I’m not asking if you think that games are art in general. Rather, do you consider the games that you, personally, have made or are making to be art? Are you an artist as a developer? Why or why not?
I have a hard time thinking of my own work as being art, even though I do feel that there’s artistry to it. There are probably a few reasons for that, but I think what it comes down to is that it just feels a bit too haute to call myself an “artist.” I just make what I want to make, for my own reasons, and hope that somebody else out there enjoys my work. I also never really internalized the “games as art” conversation. I grew up playing games long before that discourse came and went, and I never took much of a position on it.
more people make art than realise it; many even make it not wanting to. i respect people’s wish to self-label their work, of course, but the point i’m getting at is that making games at all is art, no matter how corporate or shallow it gets.
Ooh, this is a fun topic that i do think about a lot. Because yes, i am strictly speaking making art, that is, what i make fits my own definition of art. But once i start thinking in terms of “i am making art” i get too deep in my own head. What am i trying to say with my art? Why am i trying to say it? Is what i’m saying any good? Do i actually want to say it? Wouldn’t i rather spend my limited time on saying something else? Is literally anybody even interested in what i have to say? Etc etc. And that always leads to nothing getting done. Working from a place of “i’m just going to make a thing i feel is neat, and worry about it’s artistic merits later” yields much better results for me, historically.
My personal carefully-worded definition of art is as follows: “Art is a product of human activity produced with the intent of causing a specific experience in its audience”. That is to say, nature’s beauty is not art (no human activity), accidentally making something beautiful is not art (no intent), things that were never meant to have an audience at the time of their creation are not art (no intended audience / intended experience). But by this definition, games are, and i do not say this lightly, art.
I don’t mind if someone calls my work art, I just don’t tend to call it that myself.
This is more or less where I am. When I’m working on my games, I am not really thinking about creating art, per se. I am just creating. Maybe it’s art, or maybe it’s not; I will create it all the same.