Henry Lau's Untitled Blog

Games, as a member of new media, have been changing from just technical piece to hybrid piece of new culture and media phenomena. It is important to identify and recognize the artistic quality of games in order to stimulate the development of art and media in this generation. It can also help to discover game as a more powerful tool of art, hence higher quality games would be created. In this paper, games are discussed in general according to its relationship with culture, expressiveness, and the artists’ intention.

In the abstract of Computer Games as Works of Art, the author noted that computer games as a candidate to be regarded as art, just like any other kinds of medium, have already developed a significant heterogeneous tradition[1]. It should be emphasized that not all games can be regarded as art. It is similar to music, movie, literature, and drawing: a song is a song and it is not necessarily a work of art. There are elements within the work, which make it a work of art. Games have an increasing advantage as a candidate because more and more ideas have been brought into games, not just with the technological advance, but also with the rapid growing size of audiences and developers. Game as art is catching more attention with its artistic nature and potential. Even though most games are commercial and market driven, these properties do not obstruct games to be regarded as art. Work of art can be functional and commercial.