No. Video games have some unique benefits over other art forms - essentially everything the film medium has in terms of audio/visual experiences + the element of interactivety. This does allow very immersive experiences. However, the drawbacks of the medium are too big to ignore.

-Games usually require a lot of people to make, and hence rarely represent a strong vision by a singular artist (or a very small handful of artists). 

-Video games have a preservation problem, as they depend on hardware, that can become outdated. There are ways to get around this for sure, with emulation, but sometimes the hardware (form factor / controller) is part of the experience.

-While the interactivity on paper opens up so many new options for art, it just hasn't been used well enough (yet) to provide new artistic experiences. Video games often just involve different ways to kill monsters/enemies for 50 hours, and while some of these games are still art (slaying monsters can also be art), the artistic differentiation between the games don't come from the gameplay, but rather audio/visuals/storytelling which other media already master. Quite often the gameplay mechanics just end up making the product less of a work of art and more a sport, more focused on providing a challenge, than exploring emotions and the human condition. Compared to other art forms, video games are just massively behind on this.

There are of cause many games that do explore new artistic direction. To name a few, Nights: Into Dreams, Tempest 2000, Rez, Florence, Mirror's Edge, Inside, What Remains of Edith Finch, The Stanley Parable, Journey, Papers Please, Her Story, Braid etc. But they are usually drowning in games that do more of less the same things that hundreds of other games already do.

Art can expire, preservation doesn't matter. Street artists for example or a certain banana taped to a wall comes to mind. You need to play more indie games, the creativity in interactivity is amazing in many more games than what you mentioned, those are pretty on rails, The Swan for example but my mind always goes back to Minecraft for this point. Just look at what people have used that game as a canvas to create. 

For me, I agree.

Its like watching a movie which you interact in between scenes.

Music/OST can be amazing

Different games have different graphic and art styles

There are different genres too.

Concerning your last point, I don't think it is fair to say that video games are not the best medium because there is a lot of uninspired copy paste gameplay going on. Sure, a lot of video games feel creatively bankrupt. But there are books like 50 shades of gray becoming an absolute sales phenomenon. And there is a sea of romance novels that are pretty much the same. I would argue the ratio between good books recognition (and sales) to pulp fiction books recognition (and sales) is about the same as good video games recognition (and sales) to bad video games recognition (and sales).

I hope by the way, that video games would be much more creative in how they handle interactivity.

Concerning your second point, one could even argue that the fleeting nature of video games makes them more beautiful and artistically interesting.

While games do incorporate a lot of other art forms, what they lack can't be understated.

"Timing, Delivery and Focus"

Humor usually falls flat in games as humor often relies on timing and delivery. Both ruined by the interactive nature of games.

Story delivery is hampered by lack of Focus. Books are still the best way to deliver a story since it's the most natural form to convey everything including the character's thoughts while engaging your own imagination. Games try to solve this by having characters talk to themselves, which feels annoying and unwanted. See Alloy in the Horizon series. Books really are the only way to clearly express character's feelings, intentions and inner thoughts.


Interactivity doesn't make art better, it does make games better. And sometimes it just doesn't really work. Tlou2 is phenomenal imo, but forcing (limited) interactivity onto the fights between Elly and Abbey takes the gravitas out of those moments.

Music also works better in movies since it can be timed for maximum impact, while in games the 'user interference' often makes musical transitions feel awkward or out of place. Music has a far bigger impact in movies compared to games.


What games do have over movies is that you can digest it at your own pace, like a book or looking at a painting/sculpture. Hence games excel in world building and telling stories through the environment. They just aren't very good at / suited for telling a cohesive narrative. The more interactive, the less cohesive games become. Thus the best story games are all linear, while the best world building games are open world. I have yet to find a game that does both well.

(SotC does a good job, but kinda cheating by removing most interactivity from the open world. People complain there isn't much to do yet if there was it would ruin the story progression / transformation of the main character)

I think that videogames are objectively better as a medium than, say, movies. However, I think both books and music can be far more powerful for people than videogames.

A lot of that depends on how the game is made, it's genre and how it is directed. Something that they are getting better at all the time. It's still a young medium, cave paintings started thousands of years ago, writing much the same, films are newer put they had the benefits of plays and stage performances and script writing blueprints. Games had none of that, no bluprints, all had to be discovered over time and they continue to evolve. 

If you've read the bible or the art of war, something ancient, you'll know that books weren't close to be what they are today and writing has evolved dramatically but at the same time when was the last time you seen a book try something new or completely different or evolve how it is read, not long cause it has platued the last couple hundred years and reached it's peak. Audibooks count but that's more a technological advancement the same as Flat screen to VR, it's still the same medium using different technology. 

Yes but both read and music are incorporated into games. These days I listen to game OST's as much as I listen to other music. There are whole games that all they are is reading. 

You can just as well argue that people have been playing games since ancient times, just like plays and story telling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_role-playing_games

Games had tons of blueprints to go from! Many games are literally bringing existing games to its interactive medium, emulating the way those games were played around the table. Strategy games, RPGs, Action, Sports, it's all emulating what has been done before.

Bringing games to computers opened up possibilities, closed others. Tabletop games are still more flexible, allow more imagination and self determination/exploration. Maybe in the future an AI DM can put games on par with AD&D type adventures.

Stories still evolve, stage productions still evolve, movies still evolve, music still evolves, paintings still evolve. In fact all of it is a reflection of the time they were made in. As time moves on, so do art forms.

I don't know what you mean by trying something new with books. The stories evolve all the time, regardless of the delivery medium. The same with games, they keep evolving despite the delivery medium being pretty stagnant. (standardized controller + screen)

VR opens up more interactivity and offers more immersion, but is it really that different from 'flat' games?
(Apparently VR is an excuse to make all the same mistakes again sigh https://www.eurogamer.net/skydances-behemoth-review VR often feels as much a step backward as forward)

Yeah but still, you can't deny that video games are the youngest medium that had severe limitations for many years and they are so hard and complicated to make, a group effort. Books take one author and pages never run out. It's akin to Films, we are still in the period of Video games life as when they were still holding things up with thin strings or trying really unconventional methods to create events on screen. See what 100 years done for films right down to the camera angles and editing. Give games another 70's years and God knows where they'll be, it's a limitless art form like none of the others, it could even end up recreating universes with simulated life given enough computing power, perhaps quantum computing power. What medium can say that it could replicate life or intelligence. None other.