do you believe that video games are art?

if so, why? if not, why not?

let's have a nice discussion instead of being dumb nerds for once

the art in video games is art yeah

Yeah they are

On some level game design is an art
They can have a message like a art
They can be sold commercially, and they are sometimes designed as such, but that doesn't stop other accepted art forms. Skrillex and Bay's Transformers exist
They can be art visually, like Okami

But games made specifically to be art usually suck because they often forget that they're also making a game

except MGS2

And those are my art opinions!! thank u for reading

Yes, because COD is a stunning example of how far people have come since it's inception.



There's arty games (Journey or The Last of Us come to mind with gameplay and art), non arty games (I respect your opinion if you like it, but everyone knows what you get with COD), game trying and failing spectacularly to be art (Jesus Christ, Beyond: Two Souls).

Excuse me? I think you're confusing "something I don't like" with "something that isn't art".

Can you please sort your opinion and make it more coherent before you post it? Thanks.

Cod being s*** doesn't mean the medium isn't art. There are s*** paintings too, but that doesn't make painting not an art form. The whole point of art is that it can be pretty much any kind of expression and combination of whatever factors are required for the medium, whether it's meant to appeal to a certain demographic or just the general public or sometimes it's just a self indulgent thing where the artist is making it for himself. The point is video games are still art even though there are s*** commercialised video games with no real meaning behind them.

video games can be seen as art seeing how video games are made up of different kinds of art techniques.

There are games like Journey where the goal is to make an experience. It was made from the ground up to be a beautiful game with a very defined art direction and the non-story aspect of it, and watching The Last of Us' making of documentary really shines a light on just how much went into it. Every little detail in the game has a very specific reason for being as it is.

COD and such are designed with gameplay first and everything else is just because of the demand and console power.

Beyond: Two Souls tried to be a very moving game with a unique "gameplay" experience and a beautiful story, but because of it's writer, completely failed to do anything besides look pretty.



There are games designed to be art, games designed to be games and not much else, and games that fail spectacularly.

As a whole, video games are art, but that doesn't mean everything attempts to be such.

I just don't see how you thinking Beyond: Two Souls wasn't very good somehow means it's not art?

I haven't actually played it, mind you. I just don't think you understand that art and quality are not linked. You're confusing "art" and "not art" with "art I liked" and "art I didn't like".

Braid is a f*** terrible game - both in gameplay and in story. But I'm not going to say it's not art. It's just s*** art.

You see where I'm coming from?

It's possible we just have two different ideas on what art is. It's all subjective and all.

Beyond: Two Souls tried to be something, and it didn't. I consider that to be 'failed' art.
I also consider whenever there's some painting that sells for millions of dollars when it is nothing more that a blue rectangle with a white line in the middle (It's real, and it did) to be worthless.

2deep4u

it doesn't matter whether it's good or not, or whether you liked it or not. Video games as a medium are either art or they're not.

anyway, I haven't hard any compelling argument for why video games aren't art so I'm going to say they are. I've heard some people say that they're not art because of interaction or something, but that seems pretty flimsy and is more of a description of why they're different from other art then of why they're not art at all.

yeah that's always been a dumbass argument

actual arguments would be how the advancement of video games is dependent on the advancement of technology and how the creation of video games is an industrial process and not a creative one

but those are easily countered by the recent emergence of indie games

I guess an actual argument would be that you have to "work" to experience it instead of just observing or listening or whatever but

I think if you think of playing a video game as "work" then you've already failed at experiencing it properly

If the creator says what they made is art, then it's art. That's my answer for if anything is art, and it's worked for me so far.

that seems nice until you actually think about the implications

what if the creator of some revered classic game (or any game, really) came out and said that he doesn't think his games are art? does that retroactively make the game not art? It seems like a cop out to define something based on what the creator says it is. Say there are two functionally identical games, except the creator of one says his game is art the the creator of the other says his isn't. Does that mean one game is art and the other isn't, even though they're the same thing?

also, most people don't say whether their games are art or not, so it's not a very useful definition

I think that video games as a whole are an art form by definition regardless of what individuals say about it