All these touch games - Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, Racing Moto - Aren't these technically true video games, at least by definition? Brilliant games such as Final Fantasy VII, Dark Souls,Journey, or Xenoblade Chronicles - What "Gamers" love about gaming in general, well, really aren't games - they're much more.
Of course, millions of gamers would kill me for saying what I said in the first sentence. But think about it. Many of these Mobile games are kind of what Video Games used to be like, and kind of how one would expect video games to be like if you look at definitions and all that. Console Video Games, on the other hand, are moving away from being games, and instead, are either interactive stories (Final Fantasy games, for example), or free, open world experiences (Skyrim, even Grand Theft Auto). Even certain Indy games, like Journey and Limbo. Games like those are what should be considered art, as they can make some people feel the same way they can feel as if they were watching movies with great storytelling, and they can wow you and leave you in awe. Art as in The Arts (Music, Movies, Paintings/Pictures, etc.).
It's your God of Wars and Call of Duties (hehe) that are like games, but even then, GOW still has some storytelling elements involved. Mobile games have a mass audience, the same way old school consoles like the Atari 2600 did, due the relative ease of use.
Now of course, I'm going about the Mobile game industry the way the average hardcore gamer would, thinking that it's all casual touch games with bad controls. There are some mobile games that have a lot of elements that many Indy/Art games have too. But a lot of the main, more popular ones are what I'm talking.
Overall, video games should kind of be split. I'm not classifying all Mobile games as simpler games or anything but rather, as more of a simple way to ease into the transition. Games that have more simpler objectives are what could/should be considered video games,(the same way games with simple objectives like Checkers are board games, Tic Tac Toe is a paper and pen game, etc.)while games that are story-based or forge an emotional connection between the game and the player should be apart of The Arts. This way, some of these great games can get the respect that many Gamers feel they deserve. The only question is that, well, should we call these games that are art?
The way that certain video games can leave you in awe the same way or even better than films, pictures, sculptures and/or theater plays can is enough for it to be considered art - at least certain types of art.
Microsoft announced its financial results for Q3 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming Xbox business and more.
Not looking good. Hopefully Asha Sharma is able to turn Phil’s disaster around.
To me it's still quite remarkable how they can cash-in 5.3bn in revenue in a single quarter, since their hardware is basically dead.
The stock mark is what makes Microsoft remarkable, They have convinced every institutional and retail investor to just keep piling money into them. Like many big tech giants they are just a big growing pyramid scheme. As long as people keep dropping money into ETF's that cover the market Microsoft will always be liquid. At the same time it is completely stifling innovation and competition. People need to start being more discreet in how they invest their money as it's killing the system.
Riiiiight because people will just flock back to them for one or two games per year.
15+ years of bad performance is what they call irreparable in business. It is time for them to sell off the assets and get out of entertainment.
These declines are on the back of extra revenue received from releasing games like Forza horizon 5 on PlayStation. So I’m being sarcastic here when I said they should go back to exclusives. Killing off a revenue stream from Ps5 sales will only make things worse
The charity event will be streamed live from Gamescom in August.
Thanks to the slip-up of an artist working on the title, we now have more evidence that a new Injustice game is in the works.
I can't help but notice oxymoronic elements in the title and text.
Since it's been officially accepted by various associations that video games are art, wouldn't this separation of calling "video games that are ACTUALLY art" and "oh..those are JUST video games" being posed here actually injure its status as a whole?
Plus, your research of the mobile games market displays a bit of ignorance. Final Fantasy IV is available on iOS and iOS games like Year Walk shows signs of the market fully capable of having the same types of categorized "art games" such as Dear Esther (admittedly, I dislike this title) and others.
Forgive me if I'm coming off strongly, I'm just...confounded by this material brought forth (though I appreciate input by new-ish users).
Art is something that is really subjective. You say God of War has some storytelling/art elements. What defines 'art elements'?
To look at it another way, there are b-movie horror films that I'd consider art. To use a popular one as an example - The Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2. To me, that's art, no matter how tasteless, low budget and ridiculous it maybe.
Does art have to be something gives you profound thoughts? Changes your perception on life? Make you sit and nod sagely as you get lost in thought over what you've experienced? Not necessarily. Art isn't about wearing small glasses, turtlenecks and making comments about the meaning behind some modern-art monstrosity. Personally, I think it's about what something says to you and the meaning you can find out of it, which you could get out of some mobile games as there are thousands out there.
You don't 'move on to art', art just happens. I don't think many games have achieved true artistic merit yet to be quite honest with you, and I'm all for games 'becoming art'. I also think Journey is incredibly overblown, and trying so hard to be art, that it can never truly be considered art. If videogames are art, Journey is PoMo, that is to say, very 'tryhard'.
I think games like Nier got close due to how the story shocked and surprised the player, while engaging further by effectively using the 'fourth wall' to its advantage, without being cheesy at all (something that is very hard to pull off). I also think, in the truest sense of the word art, Okami and games like Skyward Sword/Wind Waker come very close from an image perspective. They're highly expressionist, more so than some recent painters.
The videogames as art argument is an unfortunate product of its own internal debate. Until the debate ends, they will never be considered art, because too many people are trying to force the label upon it.
art is metal gear,silent hill,okami,ico&ratchet and clank
The issue is that the videogame market is swiftly becoming top-heavy. On one hand, we have "teh casual" games (many of which are good ol' fun, if hardcore gamers would give them a chance) that do not cost very much to develop, their dev cycle is short, their dev teams are small, their retail/digital price is low, and the profit margin on these games is incredibly high. On the other hand, we have "teh HaRdCoReXxX" games like, for example, Dark Souls, various fighting games (Street Fighter, King of Fighters, BlazBlue, etc), non-CoD-shooters, and so forth. These games take years to develop, they cost millions to make, their dev teams number in the hundreds at times, and they cost $50-$60 retail. The profit margin for these sorts of games is much narrower and putting out a AAA game is much riskier these days.
I think there can be a happy medium, but the business of gaming is changing. When a company like THQ can go belly up, it is a sign that AAA games are becoming dangerous for smaller companies to create. THQ didn't die because they had crappy games. They had a TON of highly-rated, decently-selling franchises. However, the margin on these sort of games became too much of a burden on THQ, so they folded.
Personally, I'd like the industry to take a step back from the storytelling/cutscene/voice-ac ting side of things (which all cost a LOT of money to implement) and instead focus on game design and game engines. A game like Minecraft is good because the game's "story" is procedurally generated by the player's action. It also makes Minecraft highly replayable. On the other hand, Spec Ops: The Line (besides the fact that the title is horrible) had an excellent story, but no one cared, since the gameplay was solid but nothing new was introduced.