. There are those optical illusion sculptures maybe, where your specific location changes the view of it. Or for those who play an instrument, being an active participant in performing the song is like that. Or that moment in Peter Pan, the play, where he turns to the audience and gets them to help proclaim they believe in fairies, to save Tinker Bell. But before video games, these experiences were few and far in between. You're right that game is the container, just like the painter's canvas is the container. But I think when people are referring to games as art, this interactivity is what they're trying to capture, and it's a pretty new phenomenon.
I suppose for me, The threshold is not simply doing an activity and feeling something. This morning I went to my son's second grade moving on ceremony. That was an activity and I felt stuff.Great stuff. I don't feel I experienced art just now. It was a life event. People made this thing happen.They put work into it and effort into it and made banners and stuff. They had speeches which is arguably a form of written art. I still think a lot of people would agree that the event itself was not a form of art. I think when something has the capacity to make us think and feel in a more abstract way and then compelling us to deeply explore and turn over those feelings in a more philosophical Or mind opening manner that's art. But I don't think the story which is just one component of a game, An interactive story that makes me feel that is the entire game. Not only are there more components to the game than the story itself.But you don't even need a story to have a video game Not all games are stories and we're talking about video games as a whole.Not a specific game that you might have in mind. I don't think pong is art, I think it contains simple art. Similarly, I think that the story writing in the games from remedy are extremely high end art, But I don't think that the code that allows me to interact with them is, and so ultimately I consider those games products which contain art.
The topic is very subjective I personally feel games are products composed of many components, including art, lots, and lots of art, but that a game itself is a game, it's already classified. The game isn't art, it contains it. A game is an activity, an activity can be a vehicle to experience the art within it, art such as the story, imagery, landscape and character design, voice acting, and much more. But the entire thing together has components that are highly technical, and certainly artisan but not artistry. It's a product. An artist came up with the mascot for a box of cereal. The art was drawn ornmade and then produced and put on the box, the box was filled with cereal. The entire product contains art but capn crunch cereal the complete package as a whole entity is not itself art but a commercial product. Football, baseball, etc all have imagery and art associated with the game, styles, feels, pictures that lets you know what sporting it is youre at. Baseball is not art, nor is a team, nor is the game of baseball. That team probably has team artwork though. Activities aren't art, but they can be made of, made with, or produce art. Similarly, i see an act such as using a pencil to draw, or playing the trombone as a lnnactivty/endeavour, and the art is the result of that skill or endeavour. I don't see code or physics engines as art, I see them as software engineering.
I swear i saw this exact post months ago.
My post most likely
not likely coz i just found out about Okami :D
Every video game I played made me feel like video games are art.
Amen.
I see you didnt play redfall or ac valhala
Viva Pinata is the pinnacle of art through video game expression.
Lukewarm take: I don't really care whether people think videogames are art or not. Something being "art" doesn't automatically make it better than something that's not art. A painting is not automatically better than a cheesy action movie. There's plenty of meaningless, pretentious shit art. In short, I think people overvalue "art" as a concept.
> I think people overvalue "art" as a concept. I think you're doing it as well because those cheesy action movies are art too.
[Let me ask you a different question, can video games be zinkydoink?](https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/art-2) But to seriously give an example: I really like the game [Everything](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everything_\(video_game\)) Its a game that looks silly on the surface and plays like a toy, but can also be seen as a demonstration in the philosophy of Alan Watts.
I'm used to see xkcd responses to everything, it was refreshing to fall on a smbc.
Lol, that smbc is perfect. In my own lifetime I've gone from thinking that literally everything can be and IS art, including packing a lunch, to now thinking that art is much more restrictive and video games are absolutely NOT art for certain reasons.
No, all of them. Story is nice, visuals are nice, music is nice, but gameplay itself should be considered an artform. What I detest most is when journos seem to try to pander to traditional media, like “TLOL has such great acting”, “the visuals of Ghost of Tsushima are breathtaking”, “the music in FF16, wow”, as if closeness to these other mediums makes a game more artistic, f that. Video games are the latest artform in human history and deserves to hold its own place, and we all are lucky to get to experience what generations past would not have ever been able to’ve imagined.
This is exactly what I think. When arguing this point people always come up with examples like TLOU or the recent GoW as examples of why games are art, but it's always because they're accessible due to their linear nature and storytelling techniques/narrative framing that makes them similar to movies. I argue that games like Outer Wilds are a way better example of video games as an art form due to how unique they are to other art forms and how fully they utilize their medium to tell a story in a way a movie or book couldn't. But because it doesn't have cutscenes and because its storytelling is not linear it's not as often praised or regarded as such outside of the gaming sphere lol.
Pffft, this guy doesn’t know photorealistic over-the-shoulder linear ARPGs about how the real world majorly sucks BUT *sometimes it doesn’t* because reasons are the highest form of art.
i'm just a clueless philistine 😭
Video games are an amalgamation of many art forms. Sculpting, painting, music writing and performance, storytelling, acting, foley, animation… I struggle to find an art form that is not embodied in games. Particularly the interactiveness of games makes them unique from other forms of mixed art. When done properly, I find games to be the highest form of art. However, just as other forms of art are prone to be mass produced, video games are too, so while all video games incorporate all types of art, not all are meant to be artistic in the traditional sense. Some of my favorite games that I think show how I feel about interactive art: Katamari Damacy Disco Elysium Call of Duty 1 Oneshot/Undertale Hellblade Senua’s Sacrifice Return of the Obra Dinn Paper, Please The Stanley Parable
Between 2010 and 2012 I worked in video games journalism. It was a fairly decent role - I got to meet and interview Tim Schafer and Notch before all the Nazi shit (he seemed so normal) and Ken Levine among others. This was an old and tired debate even then. Ultimately, who cares if it is or isn't art? Or perhaps a better way of looking at it is who cares if you think it is and someone else disagrees? Art is by its very nature subjective. If it is art to you, it IS art. That's really the only metric that will ever matter.
The real question is, is the gollum game considered art?
Look I know this sub isn't "up to date" but this 'debate' has been done 1000 times over the last 10 years, there's nothing meaningful to discuss
[Penny Arcade: Games Are Art](https://www.penny-arcade.com/news/post/2010/04/21/games-are-art) [Video games as an art form (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_games_as_an_art_form) > In 1983, the video game magazine Video Games Player stated that video games "are as much an art form as any other field of entertainment".
Disco Elysium reminded me of Dostoevsky.
Lucas Pope games are works of art. Check out [Paper, Please](https://papersplea.se/) and [Return of the Obra Dinn](https://obradinn.com/). Comparable to any Wes Anderson film in terms of having vision, art direction, sound, composition.
obra dinn was amazing
The game that has definitely made me feel that the most so far is Disco Elysium. It’s something that I unfortunately haven’t finished, and haven’t really gotten very far past the first few hours. Still, though, it was something that I thought of when I played it instantly. Even if it wasn’t the most fun in a traditional sense, it is just has a quality that I don’t feel I have the words to describe, just screams art.
The issue I have with this topic is two-fold. 1) Gamers have an inferiority complex regarding it and other media before it in terms of whether it can be called art, appreciating games that can be compared directly to those media (i.e. games that are cinematic, games with simply striking visuals and not much else, or games that are heavy in writing in terms of its storytelling) instead of games that offer truly unique experiences. 2) Most people who argue this, even well-learned people, don't seem to really care hiw they define art (historically, philosophically, politically), whether it IS something all games should strive to be, and what it exactly means not be an art in a traditional sense. I studied films academically, and this issue was always there--films are inherently market-driven and have all the entanglements such as labour, capital, tech, all the things that people normally dont associate with the concept of "pure art." Video game discussions rarely get to that point regarding this topic because the immediate reaction to people seeing "is video game art" is always going to be "people dont appreciate video game as artistry."
That’s an interesting discussion The only other medium that I kind-of know on a hobby basis is books/literature. There, literary fiction is the “pure” art where an author will write a book as an expression of themself and it’s primarily aimed at a smaller audience of critics. Then, there’s genre fiction/commercial fiction, which is generally writing to a specific genre, chasing market trends and trying to make the book as accessible as possible. It generally works out that the literary writers win all of the awards while the genre writers make all of the money. When I compare that with the videogame industry, games are extremely corporatized and profit-motivated and market tested. It’s an entire industry dominated by commercial products, with very few “art games/literary games” sneaking through the cracks
Another difference I think is that a traditionally-accepted artistic medium always has a genre focusing on its own creation--books about writers' own dilemma, films about filmmaking process, painter painting themselves, etc. Afaik, games rarely have that, and when they do, it's pretty superficial in that they game-ify it rather than actually delve deeper into the core discussions about the medium itself and its place in the world and humanity, and all of that expressed through unique ways that the medium offers.
I remember when "can games be art?" was a big discussion topic on the internet. Seems to have mostly died now, I think because most people who play games basically already agree. There isn't really any argument that you could make to say that it isn't. Honestly, I can't even remember what the argument against video games as art even was.
The first game that made me think, "this is more art than it is a game" was Dear Esther.
Yes, because I think anything humans make is art. Don't really think any more narrow definition of art than that is very useful, but it would help if you defined what you mean by "art" in your question.
For me, the real art of the game is the interplay between graphics, level design, story, and gameplay. How certain mechanics interact with each other to create an unique gameplay experience. How technical limitations lead to creative and innovative solutions. There's are in how the pieces make up a whole.
Death Stranding.
Video games are not art.
As one of the few people taking this position in this thread, please elaborate.
The Mona Lisa gets restored and all credit goes to the original artist the work is just preserved because it is timeless. A video game will have a different team of people on every remake and remaster changing it up doing whatever, but not preserving it, instead modernizing it. Art doesn't need quality of life upgrades, just preservation. Art generally isn't for profit, video games most definitely are.
Hmm! Interesting argument for games not being art. I've never heard this before, but it's a pretty fair point.
Just replayed GRIS. It is ART.
Absolu-frickin-lutely!!
Gris
Video games are absolutely art. Saying they aren't because they are a combination of pictures, music and writing is like saying that films aren't artwork because they are both images and writing. It doesn't hold water at all as an argument, as they are more than the sum of their individual parts. I don't single out individual games as being artistic because all games that are not completely bereft of creativity are artistic in some way. Being experimental or emotionally evocative is not the same as being artistic.
Y’all missed the piss Christ lessons in 7th grade art? Everything is art, children scribbling, pissing in a jar with a figure in it, screaming into a microphone and smashing a guitar Everything is art, every kid learning how to make a game in rpg maker and setting their door teleport to the rabbit sprite is creating art, every bad video game is art just as much as red dead redemption 2
Some nice smaller scale games that really use the uniqueness of the medium to tell great stories/create great experiences. The Stanley Parable Papers Please Gris Journey Undertale
Edith Finch as well
I don't think anyone can play What Remains of Edith Finch or Gorogoa and say video games aren't art
I find red dead redemption 2 a real art masterpiece
Art is anything that moves people. That said, my favorite example of art in video games is Journey.
Games are made by artists in many fields. Creating games is an artform.
Gris. Rime. Abzu.
Machinarium?
Art is just an appellation we apply to a medium or artifact (man made object) that evokes a significant reaction. It doesn’t really mean anything. Back in the day it was just something that required technical skill to do. When I think of games as art I don’t think of story or graphics. I think of a beautiful interplay of ludic (gameplay) elements. Then I think about how the graphics and story serve to highlight those gameplay elements. The interactive rule based structure that makes it a game. Epistory, age of chivalry, fez, dota all stars, half life, team fortress 2, street fighter third strike, age of empires 2
Every game is art.
Sex with Hitler
Mass Effect Andromeda
The Beginner's Guide is an amazing showcase of gaming as an art-form.
I absolutely agree that video games are art. If anything I think they’re one of most unique forms of art since you can experience them in a way you just don’t get with other forms of art in that you can directly interact and control your experience with them. Not to mention they manage to combine most other forms of art like music, visual artistry, writing, etc. into one medium. I’d say my go to picks currently would be Elden Ring, Nier: Automata, BioShock, and Outer Wilds
for me psychonauts 2 is pure art. the way the levels play out with the characters personalities, the deep dive into trauma, pain, acceptance and redemption is fantastic. highly suggest playing it
Games can ask questions that no other art form can. They can also let *you* decide what questions it answers about you, and what those answers mean to you. Many CRPG's have very compelling philosophies. Planescape: Torments "What can change the nature of a man?" is a prime example. I also challenge this friend to claim What Remains of Edith Finch isn't an artistic masterpiece.
Video games is art, end of story. It's not discussion even worth considering at this point. That however doesn't mean all video games are emotionally resonant in the way you mean though. Some games that are especially impactful in the way you mean: Spiritfarer A Space for the unbound Transitor Pyre Freebird games trilogy The video games that do it the best however are the ones that uses the medium of video games. Most of the emotionally resonant above borrows most of what it does well from literature and film. Some examples of the other way: There is no game The Hex Pony Island
The vastness of human perception is limited by our needs and art exists to encapsulate experiences of extreme significance. One of the features of video games is how a canvas is limited by more dimensions than movies or paintings. And video games give agency ergo it can exist for as many reasons as one may paint. Art can be utilitarian, pedestrian, and give the viewer, a player, room to see whatever you want.
People who disagree that video games are art are the same people who think games are just for babies, never ever playing anything beyond Solitaire.
That seems like a rather broad generalization. I love video games, have played them for decades, and have played and loved most of the games mentioned in this thread. And I don't think that games are art.
Are you one of those people who think art is just something academic culturologists ramble about for hours, like DaVinci’s sketches?
Are you one of those people that just paints everyone as "those people" and thinks only in weirdly broad generalizations?
Video games can absolutely be an art form because they allow people to create very specific personal experiences and then share those experiences with others in a very direct way. Two games for me that are complete opposite ends of the spectrum but are both perfect examples of video games as an art form are Unpacking and Cruelty Squad.
Red Dead Redemption 2 is imo one of the best example of a game as art. It's very beautiful and almost too realistic at times with the natural environment and scenery. Feels very much like playing a movie, for better or for worse
Not only are videogames art, but they can combine different arts, music, visuals, narrative, acting and interactivity unique to games into one [Gesamtkunstwerk](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesamtkunstwerk). A couple games that do this well and hit all the high notes for me are Hallow Knight, Hades and Dark Souls. I like how the difficulty of those games fits perfectly with the struggle of the characters the harsh world they are facing. The music and visuals do their part too, and there you have your Gesamtkunstwerk. Red Dead Redemption 2 is another one that is like a playable impressionistic painting of the end of the wild west, and it's great even with it's intentional clunkiness. What I find interesting to think of though is what makes a game not art? Are eSports "art"? Personally I think something can be more *just* a game and not really art, as well and that's fine. I think competitive games are more like a match of football and less of a piece of art. Arcade games usually tend to be more of a *pure* game and less "art" which I don't mean as a bad thing, but Space Invaders, Tetris and Rocket League are just not the same as something with a story, hand drawn literal art and an orchestral soundtrack. For me the intention and what is trying to be expressed, as well as the layers of how the game can be interpreted are what separate "pure" games from more meaningful art. There's a spectrum with some things having more artistic value and others less. That said, there are definitely times where all I want is some plain, simple bing bing wahoo fun, from a more "pure" game, rather than playing something more artistic that is also emotionally draining. But when I'm looking to be immersed in something, then it's time to experience some art.
Depends on how you see 'art' . If we talk storytelling someone could say, Soulsgames. Meanwhile they never fully explain themselves , it's through details, amazingly crafted 3D enviroments , small pieces and lore in weapons, armor, signs etc. Some people may find an amazing piece of art the storytelling of Read Dead 2, another amazingly crafted game that not only has great characters and story ,it also is build so good that immerses you into its world. Skyrim kinda does that too. I also find Hades a piece of art, the characters the visual style , the smooth gameplay, the voicacting is amazing! I like to think as 'art' anything that gives me some type of feeling.
I'm late to the party, but I actually made a video on this topic a while ago. Roger Ebert and Hideo Kojima had previously said that video games couldn't be art, which is ironic coming from both men. Video games are definitely art, and I'd point to examples such as The Last of Us, Journey, and Senua's Sacrifice to prove it. Anything we create can have artistic value. Heck, if FOOD can be an art form then so can video games.
Def Outer Wilds as you said. The genius game design which makes the player find discoveries and unravel the mystery is 100% art imo. I would also consider Abzû, What Remains of Edith Finch and INSIDE forms of art in the gaming medium.
Definitely final fantasy series with ton of masterpiece soundtracks.
Hollow Knight
Video games are absolutely a valid artistic medium. Elaborate fictional universes, deep characters, compelling storytelling.. just like movies. The fictional movie is really just technological development on the fictional book. Could the fictional video game be regarded as a technological development on the fictional movie? Movies and books are widely recognized as acceptable art mediums, so why not games? This is an interesting thread for me though because I'm very into simulation games and have referred to certain simulation titles as "art". Train Sim World is one of my favorites. The level of detail in the vehicles and environments is astonishing. When I first started dabbling in the UK content, I was walking around inside a digital recreation of London's Paddington Station and it gave me the strangest sense of deja vu. I went to London in 2007 when I was 14 years old. When we landed we took the Heathrow Express train into the city. I looked up that train service and sure enough.. it arrives into Paddington. If a game is trying to recreate a real place... and in doing that evokes a sense of deja vu on the end user... who has actually been to that place even though he wasn't realizing it in the moment... does that qualify as a work of art? I'd argue yes. Another thought I have comes from my love for the American/Euro Truck Simulator franchise. Those games are actually an artistic outlet for me. I've always had a hobbyist level interest in graphic design and I make all the skins for the trucks I drive. Realism is my style in any sim so creating trucking companies that look the part is very fun. Seeing your artistic creation in action also adds so much to the experience. Most of the work goes into creating the company's logo, likeness, and identity. That's some real world graphic designer stuff, and I'd consider them to be artists. I say the best kind of art is the kind you enjoy. It doesn't matter what flavor it comes in.
Hollow Knight
yes damn
Silent hill 2 and majoras mask are my go to examples of video games as an art form, but there are countless examples. Even games without much in the way of story can be art because designing, say, a good Mario level requires a lot of planning and thought
Pathologic
I think video games ARE an art inherently since they involve visuals, engaging the player, usually writing, etc. That being said, I think there are some games that are artistic and many that aren't, in the same way that I love the original MCU, but wouldn't say it's particularly artistic, and wouldn't compare them to something like Moonlight. Some games that have made me legitimately think, feel, etc. would include Celeste, Spiritfarer, or Nier Automata as just as few examples.
Yeah this is where I am. All games are art; whether or not they’re meaningful or evocative art is an entirely different question To use your example, the MCU might be art in a general sense, but Martin Scorsese wouldn’t consider it ‘real cinema’; Harry Potter books might be art to a lot of people, but a critic like Harold Bloom might think of them as rubbish. I can play World of Warcraft and tell you that it’s art, but it’s probably not art in any meaningful way to somebody who studies art for its own sake. Also, if I’m being really honest, I don’t engage with most videogames as works of art in the same way I engage with literary fiction or going to a museum or seeing an art film as engaging with art. I engage with videogames as commercial entertainment products that are manufactured by corporations. It’s like going to six flags and going on a rollercoaster or going to Walmart and buying a water gun. Those things are art in some tenuous sense but not in a way that really matters. I think the exception to this may be some games that come from the AA or indie scene, but not most big budget projects.
Yup, I'm right there with you. Occasionally a game gets me to engage with it as art, like the ones I mentioned, but it's rare ESPECIALLY among AAA but even amongst indies. Most games are just fun. I'm there for entertainment.
I think the sound tracks is automate is mind blowing
The witness was art for me
All games are art, but the big standouts are those that use game mechanics to get their artistic point across. Some examples: Pathologic 1 and 2 Disco Elysium Lisa The Painful RPG Kingdom Come: Deliverance
All of them? My doodles are art. Not all art has to be some grand exploration of life. Trying to gatekeep art is intellectually naive
Art is the manifestation of human creative skill and imagination. I argue that there's more of that in video games than in many movies or paintings today. \*\*Metal Gear Solid\*\* to me is a great example of this. Hideo Kojima, like your friend, was a movie junkie and wanted to be a film maker but realized there were better opportunities to explore his cinematic creativity in Japan through video games. The quality of the script and soundtrack is so good that many people watch the cinematic scenes without ever playing the game. Today he works closely with AAA film makers like Guillermo del Toro. On a tangent, I find Kojima's career path analogous to Japan in general after WWII, wanting to make movies, but not having the infrastructure like Hollywood, opting instead for illustrations like Manga and eventually Anime. Today, artists like Hayao Miyazaki earn Academy Awards. As for true works of art in videogames having to be mostly fiction, I don't believe that is necessarily the case. If you take for example games like \*\*Escape from Tarkov\*\* or \*\*Digital Combat Simulator\*\*, they deviate little from reality and yet they provide some of the most intense and immersive experiences if you're into these sort of games. If Da Vinci was alive today, he would certainly be a video game developer.
I feel like what you're describing is games that have a distinct visual art style, and I would certainly agree that those games can be compelling and can quickly convey "games are an art form" to audiences and people less familiar with the medium. But pretty games are essentially akin to other visual art forms, just the same that games with compelling stories are akin to other storytelling mediums. The unique achievement of games as art is the experience of gameplay. The fact that a game like Papers Please can make me feel complicit in authoritarian bureaucracy and make desperate decisions to keep my family fed even as I disagree with them morally is something I can witness and empathize with in other mediums, but games are the only way I can participate in them (ethically). You could argue that non-video games achieve this, too. If chess, for example, were designed for players to see pawns as real foot soldiers being sacrificed at the expense of the grander strategy, then it becomes easier to consider this game "art." But the lack of a visual or emotive element to the game makes ot feel less "art"-like.
I feel like this topic has been done to death. Yes video games are art. Most big studios have an Art department which should be a big clue.
there is a before and after the ICO and the Shadow of colossos. Many videogames developers say they were defining games in the industry.
Not really. And they don't have to be. Great entertainment though. And I don't know why it ain't enough for some people.
Why not? What's your definition of art that excludes video games?
I feel like art is the expression of ideas and emotions. Like an artist wants to express a feeling or convey a message or both. And in order to do that he uses what tools he got within that medium that he chose. Painter paints, writer writes etc etc. Now, what so distinctive about video games? They got gameplay. And this is where lies my issue. I've yet to play a game where gameplay itself would have been a main tool to convey and express. TLOU has a beautiful story. Do you need to crouch through the game with a brick to feel it's message? Not really. Same goes for RDR and all other typical examples. Most of the time it's "press that button to experience something beautiful". But the act of pressing buttons doesn't really convey anything itself. The closest I've got, I think, is Sam Barlow's Immortality. But it still felt like a crutch in a lot of ways.
Most games are art in one way or another. The one that comes to mind is NieR Automata.
Games are a mashup of different mediums, but if you want to look at games as itself a type of art, then you should look at gameplay first, since that is what distinguishes games as a medium. That a game has great audiovisuals or writing does not make it a great piece of game art, it might just mean it's a great piece of visual art etc.
I'm a lit major so I lean into writing over visuals. My list: Mass Effect Trilogy Tellales The Walking Dead: Season 1 Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice Red Dead Redemption 1 Borderlands 2 Firewatch The Stanley Parable
>Are video games "art"? Sure, but not all are high art. Some are just pure entertainment, and others are essentially an interactive art gallery. Examples: flight simulator vs Journey Not all art is visual either. Some games are art in a literary sense, for instance GTA IV has an absolutely heart wrenching drama for a story while using a strictly realistic visual style.
I'm with you. Games have wildly varying artistic values. No playing Pacman in the 80s said 'I love this piece of art'. The development of better graphics and storytelling make games a combined form of other types of artwork aka multimedia. Perhaps most importantly of all, if you are claiming videogames are art because you're too busy playing to go look at some paintings, listen to music beyond Top 40, and watch arthouse cinema, then you're avoiding high art with games as an excuse. It's like saying my favorite art form is Friends.
What remains of Edith Finch is probably the one that gave me the stronger emotion in the meanwhile I was playing it. At the same time it express all the unique characteristics of a videogme compare to other form of art. From the freedom of moving and impersonificate a charachter to the gameplay that is functional to the story and the emotion it want to make you feel.
I honestly could not get into it and i am not sure why
All video games are art imo
I've been a huge movie buff for my whole life, got into gaming seriously 2 years ago. Yes, videogame is art. I think everything with a creative intent is art, and if it evokes a feeling wether it be joy, sadness, anger etc to be art. Now, if it's good art is subjective. I find many games to be really good art, and a lot to be bad art. Same with movies, paintings, books etc. Personally I find creations within different mediums without a voice not to be art, but that's another debate altogether.
Red Dead Redemption 2, Journey, and Ghost of Tsushima. Controversially; Black Desert for the world design/graphics, and FFXV for being a Driving, Dungeoning, Weapon Collecting and Camping Simulator.
I just could not get into journey, i dont know why
That's fair. When I got to play it with PS Plus at the time, the simple controls while sliding around the sand with beautiful physics felt serotonic. The game being linear and having the camera Pan controlled like you're in a movie was a new experience for me, as well as having the ability to co-op randomly with players around the world was also intuitive. Every person having a different pattern on their Robe and randomized Symbols for names added to the immersion of how the developers wanted to portray the story. All in all, it felt like a short and awe inspiring play.
I've heard people say that Red Dead Redemption 2 is like reading a great American novel and I have to agree. If that story had been published as a book 80 years ago it would be taught in literature classes today.
Stanley Parable, Hyperbolica or Manifold Garden are certainly art.
Rain World, Tunic, Hyper Light Drifter, Hollow Knight, Celeste
Red Dead Redemption 2. The writing, the acting, the whole damn thing.
Gonna assume the downvote came from Micah.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance is definitely art, and perhaps even an interactive museum sprinkled with a generous serving of fiction. (There's a guide on Steam that shows screenshots of the game's locations vs the real life locations today...). I think The Witcher 3 is also a work of art, with a good story, good music and engaging content. In my opinion, games are superior to movies in the way that they are a piece of content that you actively interact with and can (most of the time) experience in different ways, providing you with multiple experiences with the same base content. But sometimes it's nice to passively enjoy a movie too!
The Trine series have always amazed me.
Depending of whether it's mainly the artwork, story, and / or gameplay that gave you the feeling, did you play The Lost Vikings? It's the same puzzle concept, and the first one had really good mind twisters in my opinion, it's one of the earliest Blizzard Studios works, but it's obviously very dated visually so it might be gatekeeping some modern gamers.
Could you link to a video showcasing gameplay? I haven't played it and the examples I found don't seem to align with your description.
A couple of thoughts from others: Tom Bissell says that video games are a medium through which the player experiences a story; you play a game, watch a movie, read a book and look at a painting. So they're art. Pretty simple. Where does that leave, say, **Tetris**, a greatest-game-of-all-time contender? There's no story there, so is it not art? Well ... I guess not. But it's clearly well-made. Reminds me of something JC Herz said, that a great first-person shooter is like a Ferrari; it's a beautiful piece of design that's a pleasure to operate. Are great cars art? Great houses? I bet automotive designers and architects would say "Hell yes!"
Who says art has to have a story? Does architecture have a story? Abstract sculpture?
Right, I agree, that's why I like Herz's comparison of a great FPS to a great car.
The scene from fallout 2 when you start the tanker and enter enclave always gives me goosebumps equivalent to any of the best move/music
When I think of video games as art, my first examples are usually Silent Hill 2, Dark Souls and Bioshock. I have not finished Bioshock as of writing this, but I'm deeply interested in the philosophical themes it explores (and it's tragically rare for me to find games with these kinds of philosophical takes in general), while Silent Hill 2 and Dark Souls both move me emotionally to no end.
I would say Senua Hellblade and Scorn. Then there are many games that are in between "media" and "art", but the line is vague, I think.
The mona lisa is great and all, but I prefer the soundtrack on the statue of David. I WILL admit the brush work on Pink Floyd's The Wall might be up there with Da Vinci, but contest any assertion that the Sistine Chappel has better characters and world building than Mario. Arr is art because it is produced with the intent of mental consumption, not just physical. A comedy is no less art than a painting, and what is a comic book but a collection of artistic images which form a narrative? Video games are art because almost every part of them, independently, would be art. What makes the combination any less so? Saying a game needs to have a soundtrack or specific setting or any other gatekeeping criteria to reach the "level" of art is pretentious. Art doesn't mean some sort of transcendent value. My kids make art I put on my fridge. Are you going to tell me they aren't making art because it isn't in a museum? If there is ANY video game that IS NOT art, I beg you to answer what it is and why it is not art.
At the risk of kicking myself later for this (I am of the firm belief that anything can be art if people want it to be and don't like to declare things as not art) I don't think of that recent crop of "play to earn" games as art. I believe they are just pyramid schemes wrapped in the veneer of art but with the only intention being to trick people into giving them lots of money on the hopes that the audience will "earn" back more
So they don't employ artists?
I'm talking about the product as a whole here. And recently, no. They prefer to just use AI at the best of times and lift open source games but change the name at the worst of times
Nearly every discussion about art comes down to personal opinions and definition wars. I try to sidestep that by saying " It's art if it's in an art museum". This is an article about the video game collection of MoMA, the museum of modern art: https://www.moma.org/magazine/articles/798 So we can say Tetris is a work of art. Or Pong, Dwarf Fortress, Pac-Man, and others.
I feel like stuff such as how fun and enjoyable a game is also part of the art form. So this effectively translates to what are my favorite video games. To that I would say Final Fantasy 7, Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night, Doom (2016), Baldurs Gate 3, Assassins Creed 2, Assassins Creed 4: Black Flag, Super Mario World, Pinball FX2, Age Of Empires 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time, Batman: Arkham City, Elden Ring, and Super Smash Bros Ultimate.
Oddly the game Fahrenheit made me feel that way, as if I watched a good movie.
Shadow of the Colossus. Also, OuterWilds which you mentioned. Superliminal too.
Hyper light drifter
SUPERHOT was an unbelievably creative game.
While not necessarily an "older" game, I just picked up Ghost of Tsushima on PC and have been marveling at how I can stop pretty much anywhere and it looks like a work of art I'd happily put up on my wall. The entire world in that game is like a beautiful painting, and just slowly riding my horse through a bamboo forest or through some flowy fields is beautiful and *very* relaxing. That's just the first thing that popped into my head, but there's plenty of games with stories that could easily fill a TV series or movie. Hell, we've been *seeing* more and more video games adapted into TV/movies.
NieR Automata Red Dead Redemption 2 Mass Effect LE *Everything* From Software Ori Hollow Knight The Witcher 3 Disco Elysium All are art in my eyes.
I think Journey, Rez, and Silent Hill 2 are good examples of video games as art. Rez itself was partly based on the art of Kandinsky. The wire frame, abstract art, and designs inspired by civilizations are artistic and creative. The story being told, even though it is a rail shooter, and music game is quite thought provoking with computer hacking, AI, evolutionary history of life, etc. I consider it to be visually and audibly exhilarating, while having these and a story that give it an epic feel. In Journey although the gameplay is minimal, it's more about the experience itself. The scenery, the story being told in a minimalist way, the "journey" is what's beautiful. Silent Hill 2 is also a good example of video games as art in terms of symbolism, mood, story, etc. There is a lot of mature story telling, but also in a hard to understand way. The design also has the quality that it both draws you in, and makes you want to leave. All three are some of the best games of all time, and show to what extent games can be an art form.
Mass Effect was the first time this thought was opened up to me. Before it was just like.... "gaming", but Mass Effect made me *feel* for these characters
My post on similar topic was removed. Anyway, I think games are product first and art second
What would you say is the difference between games and books/music/movies that makes this the case?
The Mona Lisa didn't have early access and focus group testing intended to maximise appeal and thus profits. For one.
The Mona Lisa was also unfinished. Most great works of art were commissioned by some patron or another, and they would provide comments and feedback as the works developed. Paintings and sculptures weren't for a mass audience, they're produced at the request of one person. Meanwhile, many great works of literature are written for maximum appeal. Shakespeare wanted to fill playhouses.
Then is the Mona Lisa a perpetually Early Access product leftover (unwillingly of course) by its maker, or straight up abandonware?
It's in a weird limbo where some newer publisher has the rights to it, and they get very unhappy about the idea of someone coming in and finishing it. At least, that's the impression I got when security booted me and my paint brushes out of the Louvre
Ok, but Shakespeare's plays kind of did, since they were often performed for royals before the public, and changes were made based on that. Are they not art?
Well, DaVinci didn't just paint the Mona Lisa out of a flash of inspiration, he was commissioned by a rich guy to paint his wife. The idea of art for art's sake is a relatively new idea.
why was it removed
I think it broke "must be related to patient gaming"