Are video games art?

**Snowden** · 02-20-2011, 06:49 PM

First of all, for people interested in a really interesting discussion of videogames as art, give a look at this book. Really fantastic read.

So, truth be told I haven't read through the whole debate in this thread thus far, and therefore I apologize if I'm rehashing points.

I think it comes down to this: if you take film or literature as art, you have to accept that videogames are, or at least can progress to be, art as well. Both film and literature deal primarily with the crafting of a story, be it fiction or nonfiction. For the most part, videogames do much the same thing, albeit at times in roundabout and minimalist manner (Mario, Street Fighter).

I think, at times, people get lost in just the simple narrative of the games, and when they see some kind of trite, shallow plot, they dismiss the medium as non-artistic. However, I think you have to look at the "grammar" of games in a sense, the manner in which they play, as a means to explicating their artistic merit. Much like the greatest authors tell not only fantastic stories, but display these stories in lucid prose, and great films not only track a plot but have wonderful cinematography, the way the game plays is in and of itself a facet of the art.

Think of playing a fighting game, experiencing the absolute struggle of being on the hardest possible difficulty, grappling with an opponent who can time and counter every button press. At that moment, the game is conveying to you the tension and anxiety in that conflict by transferring those feelings to you. To convey this type of emotion while in the realm of storytelling is a large facet of art, much like a camera panning over the sweeping plains of Middle Earth captures in the viewer the same sense of awe that Frodo Baggins feels.

Of course, not each and every game is successful at creating a transcendent experience, much like most books and movies fail. However, they are still making the attempt to craft, and pull the purveyor into, a story outside of their own locus, and to evoke some sort of emotion from that. Gaming too is in its infancy...while the written word has been around for eons, and film has at least had 100 years to go at it, gaming is only now really reaching its 30th year of life. Thus, game developers are really only beginning to encapsulate the potential of an interactive medium.

The struggle, too, it seems is that it IS interactive, and the inherent assumption is that because it lacks full passivity, its not art? That, to me, is ludicrous...and in fact, an interactive medium has the potential to engage and capture those who partake in it in new and wholly unique ways, foreign to passive art forms.

Wow, word vomit there. Thoughts BDC?

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02-20-2011, 06:49 PM	#23
Snowden All Hype Posts: 2,186	First of all, for people interested in a really interesting discussion of videogames as art, give a look at this book. Really fantastic read. So, truth be told I haven't read through the whole debate in this thread thus far, and therefore I apologize if I'm rehashing points. I think it comes down to this: if you take film or literature as art, you have to accept that videogames are, or at least can progress to be, art as well. Both film and literature deal primarily with the crafting of a story, be it fiction or nonfiction. For the most part, videogames do much the same thing, albeit at times in roundabout and minimalist manner (Mario, Street Fighter). I think, at times, people get lost in just the simple narrative of the games, and when they see some kind of trite, shallow plot, they dismiss the medium as non-artistic. However, I think you have to look at the "grammar" of games in a sense, the manner in which they play, as a means to explicating their artistic merit. Much like the greatest authors tell not only fantastic stories, but display these stories in lucid prose, and great films not only track a plot but have wonderful cinematography, the way the game plays is in and of itself a facet of the art. Think of playing a fighting game, experiencing the absolute struggle of being on the hardest possible difficulty, grappling with an opponent who can time and counter every button press. At that moment, the game is conveying to you the tension and anxiety in that conflict by transferring those feelings to you. To convey this type of emotion while in the realm of storytelling is a large facet of art, much like a camera panning over the sweeping plains of Middle Earth captures in the viewer the same sense of awe that Frodo Baggins feels. Of course, not each and every game is successful at creating a transcendent experience, much like most books and movies fail. However, they are still making the attempt to craft, and pull the purveyor into, a story outside of their own locus, and to evoke some sort of emotion from that. Gaming too is in its infancy...while the written word has been around for eons, and film has at least had 100 years to go at it, gaming is only now really reaching its 30th year of life. Thus, game developers are really only beginning to encapsulate the potential of an interactive medium. The struggle, too, it seems is that it IS interactive, and the inherent assumption is that because it lacks full passivity, its not art? That, to me, is ludicrous...and in fact, an interactive medium has the potential to engage and capture those who partake in it in new and wholly unique ways, foreign to passive art forms. Wow, word vomit there. Thoughts BDC?