Video games should be considered a form of art because graphics can create beautiful images, like a painting, and they can uniquely immerse players in a realm of someone’s creation, like a good book.

It has been debated whether video games are a form of art. After all, at this point all other Medias of entertainment have been accepted as art. Music, painting, and literature have long been considered art forms. Film has been accepted recently, by comparison. So, what do any of these things do that video games do not do?

“Video games are definitely a form of art. It is literally a combination of things we already consider art, Graphic design, music, writing; why would they not be?” Keon Dohn said.

What Dohn says rings true; games have come a long way since the early years, when they were just a simple mass of code and pixels. Now, gaming is a million dollar industry that tries to tell engaging, gripping and cinematic stories while still finding a way to immerse the player into the world the developers have put so much hard work into creating.

“Just about anything can make a game artistic. It is based on your own perceptions of what art is, quite simply. Gaming is such a different medium because you can choose what to do. Unlike a movie, it is nonlinear. You can choose whether to go left or right, you can choose to attack your enemies or run from them. No two play-throughs, even in a linear game, are exactly the same” said Jordan Hess, local gamer and artist.

According to a recent poll, fifty-five percent of students polled believe that video games are in fact a form of artistic expression. That other forty-five percent, however, seem to have rather strong feelings about why video games are not artistic.

“They are too much of a time waster and benefit you in no way,” said Morgan Kutek on the subject. Fellow student, Maddie VanDivner agreed, stating “They are not forms of art, because all you do is sit there and stare at a screen.”

Upon looking at many responses from those that disagreed, it may be possible they simply misunderstood the question; are video games themselves a form of art, not whether playing video games is artistic. Movies are just sitting and staring at a screen, and if asked if movies were artistic, I’m sure more people would be inclined to agree. It’s a rather strong statement to say something ‘benefits you in no way.’ Perhaps the benefit is emotional, it calms people, relieves stresses. Perhaps it is forms of escapism for some, letting themselves get lost in a virtual world to escape the harsh one we live in. Maybe it’s just a form of entertainment, and is that not a benefit? It is if you are bored. At the end of the day, video games require a lot of different artists; writers, graphic designers, concept artists, and more to create a game. Furthermore, games allow players to immerse themselves in the world in ways books and film can’t; they become the character. They control their actions, their own skill determines whether the hero succeeds or fails. Many games even allow players to create their own characters just for themselves, which helps players attach with the world. So, if expressing oneself through an interactive form of media isn’t art, then what is?