Video Games Aren't Art, We're Better

Awful article. If you&#x27;ve never read a book that could captivate you as much as Doom, then you&#x27;ve probably just never read literature at a serious level.<p>I stopped reading when the author offered clickbait &quot;best games of [year]&quot; lists as evidence of the artistic accomplishment of video games. I&#x27;m totally excited by video games as a medium, but I&#x27;ve never seen anything that compared in creative quality to something like Pynchon.

Nice rant, but part of the argument seems to be that games are lucrative and addictive so they&#x27;re better. That would be true of gambling too.<p>The question is, are they worth spending time on? I do spend a lot of time on certain video games, and I have my doubts.<p>It&#x27;s sort of like someone saying a book was so compelling that they read it in one sitting. Yeah, okay, so the plot sucked you in, but are you happy afterwards that you did that?

<i>They take over your brain and let you get lost in them.</i><p>Video games are kind of like musical instruments in that they&#x27;re an artistic object designed to be used and &quot;gotten lost in&quot;. You may or may not consider them art in their own right, but the real point is to play them. We&#x27;ve spent a long time figuring out how to make art with musical instruments, but making art with games is very new. With fewer constraints and the right game design, I think technical performances like speedruns and TASes could develop into something like a true art form.

Where is the need to validate games as art coming from? I don&#x27;t hear Kasparow insisting chess is art (at least continuously). Since we lack a conclusicve definition of art I can&#x27;t for the life of me fathom why it would be important to get this label.<p>There is stuff people do on the higher steps of Maslow&#x27;s hierarchy of needs (i.e. spending time on other things than survival). Some of it is about creative self actualization and self improvement, other stuff is just about enjoying one self.<p>The best non-survival stuff improves the individual and provides epiphanies. The worst kind creates repetitive non-value adding habits which people are compelled to do.<p>Video games are a medium which provide both. Modern video games are packed with industrial art and design. Some provide a playground for creativity. Others provide incredible unforgettable scenes. And others are just slot machines. Is a slot machine art? What&#x27;s the Venn diagram of the sets &#x27;art&#x27; and slot machines like? Which one is truthier statement - &quot;All video games are art&quot; or &quot;some video games are art&quot;.<p>I have no answers. All I know is that claiming &quot;video games are&#x2F;are not art&quot; is silly. Maybe it&#x27;s about being jealous of the fame and meager stipends artists get. Or creating a defence againsr nasty relatives who conside video games a waste of time?

&gt; I love literature and theatre. I love great movies. Yet, I can&#x27;t remember any work of art, no matter how good, that consumed and drained me as much as the Cyberdemon in DOOM.<p>But unlike many encounters with art, DOOM never changed my worldview.

One day I want to write a game that is as powerful for me as Tonari no Totoro. It&#x27;s a silly kids movie, but it simply drips Japan. I can&#x27;t even put into words how complete that movie is. From the unspoken backdrop of the story, to the lush scenery, to the sounds of nature, to the character design... Virtually every frame has something to offer the viewer.<p>To me it is a historical artifact. Just like the author mentions of games, it <i>transports</i> my life to that of a child in post war Japan. I have not played any game that gives an experience like that. I am actually quite a big fan of fantasy, science fiction and fiction in general, but this movie blows me away by how real it is (despite containing a bus made out of a cat).<p>I think video games have a lot of potential, but generally lack focus. In fact the long running nature of games and ability to explore everything works against them. The more freedom you give the user, the harder it is to focus them. They push the boundaries and find that there is nothing behind them. Alternatively, they are locked into a perspective unnaturally.<p>Video games are a great medium for art, but I think there is still a lot of virgin territory to explore.

I don&#x27;t see why the author feels the need for something to be <i>either</i> immersive or art – or whatever dichotomy he&#x27;s trying to draw here. There are plenty of paintings and books and music that transport people. There are plenty of video games that don&#x27;t. Media is media, no matter what form. The quality of the media will discern whether the media is good or not, the form of the media doesn&#x27;t matter.

&gt; <i>We&#x27;re winning because we offer something better than art. We offer Experience...Stop using the word &#x27;art&#x27;. Erase it from your dictionary. It&#x27;s too weak a word. I want nothing less than to compel you. I am coming to consume all your thoughts, all your attention. I want to absorb you to the point where it threatens your marriage and your livelihood.</i><p>Not all art is passive though. There has been performance and interactive art that can be pretty engaging. &quot;Sleep No More&quot;, for instance. So I think the OP needlessly argues about the popular connotations of the word &quot;art&quot;<p>That said I completely agree with him that games such as &quot;Last of Us&quot; are not the ideal when it comes to video game as art. Just because a game&#x27;s cutscenes can compete with a feature film in terms of theatrical quality does not mean it&#x27;s great art <i>as a video game</i>. Nor does lacking cinematic quality disqualify a game from being art.<p>So far my favorite artistic epiphany from a game, not including games that shoot for being &quot;art&quot; more than being a playable game, came from the original &quot;Portal&quot;.<p>There&#x27;s a segment late in the game where you&#x27;re asked to kill a inanimate object that you&#x27;ve been carrying around for most of the game. You <i>know</i> that it&#x27;s inanimate. Yet as the narrator taunts you, I was tense the entire way because I was almost convinced it was a living breathing thing, solely because of the length of time I had been interacting with it. I half expected it to scream when I killed it. When nothing happened (I think) I laughed out of sheer relief. It was a feeling much more intense than watching a horror movie, and the only reason it was so intense was because of the interactive role I had -- both in carrying it and then killing it. That&#x27;s the kind of unique artistic experience that a game can have that&#x27;s not easily replicated in other mediums, certainly not film or books.

Since my name is a bit personally involved into this debate, I have to add some arguments:<p>* Doom was only considered art by some people to prevent the German or British government from censorship. Remember, Wolfenstein is illegal in Germany because of the swastika, and Doom was banned in Germany for over 17 years for glorification of violence to protect minors. I.e. it could be sold and used, but it was illegal to advertise it. Similar to the movie &quot;Starship Troopers&quot; which was an artistic farce, not even a commercial game.<p>* The art aspect of Doom officially came with &quot;Arsdoom&quot;. Only this game mod was considered art. By art historians and such.

Video games are art. You can&#x27;t be &quot;Better than art&quot; as art only means &quot;creation with intent&quot;, which is so broad even kicking a can down the hill in a certain way can be called art.

Didn&#x27;t this die out a week after the game press went wild with it back in 2013? The author of this post couldn&#x27;t even find anything more recent than Roger Ebert&#x27;s article.

This argument always seems like a straw man to me. &#x27;Art&#x27; is a broad and loosely (looser and looser) defined term, there is no reason video games can or can&#x27;t be a part of that for you.<p>Many people seem to constantly yearn to define some sort of video game literary canon. To earn that sort of platform takes many more years and a society more willing to accept video games as valid emotional experiences and&#x2F;or effective question posers. They are not ideal for either, they are ideal for producing addictive feedback loops. The author here is keen to put these loops under the same banner as Kubrick or Tolstoy, presumably to justify his investment to himself as much as anyone else.<p>Loving Doom is nothing to be ashamed of; you can love Tarkovsky films too.

Some games are art some others are closer to artisanry.<p>Games like NBA, FIFA and others follow a known formula and stick to it. They are more akin to artisanry than art.

Great. Can we artists get our term back, then? Thanks.

Oh what a sneaky advert!

You &quot;won&#x27;t apologize for your craft&quot; to who, exactly? You _just_ laundry listed how games are a social, critical, and financial success. Where is this high-culture-snob straw-man?

Article meh, subject interesting. Question: Which games do you people feel have replayability on the level of Civilization except roguelikes and original Xcom maybe?

World and behavior modeling - the AI parts of the craft, are definitely a next level of an Art - the abilities we used attribute to our primitive gods.

This is why no one likes nerds.