A few weeks ago, I finished Okami. As you all know, it is an amazing game, but it really got me thinking, do video games count as art?

Now, I'm not talking all those shitty sports games (MADDEN SUCKSSSS!!!!!!!). I'm talking stuff that makes you think, is emotional, and sticks with you long after you've finished it.

You know what I'm talking about. Stuff like Shadow of the Collossus, Ico, Okami, and Call of Duty. Certainly I'm not the only one here who agrees, that games are just as, if not more, artistic than any other medium at the moment.

Well, if movies can be considered art, then video games sure as hell can.

Rich
Certainly I'm not the only one here who agrees, that games are just as, if not more, artistic than any other medium at the moment.

Well, they're more interactive than the rest... You can make an artistic statement through any media, no matter how crude, sophisticated, commercial, or unappealing. It's my feeling that when things are done really, really, exceptionally well, it's because there was some artistic sensibility involved in their creation and implementation, -that transcended mere mundane technical excellence.

I think the hard part is going to be filtering out when the game itself is art, and not simply the story. There's bound to be a lot of RPGs that fans will consider "art", but often that is simply for the story that uses the RPG as its medium. A simple, nondescript book with no words inside is not art, but artistic things can be done with a book, and that's really what a game would have to be. Something that isn't just a product by which to convey art, but is actually integrated into art itself, if that makes any sense.

And of course, it's been done before, and will continue to be done in the future.

Mr.Ebert would give you two thumbs down. ;)

Inkmonkey
I think the hard part is going to be filtering out when the game itself is art, and not simply the story. There's bound to be a lot of RPGs that fans will consider "art", but often that is simply for the story that uses the RPG as its medium. A simple, nondescript book with no words inside is not art, but artistic things can be done with a book, and that's really what a game would have to be. Something that isn't just a product by which to convey art, but is actually integrated into art itself, if that makes any sense.

And of course, it's been done before, and will continue to be done in the future.

As I said before: If movies, which are growing more mindless as time passes, are considered art, then video games are definately art.

there is definitely some leve of artistic expression that goes into video games, even games like Barbie Horse Adventure.

(this is my first ever forum post and it's 3:27am...and the clocks whent back so my body thinks it's 4:27am so bare with me for any horrid typo's or spelling errors, as well as sucky grammer XD)

Video Games have already become art, Toshio Iwai has been creating Interactive Digital Art for numerous years now (in essence video Game Art), this recently was fully reconised as Video Game Art in the form of Electroplankton for the Nintendo DS, a game designed to focus more around it's beauty both in visuals and sound, than to be a game.

This isn't a stand alone case, The Endless Forest, a project still quite early into creation is an artistic video game, the aim, nothing more to than to controll a deer in an endless forest (untrue as it's a fairly small forest on a loop), it has no goals, no plot, it is purly what most people would agree is a peice of interative art (or 'a waste of time' as I screamed at my computer after downloading it originaly on a 56K modem).

I'm not sure if I have a point or if I've gotten to it or I'm about to get to it, but this seems like the best thing to finish on. Interactive Digital Art has been around for a while, and as all Video Games are is a form of Interactive Media then yes, Video Games do count as art, wether or not we'll see a game get into the Tate Modern or win any art awards in the near future, I'm not so confident about though.