Are Video Games Art?

So I was reading through my recent issue of Play magazine and they had an article about the recent Hollywood and Games conference, basically it's a conference to build better relations between the two forms of media. One of the things the article brings up is an old Roger Ebert quote where he basically says that games can never be considered art. This also reminds me that Hideo Kojima had made a similiar comment in another article I have from a year ago.

So the question stands... Can videogames be considered art?

To a certain extent they can. One can easily point out the many things that already ARE considered art that are commonly put into a video game. Music, Character Design, and things like that. However, Video Games are also a business. They have to design the game in a certain way most of the time to ensure sales, whereas with music or paintings, while affected by other people's work, it is closer in a way of inspiration than copying.

Not only that, but one can't simply say that all Video Games are art, as they are assigned to genre's not by their style, but by the way they are played. True advancements in a Video Game series normally has to do with an added gameplay element, rather than an advancement in the story, a new idea for the sound, and things of that type. Video games simply evolve differently than with Music, Paintings, and other kinds of art.

I'd say Video Games are about as much as Art as movies.

I consider games art, I find them far more inspiring and thought provoking than most of the crap artists we study in college.

well we can consider FMVs art... but not all games are art... actually very few can be art... But what am I saying? These day any crap can be art! :rolleyes2

Artstyle of the games graphics could definetly be considered art.

I refer you to: http://forums.eyesonff.com/writers-c...ideogames.html

If films, books, and abstract sculptures made of used tuna fish containers can be considered art, then I don't see why video games cannot.

The people that make video games are very clever and good at what they do, some people would say that it's a science and therefore cannot be considered an art, but that's just arrogant.

Video games never cease to impress me with the stories, graphical effects and such. So, I do think they should be considered an art form... :D

To make a great game is as much talent and creativity as making a great movie, album, or painting. To say that some can't be considered art just because they aren't that good, or made to make money is the same as saying a song can't be art just because it sucks. Regardless of the quality, they're still art. If anything, I think video games would take more creative talent to bring all of the art elements together to form a cohesive whole than many other artistic mediums.

Of course. If carving, painting and creating a whole lot of other things is considered to be art, so are the video games.

Let alone the fact that the environments in the modern RPGs, best example STALKER, are simply breathtaking.

i would say that most of the elements we see when we play a game are art. the visuals, music/sound/voice acting, story, etc...which would lead me to believe that the amalgamation of those elements should also be considered as such.

The general consensus is that movies are art. Well, if movies are art, so are video games. Though I like to see art done by a single person and not by a whole bunch of people working on separate parts and putting them together.

So, yeah. Each particular aspect of a video game or movie (music, character design, etc.) is art. You put all the artwork together, and you have a finished product.

Video games are easily thought of as art by me

Videogame production is not art, but it is possible to produce an artistic videogame.

Games are art in the same way that movies are art. Most aren't very good from an artistic standpoint, but some are. Like Killer 7.