Does the game industry care about concept art? The answer depends on the nuance of the question. If you're asking if the industry cares about research into the development of concept art then the short answer would be no, not really. This becomes very clear when looking into the published research on the topic, which is close to nonexistent. If you're asking about the process of concept art itself, however, then the answer immediately becomes a strong yes. This seems strange though, a process that is so fully embraced by more industries than just our own, relying solely on the assumption that, because it has worked so far, probably means that everything is fine. But what if there are faster or more effective ways to go about doing concept art and nobody knows because there is no research being done? Or what if concept art is already extremely useful in the earlier stages but they still get developed further than needed because there is no definition of 'usable' in this context?