I'm actually going to say, "no."  Maybe the issue is semantic -- I think all of the above images are striking and beautiful -- but at least not in the sense that photography currently exists as an art form.  

You frame and set up a shot, mess around with brightness, gamma, AA, etc. but you're working in a space that has so few variables and provides you with such little agency.  A screen capture program and a game engine just can't possibly approach the versatility, circumstance and luck of the real world + a good camera.

 How do you light, focus or frame a shot in a game to make it really say something?

Yes and no.

If you work at a developer and can manipulate the camera and its position, the lighting, the models, the environment... I don't see how that's any different than framing/positioning/lighting a shot.  When I was still in the industry, we had to pose and render models/scenes (in both the game engine and Maya) all the time.

But for the general population... no.  They're screenshots.

Then there's the gallery scene to consider, which opens a whole other can of worms; installation, arrangement, another layer of lighting, format/media...

EDIT: Admittedly, that's probably getting off-topic.

Some of those screenshots are really beautiful, yes. As a gamer, I appreciate them. I doubt too many other people do - the uncanny valley is a big issue. In my opinion we're not even close to art photography. Just Google "art photography" (http://www.google.fi/images?q=art%20photography&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=fi&tab=wi) - you cannot do that stuff in games. You could pick a given style and really go for it, blurring the line between functional videogame art and making art for its own sake, but I can't bring myself to compare it to actual photoraphy.

Can't draw? Don't have a camera? No worries! Now you, too, can make art! From the makers of FL Studios comes ScreenCap! Load up your favorite game and try out your artist's eye; the world and lighting are preconceived and atmosphere is predetermined, you just decide on the angle! Making fine art has never been this easy—everyone can do it!

I actually run a blog dedicated to video game screenshots as art - http://www.videogamesasart.com .  I have thousands of followers and they all believe that games can be art. Come check out my archive of posts here: http://www.videogamesasart.com/archive

Just to clarify, I didn't ask the title question of this article. It was added by the Bitmob editor.

Just to add further clarity, the site was never designed, as some are suggesting, to bask in other people's glory. Dead End Thrills is my pet project and exists solely to celebrate the art that many players, thanks to their hardware, playing style or just the designs of the games themselves, might overlook. I think there are parallels between real world photography and the gaming equivalent, but would never go as far as to say it rivals or even emulates 'fine art' photography. Those are someone else's words. Its job is to capture moments and aspects of a virtual world to foster greater appreciation of its beauty, and there the comparison ends. The skills required, if indeed there are any, are in a different league.

I did change the title, because I think it's an interesting question to ask -- and it's definitely generated some response. From my perspective, I don't see how what Duncan is doing as any different that setting up a still life. Photography isn't only about circumstance and luck. I'd argue that framing is the key -- and at that, Duncan's captures most definitely succeed.

I agree with Brett. I'm a person that likes to take a lot of photos and a lot of screen shots. I don't really see how the two urges are disconnected-- I want to make good compositions and good memories.

I can't tell the difference between fanfiction and novels like "Moby-Dick" and "Blood Meridian." I don't really see how the two can be disconnected—both have words and sentences.

 

You know, I think that while talking about screenshots as fine art photography is a very valuable topic (after all, we spend so much time exploring these worlds, virtual or no, it only makes sense we would want to take snaps like we do of birthdays or pretty landscapes in real life - to capture a small glimmer of the often massive amount of investment we have in these games). 

And again, we run in to legal issues with intellectual property... but this isn't that foreign to "real life" photographers. In fact, some law cases are currently arguing certain buildings are actually copyrighted and you can't shoot photos of them! So too, is a Japanese garden any more or any less manicured and shaped by the gardener's hand than a super-sophisticated MMO?   

Yet, I think we might find very interesting ideas by looking closely at your title which deals specifically with "fine-art photography" — a realm I think well beyond the impulse of people who just take a few frames of things they want to remember or of something aesthetically pleasing. We're talking about the sustained artistic inquiry that really explores and digs deeply in to the material and makes it the artist's own, at least intellectually and emotionally. A level of projects we've yet to see done in screenshots.

Well, I guess that's not totally true. I have a very vested interest since I've been doing work with MMO's and photography since grad school. I've done numerous installations including printing landscape shots in traditional photo processes and displaying them amongst trees to look at how new technology looks backward for source material; making huge photos of graphics glitches that look like large abstract paintings; even making a massive virtual panorama of every WoW player corpse I found leveling 1-70; among other parts of the project. If you're curious, http://www.eronrauch.com/land for some examples from that project. (Also, I've used screenshots from J-RPGs as part of another project http://www.eronrauch.com/arcana ).

As virtual worlds get more pervasive and complex, this issue is only going to get more interesting!