Video Games are an Art Form

Art is a powerful form of human expression. It is a construct of the imagination and skill that can invoke into the audience feelings the artist felt while creating the work; it can be beautiful or hideous while still carrying a powerful message. A painting of war can instill the sense of dread that the soldiers felt. The statue, The Thinker, can lead you to ponder the pondering of the statue. With the help of technology, films and photography have captured people the same way paintings and statues have. More recently video games have exploded in popularity and have left the simplicity of Pong in 1972, to something that is only limited by the imagination and talent of the designers. A game designer can express themselves through the creation of video games with narratives that reflect upon their own past. A game uses hundreds of thousands lines of code as paint and a powerful game engine as a canvas to create seemingly living, breathing worlds. Some games have as much written or voice-acted dialog as a movie or novel with stories to engage, morally challenge and absorb the player.

Game designers have many reasons to create a game; profit, entertainment, etc. However, it is those games that show the expression of the designer that speak to a person more than others. While you can go pick up the new “Call of Duty” or “Madden”, those games will not make you think and reflect, much like a painting of a dragon would not make you question what it means to be alive. Miguel Oliveria, a game designer said, “What’s blocking interactive media from being considered art is that most video games focus on primitive feelings of aggressiveness and competitiveness. Art is introspective. It makes you see the stuff that makes us human...

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...ancient colossi. That is the only narrative given in the game. It is as the game progresses after each colossus falls before the player really questions who the real antagonist in the game is and what he is killing. After the game ends, there is a sense of guilt, the player slew 16 ancient creatures for no apparent reason.

Video games while being relatively new to the world are a new form of art. Art is something that is created with imagination and skill that is beautiful or that expresses important ideas or feelings. They can express the feelings of the designer, like social justice issues or a reflection upon ones past, just like a painter to his painting. Be it through the use of gorgeous and imaginative environments or simplistic to complex storytelling, video games can be something that is created from the heart to captivate and mesmerize its audience.