Is it just a game? Or is it art?

Video games have become complex cultural artifacts. A new book says it’s time we found a language to talk about them.

[JOLLY1]

They are just games...

[SOAD]

Are sculptures just chiseled rock?

Are paintings just messy, white canvas?

What makes films and paintings, and drawings, and photographs, and sculptures, and books art but somehow eludes the gaming medium?

I see developers envisioning characters and creating worlds to house them and creating the stories and the physics and emotions and packaging it an experience, and yet there efforts are sneered at by film critics who don't play games.

jolly, you've said some slimy things in your day, but saying that games are just games and not art is the slimiest thing you've said.

[rockleex]

A game designer creates a world for you to take part in, experience, and figure out for ourselves.

What we take from each of those experiences is unique to each and everyone of us.

[ULTIMATE_REVENGE]

It's just a game and not art.

[Dramscus]

Making games is an art form. Games are art.
They are a creative visual multi format medium for communicating thoughts and ideas.

[EvilTwin]

VideoGAMES. What sets them apart is the "game" part. They're interactive.

You watch movies. You observe a painting. You listen to music. You certainly internalize some meaning from them...but you don't reach through the White Album and move George's fingers, or take Puzo's place and change a scene in Godfather, or move things around in a Renoir.

It's easy to make a case for games like Okami or Odin Sphere or Muramasa to be at least "part art." And I'd actually use that term for ALL games. You have to create art to base your game on to begin with.

But what sets gaming apart is the GAME part of the equation, and there's a reason people don't call Monopoly or basketball art.

All IMHO, of course.

[Gr81]

Don't get this obsession with why some people want videogames to be considered art or not. I don't really give a damn myself lol. If the games fun its fun if not its not. There's certainly a craft to creating a great game and it requires many skills.

But you hit the nail on the head; videogames are interactive where movies or books or paintings, are not. Prime has beautiful art direction, muramasa, Twilight Princess, Shadow of the Colussus beautiful art direction, but these are all interactive entertainment, with elements of art within them.

IMO at least.

[EvilTwin]

Precisely. There's elements of art within videogames (which are, of cousre, interactive entertainment).

People think it's insulting to call them "games," as if that's demeaning. So therefore, they must be "art." The things is, the best videogames aren't one or the other; they contain elements of both. I happen to think the best games lean more heavily on being GAMES, though. I have to want to play them and interact with the world laid out on that disc.

Prime is an absolutely PERFECT example. I literally just got done beating Meta-Ridley. I was artifact hunting before, and just in awe of the world design and the puzzles I had to solve. Switched on cable, and the tail end of "There Will Be Blood" was on, and I was in awe of Daniel Day-Lewis. But in a very different way. I was a passive observer, taking in his performance ("DRAINAGE, ELI!"). I wasn't passive in Prime, I was doing it; taking the game at my own pace, choosing my own paths through Tallon IV, viewing the level architecture from the particular spot I wanted to, beating up Ridley.

If Prime was just something pretty to look at, I wouldn't want to come back and play it. It's gotta be FUN and the interaction has to be there, or else why pop in the disc?

(BTW, PMs still aren't working. Weird.)

[SOAD]

You're creating a definition of art where art must be something you observe rather than something you interact with.

I think that doesn't make any difference because you can just as easily say that videogames are a unique form of art that you CAN interact with.

No one ever said that art was something that had to be observed. No one has the authority to make up that rule. To me, games are art. I can't really say why. But I think that games are sort of a cornucopia of many artistic mediums. They are moving paintings. And the processors inside our consoles and PCs receive our inputs and manipulate these paintings at several frames per second. We control the art. But all that means is that the developers had to take into account every single thing that we could do, so when we shoot something, the developers had to take that into account so that when we do manipulate the screen, it does what we want.

It's interactive art.

[anonymouse111335]

I won't even bother with reading the article

because it's been covered to death already.

games are art depending on your definition of art, as art has never been clearly defined, for me I look at art as something you make dynamically, and by dynamically I mean not making the same thing over and over again like a assembly line fashion.

I look at games as art but not art, I find them to be a collective bundle of art from many different artists participating and creating a collaborative piece, the 3D modeling, programming, character desings, concept art, writing all of that that went into it I can find to be a art that has manifested into a collab called a "game"

[The_Firestarter]

I'm so damn tired of this question already. "Is game art?" "YES!!! STOP FUCKING ASKING!!!" That's how I feel, because that stupid question gets asked over and over and fucking over again. Albeit it's from multiple "journalists" it's just annoying seeing it on N4G time and time again.

STOP FUCKING ASKING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[e-p-ayeaH]

art is not fun so NO. simple xD

[ratsrock]

ohh look... is this shit again!

[xino]

these guys are seriously demented!

I don't know why they are making a big deal out of this whether games are art or not. Who gives a FARK man!?

people will play games for fun, boast and competitive!
No one gives a fark if games are art or not, they are MADE TO BE PLAYED

So stop freaking making this a big deal and go make a better article!

[swice]

Some people do give a fark, man. If you don't, then YOU move along.

[ForROME]

Its not art, I actually was at a conference that I argued for video games, its unfair games cant be art, because we can show nudity or intentional cruel things to prove a point like art can, you cant make a x rated game and sale it or a too bloody game and sell it like you can with ART, its a handicap thats put on gaming and it should change

[karan8624]

TL;DR

[Swiftfox]

I'm not sure why we do have to argue that games are art. I guess it stems that if you can call them art then you have to take them seriously. No longer can you push them aside and call them a "simple pass time".

To me it would depend on the games originator. What was he trying to accomplish. Certainly there is always art that is encompassed within the game itself.

Certainly there are movies, books, and images that are not art. I can't see why there can't be both artistic and non-artistic games.

[swice]

Games are the culmination of different art styles coming together.

You have graphic artists, texture artists, concept artists, storyboard artists, level artists, sound artists, programming artists, marketing artists...yeah you get it.

Of course, this is just an opinion. But I firmly believe that games are art. Some art is definitely better than others though...