Pixelnauts.net

Walk into your local Gamestop, lan café, or geeky next door neighbor's basement and ask any random gamer if they think that video games are a legitimate form of art and it's a safe bet that more times than not you'll get an impassioned response arguing in the affirmative. Considering that many gamers spend an inordinate (some say unhealthy) amount of time playing games (myself included), the question is one that many gamers are personally invested in. After all, many hardcore gamers oftentimes choose to spend their hard-earned discretionary income on an eagerly anticipated video game rather than the latest big budget Hollywood blockbuster (again, I fall firmly into this category). This being the case, a lot of us feel that if by virtue of its medium alone is enough to consider the artistic value of say, Armageddon, why then is Fumito Ueda’s seminal achievement, Shadow of the Colossus for example -- a game with considerable more depth and infinitely more entertaining than Michael Bay’s 'ode to explosions in outer space' -- not given the same treatment? It's a fair question to be sure, and one that has even managed to grab the attention of noted film critic, Roger Ebert who remains skeptical of the notion. The issue of course ultimately boils down to what exactly one considers art to be and herein is the heart of the debate.

The crux of Ebert's argument is summed up by as follows: “Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control.” His statement is speaking to the central quality that separate these mediums from each other: interactivity vs. reactivity. And it’s his contention that an interactive medium by its very nature precludes the subject’s ability to convey an artistic message effectively, whatever that message may be. In other words, if Orson Welles had decided to create Citizen Kane in the style of a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' novel, the dramatic impact of the famous 'Rosebud' reveal may have been lessened somewhat if the viewer/reader could have chosen the iconic sled to instead be say, an alien invasion.

Gamers, on the other hand, tend to approach the question from a different perspective. For them, it is exactly the medium's interactivity that creates a unique means for artistic expression, one that is just now beginning to burgeon. They argue that the emotional connections created in many of the games released today are simply impossible to recreate in a passive medium such as film or literature where emotional connection to character and setting is something that is created for the reader/viewer rather than created by the player. In addition, gamers cite the creative qualities that are necessary to make games as evidence for a game's status as 'art' -- artistic expressions such as musical scoring, animation, artistic design etc. It is their opinion, that people like Roger Ebert see only the craft of making games and fail to see the artistic potential of the medium.

So who's right? Have video games transcended the constraints of their medium into the realm of fodder for critical analysis? Is their content compelling, unique, and provocative enough to be presented as an expression of the creator or creators' artistic vision? If I'm being perfectly honest here, as yet, the answer is simply no. Further, as an emphatic gamer that plays games across all platforms and genres, I can't think of a single title that does meet these qualifications. The fact is, as much as I love video games, there is simply none that exists today that could definitively be called a piece of modern art. Now as a point of clarification, that is not to say that I do not see the potential of the medium to achieve such a status, just that as yet, I have seen nothing to show me that as of the time of this writing it has.