A Blank Page, Are Videogames High Art

From the earliest year of 1980 to this very day, videogames as an art form remained as one of the most debated topic in the world, there is even a high chance that maybe some people are debating it in this very minute, many art critics have joined and stated their opinion of this seemingly never-ending debate, a highly regarded critic Roger Ebert even once stated that “a videogame could never be art”, another stated that “ a game is fun, it is obvious,  why does it have to be more than fun?”  , and I respectfully disagree with those statements, because when you want to talk about art, you have to define it first, art in the simplest definition is “ Work of creativity in the human mind” by this definition we can definitely conclude that videogame are, in fact art, but the many of the critics and gamers that have debated the topic for so long is, “Are videogames high art?”, first, we have to establish the definition of high art, the most popular definition is “ A work of creative mind that created a long-lasting and emotional experience that said audience enjoyed” according to that definition I can state that, videogames do have the factors high art such as: beauty, story and most importantly  interaction, with these factors videogames have the right to be compared to other masterpieces in other medias of art.

Roger Ebert,one of the most respected critics in the world

When discussing arts, one of the most standpoints of art are visuals, usually people regarded a work of art in any media by their beauty, well as we know the visuals is one of the first things that people regard of an art form, how beautiful it is, how colorful it is, people often regard the visuals first and in videogame it is not an exception, as the wonders of technology went on and become more and more advanced, videogames too are getting more stunning to look at, no matter which direction the game took, realism, surrealism, fantasy, sci-fi, anything it will be guaranteed that it would look astonishing, even beating centuries old paintings in visuals, one of the greatest example of this is The Bioshock Franchise , the game is set at an underwater city and a sky city,  and the visuals are simply breathtaking, the visuals somehow managed to immerse players in the beauty and the horror of the setting (this is a horror game, mind you) making the world look realistically real, and made even the greatest painter stand speechless,  another great factor that videogame have is the music, while anyone knows that music is a whole different media of art altogether, the purpose of music and its function in videogames itself may vary, we have heard of astonishing music before, we heard music that moved our hearts and produce a single tear in our eye, but combine them with stunning visuals and an immersive world? One must have the opinion that regards this as a high art, music in videogames tell us what to feel, makes us tense, creates a spirit of adventure for us and accompanies our journey in game that somehow also made us wanting to never leave, one of the best example of this is The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, this is also one of the most regarded and praised videogames of all time, an adventure game with a gigantic world for players to explore and experience, the music is responsible to made the atmosphere of the world, creating an spirit for new and exciting adventures, captivate the players in the world and made an even emotional impact in the story. We all have heard of the power of music, and videogames have used that advantage since a long time ago.

Yes, ladies and gentleman this is a game

Story, people say that every art form tells a story, whether it is deliberate, interesting or surreal, every art tells a different story, the story is a core point in videogames and movies, but what does made story so stand out in videogames that almost defeats movies? Simple, limitation and immersion, for you see, What makes a world feel real is the little things , the overheard conversations, the emails, the informative brochures, while movies presents a plot, a character and a setting, it does not present exploration, in videogames sure you are presented with a character and story but the different is that, we can just abandon the main plot and explore the world, with the visuals and music factors I have stated, it is easy that a player can be immersed in the videogames world and discover more of the delicate story and love the game more, yet another example of this is GTA 5 the world’s size is gigantic, even considered too big, this game supports exploration and with great visuals and music, the world captivated many players and marked a great experience in their memories,  another sign of high art, stories have a meaning, a deep meaning, a double meaning, a great criticism, it depends on the perception of the audience, in such games is not all about shooting, funs and games, there are games that covered serious stories and criticism too, and even teach you something about yourself, yes games are capable of making us a better person, by sheer experience alone, there are too many games to list on this example unfortunately.

One of the examples

This is the sole factor that made games are debatable in art form, the one that started it all, Interaction, the factor that made games stood out beneath others, a lot of people say that interaction and choices is what defined games, like I wrote before in the last paragraph, you can ignore the plot and do what you want, but on another note, the choices that we made throughout the game affect our experience too, for example  is The Walking Dead Game it is also one the most praised games of all time, there are choices that are presented throughout the game, it basically defined the game, our choices made the experience because in the made, we made the story, we participated in the art, we interacted with the creators the greatest artists, you see, want to communicate in the most popular media of the time, they want to be heard. That's why Shakespeare wrote for the lice-ridden but packed theatres of London, that's why Bertolt Brecht collaborated with Fritz Lang to bring his theories to Hollywood, that's why Dickens and Dumas had their novels serialised in magazines. Video games are now a language and language is a tool of expression and change. A bit like art, yes?

Pictured: Choices

By everything that I have presented, I believe that videogames are great forms of art, and respectfully compared to such masterpieces as the monalisa itself, maybe in this time the people may not recognize it,but as time went on I believe they eventually will.