Is Gaming Art?
Many people try to argue that video games are art for purely selfish reasons. Someone trying to justify their hobby/toy to a skeptical audience, a developer trying to justify their fart-huffing design choices, or a critic denigrating ideas and concepts to fit a narrative.
Video games have been used to try and elevate the hobby above what it is commonly believed to be, a kid's toy.
I think the answer is slightly more complicated than just a yes or no.
So, is gaming art?
That depends.
Spoilers for Cyberpunk 2077 and The Last of Us Part II.
The Mona Lisa, David, Für Elise, and The Godfather. I think we can all agree that these things are art. Paintings, sculptures, music, and movies are all masterpieces of their respective mediums. But we can all enjoy these pieces well after the time in which they were created. They can be replicated, recreated, and enjoyed from across the globe.
They are, to be stupid and reductive, mature and timeless.
Gaming has none of these.
My favorite game of all time, 2001’s Deus Ex, is a masterpiece, but getting it to work correctly on a modern computer is a process. You have to download a special file and put it in the games' folder, then you choose some options, and then it runs correctly, maybe. Maybe you didn't choose the correct fix, and you have to start all over.
Deus Ex is a walk in the park compared to other, older games I've played. I once had to download and run a DOS emulator and launch a game through that. I’ve had to download special programs and special modifications, and those are for games released on Windows. Other games were released on consoles like the Playstation 2, or the Sega Dreamcast and getting them to run, if you can find a copy, is even more of a chore.
There may come a day when games like Deus Ex cannot run or will be lost to the ravages of time and computer storage.
This is one way in which video games can’t really compare to art. They can be too big, don’t exist physically, or have no support after launch. The only way they can be enjoyed well into the future is if a community works to do so.
You don’t need to play Beethoven’s Für Elise to appreciate it. You don’t need to sing an opera, paint a painting, or film a movie to appreciate them.
I can’t put Super Mario in a museum and expect crowds of people to enjoy it like a painting, or a sculpture, or play it in a concert hall like an opera. It has to be experienced by the player to be fully appreciated.
I’ve missed out on a lot of gaming experiences. I distinctly remember playing Call of Duty: Zombies with friends in college and being totally lost. They had buy orders memorized. They knew all the secrets. Not only that, but they had levels they loved and levels they despised.
They had experiences and memories playing this game.
I had none of these. I didn’t have an Xbox or a PlayStation growing up and didn’t experience the game. I was totally lost.
I didn’t experience the heyday of Halo 2 multiplayer.
I didn’t experience the slur filled voice chat of Modern Warfare 2.
I didn’t (and don’t really want to) experience a clash on EVE online where thousands of real world dollars are on the line.
I didn’t experience a midnight release of a popular game.
I can't fully appreciate these moments when people talk about them.
But I do have had amazing experiences of my own.
I remember walking out into Limgrave in Elden Ring. After getting stomped by a multi-armed boss, trudging through a dark, dank tutorial dungeon, and checking out a side passage, I finally entered the first open world section of the game.
The music swelled as I stepped out into a beautiful and strange world. The sight of a gigantic golden tree towering over a green meadow blew my mind.
I can’t convey that to you. I could (but I won’t) post a screenshot, or a video of what I’m talking about. But it couldn’t compare to what I felt, when I saw the world open up before me.
I could post a video of getting a wild kill in Titanfall 2. But it wouldn’t compare to actually doing it in game.
I could post a plot synopsis of Deus Ex, but it won’t convey the experience of uncovering the mystery for yourself.
I could tell you how I escaped Fort Joy in Divinity Original Sin 2. But it won’t compare to figuring it out yourself.
I could type up a transcript of the horrifying conversation I heard in my first Team Fortress 2 match, but it wouldn’t have the twisted joy I got out of experiencing it for myself.
Video games are experience-based, and in order to truly appreciate them, you need to experience them for yourself.
The pursuit to elevate games into art has ruined some games and improved others.
Most games try to turn games into art by including mature themes and “cinematic” storytelling. They try to turn games into movies, and, in turn, forget what makes games special when compared to books and movies.
In Naughty Dog’s contentious The Last of Us Part II, they deal with themes of revenge and the cycle of violence. The Last of Us II deals with those themes in a very “take it or leave it style.” You engage with those themes, characters, and plot points how Naughty Dog wants you to.
Books and movies do this. You can’t change the outcome or rebuke the themes. You deal with them as is.
Is it cinematic? Is it like a movie?
Sure.
The game is beautiful, and the art department did a great job of bringing this world to life, but it barely does anything with interactivity—you know, the main differentiation between games and movies.
Ellie, one of the two main characters, fills graveyards with people. She stabs an eight-month pregnant woman in the throat in pursuit of Abby, the woman who killed her father figure, Joel.
There is a twist that a lot of players have criticized. You play as Abby and see what she’s going through and why she killed Joel. Naughty Dog tries to build empathy with Abby and her journey; the game shows the friends and family she built, and how death and the cycle of violence destroy both hers and Ellie's world.
After slaughtering scores of people and losing loved ones, friends, and family, Ellie doesn’t kill Abby; instead, she lets Abby go.
It was widely criticized on released by those who loved and hated the game. Ellie did, let me remind you, stab a pregnant woman in the throat, torture someone will a pipe, and kill a lot of people, but not the one person she’s after.
It’s absurd.
And these actions—killing a pregnant woman, torturing someone—happen in a cutscene with zero input from the player. You have no say or choice in any of this. You can’t change the outcome apart from letting Ellie kill Abby in the early part of the game and quitting, never to play the game, or finish it again.
Cyberpunk 2077 does this a lot better.
Cyberpunk 2077 hands you the games themes and asks, “What do you think? You’re living life in the fast lane; you went out in a blaze of glory; what do you think of all that?”
You can even ignore some of the themes. The game tells you over, and over again not to trust corporations; they will fuck you, and you can side with a corporation in the end. Your actions can lead to the resurrection and ascension of the world's richest man. He takes over the body of his son and continues living. You fucked up by trusting a corporation, but that’s the ending you chose.
This freedom also plays into smaller side stories. They Won’t Go When I Go is a powerful and disturbing quest. The quest line starts with you being hired to kill Joshua Stephenson, a murderer who has made it out of prison. When you go to kill Stephenson, you find out the twist.
Stephenson has found God. He is going around asking for forgiveness from the families of his victims before he gets crucified, and his brain scan of being crucified will be distributed for all to consume, to relive as if they themselves were being crucified. He believes that by showing God’s love and mercy to everyone, through the brain scan of his crucifixion, he can finally find penance and a place in Heaven.
The corporate representative, escorting him around, believes he’s crazy and is looking to make a quick buck from the “lunatic.”
The quest culminates in Joshua getting cold feet, and you can either convince him to go through with it (even nailing him to the cross yourself) or ignore the quest.
Is Joshua sincere in his belief, or is he just crazy? That’s up to you to decide.
It was fucking intense, clasping hands with a murderer seeking redemption and then watching as he is executed in horrific fashion along with bored executives waiting to make a quick buck.
This isn’t the only time, either. There’s a cop in a deep, dark depression after the death of a loved one. How do you deal with and communicate his grief to his jaded coworkers? Helping a friend take back a brothel to free the sex workers inside from perverts and rapists. Your relationship with the dead terrorist (Keanu Reeves), Johnny Silverhand who is also trapped inside your brain, is up to you. You aren’t forced to like him.
You stay in V’s (the protagonist you play as) perspective the whole time. The Last of Us is entirely in the third person. But V’s choices are your choices, and his thoughts on the situation are yours. CD Projekt Red takes video games interactivity and creates something amazing with it.
Pathologic 2 is a cult classic from Russian developer Ice Pick Lodge. Pathologic is a miserable experience, intentionally so. Managing your health, hunger, thirst, stamina, and immunity is a battle, along with a town reacting to a plague, which is tearing it apart and killing entire districts of people. The choices aren’t made in cutscenes or dialog, like in 2077, but in gameplay.
Do you break into a house and loot it for valuables? There might not be valuables; only the sick inside are ready to infect you. If the owner comes back, they won’t be happy to see their valuables stolen. Do you heal a random citizen or save the medicine for yourself or someone close to you?
This isn’t to say all games are art, or that all games should be art.
What’s the artistic value of FIFA 2023? A soccer game that is released yearly with almost no changes to the core gameplay other than an updated roster of players.
What’s the artistic value of Call of Duty? What’s the value of Raid Shadow Legends other than sponsoring YouTubers and draining people’s wallets?
I can fully admit that some games I play are just dumb fun. I don’t think Team Fortress 2 is some high-art masterpiece. Cartoon characters blowing each other up and shooting each other is just that. It doesn’t need to be art, and I don’t want it to be.
Not everything we engage with has to be snooty and mature. I still like finding cool rocks in random places. It's okay to just chill and enjoy something dumb and fun.
I’ve been talking about the player side of things for a while. But I think I’ll bring up the other side. The artists behind the art.
Video games are made by teams of people. From one person to hundreds to thousands of people working to deliver a product. Some of these people are artists. People who build models, create textures, and craft environments for players to enjoy. Programmers build the code that people interact with and break. Writers create stories and write dialog that forges compelling sagas and hysterical scenes. Voice actors bring characters to life and create memorable performances and quotable lines.
Do these people work on toys too? Yeah, they do. But they are still creating something entertaining and enjoyable.
So, are video games art?
They can be. But they don’t have to be.