Quotes relating to video games being pieces of art

“One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome. Santiago might cite an immersive game without points or rules, but I would say then it ceases to be a game and becomes a representation of a story, a novel, a play, dance, a film. Those are things you cannot win; you can only experience them.”

Roger Ebert

“To my knowledge, no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers. That a game can aspire to artistic importance as a visual experience, I accept. But for most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic.”

Roger Ebert

“Games are not just art, they are the most revolutionary form of art mankind has ever known about.”
Advergame designer Santiago Sir

“I feel video games are probably the most advanced form of art thus far in human history. Not only do video games encompass many of the traditional forms of art (text, sound, video, imagery), but they also uniquely tie these art forms together with interactivity. This allows the art form of video games to create something unique, beyond all other forms of media. Video games are the ultimate form of art as we know it.”
Denis Dyack, president of Silicon Knights

“Video games use images, actions, and player participation to tell stories and engage their audiences. In the same way as film, animation, and performance, they can be considered a compelling and influential form of narrative art.”
Smithsonian American Art Museum

“How many times does a generation get to witness the birth of an entirely new artistic medium? I mean games could be the collaboration between everything we’ve learned to date, as humans, about telling stories through visuals, through audio, and now with the added component of interactivity. I do think that we are on the precipice of an extremely exciting time right now, and that this is an amazing opportunity that we’re being given here.”
Kellee Santiago, TEDxUSC “Are Video Games Art?” presentation

“We need to try to understand and analyze methods of our art form to elevate the medium and make better entertainment. Thinking about games as ‘art’ is simply the first basic step.”
Denis Dyack

“My memory has always been lousy and it’s not improving with age. But it’s good enough to remember a time when the government was trying to do to comic books what some politicians now want to do with video games: censor them and prohibit their sales. It was a bad idea half a century ago and it’s just as bad an idea now”
Stan Lee, on bill HB 1423

“I believe passionately that games are an art form and that the power of our medium flows from our audience, who are deeply involved in how the story unfolds and who have the uncontested right to provide constructive criticism. At the same time, I also believe in and support the artistic choices made by the development team.”
Ray Muzyka, co-founder of BioWare, in response to the mixed reception of Mass Effect 3‘s ending


“Destroying or killing is not the ultimate definition of interactivity. Changing something in your environment, talking to someone, feeling something, making a meaningful decision — this is interactivity, too. And it’s just as meaningful and interesting.”
David Cage, creator of Heavy Rain

“I feel video games are probably the most advanced form of art thus far in human history. Not only do video games encompass many of the traditional forms of art (text, sound, video, imagery), but they also uniquely tie these art forms together with interactivity. This allows the art form of video games to create something unique, beyond all other forms of media. Video games are the ultimate form of art as we know it.”
Denis Dyack, president of Silicon Knights


“Art is measured not in terms of what it means to the artist but instead what it means to the reader.”
Henry Jenkins

I can't tell you what art does and how it does it, but I know that art has often judged the judges, pleaded revenge to the innocent and shown to the future what the past has suffered, so that it has never been forgotten.
John Berger



“Reproduction should make it easier to connect our experience of art directly with our other experiences."
John Berger


"I do not want art for a few, any more than education for a few, or freedom for a few." 
William Morris