By Aidan O’Connor | Radio Broadcaster

Ever since the inception of video games, there has been a stigma that they are merely a hobby. This is a severely antiquated view, as video games are so much more than a hobby; they are the highest art form a person can experience.

The view that video games do not qualify as art often stems from a lack of understanding of the artistic mediums incorporated into them. The process of creating a video game encompasses acting, writing, animation, music, digital art and physical art, among many other elements.

While some mediums utilize these elements in pieces, each of the given media I listed must last for hours on end, as most video games take between 10 and 25 hours to complete. For example, Baldur’s Gate 3, a game with several branching narrative choices, has a higher word count for its script than the entirety of “The Lord of the Rings” books.

These artistic mediums and the depth to which they are utilized come together to support the most distinguishing factor that sets video games apart, which is their immersive quality. For example, take Cyberpunk 2077, which was released in 2020. Cyberpunk includes professional voice acting, motion capture, a complete soundtrack, animation and writing. All these come together to support a main story that takes about 26 hours to complete.

During that time, all mediums combine to create a story and a world that the player experiences firsthand. In Cyberpunk, specifically, players get to put themselves in the shoes of the main character named V.

Unlike any other artistic storytelling medium, the player is not just a viewer but an active participant. The story, the themes and the digital world in which the player inhabits are living and breathing. Through V, the player has the agency to create relationships with other characters and influence the outcome of the world, with up to five different endings based on the user’s decisions.

The experience of the game isn’t just limited to making narrative-defining decisions, though. Players can also explore the world V inhabits. The player can drive around, listen to the radio, buy apartments and clothing, further immersing themselves in the virtual worlds the developers have created.

This immersion is something that cannot be gleaned from looking at a piece of art, watching a movie or reading a book. The first-person experience games allow for the highest form of interaction, as the player is doing much more than being an outsider looking in.

While video games have grown in popularity, and people are starting to see their deeper value, with movies and TV shows adapting these wonderful worlds, there still needs to be more recognition and attention. Video games have come a long way from merely being blurry pixels moving across a screen; they need to start being recognized as one of the most engaging and immersive types of art a person can truly experience.