Your Thoughts Exactly

I've been thinking about this topic since we started this blog, and I've never really tried to post it because I could never come up with a really good definition for what art is. There's art, and then there's Art. As Calvin (the six-year-old one) says, there's also "low" art and "high" art. Where do video games fall in on this scale?

Well, like everything else in life, it depends. But it hasn't really depended on the video game, like you would think. It depends on the point of view, and the purpose of art. At its base definition, art is simply human creation designed to convey a human response- emotions, feelings, and the like. Obviously, video games have evoked a large ranged of emotions and feelings from people. From this perspective, video games are just a different medium, an evolution of television and film into the interactive present. So from this perspective, of course video games are art. And luckily, most rational people recognize this, as the Supreme Court has made rulings to the effect that they are protected speech. Less rational people have said things like 'video games have no redeeming qualities'.

Of course, in Marmar's last post, he alluded to "senseless" violence within video games. But many people derided movies, music, and television for the same reasons. And even though I could never argue that mowing down hundreds of people in GTA lends itself to high culture in any way, I can still argue that it's still free speech, and the whole industry should be protected so that it can grow into an actual artistic medium. But, of course, by saying that, I'm freely admitting that they're not they're yet. Which is why we have people like Hillary Clinton trying to take down the GTA:SA because it may have hidden sex games in it.

But, from their perspective, they look at the worst games, like GTA and Hitman, and say "Where's the art?" Well, I would like to know that too. A few video games have had artistic moments, great cutscenes, breathtaking visuals, etc., but by and large, I would say that 90% of video games aren't art. Actually, now that I think of it- that may be why I loved Homeworld so much- it was an artistic endeavor as much as it was a video game. Anyway I digress. Video games are made to be fun and addictive, not because some guy just 'wanted' to make one. And now that they're a multi-billion dollar industry, it's going to be tougher and tougher for people to make video games based on their whims. The film industry has had it easier in that regard. A low budget film can be just as good as a high-budget film because the minimum needed requirements to make a film are far below the requirements to make a video game. Of course, the most expensive video games and the most expensive movies can cost similar amounts of money to produce. The bottom line is because of all this money, there's even less risk taking in video games than there is in Hollywood. Sure, everyone complains that there are 5 batman movies 6 star wars, remakes galore, and that every good movie spawns bad sequels. But imagine if it were like the video game industry- there'd be a new star wars movie ever year. Star Wars 2006: Now with game-changing lightsaber moves! And how many deer hunter games have there been? A hundred?

But still, video games have to be considered a burgeoning art form. And even though most video games still require a huge suspension of disbelief (how could someone live their lives getting shot or hacked at with a sword for 24 straight hours?) eventually video games will surpass the technical and monetary limitations of today and become more immersive fantasies, making them an even more powerful vector for conveying emotions and storytelling. Of course, most video games are action movies. I can't see many people wanting to play a video game with a story like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, or Almost Famous. I could be wrong. Actually, I would like to see those video games. Of course, those movies are about 2 hours long. And video games are expected to be 10+ hours long. So I don't know what to tell you.

But, think about it- the few times I've ever actually connected with a video game emotionally, it was almost purely because I was so involved in the game that disbelief wasn't even in my vocabulary. I've said that a few games had good stories to them- but they were only good as video game stories go: Half-Life's story was a C-movie sci-fi flick at best, and even KOTOR wouldn't have made much sense if they had had to flesh out the whole thing. Just imagine what happens when they couple good stories and characters with video games. Then we'll be talking about real Art. Until then, though, we'll have to settle for "low" art.