Games As Art
Introduction
For my final paper I chose to investigate the topic of video games as art. For better or worse, video games are now a permanent fixture of our society. Similar to older forms of media and art before them, video games are presently struggling to be recognized as an art form. While the medium has its detractors, most notably film critic Roger Ebert who famously stated, “video games can never be art”1 , it also has its defenders such as Clive Barker2 . I find the idea that games such as Journey or Okami cannot be considered art offensive. Video games are similar to film in that they have musical scores, actors, cinematics, and plot driven storyline in them. They often use many of the same techniques and equipment as films. Yet somehow, they do not qualify as art? Ebert’s argument against video games as a form of high art is mainly centered on the idea that because the player makes decisions in a game, it cannot be art. This seems to me an illogical argument at best.
Journey3
Okami4
No matter how free form a video game is, the player is still constrained by the artist. The world is a creation of the artist, or developer as we usually label them. The artist makes all of the decisions about the world when designing and creating it, determining what a player can and cannot do. There are rules imposed by game logic- indeed, the minimal definition of any game is that it must have rules if nothing else. There is often a story, and that story paired with the rules steers the player’s actions. If the artist has not deigned to give the player the ability to fly in a game, they cannot fly. They may only do what the artist allows them to do in the world around them. Arguably, players have very little actual decision-making agency in a game. Though they may be able to pick items up or destroy them, often times this has little actual bearing on the story itself. Whatever bearing it does have, is because the artist has decided for it to be so.
Video games touch on nearly all of the topics we have covered in class over the semester. The only topic that they may not fall neatly into is invented traditions, and that is largely due to their young age. Within a few more decades, I have no doubt that video games will be making up their own traditions.