Will gaming ever be 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.
This is just about the best answer I've seen to this question.

I'm not convinced that games in general are Art. Hell, I don't think a lot of what is called Art is Art
 
I consider it art, but there is a possible conundrum with it.

The greatest works of art do not age. It's quality and skill to produce are timeless. Not so with video games. Yes you can say that the caveman painting is art, but it's not appreciated art, it isn't skillful to produce, and therefore not of any real value or merit other than being 'early art'.

With games, they tend to age terribly. There are many games that look like shit but are still super fun, but the basis of the medium is not timeless. The canvas is bound to technology which progresses in a way art mediums didn't, even though they to changed with the times. If a painting is on canvas, velum, wood, slate, whatever, the quality or lack of in the piece remains, but games cannot achieve this. The quality does not remain over time, because it is superseded by techniques that vastly improve quality going forward.

So while it is certainly art, it differs greatly in quality over a very small time. One day this may not be the case, but it is now.
Maybe this says more about the mediums games are based in than the potential of games to endure and resonate with future generations. If a future photoreal remake of Ico could be stored and operated on some sort of a highly durable self-powered tablet with a built-in interface, who's to say it wouldn't be appreciated 1000 years later? I'd sure like to play a dead civilization's video games, if they existed.
 
The greatest works of art do not age. It's quality and skill to produce are timeless. Not so with video games. Yes you can say that the caveman painting is art, but it's not appreciated art, it isn't skillful to produce, and therefore not of any real value or merit other than being 'early art'.
I disagree. We didn't jump from "caveman art" to whatever you consider "timeless" directly. It is even more obvious with music. It's the hi-tech evolution tempo that is making the games feel different.
 
Games are already art, if you define art as an instance of creative expression designed to give the audience an evocative experience. There are pieces of art in games, like skyboxes and music, and art in the meeting of different types of artistic forms within games.

I'd like to see someone explain why aesthetically and thematically rich games like Shadow of the Colossus and Okami shouldn't be considered art.

This is kind of what I was getting at. You define art in a way that avoids simple art, like a childs hand painting, or that caveman's painting, then it also equally avoids simple games. Is pong art? Or does it need to be on an Ico level to be considered as such?
 
I disagree. We didn't jump from "caveman art" to whatever you consider "timeless" directly. It is even more obvious with music. It's the hi-tech evolution tempo that is making the games feel different.
That's right. Let's not forget that digital technology is a few seconds old, relative to traditional art forms. Paintings have existed since prehistory.

This is kind of what I was getting at. You define art in a way that avoids simple art, like a childs hand painting, or that caveman's painting, then it also equally avoids simple games. Is pong art? Or does it need to be on an Ico level to be considered as such?
I'm not sure about Pong, but definitely Tetris. There's enormous room for interpretation in the basic block shapes. It's a compositionally interesting game, and that's before you even get to the interactive part.

Come to think of it, I bet some clever person could argue that Pong could be interpreted as range of philosophical statements about action and reaction, social behavior, etc., not to downplay the visual interest of its stark presentation with the simple moving elements... so yeah, Pong is probably art too.
 
Maybe this says more about the mediums games are based in than the potential of games to endure and resonate with future generations. If a future photoreal remake of Ico could be stored and operated on some sort of a highly durable self-powered tablet with a built-in interface, who's to say it wouldn't be appreciated 1000 years later? I'd sure like to play a dead civilization's video games, if they existed.

it is certainly, painting and drawings have been drawn on a flat surface for an age. This surface changed and improved the quality, but the standard of that medium - as a flat clear surface remains. Sizes are different and have no standard because it doesn't alter the work, the 'size of the canvas' in a game does certainly make a huge difference to the quality of the work. There are artists that painted in what amounts to pixels, and I guess these are the most comparable in terms of increased details through the medium. I do consider them art, but it's a very large difference in preservation of quality from where I stand. When you take the actual mechanics of it into account, it throws it way off. Look at the hatred for tank controls as an example of how the medium has changed in a way that makes that older work inferior, as an example. It's just something I think can never be equal between these mediums, and so damages the direct comparison in a way I'm not convinced can change.

I disagree. We didn't jump from "caveman art" to whatever you consider "timeless" directly. It is even more obvious with music. It's the hi-tech evolution tempo that is making the games feel different.

No, of course. I just mean that there is a big difference between art, and art lol. Both are defined as such, but time does not effect the quality of both equally.

I'm not sure about Pong, but definitely Tetris. There's enormous room for interpretation in the basic block shapes. It's a compositionally interesting game, and that's before you even get to the interactive part.

Come to think of it, I bet some clever person could argue that Pong could be interpreted as range of philosophical statements about action and reaction, social behavior, etc., not to downplay the visual interest of its stark presentation with the simple moving elements... so yeah, Pong is probably art too.

Haha, yes, perhaps. It's an interesting discussion that I'm not really able to reconcile due to how I see art as an appreciated work, but art can also just be a work in itself. One a concept and the other a name for a medium.
 
Come to think of it, I bet some clever person could argue that Pong could be interpreted as range of philosophical statements about action and reaction, social behavior, etc., not to downplay the visual interest of its stark presentation with the simple moving elements... so yeah, Pong is probably art too.

Does just tacking on some deep interpretation to something that was completely unintended by that thing's creator retroactively make it art? In other words, do you consider it art if I just scribbled on a napkin and someone decides it represents man's struggle with the blahblahblah and our inability to blahblahblahblah? I'm actually wondering because to me art is all about its creator's desire to influence others on an emotional level. So when that creator is just making a digital version of air hockey I wouldn't call it art.
 
I think the first thread I made was games you could showcase next to Mona Lisa and it got locked but since then I kinda realised it doesn't really matter either way. If you value the medium you enjoy that is all that matters.

It takes time and a perspective that we just don't have yet.
 
It already is, it just doesn't get recognized as one because of being considered a toy.

I think the term "toy" could be considered an offensive word. It is not a toy. The technological advancements and creativity put it above a toy. I feel that a lot of people do not see anything outside their own definition. There are people who don't see anything besides colors and animals hopping up and down on the screen. There are artists in the gaming field who do exceptional work. I find it annoying when people think it's catered to kids and young people. It's often not even looked at beyond what it could be. There are a lot of different genres and a long line of events in gaming history. Some people see what their kids play and that's that. You don't hear about the art of TLoU or the art that went to create a Lucas Arts adventure game. It's probably a facet to gaming more than it is an art piece. There's the art of Halo and then there's the actual part of playing the game. If you don't play the game then what do you see? I think it's artistic when you can stand a character in a world and it comes to life. I think the west still has a large group of people who don't respect gaming as much as others. Even when the west developed the Xbox we still called it another video game console and some only see Mario as being groundbreaking.

I think family values and stereotypes in America get in the way of that. Places like Art galleries and museums are respected over the idea of some young person cursing online. They also don't like the idea of it maturing. I think those people have a hard time looking at games as art. They won't go any further than they already have. There's a ton of content out there. I have numerous art books and books about the art used in video games. You just can't make those things up if you aren't talented.

How many people make fun of video games? Yet somewhere someone is paying millions for a piece of abstract art. In America we have the college voice that can also hurt it. We don't have a solid foundation at times outside of when the industry sticks its head above water or someone gets offended. The only news we get is either negative or when someone makes a billion dollars off a video game. We get less respect than movies do and our ratings system gets forgotten a lot by outsiders.

I also think a large portion of Americans love to feel ashamed about video games. They only like them when they're popular or when they were young. Family values and their social life get a head of them and they can't think any other way about video games. There's many wonderful facets about games and sometimes it's like they get lost with any form of media. No one wants to take them seriously because it becomes a crux.

No one talked about the art of Doom when Columbine happened or the talented work it took to make a GTA game. Yet no other technological advancement has outperformed those games when they were released. Their legacy has a lot of art, but lots of people don't see it at all.
 
I've yet to see any good arguments against it being art in my entire life.

You can't be binary about it. That's like saying a film is automatically a work of art or it isn't.

I'd strongly argue that it's actually impossible to say is "games are art" or "games aren't" art. I'd argue this about all other mediums too.

The correct position is that games can be art. The actuality today and across the sum total of videogame's short history are that the majority of games aren't art but simply games (and there's nothing wrong with that).

Most games are pretty much exactly equivalent to playing a game of chess or checkers or solitaire. An exercise of skill (and by the way most games are no more interactive than real world physical interaction moving chess pieces, not in principle anyway, so I wish people would also stop mentioning interactivity as though it automatically confers something. We interact all the time in reality and that's neither art nor gameplay that's just being alive).

I would no more describe the majority of games as art as I'd look at a chess set sitting on a tabletop and say "hey that's a piece of art". There may be artistry (not to be confused with art) in the production of both, the chess pieces may be beautifully designed and crafted, just as the game design may be beautifully designed and crafted: but the end result is simply a game. Artistry is all too often confused with automatically being art.

That's not to say you can't take all the ingredients that constitute a videogame and create art, of course you can, heck you can raid the contents of rubbish bins and create art from the contents so you can surely create art from textures, music, sprites, polygons and all the other options for a videogame. But most games don't do this as they are either designed and created first and foremost as games or at best commercial entertainment; again making a game does not automatically mean you're created art at the same time. However the potential is there and certainly there is now a decent group of games that I'd be happy to make solid claims as art inasmuch as the sum of their parts delivers more than a mere game but a thematic and evocative experience consistent with most notions of what art actually is (which is quite tricky to pin down itself). Journey, Ico, and SOTC are obvious examples (one's called out interestingly enough at a exhibition I attended recently in Edinburgh on videogames - link below for reference).

I do think there's a misguided push to see videogames as art full stop, which as I've noted doesn't make sense no medium is automatically art no matter general perception otherwise and that includes painting, sculpture, poetry, literature,etc. It's just that some mediums have, over time, built up a much higher percentage of artistic works vs non-artistic works and have been culturally associated as such. For videogames if that's going to happen it's surely a way off yet as the prevalent focus for the majority of games simply isn't about creating art (and to be honest I'm not sure I look to videogames to primarily art, I look to them to be primarily games and fun to play although I do enjoy the sub-set pushing over the line into art).

Link to exhibition I mentioned:

http://www.nms.ac.uk/national-museum-of-scotland/whats-on/game-masters/
 
Games are art. Gaming is an activity.

"...an activity for everyone".

How many middle aged people feel like it's an option? You see business men in Japan playing their 3DS around town and in America it's just the opposite. You have to define the "why I can do this now" versus "knowing you can do this and being okay with it". We have lots of people who've played video games since the beginning of Atari and possibly before. Yet there's one thing you do and that's make up or define "your reason". No one questions why someone "watched a movie" or that they went to the museum, but it can be a whole other story with games unless you know what you like or it's an opportunity for you.

I know my reason because it's been my reason since the early 90s. It's because I saw an NES as a kid. Now a days people don't want to see that nor do they see the work behind the games. They ask more about the "now" and for the most part they don't know which ends up about the industry's past, present, or future. Mind you this isn't true for a lot of people, but it's part of what I've witnessed.

The subject of video games is large. It at one time was based off one or two game mechanics, but now a days games come in a variety. If one game seems too juvenile then you can find another. As a whole they are extremely diverse.
 
Games are art. Gaming is an activity.

I would have no problem considering 'Gaming' as a type of performance art.

You can't be binary about it. That's like saying a film is automatically a work of art or it isn't.

Sure you can, watch: A film is a work of art.

Art isn't some measure of quality, and your extremely narrow viewpoint of what counts as 'art' is not some universal truth.

I'd actually love to see some examples of games or films you consider 'not art', as from the examples you've given so far (the banal and obvious Journey, Ico, and SOTC of course) you seem to be confusing 'art' for 'artsy'.
 
I consider it art, but there is a possible conundrum with it.

The greatest works of art do not age. It's quality and skill to produce are timeless. Not so with video games. Yes you can say that the caveman painting is art, but it's not appreciated art, it isn't skillful to produce, and therefore not of any real value or merit other than being 'early art'.

With games, they tend to age terribly. There are many games that look like shit but are still super fun, but the basis of the medium is not timeless. The canvas is bound to technology which progresses in a way art mediums didn't, even though they to changed with the times. If a painting is on canvas, velum, wood, slate, whatever, the quality or lack of in the piece remains, but games cannot achieve this. The quality does not remain over time, because it is superseded by techniques that vastly improve quality going forward.

So while it is certainly art, it differs greatly in quality over a very small time. One day this may not be the case, but it is now.

While older games require a bigger leap than older work in other mediums (having to interact with them kind of guarantees that), the gulf between them and other mediums tends to get overstated. I've seen plenty of people who aren't interested in movies past a certain age, and I'm sure I've seen it for other mediums too (hell, when I think about it the main pop music industry is almost entirely based around catering to that attitude). People who want to make the mindset change needed when going back will do so, just like they do for other mediums.
 
Games are art. Gaming is an activity.

English is not my first language, but this bothers me too.
Maybe gamING can be an artform like dance could be seen as an artistical form of expression.

Discussions whether games are art are useless unless you define "art" in your argument. The discussion then becomes senseless because the opposing arguments will be centered on the weak-spots of your definition and video games will no longer be the center of this discussion. It's useless.

Btw I like Scott McCloud's definition of art.
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Not really relevant but that's not actually true. Until the Italian Renaissance the people of the time that we now look back and call artists were considered to craftsmen. The people who built the walls and ceilings were no more or less important than the people working on the 12,000 square foot of fresco on the inside of the building.

The same also applied for the work they did.
What they did wasn't looked as art, but it was, since those same works are now seen as art. Just like, say, Super Mario Bros. wasn't seen as art by anybody until a few years ago. That's my point: the perception changes, but it's not the content of the field itself that changes and makes it art or not art.
 
When ever this discussion is brought up I always think of Nostalgia Critic's video on the topic.

It's hands down one of the best videos done on the subject I have seen, seriously if anyone hasn't watched it yet they should.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK-HYNXdIJI

EDIT
If a game is developed by more than a handful of people it's not art, it's a product.

what an odd definition of art. I guess movies and music that involves Orchestra aren't art then?
 
This entire argument boils down to semantics on the meaning of art.

Personally yes, I think it is an art. It is a collection of art, from assets to gameplay design.
 
Some videogames are definitely art, and some are not art, just like how some movies are art, and some aren't.

If a game is developed by more than a handful of people it's not art, it's a product.

I disagree, I consider BioShock for example as art, and that was made by a relatively big studio. Same deal with Okami.
 
If a game is developed by more than a handful of people it's not art, it's a product.
By that logic, the roof of the Sistine Chapel isn't art. You don't believe Michelangelo painted all of it himself because he felt like it, right? The pope asked him to paint it in exchange for money, and tons of assistants did the painting with Michelangelo directing without ever touching a paintbrush. Same for movies, etc.
 
My opinion is that it doesn't matter. In the end the discussion always boils down to semantics, and it's impossible to reach some sort of conclusion.

I'd personally argue that video games aren't are, since the defining part of video games aren't art, but that reasoning only works based on my personal definition of what makes something art.
 
It already is brother.
Yep, and always has been. Art is never the thing itself and never shows the whole picture. It's a selective representation of something based on our perception. The only difference with videogames is that they simulate things instead of merely represent them.
 
To me, art is any form of expression that is intended to invoke some sort of reaction from an audience, regardless of tangibility or skill.

So, by that definition, pretty much every video game could be considered art, in my opinion.
 
As someone who is an artist for a living and went to art college for 5.5 years, I've seen some shit that was considered art by other people but made me cock an eyebrow and say "really?"
(hello abstract expressionism -_-')
. The debate of "are games art"? has always been a bit pointless since the definition of art differs from person to person. As others have said, it's a game of semantics.

Instead, the better question to ask is "Can video games (as a medium) be used as a valid avenue for artistic expression?". The answer to that is - I believe - unquestionably yes.
 
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