Metal Gear Solid V

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the emotions. What do you think of when someone mentions art? Maybe paintings, drawings, sculptures, literature, or music. What about videos games? Are they art? Let's take a look.

Perhaps the easiest case to make about artwork in video games is the graphics. Many of the visual assets are meticulously handcrafted by individuals. You can think of them as contemporary painters or sculptors. Then there are the vast and immersive worlds that are contain all these little pieces of art, created by modern day cartographers. Writing is also an easy case to make for art in video games. Some titles have more words than an Ayn Rand Novel. I usually don't like storytelling getting in the way of the gameplay, but I can't deny that it's art. Sound also plays an integral role in how you experience a game, and music is art as both a recording and performance. And don't forget about all the voice artists, mixers, and sound designers.

But maybe the most overlooked artists in the video game industry are the developers themselves. The coders. The programmers. The ones who take mathematical abstractions and turn them into a virtual reality that anyone on the planet can experience. Designing a game requires flattery and function in order to appeal to the senses without any artificial challenges getting in the way, such as clunky menus or wonky controls. You need creative and technical ability beyond what has ever been seen before in human history. Games needs to work at a functional level and be optimized for performance. It's the most deliberate process because it encompasses all commonly understood arts within it. Until we have a single grand algorithm to do all of this for us, developers still carry the artistic torch of gamemaking. Are there any other artists within the video game industry I forget to mention? Start a dialogue in the comments. And share this message with all the commoners who don't understand the highest form of art: video games.