I think Video Games could be considered "functional art" in the same way as a certain piece of furniture can be. A chair can be as old fashioned::retro as it can be but if its comfortable::fun to play and has craftsmanship::care from developers, then it's a well-made item and thereby has *some* artistic value beyond its immediate purpose to sit in or to play as a distraction.
In the "are games art" debate I see a lot of insecurity on the both side of argument. Gamers desperately seek the most "emotionally touching" games with "mature themes" like "Disco Elysium", "The Last of Us", "Bioshock" and so on, while "serious art critics" write them off as "not holding a candle to something like Schindler's List", and therefore unable to achieve "high art" status.
Personally, I think that it would be more fair to judge art-pieces on experiences they provide. For example - is Devil May Cry V or Metal Gear Solid 3 better action experience, than John Wick or Die Hard? One person could say "no", because there are less hoops to experience Die Hard than there is to Devil May Cry, and that is true. However, after overcoming these hoops, action videogame is by far more engaging, thrilling, fun and rewarding experience than any action movie or book.
Same goes for horror - I am yet to experience book or movie as terrifying as Resident Evil 3: Nemesis was back on the first Playstation.
It gets more complex when we get to these more "serious" gaming experiences. Personally, I am not a big fan of these cutscene rich "serious" games like aforementioned The Last of Us. I see them as a manifestation of insecurity game devs feel towards movies. I don't think more "serious" narrative is good reason to compromise gameplay and challenge that only games can provide. I think more confident approach to these subjects is one you can find in historical simulations like Crusader Kings or Hearts of Iron series, or even strategy games like Civilization or SimCity. These games are doing things no other artform can, you can't write a book that makes you feel like you cause a downfall of royal dynasty over the years, or like your decisions could cause economic boom for a metropolitan area. I personally think, that term "high art" is totally appropriate to describe them as.
And finally, on the hypothetical gaming museum - you don't need one. With emulation any computer can become a gaming museum.
Videogames are art, but in a different way than books and movies and that's OK. I feel the issue is that videogames are a rather difficult medium in terms of engagement. They require more time than a movie and more focus than a book and people can feel discouraged by that. To me the greatest example of games as art are horror games. I'd argue that no horror movie or book have reached the levels of emotional power of games like Silent Hill 2 or Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem.
I worry that when people ask if video games are art they're really asking if video games can be middlebrow. Roger Ebert's infamous article came out in 2005, around the time the first children who owned a Nintendo would be in their early or mid-thirties. This was also the time we first got games like Shadow of the Colossus and Portal that seemed to be trying to appeal to a broader market than just children and hobbyists: there is no sex appeal, these games aren't especially violent, and they both try to make critical statements about video games in which the player-character blindly follows set objectives. Portal and Shadow of the Colossus were the kind of game that could win an Oscar. Metal Gear Solid seven years before also had critical and intellectual aspirations, but it appealed too much to the "macho" hobbyist sentiment to impress an adult outside of that subculture. Even today, when people ask whether video games can be art, the examples offered are games like Journey, which seemed specifically designed to convince your mother that video games aren't all just mindless sex and violence.
I would hope that the artistic element of video games would be found closer to the heart of what it means to be a video game. If I were the curator for the video-game wing of an art museum, I might put an Out Run cabinet in there; all the visual beauty and elegant simplicity are there without trying to be an interactive movie or "mean something"; it's a true game while still being aesthetically refined. If I needed a game that made a statement, I would put in Sonic Dreams Collection; its provocative and somewhat off-putting way of satirizing Sonic the Hedgehog's fanbase is less banal than anything The Stanley Parable has to say about gamers.
But maybe "art" inherently appeals to the generalist. Before the modern period, there were paintings, sculpture, architecture, poetry, and music, but there was no fine art; the idea that there was anything these very disparate crafts had in common came to us from Kant and allied theorists of aesthetics. If we do concede that there's a general category of fine art, it will naturally be the people who dabble in all of them that define that category; these dabblers are usually not the artists themselves or the connoisseurs of one medium, but the broader market of people who know a little bit about each discipline. In that spirit, maybe it is the games that most resemble Oscar-winning movies that deserve to be called art.
I think Video Games could be considered "functional art" in the same way as a certain piece of furniture can be. A chair can be as old fashioned::retro as it can be but if its comfortable::fun to play and has craftsmanship::care from developers, then it's a well-made item and thereby has *some* artistic value beyond its immediate purpose to sit in or to play as a distraction.
In the "are games art" debate I see a lot of insecurity on the both side of argument. Gamers desperately seek the most "emotionally touching" games with "mature themes" like "Disco Elysium", "The Last of Us", "Bioshock" and so on, while "serious art critics" write them off as "not holding a candle to something like Schindler's List", and therefore unable to achieve "high art" status.
Personally, I think that it would be more fair to judge art-pieces on experiences they provide. For example - is Devil May Cry V or Metal Gear Solid 3 better action experience, than John Wick or Die Hard? One person could say "no", because there are less hoops to experience Die Hard than there is to Devil May Cry, and that is true. However, after overcoming these hoops, action videogame is by far more engaging, thrilling, fun and rewarding experience than any action movie or book.
Same goes for horror - I am yet to experience book or movie as terrifying as Resident Evil 3: Nemesis was back on the first Playstation.
It gets more complex when we get to these more "serious" gaming experiences. Personally, I am not a big fan of these cutscene rich "serious" games like aforementioned The Last of Us. I see them as a manifestation of insecurity game devs feel towards movies. I don't think more "serious" narrative is good reason to compromise gameplay and challenge that only games can provide. I think more confident approach to these subjects is one you can find in historical simulations like Crusader Kings or Hearts of Iron series, or even strategy games like Civilization or SimCity. These games are doing things no other artform can, you can't write a book that makes you feel like you cause a downfall of royal dynasty over the years, or like your decisions could cause economic boom for a metropolitan area. I personally think, that term "high art" is totally appropriate to describe them as.
And finally, on the hypothetical gaming museum - you don't need one. With emulation any computer can become a gaming museum.
Videogames are art, but in a different way than books and movies and that's OK. I feel the issue is that videogames are a rather difficult medium in terms of engagement. They require more time than a movie and more focus than a book and people can feel discouraged by that. To me the greatest example of games as art are horror games. I'd argue that no horror movie or book have reached the levels of emotional power of games like Silent Hill 2 or Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem.
Haven't read this piece yet but had to comment because the title immediately reminded me of Roger Ebert's (in)famous essay: https://www.rogerebert.com/roger-ebert/video-games-can-never-be-art
I wonder what you think of it if you have read it?
I worry that when people ask if video games are art they're really asking if video games can be middlebrow. Roger Ebert's infamous article came out in 2005, around the time the first children who owned a Nintendo would be in their early or mid-thirties. This was also the time we first got games like Shadow of the Colossus and Portal that seemed to be trying to appeal to a broader market than just children and hobbyists: there is no sex appeal, these games aren't especially violent, and they both try to make critical statements about video games in which the player-character blindly follows set objectives. Portal and Shadow of the Colossus were the kind of game that could win an Oscar. Metal Gear Solid seven years before also had critical and intellectual aspirations, but it appealed too much to the "macho" hobbyist sentiment to impress an adult outside of that subculture. Even today, when people ask whether video games can be art, the examples offered are games like Journey, which seemed specifically designed to convince your mother that video games aren't all just mindless sex and violence.
I would hope that the artistic element of video games would be found closer to the heart of what it means to be a video game. If I were the curator for the video-game wing of an art museum, I might put an Out Run cabinet in there; all the visual beauty and elegant simplicity are there without trying to be an interactive movie or "mean something"; it's a true game while still being aesthetically refined. If I needed a game that made a statement, I would put in Sonic Dreams Collection; its provocative and somewhat off-putting way of satirizing Sonic the Hedgehog's fanbase is less banal than anything The Stanley Parable has to say about gamers.
But maybe "art" inherently appeals to the generalist. Before the modern period, there were paintings, sculpture, architecture, poetry, and music, but there was no fine art; the idea that there was anything these very disparate crafts had in common came to us from Kant and allied theorists of aesthetics. If we do concede that there's a general category of fine art, it will naturally be the people who dabble in all of them that define that category; these dabblers are usually not the artists themselves or the connoisseurs of one medium, but the broader market of people who know a little bit about each discipline. In that spirit, maybe it is the games that most resemble Oscar-winning movies that deserve to be called art.
Someone did watch Lord of the Rings trilogy fifty times, close to six hundred hours... he wrote his experience in a book:
https://www.amazon.com/Escape-into-Meaning-Superman-Obsessions/dp/198216395X
Movies can be re-watched if needed to, just like a video game can be very replay-able. There are similar ways of consuming art across formats