Video games as an art form, my doubts over the great debate...

[Thomas Talbot]

Let me just start by saying that I am first and foremost a writer. Literature has always been my medium for creative expression and thus I've never doubted that what I was doing could at least be considered some form of art. The other great aspect of my life, since I was 10 and my father bought me a second-hand Sega Master System, has been gaming. When I was a kid I never stopped to consider whether or not what I was experiencing was art, just "WOW Sonic runs faaaaast!". But now that I've gotten older and ( I like to think) more mature, I find myself criticising the writing as I would a novel, the imagery as I would a film or painting, etc. I stop and think "Yes. This is art surely, for I can be touched by it like I would a film or a book". Then I read Roger Ebert's journal, it got me to really examine my opinion:

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

After reading it I will admit my first reaction was one of annoyance, I doubt he's ever played much of any game enough to make a complete argument on it but a lot of his arguments are undoubtedly valid. I think the greatest obstacle standing in the way of video games becoming art is the fact that we still consider them "games". It's so difficult to argue that a medium should equal the works of Picasso or Monet when it is still technically in the same grouping as 'Monopoly' or 'Tag'.

I tend to agree somewhat with Ebert that the composite nature of video games makes it difficult to ascribe an "artist". For in it's creation it seems like the culmination of a large number of different people, not all of them artists. Santiago, I think, lets the cause down when she lists the components of video game future as development, finance, publishing, marketing, education and executive management. There seems no room for the artist in her scheme and with that I completely disagree. Ebert ends by stating his confusion, that gamers "are so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art". It is a tough one to answer truthfully and it is one that I myself haven't answered for myself.

I know that this has been a bit of a long post and for that I do apologise. I love gaming and video games, I hope I always will but I don't know if they are worthy of being called art. For me there is something really primal about art, something that just seems to occur naturally and it's hard to find that side of games. Anyway. Your thoughts and opinions would be greatly appreciated, just don't use it as a venting-ground.

Thanks for your time.

 

[Najos]

Yeah, I don't know. One thing I have considered though is the argument that games are made collaboratively, while art generally isn't. But yeah, that's not entirely true. Video games are at a level where the tools aren't available to everyone, unlike painters that can buy their paint and such. Really, unless someone is making their own paint from natural ingredients they have gathered, then painting isn't exactly a solo job. We've just come to accept it as one. Video games work in the same way, except they have guys that make their tools and until we start to package more of those tools and sell them (like the Unreal engine or Speed Tree or whatever) video games will have to be made by large groups.

The real problem with video games is money, though. Art isn't about making money because the process is corrupted when you're on a deadline or worried about mass appeal. That's why most people don't consider modern novels works of art, they're all pushed out in a few months just to get paid again. The video game industry is run by corporations that want to make money (nothing wrong with that), not art. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive, you can make money from art, but it can't be the goal. Well, I guess it could be the goal, but it is a rarity.