A Journey To Make Video Games Into Art

The critic Roger Ebert once drew a crucial distinction between video games and art: he said that the ultimate objective of a video game—unlike that of a book, film, or poem—is to achieve a high score, vaporize falling blocks, or save the princess. Art, he argued, cannot be won.

[Thatguy-310]

If you take time and look up the definition of art you'll realize how video games have been art for a while now. The problem is that people criticize it because to them video games=toy. This Gen have proven other wise because of games like The Last of Us, Journey, Bioshock Infinite etc.

[pompombrum]

I'd say the opposite and this gen has done more damage to "video games as art" than it has added to it. Thanks to games like COD and increased development costs, the big publishers are taking less and less risks and the smaller studios that used to make great quirkly games back in say the ps1 era are so few and far between.

[starchild]

Nonsense. The indie scene is flourishing like never before and there are TONS of creative games being made. Even many of the big budget AAA games like Mirror's Edge, The Witcher 2 and Bioshock Infinite are continuing to raise the bar.

In any case, games definitely are art and gaming has never been as diverse or as good as it is today.

[DonFreezer]

Stop it with the Last Of Us crap. There have been tons of other games before it.

[Bijikurd]

Did you play the game? And yeah sure there are tons of other games before it, but not one did it as good as the last of us.

[dcj0524]

People will use the most recent thing to prove their point. It's just common sense.

[PablitoPaperito]

Video games cannot by definition be art, as art has no other objective than art itself.

A videogame *must* be made to be enjoyable and have a goal.

Journey isn't Art.

It would be if the main character just walked by the landscape with no gameplay mechanics and/or objective at all.

But that would be quite boring no?

[Hicken]

Completely untrue. What we consider art in the most classical sense was frequently done for the sake of a patron whom the artist must please; much of it is intended to evoke a certain emotion, or memory, or just to make you think.

Art isn't done purely for the sake of itself.

And because Journey's intention was to make you think something, to make you FEEL something, it does exactly as art in any other medium does.

[Thatguy-310]

Look up the word art and then come back to the topic.

[AgentSmithPS4]

Art is whatever I say it is, whether it's a game, a picture of a cute cat, a sculpture, or some nice big breasts brought together by a beautiful top.

[MAULxx]

Video games consist of art. ART- the look of the game. ART-the music of the game.
ART- the story of the game. ART- mechanics & animation of the game.
ART- putting all these art forms together into an awesome game.