Are Video Games Art?

[Gregory DG]

This past Friday, I taught some middle-school age kids about how to make games in Game Maker. Now this was a graphic arts class and the teacher wanted me to tie video game design into her class. So I thought a good way to bridge that would be to have a brief discussion about if/how/why video games are an art form.

 

So what does everyone think? Are video games art? What makes them art? I'm curious to have a discussion with mature adults on this subject.

[+Random Terrain]

You might find the answer here:

 

http://www.atariage.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=44289

[theking21083]

I think that any game that is made by one person could be considered art. You could express yourself by the types of games you make. The newer games are made by so many people that it really doesn't have any emotion.

[Kripto]

Defining the term "Art" is the big problem here...

 

How about-

 

"The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic mediums"

 

I would say Yes, they can be under that definition, even though it seems to be biased against anything which is intentionally ugly or displeasing being "art".

[Atarifever]

I think that any game that is made by one person could be considered art. You could express yourself by the types of games you make. The newer games are made by so many people that it really doesn't have any emotion.

That's a great point.

 

Personally, I think games are most artful when they are most simple. Think about it. Final Fantasy 7 (and many RPGs) largely gets considered "beautiful" and "engrossing." However, FF7 would be, and this is me being kind, a pretty terrible Fantasy or sci-fi novel. The story isn't exactly deep, and 95% of the "interactivity" in the game is pressing a couple buttons without much thinking. People say games are more engrossing, or special because you participate in them. However, when you read, say, Lord of the Rings, you basically, just with the power of your mind, imagine an entire world into being. That's interactivity. Pushing buttons in a tiny little world with a trillion identical trees is not really all that engrossing or interactive. The stories are usually pretty terrible, which explains why books based on games (and movies based on games) are all pretty horrible.

 

Now games like Galaga, Robotron 2084, Donkey Kong, and R-Type to me offer something wholly different than books or movies or anything else. Books cannot give you the same experience as an arcade type game at all. Thus, really good, simple, plotless gameplay is, in my opinion, more artful than some "novel wannabe." Those games offer you something different than is achievable elsewhere. And it isn't just classic games. I think multiplayer deathmatches in Halo are a better representation of games as art than is the medicore sci-fi story that is Halo. Similarly, I think Wii-Sports (in multiplayer) is a much better representation of games as art than is Twilight Princess.

[Emehr]

I know that video games contain art in graphics, sound, music, animation, story, etc. Whether the sum of these parts + gameplay constitutes art or not is subject to debate. It's the game play that is in question here (for me, at least). Are films considered art? Yes. Are video games (especially modern ones) similar to movies? Yes. Does it follow that video games are art? I don't know. I don't believe that game play in of itself is art.

 

Take Pong for instance. Strip away the gameplay, take a snapshot of the paddles and divider line and hang it on a wall. Art? Who knows. Depends on who is looking at it and what they get out of it. Now put the game play back in it, grab some paddles, and go to town. Is it art anymore? I say no. I think as soon as there is outside influence on the outcome of the presentation, it cannot be considered art (kind of like if someone disrupts a play and distracts the actors). That doesn't mean there is no art in the presentation (I will always believe that there is art in video games).

 

So my answer is "yes" and "no".

[Gregory DG]

My off-the-cuff non-expert definition of art is: "Anything man made that is intended to evoke an emotional response." So, I think video games fit in that category.

[Atarifever]

I say no. I think as soon as there is outside influence on the outcome of the presentation, it cannot be considered art

So my answer is "yes" and "no".

But if that's the case, then books can't be considered art.

"Tony stood in the woods looking across the lake at the ducks."

 

How many trees were in the woods there in your head? How many ducks? How big was the lake? Was it morning? Were there boats? Was it foggy? You fill in the blanks a lot when you read, and on top of that, things don;t always mean the same thing to the authour as to the reader. If you read a story about Vietnam and the American side wins in it, some readers may consider the whole thing very sad, while other readers may see it as a straight forward win for "the good guys." If outside influence on the symbolism, images, or meaning of a piece of art makes it not art, I would assume there is no such thing as art.

Edited January 13, 2008 by Atarifever

[Pixelboy]

I like to believe that video games are a form of art which is like none other, because its artistic roots are not so much in the visual or audio of it, but rather in its interactive nature (although graphics and sounds are important too, evidently).

 

When someone (or a group of people) creates a video game, they're creating a "space" in which other people can enter for pure entertainment purposes. For example, when you play an RPG, you're interacting within a large world imagined and designed by someone else. The same could be said for a simple puzzle game like Tetris. For the game creator(s), it's a means of expression in the purest sense of the term, and the player can appreciate what has been created. In those terms, it's no different than a painter who sets up his paintings in an art gallery. The only difference is that video games take a life of their own as soon as you turn the power switch on.

 

The way video games are distributed is vastly different from most other "recognized" forms of art, and it's fuelled by the pursuit of mass profit just like movies and TV, but beyond financial ideologies lies the desire for artists and programmers to get together and create something that can be experienced and enjoyed by all.

 

If anyone here is not really convinced that video games are an art form, just look at the Atari 2600 homebrews released these past few years. Some of them litteraly make people go "wow!". The reason for this positive feedback? Because retro gamers behold and appreciate the final product in pretty much the same way as an art lover can appreciate the painstaking work that Da Vinci put into his Mona Lisa.

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is that anything that requires genuine talent can be seen as an art form.

[Atari5200]

video games I do consider art, more so than movies, in my opinion. And if you can class hip-hop as art, then why not video games?

[Emehr]

I say no. I think as soon as there is outside influence on the outcome of the presentation, it cannot be considered art

So my answer is "yes" and "no".

But if that's the case, then books can't be considered art.

 

If outside influence on the symbolism, images, or meaning of a piece of art makes it not art, I would assume there is no such thing as art.

 

I'm talking strict, literal outside influence (that's why I mentioned someone disrupting a play). Not interpretation of the outcome. Remember, I still believe that there is art in video games. That includes story. It's the game play itself, the interaction of the player affecting (or not) the outcome, that I do not believe to be art.

[Atarifever]

I say no. I think as soon as there is outside influence on the outcome of the presentation, it cannot be considered art

So my answer is "yes" and "no".

But if that's the case, then books can't be considered art.

 

If outside influence on the symbolism, images, or meaning of a piece of art makes it not art, I would assume there is no such thing as art.

 

I'm talking strict, literal outside influence (that's why I mentioned someone disrupting a play). Not interpretation of the outcome. Remember, I still believe that there is art in video games. That includes story. It's the game play itself, the interaction of the player affecting (or not) the outcome, that I do not believe to be art.

Oddly, that's the part I consider art. I think the story part is just "wannabe" copying. To me, videogames are like pro wrestling. The "art" in wrestling is the actually putting on of a match. The "story" stuff is usually pretty lame and is just an excuse for the talent to put on a show. No one would say 99.99% of all wrestling stories have been very artful. However, making up an arcrobatic fight scene on the fly is a talent that is most certainly an art. Similarly, I think the ability to turn out something original in gameplay is an art, while the ability to include a terrible story and limited worlds with that gameplay is anything but art.

[Zwackery]

Generally speaking, I think that video games can be art, but not all of them are or even aspire to be.

 

I'm one of the Arts columnists for the Phi Kappa Phi Forum, and for the Winter/Spring 2008 issue, I decided to devote my column to this question. Because of editorial constraints, I only have about 900 words or so for any given topic, so unfortunately I could not go into the sort of detail I wanted, but I hopefully hit upon a few salient points.

 

The Summer 2005 (Vol. 85, No. 2) issue of the Phi Kappa Phi Forum was devoted to the topic of computer games. Later in the same year, noted film critic Roger Ebert set off an intense debate among members of both the film and video game industries (which have an increasing association through shared digital resources as well as economic factors) by stating that video games are fundamentally inferior to film and literature as an artistic medium and that video games could never move "beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art." Inherent to Ebert's position is his basic definition of art, which is contained in his declaration that "Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control" ("Answer Man," 11-27-2005). While most respondents to Ebert took him to task for his self-admitted unfamiliarity with the medium of video games, very few actually took a moment to address the issue of authorial control – primarily localized in the construction of narrative – that is at the root of Ebert's characterization of art.

 

The disruption of a unidirectional bequeathing of art from active creator to passive viewer through the objet d'art has been called into question in a number of ways. For example, authorial control is a notion which has been particularly challenged in the 20^th century, especially in the literary theory of Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault. Researchers into the history of moviegoing have investigated in what ways the audience reacts to (or interacts with) the films they see, complicating the notion of viewer engagement. More to the point, the performative aspects of art and its production have become increasingly important, from interactive multimedia projects to the entire field of performance art, which involves four basic elements: time, space, the performer's body and, most notably, a relationship between performer and audience. While relationships between performers and their audiences seem obvious throughout the history of art – think about any singer, poet, or stage actor performing in front of a live crowd and how the crowd's reaction can in turn affect the artist – it is the advancement of the importance of the interactivity between artist(s) and audience(s) that has moved into a place of prominence, where process is as much a part of the work as is the product itself. The component of interactivity noted here forms one of the core definitions of a video game.

 

In June 2007, Ebert's original sentiments about video games were revisited by noted dark fantasist Clive Barker, who in addition to writing short stories, novels, plays, and film scripts also illustrates his books, paints, publishes his own line of superhero comic books, and produced a line of character models through McFarlane Toys. Barker first entered the medium of video games with his 2001 release, Undying, and again this past October with Jericho. While neither game is a particularly noteworthy example to advance as a reason for validating video games as art, Barker is very enthusiastic about the potential for video games to have artistic merit by allowing their creators to collaborate on a multitude of design elements. This collaborative process is not unlike the teamwork upon which the majority of film production is predicated. Moreover, video games as a medium offer a combination of old and new aesthetics for consideration. A person can marvel at the complex story of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (2003), consider the elegance of programming behind the simple yet captivating idea of Tetris (1985), or decide what defines beauty in Viva Piñata (2006). Viva Piñata is an especially distinctive title in that the game tasks the player with turning a neglected plot of land into a beautiful garden to attract living piñatas and cultivate spaces for them to flourish. This open-ended game has no strict requirements for winning or losing, but is more about the experience of considering aesthetics. What appeals to one piñata might not work for another, and so the player is constantly thinking about what beauty means, and how its definitions can change, through its representations within the game.

 

So what defines art again? In his book Art and its Object, British philosopher Richard Wollheim distinguishes three approaches to defining art: the Realist, where aesthetic quality has an absolute value independent of any human view; the Objectivist, where it is assigned an absolute value that is dependent on general human experience; and the Relativist position, where there is no absolute value, but a fluid one that varies with different human experiences. Given that cinema itself was not instantly heralded as art – and indeed had to fight for its place alongside of the other plastic arts within the broader field of visual art – Ebert's position may seem a little incongruous, although he freely states that not all movies are art. Ebert addressed Barker's comments in July 2007, again reinscribing his position of artist creating work for an intended receiver, but this time with the curious qualification that if a person changes art, that person then in turns becomes an artist. While there is not a guarantee that this new work remains art, Ebert's comment does bear the implication that perhaps there is something to be said for interactivity in production or at least for the radical potential of more participants to be included in the process of making and defining art. What the work, be it a film or a video game, has is the ability to illuminate the collaborative nature that underlies much of human production.

[Student Driver]

God. Trying to determine whether something is "art" requires a definition of art-- Kripto gives a good one above, but any definition anyone comes up with is always going to include things which seem to not belong, and is going to exclude items which seem to belong, and there will always be controversy about these do-they-or-don't-they works. Kinda like pornography. Philosophers have been debating the question for millenia, and there's still no consensus.

 

I hate to say it, but what-is-art is probably subjective, and "you know it when you see it" is the best any one person can do, with the understanding that others may or may not agree with your assessments. What matters most is the feeling that a work engenders in you-- if you feel something is art, it is, at least for you.

 

For me, art is an aesthetic consideration, completely subjective, and utterly unexplainable. It's a gut feeling. And I feel that many games-- especially the minimalist games of the 70s and 80s-- are beautiful pieces of art. Pac-Man, Asteroids, Pong, Space Invaders... I just look at them, feel aesthetically, kinetically, and kinesthetically pleased, and call it art. Someone else might completely disagree and point to modern FPSes, or intricate RPGs as their art-- and I can't really defend my choices nor dismiss theirs. *shrug*

 

(I'm still ticked at Ebert for being so pedantic and dismissive of the possibility of games-as-art; his feeling that "the story must be controlled by the artist to be art" seems to exclude any work that doesn't tell a linear story, leaving out plenty of still art, mobiles, presentations, interactive installations, etc. )

[Emehr]

It's the game play itself, the interaction of the player affecting (or not) the outcome, that I do not believe to be art.

Oddly, that's the part I consider art. I think the story part is just "wannabe" copying. To me, videogames are like pro wrestling. The "art" in wrestling is the actually putting on of a match. The "story" stuff is usually pretty lame and is just an excuse for the talent to put on a show. No one would say 99.99% of all wrestling stories have been very artful. However, making up an arcrobatic fight scene on the fly is a talent that is most certainly an art. Similarly, I think the ability to turn out something original in gameplay is an art, while the ability to include a terrible story and limited worlds with that gameplay is anything but art.

Wrestling is more comparable to improvisational performance, like a comedian getting onstage. The wrestler is the performer and the audience simply takes in what is going on inside the ring without having any direct influence on the outcome of the match.

 

Here's an example to hopefully illustrate my point a little clearer: if someone were to make a book entitled "The Art of Zelda:Windwaker", I could see them writing about everything in the game except the gameplay. The graphics, animation, music, and story can all be arguably considered art. Using the thumbstick to move and pressing "B" to swing cannot (IMHO). I don't believe game rules can be considered art. Two people playing tennis isn't art.

[Pixelboy]

(I'm still ticked at Ebert for being so pedantic and dismissive of the possibility of games-as-art; his feeling that "the story must be controlled by the artist to be art" seems to exclude any work that doesn't tell a linear story, leaving out plenty of still art, mobiles, presentations, interactive installations, etc. )

This only proves that Ebert is an old-fashion kind of guy. Video games as a medium are only a few decades old, and the mercantile aspects of this medium make a lot of people automatically dismiss video games as mere "products" instead of "art", especially by those of the "artistic elite" (whoever those people are recognized to be).

 

In truth, interactivity as a platform of artistic expression is still a brand new concept, when compared to traditional artforms, and anything new always meets resistance. It's human nature to resist change. But I believe this resistance is quite futile in this case because, ironically, there is a video game that actually demonstrates that interactivity can be a valid platform for artistic expression: Myst. I'm not talking about the game itself, but rather about Myst's central plot device, where a person can create interactive worlds by simply writing the physical laws and rules of this world into a book. Once this "world" is constructed, people can magically enter this world by touching a page of the book. Now can anyone look at the different worlds that you explore in the Myst games and tell me that those worlds are NOT works of art? The worlds of Myst are not just 3D paintings, they are meant to be explored interactively, and since video games convey the same kind of experience (although you are basically limited by a TV screen, a handheld controller and the limitations of the hardware running the game), then if you can call the constructed worlds of Myst "art", then there are plenty of video games today that can be called "art" as well.

 

On the other hand, I can agree with the notion that not all video games can be called art. Just like a doodle made by a four-year-old isn't art, in the "common sense" meaning of the term, a game like Air Raid on the Atari 2600 can hardly be called "art". However, I do label Tetris as a piece of art, not by its blocky asthetics, but by its simple yet ingenious design and its interactive capacity to keep me coming back for more. Judging something by its design qualities may not be new, but judging it by its interactive qualities is definately and completely new.

 

And that's why Ebert is not a valid reference for judging whether video games are an artform: Bluntly put, how many video games has he played in his life? You have to experience video games personally to understand their underlying interactive qualities. If you just look over a player's shoulder while he plays, you can't understand these interactive qualities because you're simply not interacting with the game. For example, let's say that you're playing a shoot-em-up like Gradius or Thunder Force, and you've reached the last boss of the game without using any cheat codes. Now consider the tension and high emotions you're feeling as you're fighting this final monstrosity. Those high emotions are similar to reaching the climax at the end of a good novel, but is it the graphics, the sounds or even the storyline of the shoot-em-up that are provoking these emotions? In part yes, but it's really the immersive quality of the interactivity that's doing it. And the exact same thing can be said about Tetris, BTW.

 

In my opinion, those who say that video games are not a form of art because they have non-existent or bad storylines and narratives are missing the point entirely, because they are applying rules of qualification taken from other artistic mediums, and those rules simply cannot be readily applied to interactivity. It will take many more years before video games are recognized as an art form, and when we reach this consensus, we'll all look back at the days of Pac-Man, and finally realize how these early games were the genesis of a new form of art, one that is multi-dimensional in nature, and one that has its own set of "artistic rules", which have little in common with the rules established for other art mediums.

Edited January 13, 2008 by Pixelboy

[Student Driver]

On the other hand, I can agree with the notion that not all video games can be called art. Just like a doodle made by a four-year-old isn't art, in the "common sense" meaning of the term, a game like Air Raid on the Atari 2600 can hardly be called "art". However, I do label Tetris as a piece of art, not by its blocky asthetics, but by its simple yet ingenious design and its interactive capacity to keep me coming back for more. Judging something by its design qualities may not be new, but judging it by its interactive qualities is definately and completely new.

 

Good point, it kind of illustrates the difficulty of trying to create hard and fast definitions of what is art when it comes to video games. To me, glancing at a couple of 2600 carts nearby, I'd say Super Breakout: art. Squeeze Box: not art. Why? Well, besides my own personal preferences regarding colors, aesthetics, etc... I'm not sure. I actually like both games, so it's not based on gameplay value. I think I happen to appreciate the more abstract qualities if the former, but the latter is hardly a paragon of realism either. And, who knows? There might be some intricate, tight coding bit of genius that would make a programmer call art a game I find repellent.

 

In my opinion, those who say that video games are not a form of art because they have non-existent or bad storylines and narratives are missing the point entirely, because they are applying rules of qualification taken from other artistic mediums, and those rules simply cannot be readily applied to interactivity. It will take many more years before video games are recognized as an art form, and when we reach this consensus, we'll all look back at the days of Pac-Man, and finally realize how these early games were the genesis of a new form of art, one that is multi-dimensional in nature, and one that has its own set of "artistic rules", which have little in common with the rules established for other art mediums.

 

Considering the continuing debates in the art world about whether, say, Banksy or Damien Hirst are artists, the question of whether their works are "art" bodes ill for the world at large warming to the idea of video games as art. Banksy, despite his sometimes stupid situational antics, paints in traditional 2d visual forms; Hirst does painting, sculpture, found art. If these guys, working in traditional, accepted forms are questioned, what chance is there of radically different forms being accepted? Hell, cartooning is centuries old, and outside of Hogarth, the only time the art world acknowledges cartooning is when someone rips off cartoonists, like Roy Lichtenstein's "appropriation" of panels from various comics, including Spider-Man. Steve Ditko-- hack. Guy who copied Steve Ditko-- genius.

 

Sorry, tangent there. Can you tell I'm bitter?

 

Anyway. I don't think the art world is going to declare video games in general as worthy of artistic notice (they will, of course, "appropriate" video games out of context from time to time, call it their own, then consider it art). At least not any time soon. I think it's more up to us video game fans to, in converse, appropriate from the art world, and create our own movements, definitions, etc. to define our art. Outside of a few modern art museums, cinema still is ignored by traditional art establishments-- it's the fans of cinema who created the language of the art of cinema. Similarly with comic books, cartooning, animation, rock music, and pretty much any other pop culture form.

 

As another tangent, I was thinking about why I consider games like Pong, Asteroids, etc., to be art, while I'm less partial to modern RPGs and action/adventure games and such. Knee-jerk reaction: I seem to prefer abstract games in which the player is implicit in the creation of a storyline; I feel modern games spoon-feed stories to players instead of truly involving them; abstract graphics allow better player/character identification while better graphics separate the character as a distinct entity apart from the player. But then I think of a game like Shadow of the Colossus which, by this reasoning, I shouldn't consider art... yet I consider it art. Meh. I'm returned to "I know it when I see it" as my own definition of art.

[potatohead]

I think so.

 

Anywhere there are limits to expression, there is the potential for art.

 

To me, there is less potential for art in the newer gaming times. Maybe it just changes some --I'm not sure. Maybe we can get Ian to post on this thread.

 

Final fantasy 7 is art for sure, Chrono Trigger, others... are the same. There the art is the story and how it evokes emotion. The medium is limited, yet the impact is very robust. To me, that's the same as someone painting to get the same effect.

 

That's just one kind of VG art expression. Happens to be one kind I really like.

 

On the older systems, I think the sharp limitations make for some very interesting art in the form of gameplay. The 2600 has lots of great titles that leverage simple play mechanics, and some back story to evoke the imagination or perhaps just to get one to play. I think KABOOM! is art too, by way of example of that.

 

Modern systems display art too. I personally don't consider HALO III very artistic. It's technically brilliant, and fun to play, but does not have that spark for me personally. Maybe I'm wrong though --tons of people are way into that game. One thing that's really hard today is depicting scale. The latest FF does this very well, on PS2. It's use of color and graphics is artistic too, as it pushes that system to it's limits. And that's another art there.

 

Pushing to the limit, while at the same time, adhering to good graphic design has gotta be art. Lots of the homebrews we are seeing today do this, and do it very well.

Edited January 13, 2008 by potatohead

[potatohead]

Re: Books.

 

Look at "Lord of the Rings". That's art, period. Even though each reader tends to paint their own pictures, the art is in commonality --that ability to refine what one sees in their mind to a point where it can be shared. The movies made from these books had recognizable places to a whole lot of readers. To me, that speaks to both the movie and the book being art, as that combination is just not easy to achieve.

[Inky]

If you think its art, then its art.

 

Case in point: Dadaism. Someone once put a toilet in a museum and called it art. Is it art? Not to me, but to someone else it was.

[thomasholzer]

Art is entertainment, it serves no other purpose.

Video games entertain, so they are art.

[iwan-iwanowitsch-goratschin]

Art is entertainment, it serves no other purpose.

Video games entertain, so they are art.

 

I like this kind of philosophy!

It´s a nice explanation and 100% right...

[liveinabin]

They are art. But, for the most part, perhaps not particularly good art.

[Blackjack]

IMO, they are all art.... good or bad, no matter how many people got together to create it. Large games are a collection of art..... musical, literary, and graphic.

[Gemini]

I think the simple way to answer the question is if you feel movies are art.

 

It's hard not to consider video games art when you consider that there's actual artwork in them in the first place. Fonts are considered art. Logos are considered art. Sprites should easily be considered art based on that and if sprites are art, so's practically the rest of the game. Oh, music and sound effects; both art forms.

 

The real question is if game mechanics should be considered art. If you feel yes, then video games are clearly art. If you feel no, then you're left with a contradiction and sooner or later you will become so troubled by your opinion you will be forced to say yes. ;D

 

Though the question is made complicated when you consider that user interfaces are not considered copyrightable, nor are the game mechanics alone. If they were then the game industry would be stalled horribly and shareware authors like myself would never be able to release anything. x_x;

 

Considering the amount of effort I put into making my games, and the amount of balancing and planning I do, it is very much an art form in my opinion.

Edited January 21, 2008 by Gemini