Video game as art

Last week, comment boards all over the internet were ablaze with the debate about whether video game are or could ever be considered art. The debate was triggered when Roger Ebert recently restated his view that they can't be art in an article [link]. I think the point ultimately being debated is the definition of art.

I'm going to start by taking the stand that video games aren't art. Video games can, however, be the art gallery. A twenty years or so back people would want to frame the concept art. Beautifully drawn pictures depicted what the game producers thought the characters and landscape looked like. They were then reduced to pixelated sprites or angular polygons. Now the actual graphics can be good enough that we want them as wallpapers or posters. Football games can be almost mistaken for actual televised games by the casual observer. We buy figurines based on characters from the games to decorate our cubicles and book shelves. The soundtracks can often have broader appeal than the games themselves. These elements can be considered art, but does that make the game art? For the moment I'm saying that just makes the game the art gallery.

An art museum can itself be art, but for the moment assume that we're at the space next door to Carl's Barber Shop or at the local music store that also sells posters. Those places probably wouldn't be considered art.

Is it the appeal to the viewer that makes it art? We go to a theater to watch movies; some we'd call art and some we'd call mindless entertainment. We go to museums to look at paintings. We go to an arena to watch a concert. We don't gather by the hundreds to watch someone play video games.

That's not right either. When someone wires up the lights of a dorm so they can play Tetris using the face of the building as the screen people do turn up by the hundreds to watch a game of Tetris. Does that make the game art or just that particular installment?

Also, we don't need to gather to enjoy games. We buy them and take them home. It's the interaction that makes the experience. Large group still enjoy it, but individually or in small groups. Hmmm.... I think I just defined masturbation as art.

We also gather to watch golf and basketball and other sports. I'm not ready to call any of them art.

Lets consider art as a man made creation designed to elicit an emotional response. Video games definitely do that, but I'm gonna rule out frustration and aggravation from this debate. Most games get that any time a level is tough to clear.

One of my favorite series of games is the Thief series. (Thief 4 is in production! WOOO!) It creates suspense, anxiety, and fear. Not through making it dark and then shooting everything that moves as in Doom 3. Thief gives you a world to explore. You have to figure out how to solve the problems and sneak around to solve them. Some versions of Alien vs Predator and the Silent Hill games also manage to induce these emotions as much by having things not happen as having things come at you.

Do we have games that create other emotions? Some people got really attached to their digital pets and grieved when they died.

Shadow of the Colossus is a very different kind of game play that some consider art. The ending being devastating when you realize what you've done.

In a similar vein, most games today are telling a story. Centipede never really drew you in. Hitman, Thief, Final Fantasy anything, Grand Theft Auto, Shadow of the Colossus, the last couple of Evil Dead/Army of Darkness games, and loads more I'm not getting to all have a storyline you might expect to see in a movie or a book. If these latter two can be considered art forms then why not the games?

If a red circle on a canvas can be considered art then why can't games be thought of the same way? Granted, the circle was drawn to demonstrate that the artist was capable of drawing a perfect circle freehand. But does the fact that an artist made it automatically make it art? If so does that mean he's making art when he makes a sandwich? If the only emotion it elicits is "you're charging HOW much for that?" is it art?

Ebert is right that we can't compare Thief or Shadow of the Colossus to the Sistine Chapel or the Mona Lisa. Nor can we compare either of those to "2001: A Space Odyssey" or "Citizen Cane". There's just no basis for comparison.

Ebert is a film guy. He doesn't get into video games. So he's not really going to be able to "get" video games as an art. Understandable. I think that most movies that film critic fall all over themselves about are utter crap. "Blade Runner" and "2001" are great masterpieces of film making, but they're also great cures for insomnia. Most Academy Award winners I wouldn't even credit with being great works of film making. "Star Wars" lost to "Annie Hall" for best film, but how many times have you seen each of those two films?

Douglas Adams once wrote something about how when he came up with an idea he had to determine whether that story was a book, a radio show, a TV show, or computer game. They're all means of telling a story. In my mind that makes them all art.