So for my first post, I figured I may as well tackle an issue that I hold near and dear to me and find particularly important. Since I am at the age of 20, I have, along with many others my age, grown up with video games being a very important part of my culture and entertainment choice. In my lifetime I have owned the original Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Nintendo Gamecube, Nintendo Wii, the original Gameboy, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advanced, Gameboy Advanced SP, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, Xbox, Xbox 360, Sega Dreamcast, Sega GameGear, Playstation 2, Playstation 3, Sony PSP, and a Playstation Vita, so I am very much a gamer. (Actually, looking at all those systems listed out seems quite large and sad to me, but let us not linger on that). I have played video games from Pong to Halo 4. I’ve spent many high school and even college conversations discussion my favorite games and characters. I often hang out with friends just to play new video games. So video games have played an important role in my life.
Yet what is video game’s place in the larger world? This has been a large question every since arcades became large in the world. Are video games just a toy made just for kids to have fun with or is it a form of art, worthy of respect given to that of cinema, photography, and other forms of recent art that has been made possible by the growth of human technology in the last century or so. Obviously, this topic has been the center of much debate, with much of the argument centered on video games being violent and being marketed to minors. Many even blamed video games for massacres such as the Columbine shootings in 1999, as the two shooters were apparently avid fans of one of the original first-person shooter Doom. Some parents were worried that their kids were being exposed to violent subject matter in video games that might affect them in the long run. This even led to the United States Congress stepping in in 1994 and held hearings on the subject of video games, which led to the creation of the ESRB, the video game ratings system similar to the ratings system used for movies in the United States. This issue still exists today, though to a lesser extent. Just last year in 2011, the Supreme Court struck down a law by former-California State Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger that led to the ban of video games that portray the “killing, maiming, dismembering, or sexually assaulting an image of a human beings” from being sold to minors. So the controversy still stands today.
Doom Became the Center of a Controversy After Columbine
So the question that I propose is this; should video games be considered an art form and be given the respect that comes with that, or should it just be considered a toy or, at the very most, a medium that can have creative parts to it but can’t be considered art as a whole. Some people, like famed cinema critic Roger Ebert, don't think video games can ever be considered art at all.
In order to answer this question, we must first ask “What is art?” or, more specifically, “Why do we consider certain things to be art and others not?” Why do we consider architecture to be an art form? The answer isn’t simply because it looks pretty or is beautiful. Instead, I believe that what differentiates different artistic mediums is that they can demonstrate creativity in a way that only that specific medium can. For example, paintings and photography are similar but are considered different mediums, for photography tries to find the art in everyday life, in reality, whereas painting can become more subjective and less reality based. This isn’t to say that different forms of art of separate from each other; quite the contrary. It is obvious to see that photography plays a large role in the cinematic art form. However, cinema can do things that photography can’t and photography can do things that cinema can’t.
So what does this have to do with video games? Well, it can help us find a clear way to define how video games can be art. Many people who argue in favor of video games being art point to games like Okami and Limbo as clear, cut and dry arguments that video games can be art. However, are these games actually video game art? Certainly, there can be no doubt that these games are artistic, but do they do things that only video games can do? Okami is certainly a beautiful, but is it really video game art or really just a painting that happens to be so large that you can move through it? Others point to games like Call of Duty or Halo 4 and point to their blockbuster cinematic qualities and say that these games have learned from cinema and are therefore art. However, the same issue arises here. While I love these types of games, what is there in a Call of Duty game that you can’t get out of a big blockbuster action movie like The Expendables? These seemingly cut and dry arguments for video games as art certainly have artistic qualities (Okami-painting, Call of Duty-cinema), they in and of themselves are not specifically video game art.
Beautiful...but is it Video Game Art? (Okami)
So the question becomes, What do video games do as an art form that no other art form can do? The answer is quite simple; Interactivity. The difference between video games and any other art form, from music to cinema, is that it is interactive. You, as a person, have a role in what goes on in a video game. The game designer may control what happens and what you can do, but you as a player are given choice, which is important. As a result of interactivity, I believe there are two main qualities of video game art; it allows you to have agency within the art itself AND it mentally places you into a world other then your own in a way other art cannot. There may be other qualities that I have missed or overlooked, but for now lets focus on these.
The first quality I wish to focus on is video game art being able to place you into a world other then your own. One of the largest problems with video games is their gaming. Many times, video games make it all too obvious that the world was made for YOU. Invisibly walls push you down a certain, predetermined path. Characters walk around the world aimlessly with no other purpose then to talk directly to you. The world just seems to unreal at times, too artificial. It is when video games make you forget that the world you are inhabiting was made for you and instead make you feel that they have existed before you, would have continued existing without your interference, and will continue on after you that a video game can be more then just a game.
Probably the most effective and well-known examples of this is the video game Bioshock. Bioshock places you in the underground world of Rapture, an underwater metropolis that seems to have sprung straight from the mind of Ayn Rand. You find yourself entering this world, and as you walk around, you feel as if this was once a vibrant city before it fell. You see neon signs advertising shops, places where people once went to go out to eat for dinner, even people’s apartments. It all seems real, you feel as if Rapture might be a real place and that you are just happening through it. However, what makes Bioshock even more of a success is that it uses this environment in order to make a direct refutation of Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged. Giant statues of city’s creator Andrew Ryan (whose name is a nod to the aforementioned author) with phrases like “No Gods or Kings, Only Man” adorn the walls. The crafters of Bioshock not only made a real, vibrant city, but also made have purpose, have a intelligent point to make. Another quick example of place becoming real is the recent game Skyrim. While is may not be as effective as Bioshock in making you forget that you are playing a video game, Skyrim does create a living world on such a scale it boggles the mind. Each NPC (non-player character) has a life, they run shops, go to bed a certain time, and talk to other people. It all seems real. Both Bioshock and Skyrim are testaments to video game’s ability to create seemingly real places and put you inside of it.
Bioshock Creates a World that Feels Real and Lived In
The second quality that makes video games art is the ability for the art viewer to have agency within it. However, what does this mean? Okami allows the player agency and the ability to move around. Even games as old as Pong were influenced by the player. So why shouldn’t those be considered art? The answer can be found by looking at what agency means. According to Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary, agency is “the capacity, condition, or state of acting or of exerting power.” To have agency, you must be able to enact your own will. Are you able to do so in Mario, Okami, or Pong? You certainly are able to win or lose the game, but thats not real agency. You don’t really have much of a choice in that because, if you did, you wouldn’t choose to lose. No, real agency comes when you, as the player, are able to make choices about what you want to do.
There are a few games that have made great strides in allowing agency for the player in video games; namely the Mass Effect series, Heavy Rain, and the recent The Walking Dead: The Game (which also recently won Game of the Year at the VGA awards). Mainly, I wish to focus on Mass Effect and The Walking Dead for the moment, as Heavy Rain is a different beast of its own. In both the Mass Effect series and The Walking Dead, players are given choices. Do you save these citizens but let the villain get away? Do you kill you’re best friends son after he has been bitten by a zombie, do you just leave him there, or do you make your friend shoot his son? These games put choices into your hand, and the story changes based on what you decide. And, from personal experience, I can tell you that these games don’t make just offer you these choices, they make you feel it. You become connected to many of these characters and how your decisions can affect them. Some of the most rewarding moments come in Mass Effect 3 when you just go and talk to these characters that you have grown to care about (such as shooting bottles on the Citadel with Garrus or watching Tali get drunk). In Mass Effect 2, many of your choices can lead to either the survival of all the characters or the death of everyone you care about, including your own character, which will then have lasting ramifications in Mass Effect 3. The Walking Dead is much the same, as it is also episodic, with five episodes each affecting the others. Choices you make in episode 1, like who you decide to save, come back to haunt you in later episodes. These games give you agency and then make you feel and experience the consequences of these actions. That is true video game art.
Games like The Walking Dead make you Care Because of Your Choices
I won’t talk about Heavy Rain too much as much of what I would say about it has already been said in the above sections. However, Heavy Rain may have been ahead of its time. I won’t go into to much detail because the argument I would make has already been wonderfully stated at the website Gamedev by Paul Suddaby here.
So, I do believe that video games can become art. However, not every video game is art in and of itself just because it is in the medium. Video games have the ability to be the best and newest creative outlet of the 21st Century. However, they still have some problems to overcome. While I will not go into incredible detail, I will outline a few issues.
One major issue comes from the idea of the Illusion of Choice. This illusion of choice argument plays a big role for the Mass Effect and Walking Dead games. The argument goes that while the games may offer the players choice and do change some key moments, the ending always comes out the same anyways. [SPOILERS] For Mass Effect, you always find yourself on the citadel with the choice to control, destroy, or synthesize with the Reapers. For Walking Dead, Lee always dies and Clementine gets away. [END SPOILERS]. To this, I agree with assessment but don’t think it ruins video games as art for 2 reasons. One, I believe that this argument sells the importance of the journey short. Sure, it will all end the same, but how we get there will be completely different. Certain characters may die in Walking Dead or Mass Effect for me that don’t do for someone else. I may choose to explore one area more then someone else. The journey is just as important as the destination in art. If that wasn’t the case, why the hell would I ever see a movie reboot like the recent Star Trek movie (which I loved)? Because I love the journey and I don’t care that I already know that Kirk will eventually become Captain of the Enterprise. My second argument would be that video games are still evolving and are dependent on technology. While I would love to have vastly different endings for each choice, you have to be realistic. To do something like that would require TONS of work, time, money, and technology we don’t even have yet. For know, we have to live with what we have with hopes that technology may one day allow us to do more, which most likely it will (see Star Trek’s holodeck).
Choose your Color... I mean Ending
The next issue comes from when video games grew up. Video games started to mature along with the growth of the internet. As such, video games and the internet have created a relationship that other mediums don’t have with the information superhighway. While this has been beneficial, it has also caused a lowering of the discourse on video games. Instead of intelligent conversation, many people end up arguing on forums or different websites about which game system is the best or why other games suck compared to the new Call of Duty. Its an issue that, if video games are going to be taken seriously, needs to be addressed more fully.
"Intelligent" Discourse
Another argument would be the pushing out of the player. This one is similar to the Illusion of Choice argument, in that it states that the very fact that the player is taking the role of a CHARACTER in the story instead of just playing themselves automatically pushes them out of the art and the world. Again, I can agree that this can happen, but I can make the same arguments for the Illusion of Choice problem here. Firstly, hoping into another character is what makes it interesting. Why do I want to be myself in the Mass Effect universe when Commander Shepard is far more interesting then I ever will be? Also, again technology comes into play. We simply don’t have the ability to place ourselves directly into the world yet. Again, this will be fixed as soon as we have the holodeck. If you want to learn more about this issue, video game creator Shawn McGrath has a great interview about it here.
In the end, video games have a lot of work to do before they can be considered true art. The examples I have stated here of video game art (Bioshock, Mass Effect, Heavy Rain, Walking Dead) are just some examples of many, but are still to few and far between. Even these examples themselves are not complete works of art just yet. It might be like comparing cave paintings to the work of Van Gogh. However, I think the time is over to argue that video games cannot be art is over. Instead, I think the issue now should be trying to find a direction for video games. The question should not be “Are video games art?” but should now be “How can we make video games better art?”
Great article James. If I remember I'd like to share some opinions with you regarding this topic.
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