But is it Art?

The “video games as art” debate has been going on for a while. Popular film critic Roger Ebert has long stated that video games could never be art but after a several thousand comments, he had to rethink this stance on the matter. He mentions this in his journal.

I was a fool for mentioning video games in the first place. I would never express an opinion on a movie I hadn’t seen. Yet I declared as an axiom that video games can never be Art. I still believe this, but I should never have said so. Some opinions are best kept to yourself.

I may not know much about art but I do know what I like. I think the creatives at video game companies, like artists, are from diverse racial and cultural backgrounds. They too put so much time and love into making something that tries to leave an impression on you. And I appreciate their efforts as much as I would appreciate a Jackson Pollock, or Georges Seurat’s fine examples of pointillism, or Peter Paul Rubens’ baroque paintings.

Now a website dedicated to video game photography wonders whether screenshots from games could also be considered as an expression of art. Dead End Thrills say this is their type of photography.

An attempt to portray the drama, spectacle and beauty of games using angles and subjects beyond the player experience. The site’s mission is simple: to celebrate the medium, explore the unseen and fire the imagination.

Their most recent set of screenshots is taken from the surprisingly entertaining Transformers: War For Cybertron (our review is coming). Could these screenshots be art? Maybe, maybe not. But I like them and maybe you might like them too. Have a look at them after the jump.

These screenshots are best seen at their highest resolution so take a look at the 1080p versions at Dead End Thrills’ Transformers: War For Cybertron Flickr set.

[via The Opposite of Reality]