Editing Pixel art (section)

===1970s===
Because of the severe restrictions of early graphics, the first instances of pixel art in video games were relatively abstract. The low resolution of computers and game consoles forced game designers to carefully design game assets by deliberate placement of individual pixels, to form recognizable symbols, characters, or items. Simple function-based avatars (or player-surrogates) such as spaceships, cars, or tanks required a minimum of animation and computing power, while enemies, terrain, and power-ups were often represented by symbols or simple designs.<ref name=":0">{{cite book |last1=Wolf |first1=Mark J. P. |title=The Video Game Theory Reader |last2=Perron |first2=Bernard |publisher=Routledge |year=2003 |isbn=0-415-96578-0 |location=New York and London |pages=47–64 |language=en}}</ref> Due to the limited hardware of the 1970s, abstraction, as in the case of [[Pong]]'s relatively simple design, sometimes led to better game readability and commercial success than attempting more detailed representational art.

Although computers had been used to create art since the 1960s and microcomputers were used in the late 1970s<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Swalwell |first1=Melania |last2=Garda |first2=Maria B. |date=15 February 2019 |title=Art, Maths, Electronics and Micros: The Late Work of Stan Ostoja-Kotkowski |journal=Arts |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=23 |doi=10.3390/arts8010023 |doi-access=free|hdl=1959.3/448415 |hdl-access=free }}</ref> and there are examples of digital art utilizing a more pixelated aesthetic,<ref>Clark, Sean, and Geoff Davis. "Revisiting and Re-presenting 1980s Micro Computer Art." (2021).</ref> There is no well-known tradition of pixel art from the 1970s that differentiated between the deliberate placement of pixels or the aestheticization of individual pixels in contrast to other forms of digital painting or digital art. For this reason, one could argue that pixel art was not a recognized medium or artform in the 1970s.