Are Games Art?

Games as art. It’s been a big, and contentious, topic for a while now. On the one hand you have the recent influx of indie designers, you have the games that are being praised for their message, or their method, being artistic. On the other hand, you have people like Jonathan Blow, praised for his artistic games like Braid, and the upcoming The Witness, saying that games are mostly dumb and juvenile (link) and famed film critic Roger Ebert claiming games are not, nor ever will be, art.

So who is right? Are games a burgeoning art form, coming into their own as an artistic medium, capable of deep and meaningful expressions alongside the mainstream point and shoot games, much like movies such as The Artist and Battleship can exist side by side? Or are games doomed to be mere entertainment, with no chance of being anything that can be considered art?

If you ask me, or even if you don’t, I feel that games are capable of being art. But I feel that a lot of the critics who say otherwise are somewhat missing the point. A game is a much longer experience than a movie. It’s often longer than a book also. And they are primarily entertainment. So a game does not need to be simply artistic expression from start to finish. There needs to be room for entertainment, as well as for artistic expression. I also think that the constant comparisons to movies do nothing to help the matter. Games are not movies, they are games. They’re inherently interactive. I feel that the best examples of artistic expression in games are ones which use the mechanics or limitations of a game to their advantage. When the very act of playing the game is forcing you to experience it in a way that is unique to games. We shouldn’t be looking for the Citizen Kane of games, because Citizen Kane would make a horrible game. We should be looking for gaming’s own examples of art.

I respect Roger Ebert as a film critic, but when it comes to games, it’s very clear that it is not his wheelhouse, and that it is probably too late to teach that old dog new tricks. That’s fine, he’s entitled to his tastes, and to his opinions. I bear him no malice at all for his borderline insulting words to one of my hobbies and passions, because I realise he is approaching it from a completely different outlook to me. Jonathan Blow I have a little less understanding for. Braid was great, and I think it was a great example of the mechanics of a game expressing something in a unique way. But from the interviews I’ve read with him, and profiles I’ve read of him, he comes across as being arrogant, pretentious, and dismissive.

So I said that the art in games should come from the mechanics themselves. What do I mean by this? I mean that although in a book, narrative is the main form of interaction, and the way in which the artistic message is conveyed, and in film it is through the script, the visuals, the filming techniques, in games though, the primary form of interaction is just that; interaction. Games are all about player agency. So what games can I point to for examples of what I mean? There are several, though I warn you that spoilers for various games may lie ahead, though I’ll try to be circumspect.

I mentioned Braid already, and it is a good example, the game’s time bending mechanics are used to great effect in the finale of the story, giving a genuinely enjoyable moment of revelation to the player. There are deeper messages and allegories in the game too, but to me, the real triumph of art was that one section where the mechanics of play were used to deliver that memorable scene.

Another good example is Bioshock. It does indeed deliver on the levels of aesthetics and narrative. Of note is the way that much of the background to the story is delivered through exploration, rather than cutscenes. There are certainly scenes in there that lend themselves to a more conventional definition of art. I found certain scenes particularly striking, like the large fight to the strains of Walt of the Flowers, taking place in a dark room while a spotlight centres on you. It creates a memorable scene, and one which I would argue is artistic in its execution. But the scene I would really point at is the one in which you finally confront Andrew Ryan. Control is taken from the player at a pivotal point, and you’re forced to watch as it happens. It makes the plot twist, and the scene far more powerful than it would have been otherwise, and far more powerful than it would have been in a movie or a book, because it’s happening to the player, using the interface the player has come to take for granted, which is exactly what is happening to the character. And isn’t that what art is? Art is hard to define, but delivering a message or an experience through clever use of the tools, resources and materials available is as good a definition as any other I’ve heard.

Both my examples so far are from games which have been praised for their artistic value already in some way, so for my third I’ll go a bit farther afield. Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core. This isn’t a game that would generally come up as a discussion of games as art. But its final battle is one of the best examples I can think of. Spoilers ahead! The game is a prequel to Final Fantasy VII, and anybody who has played that knows that Zack is going to die at the end of this game. The fatal battle comes up, but it’s executed amazingly. Through the game, the battle system has had the DMW, or Digital Mind Wave, system. This resembles a slot machine, with other characters faces on it. These represent memories of those characters, and are used for special attacks and so on. In the final battle, you’re facing a stream of enemy soldiers, an endless one. As you fight, and are injured, the DMW becomes shaky, as if it’s malfunctioning. As your consciousness fades, the faces of your friends and allies fade from the DMW, until you’re left seeing only the face of Aerith, your love interest in the game, Zack’s final memory as he dies (particularly sad, since in FFVII, you find that Aerith never learns of his death, and has been left always wondering what happened to him). This creates a really poignant scene, the DMW has only been a mechanic through the game, the tie to memories and so forth seems nothing more than window dressing...until this scene.

There are other examples I could use, but hopefully I’ve explained what it is that makes a game art. The melding of the playing and the experience, using the unique qualities of games to enhance and complement the experience, rather than simply as a means to an end. To me, examples like this are why I feel I can say yes, games are capable of being art, and artistic moments can already be seen throughout gaming.