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Is the mainstream ready for games as art?
11 years ago
General
So recently I discovered that MIT has one of their massively open courses on game design. Now, this isn't one of the 'how to use tool a to get result a' sort of courses, it's a look into the fundamentals of game theory and works its way through the arts and practical structures that make up modern game design, both as traditional games and as computer games. In reading through the book I was reminded of the importance of language when it comes to artistic critique.
Now, this isn't to say that we need more jargon in games journalism, but it is to say that I feel games journalists should be well versed in the language of games design. The importance of the dolly zoom in film should be understood by anyone who wants to be a film critic, so i postulate that the importance of open and closes systems, the cultural impact of emergent gameplay and the history of interactive entertainment should be the expected grounding for those who want to criticize games. This is especially true as we move into an era where we expect games to be treated as an artistic medium.
As we are a young medium we borrow a lot from the established fields of criticism. This leaves us will a lot to say about story, visual presentation and other components that map well when regarded from another medium, but not a lot to say about what makes games stand out from the other methods of expression. There are a few general categories that a seasoned gamer can draw on to describe the general feel of a game, but rarely do we find commentary on how the feel of a game contributes to the direction or expression as a cohesive whole. perhaps this is indicative of the informal genre divides, or a side effect of game designers being forced to template from popular successes regardless of the vision. Regardless of the explanation, as we move forward this kind of discussion will become critical to establishing the legitimacy of the medium.
Let us take for example The Last of Us. It is a critically acclaimed game, widely reviewed as the best that the last generation of consoles had to offer. A lot of the reviews focus on the story, the characters and the visual presentation. It looks amazing, has a moving story with interesting characters and forces us to accept morality as a grey zone. It also has gameplay, but... it's nothing special. It plays like you would expect a third person action game to play. The gameplay doesn't really add to the end statements, the player doesn't really have any meaningful choices that impact the narrative. It's the kind of game that lends itself well to a critique with the same language as a movie with a bit of gamy bits thrown in. This isn't to say that it's a bad game, but it does raise the question of what is important in a game. We don't have the language formalized to describe the mechanical impact of games. The discussion of the system interacting with the narrative elements of play is not very prevalent, so it seems like most of the time we get this big budget games that instead really just push out the gameplay that will sale with packets of content that will review well with the established language of criticism (usually cinematic).
Now, on the opposite side of the spectrum from the Last of Us is Conway's game of Life. Conway's game of Life is a zero player game with no real art assets to speak of and no giant story. It means that, if viewing it as an artistic piece, all of the message is in the rules and mechanics of the game. The rules to Conway's Game of life are as follows:
Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if caused by under-population.
Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives on to the next generation.
Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overcrowding.
Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell, as if by reproduction.
Any narrative or story must be a result of these rules. The player sets up the board, populated with as many live or dead cells as desired, and then the game plays itself. The assumptions codified in the ruleset gives us a kind of message, and while this is supposed to be an abstraction of cellular evolution we can derive many messages from it. The game itself says that the rules of life are simple, but through the simple rules amazingly complex machinations and interactions can occur. As a game designer I can look at this game and see that a well written, simple mechanic can produce amazingly nuanced gameplay. As a historian I can see that the game is a product of the times, with the prevalence of computer systems reaching a point to make the testing and implementation of such a model feasible. The game has such a wide spread impact that it has recently been implemented on drum machines because the computational pattern is simple and fits well to grid-based sequencing with interesting results.
I think it would be interesting to see how mainstream game journalism would review conway's game of life. To me there is obvious merit. We can communicate the ideas behind it, we can discuss the history around it, it has an amount of historical impact that can not be overlooked. It is elegant in its simplicity and stunning in its complexity. These are things we can say about great art...
But do we want art?
For me, it's a resounding yes, but as I look at the mainstream sensibilities I am not sure. The god of the mainstream game is fun. It's this subjective metric that changes for everyone, but it rarely includes the desire to go to an art museum. It is obvious to me that games _can_ be an expressive art form, but look at how the gaming community reacts to games being evaluated _as_ an expressive art form. Even mention a feminist critique on a gaming forum and you'll likely get flamed within the hour. Games have the capability to be powerful vehicles of thought and expression. games have the capability to provide meaningful insight into society. Games have the capability to be interpreted as products of history and culture, but is that something that the gaming community is ready to embrace?
Let us consider the most popular novels in the world. Last time I checked, the most popular kinds of novels are harlequin romance novels. They are usually cheep, contrite pieces of throw away writing that use lazy plots in order to indulge in a fantasy. They are insanely popular. I don't know of many people that would point to any of these books as an example of great fiction, but I don't know of anyone who would argue that novels can not be great art.
Now, this analogy might be slightly disingenuous. The direct parallel to the harlequin romance novel would be cheap cell phone games that are plentiful and widely varied, but they work well as an illustration of my point. Big games, like the Last of Us or Gears of War would be better compared to hits like the Harry Potter series or Twilight. People will always be more divided about how to look at these bits of popular medium but we still do not generally put them on the same level as Catch 22 or Great Expectations.
I don't think anyone who is familiar with gaming will argue that games don't have their Catch 22s. I don't think that anyone who is familiar with gaming will argue that games don't have their harlequin romance novels... and I think the mainstream is becoming familiar with gaming.
As we develop and disseminate more and more language that allows for deep discussions about games, I feel that the culture will change. I think it already is. We are taking the way that games are portrayed more and more seriously. There is more and more lititure that tries to seriously contemplate the impact of games. People are more and more aware of what makes a game enjoyable...
Art isn't always enjoyable, so art isn't always popular. I don't think this is ever going to change in any medium, including gaming. However, as more of a medium is enjoyed by the mainstream it becomes easier for them to accept it as art. I feel we are reaching that point.
Now, this isn't to say that we need more jargon in games journalism, but it is to say that I feel games journalists should be well versed in the language of games design. The importance of the dolly zoom in film should be understood by anyone who wants to be a film critic, so i postulate that the importance of open and closes systems, the cultural impact of emergent gameplay and the history of interactive entertainment should be the expected grounding for those who want to criticize games. This is especially true as we move into an era where we expect games to be treated as an artistic medium.
As we are a young medium we borrow a lot from the established fields of criticism. This leaves us will a lot to say about story, visual presentation and other components that map well when regarded from another medium, but not a lot to say about what makes games stand out from the other methods of expression. There are a few general categories that a seasoned gamer can draw on to describe the general feel of a game, but rarely do we find commentary on how the feel of a game contributes to the direction or expression as a cohesive whole. perhaps this is indicative of the informal genre divides, or a side effect of game designers being forced to template from popular successes regardless of the vision. Regardless of the explanation, as we move forward this kind of discussion will become critical to establishing the legitimacy of the medium.
Let us take for example The Last of Us. It is a critically acclaimed game, widely reviewed as the best that the last generation of consoles had to offer. A lot of the reviews focus on the story, the characters and the visual presentation. It looks amazing, has a moving story with interesting characters and forces us to accept morality as a grey zone. It also has gameplay, but... it's nothing special. It plays like you would expect a third person action game to play. The gameplay doesn't really add to the end statements, the player doesn't really have any meaningful choices that impact the narrative. It's the kind of game that lends itself well to a critique with the same language as a movie with a bit of gamy bits thrown in. This isn't to say that it's a bad game, but it does raise the question of what is important in a game. We don't have the language formalized to describe the mechanical impact of games. The discussion of the system interacting with the narrative elements of play is not very prevalent, so it seems like most of the time we get this big budget games that instead really just push out the gameplay that will sale with packets of content that will review well with the established language of criticism (usually cinematic).
Now, on the opposite side of the spectrum from the Last of Us is Conway's game of Life. Conway's game of Life is a zero player game with no real art assets to speak of and no giant story. It means that, if viewing it as an artistic piece, all of the message is in the rules and mechanics of the game. The rules to Conway's Game of life are as follows:
Any live cell with fewer than two live neighbours dies, as if caused by under-population.
Any live cell with two or three live neighbours lives on to the next generation.
Any live cell with more than three live neighbours dies, as if by overcrowding.
Any dead cell with exactly three live neighbours becomes a live cell, as if by reproduction.
Any narrative or story must be a result of these rules. The player sets up the board, populated with as many live or dead cells as desired, and then the game plays itself. The assumptions codified in the ruleset gives us a kind of message, and while this is supposed to be an abstraction of cellular evolution we can derive many messages from it. The game itself says that the rules of life are simple, but through the simple rules amazingly complex machinations and interactions can occur. As a game designer I can look at this game and see that a well written, simple mechanic can produce amazingly nuanced gameplay. As a historian I can see that the game is a product of the times, with the prevalence of computer systems reaching a point to make the testing and implementation of such a model feasible. The game has such a wide spread impact that it has recently been implemented on drum machines because the computational pattern is simple and fits well to grid-based sequencing with interesting results.
I think it would be interesting to see how mainstream game journalism would review conway's game of life. To me there is obvious merit. We can communicate the ideas behind it, we can discuss the history around it, it has an amount of historical impact that can not be overlooked. It is elegant in its simplicity and stunning in its complexity. These are things we can say about great art...
But do we want art?
For me, it's a resounding yes, but as I look at the mainstream sensibilities I am not sure. The god of the mainstream game is fun. It's this subjective metric that changes for everyone, but it rarely includes the desire to go to an art museum. It is obvious to me that games _can_ be an expressive art form, but look at how the gaming community reacts to games being evaluated _as_ an expressive art form. Even mention a feminist critique on a gaming forum and you'll likely get flamed within the hour. Games have the capability to be powerful vehicles of thought and expression. games have the capability to provide meaningful insight into society. Games have the capability to be interpreted as products of history and culture, but is that something that the gaming community is ready to embrace?
Let us consider the most popular novels in the world. Last time I checked, the most popular kinds of novels are harlequin romance novels. They are usually cheep, contrite pieces of throw away writing that use lazy plots in order to indulge in a fantasy. They are insanely popular. I don't know of many people that would point to any of these books as an example of great fiction, but I don't know of anyone who would argue that novels can not be great art.
Now, this analogy might be slightly disingenuous. The direct parallel to the harlequin romance novel would be cheap cell phone games that are plentiful and widely varied, but they work well as an illustration of my point. Big games, like the Last of Us or Gears of War would be better compared to hits like the Harry Potter series or Twilight. People will always be more divided about how to look at these bits of popular medium but we still do not generally put them on the same level as Catch 22 or Great Expectations.
I don't think anyone who is familiar with gaming will argue that games don't have their Catch 22s. I don't think that anyone who is familiar with gaming will argue that games don't have their harlequin romance novels... and I think the mainstream is becoming familiar with gaming.
As we develop and disseminate more and more language that allows for deep discussions about games, I feel that the culture will change. I think it already is. We are taking the way that games are portrayed more and more seriously. There is more and more lititure that tries to seriously contemplate the impact of games. People are more and more aware of what makes a game enjoyable...
Art isn't always enjoyable, so art isn't always popular. I don't think this is ever going to change in any medium, including gaming. However, as more of a medium is enjoyed by the mainstream it becomes easier for them to accept it as art. I feel we are reaching that point.
