In video game production, of course, all texture maps, backgrounds, etc. are referred using the term art, and the people who make them are called artists (2D or 3D artists). This sometimes includes modellers, who are often just called modellers.

But, as your post makes clear, now that gallery art about video games exists, the term art in the context of games has become even muddier.

This issue also seems to touch on that unending question of art vs. design.

The kind of experimental game work I’m thinking of is broader than “gallery art that references video games”. I’m thinking not just of pieces that offer a critical reflection on game culture, but pieces that expand the notion of game (e.g. the Newsgaming work, The Howard Dean Game, Facade).

Yes, I know that the media assets in games are called art. But if they wanted to make a commercial game art show, they should include music, sound effects, animation, voice acting, etc., not just images rendered from games. Hanging big glossy prints from games on the wall plays at the “high art game” in its most traditional form (ignoring the conceptual dimension of most contemporary art) while doing a disservice to the full range of creative production in commercial game art.

There are of course a couple of misconceptions here, the main one being the simplification of art making to the simple act of hanging something on a wall. A second major misconception is that the “art” of game design/E3 should follow the model of traditional art exhibition, that it should be hung on a wall because that is what you do with art. Objects like Brody Condon’s foam sculpture of John Carmack, as awful as it is (and it is really, truly awful), are far more representative of what the art of gamer culture should be. But I, personally, am quite skeptical that an industry as motivated by profit as the game industry is can have a legitimate art culture, just as I feel that there is little legitimacy to “game studies” as it is currently practiced.