An interesting look at why video games (Probably) are not art

I think Braid is a good example.  It may not prove that games can be art, but it shows that many gamers can be douchebags when they want to be.
And that's all high-anything needs, some douchebags with a need to feel like intellectuals.

"I think Braid is a good example.  It may not prove that games can be art, but it shows that many gamers can be douchebags when they want to be.And that's all high-anything needs, some douchebags with a need to feel like intellectuals."

" I am enthralled with the conversation of "what is art?""

Here's a little monkey wrench into the equation:

"Here's a little monkey wrench into the equation:

To the people that think games are art . . . is it because of the story? How about the visuals? Do they seem as though a great artist would make them? What about the music?

Do you feel that games are art solely because they encompass every established form of art? They even have cinema in them. To me, games haven't been broken into enough for the art to come out. Pretty much all "games as art" examples are examples because of reasons involving the other forms of art rather than the gameplay itself. Games are a craft as of now to me, which there's nothing wrong with. A craftsman is as high on the scale as artists. Maybe even higher, because they actually create beautiful things with utilitarian value.

"

Anything can be art.

"MC_Izawa said:

"I think Braid is a good example.  It may not prove that games can be art, but it shows that many gamers can be douchebags when they want to be.And that's all high-anything needs, some douchebags with a need to feel like intellectuals."

Are you saying that games aren't art, or only that gamers can be douchebags? Only one of those is true. *points to second, acts like douchebag*"

>Why is age a factor? By that logic, I could dismiss a lot of modern works of art due to their age. Both urinals and Christ in a glass of urine are considered art; what is it about video games that places them below these pieces of "art?"

The idea is that video games are getting more and more like movies.  They don't show any sign of evolving into their own thing, they just show signs of becoming better cinematic experiences with interactive elements.  If games were going to have their big break through it would have happened already.  Like he says, games can be made up of elements of beautiful and wonderful art, and they can be really fucking good.  But that still doesn't define them as an artform.

">Why is age a factor? By that logic, I could dismiss a lot of modern works of art due to their age. Both urinals and Christ in a glass of urine are considered art; what is it about video games that places them below these pieces of "art?"The idea is that video games are getting more and more like movies.  They don't show any sign of evolving into their own thing, they just show signs of becoming better cinematic experiences with interactive elements.  If games were going to have their big break through it would have happened already.  Like he says, games can be made up of elements of beautiful and wonderful art, and they can be really fucking good.  But that still doesn't define them as an artform."

No.  You can have elements from other arts and still be your own art form, like film.  As long as you bring something new to the table, you become a new artform of your own.  There are things in film that can only be done in film.  Video games not so much.  Either it's a big collection of other arts, cinematic art, visual design, asthetics, or it's a game element which is not art.  The problem is that "gameplay" interaction is not specific to video games like editing was to film.

Once again just to clarify, Video Games CAN BE AND OFTEN ARE ART, but Video Games as a group are not an ARTFORM.

"

No.  You can have elements from other arts and still be your own art form, like film.  As long as you bring something new to the table, you become a new artform of your own.  There are things in film that can only be done in film.  Video games not so much.  Either it's a big collection of other arts, cinematic art, visual design, asthetics, or it's a game element which is not art.  The problem is that "gameplay" interaction is not specific to video games like editing was to film.

Once again just to clarify, Video Games CAN BE AND OFTEN ARE ART, but Video Games as a group are not an ARTFORM.

"

"Sarnecki said:

"

Once again just to clarify, Video Games CAN BE AND OFTEN ARE ART, but Video Games as a group are not an ARTFORM.

"

Can the same be said for movies?"

You can't look at Gears of War, Killzone 2, Halo 3, or Metal Gear Solid 4 and tell me that games aren't art.

"Arkthemaniac said:

"Sarnecki said:

"

Once again just to clarify, Video Games CAN BE AND OFTEN ARE ART, but Video Games as a group are not an ARTFORM.

"

Can the same be said for movies?"

Yea. There were other art forms before it that could do everything it could. Oh, camera tricks? What about photography, that was here long before movies. Sound? You could get that at the theater. Oh, and acting. Name something else that wasn't already done. But movies are widely considered art. Why are video games treated different? Because they're the new kid on the block?"

Gameplay is not unique to video games because interacting with art has been around since theater.  It's not at all exclusive to video games.

One last time, the reason movies are seen as an artform is because the brought something new to the table that could only be done in movies.  Editing.  Video Games don't have that special something that makes them their own thing.  They're art on other arts terms, movies, sound.  But as a collective a video game cannot be an artform.

"Gameplay is not unique to video games because interacting with art has been around since theater.  It's not at all exclusive to video games.One last time, the reason movies are seen as an artform is because the brought something new to the table that could only be done in movies.  Editing.  Video Games don't have that special something that makes them their own thing.  They're art on other arts terms, movies, sound.  But as a collective a video game cannot be an artform."

"Video_Game_King said:

"Arkthemaniac said:

"Sarnecki said:

"

Once again just to clarify, Video Games CAN BE AND OFTEN ARE ART, but Video Games as a group are not an ARTFORM.

"

Can the same be said for movies?"

Yea. There were other art forms before it that could do everything it could. Oh, camera tricks? What about photography, that was here long before movies. Sound? You could get that at the theater. Oh, and acting. Name something else that wasn't already done. But movies are widely considered art. Why are video games treated different? Because they're the new kid on the block?"

That and most people view them as toys for little kids."

I love video games, but they are definitely not art and won't ever be. They can be artistic in ways, but they will never be art.

The idea is that video games are getting more and more like movies.  They don't show any sign of evolving into their own thing, they just show signs of becoming better cinematic experiences with interactive elements.

Like he says, games can be made up of elements of beautiful and wonderful art, and they can be really fucking good.  But that still doesn't define them as an artform.

The thing is, do you define a game (Not a video game) as art?  So much of "Gameplay" is puzzles.  Would you consider Sodoku an art?  Probably not.

"The thing is, do you define a game (Not a video game) as art?  So much of "Gameplay" is puzzles.  Would you consider Sodoku an art?  Probably not."

No.  You can have elements from other arts and still be your own art form, like film.  As long as you bring something new to the table, you become a new artform of your own.  There are things in film that can only be done in film.  Video games not so much.  Either it's a big collection of other arts, cinematic art, visual design, asthetics, or it's a game element which is not art.  The problem is that "gameplay" interaction is not specific to video games like editing was to film.

Once again just to clarify, Video Games CAN BE AND OFTEN ARE ART, but Video Games as a group are not an ARTFORM.

>Otherwise how was the 'art' ever created?

By virtue of the fact that Video Games burrow from almost every other artform.

I don't agree with the author's definition of art, so his while argument is flawed.

Ha, what a joke. This guy is completely wrong. Essentially, I'm drawing from this not that games are not art, that they aren't art yet. I agree that few games are really all that special regarding narrative, but there are enough that I'd say games are, in fact, art. The fact of the matter is that everything he says that makes film art can be said about games. He refutes the idea saying that interactivity in art goes way back, but he walks a slippery slope here. Audiences shouting things out fits his criteria for interactivity? Well if that's how it works, then I can say editing goes way back, in the form of scraping off unwanted paint, or remolding my clay pot. An eraser on a pencil is an editing tool. If he wants to get deeper, then I can say that Warhol's work is the same kind of editing he describes is unique to film, or even that painting a pot is editing and fusion of art forms. I think Jayge put it well in the beginning when he said that there are things unique to games, just as there is to film. It works just as well with games as it does with film.

I think you need to defend yourself a bit better.  I think Braid is art because the gameplay is good doesn't really define anything.  Braid has visuals, sound, interactive elements that are all cited from different art forms.  It blends into a singular experience, but nothing in Braid is something you've never seen before.  It's all timing and puzzles and asthetics, and none of those things are art.

You're contradicting yourself, and you continue to make assertions that you cannot support. I think you should defend yourself a bit better.

This is my response to these people/threads now. There are many things that I disagree with in that article that I'm too lazy to address, so I'll just leave with the question "If this guy were writing this article in 1930, would he think 'cinema' was art?""

I think it's games are art, so no one can convince me otherwise.

I think Sarnecki is trying to prove that video games are a form of art, but gaming isn't a whole different kind of art... it's a sub-genre. 

'Art' doesn't mean anything at all.

The argument has reached a high level of stupidity.

With the way 'art' is used as a word in the English language today, videogames ARE art, period.  Does that mean anything at all?  No.

"Art means a lot of thing to a lot of different people."

Video games are, at their core, pictures and music. Both of those are considered art.

>If we want to say video games are their own separate art form, we need to figure out what makes them absolutely unique from other art forms.

The answer is nothing.  That's not a negative, if it sounds like it is.  Video games are great, but I don't think the industry is heading in the direction where games with be an art of their own.

First I decided to sign up to reply to this post. I am currently studying English, Education and Psychology at the University of Adelaide.

First of all I find problems with the author's explanation of what is and isn't art. Oscar Wilde often argued that there are many forms of art which are ignored. The Picture of Dorian Gray can be read as an argument that the very act of living a life can be a form art, represented by the titular Dorian Gray. Wilde also believed that even murder could be argued as artistic (this particular argument had a lot to do with Victorian journalist sensationalism and must considered in context). The concept that video games as a medium are not art is incorrect because the categorization of artistic mediums has been created out of the need for stores,and the limits of the artists and the audience. Early books such The Odyssey were never popularly read during their time and were in fact oral performance. Many novels, such as Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace, refuse to simply be prose and are constructed by a combination of prose, poem and newspaper articles, other writer's even change language during the text.

The concept that Cinema is an artistic medium purely because it created editing is incorrect. Plays, novels and oral performances constantly experiment and use changes of tense, view, time, focus and location. Cinema also began without sound (silent films theaters often hired local bands to play music which set the tone)  so under the author's constraints should we not consider the modern film's use of sound as part of the Cinema experience. The framing aspect of cinema is taken from photography which developed it out of painting and drawing. It also should be noted that the first motion pictures lacked editing, there was one camera, in a fixed position, filming a play. The idea that since video games did not create anything new and thus are not a artistic medium is ridiculous as it ignores the fact that all artistic mediums stem from oral tradition and the label of a medium adds nothing artistic to a piece of work. Autobiographical writing is still considered by some to not be artistic because it has a history in historical writing, regardless of the fact that Woolf's Moments of being and Stein's work is considered high art.

The idea that art must do or be anything is anti-art. The author who refuses to accept this view because it's "too Special Olympics" (an utterly disgusting phrase) is missing the entire point about art. No artist worth remembering would ever dismiss a piece because of its form or medium. An author shouldn't care whether you call there work a book, novella, story or autobiographical,  what would be important to them is that you read it. Every time an artist/s creates a piece of work they do so within the constrains and limitations of the medium, the medium is always a necessary evil and they exist only because artists are human and no human is smart enough to make a piece of art which breaks all limitations, Every single thing is art because art has no limitations, only the artists do and that is why we categorize things into labels.       

cinema is like a collaboration of artistic media (like music,photography etc.) video games are a collaboration also, but with another element: interactivity

i can totally see some video games as art

i also agree with what cdstacker said

+1 cdstacker

" But in the end a game is simply a series of rules that the players follow. Those rules are not intended to communicate ideas or feelings, but simply to facilitate play"
Bullshit.  Play Lost Odyssey. 

Hell, go on Mistwalkercorp.com--- they look like a high art website. 
Anyway, by there rules, portraits aren't aren't as they're just to show how something looked


Anyway, I think you have to be an idiot to say otherwise:  Video games are a collection of art.
Let's disect Lost Odyssey
--- 2d art (sky, etc.)
--- 3d art (building etc.)
--- music
--- novel
- cinematics

I think they don't realize that we've moved past on from Space Invaders.


-----> But in the end, art is just a bullshit term used to describe when you try to convey a setting, mood, or idea. 

--------> And the "movie inside a game" doesn't work as the locations, etc. help convey the idea.  If it were just a pointless thing in the middle (like a non related world), but no.


I don't get why people keep on going on about this.  Cinemahad the same thing, but now its a common acceptance. 

I would go so far as to say that art does not even require a key element. I can't think of one Key element that written prose uses better than oral performance or poetry yet I still consider it art.

Dude, I got half way through the article. At that point he had started making pointless arguments, and ones that weren't based on any solid definition of art. The vague definition he did give fits tons of video games anyway.

The author of this article is a tool, move along.

"The answer is nothing.  "

 Every single thing is art because art has no limitations, only the artists do and that is why we categorize things into labels.  

It doesn't matter if videogames are art or not. If, in the end, you can perceive more meaning playing a videogame than watching a movie or a painting, then the sole point of art is still intact.

Definitions of art only seem to become troublesome when somebody tries to describe why some medium isn't art - the very word itself then starts to lose its meaning and become a pawn in some political debate about what is worth more than what.

There seems to be a basic agreement here that 'something' special is occuring in the medium, something that transcends the mere technical elements that combine to make a game. Arguments why this is artful rather than art, or mere craft or design rather than anything more important, seems to me to be just nitpicking and missing the big picture.

I also think this idea of narrative or story being somehow indelibly connected with art is a total red herring, as is any other criticism that uses a checklist of 'what art is'. You can find narrative in Tetris and Space Invaders, it just follows a different form to traditional mediums like literature and theatre. Anything that gaming lacks in comparison to other mediums is not a stick to beat it with, it is only a reason why games are different. It's easy to say what games aren't, but we are only just beginning to learn how to express what they are!!!

Perhaps the arguement can be made that Video Games COULD be their own artform, but that's not the current state of the industry.