Games Are NOT Art

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An independent game designer and Arts Professor at NYU says games are not art. Something tells me you guys are going to have some pretty strong opinions about that.

Rather than trying to figure out how games can become more like art, we should do the opposite. We should be desperately trying to rescue them from becoming art, delaying their installment into the hallowed halls of art. If we love games, let us do everything possible from entombing them in that final resting place, that cemetery of dead culture that we call art.
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I'm not even sure what the point is of arguing it. Games are GAMES.

They contain art. They contain speech. They contain fiction and non-fiction.

Why are these guys trying to define something that is already adequately defined?
 
I'm the least artistic person in the world and my eyes usually roll back in my head when somebody starts talking about it but judging by what everybody else considers "art" and looking at the scenery, graphics, atmosphere, storyline and creativity in most games and can't see how it's anything but art. Games are just as "artistic" and maybe even more so than movies and those are considered art. And all these "artists" that get nominated for Grammys like Taylor Swift or Beyonce, I'd definitely consider games like Crysis, Max Payne, Tomb Raider or Deus Ex way more as art than anything those guys ever did.
 
I see a lot of things that aren't art. To me. It's just shitty paint (or literally shit) thrown at a canvas. If someone considers it art, then it's art. It doesn't matter if your interpretation isn't well with it.... It's art.
 
Games are an interactive form of entertainment ... like many forms of entertainment there are artistic elements to any good game ... is a book art (sometimes) ... is a movie art (in some cases) ... I think arguing over whether something is art or not is pointless ... some of the best games (Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale, Bioshock) are beautiful games that appeal to the mind and the eye ... a game like Braid is very artistic in nature ... we should be looking for good games and the best of the good games have beautiful graphics, haunting soundtracks, engrossing plot lines, and effective game play) :cool:
 
Ur_Mom said:
I see a lot of things that aren't art. To me. It's just shitty paint (or literally shit) thrown at a canvas. If someone considers it art, then it's art. It doesn't matter if your interpretation isn't well with it.... It's art.
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pxc said:
A lot of art isn't art either.
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It's still art, just shitty art.

Video games are art. No different than movies or painting. The medium is simply different.
This guy is guilty of elitism. He makes some seemingly good and interesting points, until you step back a bit and realize all of his points boil down to "It's not art because I say so."

Meh, whatever. He is free to consider it not art like I am free to consider what 50cent does not art.
 
Video Games aren't solely art, yet often contain many artistic aspects.

The artistic aspects of games can be criticized and appreciated on their own (drawing style, story, characters, emotions portrayed, etc), just as the rest of the aspects of the game can be criticized and appreciated on their own (rules, interaction with the environment, how control of the character feels, competition, balance, different skills, etc). If you only had the artistic aspects of the game and removed the rest, you could call it a piece of "art". However, the video game as a whole is a mixture of different aspects and therefore takes on a new identity.

Even Tic-Tac-Toe has some artistic aspects (such as the drawing/design of the board). If Tic-Tac-Toe was ONLY a drawing of the board and there were no rules/objectives/interactivity/etc then it could be considered to be art. Since it has other aspects, it now becomes something else. In this case a "board-game".

The end result is like a car. Part artistic, part mechanical. There can be appreciation/condemnation of it's artistic aspects, just as there can be appreciation/condemnation of it's mechanical aspects. Each aspect of it's own is just "art" or "engineering", put the aspects together and you get a "car".
 
Trying to define games solely as an "art" I think diminishes from what games can truly be. Games can be a creation that is greater than the sum of it's parts. We should be celebrating games as games, something that is more than just art, something that can combine so many aspects together in so many ways.

We've gone beyond the times when we needed to interact with a lot of these aspects separately from each other and have given birth to a new creation which can combine so many of them into one in so many different ways.
 
Many gamers get defensive when people try to say games "aren't art", as if that's somehow diminishing of games. I view it as the opposite. Calling games "art" is diminishing, as games contain more than just "art" and are a creation of their own kind worthy of it's own label and appreciation.
 
RealityCrunch said:
Many gamers get defensive when people try to say games "aren't art", as if that's somehow diminishing of games. I view it as the opposite. Calling games "art" is diminishing, as games contain more than just "art" and are a creation of their own kind worthy of it's own label and appreciation.
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I'm going by "art" as more than just the visuals and audio. It's the whole presentation. Gameplay, visuals, ambiance, etc.. The feelings the game invokes in the player. Some games scare the shit out of you. Some games are just fun to play. Other's are addictive but look like ass. It's all subjective, though. Some people get emotional at paintings, or a song, or a good movie. Same with games. The artform doesn't have to be defined as simple things or a simple label. But, as a broad term, they fit as art.
 
Games should certainly use art, and use it well, but they shouldn't try to be art.

I don't know about you guys, but so far, all of the films that I've seen that have been described as "art films" are completely unwatchable. There are a few games that go out of their way to be art, like this one. Ugh.
 
Just because some proffessor at nyu says it is, it must be so :rolleyes:

I'm glad it isn't art, that means pretentious assholes like him won't taint our gaming experince.
 
They need to get some different games.

Rather than trying to figure out how games can become more like art, we should do the opposite. We should be desperately trying to rescue them from becoming art, delaying their installment into the hallowed halls of art. If we love games, let us do everything possible from entombing them in that final resting place, that cemetery of dead culture that we call art.
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Alternatively, dont think about it :p

Sounds like he wants to rule the definition of art, good luck to him.
I'll let this be his problem and get on with having some fun.
 
The modern video game is only art to a certain extent. The illustrations and music that go into a game are indisputably art. However, the rest is just formulaic rubbish driven by marketing trends for maximum profit.
 
People don't have anything, and I mean ANYTHING, else to argue about? You think it's art...it's art. If you don't...you don't.

Me? I think of games as...well, games.
 
Video games are not art, painting with one's menstrual blood is art. You know why?

Because the patriarchy.
 
I've been as moved by games as I have by films that are said to be art.
To each his own.
Much more time will pass before this debate is considered settled, if it ever is.
 
Who cares, art as a concept is an abstraction anyway. Everyone seems to have a different understanding as to what constitutes art. My definition (the one that's in my head) is anything that does not have a practical use that anyone is willing to spend a bunch of money on. I'm not going to lose any sleep over what other people do or do not consider to be art.
 
Steve said:
An independent game designer and Arts Professor at NYU says games are not art. Something tells me you guys are going to have some pretty strong opinions about that.
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Does it matter? When I play a game, it's mostly for entertainment. If you buy a painting, it probably pleases you (which may be your entertainment). If movies are art, then surely some games are as well. Others are just things to pass time.
 
I get what he's trying to do, but saying games are not art is going to get him backlash.

I'm siding with the guy though in that too many people are beating themselves to make games "art" by trying to make games like OTHER art, and not a game that can stand on its own merits.
 
I don't think he's trying to be a douche. Games are not art, they contain art, like a museum does. I think he's saying that games are such a more complex form than a simple image that it doesn't do them justice to lump them in with say, sculpture or paintings, etc. He's actually elevating games to a higher level! I can see games equivalent to architecture where engineering and art are in play together though.
 
I'm surprised an Arts professor, of all people, doesn't get that it's impossible to define "art" since that's an eye of the beholder thing-y. Okay, I think most video games are really silly and mindless entertainment and that's what they're meant to be, which is perfectly okay. If someone decides that a video game is an artistic expression, because of the fact that the world has made art into such an abstract, poorly-defined personal thing, I could think they game is utter trash and that still wouldn't invalidate the person's opinion about it being art.
 
Just because some washed up professor who never did much more then draw some quality stick figures on wax paper and worships has beens like Van Gogh and Picasso can't fixate their eyes on something that goes past them 60 FPS.

Tell that to the guy who spent a good 10 years rendering in Z-Brush.
 
Let's say a game like Minecraft is not art. If it isn't, it certainly is the paint and canvas for art.

Games can be art just like any interactive art installation. Not all interactive things in the real world are art, and not all games are art, but some are.

But there are plenty of games that allow users to create art within them. It would be stupid to say their creations aren't art given the amount of crap coming out of the current art scene.
 
w4ffles said:
Yet dancing on butter is considered art? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnPNr9yquuc
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Limbo.

games can be arty. that certainly doesn't make them bad. really liked that game.
 
Reminds me in the 80s/90s when people were arguing whether comic books were art. Then Maus came along, then Frank Miller... and Alan Moore. No one argues that comic books/graphic novels can't be art anymore.

This discussion is becoming tiresome, frankly.
 
Who the fuck cares. As long as I get to make head shots. I could care less if some douchebag that lives in some Brooklyn loft and exclusively smokes hand rolled cigs doesn't think that diving headshot I made from across the map isn't art.
 
Some of the best things in life are not "ART".
Good food, the great outdoors, nookie, ice cream, toenail fungus.
 
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