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The visual aesthetics of video games

Gabriele Aroni1*
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1 Department of Games Art, School of Digital Arts, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester , United Kingdom
AC, 026280050 https://doi.org/10.36922/AC026280050
Received: 6 July 2026 | Revised: 13 September 2026 | Accepted: 15 September 2026 | Published online: 8 October 2026
© 2026 by the Author(s). This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution -Noncommercial 4.0 International License (CC-by the license) ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ )
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Abstract

Video games, as the name implies, are meant to be played. But what role does the “video” play? This article explores the visual aesthetic discourse in digital games, arguing that this visual dimension rewards sustained aesthetic and semiotic attention in its own right, alongside interactivity and embodied agency. Digital games combine interactive, embodied, narrative, visual, aural, and symbolic dimensions, and this article focuses on how visual form helps produce aesthetic and semiotic meaning. As a predominantly visual medium, digital games invite aesthetic and semiotic engagement that extends beyond playing or winning. Drawing on Umberto Eco’s semiotics of architecture, this argument develops a sustained semiotic reading of the independent game NaissanceE, tracing how scale, texture, and light generate aesthetic and semiotic meaning.

Keywords
Digital media
Video games
Art
Aesthetics
Semiotics
Funding
The author gratefully acknowledges the financial support from Manchester Metropolitan University (Grant number: 3666932).
Conflict of interest
The author declares no competing interests.
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