Opinion: Design Diversions - The Games as Art Debate is Dead, Long Live the Games as Art Debate
October 25, 2010 12:00 AM |
[‘Design Diversions’ is a biweekly new GameSetWatch-exclusive column by Andrew Vanden Bossche. It looks at the unexpected moments when games take us behind the scenes, and the details of how game design engages us.]
I opened up a book on arts criticism the other day, "The New York Times Reader: Arts & Culture", and there I saw the end of the games as art debate. The first review in that book: Grand Theft Auto IV, preceded by a paragraph on the significance of video games in recent years.
I think that means we win.
I know this isn’t the ending we envisioned. I too hoped to be among those cheering while Mario and Master Chief led Roger Ebert up to the guillotine. But this might actually be more satisfying.
Video games were recognized so seamlessly as art that the video games press and community were the last to know. We’re still stuck thinking that video games won’t be art until all the nonbelievers recognize it as such. But we don’t need all of them, just The New York Times.
Overcoming Our Fear
Roger Ebert may be one of the best arts journalists alive, but I’ll take the entire NYT over him any day of the week. He is just one man, and the NYT is the highest authority on what is and isn’t culture in the land (just ask them). And as a bonus, unlike Ebert, they actually play the games they talk about. The NYT accepting games as art is good enough for me--it may not be good enough for everyone, but some people will never be convinced.
Now the NYT has given us permission to talk about games as art without always, first, having to argue the case that games are art. This has already been going on for years, of course, but that little twinge of fear--that games aren’t worth talking about--has always been there, even as excellent examples of criticism like Kill Screen have appeared.
In Tom Bissell’s interview with Harper’s about his book "Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter", Harper’s points out the thread of anxiety that runs through video games writing, echoed by a quote from that book: “all of us want the reassurance that we are not spending absurd amounts of time on something without merit.”
Winning this debate is important because it lets us move on. We need this debate to be over so we can talk about how games are already art. Because as long as the games-as-art debate remains alive, when we talk about “games as art” we’re really talking about two different things: whether or not games are recognized as art, and our own personal cases for how and why and in what way games are art.
The former is decided by the New York Times, is fairly arbitrary, and ultimately just makes us feels slightly better about ourselves and what we do. The latter is decided by us, and it shapes how we play and understand games.
Talking Openly
Thanks to the NYT, however, games are now art and this state of affairs is permanent, no matter how many people disagree. There may still be people who think modern visual art is pretentious nonsense. They hate Jackson Pollock and think his art looks like someone gunned down a high school art class. These people are entitled to their opinion, but nothing they say or do or think will get that stuff thrown out of a museum: it's too late.
The debate matters for the very real reason that anyone who writes about games as a legitimate part of culture has until now been typing furtively with their back to the wall, hoping that Jack Thompson doesn’t burst through the door like that other Jack in The Shining.
We grew up hearing video games being accused of literally causing murder, and we are still jumpy. There’s a court case going on right this second that could force games to be regulated like a controlled substance. Although we can’t change whether people like games or approve of games, their inclusion in the New York Times is an active approval of them as art and culture.
We needed this, not because it changes the way we talk about games, but because it lets us no longer worry about how we talk about games. Now that the New York Times has been generous enough to end this debate forever, we can start focusing exclusively on doing the meaty work rather than having to argue that our work is legitimate at all.
A lot of great journalism about games and their role as art has definitely come out of the games-as-art debate, but being stuck on the first premise of the argument has been holding us back.
How many words do we waste with throat clearing before we get to the real meat of what we want to say? How many words do we waste just trying to convince readers that talking about games as art is even possible?
[Andrew Vanden Bossche is a freelance writer and student. He has a blog called Mammon Machine, which discusses things that, like videogames, are totally awesome, and can be reached at [email protected]]
Categories: Column: Design Diversions
5 Comments
Bravo! I'm thankful for the "games as art" debate, because it was necessary and edifying, but as you say, it's time to move on.
I think this will free us up in the future to critique games not only apologetically, but critically as well. Even the best video games could stand to have those areas that don't live up to the promise of the medium pointed out thoughtfully and helpfully.
The sooner we can start honestly pointing out the flaws of some of our best games without feeling as if the entire medium is at stake, the better.
Richard Clark | October 25, 2010 5:38 AM
the best thing that a like is the slogan why waste good technology on science and medicine?
Remi Online | October 25, 2010 5:59 AM
dumb, self centred, journalists
you dont care about games
you dont care about art
all you care about is people reading your word turds
Kriss | October 25, 2010 10:44 AM
Even today, showing a video game to pretty much anyone is a slightly embarrassing experience. Part of this reason is the crazy fanboys who will shun a game because it has an FOV which is the same on a wide-screen monitor and a 4:3 monitor, who will whinge that a game has slightly too few pixels in the vertical direction.
As a result, games today look great, but even among players who care about game-play above all, games are mostly a pandering, samey mess.
When Zombies and Ninjas and explosions are constantly the subject matter of games, this works fine as satire, but when the entire industry is built on this subject matter, one has to ask what it is that's being satirised.
So I'll ask you this: When has a game actually meant something. I mean anything. Look back and you'll see that the truly great games are often forgotten, and a lot of the garbage stays -- Why the hell is GTA4 heralded as a work of art? Populist tripe!
Then there's the question of accessibility. There is such a divide between gamers and non-gamers that a game which appears to be completely obvious to a gamer can be confounding to the point of frustration to a non-gamer. This isn't a "casual" vs "hardcore" thing, just a "so what the hell am I doing".
This is why we need non-gamers to play games. This is why we need Ebert to review a game, because just one of those -- and I'm betting it's going to be a damning one, will be a slap in the face of the industry, and to gamers, which will snap us out of this childish populist tripe which no normal people will play because it's just so damn bad.
Fuck this space sci-fi fantasy historical modern warfare shooter, fuck comedy action adventure linear puzzle solving, and fuck Mario. I want to play games again, like I did when I was a kid. The Wii didn't bring them back, Ebert might.
Sunny Kalsi | October 25, 2010 5:20 PM
Great read (& nice to see NYT doing the right thing)! Games writing has been holding back for too long now, we should definetly get away from "is it art?" and move on to "but what does it mean?" and other such headscratchers.
I wrote an article that shares your sentiment a while ago, read it here if you like (in all it's mangled Google-translated glory.. "au then" is my new favourite Norwenglish expression).
http://translate.google.no/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=no&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=no&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dagbladet.no%2F2010%2F05%2F01%2Fkultur%2Fspill%2Fkunst%2F11522472%2F
(So yes, kriss, all us journalists care about IS other peope reading our "word turds". Their turdy greatness cannot be underestimated, sometimes even surpassing the friendly picture books that you so love.)
Martin Bergesen | November 5, 2010 1:49 AM