Art, Video Games and Digital Worlds

The first virtual worlds were text-based. Everything in them was described in words: the world, its inhabitants, the objects, the players, the events that occurred, the actions that the players undertook – everything. An amazing way to navigate a city without any visual props but only through imagination and experience. And now video games simulate incredibly accurately replications of the cities and their landmarks, offering an almost cinematic experience to the player.

Recently there has been a significant surge of museums focusing on video games, starting with MOMA in 2007 and causing a great debate in the museums world whether video games belong in museum collections and if they can be understood as an art form.

Are art installations the new video games?

The question of whether digital artefacts, such as videogames, can be considered ‘art’ is by no means a new one. The late Roger Ebert was a passionate critic of the idea, claiming that the ludic quality of most videogames – scores, rules and objectives – prevents them from being subjectively experienced as art.

So, games may or may not be art – this isn’t a new debate. What is worth asking now, however, is whether or not art can be considered a game. Does the new wave of digital interactive works constitute the gamification of art? Can we experience art by playing with it? And what impact does digital technology have on this process?