Are Games Art?

Are Video Games Art?

To be or not be …that is the question right? Wrong! The real question here is can video games can be considered as art or not? Yes! Typically to me I believe the definition of art can be from the power of one’s imagination to express their creativity through any type of creation from physical to an emotional form. Blah blah blah what does that mean?!? Well good question, it means art can possibly be anything / everywhere (all around us).

Now how can I consider video games to be art? I believe like movies that games can be a form or category of art. Movies are more commonly known as a form of art to watch, as to video games are more of a form that’s immersive and involving your audience (the player) to play through someone’s creative world/ story. Letting the person (the player) feel and experience through I guess we can say “show and tell” with the addition of controlling a fictional/ non-fictional character(s).

I feel that a form of art can be shown through a story that needs artwork (drawings, sceneries, characters, etc.) to help paint the imagined world the player is playing in. This helps the player understand what theme or setting the game is part of, and gives the player the idea whether the game would be graceful, calm, aggressive, exciting, and so on.

Truth be told if anything video games itself actually has a lot of artwork put into it if we’re trying to be blunt here. There were many artists that had to put themselves into the game (not literally) to create/ draw a world that fits the theme of its story. I mean many long hours were put into just sketching alone just for one scene of a game, so yeah I believe that games are a form of art even if some people beg to differ I guess we’ll just agree to disagree for now.

Should Video Games Be Copyrighted?

Okay here’s a tricky question, do I think games should be copyrighted? Well I say yes but at the same time no I just feel so conflicted with this question. I don’t really know how to answer this question I’m only human not Jesus. So I guess the reason why I say yes is because I’m seeing more from a game developer’s side but at the same time I’m looking at it from a up and coming underdog game designer’s point of view.

Games should be copyrighted because I feel as though these game developers put a lot of hard work and money for some random person to steal their idea in a few minutes. I know I would be mad if someone stole my idea that I worked long hours for and in the end for someone else to make a profit from my creations. I feel like it’s cheating off of my test that I spent hours of my day studying for while others just copied my test and still got the same reward as me without having to work hard for it.

Even though I feel strongly on having games copyrighted, I also feel as though it puts a restraint on our imagination and games to whether it’s been made or not. It gives the idea of making a game scary for the fact of being sued thousands of dollars for making a video game that’s been previously made without even knowing it, since there are so many games out there you just never know when you might accidently step on a land mine (not literally). So I feel maybe in a weird way that we should probably not have games copyrighted just so that we can feel free and not have to worry about what certain items are taken and which are not.

So typically I would go with games being copyrighted and at the same time not have them copyrighted, it just amazes me how we’ve reached a certain point in our era where so many great ideas are out there and a variety of art that can be reproduced, I guess we’ll just have to see what the future throws at us next, sip our Mountain Dew then smile and wave boys…smile and wave.