David Ciccoricco on Why Video Games Deserve to be Considered an Art Form Despite the Lack of Cultural Recognition and Further Analytical Observations Based on the Video Gaming Industry’s Stigma of Cheap Entertainment

“It is indeed clear that we cannot consider the evolution of video games as an art form without at the same time considering the evolution of the technologies that enable them. The most visible advances, of course, can be seen in the movement toward photorealistic graphics graphics and animation. In fact, it would be possible to claim that video games have become artful only or at least primarily as a result of the affordances of digital media. Nevertheless, the practice of identifying isolated elements of video games as art—each of which are essentially already established artistic media with their own artistic traditions—still does not justify video games as an art form in their own right. Several factors trouble the status of video games as an art form. They are generally a form of popular entertainment, which might not best serve what may be thought of as the higher purposes of art. But an even more intractable problem lies with their status as vehicles for play, and ones that typically involve competition. That is, no matter how artistic a game may be, the purpose of its creation is arguably located in nonaesthetic goals.”

— David Ciccoricco “Games as Art / Literature” 2014

David Ciccoricco (2014) argues that the technological advancements in video games should be valued as an art form just as much as the products they are responsible for enabling to exist and that people cannot appreciate one without the other, as without the innovative use of technologies, video games would not have existed in the first place, at least they would not have evolved to the extent that they have. Ciccoricco suggests that it is possible to argue that the only notable characteristics of video games as an art form lies in the evolution of the graphical aspect and how realistic its representations and commentaries of the real world are. However, Ciccoricco argues that if the components, such as programming languages, the creative processes and story development for example, that make up the substance of a video game are considered ‘art’, then it would stand to reason that the combination of these elements could also be expressed and experienced in the same light.

Video games in their whole, complete form are still not appreciated in such a way, and Ciccoricco suggests this is primarily because of the way video games are seen in society and the ‘cheap’ role the gaming industry plays, which is not as something that is part of cultural history, but a new technology that exists solely for entertainment purposes, rather than something that is able to be considered and analysed for its possibly more complex meanings and narratives. The most significant issue regarding video games as a mere entertainment device, Ciccoricco argues, is the fact that video games are considered to be toys, or something for young people to ‘play’ with, rather than a sophisticated device with alternative and more substantial uses. The video game industry still maintains the stigma of being a way to simply pass time, or a form of escapism without the need to use one’s own brain for anything more complex than what the game mechanics requires. Ciccoricco also argues that another major downfall in deciding whether or not video games deserve the title of being an art form is that it generates enormous competitive behaviors among the player-base, which promotes the idea that video games cannot be valued as anything other than for its entertainment properties.

Overall, Ciccoricco hints that while these arguments may be relevant in some ways, it would not do well to ignore the incredibly complex process of cultivating a video game from its raw materials, regardless of how well it represents reality through graphical engines, as it is often the intricate narratives put together through the inspired ideas of developers, of which these ideas might have any number of significance to the world beyond the entertainment industry, which forces the question of whether or not video games should be considered an art form.