Can video games be art?

Tak nakonec jsem si tuto esej vybral jako jedno ze svých děl na IGCSE, přepsal jsem ji a tady je konečná verze. Učitel (45+?) mi později řekl, že to bylo poprvý, co někomu dal 40/40 na Asignment 1, tedy argumentativní úvaha. Taky se mě potom zeptal, kde si může ty hry zahrát a v hodinách vždycky o hrách mluvil jako o “intellectual activity”. Je vidět, že jde argumenty přesvědčit i naprosto konzervativního nehráče.

 

First of all, it is necessary to clarify the terms in the title. Let us define art as anything that conveys a message, a feeling, a thought or a lesson, stimulates high emotions¹, is original and inspiring, and at the same time is open to interpretation, i.e. it doesn’t explicate its meaning, but is left to the user to deduce. I believe that the new medium of video games is surely capable of doing this, and that some games utilize this potential, thus they can be classified as art.

A video game is indubitably the most complex medium, because it can encompass all the other traditional media. Visual arts are present in video games as graphics, either produced in a computer program or hand-drawn and imported into the game. Literature and storytelling have evolved into interactive narratives, elaborate virtual words and interactive dialogues with other characters. Nowadays, almost all games contain music, usually instrumental and fabulous in some games. Drama is present during motion capture² for animations and in dubbing. Video games also contain film in the form of cut-scenes and special effects. It is necessary to have knowledge of architecture and plastic art in general for the design of game objects such as buildings, bridges, railway stations, but also tables, plates, chairs.

Some games have these aspects so brilliantly done that they could arguably be classified as art if they were extracted from the game. For example, the stunning hand-drawn graphics in Machinarium by Amanita Design would arguably be artistic if they were a series of paintings, because they express despair and solitude in a gorgeous way. Similarly, there are video games, usually Japanese, with outstanding instrumental music, such as the Final Fantasy series or the Metal Gear Solid series to name a few. Bioshock explores the meaning of life, freedom, ideas, market and power through its storyline. Mass Effect 2 has exceptional dialogues, combining voice-over by Hollywood actors, animations by motion capture and professional camera effects.

Apart from that, I think that games can be artistic even if we remove all the elements from other art forms. The only thing left would be what is exclusive to this medium – gameplay, which defines how we interact with the entities in the game. These mechanisms can be art, because rules are fundamentally statements about the virtual word. As we play according to these rules, we relate the situation to our erstwhile experience in life. From this we can learn the author’s view of the situation.

There are numerous examples of this fact, almost every time in the realms of indie³ games. A notable example is The Marriage by Rod Humble, which is a very simple two-dimensional game. The player controls love and fate, and his goal is to keep the marriage going. These simple rules carry a very deep message that tells us how the game designer regards a marriage. It is beyond the scope of this essay to fully analyze the game, especially since its interactivity ensures that every play-through, and thus every marriage, is different.

Another example is the work of Jason Rohrer. In his game Passage, the player has the chance to experience a lifetime in exactly 5 minutes. The game puts across many ideas, one of them being that during childhood, our thinking is focused on our future – what we are going to do, who we will marry and such. As time progresses, we think less about the future and more about our past, because our experience is stored as memories that we can share with others. Jason Rohrer is also the author of the Game Design Sketchbook, where he selects a theme such as perfectionism, idealism or immortality, and then tries to develop a simple functioning game that would convey this idea.

Gameplay can also be used to enhance the artistic value of other elements of the game, such as the narrative. In Braid by Jonathan Blow, the rewinding-time mechanic works in accord with the story, which is ultimately Tim, the protagonist, reconciling for the mistakes he made in his relationship with the Princess. The gameplay and the narrative both explore the same idea, recompensing one’s misdoings. The ending makes use of the rules in a unique manner. While the time is being reversed backwards, Tim runs through a tunnel towards the Princess, who is escaping from a knight. She turns switches to help him surmount obstacles in the way. When he reaches her, the player rewinds the time and watches his previous actions in the correct time flow. Now he realizes that she was in fact escaping from him, trying to hinder his progress, and at last got rescued by the prince, which makes Tim the monster. Situations such as these demonstrate that game rules by themselves have the ability to create very poignant scenes by using interaction to fool the user’s perception or show an alternative point of view.

The answer to our title question is a definite yes. A video game as a medium not only has the potential to be art, in some cases, it already is art. Not only because it contains other art forms, but also because the rules of a game themselves can have a deeper meaning. I have merely stroked the surface of artistic games; there is an abundance of titles that could definitely be considered art.

1 = High emotions are ones that appeared later in the process of evolution; that is emotions such as love, friendship, empathy and humor, compared to low emotions like hatred, adrenaline and fear.

2 = Motion capture is a technology that enables recording movement of a person and converting this into a digital form.

3 = Indie is short for independent, which means the game doesn’t have a publisher.