Rantings: The Big One - Are Games Art?

In an official "big week" for this blog, you can't get much bigger than this one. The question has confounded us for decades. It was a deciding factor for court trials. The idea is often commonly accepted, and yet the most famous critic in the country insists that they're not art. Even some of the designers disagree that their products, often masterpieces, are not art. And gamers in general point out that a toilet or a cross in a jar of piss apparently count as art, so Shadow of the Colossus damn well better count. And yet the debate stands.

But here's my two cents on the subject. Are games art?

Yes.

That was easy. Thanks everyone! Good night!

What, I said it was only going to be two cents worth! But then, the entire blog is free, so I guess I have room to expand.

Well, the obvious starting point is defining art itself. Otherwise, this entire debate is as pointless as asking if games are threepzugga.

We'll start with an unorthodox source. Scott McCloud, the writer of Understanding Comics, defined art in that book as any human (or presumably other sentient, I must add,) activity which doesn't grow out of either our species' two basic instincts: survival and reproduction. In that definition, of course games are art. Most people play them for fun, leisure, entertainment, emotional growth, etc. There are exceptions, sure. Some people play games professionally, and thus get paid, and thus can buy food and shelter, and thus survive. Some people even meet significant others through games. But even in those cases, it's often not the reason to game, just a lucky side effect.

Of course, by this definition, plenty of things are art. Games are art of every sort; poker, chess, basketball. etc. Two people arm-wrestling are artists, at least unless you can define it as asserting tribal dominance. This example does work, but most people reject it inherently because it makes no difference between these examples and great works of literature, cinema, etc. Those just aren't for fun. Those have MEANING!

Okay, fair enough. I probably wouldn't use the above example either, and for the same reason. So, let's move on to more professional sources. The first and least redundant definition at dictionary.com is "The quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance. " Wikipedia, meanwhile, says the most common usages denotes "Skill used to produce an aesthetic result." Wikipedia also references Brittanica online, which says that art is, "the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others."

What? This is a blog. That's as professional as this gets. I'm not writing a dissertation here.

Nonetheless, we see two elements that stand out. One is that art requires skill, imagination, or at least expression and production. In other words, art requires a conscious effort. Beauty may be found in nature, but art doesn't simply grow there. On the other hand, capturing the beauty of nature does take effort and creativity. I'd have no trouble saying a painting or a photograph of a tree is art, even if the tree alone is not.

The second part is trickier. By the above definitions, it's anything that produces aesthetic results, experiences, etc. That makes things trickier. What is aesthetic in this case? Simply that which is appealing? Then how can we justify intentionally banal or horrific art?

At this point, I'm going to start creating what I consider a more working definition of art in this context. Art is, in the Joseph Barder version, "Anything which requires intent and creativity to generate and which produces an intellectual or emotional response." Thus, aesthetic is anything that makes you think or that makes you feel. That covers our usual "Piss Christ/Saw/Manhunt" examples.

But it then falls into the same problems as the first definition I used. Of course sports make us feel and think; we get obsessed with statistics of the game, we feel excitement as we play or we watch our home team play, we feel comradery with the team and its fans, etc.

Let me modify my definition, then. Art is "Anything which requires intent and creativity to generate and which produces an intellectual or emotional response independent of the physical activity of the product." For example, a police report is not art. The physical activities of the product are the analyzing of the written symbols and the processing of the facts this analysis produces, so even if the story is a horrific one with strong emotional responses, it's not art. A story imagining how the police officer felt, though, is art.

When applied to games, this makes things much clearer. The activity of a basketball game, for example, is mostly not art. The excitement of playing or watching the game, the three of watching your team come out ahead or the agony of their failure, is a direct result of the physical activity of the performers. That is not art, and most actions in the game come not from artists. The three point shot, while exciting, is exciting because it is a calculated risk to get a greater tactical advantage.

The slam dunk, on the other hand...

As that last example suggests, I do think that there is plenty of art to be found in a sport. The slam dunk has no advantage in terms of the game, but it is a staple of the game because of its demonstration of skill and confidence. It can be unique. It is, for all intents and purposes, performance art. The same is true of touchdown dances, the routines of cheerleaders, the antics of mascots, and even the little graphics many stadiums play during games. Using this definition for video games, not all of them are art. Pong is not art; there are no elements that don't come from the gameplay. But art is incredibly easy to find in games. Take a blocky enemy, toss a vague facsimile of a swastika on it, and you're not just killing designated opponents, you're saving the world from Nazis! The enemies of Doom aren't scary because of their tactical advantages; they're scary because their horrific demons.

Art is everywhere in games, and thus games are art. At the very minimum, they're identical to movies and television; just another example of the narrative form of art, a model that goes back to ancient cave paintings and verbal story-telling. But video games are more than that, and they offer their own unique method of experience art, just like every other medium has. But the advantages of video games as an art form is a discussion for another night, and it will be a self-righteous one on my part, I'm afraid. Because no matter what Ebert's bizarre take on art say, video games are art and the video game industry will produce art for as long as it exists, save for the one thing that stands in its way...the video game industry.

But more on that later. Thanks everyone! Good night!