Game For Thought: Would you call Video Games Art?

How would you define art exactly? For me art is something timeless, and it does not have to only be visual. Art can be a piece of music, a painting and even a poem. Art is something that almost anyone can look back at and appreciate for whatever purpose it was created. Can someone who listens to only modern day music listen to Beethoven for the first time and fall in love with his music? Maybe so. Would someone who has never seen a film older than 1990 watch Citizen Kane or Casablanca and love the film? It's very possible. But would someone who has been playing video games since the release of The Super Nintendo or Playstation put down their copy of Modern Warfare 2 and pick up a game of Pong and still be amazed? How about a copy of the original Super Mario Bros on Nintendo or Donkey Kong? After playing New Super Mario Bros Wii would they still be compelled to play the Original Super Mario Bros? Does our continuous advancement in technology hinder the ability for video games to be recognized as art by non-gamers?

Then again Art is only objective, right? What do you guys think?

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John Ostermiller

December 04, 2009

I think the key factor here is how one defines art, as art (defined by wikipedia) "is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions". Following this definition, almost anything can be defined as 'art'. However, there is art in the pure disposable entertainment sense - that is the arcade game you play for five minutes distraction or the cheap trashy novel you read for 'fun'. Then there are the games that transcend time/space because of their design or message. I think games, like 'art', fall across the spectrum. Certain games like Mario are cherished and long-lived because of their design. Others are "art" because of their message and/or the experience and emotions they invoke in players (GTA and Modern Warfare 1 come to mind) - The first Modern Warfare blew me away with its sense of space in Chernobyl and the experiences it put me through (the chopper crash sequence, the opening credits). Grand Theft Auto has been extensively explored in my first bitmob post, which you can read it here: http://www.bitmob.com/index.php/mobfeed/Grand-Theft-Anthropology-Is-Grand-Theft-Auto-Art-.html