Game art design is one the important ingredient in game development process. It includes all visual and hearing elements in the game. The game art designers design all the visual elements including the characters, environment, and other game assets and also the audio elements such as background music, and sound effects.

It usually begins during the pre production phase and makes its way through production phase creating fascinating and interesting games.

In this article let us analyze the importance of game art design.

Importance of Game Art Design in Video Game Production

There are many reasons that presses the importance of game art design in video game production.

1.   Visual Appeal

Game art can be considered as the face of the game. For a player, their first interaction with the game is the game art. Art is expressive. It helps to set the look and tone of the game. By crafting a better game art design a game art designer will be able to grab the attention of the players and make them engage with the game.

Regardless, the visual elements should be clear, and precise in a way it is easier for players to understand the game — like the personality of the characters, their roles and the next course of actions, etc.,

2.   Immersive Experience

Non exclusive to game art design, offering immersive experience for the players is one of the main aspect around which a game developer builds a game. Among the various factors in game development, game art design particularly plays a major role in providing immersive experiences.

Game art has the power to submerge a person in the game world with the use of reality blending animations, realistic characters, and colorful environments. Nowadays many game art services implement newer technologies like AR, VR, and Metaverse in the games. These technologies helps to transport people from the real world to game world allowing them to perform impossible and fascinating activities in the virtual space.

3.   Storytelling

As we saw earlier, art is expressive. Art in video games helps narrates the story of the game. It helps to convey the backstory of characters in the game including the NPCs, narrative of the game, personality of the characters, and the emotions they portray.

Seeing some of the most popular games like ‘The Elder Scrolls’, and ‘The Last of Us’, you can understand how game art design powerfully conveyed the narrative of the gameplay to the players.

In a game, apart from the character and environment design, other factors such as the cutscenes and cinematics play a important role in connecting the game to the players.

4.   Gameplay Clarity

Game art facilitates easy communication for the players with the game. It is essential to be able to quickly convey the gameplay mechanics for the players to make informed decisions.

While playing a game, the players should be able to perform the next course of action more intuitively. In order to make this happen, game art designers skillfully design the characters, environment and the UI elements without overshadowing the gameplay mechanics.

5.   Player Engagement

High quality games with good graphic quality and amazing artwork has been significantly proven to increase the engagement of the players with the game.  When a game has a very good graphics it creates a certain level of trust among the players that the game is overall good.

Despite that, the players also want to stay with the game for a long time if has high quality graphics and interesting gameplay. Hence, it also increases the player retention rate.

6.   Aesthetic Consistency

Aesthectic consistency is one of the crucial factors in game art design which creates a sense of harmony among the visual elements and maintains consistency in flow of the game.

Every game has different artstyle and color patterns. This helps to distinguish one game from another creating its unique art style. Game designers skillfully combine contrast colours and put together the art elements in a way it does not feel out of place. This provides a seamless gaming experience for the players.

7.   Branding and Marketing

Unique art style gains the attention of the audience. When you open the play store, you can see a plenty of similar games. Inorder to stand out from the crowd, you would need better art style to catch the attention of the audience. Hence, game art design is also used for branding and marketing purposes.

When hiring a game development studio make sure to check if they also provide branding and marketing services. So, you can do not have to look for marketing services which might hamper the games vision.

Final Words

Game art design helps to set the tone and feel of the game and helps to provide a immersive and interactive gaming experience for the players. In other words, game art design has a integral part in the success of the video game. If you are someone planning to develop a video game, make sure to choose a game development studio that has a strong art and design team.