Are Video Games Art?

I believe so.

Let’s look at the definition (which you will see again in the Nostalgic Critic video on the subject below):

The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture
Works produced by such skill and imagination

Being a gamer and an artist myself, I have great interest in this question. (For those of you who are curious, I do graphic design and I paint and I draw; if it’s artistic, I can do it. Except for ceramics. I suck. And glass blowing, which I would really like to try. *adds to to-do list*)

I have always thought of video games and game design to be art just by going off the graphics. LOOK AT THEM! The only way anything could look better than these new games coming out are 3D animation movies. I was just going off looks.

Then I started looking into learning game design myself and there are a LOT of artistic aspects that you need to learn. I’ll use The Art Institute of Pittsburgh as a good example since that was the school I was looking at.

Check out their First Academic Year:

We have drawing, fundamentals of design, color theory, digital storytelling, life drawing and gesture for game art & design, 2D animation; if you still think video games aren’t art after looking at what a person has to learn in order to MAKE a video game, you need to look at the list again.

Or have your head examined.

But, don’t just listen to me. Watch the Nostalgia Critic on the subject!