The Smithsonian has recently put a poll out to the people of the world, as they are creating a new exhibit for the museum to be revealed in March, 2012. I was very happy and also quite surprised to find out that it's going to be an exhibit about the art of video games. On the website, one gets to choose from different video game eras and consoles in order to decide which video games are the most important ones...the kind that belong on display in a museum. A lot of people may scoff at this kind of idea but I certainly do not, so seeing this little poll pop up again gave me incentive to finally write an article about my thoughts on the situation.
Art, for me, was defined when I took my art classes in high school. I distinctly remember the explanation that my teacher gave us at the time to ponder and talk about: Art is any human creation that can evoke an emotional response in an observer. An "emotional response", as far as I'm concerned, includes nearly any emotion in the vast array of human cognition, and different pieces of art will stimulate the human mind in their own unique ways. For example, "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters" by Francisco de Goya depicts a man sleeping with numerous creatures in the background, clearly designed to depict some form of nightmare and make an observer feel uneasy. Claude Monet's "Water Lilies", on the other hand, is a beautiful and serene painting that gives one a sense of peace and wonder. Both are clearly considered to be art...although they are both very different creations, they are able to cause emotions to stir in the human mind and are therefore defined correctly by my personal terms.
"White on White" by Kazimir Malevich: Art.Other seemingly accepted forms of art consist of sculptures, novels, plays, film, buildings, and a large number of other human creations...and so the question here is quite simple: Why the Hell can't video games be considered forms of art? I don't think this is a stupid question...the fact of the matter is that a good number of video games fit in quite well with artistic pieces of media, and can bring out emotions in those that interact with them. This is not a theory or hypothesis...it's a fact. I have played video games that have affected me on an emotional level and experienced this kind of movement on a first-hand basis, and I also know others that have been moved in a similar way.
The progression of video games has resulted in an insane amount of technological and creative development. It's not uncommon for video games to have a very well-told story in this day and age, for example, or to have a distinct artistic style that sets it apart from others. While video games used to be simple recreations of games such as table tennis (Pong), there are now those with sprawling, detailed, and content-dense universes to experience and explore and a sense of depth to them that was never present when they were first developed. Narratives have become much more common, and although these will sometimes fall quite flat, there are a handful of examples that I can think of where certain events in a video game are very, very effective. In the proper hands, game development tools become similar to a paintbrush, allowing an inspired individual to make a unique, detailed creation that others may or may not enjoy.
One particular game that comes to mind almost instantly is Mother 3. Unfortunately I haven't gone into much detail about my experiences with this game yet, but if you want to know what kind of effect it has on people, you should check out the commercials for the game, one of which you can find here. Just in case you don't have time in your life to watch a 30 second commercial on YouTube, I'll summarize it for you. A woman is being interviewed about the game's content, story, and characters, and she begins to cry. That's pretty much it. Is it staged? Well, I guess it could be, but I would actually lean towards "no" in this case, because the game had the exact same effect on me as well. Remember that definition of art I mentioned previously? About art being a creation that causes an emotional response in those that experience it? Well there's a good damn example in Mother 3, which seems to be able to stir emotions in a great number of people that play through the entire game, myself included. That's a pretty hard thing for ANYTHING to do, when it comes down to it, but especially a video game, since people don't tend to take them very seriously. If I knew Roger Ebert weren't stubborn, I'd suggest he play it through to the end and see what he thinks. In fact, I'd suggest you ALL play through it...but I doubt that'll happen either because no one ever manages to finish it, so I won't try too hard. I won't go into detail here, because Mother 3 deserves its own article at some point and I don't want to try and summarize everything in one little paragraph...but believe me when I say that it's an amazing piece of work with a narrative and presentation that really make it something special.
Another terribly artistic game that comes to mind is a Gamecube game that few people have played called Killer7. If there were any video game out there that seems like it would come from the mind of surrealist artist Salvador Dali himself, it would be this one. It's a strange, strange game...made by Capcom and Grasshopper, and written and directed by Suda51...a strange, strange man. There hasn't been a single video game in the history of my existence that has made me think "What the HELL is going on?" more often than this one. You play as a man named Harman Smith, who supposedly has 7 different personalities that he can split into...he's also a contract killer (hence the name Killer7). The 7 Smiths together are referred to as the Smith Syndicate...in this particular instance, they've been hired to wipe the Earth clean of creatures called Heaven Smiles, which (from what I can gather from the convoluted story arcs, anyway) are odd beings constructed by trafficked human organs and genetically modified. Along the way, you encounter a bunch of really weird characters...a man in red with ball gag in his mouth, or the ghost of a kid whose head has been lopped off, for instance...and most of them speak in a really strange dialect that can really freak you out. The story itself is about as straightforward as a hedge maze...plot points that link are rarely discovered one after the other, but rather with other weird occurrences in between that throw you off. Sometimes you'll run through a door and in a small building, and next thing you know, you've magically gone from a city in the United states to a fictional area called Battleship Island in the middle of the ocean. It makes no fucking sense. I've played this game 3 times, and it still makes little to no fucking sense...but it's meant to seem that way. There's a deeper meaning behind all of it, and it's presented so strangely that it just seems like the dream of a madman. There's also the amazing cel-shading style that's used in the game, giving it an almost minimalist look. In this respect, I consider Killer7 to be a piece of art...its presentation is meant to be surreal and hard to understand, and as you progress through the game, it makes you feel uncomfortable...like you don't know anything anymore. It's really a game that needs to be experienced to be understood...or not understood at all, as the case may be.
How about the Silent Hill series? The thought put into this particular set of video games is almost astounding, and even though I personally don't like every single entry doesn't mean that they're not well done. A nightmarish horror series at heart, Silent Hill places the protagonist in a world that switches between somewhat-almost-okay-maybe-not-quite-so-normal to absolute hell, and back again. When this switch occurs, the whole of the environment changes as well, and strange creatures come out to attack. These are creatures that have, in most cases of the Silent Hill games, been designed as manifestations of the main character's psyche. For example, James Sunderland of Silent Hill 2 encounters abominations that are representative of his suppressed sexuality as a result of his wife being bedridden for years. To say that this isn't art is almost borderline retarded! The amount of thought and design put into the atmosphere, characters, story, and creatures found in Silent Hill is much too great to just be some form of entertainment...it's more than that. You aren't only scared by Silent Hill games...you're incredibly intrigued with the nature of them, and it makes you want to learn more about what the designers were thinking, much like an abstract painting or sculpture. Who created it? What's the nature of this part of the game? What inspired this element to be used at all?
Image of the game "Killer7": Not art?Should video games such as Heavy Rain that have intricate, well-written and interesting plots NOT be considered an art form simply because they're not accepted as a piece of literature or film (as close as HR may be to a film)? Does this eliminate nearly every RPG, which often have multi-faceted characters and plot twists, from the equation even though the fictional universes of these games have been constructed in the minds and hearts of those that have worked long, hard hours on them? Why shouldn't these be considered art, particularly when so many of them are able to trigger emotions and feelings in those that enjoy playing them? Sure, they're not friggin' Shakespearean sonnets or anything, but there are a lot of good stories out there in the video game media. Some of these are even more effective than those found in film, a media that Ebert has no problem labeling as "art".
The problem is that, as with the case of artwork itself, many video games are terribly different from one another. For example, Killer7 is nothing like FIFA '10 when you look at their core experience...so should FIFA '10 not be considered to be artwork? Personally, I think sport games are completely different due to an extreme lack of creativity when compared to other video games. This isn't necessarily me taking a chance to knock down sports games, but anyone can observe that much less thought goes into making a game such as FIFA '10 in comparison with games such as the Final Fantasy series, Doom 3, or Sin & Punishment. But does this mean that sports games aren't art? Saying this would suggest something along the lines that Hyperrealism is less of an art form than Impressionism because it's more "realistic", when that is not the case...they're just terribly, terribly different.
What it boils down to in my mind is that all video games are a form of art. It simply depends on who is interacting with what, because every single game is capable of causing an emotion to come out in at least some of those that experience them. It just so happens that some video games lend themselves to more artistic credit than others. In addition, there are clearly some video games out there that are DESIGNED simply to entertain, and the main point of them is to be fun or challenging...to test the limits of those that play it, or to allow people to engage in (hopefully) friendly competition. Those games have their place, and I damn well enjoy playing them like crazy...I love extremely tough video games that make my thumbs feel like they're going to bleed, and I also enjoy just playing simple, entertaining games with my friends and family.
There are others, however, that are more designed with a point that comes across as you play, that make you think and feel...that have a lasting effect on those that experience them. These are the ones that really stand out in the artistic department, despite whether or not they have a few flaws. Roger Ebert is wrong...dead wrong, and I believe that if he would give some video games a decent chance (something he admitted that he likely will never do), that he may change his mind and discover that there are some really artistic and wonderful video games out there in the world, and perhaps he would come to appreciate the media for the thriving, evolving entity that it is. Sure, Ebert's a film critic...but in the current state of the industry, many video games are not much different from movies except for the fact that they're interacted with and controlled. Some games may be horrible, just like some films are widely considered to be garbage...but others are important, unique, and inspiring landmarks that showcase the ability of the human mind to create characters, worlds, and objects that many people have come to hold dear to their hearts, just like that favourite film you pull out of your collection to watch on a frequent basis. To state that NO video games could ever be art is complete bullshit, because as far as I'm concerned, they already are.
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What about you guys? I wouldn't mind hearing some other opinions on this, so be sure to post them!
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