The Evolution Of Interactive Pixel Art
As a ‘90s kid, I grew up parallel to a rapidly evolving world of video games. From simple 2D pixelated arcade titles to first-person shooters and virtual simulations of reality, a lot has happened in a short amount of time.
What started as me watching my dad play Pac-Man turned into his basement becoming the local arena for late-night Halo LAN parties with friends. Fast forward to now and entire arenas fill with spectators for competitive gaming events. Cultures and conventions have formed around stories, design, and role-playing, expanding across an ever-growing list of genres. What we’re witnessing is the evolution of an art form that technology has made interactive. The possibilities remain endless.
In this article, I’d like to explore why I believe video games are a form of art and how innovation and technology continue to open new ways to create and experience them. I’ll also touch on how developers are using blockchain technology like Etherlink, the Tezos-powered layer 2 blockchain built for speed and security, as a foundation for new creative possibilities in gaming.
Escaping into Worlds Built by Imagination
Video games have a place in my heart and absolutely have influenced me as an artist. They offered escape when I needed it and inspiration when I least expected it. These digital spaces introduced me to art long before I recognized it as such, through world-building, in-game asset design, composition, character building, soundtrack, and storytelling. Each game world is far more than a painting on canvas, and it is still crafted with artists through intention, pixels, and code.
Gaming taught me that creativity is present in every part of telling a story and involving the audience. Every quest, every environment, every soundtrack was someone’s art, crafted to move players in ways that words alone could not. Essentially, a collaboration, like an orchestra coming together with its countless moving parts, yet somehow creating a harmonious experience.
Complexity and Generational Shifts
Over time, games grew more ambitious. My father’s generation seems to have leaned towards the phone games for the simplicity and nostalgia, while I was drawn to advanced open-world adventures, survival experiences, and high-fidelity graphics. From simplest to most complex, every frame can feel like a moving painting or a scene from a film, though it’s often hard to slow down and appreciate the artistry if you are overwhelmed by what buttons to press or where to go next.
Like many art forms, gaming has a learning curve that can hide the creative process on first impression, or in this case first play through. Some of the most time I’ve ever spent gaming growing up was in Skyrim for example, but it took years for me to truly appreciate the art and story within that game.
The contrast between generations shows how quickly gaming has evolved, yet its essence remains the same. Video games are art in motion, powered by imagination.
The Artistic Core of Game Development
Today gaming stands as one of the most expressive art forms of our time, though it still struggles to be recognized as such. Every layer of development draws from artistic disciplines including concept sketches, sound design, character modeling, architecture, and narrative writing.
Inside those worlds, players become part of the creative process. Similar to how a collector collaborates with an artist when minting an edition on Edit.art, game developers build spaces where art and tech can meet, empowering people to manipulate pixels and impact the outcome of their experience based on decisions made.
In recent years, screenshot contests have become a form of digital photography open call, where players submit their best captures as if they were photographs from another dimension. It’s a subtle reminder that appreciation for in-game visuals is already evolving into its own artistic culture. Screenshots often reveal scenes that could hang on a gallery wall, stunning compositions of light, symmetry, and emotion captured within the game itself. What began as pixels on a screen has grown into a shared art form shaped by both developers and players.
The Next Level: Gaming on the Blockchain
As digital art continues to evolve, so does the infrastructure behind it. The same blockchain technology that helped artists reclaim ownership of their art, collect royalties, and build online communities, is now reshaping gaming. On Tezos, where creativity and experimentation thrive, developers are exploring new ways to merge design with transparent ownership and fair collaboration.
Web3 gaming may have started as trading skins and collectibles, but it also deepens the connection between player and creation. Every asset, animation, and environment carries authorship. Built on systems like Tezos or Etherlink, the authorship can be protected and rewarded through smart contracts.
For players, this means the art within games can be owned, displayed, traded and appreciated in ways that mirror other forms of digital art. For developers and artists, it introduces sustainable rewards through royalties, allowing their creative work to live and grow beyond its initial release. Allowing video games to sustainably exist and evolve free of middlemen and fee-sharing 3rd parties. Ready for you to reveal the art within by interacting and sharing with confidence, the game developers are getting paid.
In this light, Web3 becomes a space where gaming is not only played but preserved as art. The lines between artist, developer, and player begin to blur, forming a new kind of generative medium that lives on-chain and decentralized for you to discover and appreciate.
A New Kind of Appreciation
With the rise of digital art on Tezos, I see video games finding their rightful place among the arts as well. A photographer doesn’t always compose what they capture, for example, a nature photographer. Yet they are still able to capture unique depictions of nature. This is where I come back to players capturing screenshots and how they are like photographers in this way, framing emotional and visual moments from worlds that moved them. Every captured frame carries intention, personality, and a unique perspective.
Metaverse environments are another evolving way to appreciate art in a game-like method, blending virtual spaces, identity, and creative expression into shared experiences. Often using the same controls as computer-based video games. These immersive worlds build on the foundation laid by decades of gaming evolution, proof that interactive storytelling through pixels continues to grow in both depth, use cases and meaning.
The art of gaming is not limited to what is built, it lives in how we experience and share it. As technology and creativity continue to merge, video games stand as proof that the digital realm can hold just as much soul as physical art.
The Future of Interactive Art
For me, gaming started as a way to escape, but it also became a way to connect: with people, with my imagination, and with technology. As this relationship deepens through innovation, we’re witnessing a new era where creativity and technology work hand in hand to elevate numerous art forms in one collaborative art installation we call video games.
Platforms like Tezos and Etherlink offer the next stage of this evolution. They empower artists and developers to create new models of ownership, collaboration, and reward. The idea that players can truly own in-game collectibles or that developers can earn royalties as their worlds expand is just the beginning. It’s the natural next step for gaming as art.
As we move forward, the boundary between creating, playing, and collecting continues to blur. The same passion that drove us to explore new worlds as kids now fuels an ecosystem where innovation, entertainment, community building, and artistry coexist.
Follow Tezos and Etherlink to see how this collaboration between tech and art talent is shaping the next stage of gaming. The future of play is interactive, empowering, expressive, equitable, and built to evolve.
The Art Of Gaming was originally published in Tezos Commons on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.