Are games an art?

Closed

Not only is it an art, but it's the ultimate form of art. I'm not speaking of any games specifically, but generally games are the combination of number of art forms; visual, musical, story, writing, and even game mechanics like AI, gameplay and such are as well a form of art in the broader definition. And to top it all it's all interactive which is almost in any sense better than static. But before you go on and saying that only specific games can be considered art, I'd say that even games like COD are art. Maybe it isn't artist, original or anything special, but just pile of generic stuff. But I'm not here to tell what is art in terms of quality, but simply what can be defined as art. COD is like the equivalent to majority of DA submissions, generics and sometimes shitty, but still technically counts as art.

I am well aware that to many of you this might seem just an obvious thing, but there are still many, even among non-casual gamers, that still think that video games aren't art.

EDIT; The definition of "Art" I used was for art and craft, and not the "Art" as artistic quality.

11 years ago*

Comment has been collapsed.

147 Comments

Kimek

Every game got their own art style some of them look more artistic than others but on the end every game got their own art in 3d or 2d with different art style.

11 years ago

Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Necroblight

You talk about a specific form of art, I was speaking of a broader definition.

11 years ago

Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

xaldin31

I think anyone who has played Thomas was Alone or Dear Esther has to admit this as true, however there are also those crude kids drawings that people call COD, no-one really thinks it as art, but they are so committed to the artist that they keep buying it.

11 years ago

Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Necroblight

I would compare flash and mobile games to crude kids drawings, an art lacking skill, and COD I would compare to generic painting and sculpture (for use they all might seem good like the others but hobbyist of that industry would regard those as we regard COD), an art with skill but lack of originality or artistic qualities.

11 years ago

Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

crazyalan1988

There are flash games that are better refined than a lot of title games.

11 years ago

Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Necroblight

1% of them, right? I won't make an exception in my generalization because of 1%.

11 years ago

Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

crazyalan1988

I would definitely say more than that. It would not likely be an extremely high amount, but the flash games are often times more enjoyable, and less regulated by a money driven business. EA has turned a bunch of games into obvious money grubbers, and claim that they leave it to their developers, but if as many have the same problem across the one production company, then it strongly suggests that that production company is pushing it. The lack of that regulation allows the developer their own basis to make the game, without the requirements handed down from someone else. They make features available because the designer wants it there. The title games however often have these requirements, and they have them use an engine from other games to expedite the production, leaving less involvement from the developers. It would be like telling the painter what he is painting, how he needs to paint it, showing him how it should look, and giving him a restricted time limit on making it. So why many of the flash games would seem unrefined is due to the fact that they are starting pretty much from scratch, and have to code everything. I give more respect to what I see was made to be enjoyable, and not with the sole focus of money, so if (for example) 10% of flash games were better than 40% of title games, then I would call that significant.

11 years ago

Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Necroblight

1% was an overestimation. I'm not saying that there's very little good flash games, you probably aren't aware of the sheer amount of flash games there is. And this amount there is compared to the good flash games it's like nothing.

11 years ago

Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

crazyalan1988

I know the vast numbers of flash games, and I understand that there is at least a few being released weekly, but you may not have noticed the amount of games released through developers are often fairly high. I think for the past several weeks there have been 3-4 games released weekly, and how often are title games any good. In fact, this last week (from the 21-27) there have been 10 games released (not including what appeared to be directly connected to another game and a bunch of magic the gathering packs). Most of the time, there are not as many flash games released in that kind of time period. Granted there are a lot of flash games that are fairly close copies of other flash games, but there are a lot of title games the feel like clones of others.

And out of frustration about my connection to this site, this will be the last message I put here because I feel like I am going to put my fist through my computer screen if I see "Web Page Not Available" or "Database Connection Failed". Maybe it is query, but still frustrating, had to rewrite a few messages.

11 years ago

Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Necroblight

Maybe you are talking about the more popular and well accepted flash games, when I said flash game I meant the whole market of flash game, like from Newgrounds and other places. In which case there are more than dozens (if not hundreds) of flash games being released daily.

11 years ago

Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

Onomatopesha

I was boggled when i read the title and expected a question triggering a potential discussion and saw your already chewed up point (don't worry, it's just an incongruence i noticed and for some reason felt like pointing out).

As you very well said, it is a form of art, but not in a way that can be compared to traditional forms (like music, a painting, or a poem), as it is a mixture of music, sounds, voices and visual interpretations, all while inside a context that can, to a certain extent, be changed, and interacted to get different results, it has the potential to have a tremendous meaning and impact on the player, like a movie would, however not many games have done that. This doesn't mean they are not forms of art (if we were to think something like a piece of code is art in itself, a "raw" form, if i could say so).

11 years ago

Permalink

Comment has been collapsed.

ThirdSketch

And I always think to myself: