Thinking About Art is Boring

Art is the culmination of the technical skill and creative vision of some artist with the purpose of creating emotion.

I can throw a bucket of paint onto a canvas, but that would not be art. Yet painting is considered an art form. Citing one example of a medium that does not qualify as art does not discount the entire medium.

If one example of a given medium is considered art, the entire medium must be considered art. Otherwise, who is to say where the line is drawn? Saying some movies are art begs the question of how you draw the line, and also who are you that you are qualified to do so? Citing a single example that does qualify as art validates the entire art form.

So then, the question is not "Are games art?" but rather, "Are games capable of being art?" How hard can this be, right? A single example can prove the entire medium!

Gamers will have all sorts of answers. "Look at the cutscenes of this Final Fantasy!" "Check out the graphics on Gears of War!" "You can't deny the storytelling of Metal Gear Solid!" "The music of Soul Calibur 2 is unmatched!"

This is the gist of most of the games-as-art argument, but it really just goes to show the infancy of the medium. Every new, young art form finds itself constrained to previous mediums. For example, early films were done with a single wide camera angle-- the same way people were accustomed to watching plays on stage. As stories became more complex, they began to use title cards with text on them, relying on the written word to move their stories along.

So when games rely on cutscenes (short films) or their visuals (done by painters and sculptors) or their sound to convey the emotion the artist is trying to invoke, the game is using other art forms as a crutch. Analyzing a game with incredible cutscenes does not prove games are art-- it just reiterates the fact that film and animation is art.

This also informs the stigma that games are perverse, violent, and evil. The two most recent big-name art forms, film and photography, both started as pornographic in nature. It's simply the easiest way to gain attention. Even subsets of old art forms carry that burden: consider that a century ago, ragtime music was the music of the devil. Just the same way MMOs, the newest genre of games, are demonized by gamers and non-gamers alike.

At the end of the day, I know games are a new art form. Plain and simple: the emotions I feel while playing games have never been triggered by watching a film, listening to music, looking at paintings or drawings, or any other art form. There's no need to consider the arts and sciences behind their creation, their content, their audience, or their role in society. I mean, they're just games.