Video Games as a Form of Art

[Gors]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned minecraft. There's lots of things you can do that's considered art, such as. . . .

Building things



Making music



Or creating mechanisms

Though in this aspect, Minecraft is less of a game and more of a 'creative software'. Of course, I am aware that games are software, but Minecraft especially is less about 'gameplay' as we know it, and more about utilizing its resources in a creative way. In this sense, Minecraft is no different than say, music trackers or 3D rendering programs. A real life equivalent of this would be playing with legos. There is no rules in lego other than building whatever you want and making up your own rules. That's what makes both lego and minecraft fun. It's a way to play and entertain yourself; it's a toy. But toys aren't games. Get what I'm saying?

If you strip Minecraft from its creative roots and focus only in the raw gameplay (that is, fishing, farming, killing monsters and maintaining yourself alive), the 'art' starts to vanish, leaving only the essential game part (programming, rules, probabilites, luck, streategy). This essential part is what defines a game properly said, and therefore cannot be considered art. Unless someone strictly defines that the technical parts of a game is also an art (programming, rules and its applications, etc), games themselves cannot be art, imo.

But again, using the same analogy from before, games are 'art containers' and as long it entertains and influences us, it's carrying art properly, and in the end, it doesn't matter much.