Are Video Games Art ?

As far as I am concerned, ABSOLUTELY YES! For me, they began to be especially so with the advent of fifth-generation consoles, where the way games were developed changed radically. Much more sophisticated artwork and engaging storylines.
As for remakes, it depends on how much they respect and improve the original game, otherwise, as we all know, they are pure commercial operations. This is my opinion, of course.
 
nothing is art, but everything is also art. all about your personal perception of what is artistry to you. is playing a particular sport super well an art form? what about cooking soul food where presentation doesn't really matter? so yeah, nothing is art but everything is art.
 
Even a simple Game of Chess can be full of Art and is a perfect Example of how difficult it is to draw a Line.
 
Video games are art, don't care if anyone outside the hobby says they're not cause I'm not looking to impress them at this point like I used to try and do. Also I liked posting this video every time the subject of video games being art comes up, which was a lot more frequent 10 years ago.
 
I think Videogames are more than art.

Its a collaboration of many different and creative artforms combined into a piece which is made by different people/groups/teams .

In single aspects alone , it is art but as a whole , its more than art . Its an creative project for entertaiment first but admiration and inspiration second .

But i would say that Retrogaming is artistic , while modern mostly aint .

Modern gaming is more as a consume-product (look at all the NFLs , Fifas , NBAs, CoDs) , propaganda-piece (Dustborn as an example) and Throw-away-trends (look at all the cancled live-service-games that hold up few years and arent playable anymore ) . While there are some diamonds inbetween that counter this kind of gaming consumption and are art-projects for themselves, most of these are sadly bad and soulless products .
 
I don't consider videogame a form of art, but sometimes an specific videogame could be. Don't know how to explain.

Here in Brazil we had a controversy like 2-3 years ago because different groups tried to turn gaming to be considered as sports and art at the same time, both looking to receive financial incentives by the government. Not really the discussion here but funny how people always try to label things for different reasons.
 
I don't consider videogame a form of art, but sometimes an specific videogame could be. Don't know how to explain.

Here in Brazil we had a controversy like 2-3 years ago because different groups tried to turn gaming to be considered as sports and art at the same time, both looking to receive financial incentives by the government. Not really the discussion here but funny how people always try to label things for different reasons.
The only game I had any luck convincing people to view as art is Silent Hill 2, otherwise it's just simple entertainment to them. I get it cause most people aren't all that invested in gaming as a hobby, so they're just looking to be entertained and nothing more, nothing wrong with that either.

As a side note I'm convinced E-sports is a money laundering scheme at this point since I don't know anyone who watches it whether it be on ESPN or online.
 
They are not art, they are products to be sold.

Nevertheless, the many people that made them were so inspired and some even had artistic inclinations that at the very end are reflected in the final product.

There is art in them, they are drawn, music is composed, scripts were wrote, but all in the name of profit for a company and a completed work for the development team.
 
I've never understood why this is even debated. Of course they are art. If games aren't art, neither are books, movies, music, comic books, etc. Every form of entertainment in existence is art.

It's one of those questions that makes me go

iu
 
I think games CAN be art, but most of then are products made for money. Like why would media automatically stop being art because is interactive? Plenty of 20th century artists were already exploring interactivity as part of their art. Or maybe some games like cosmology of kyoto and yume nikki should not be considered games because they are not arcadey enough and don't give you a big win or lose text at the end? Then again there are very artistic games that also incorporate super interesting gameplay.

Regardless, productions aren't that mechanic so its never that clear like x game is art and y game is not, but I can easily say there are some games that are more art than whatever is being passed as art in the galleries.
 
Of course they are. I really don’t get why some don’t see Video games as art when they utilize many other things universally considered art - music, illustration, animation, writing, etc
 
Of course they are.

I genuinely don't understand why people would argue otherwise: games are made out of original stories, music, cinematics, graphics and creative visions, all of which are recognized art forms individually.

Why would a combination of them be less than?
 
I consider games art with no qualifiers.

Games are a medium, like TV, books, movies, music, theater, etc.

Hop on Pop and The Brothers Karamazov are the same medium. Paw Patrol and Breaking Bad are the same medium. Fast and Furious and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are the same medium. WAP and Claire de Lune are the same medium. Puppetry of the Penis and Shakespeare are the same medium. Piss Christ and the Mona Lisa are the same medium.

But no one has a problem with any of those other media besides games. They take the Emmys, Tony's, Golden Globes, and Oscars seriously every year.

There's an appreciable difference between in substance between a F2P arena shooter and something like Final Fantasy 6 or the new God of War, but to those who don't engage with the medium, it all looks like people wasting their lives in round after round of slop, like old people sitting in rows of slot machines in Vegas, mashing buttons and watching the pretty lights.
 
its call hent- i mean video games, and they're art.
 
Of course they are.

I genuinely don't understand why people would argue otherwise: games are made out of original stories, music, cinematics, graphics and creative visions, all of which are recognized art forms individually.

Why would a combination of them be less than?
Because that is the romantic idea we fans give it, the reality is as always a mockery of that romantic ideology.

Let it be know, I do not disagree that they are full of artistic merits or to consider them art, some are even better at expressing art that other mediums.

From the very beginning they were created as toys, they evolved and got very creative and complex thanks to the individuals that made them, music, drawing, color, mechanics, story, writing, and later on cut-scenes and choreography, motion capture.

We can see them as art but they are not, they show the artistic abilities of all of the individuals behind, which in turn, makes the videogame an art itself.

This has been always a loaded question but it does not matter, this argument has been as stupid now as well as when it was conceived, It is an over-intellectualized for the sake of polemic discussions.

Appreciate videogames, play them, enjoy them and keep loving them, show them and remember them.

There might be a future where this might not be possible.
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I consider games art with no qualifiers.

Games are a medium, like TV, books, movies, music, theater, etc.

Hop on Pop and The Brothers Karamazov are the same medium. Paw Patrol and Breaking Bad are the same medium. Fast and Furious and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are the same medium. WAP and Claire de Lune are the same medium. Puppetry of the Penis and Shakespeare are the same medium. Piss Christ and the Mona Lisa are the same medium.

But no one has a problem with any of those other media besides games. They take the Emmys, Tony's, Golden Globes, and Oscars seriously every year.

There's an appreciable difference between in substance between a F2P arena shooter and something like Final Fantasy 6 or the new God of War, but to those who don't engage with the medium, it all looks like people wasting their lives in round after round of slop, like old people sitting in rows of slot machines in Vegas, mashing buttons and watching the pretty lights.
The fact that people discuss this in fact because it is an interactive medium, FFVI will not hit the same to all people, heck even if 5 people see the same movie it will not hit the same to all of them

But, the games take more agency because you control the narrative pace, play FFVI and complete it in less than 16 hours and some other fella takes 34 hours, it motivates people to romanticize the idea of the medium, video games being a veeery young medium, we are about to have people in their 60' that have played games, compare that to any other medium and we are coming short.

It will mature and maybe this argument can simply disappear and we can all just play the games and enjoy them at its fullest.
 
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As a form of media, and like all other forms of media, video games have the potential to be art.
Are they all art? It's really based on your interpretation of what art is, and that's the fun part. It's all up to you.

Now my opinion: There's certain games that I consider art, and others that I don't.
Some of those include (IMO) Super Mario Galaxy, Wind Waker, MGS3 Snake Eater, Gris, Hue, Stardew Valley, Ocarina of Time, Sable, etc.
 
The only reason why people haven't yet considered videogames as art is just because they haven't been in history for that long, really. That and because they are pedants who think that one is better than other really. ::linkmouthcover
Even not that many people agree to consider film as a form of art despite already existing since late 19th century.
 

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