Games as Art as Destigmatisation
Regarding the whole “games as art” movement, I’ve noticed that what several of its proponents want is for games as they exist today to be considered as “art” by the mainstream. What this really means is that they want cultural acceptance; they want people to stop seeing their beloved hobby as a waste of time, intended only for children. Because they like games that deal with adult things. Like violence. And naked ladies. And using the eff word in every single sentence. And anyone who doesn’t like that sort of thing is the next Jack Thompson.
The thing is, a few exceptions aside, most games are a pointless waste of time. Particularly the most heavily-marketed ones. I say, if games want cultural acceptance, they have to earn it first. If games want to be seen as “for adults” rather than just “for kids”, then they need to be about things adults actually find interesting and emotionally significant, not about things that make teenagers giggle. If we want to prove that games are a storytelling medium on par with all the others, we’ve got to write more than just space operas. If we want people other than adolescent boys to play games, we’ve got to stop making games that are only for adolescent boys. It really is that simple.
If you want people to stop smirking at your favourite pastime, then show them a good example of a game you’ve played that demonstrates true maturity in its subject matter. It works for me all the time; I’ll describe Third World Farmer or Photopia or Psychonauts, and most of the time, I’ll get a “hey, that’s interesting”. Let the games speak for themselves. And if somehow people aren’t convinced that these games you love have anything deep or meaningful to say about the world, because, you know, they’ve actually read books and stuff, accept that they don’t measure up to their standards. Don’t lament and demand that everyone laud them as the pinnacle of artistic expression, and call people names if they don’t. That’s childish.
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«The thing is, a few exceptions aside, most games are a pointless waste of time.»
To be honest I think this comes across as almost unduly harsh, but perhaps that is more of a matter of perspective. There might not be much a “point” in terms of design intent, but I think that any game has something to offer to someone. Sure, time wasting may be a small part of that, but I think that for at least someone even the worst examples of gaming meet some sort of want, some sort of goal, some sort of delirious position in the cultural zeitgeist… I don’t know, but I’ve been struggling to name a collection of ideas here since Corvus brought up his attempt at defining “play”.
Anyway, I’m not entirely sure who you are yelling at in this post, but the above sentence did jump out at me and I’ve almost always seen merit in even the crappiest games. Or perhaps I’m missing something in this post.
Or perhaps my point wasn’t clear enough. I’m not sure I’m yelling at anyone specific, to be honest. I think it’s more a collection of common thoughts and behaviours I see in comments around the internet.
Anyway, as always, I’m totally biased. I’m the kind of gamer who loves the idea of what games can be, but thinks they fall terribly short of their potential. I also get bored if I have to spend too much time killing people (to give one specific example), especially when said killing is portrayed with realism, which effectively turns me off of most AAA games. I’ll make occasional exceptions for violence if there are other parts of the game I find particularly interesting, but generally, it just isn’t there for me.
I also don’t like it when games artificially try and make me play them for as long as possible, or in some cases, guilt-trip me (Animal Crossing and Brain Age being specific examples of the latter). It feels rather crass consumerist to me. Similarly, I just plain don’t like buying too many games, or buying a new console every time the next generation shows up, even though it feels as though by and large, this is the behaviour that game devs and publishers promote. Planned obsolescence.
Anyway, I hope this helps you understand my point of view a little better. No one has to agree with me, but these are some of my general feelings.
“And if somehow people aren’t convinced that these games you love have anything deep or meaningful to say about the world, because, you know, they’ve actually read books and stuff, accept that they don’t measure up to their standards. Don’t lament and demand that everyone laud them as the pinnacle of artistic expression, and call people names if they don’t. That’s childish.”
I think that is a very important point that you make.
No, I don’t have anything to add here, except that I like your attitude towards the idea of games being “a waste of time” to some people
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I think where some of the childishness stems from is that the scenario seems unfair. Movies are considered an art form, even though there are a lot of movies that one may say are a complete waste of time. Those particular movies may not be considered art, but people can still acknowledge that movies, in general, are an art form.
I have yet to come across any real criteria people use to define art that can’t be applied to games in one way or another. Not necessarily ALL games, but for that matter the same criteria doesn’t apply to ALL movies or books or songs or what-have-you.
It’s being exclusionist, which violates my own principles as an artist.
I actually feel the same way, John. However, a lot of people argue that (to them, anyway), the best games in existence are still nowhere near as good as the best movies in existence, and that’s where the opposite argument stems from. And I find it hard to disagree with such people, particularly when the mainstream uses games I perceive as immature to as representative of what a “game” is, whereas the same isn’t as true for movies.
I think the only argument would be that they’re comparing apples and oranges. Movies are generally compared to other movies, books to other books, music to other music, and so on. Movies didn’t become an art form when someone made a film that made people say “this is as good as listening to music.”
Well, people compare movies to books all the time, and usually negatively, at that. Especially when one compares movie versions of books to their original sources. Perhaps the answer might therefore lie in making fewer games based on movie licences?
Yeah, I was going to mention adaptations as an exception, of course. But the fact that so many movies are adaptations of books, plays, tv shows, et al, and film is still considered an art form tells me that shouldn’t be a criteria that disqualifies games from being art.
I suppose the irony would be movies made based on games. The game wasn’t art, but the movie adaptation is?
To play a bit of Devil’s advocate: Even in particularly generic and commercial movies each scene has a clear dramatic purpose. One scene depicts a character’s jealousy, the next depicts a sense of danger, the next is about routines, the next is trying to be funny. Every filmmaker is constantly manipulating emotions, and regardless of how or why he’s doing that you can see it as art.
And what emotions does a game play with? Most often it’s just one or two emotions, repeated over and over. You can very rarely take a scene and say “Here’s what this scene is about, here’s the new emotion it’s bringing in.”. It’s just a continuation of the same activity you’ve been doing before. So how is it art?
But you’re using criteria that doesn’t apply to all art. If you’re saying games aren’t art because they don’t express the same emotions movies do, then there are other art forms that would also be disqualified. You can’t say games aren’t art because they’re not like movies because plenty of art isn’t like movies.
You can take any tiny bit of music, and say “This is why this bit is here, emotionally.”. You can take any tiny bit of dance, and say “This is why this bit is here, emotionally.”. You can take any tiny bit of literature, and say “This is why this bit is here, emotionally.”. You can take any tiny bit of poetry, and say “This is why this bit is here, emotionally.”. I used movies as an example only because that is what had already been thrown around. If you made a movie based on a game, that would absolutely be considered art, as each scene and each performance and each shot would have a clear emotional purpose. But the game itself would not be seen as art, because you can’t take one hallway and say “This is why this hallway is here, emotionally.” or one enemy and say “This is why this particular enemy is here, emotionally.”. It’s not a matter of being like movies, it’s a matter of carefully shifting between clear emotions (whatever those emotions are).
To be clear: I think what I have just said is a perfectly legitimate argument which should not be discredited out of hand. It is not, however, my position. As I said, I was playing devil’s advocate. For my part, I think the argument is silly from many angles. It doesn’t matter whether a game is art, it doesn’t matter whether people recognize that a game is art, art is not inherently superior to entertainment, art is a fuzzy and possibly meaningless concept, and making a game for the express purpose of it being art is a waste of time and thought. What matters is only whether the game, whatever it is, is good. How the public will see it is the concern of marketers, not gamists.
I understand you’re playing devil’s advocate, but I think playing games create an emotion within the player. That’s why they play them.
Okay, here’s a better explanation of what I’ve been trying to get at: Games have potential to be a great artistic medium in its own right; however, in my opinion, the majority of games currently in existence, particularly the ones pushed most heavily by marketing, fall short of this potential. This is why many people do not see games as art. The right kinds of games for them simply don’t exist yet, or are undiscovered due to their obscurity.
Yes, I understood what you were saying. I was speaking more to John’s comments.
I think it’s a mistake to see “art” as a descriptor of quality. I think movement games and adventure games and RPGs and metaludes are art, and always have been. There’s lots of room for personal expression in them, which I think is probably the only criterion that matters. But they’re very rarely good art. People generally think if you say “This is art!”, it means it’s good. Not so. If a composer composes particularly bad music, is that not art? Is a kid’s finger painting not art? Anything created in a form of art is art, by definition. So if you’re saying certain kinds of game have the potential to be art (and wouldn’t that mean it’s an art form?), then you should say that the games of those types are art already- bad art.
I think the problem with the argument that you could take any piece of literature, music, poetry, etc. and say “This is why this bit is here, emotionally” is that it still doesn’t apply to all art. There is plenty of abstract art that was made at random. If a painter throws a bunch of paint at a canvas, it’s art, but you can’t look at each drop and say “This is why this bit is here, emotionally”, because each drop was not placed with exacting intent. The painter made the choice to throw the paint at the canvas, but where it ended up was left to chance. Likewise, an abstract painter may choose specific colors, but in an abstract painting what emotion the viewer feels is left to the viewer. A painting could be red, and some people might feel warmth, some might feel love, some might feel danger. It could be blue and some might feel cold and others might feel sad. You can’t say “This is why this bit is here, emotionally” because everyone will perceive a different reason why and get a different emotion out of it. Abstract art as individual pieces aren’t for everyone, of course, but it’s generally accepted that it is an art form.
As for “this is why this hallway or enemy is here” statement, that would only apply to certain types of games. I look at a game like Tetris and I have to wonder why someone wouldn’t consider that a work of art. It’s absolute pure design, and the only way to truly appreciate it is to play it. You can watch someone play it, but you wouldn’t feel what they feel, their anxiety or their satisfaction. It doesn’t tell a story, it doesn’t have an ending, you can’t really compare it to a poem or a song or a movie or a book or a painting.
I really really believe that games are not really falling way short of its potential. i’ve played some amazing games over the years. what do you want games to be more than they are already?
though, unlike you, i don’t mind killing in games, in fact i prefer killing. take diablo 2 for instance. to me, the best game i’ve played. its killing from start to finish. but the perfect game imo. and i believe it will be hard to top. its not intended as one of these “art games”, but too me, if you want to start calling games art, then diablo 2 must surely be the prime example. for one thing, it has brilliant gameplay (the most important thing of a game). in fact, the gameplay is so good and addictive, the game still has an active community today, what 8 years on. when it comes down to it, its not the mature emotionly driven story that makes most people go back to the game, or how mature its content are, NO, but the amount of fun they have playing. theres the good vs evil, the faceless hero standing up against impossible odds. look at the druid and the paladin, these arent guys built like houses, no, they look like normal human beings. something which games like resident evil also use. the more normal and faceless the hero, the more you identify and take the role of the hero. i have never lived myself more into a game before than diablo 2. the realism and detailed world just makes everything a bit more gritty and identifiable, more “real”. no out of proportion shoulder pads or gigantic swords. its just this dark world hellish world with little hope. man, i can go on and on. but theres a reason a game like this is so popular. the fun you can have with trying different builds, that eternal quest for the best legendary item that you will probably never find.
in a world where man has become almost redundant, where females want them to be be this gentle sensitive guy where their roles as provider and protector have all but disappeared, dont you think that games is one of the last places they can turn to to get in touch with their primal selves. its like the girl in fight club said. the guys are hitting each other just to feel something again, to feel alive again, because todays society with their office jobs and no real use, are sucking the life out of men.
ive seen people play crysis (wow!). how can games become more mature than that? its simply amazing. who are making these games for adolescent boys?
older titles like icewind dale (i just loved the way the weather and the environment, which was beautiful, played such a large part of the story, and how the story was told, it was one of the best experiences ive ever had playing a game), broken sword 1+2, american mcgee’s alice, myst series (the opening of myst 4 still makes me feel like im going back home, simply fantastic), the fun of playing doom (the game we were not supose to play).
i dont like people throwing all these new games into the same category and saying “games aren’t innovative anymore, or are meant for adoscelent boys”. quite frankly, thats just rubbish. some of the games today are doing amazing stuff. there are so many john blows and yathzees of the world just out to tell us “games can be so much more bla bla”. pretending to be better than games are. but then they end up copying from the very games they criticize. who are these people who still think games are meant for children? most children have grown up now, and the average gamer is much older than they used to be, and will continue to grow older. i don’t know many children, but im sure they play games. though, me and my friends are adults, and we play games, as im sure many of the teenagers of the 80′s and 90′s kids are still playing games today. who are smirking at my favourite pastime? the only people ive really experienced smirking at games are females, and only in certain cases. why? because, they don’t like they’re husband playing games, and not spending time with them. the very same females have admitted to having enjoyed one game or another somewhere in their life, be it mario, or some other game.
i absolutely love games for what they are. ive loved so many games over the years, and being told that somehow these games could have so much more, that they havent reached their potential, it just doesn’t work for me, imo opinion.
in my experience, its seems a large part of people grew up doing nothing BUT playing games (you can spot them rather easily on forums), and it now so bored with every title out there, that they want something new, and the gaming industry just isn’t giving them what they want. and i can understand that. so many on forums are destroying games left and right, not happy with anything. i think, games, like anything else in life should done in moderation. balance is important. what is cliche to someone might not be cliche to someone else. its not my fault you’ve played every game on the face of the planet, and now criticise my game for being too much like everything else. how long will this new wonderful innovative mature game keep you happy until you scream for something new again?
it seems to me, that a lot of people are not having fun anymore playing games, simply because they have played to many of them.
just the other side of the coin, not trying to insult anyone.
Well, it’s nice to know that games are perfect as they are for some groups of people. And those groups of people need not worry, for there are plenty of games out there being made just for them, which aren’t going to go away anytime soon. As for those of us who don’t like what’s being offered, I don’t think we’re really much of a threat to gaming as it is now. I mean, it’s not like Hollywood stops making summer blockbusters when arthouse films gain prominence, is it?
Also, men being redundant? Seriously? Where is this happening? Last time I checked, the vast majority of powerful people in the world are still men, as they have been for millenia. I also don’t get how being gentle and sensitive undermines a person’s role as a provider and a protector, particularly since I know many people, both male or female, who are all of the above. Can’t we all provide for and protect one other?
And, well, I know office jobs can often suck and drain the life out of people, but I’m not sure being more violent is going to do anything but relieve a little stress in the short term. Why not just quit your job and do something you love? Works for a lot of people.