CORAL BARNETT
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Interactivity and Aesthetics: Can Video Games Be Considered Visual Art?
Coral Barnett
Fine Art (Hons)
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) degree in Fine Art.
Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and design
University of Dundee 2025
7480 Words
Abstract:
This dissertation focuses on analysing whether video games can be considered visual art. Over time, video games have evolved and expanded into a broad genre of interactive media that are almost incomparable to each other. With that, the intention of video games has broadened, this can be seen by first looking at where video games began (sources of entertainment in scientific environments) and following them through time to the diversity within the genre which exists now.
How art style plays a role in the purpose of video games has also changed over time. Comparing a game like Defender of the Crown (1986), where the appeal of the game is its distinctive revolutionary graphics, to one like Ocarina of Time (1998), where the graphics pull the player in but are then back seated to the unique interactive storytelling and sound design. These examples display how quickly the function of video games has evolved and highlights the different purposes that video games may be created for. Looking at video games such as Gris (2018) by Nomada Studios and What Remains of Edith Finch (2017) displays how video games can uniquely tell stories using art in ways only possible within the medium.
To argue video games as art legitimises them in academic settings. I am discussing this topic to bring awareness to video games as a form of media deserving of respect and recognition from academics. I want to broaden people's understanding of what video games can be and how diverse and expansive the industry is.
An aim of this dissertation is to argue that some video games exist with enough characteristics of visual art to be classed as such. The importance of interactivity in games impacts which games can and cannot be considered visual art. To define all video games as visual art would be to dismiss the role and importance of interactivity in the medium. I believe there are a lot of intricacies and specifics surrounding the debate and so want to examine all sides and perspectives on what makes a video game and where it should exist within modern media.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my advisor for this module, Anna Notaro, who answered my many questions thoroughly and clearly and for all the knowledge and advice on how I should best go about explaining my ideas for this topic.
I would like to thank my partner Lilac for their continuous support and the countless conversations we have had over the months on my progress and plans.
I would also like to thank Daryl Talks Games and Noah Gervais, whose video essays on YouTube initially inspired the desire to write about this topic I feel so passionately about. Their videos often analyse video games in ways which I would never have previously considered and their passion for the industry is clear in the research that goes into what they publish.
List of illustrations
Chapter 1:
1.1 Image of Tennis for Two (1958) next to William Higinbotham, creator
Chapter 2:
2.1 Still image captured from playthrough of What Remains of Edith Finch (2017), developed by Giant sparrow
2.2 Still image captured from playthrough of Gris (2018), developed by Nomada Studio
2.3 Still image captured from Defender of the Crown (1986), developed by Cinemaware
Chapter 3:
3.1 Still image captured from Rain World (2017), developed by Videocult
3.2 Still image captured from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998), developed by Nintendo
3.3 Sill image captured on the PS4 of The Last of Us Part II (2020), developed by Naughty Dog
Introduction:
Visual culture vs visual art
To discuss video games and visual art, first, the distinction must be made between visual art and visual culture. This dissertation uses the definition by ArtsHelp.com to define visual culture as “anything within our culture that communicates through visual means” (Gemmel, M. 2021). This includes any imagery that is seen in everyday lifelandscapes, buildings, posters, text, photographs, films, or window displays. One definition in the book Look Closely: A Critical Introduction to Visual Culture (2023) specifies visual culture as “visual representations of something …. famous paintings found in art galleries can certainly be the subject of visual culture inquiries, but so can advertisements, social media images, sports logos, cartoons, and passport photos” (Cronin and Dobie, 2023). This explains that visual culture is a vast collection of visual imagery with the purpose of representing something. Video games will always be part of visual culture as they follow the definition of a piece of media which communicates visually and has an intention.
The difference between this and visual art is visual art has a stricter definition. A definition on Study.com describes that visual art “refers to art forms that express their message, meaning, and emotion through visual means... such as painting, photography, or sculpture. … one commonality of all visual art forms is to communicate visually, without the need for the other senses such as hearing or touch” (Iwasaki, 2022). This inclusion of the word “need” is important, as types of visual art such as films contain nonvisual means consisting of audio, through dialogue and music, but are still typically considered visual art. The existence of film influenced the definition of visual art to become more expansive due to films inclusion of nonvisual elements.
A definition by the Oxford Dictionary defines visual art as “creative arts intended to be appreciated by sight, such as painting, sculpture, film, etc …. (often as contrasted with
literature and music)” (Oxford English Dictionary, 2024). The inclusion of film within this definition shows that visual art is an evolving term and now includes artwork with a focus predominantly on visual means, with secondary nonvisual elements. In film, the emphasis is still on what is being seen visually and so, therefore, is categorised as a type of visual art, containing non-visual elements. There are some exceptions to this of course with some films relying heavily on sound to convey their message or to express certain emotions. In these instances, the emphasis is on the nonvisual elements and therefore they are no longer visual art. An example of this is the film Blue (1993) by Derek Jarman. The only visual in this film is a blue screen, unchanging, and the focus is on the voiceover and score by Simon Fisher Turner to recreate the feeling of a blind artist at the end of his life. This film was also originally distributed on Channel 4 and BBC Radio 3. The fact it was initially released to radio shows that the film doesn’t require its visual elements to achieve the goal it was created with. This film needs its non-visual elements to succeed in its goal, and so cannot be considered visual art.
This criterion also applies to video games. Almost all video games, like film, contain sound through a soundtrack and utilise touch. Through touch, an additional nonvisual element exists within video games - interactivity. Most traditional visual art pieces require viewers to only take in the artwork visually without touching or interacting in any other way. With video games, however, players must physically control their playable characters and take part in the story to experience the content or message that the game is providing. This added interactivity differentiates video games from film and makes it harder to distinguish if video games can be considered visual art. Going off this understanding of visual art vs visual culture, I will now assess if video games can meet the criteria to be considered visual art.
Chapter 1: A brief look into the history of video games
Typically, when thinking about video games, a linear path of evolution comes to mind. Starting with early games like Pong (1972) or Space Invaders (1978) and following that line through the decades, noting advances in technology and the video games that followed along. The reality however is that it is impossible to compare video games to each other. “The video games of today represent a convergence of … technological developments providing discrepant forms of entertainment to audiences with different needs.” (D. Ivory, J. 2015). Throughout history, video games have split off and branched into many genres and media types. Some video games are more akin to a playable novel (Edith Finch, 2017), whilst other reflex-based competitive games are more comparable to sports than stories (Overwatch, 2016). Some early video games evolved from board games such as chess, others from tabletop role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons, while others stemmed from technological advancements. The world of video games is so diverse and saturated in today’s culture through purpose, content, and intended audience, that almost any form of digital interactive media can be classed as one.
The classification for something to be called a video game is so loose and broad that it becomes challenging to assess the position of video games as art. The one thing that combines all video games is the purpose of providing digital interactive entertainment, to an extent, to an audience. Arguably, the first video game to exist was invented by William Higinbotham, a nuclear physicist, in 1958. Higinbotham invented Tennis for Two (1958) to entertain guests during science exhibits and to make presentations more interactive. The game was a 2D rendering of a tennis court where two players with controllers could control the angle of a tennis racquet’s swing to hit the ball back and forth. The purpose of creating this game, in Higinbotham’s words, was to “liven up the place to have a game that people could play, and which would convey the message that our scientific endeavours have relevance for society”, (Brookhaven National Laboratory, 2008). Societal impact and entertainment were two commonly shared characteristics of defining video games today.
1.1 Tennis for Two (1958) pictured next to inventor William Higinbotham
Over a decade later, Pong (1972) was invented, and Tennis for Two (1958) became apparent as the spark that led to its invention and by extension, the evolution of video games. “Glances at video game history place a heavy emphasis on action and simulation as defining characteristics of video games.” (D. Ivory, J. 2015). As video games were a new concept just beginning to gain popularity, the focus was on creating a simulation to captivate and entertain an audience. A requirement of this being the inclusion of a motion display to be capable of that level of interactivity or playability.
Additionally, stylisation became necessary for the success of early video games as they needed to be memorable and stand out to audiences, and so from that point, artists became involved with their creation. As early as the release of Tennis for Two (1958), this new demand and popularity of early video games lead artists to begin “creating video game art for early adopters of the medium such as Sega, Atari, and Nintendo.” (Bowden, T, Pixels to Reality: The Evolution of Video Game Art, 2024). Due to technological limitations at the time, artists were often tasked with creating art in a specific style on custom machines and were forced to rely on their innovations to create standout pieces of media. This apparent soul and style that came about from the limited technology of the time has left its mark on the history of video game art and can
be seen replicated in video games today. The technology available to developers today grants them the ability to pursue their creative vision with essentially no technological limitations. This means that those video games created today with the intention of being displayed in a pixel art style do so intentionally as opposed to their predecessors who did so out of necessity. The stylisation and visual appeal are the first things a player will experience when picking up a new video game. This is the “art” of the video game, and without it, the game will not exist let alone be financially successful. Video games do not exist without art and artists. Additionally, video games do not exist without interactivity and play and so when combining these two factors, video games must be assessed to see if they fall under visual art, or instead exist only as a vessel for entertainment.
The debate about video games as an art form has been around since the 80s. In 1983, the magazine Video Games Player made a statement claiming that video games “are as much an art form as any other field of entertainment.” (Wikipedia Contributors, 2019).
In the late 80s, an exhibition of arcade games was displayed, titled "Hot Circuits: A Video Arcade" (1989). In this exhibition, video games were showcased as “preformed works whose quality as art came from the intent of the curator to display them as art.” (Wikipedia Contributors, 2019). These were two early examples of arguments in favour of video games as art.
A further source discussing video games as an art form is the book by Frank G. Bosman, Archibald L.H.M. van Wieringen Video Games as Art. On page 6 of the introduction in a section titled Writing on Games and Art, Bosman and Wieringen (2022) make a point that video games could either be created with more of an emphasis on the play or more emphasis on the narrative, and that emphasis can be up to personal interpretation. The intent of a video game is something that impacts a video game being a work of art as some video games may have just been created to invoke feelings of enjoyment through play, whilst others will have been created with the intent of portraying an emotional message to an audience of players. Video games falling in the first category may have no intent of being analysed past the base function of play, let alone be displayed in an exhibition or a lecture. However, the second category was created to be viewed as a
piece of media, the same way a film or a painting in a gallery would be critically analysed. These two categories have different intentions which can make some video games easier than others to define as works of visual art. However, both categories still contain artistic merit through the function and involvement of art in the process of creating a video game.
Chapter 2: How Video Games Use Art to Make You Feel
The introduction of Video Games as Art (Bosman and Wieringen, 2022) references an argument by Roger Ebert, a well-known film and video game critic. In 2012, Roger Ebert voiced his opinion that reading books or watching films is a far superior way of spending time than playing video games. Ebert believes that the lack of authorial control over a video game diminishes its value as a piece of artwork. Video games, unlike paintings, have the player often controlling the story. This diminishes the vision the creator possesses of how the narrative should optimally be played out. Due to this, Ebert claims that video games are more similar to competitive sports than to works of art. Something that Ebert has not acknowledged however is how diverse the video games landscape is. While it is sometimes the case that video games were created with the intended gameplay more akin to a competitive sport, this comparison cannot be applied to other games, some of which have been created to provide an experience much more alike to an interactive visual novel.
One such game is What Remains of Edith Finch (2017). The emphasis of this game is clearly on the narrative and visuals over the gameplay as there is very little control the player has within the game. This game plays like an interactive visual novel, through stories that reveal themselves to the viewer as they explore the childhood home of the player character, Edith Finch. The character is the last surviving member of a family, almost all of which have died tragically or at a young age due to what is described as the
“family curse”. As Edith explores the house, within several rooms she finds stories detailing the deaths of each of her family members. The way these stories are told takes different forms of visual media, including a comic book, a surreal cartoonish simulation or loosely told through expressive paintings. The different types of visual storytelling can often make the player forget they are playing a video game as it is easy to get lost in the visual artwork being shown. A quote from Edith within What Remains of Edith Finch (2017) mentions “I grew up looking at Molly’s room through the peephole. Being inside for the first time, I felt like I’d stepped behind a painting,” The game takes still, painterly images and then allowing the player, through Edith, to step into the world “behind the painting”, going inside the untouchable, locked-away still frame to explore what would’ve otherwise been locked away and limited to being a 2D artwork. The level of interactivity is so low that dismissing it as a piece of visual art would be putting such a great emphasis on an element within the game that plays such a small role within it. The game functions as a piece of visual art, the control is not in the player's hands, no matter how the game is played the outcome will always be the same and the story elements will always happen.
2.1
Another game that places very little emphasis on interactivity is Gris (2018). Gris is an indie platformer game exploring experiencing grief and the different emotions that come with that. The game starts in a completely white landscape, devoid of any colour, and through playing, more colours are unlocked and introduced back into the world one by one. The gameplay isn’t particularly challenging, and the focus is more on personal discovery, human experience and taking in the environment. The game has a large emphasis on art style, featuring a watercolour hand-drawn world. There is a lot of emphasis on complementary and contrasting colours and seeing how they mix, blend and swirl together in a stylised way, much like how water flows together and mixes, imitating the natural world through watercolour art. Each colour represents a different emotion or stage commonly felt during grieving and with each found colour, the landscape slowly becomes more and more alive. The game puts you in the shoes of a girl who has recently lost someone and only by playing through the entire game will the player have a full understanding of the story and message of Gris (2018). The game is
Still image captured from playthrough of What Remains of Edith Finch (2017), developed by Giant sparrow
played out through platforming, and by extension, exploration of the different terrains and environments the player encounters within each chapter.
Gris (2018) is only about 4 hours of playtime but to truly understand what the player character is going through, the game encourages the player to take their time with exploring and experiencing every corner of the environment, where other secrets and hints of story can be found to give more depth to the world and character.
Gris (2018) uses players’ predetermined associations with colours to aid interpretation of the story through the artwork of the game. Daryl Talks Games, (2020) in his video How Gris Made You Cry With Its Colors, speaks about how Gris uses colour association to enhance its narrative. The first colour, red, is often associated with anger, passion and love and in Gris it’s used to show just that, the first stage of grief: anger. The environment in the red section is harsh and hostile and designed to push Gris (the player character) backwards if she does not become strong enough to overcome it. Gris is given a power that makes her ‘harder’ as well as giving her the power to destroy. Daryl talks about how “researchers and health professionals agree that it’s healthy to let the anger out” (DTG, 2020). This reflects on Gris’s character as she physically cannot progress through the game without letting out this anger by destroying obstacles in her way. However, later in the game Gris encounters a rock which she smashes and is then shown to be home to a robot, who then runs away from her in fear - “her anger is hurting others, this displaced aggression is a common part of the second stage and realizing that you are lashing out is a huge step in moving on” (DTG, 2020). This part of the journey wordlessly shows the negative effects of grief and how someone grieving can hurt others and to heal they must move on, past their anger. This part of the game is an art form using solely visual means to express an emotion.
2.2 Still image captured from playthrough of Gris (2018), developed by Nomada Studio
However, the overall themes of Gris (2018) are shown to the player not solely through visual means, but also through a powerful soundtrack by Berlinist. Gris consists of two elements working together, art and music. These elements make playing such an immersive experience. For example, in the level of the game representing anger, Notis writes in his article on how the music is integrated into the game, that “as the organs hit a crescendo, the sandstorms kick up, only to die down as the music does” (Notis, A, 2020). The music adds a layer of urgency and creates a feeling of anxiety for the player, conveying to them that they must reach shelter before the music picks up again. The use of music emphasises the harsh feeling of the environment which wouldn’t have otherwise been as powerful using just the visuals to show this. The visual and audio prompts blend with each other to make the player feel what Gris is feeling.
Music can be used to elicit feelings of calm, relaxation, stress, and unease using different notations and tones. Minor keys often create fear, anxiety and tenseness whilst major keys can make the listener feel triumphant or joyful. Music can create
comfort and ease feelings of heartbreak, grief and loss. This mirrors the emotions Gris experiences through confronting the loss she has experienced.
I believe that despite this, Gris (2018) is still a piece of visual art. The game uses its soundtrack to enhance the experience, much like many galleries and art installations do. The soundtrack is used as a complimentary undertone to the game but does not deduct from the visual storytelling and visual art aspects. The music may make moments in the story more memorable and emotionally impactful, but it is not the emphasising factor. Conveying the emotional messages and story behind the game is done using colour and its visual world-building.
Cinemaware was a company set up in California. As suggested by its name, it was created with the intention of turning video games into “stunning interactive movies” (Jacob Geller, 2024). Before this, the most visually advanced games were arguably Space Harrier (Sega, 1985) and Excitebike (Nintendo, 1984). Cinemaware got closest to this goal with their first game, Defender of the Crown (1986). This game, unlike many others at the time (such as The Legend of Zelda, 1986), was the first of its kind to put such artistic emphasis into its visual style. The game displayed extremely detailed backgrounds, using pixel art to generate realistically scaled shadows, creating audiences with many people, moving flames, transparent clothing and textured backgrounds: something that was an extremely impressive artistic feat at the time.
2.3 Still image captured from Defender of the Crown (1986), developed by Cinemaware
A similar game to this was the game Dragon’s Lair (1983). Each possible outcome of the game that had been coded was hand animated and would play based on a player pressing a certain prompt. The total runtime of the game came to about 22 minutes, with next to no replay value as there were very few different outcomes a player could experience. This made the game much more comparable to an animated film, or even a visual novel, than a game. The artistic appeal of the unique hand-drawn art style of Dragon’s Lair (1983), and the revolutionary graphical advancements of Defender of the Crown (1986) was what drew people in.
The context in which a game was released also impacts its standing as visual art. The Amiga 1000 (or A1000), released in 1985, was a computer which cost $1285 at the time of release and was advertised as having art and video capabilities much more advanced than previous consoles at the time. It came equipped with immense processing power and a focus on providing graphics. Because of this, it could deliver much-developed visuals. Cinemaware and other video game companies purposefully
utilised this capability and released games intended for the A1000 to achieve a specific visual style that couldn’t otherwise be achieved on any other console. Still to this day, the A1000 delivers a distinct visual look so it is a specific visual choice to display video games through this PC. This is very similar to how visual artists choose to display films or other visual art through CRTs to achieve an intentional visual appearance. Because of this, any video game which was developed and purposefully chosen to be released for the A1000 is a piece of visual art as it falls into the definition of expressing their message deliberately through visual means.
Chapter 3: interactivity and sound; their roles in defining a video game.
In 2012, Roger Ebert explained his dismissal of video games, his reasoning being that video games “tend to involve point and shoot in many variations and plotlines, treasure or scavenger hunts (. . .), and player control of the outcome.” (Ebert, 2012). This mention of control of the outcome brings up an integral part of video games – play and interactivity. Video games are a part of interactive media, a broad category including social networking sites, VR (virtual reality) and interactive television. This layer of interactivity sets games apart from other visual art types as most visual art in current culture (paintings, sculpture, drawings, photography) contain no interactivity. The exception to this is film as often it will contain the nonvisual element of sound. This interactivity in video games is purposeful and adds immersion to the story or message a video game is trying to provoke. Overwatch (2016), for example, is more akin to the type of video games Ebert was describing, with its player outcome comparable to sport, with players having control over how the game is experienced. It aims to create competition and entertainment, rather than trying to convey a narrative or deeper meaning. Other games however use this added layer of play, or interactivity with different intentions.
An analysis of Rain World (2017) and Ocarina of Time (1998)
To truly understand the message of a game, players must put themselves through the time and experience of playing through the game. Only then can they fully absorb the story, or the message that the game is trying to portray. On a surface level, games may appear to be trying to achieve one certain goal and only by the player putting themselves through the lived experience of the game's story, the message is wholly realised through the player becoming a part of it.
In the game Rain World (2017), the player plays as a small creature, or ‘slugcat’ trying to survive in a world of predators. In the game, the predators spawn randomly, have their own behaviours and act aggressively towards the player. At first, this will often catch the player off guard, which will result in dying repeatedly. On top of this, heavy rain will fall at the end of each day cycle and instantly kill the playable character if they have not reached shelter by then. At an immediate glance, these challenges make the game seem unfair, or without purpose. Each respawn or new room entered contains random enemy locations or inconsistent difficulty with each new attempt. Through playing this game, however, the player will realise that the enemies or world itself isn’t coded, it’s all AI, and so the creatures in the world are moving constantly with a mind of their own, rather than being written to only exist in one fixed position until a trigger causes them to start moving. The reason this is done is to make the world feel more alive through interactivity with the randomly generated obstacles. This creates a sense of the world being a preexisting place, with the player filling the role of a prey animal and must learn to adjust and survive with no unfair advantages. This is unlike most games where the player is playing as a main character or hero, and the world is essentially programmed to revolve around them, giving leeway to the player if they mess up or die, without throwing any random, unexpected surprises at the player. Through playing the game, the player eventually will uncover the narrative reasons for why the world behaves in the way it does, e.g. why the rain falls when it does. They will learn the behaviours of the different enemy types and adapt to use those behaviours to their advantage, even manipulating enemies to fight against each other to use as a distraction to escape and progress. The narrative behind this unfriendly world is cleverly hidden behind the seemingly unfair gameplay, and a player is required to fully immerse
themselves in this fictional world - to become the slugcat themselves - to realise the truth and reasons for this uncommon design.
Rain World (2017) cannot just be watched as a cinematic playthrough, as the video of a different player’s experience will not be reflective of the experience if a player were to play the game themselves. The interactivity in Rain World (2017) is crucial to its effectiveness as a piece of media, and the randomness of the AI means that each new playthrough will be different from the last, each time the player dies they will find themselves in a completely unique situation when they respawn. The game requires a player to partake themselves, not just to watch a visual representation of moments of the game. Rain World (2017) is first and foremost a piece of interactive media, with its visual design elements coming secondary. Because of this, Rain World (2017) cannot be considered a piece of visual art.
3.1
Still image captured from Rain World (2017), developed by Videocult
As its name suggests, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) is a Zelda game which implements music heavily into its storytelling. Koji Kondo, a composer in the video game world who has created pieces for Super Mario Bros. (1985) and The Legend of Zelda (1986) writes music to “directly serve gameplay rather than just compliment it or exist as background accompaniment” (Liam Triforce, 2024). Triforce, L describes it this way to separate music composed by Kondo from other composers in the video game industry. This places a huge importance on the music as it’s being written with intention and the music itself contains a narrative of its own. Mario Bros. introduced the concept of composers becoming an integral part of making a video game and being involved during the whole process. With Mario, the “offset beat” (Liam Triforce, 2024) of the tune pairs nicely with the fast-paced but unsteady movement of players running through the level. It also creates space for sound effects to be integrated into the background song when activated.
Typically, the soundtrack is an accompaniment to the story, a tool to aid the emotional beats and to emphasize players preexisting emotions, coming secondary to the visual storytelling. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998) is different though. Suggested by its name, there are two important features in the game, time and music, and how the game revolves around the two and is constantly impacted by both. When Ocarina of Time (1998) was released, music was introduced to the player as a core mechanic, the soundtrack more prevalent than ever as the player themselves needs to play it to further the story. This allowed “players to further connect to the soundtrack” (Liam Triforce, 2024) as interacting with it drew more emphasis to the soundtrack and by extension, more impact. Player interactivity is the core focus as the music cannot exist in the game without the player ‘creating’ it. Because of this, Ocarina of Time (1998) also cannot fall into the category of visual art.
3.2
image
In the book Super Mario Bros, Koji Kondo's Super Mario Bros. Soundtrack, Schartmann speaks about a non-visual element in video games, music. The book addresses an interesting question of whether the soundtrack can affect the success of the game it’s attached to, or even improve its quality, or if the success is totally random and purely luck. The music in Super Mario Bros. (1985) was new and revolutionary for the time and is described for the first time as “artistic expression”. Before that, video game soundtracks were described as “an era of bleeps and bloops—the sterile products of a lab environment” (Schartmann, A. 2015), soundtracks weren’t thought of as something that could be interesting and unique outside of the game and were just simply an afterthought added to create some noise, so the player doesn’t have to play the game in silence.
Kondo was very lucky in the sense that he was provided with resources and freedom to experiment to create new interesting music in a style that would become iconic. Due to the video game crash of 1983, instead of being forced to shut down, Nintendo took a leap of faith to try to change something up as the current video game scene was dying.
Still
captured from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998), developed by Nintendo
Because of this, they provided more support and resources for Kondo to try something new, to think of music as its own standalone art form, not just an afterthought. “We [at Nintendo] were trying to do something that had never been done before.” (Schartmann, A. 2015). In Super Mario Bros. (1985), the soundtrack does something unique to the time, the music followed the rhythm of the gamer, like a dance. This new emphasis on music as a standalone art form means that the Super Mario Bros. game cannot be considered visual art as the music is so closely connected with the interaction of the player. When ‘dancing’ through the level, whenever a player chooses to move the character, it influences the music too.
Narrative-driven games create immersion through interactivity in a different way. Popular games within this genre are The Walking Dead (2012), The Last of Us Remastered (2014) and The Last of Us Part II (2020). Narrative-driven games, especially ones with hyper-realistic art styles are, on the surface, often the most easily comparable to film. Youtuber Noah Caldwell-Gervais addresses the differences and similarities of these games to film in his video, How Does The Last of Us Part 2 Compare to the Last of Us Remastered? (2020). Video games, unlike film, have a vastly extended runtime (or playtime). The Walking Dead (2012) has around 13 hours of playtime, The Last of Us Remastered (2014) has 16 and The Last of Us Part 2 (2020) sits at 40 hours.
The Last of Us Part 2 (2020) has an unusually lengthy playtime for a linear, narrativedriven game. In films, scenes are used to jump between narrative focal points whereas these mentioned games let the player sit with the character for a long time to immerse themselves in the world around them.
The most important difference between a game like The Last of Us Part II (2020) and a film or other traditional visual media is interactivity. Films can be considered visual art as they are primarily visual, usually with an added nonvisual layer of sound. With video games like The Last of Us Part II (2020), this layer of sound exists but with the added nonvisual element of interactivity.
3.3 Sill image captured on the PS4 of The Last of Us Part II (2020), developed by Naughty Dog
Gervais (2020) argues that The Last of Us Remastered (2014) is “a piece of crossover media. A game that hangs in between the defined margins of the worlds of television, film, and games.” (How Does The Last of Us Part 2 Compare to the Last of Us Remastered? 1:19). He explains that this makes the game interesting and unique to other forms of visual media. This is especially apparent compared to other visually striking games of the same level of popularity. By extension, at first glance, it appears easier to claim that The Last of Us Part II (2020) is a piece of visual art as it contains strong visual elements. The graphics are hyper-realistic and could be compared to a live-action film and the story beats are driven through long, well-acted cutscenes which appear frequently. This, especially compared to a game like Grand Theft Auto V (2013), which is almost exclusively driven by its interactive elements over its visual ones, is more clearly distinguishable as a nonvisual piece, and the element of play is the main appeal to buyers. In The Last of Us Part II (2020), the game subtly takes qualities that are usually most prominent in films and subverts them by adding a level of interactivity and added intimate time with the characters to make the world feel more alive. The
emotional beats are emphasised by the fact the player must carry them out themselves. Unlike what Ebert (2012) argues about player choice setting video games apart from other media, this game does not give the player a choice. The emotions and motivations the main character, Ellie, is experiencing are more effectively shown through player choice being taken away. The player instead must act how Ellie would act and face the consequences of those actions within the story. The player enacting certain scenarios gives the story additional immersion through interactivity as it places the player in the character’s shoes to an extent that films would not achieve, so immersion is enhanced through the interactivity with the aid of the visuals, not the other way around. This subverts the typical use of interactivity of agency over the story in video games. By utilising it to force the player to act the way Ellie does, this removal of agency that would typically be present is a powerful way of communicating emotion which is only made possible through this reliance on player interaction.
AI and its threat to the artistic nature of video games.
Over the last couple of years, AI has become more and more prevalent in both the art and video game scenes. The technology for generative AI and more specifically AI art has evolved rapidly in a very short space of time. AI creations cannot have artistic value in the same way human creations do (or potentially at all) due to the fundamental way the technology functions. Firstly, it is impossible for AI to create anything truly unique as it essentially ingests vast amounts of information from its dataset and regurgitates parts of that information according to the prompts it receives. Additionally, a large amount of this data was unethically sourced and may amount to plagiarism (lawsuits on the topic are currently ongoing, including the example “Getty Images Sues AI Art Generator Stable Diffusion in the US for Copyright Infringement” Vincent, J. 2023) so its usage is highly unethical and if held to the same standards as a human, does not meet basic standards of integrity to be considered artistically valuable.
Recently, it has been seen that video game developers have started to integrate the use of generative AI for various reasons, such as to cut costs by creating character voice
lines (as seen in The Finals, 2023, first-person shooter game). When generative AI starts to seep into the artwork of the game it becomes a real issue. As of 2024, generative AI has worryingly begun to be introduced into the 2D and concept art sectors of video game development, the visual art sectors. Due to its cost-efficient nature, generative AI is being implemented to cut corners and degrade the impact of the artists designing the video game. 2D artists have begun to be laid off in the masses and concept artists are given no choice but to integrate generative AI into their artwork. AI has also been used to create cosmetics for purchase in online game stores (seen in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, 2023). This choice to use AI to cut costs may end up leaving large companies such as Activision Blizzard with games containing little to no visual artwork. If this scenario plays out, independent games which value human creation and creativity may end up becoming, in a sense, a separate group of developers creating video games which are still utilising art in their creative processes. It will be up to developers and their priorities to ensure that their video games still fall within the realm of art.
*AI is commonly used in the video gaming industry to refer to programming the behaviour of non-playable characters, this is not what I am referencing. When discussing AI, I am referring to machine learning models such as ChatGPT which I refer to as generative AI.
Conclusion
This dissertation set out to define video games and to conclude if or where they could exist as a type of visual art. To understand what kind of media video games are, first, the reason why this is important to realise must be looked at. Classifying video games as art legitimises them in an academic sense. In many academic settings, there is still a bias like that of Roger Ebert towards other forms of media and a general view that books and films are much more worthy of the consumer’s time. When asked if he had played the video game Doom (1993), Roger Ebert replied, “As long as there is a great movie unseen or a great book unread, I will continue to be unable to find the time to play video games” (Roger Ebert, 2012). As reflected by this statement, there is a lack of respect for video games as an art form and as a topic for research and inspiration. The classification of video games as art demands respect and opens the doorway for research and discussion surrounding the topic. It also defines video games as a type of media worthy of a consumer’s time, to the same extent a film, book or painting would be.
The argument in favour of video games as art has existed for a long time and the validity of this claim is supported by the volume of sources arguing this point. As shown in the sources both mentioned within this dissertation and existing outside of it, there is a gradual shift happening towards video games gaining recognition as works of art, respect and academic attention. Courses now exist to teach game studies, for example, the Game Design and Production course at Abertay University. Talks are given and papers are written, as well as video games being used as a teaching tool, with aspects of Minecraft (2011) teaching chemistry and physics, or more obviously Duolingo (2011), which uses a game format to appeal to learners. The element of play is an important one, it helps with retaining knowledge as well as capturing the attention of the player. Adults need play in their lives, a balance is needed between rest, work, and play. Through gaming, players can unwind and take time for themselves to put into something they are passionate about or inspired by. As previously mentioned in the introduction, this element of play or interaction makes video games incomparable to film as video games exist with different intentions to
films by allowing players freedom to explore and interact with the world, and in some cases make decisions affecting the outcome of the story.
All video games are video games for a purpose. This layer of interactivity sets them apart from any other media type and functions as a uniqueness only existing within video games. Adding this interactivity does not inherently strip away their standing as works of art, however, so long as the interactivity has a purpose intended – if it is added to enhance emotional or story beats, making the game reach its intended potential through the player's interaction. Video games as a classification are typically united by their intention to invoke fun or play in the player. However, some games can subvert this element of play to create strong emotional messages through nonvisual or nontraditional artistic means. Nier Automata (2017) plays on the player's instincts to commit standard video game violence. This is turned on its head however as these actions are revealed to have negative consequences on the player character and the digital world they exist in.
As the genre of video games is so broad and expansive, they need to be assessed on a case-by-case basis to determine if games can be classed as visual art. A blanket statement cannot be applied to all video games calling them visual art. It is also unproductive to claim that just because all video games invoke an emotional reaction, they are all therefore able to be considered works of art as that definition is too vague to apply to games. It is clear to me however that instances exist of video games which can be considered visual art. Generally, mainstream video games will not have enough emphasis on visual art elements to be considered visual art. This is because often they are created to fit a formula, much like how a product is created and marketed to be the most appealing to purchase to the widest possible consumer market. Because of this, they will often focus on creating an interactive experience with emphasis on the play aspect. With indie games, however, as they are not created for a mainstream audience, they have more room for creative experimentation and can take risks with their storytelling elements. The video games within the indie genre are more diverse and more exist to provide a narrative or emotional experience through primarily visual means.
The Last of Us Part II (2020) is a game which has a strong emphasis on both visuals and interactivity, but it uses its gameplay as a primary method to illicit emotion which
may be enabled by visuals but is not driven by them. For example, when killing a dog in The Last of Us Part II (2020), players will find this very emotionally challenging and while this is enhanced by the visuals, it is the interactive element of the player carrying out the task that simulates emotion. Simply watching a playthrough of someone else killing the dog does not have the same impact as a player doing it themselves.
To conclude, whilst the sources in favour of video games as art (and by extension visual art) do bring up points which I agree with on artistic merit, stylisation and visual storytelling, video games still need their interactivity as they would not be video games without it. This interactivity, in most cases, makes it impossible for the work to be considered visual art as that would be stripping it of the elements it was designed with the intention of utilising. However, in some cases, such as with Gris (2018) or What Remains of Edith Finch (2017), they both have visuals at the forefront and by extension small enough emphasis on interactivity to allow them to be considered visual art. In these cases, interactivity is instead used as a tool to provide a narrative to an audience of gamers, existing as a vessel for visual storytelling. So as an answer, in most cases, video games will not be definable as pieces of visual art, but this is not a rule, exceptions do apply, and video games need to be assessed individually to conclude if any specific one exists as visual art. However, just because video games are predominantly not visual art, does not mean that they lack artistic value on their own merits as video games such as The Last of Us Part II (2020) or Rain World (2017) use their interactivity purposefully to coexist with the visual artistry to create a piece of interactive art. Therefore, it would be more accurate to class video games as something detached from visual art but an art form nonetheless, interactive art.
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