VIDEO GAMES... ART?

by Leo Kavanaugh

Video games have existed as a medium for some time now. Since the mid to late 80’s they can easily be found in most homes across the world. In the past 40 years, they have become the world's most quickly progressing entertainment medium. They’ve gone from being a dot floating between 2 lines to intricately detailed experiences that could rival the entertainment value and emotional engagement of most films. Even though they are at the level of sophistication they have been at for some time, video games have yet to be considered art by the masses.

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A little known fact is that video games are legally considered art. This was confirmed by the Supreme Court in the 2011 case of Brown vs the Entertainment Merchants Association. This case is based on the Supreme Court striking down a California law passed in 2005 prohibiting the sale of violent video games to minors, as they have a harmful impact on them. The case concluded with the Supreme Court saying that, “government doesn't have the authority to restrict the ideas to which children may be exposed,” that California didn’t draw enough of a connection between exposure to violent video games and harmful impact on children, and that the law violates the 1st Amendment.

A large reason many can’t see video games as art would fall to the fact that most of the time, video games are played for fun. This is as true as any other form of art. Video games may be controllable, but many fail to see that video games truly have lots of artistry and creative expression hidden within them. In things like visuals, music, and writing, video games hold as much creative expression as other forms of art such as film, theatre, or music. The “Dark Souls” series, for example, has brutal and unforgiving gameplay that poses an immense challenge, and will bring you into its world through that alone. But it also has deep and thoughtful themes, fantastic music, and incredible world design that makes the experience much more than a game simply played to have a good time. It makes it an experience that can immerse you in its world to the point where you are much more entertained than you would be by a film in the same setting with the same music and themes.

Video games mirror the artistic progression of other art mediums. Mediums like film, theatre, and music needed years or even centuries to progress to where they are now. Video games didn’t take as long to progress but they have an extremely similar progression to them. Music went from being rocks banging together millennia ago to what it is now. Film went from being janky, silent pictures that wouldn’t go past 20 minutes, to what they are now. Video games had a very similar progression. These all needed time to progress, but many ignore that video games are at the point that they’re at now. Many ignore the fact that video games can be so much more than a simple game, and that they can give the same experiences and emotions that so many other forms of art do.

Simply put, video games are very different from other forms of art in the way that they are presented, but this does not mean that they are not one. Really, that’s what art is all about, creative expression in a unique way. I think that video games perfectly encompass that definition.