Video Games are(n't) Art or By God we got what we wanted.

    This thought has been cooking on my mind, and it seems fairly timely since Roger Ebert has seen fit to rail against games as art again. (What'd we ever do to him?) Hence I write this with the vain idea it forms the basis of a good counter argument or discussion. I'll pick on Ebert a bit, but I'm merely using him as a figurehead for the establishment, most of which probably aren't talking about it.

Define Art

   Firstly, I think we need to establish a definition of art... maybe... oh boy we have a problem.

Go get some coffee, a Toro Rojo or a lot of No Doz... maybe order some Chinese food or better yet... some pizza. I believe you know what I want on mine.

Why is defining art a problem? Because somehow, in recent generations, it has evolved and thus divided. If you ask someone, you will receive the most common definitions- "Something Pretty" or "Something that makes you think" or "Something that moves you."

So asking someone seems... broad... let’s look at the dictionary... I was gonna copy and paste dictionary.com but... no... there are 16 definitions. Most of the others are unrelated so we'll go with definition one-

1- The quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.

Frankly I'm surprised it’s so simple. It does match the common definition somewhat, and I think you'd have a hard time arguing that the vistas in TES: Oblivion or such aren't beautiful... so I guess we're done right? Well no, it seems we're talking about 'High' art. Something I garner the average person considers bunk and the realm of black turtle neck sweater and beret wearing people convinced of their intellectual superiority. (I personally prefer a good hoodie... but a beret might suit me...). Ebert's definition seems nebulous (which ironically, I appreciate.) I'm not sure what to extract here.

Well can we define high art ourselves? Nah, I bet the internet knows!

    Well not really, these help but aren't conclusive. Feel free to read them or don't. Basically in the end we're going to wonder what metric the art crowd uses for gallery placement.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_culture#High_art

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art

    While I can't find a suitable definition (that I like... yay for bias!) I think we can hammer out something.

    The starting point- no matter how nicely little Timmy made his stick figure painting... we wouldn't consider that High art... we'd barely refer to it as art. So there must be a line. A best of...

    'Something Pretty' is out, lotsa things are beautiful by no fault of their own. Also there are plenty of unbeautiful things that are definitely artistic.

    'It makes you think'... eyelashes make me think... I don't think my eyelashes are art. But let’s expand this one, we'll make a 'Kentastic!' definition... you can yell at me in comments-

    Art is a constructed (by actual technical creation, or we'll allow placement for found art) for the purpose of relating a thought, idea, emotion using various aesthetics in various mediums. Ergo- A artist carves (constructs) a statue of a hand holding a ball out of stone (the medium).

    Even here I can't seem to get my head around how to define the 'line' for what high art is. What belongs in a museum? Partly it's because that line is floating for different people. Apparently my view does not agree with some of Dadaism or this- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ. (If art merely involves being a dickwad then I'm pretty sure quite a ton of internet message boards are full of renowned art geniuses, any anyone teabagging you on Halo is just releasing his artistic side.)

    What definition is the game world trying to achieve? There is definitely a movement in the game dev community to be recognized as art. (1)

So perhaps we can define high art as 'the best of what art culture creates'.

    Based off this question largely becomes 'Are video games an artistic medium?' Are game developers artists working in this medium? Do game developers make anything that belongs in the realm of 'the best our culture offers?' This definition allows us to, for example, eliminate most block busters from 'high art cinema' since, while we might enjoy these films, they are not representative of what we consider the best about us. Likewise, it eliminates quite a few (good) games. Since most games aren't created for artistic sake, we might find it eliminates a lot more.

Let's Consider the Classics

    It's been said that we haven't found our Shakespeare. Likely true but somewhat irrelevant. Shakespeare is Shakespeare because his work is some 400 years old. (2) It has survived the test of time. We have games that have survived a 20 year lifespan. We know, intrinsically, that our art (I said ART damn it) is still pretty young. Some say caveman paintings are in the right era growth wise as games (The Geico caveman's gonna be pissed), we hear this comparison a lot in the defense of games as art. I believe we're somewhere past that, but maybe not that much, certainly still refining techniques. Early (silent) films certainly suffered this 'not art' derision (proving any new medium will suffer it). But I believe it's even worse now because of the niche nature of high art. The art scene has its rules, and they don't want to adjust them to absorb a new medium.

    It is impossible to know what today will be a classic. I mean, that is kind of against the definition of classic. While many classic writers were well regarded in their day, there were likely others that were well regarded in their time but fade to obscurity and are a case for historians. Were laurel and Hardy considered masterful artists of their time? Everyone knew their movies would be watched for generations? Maybe movies are a better comparison in general than traditional physical media. The 80’s were the silent era... 90’s were talking, and now we have color?

    We DO have recent classics however. I wonder, not counting financial impact, which of these games will we see studied 100 years from now by the super smart roaches that survived the nuclear zombie apocalypse. I say not counting financial impact, because WoW,  Pac-man, Mario, and Tetris, aside from being good games, have such a cultural or economic impact that they will be remembered for that alone, whether or not they are worth playing from an artistic perspective.

Difficulties of games as art

    Games do have several problems with games as art, some I find dubious but still have some value enough for me to list.

     It's kinetic, so its viewpoint may not really be the same for everyone. Is this really true? Must all art have the same viewpoint? I was given the indication by one of Ebert's articles that he felt so. But this is the one I find most dubious. I used the word Kinetic because there is in fact a type of art (sculpture mostly I believe) called Kinetic Art. By its nature it's going to be slightly different for everyone.

    Further this implies that everyone perceives any given piece of art the same. Really? How much lighting, positioning, framing, or otherwise can affect a painting, or worse, a sculpture. How much of the viewers own disposition will affect it? In current high art we attach meanings, hidden or otherwise, to everything, everything has a message! We assume that all previous work must be so. We dig deep into the meaning of the Mona Lisa's smile. What could it MEAN? It could just mean ole Leo needed a few bucks and painted someone's daughter IE the painting is merely meant to be enjoyed as a simple portrait. That answer isn't sexy though, and we won't allow it for games as high art.

    Games require an investment of time unparalleled by almost any other medium (with rare exception, certainly some classic books are longer than many games). I'll harp on this the more I blog for other reasons, but this, while it SHOULDN'T is a barrier to entry for some people, hence they won't experience it. It also (usually) has a win condition that may be a barrier to some people. That's a social issue but affects games adoption by the mass (eh) as art. This also, quite simply makes gallery presentation difficult at best.

    Video games are fairly formulaic. Personally I like most the formulas (see my previous blog for my thoughts before I achieved my harmony on this thought), but the films that follow Hollywood formulas are usually not considered art either. So if you want this adoption, you either have to do a game that’s different from other war games in an 'artistic way'. (Again 'eh'). To talk about this, I need to talk about perception in general-

    Another problem I will harp on recurringly is the perception by many that games are a kid’s toy. Well yeah, they are... in some cases. Cooking Mama is, Gears of War isn't. But the perception as toys seems to be a firm deep rooted believe from the days of Pac-man to the early Nintendo. It's changing I think, but it’s a slow process. The advent of Facebook games has probably had a strange helping effect on this. But beyond that, perception is still a problem. Maybe not a kid’s toy, but it’s all run and gun action... comparative to a blockbuster movie. Die Hard is a good movie (well I like it anyway :p) but I don't think many would call it high art. Saving Private Ryan however, might be... so an action movie can be considered art, but it could be easily lost in the tons of formulaic games out there. It will almost certainly be lost in games due to the fact most of the skeptic audience has no desire to seek it out.

     How do we 'critique' the game aspect? A game is more than a collection of models, textures, and geometry. We can rate those things individually, but how does the 'gameplay' fit in? Ebert dismisses the win condition of a case against its art. I say that is what makes it a unique art. I have no answer above the fact it is in the eye of the beholder. If we, as a gamer/game dev collective want to focus on any point, this is it. Without the gameplay, the best cinematic games would be but movies. What makes a book better than a movie, a movie than a book, a book over a painting, a painting over a movie? Why THIS medium? (3)

    A part Ebert picks on is a lack of a definitive 'this is it' game that we can clearly say 'this is art'. Isn't it commonly said that good art is not recognized in its time? (See the classics above). Also I think the trove of indie games is probably not being picked thru enough. The... interactive um... game the Graveyard ( http://tale-of-tales.com/TheGraveyard/ ) probably has a multitude of cousins worthy of examination. We, as a community, are very good at picking out what we think is art in the game world. But again it will be a matter of the test of time on what is a classic. I think we can be pretty certain that much of it will be discarded. (This should not be taken as a criticism of games, Hollywood blockbusters often get panned by critics, but we love them anyway... doesn't make them art. Neither does being produced by 20 kids on shoestring budget make it art either.

Yet we got what we wanted

    Interestingly enough, I believe Ebert has gone a long way to increasing the perception of games as art.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8Kyi0WNg40

    Think about all the back and forth (he's written about 3 full postings on this issue and I imagine discussed it elsewhere), think about the amount of discussion this has spurned. This is one case where discussion, even negative commentary, is pushing it in the favorable direction. Part of me wants to believe the cantankerous old gent is doing it deliberately. Considering movies themselves went thru a similar back and forth in their genesis. Fact is there are some today that will never consider anything besides traditional paintings and such art, or sculpture. Movies can't be art because they are neither of these things. A still maybe, if it were framed and displayed in a gallery, but certainly not a film.

    Consider that games are-

Now what?

    Well with acceptance (even the partial acceptance games get) we get the baggage. Maybe we get more respect, but we also get the Sundance channel with our HBO (I don't mean to sound like an ass about Sundance, I'm sure it’s got some good movies on it.) I think, after some cooking time after my last post, that we're seeing multiple players really throwing their hands into the game industry. This is good and bad...

    Pretend, for a moment, you're a cook who makes an awesome pepperoni pizza, er Raspberry soufflé.... Your biz friend wants to market it for money, but thinks you should use cheap raspberries, a people's food critic wants to rate it if only it was whippier though, and might declare it good eats or dog food. The high dollar fine dining restaurant does not consider it food fit for consumption at all.

    We have a lot of influences in this industry, some of us just want to cook and eat.

    I'll leave with the Penny Arcade line that inspired me to write my thoughts down (and apparently complete them)

"If a hundred artists create art for five years, how could the result not be considered art" - Tycho Brahe of PA

(1) If it's the desire-to-offend metric, I propose we make 'Art Critic Hunter- Blood on the Canvas' as a collaborative project. It would be an artistic game 'bemoaning the state of art criticism in the modern world'.

(2) Shakespeare was likely considered a master in his time, but was he such the end all be all at the time? I wonder. Tolkien these days is held upon an impossible pedestal. So high up that I think if a previously unpublished work was released under a pseudonym, it would be compared (negatively) to him. We hold our old heroes so high sometimes, that we fail to see the awesome in front of us.

(3) This might be the point movie based games fail. They simply try to tack a game onto the movie, rather than realize the potential of the medium.

(4) I never linked anything from Ebert but I will here

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070721/COMMENTARY/70721001

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/04/video_games_can_never_be_art.html