Jenyfer Ramirez

English Language Arts Per. 6

Rodruck

10 February 2017

Argumentative Writing: Video Games are Art

Games are not just art, they are the most revolutionary form of art mankind has ever

known about. - Advergame designer Santiago Sir. Should video games be considered art? This

is a topic that many people have various opinions on. Many say no for their reasons while others

say yes based on their reasons as well. But, my opinion is based on facts and a bit of personal

experiences. Video games should be considered as art because people or a person made it, the

player is no longer just an observer and the graphics in the game.

To begin with, what is artart is the expression or application of human creative skill and

imagination, typically in a visual form,- Google. Well video games are created by people or a

person. While the player is the one who experiences or creates the story within the video game.

Film scholar Henry Jenkins criticized Kroll for dramatically underestimating the potential of

video games. The reason for this might be that people think that videogames are just

programming and coding with some images and animations. That may be true that video games

use coding and programming to function. The part that their missing is the artistic part which is

what the coding and programming does to the images and animations. If you have ever played a

video game you can see it in many ways that the creator has made it into. For example, one of

the most famous games was FNAF (Five Nights at Freddy's). This is a very entertaining game

made by one person named Scott Cawthon. This game use to have or still has everyone on their

toes apart from the fact that it is a scary game, it has a story plot behind it. You have to take
every detail from every angle to understand the story. This is like a work of art, it can look like

one thing and may be something else. FNAF has two major theories called the dream theory and

the timeline theory. Both theories grab your attention but no one knows which one is correct and

maybe we'll never know. That is a very good work of art even if we never know what the true

meaning is. Their are other works of art that have many interpretations but no one knows what

the specific meaning is. Therefore, it doesn't matter if it's a sculpture, painting or a video game

it's art because someone or many people have created it, using their imagination and creativity.

Now, people are no longer just an observer. What does that meanit means that people no

longer just look at the work of art but get to experience it. For example, a news reporter from

CNN named Chris Melissinos said, The player is an active participant in the emergence of the

form. This means instead of looking at a painting at a museum you can look and experience art

anywhere now a days, with all the hand-held electronics. People may say that videogames are

distractions or aren't relevant at all. Video games are there to distract us and entertain us from our

daily lifestyle. It also depends what kind of video games you like to make it relevant because for

me I like games with a good story or are just plain fun. For example, a video game that tells a

good storyin my opinion, would be Ratchet and Clank. This game you play as Ratchet a

Lombax from planet Veldin who runs into a badly drawn robot whose name is Clank, that he

encountered in a crashed spacecraft. From then on Ratchet starts to follow alongside him. They

have many adventures and each have a story plot. Only specific games story align with each

other. It tells and explains the history of Ratchet. While in one specific game explains more about

Clanks past and his purpose. Another example, would be Splatoon although it isn't a game with

a story it's very fun. You create an avatar that's a human with squid characteristics then play in

three different rounds. One is a turf war, the second one is ranked battles which make you do
different objectives, and the last one is to get through stages while teaching you strategies. Even

though these are two different games they allow the player to experience teamwork in Splatoon

and in Ratchet and Clank let's the player experience a story while basing it off their actions in the

game. Furthermore, video games are a great form of art because the player is no longer just

looking at the work of art but experiencing it.

Finally, the graphics the games present are also art. There are many games with many

different graphics. For example, some of the earliest video games were text games or text-based

graphics. These games would mostly be about role-playing video games. Another graphic design

would be vector graphics which use geometrical primitives in other words shapes based on math.

There are many others such as full motion video, 2D, 3D, stereo graphics, virtual reality headset,

multi-monitor setup, and augmented/ mixed reality graphics. In most games these days they use

2D, 3D, and the new virtual reality headset. An example of a 2D game graphic would be mobile

games that are only on a flat surface but of course not all mobile games are 2D. An example of a

3D game would be games used on monitors such as the Wii U, PlayStation, or Xbox. Of course

virtual reality would be in the virtual reality headset. This is a very new graphic design that takes

a lot of time and effort to design. Virtual reality is just how it sounds you can see that it is a video

game but the graphics make it seem like reality. Imagine you just in one room but you can

experience something from outside or something in your imagination within that one room.

That's what Chris Melissinos from CNN said, he said, From games that recreate the childlike

wonder in discovering magic and delight in the world. People may say that graphics, games, or

stories can't really trigger that. Many things can trigger that but a videogame that can make you

feel, experience and imagine what you did in your childhoodwhich is amazingis a really

good game. If it we're a child it would be a great experience to expand their imagination and
feelings to situations that might happen in life, even though if most games are fictional. In brief,

video game graphics make the video games even more artistic than what the story or objectives

within the game better.

As a result, video games should be considered as art because of what they offer to us. We

can see that apart from entertaining us they help us feel, experience, and imagine things from our

childhood or help us grow in our childhood. Even if people say that videogames are just games

and nothing else, we can see from different types of games that may not be entirely true. Even if

video games don't make us have that emotional connection with the artist as paintings or

sculptures do, we can see that they have the potential to. Even if it's us reading the story or

creating it through our actions, video games can make us see that there is something else. Even if

we can't know the exact meaning or know exactly what the creator was thinking, video games

can make us feel young or help us grow in a way. Therefore, video games aren't just a work of art

but also a way of connecting all of us together. Although, art can do the same thing video games

connect all of us in an interactive way.

Work Cited

Melissinos, Chris. From geek dens to gallery walls: Why gaming is now for adults and

art lovers. CNN, 2016.http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/21/arts/video-games-highest-form-

of-art/. 6 February. 2017.

Smuts, Aaron. Are Video Games Art?.Department of Philosophy, University of

Wisconsin, Madison, 2005. http://www.contempaesthetics.org/.

newvolume/pages/article.php?articleID=299. 6 February. 2017.