Video Game Art in the Next Era of Human Creativity

For many years, video games were simply getaways – pixelated distractions designed to pass the time. In 2006, film critic Roger Ebert asserted that video games could “never be art.” 

Fast forward to the present, and that seems absolutely charming. Video Game Art has now gone mainstream, appeared in exhibitions, been studied in colleges, and been recognized for its capacity to evoke feelings, stimulate thought, and foster communal engagement.

Ultimately, the question today is not whether games qualify as art, but rather what will the distilled form of Video Game Art be in the next innovator of humanity’s creativity?

From Casual to Powerful

In the 80s and 90s, games like Super Mario Bros. or Street Fighter entertained players but lacked artistic intention.

They were designed for amusement, featuring a good gameplay loop, a simple storyline, and a distinctive graphical style.

The last 20 years have brought about significant changes in this regard. 

Games like Journey (2012), which created a silent yet profound companionship, The Last of Us (2013), with its heartbreaking story, and Gris (2018), with its watercolor graphics, all demonstrated how games can coexist with novels, poetry, or music when attempting to inform and move someone.

Games are not like films or books. Games allow the player to say, “I did this.” This personal ownership, for example, I beat the boss, I picked the ending, I saved the town, creates a closeness to the author and audience that no other art form can replicate.

What Defines Video Game Art

If painting is color on canvas, and film is narrative on the screen, then games are richer than this—mediation of mediates.

• Visual artists build character, surface, and space.
• Writers make plots and lines to be performed.
• Musicians and composers select their soundscapes.
• Programmers assemble them into living worlds.

Then, the wildcard: the player enters the work to co-author. This interactivity is not just art, but new art.

Scenario 1: The Emotional Power of a Path

Consider this: you sit down and play Journey. There is no dialog, no text prompts, and zero handholding. Just a cloaked traveler wandering through the open desert and an ancient-style ruin.

Along the way, you may meet another non-identified player – no names, no chat – just gestures.

You walk up mountains and through storms. In the end credits, many players are seen crying. That emotion, the result of collaboration and silence, is the essence of art.

Technology is the New Canvas

Art historically changes with technology. Oil paint shaped the Renaissance. Photography created modernism. Today, technology is paving the way for a new era in video game art.

• Virtual & Augmented Reality

You enter VR, and you are in the canvas. Instead of seeing Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”, imagine walking through the swirling sky in a fully immersive way.

AR works take video game art into real systems; your living room turns into live art, or your street becomes an interactive battlefield.

• Artificial Intelligence

AI brings gameplay to you in real-time. For example, an RPG that learns from every action you make, or a story that modifies emotionally based on the pitch and tone of your voice. The art is not pre-written; it becomes a co-authored piece with you.

• Cloud Gaming and Persistent Worlds

As games evolve past consoles, they become a living ecosystem. Those shared spaces allow art to evolve collectively and personally. Entire player communities become true collaborators of the art piece themselves.

Scenario 2: Tomorrow’s Gallery is a Game World

What if a future exhibition wasn’t in a white walled gallery, but in a persistent, living VR world? People globally logged in, freely wandering and engaging in digital worlds.

Some sculptures come to life and tell stories when you approach, while others morph into different shapes based on your biometrics.

Video Game Art isn’t hung on the wall; it is breathing, three-dimensional, and ever-changing.

The Relationship Between Commerce and Art

I should note: not all games are art. Just like not all books are literature or every movie is cinema.

Many games are made for sheer entertainment or profit. A sports simulator or another matching puzzle app can be enjoyed, but it’s not art.

What makes the Difference is Intention.

• Design experiences that solve problems, or sell stuff.
• Artists create to provoke, inspire, or articulate.

All games playfully blur these lines. Yet, some Indie games, like The Binding of Isaac or Papers, Please, challenge players with truths about religious trauma, bureaucracy, or ethics that prompt the player to quit.

They don’t sell millions, but give the true essence of what it means to be art: intentionally reflective, poignant, and meaningful.

Scenario 3: A Game that Alters Your Beliefs

Imagine this: a narrative-based VR game in 2035, developed by a climate activist collaboration. Players are not watching just icebergs melt.

They are experiencing how animals lose their habitat or how you, as a future person, scavenge a wasteland that used to be your home. “Fun” is not part of the experience. It is disturbing, memorable, and impactful. That is not a product; that is purposeful art.

Cultural Significance: The Next Renaissance

Art historical movements that were once considered “lowbrow” later defined the periods in which they were created.

The Impressionists were ridiculed for their “unfinished” brushstrokes, yet now the MoMA displays Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Jazz was considered “noise,” but that is its heritage today.

Similar to video game art, we are on the verge of how the world views it culturally.

We have places like the MoMA putting games in their collections, such as Tetris and SimCity.

Esports events fill arenas like concerts. Online communities dissect games like they were novels or films, treating them as seriously as a critic.

Scenario 4: Students of Art History, Meet Game Studies

One hundred years from now, students will be studying The Last of Us, just as we do with Shakespeare.

They will discuss the character arc progression and analyze the mechanics as a metaphor, and have disputes about whether a procedurally generated world, like in Minecraft, is authorial.

Preparing the artists of tomorrow

This potential is why the future of Video Game Art relies on the artists of the future. Technical fluency in asset engines like Unity or Unreal is indispensable.

Equally important will be the artists’ storytelling, visual, emotional, and intent.

This is where the training system is useful. For example, at the MAGES Institute, the programs will not teach students how to use the tools.

Instead, it will ask them, What do you want your audience to feel? The user will ask, ‘What is the story you want to tell?’

Like prompting someone to think about your art in terms of provocation or empathy.

Giving articulation to the technical craft and fusion of art, the student will become more than a “game maker” and be a cultural analyst.

Final thought

We have moved on from the debate if games are art or not. The actual question now is, what kind of art will games become in the next era of human creativity?

Video Game Art will not only join in the canon of the arts, as VR, AI, and immersive platforms dissolve the boundaries between creator and consumer, it will change it.

The emerging canvas won’t be flat. It will be interactive, playable, and alive. And all those who will step bravely to this medium will be part of the next renaissance.