Will gaming ever be an art form?

Calmine

Member
Hey GAF, I write for a games site called GameGrin.com and we've started to do more YouTube stuff based around the articles on our site. Our first big one poses the question - Will Gaming Ever Be an Art Form?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUmA1jNcIBo

The article was originally written for the site and the author also edited the video, while I did the voice over.

I thought it would be a nice topic for discussion here. So I pose the question. Will gaming ever be an art form?

I believe it can be but many still aren't convinced. Graphics can and will get prettier, although that doesn't always mean it'll ever be considered art. Some games I believe are art, others meh not so much. I wonder what's GAFs opinion on the topic?

While I created this topic for discussion. Any feedback for our video and channel would also be appreciated, I hope that's okay.
 

rajanp22

Member
I think it already is. People just don't know it/care yet

The trouble is many 'artsy' games take elements of film, sound, and art direction that don't really allow the 'game' to make a case for itself that it's art. What separates video games from those are the games mechanics and with things like VR I think it's an exciting time where the layman will begin to understand the beauty of great video games and what makes it unique.
 
anyone who says it's not should totally see me playing tony hawk

some wicked fucking 900s popping off there

calling "gaming" an art form is like calling "watching movies" an art form; consuming art itself isn't art, but whatever it's semantics
 

MormaPope

Banned
"Art" isn't a qualitative statement or a statement that something has great merit creatively. Art is someone's time, energy, and/or creativity put into something to invoke specific emotions or thoughts.

Videogames have been doing this since the medium consisted of dots on the screen and people had to make believe.
 

Guri

Member
I do think it's an art form, but I also think that we shouldn't keep discussing that. We have plenty of games as examples, but we need to stop thinking that we should prove ourselves to the rest of the world. Our industry and our community have huge flaws that need to be discussed, but I believe that worrying about what others say about people who play games shouldn't be a concern.
 

dukeoflegs

Member
Interesting question. I never really thought playing games as an art. I've actually never thought about consuming any kind of entertainment as an art, but if someone posts an interesting idea or thought about it I wouldn't mind hearing it.
 
You can deem anything "art" with just one definition of many. The discussion's more about semantics than anything else; in the meantime I think games have the potential to be more immersive than movies and other mediums before that. Games certainly are a medium, though, if we need something absolute.
 

TomRL

Banned
It's an impossible question to answer. The goal posts are always being moved. Everywhere I go there is a different definition of art. Philosophers differ and dictionaries differ. So it's a pointless question.
 

Shaanyboi

Banned
It already is. For most it's a commercial art, but the democratization of dev tools have certainly made personal expression, think-pieces, etc. much more common.
 

Simbabbad

Member
It's already an art form. Being an art form has nothing to do with style or quality or tone or a pose, it's a merely about fitting a definition: either you consider gameplay mechanics, immersion and the pleasure in interaction (the three components of a video game) to be able to carry a sense of beauty, and video games are already an art form, or you don't, and they aren't. Paintings or sculpture didn't "become" art forms, they were from the start.

Also, just so you know:

640px-Duchamp_Fountaine.jpg


This is technically art.

EDIT: Oh, except maybe you meant "is playing video games an art form"? In which case, no.
 

MormaPope

Banned
I'd like to add that intention and context are gigantic when it comes to designing a game. A game being fun requires a lot of thought and inquiry, Super Mario World is art just like The Last of Us is art. Having fun, being stressed out due to difficulty, feeling triumph when you succeed, these aren't side effects of game designers make a game, these are the intended results.
 

jerry1594

Member
How's it not art? There's so much art in games. Concept artists, actors, level designers and writers. But because it's an activity it's in this weird position between art and sport. But it doesn't really matter if it's put into a category. Most people know what it's about by now.
There's art in board games. Are board games art?
 

Roto13

Member
Roger Egg-bert.

I thought someone had thought of some way to view the act of playing games as an art form, like the title says. Instead, it's just the same tired old discussion about whether games are art. I thought it was generally accepted that yes, they are, and this whole discussion was pretty much over.
 

CHC

Member
It's a played out question. Games striving to become art reeks of a desperation for recognition.

You just can't categorize an entire medium as either "art" or "not art." Look at film - there are myriad examples going either way, from schlocky blockbusters to very poignant and raw human experiences.

People will continue to make games that have artistic merit, and people will continue to make terrible games that have none whatsoever. As a whole, nobody is going to settle the question of whether "games are art," but if you enjoy gaming and are moved by it in some way, then that is all the validation you should need.
 
It's a played out question. Games striving to become art reeks of a desperation for recognition.

You just can't categorize an entire medium as either "art" or "not art." Look at film - there are myriad examples going either way, from schlocky blockbusters to very poignant and raw human experiences.

People will continue to make games that have artistic merit, and people will continue to make terrible games that have none whatsoever. As a whole, nobody is going to settle the question of whether "games are art," but if you enjoy gaming and are moved by it in some way, then that is all the validation you should need.

Every movie is art, whether you like the film or not. It's all expressive
 

AESplusF

Member
They always have been.
I find it kind of odd that there are gamers who don't consider games to be art. The art world already considers games to be art, and there's really a lot of excitement and experimentation surrounding them lately.

"gaming" should be "games" in the title...
 

Mr-Joker

Banned
I consider Majora's Mask a work of art simply due to how the story is told through the 3 day cycle.

So yes gaming is an art form.
 
It's a played out question. Games striving to become art reeks of a desperation for recognition.

You just can't categorize an entire medium as either "art" or "not art." Look at film - there are myriad examples going either way, from schlocky blockbusters to very poignant and raw human experiences.

People will continue to make games that have artistic merit, and people will continue to make terrible games that have none whatsoever. As a whole, nobody is going to settle the question of whether "games are art," but if you enjoy gaming and are moved by it in some way, then that is all the validation you should need.

Maybe the question is less "Will gaming ever be an art" and more "Can a game be considered a work of art"?
 

Roto13

Member
I find it kind of odd that there are gamers who don't consider games to be art. The art world already considers games to be art, and there's really a lot of excitement and experimentation surrounding them lately.

There are gamers who will absolutely not admit to anyone they know outside of the internet that they like video games. There's a lot of self-loathing in this hobby.

Absolutely. Furious 7, Schindler's list, and Gigli. They're all art, whether you like it or not, I'm afraid.

Yes. "Art" doesn't mean "Good."
 

Hindl

Member
It can be, it's not there yet to me. Sure, there are artistic games, but to me a medium becomes an art form when it can express it's story and ideas in a way that isn't as effective as in other media. We're getting there, especially with indies, but too many games are tied to the cinematic approach, where the player plays the game for a while, and then is ripped out of the action for a cutscene. It's fun, but to me it seems that developers aren't taking advantage of the medium completely yet.

There's the difficult problem of how to relay a story while letting the player retain agency, and there have been some games that do this with varying success. Games like Dark Souls populate the world with items and environments that fill in the story if the player wants it, games like Bastion use interesting mechanics where the player plays as the story is narrated to their actions, and games like Majora's Mask play with the concept of hopelessness with the 3-day cycle, and cause the player to feel as if their actions don't really matter. But the majority of the industry is too risk-averse to try new storytelling techniques, because games are too expensive to make. Indies will lead the charge, and hopefully we start seeing an elevation in storytelling beyond cutscene -> gameplay -> cutscene -> gameplay.

I just wrote an essay on this actually so it's fresh in my mind
 
Did you ever watch movies?

I.... Yes? I don't understand the question

please. There is a major difference between commerce and art. There are jillions of movies that are solely an expression of how to make more money.

Just because someone makes a movie to make money doesn't mean it's not art. Creating something because you want to get paid for it doesn't actually change anything

Schindler's List and Transformers 4 are both art. Art, in this case, is not a compliment, it is a label. And labeling Transformers as art does not elevate it, just like it does not devalue Schindler's List. Art does not only have to be "good," that's a common misconception. There is some really shitty art out there, but just because it's bad doesn't mean it suddenly loses its label.
 

MormaPope

Banned
It can be, it's not there yet to me. Sure, there are artistic games, but to me a medium becomes an art form when it can express it's story and ideas in a way that isn't as effective as in other media. We're getting there, especially with indies, but too many games are tied to the cinematic approach, where the player plays the game for a while, and then is ripped out of the action for a cutscene. It's fun, but to me it seems that developers aren't taking advantage of the medium completely yet.

There's the difficult problem of how to relay a story while letting the player retain agency, and there have been some games that do this with varying success. Games like Dark Souls populate the world with items and environments that fill in the story if the player wants it, games like Bastion use interesting mechanics where the player plays as the story is narrated to their actions, and games like Majora's Mask play with the concept of hopelessness with the 3-day cycle, and cause the player to feel as if their actions don't really matter. But the majority of the industry is too risk-averse to try new storytelling techniques, because games are too expensive to make. Indies will lead the charge, and hopefully we start seeing an elevation in storytelling beyond cutscene -> gameplay -> cutscene -> gameplay.

I just wrote an essay on this actually so it's fresh in my mind

Tons of games have used gameplay, actual gameplay bits and mechanics to tell story or present themes of a story. Storytelling through gameplay has been a thing for a long time now.
 
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