Unusual Takes: Are video games art?

     In this section, Hobbes Da Blogga will attempt to take an unusual statement or perspective and twist it so it makes a million times more sense by the end of the post than it does in the title.

If art is to be defined as the byproduct or result of expressed creativity, (this definition was not taken from any dictionary or Internet source; Hobbes Da Blogga used his 22 years of experience on the earth as a reference point for this definition) (citiation needed) then is it feasible to consider a video game a form of art?

How could this be art?

Think about what you may consider to be art: starting with whatever painting just popped in your head. Then start to think about other forms of art, from the craftmanship present in buildings and statues around the world to all those books with "thee" in them you read in the eleventh grade when you were just happy that Shakespeare's textbook was large enough to help conceal your out-of-control high school boner. Picture your whole group of friends huddled around the television not saying a word because Breaking Bad owns everyone's soul. Picture the Beatles invading America, teaching our country such invaluable lessons as "People love happy music" and "A band can be a compilation of multiple talented artists."

Take a moment and let all of the various forms of art run through your head, and try to think of a form of art that I missed in that three sentence breakdown of types of art. Now, open your eyes for a second and realize that videogames incorporate EVERY FORM OF ART MENTIONED above. Seriously, if you don't believe me, I'm sure that you don't even have to scroll up to read the previous paragraph. Videogames incorporate the three major types of art: visual (every image you see in a video game is either drawn by an individual person or a result of individual drawings being run through an animation program), audial (video games have a ton of music, often written specifically for the game), and literary (if you've ever played a video game until its end even though you weren't having fun in the actual game play just to see if the main character survives you should understand this point)

Just because video games are composed of artistic elements does not make it art- my bathroom breaks have an unique form, make unique sounds, and sometimes even have a story behind them, but I am not ready to classify turds as art quite yet. This is because even though my bowel movements could be defined as a byproduct of various art forms, there is no artistic expression associated with my turds- I cannot dedicate my time and energy towards becoming a certain type of pooper.

If you're still reading after that poop paragraph, then you must think there is at least some merit to my argument. To further express the point of artistic expression, consider the different types of video games currently available, ranging from the realness of a sports game all the way to the games that take place in a pseudo-world, such as every Final Fantasy game ever. It is easy to see a Final Fantasy game as a form of art: animated images of made-up characters with a custom soundtrack guiding you along a normally riveting tale rooted in some concept of original sin and the true causes of evil.

Blitzball is art

Now I know all of my haters are pointing at the previous paragraph saying, "OMG Hobbes Da Blogga totally skipped over sports games because he's knows that's not a form of art- what a douchebag." However, I would argue that sports games, especially the well-done modern versions currently floating around, are just as much of an artistic expression as a Final Fantasy game. While those types of games focus on the creation of a world outside the one we live in, sports games are an artistic expression of a professional sport and the world of that sport. Just as the Mona Lisa is a representation of an average woman, the Madden franchise attempts to capture a representation of professional football in the modern era.

Mona Lisa thinks Madden is art

Every facet in Madden is designed to capture the illusion of reality, from the stunningly accurate player-avatars, who possess an uncanny resemblance to the players in terms of both looks and representation of skill to the usage of actual professional football announcers in the game play as well as the implementation of football rules, the music selected to cater the football-watching demographic, the ability to create your own narrative through the various My Player, My Coach, and My Team modes, and the fact that real scores from real games get fed into the video game. Similarly, all of these facets are manipulated differently in the Final Fantasy series to create a world designed to be as outlandish and gripping as possible. The fact that both of these extremes can be captured through the same medium, video games, is proof by itself that video games are indeed a modern form of art.

I just made you look at the Mona Lisa twice