Vidya as Art

ok

Games can be art. The problem is hipsters don't make art, they make modern art.

A work of art requires masterful execution in its creation and clear skill on the work of the creator(s). You can't queef out some paint and call it a masterpiece on par with the Sistine Chapel just because they were both done using paint in the same way that a hipster's shitty 20 minute walking simulator crapped out in Unity in one weekend will never be on par with, say Majora's Mask.

Small tangent on that, but I do consider MM one of the few examples of a game that could be considered a work of art. The gameplay is polished, the controls tight, the soundtrack excellent, and the world seems alive. In addition to being mechanically sound and genuinely fun to play, and the writing actually does make you feel for the characters in the world staring the coming end of all things in the face.

An artist doesn't need to parade their work around proclaiming "this is art." A hack does that in a pathetic attempt to try to trick the foolish or apathetic into believing it. An artist merely creates and the value of his work is readily apparent.

And yet it is.

The problem with art as a word is it has two different meanings, depending on where one comes from.
The classical definition of art, which I would file vidya under, is the use of craftsmanship to make something worth experiencing in whatever way that medium is experienced, i.e. an artful gun is not only good-looking, but also enjoyable to shoot.
The postmodern definition of art is based on expression, and while it may work for media that the audience doesn't directly feed into (print, painting, sculpture), it falls apart when the audience's involvement becomes part of the piece, as in vidya and /tg/.

I got my own question: Is pixel art real art?

Yes.

I wish you faggots would stop using the word "art" the same way a pretentious art student would. Being art does not imply merit, the perfect example is Transformers, the Call of Duty of kino. Made for stupid people who like explosions. Another example is Stephen Universe, the Gone Home of cartoons.

That's not the definition of art anyone is using. We aren't talking about art in the most generic, general sense.

What film did Ebert shit on?

Pixel art is the digital evolution of mosaics so yes and is fucking ancient.