So are video games art?

[-Stratesiz-]

I think art has and will always have a very simple definition. If the person creating it says "this is art" than it is. It is no one's right but the artist to give or take that away.

So when people who make or work on games deem their creation art, it sure is.

Bingo.

Art is something the creator perceives to be art. It involves thought, commitment and an intangible, although not necessarily a concious purpose of some sort.

That's my definition.

Art is also dependant on a certain context. For example a pair of jeans from target or a bag of beans is not art. However, if an artist decides to include the jeans or the beans in something that involves all the aspects above it can be defined as art.

[Vinny Testaverde]

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=art

I think video games would fit?

[Izuno]

well I don't mean to be so cynical.

I agree that art is what you make of it. But games are more than just art or more than just "interactive movies."

Games are virtual worlds where drama, action, adventure etc can unfold and let you do what you could not otherwise easily, typically or possibly do, and they don't rely mostly on your imagination. Sure it is virtual, but they do have a visceral feel, just not physical to touch (other than maybe vibration in a controller or something.)

Art, as in paintings and scupture and etc, is usually something just to look at. Maybe you can touch it. Maybe it is "environmental" like a vast field of funky sculptures or umbrellas or something. They can "take you away" to some other place, but you are really dependent on your imagination for that to happen, or drugs!

But coming back to games, they really are in a class of their own. They are like giant puzzles you have to interact with to solve...be the puzzle racing around a track ahead of other cars, navitaging a lanscape, surviving a shootout with mutants, chainsawing your way through a field of mutants...

Are they art? No. They are in a class by their own, and I think it's a very good class.

Oh...the 2D and 3D art that people make that go in games, yeah, i can see that as art...at least compared to the days of 2600 graphics which were, what, 4 bit or something?

[Pericolos0]

everytime a new medium is introduced people discuss if it's art. This is the oldest discussion ever and quite pointless even :/. Mikezilla nailed it

[Bic-B@ll]

i totally said it best

[DaanO]

"You have visuals, stories, acting, etc and you get to interact with them... Not all video games are good art, but some are I think, like final fantasy and half life perhaps? (Ive never played final fantasy but the screenshots look breathtaking) " -Jon

Weak argument. Same can be said about toiletpaper commercials. As far as i can see, 99% of all people don't even have the slightest idea what art is or even think it is "something pretty", which, clearly, it isn't. Video games can be art but by far most of the time, they are not. In fact, i have never seen any videogame that i would call art. Which isn't bad because videogames are awesome, not inferior to art, just something different. It's just that 'art' has some kind of nice sound to it, it has status and that's why people want their product to be art.

"Someone once said that art is to create" -Fetter To crap is also to create, in a way. As if everything that is created means it's art. *cough* Creativity has something to do with art, but it's far from the same.

"And to say that a work made on only one medium (e.g. painting or symphony) has more going on is rather strange, by what measure they have more going on than, say a game or a movie?" -Kosmo

Have to agree with Kosmo here, the medium does not matter at all. Games and movies can be art just as well as music or painting. Unfortunately however, there are very few artists in the true meaning of the word among game developers. (Concerning their game dev work, not talking about photography or painting or whatever done by the same people)

"The answer to this thread is pretty simple. Why don't you go and ask some of the hundred thousands of artists currently working in the videogames industry if what they are doing is art. I'm sure they will gladly answer your question. Rolling Eyes" -Kleinluka

Go as all the Christians in the world if God exists. Oh dear, he does, let's all convert to Christianity!

Whether or not there are museums about a subject does not matter. There's museums about any subject.

(just reading through by the way, replying to the whole thread)

I fully agree with gins with one difference: I wouldn't call games like that border-art, but art.

Oh and no offense, but people that say that 'art' is subjective (whether or not something is art or not depends on what the author calls it) just don't have a clue. Art ALWAYS has some quality about it that can be seen and judged. It's NOT just taste. How else would it be possible for people to not like someones work but appreciate them as artists? Take Kandinsky. I think what he makes is extremely ugly, i doesn't appeal to me, but i can appreciate him. How else is it possible to have artschools? It takes some good looking, some training to get something out of a work of art but it's most possible. I guess only those that mistake prettyness for art would say things like this.

[RD]

here comes the artstudent

[DaanO]

Doesn't that give me *more* credibility? I dedicated 2 years of my life to this question so far, i found some quite interesting things.

[RD]

in a way it does, but in another way it doesnt. Like Izuno wrote, you got somthing to lose.

Imho art is in the eye of the beholder. It can be bad art, but still art if someone calls it that

[st0lve]

Art is art if the author says it is.

And it doesn't have to be anything "arty", I'd consider 100000s of lines of code that form something as art aswell.

which would make videogames art.

[RD]

You are one piece of art you st0lve

[DaanO]

I have nothing to lose really. And even if i would, that doesn't eliminate the *possibility* of me being sincere about this subject. Anyway, i have nothing to lose because i am here not discussing my own views on art but on what art is considered to be. Something that is generally not understood, as this thread clearly shows. If i'd throw in my own vision on art, 99% of all modern art would be dismissed because most of it is crap and only few things would remain. It's not a definition that would do this discussion any good.

[Skjalg]

Majority rules.

Especially when it comes to terms/expression and the understanding of one word. Just think on it It doesnt matter what the word used to mean, it doesnt matter what you think it means. If the majority disagrees with you, you are wrong.

It is, infact, that simple.

[mikezilla]

That's a shame because some of our finest moments in history and art were when the minority went against the majority.

[DaanO]

If the majority rules, then you never would've known Picasso, Matisse, van Gogh, Gauguin, Renoir, Manet, Monet, Duchamp and i could go own. All of the great names in the art history at first were rejected by the world of art.