Can video games be art?

Oct 14, 2013 by bganter

Even before playing one of the assigned games, the question of whether video games could be considered art seemed to have an obvious answer to me: of course they could! Humble’s game The Marriage is an example of a game that definitely has artistic qualities. The game starts off by showing two squares, one pink and one blue, floating around on a coloured backdrop. The squares would interact with colourful small circles and change size or transparency and the game was over when one or both of the squares disappeared. Visually, this game actually reminded me of some of the paintings I saw at a modern art museum in France. Personally I don’t like or understand modern art whether the squares are fixed on a canvas or floating around a computer screen; however, both forms have a meaning behind the visuals, which is what makes them art as opposed to geometry. Humble’s game supposedly represented his feelings about marriage. Although the medium that Humble used is interactive and still a very new concept, expressing one’s opinion about something or revealing a message in the form of games on a computer screen should be no less valid as a work of art than the same thing expressed on paper or in sculpture.