Can't spell "cartridge" without "art"

Can't spell "cartridge" without "art"
By Paolo Cosejo

Author's note:
This piece was originally written in 2009. It has been deemed insufficient/insignificant by the author and for that reason, it has not been published until now.

Although being around for decades, brought to prominence with Pong in 1972, videogames are still a young a medium. Videogames have always been seen primarily as a form of entertainment. With the steps forwards videogames have taken as a medium in the past decade or so with narrative and production values, the legitimacy of the medium as an art form has come into consideration. Do videogames extend into the realm of art or are they limited to simply being entertainment in the eyes of the greater social consciousness? The conversation of videogames being art started a few years ago and is still going on today. It is a quiet discussion, one that most people are not even aware of.

Art is subjective. One man’s can of soup is another’s masterpiece. In the same respect, one man’s arrangement of interactive pixels can be another’s work of art. Trying to construct a definite meaning to art is problematic. It is impossible to find a definitions of art that applies to each and every person. Art has different meaning to different people. At its most basic, art can be defined as human expression through a medium be it paper, a lens, or an amplifier, the artists body through dance, etcetera. Defining art is complicated enough, but whether videogames as a medium can constitute as art is still discussed almost exclusively in niche circles.
Complications in defining art has led art historians to use the term “visual culture.” “A lot of the time [videogames] are lumped in with other things like advertisements and television in the realm of ‘visual culture,’” says Lindsay Hutchins, an art history major at UIC and an avid videogame player. “That way, no on has to make the ‘art argument.’” Just like the definition of art, “visual culture” is just another socially arbitrary constructed term which is open to as much discussion and complications that first spawned the term, which only further muddles the conversation on videogames as art.

Alex Giersch chimed into the conversation of videogames as art with “Harnessing the Medium” for the UIC Inferno in October. To Giersch, videogames as they are now are artistically inferior to other mediums. Giersch believes videogames have the potential to be art but has yet to achieve that status. Although he recognizes the unique aspects of videogames, Giersch argues that the understanding of what validates other mediums is necessary to validate the artistic integrity of videogames. Giersch argues it is the single thematic purpose of the other mediums that makes them more valid as art than the hodge-podge medium of videogames. According to Giersch, videogames can never be held to the standards of Shakespeare or Beethoven. In his piece, Giersch makes the implication that art and entertainment are two separate entities.
There’s been a misunderstanding in the debate on whether or not videogames can be constituted as art. By making a definite distinction between art and entertainment, it is implied that the two are mutually exclusive. By making that argument, people like Giersch are saying something as artistic as Shakespeare’s sonnets or Beethoven’s symphonies, examples Giersch uses, cannot be entertaining just as something as entertaining as the plays of Oscar Wilde or the music of the Beatles cannot be artistic.

In 2006, Chicago Sun-Times movie critic claimed that videogames could not be art. The following year Ebert said that games could be art but added, “Games could not be high art, as I understand it.” Ebert argues that the uniqueness of videogames, the interactivity, keeps the medium from being truly artistic. What constitutes art is the control over production by the artist. The player choice and ability to alter aspects in a game separates games from art because “art is created by an artist.”

Hutchins says Ebert has a “weak argument.” Ebert’s argument uses only a small example of games to represent the whole. “Most of the literature out there is on Second Life and The Sims series,” says Hutchins. “Art historians seem to be slow on the technological uptake. They talk about cybersex and the availability of pornography online like they’re new concepts.” Most games are in fact linear narratives, with players moving through what the creators want them to with most choices only being the illusion of choice. Videogames are scenarios based on set algorithms and scripted events. The videogame developers still maintain the level of manipulation, both in design and in manipulating the player through that design, that other artists have.

“Art is such a broad thing these days,” says Hutchins. Contrary to Roger Ebert’s stance, it can be argued that interactivity is what makes art. Hutchins defined art as something that “shapes us or we shape.” Even with looking at a painting, the viewer interacts with it by processing what they’re looking at. Connecting a painting with past events, critical analysis, even by forming a simple opinion, the viewer is interacting with the art piece. Interactive installments, art pieces that encourage literal audience interaction and involvement, are seen all the time now in contemporary art museums throughout the world. “[Interaction] is not an impediment to artistry, it’s the essential core of it,” says Michael Thomsen of entertainment website ign.com
To Thomsen, the debate on of videogames as art is over. “Games are art,” says Thomsen. Differing from Giersch who sees the games/art situation as games needing to further develop, Thomsen sees the situation differently. “The answer is not when games become better, but when those who write about them and their experiences with them get better,” says Thomsen. “So far, we‘ve done worse than have game designers in validating the emerging art form. We‘re failing our colleagues by giving their work short-shrift.” A major problem in the videogames-as-art conversation is the lack of conversation about artistic quality of games in game culture.
Last month, Thomsen wrote a piece that garnered attention from ABC news. His piece, “Citizen Prime: Is Metroid Prime Our Citizen Kane?” compares Nintendo’s Metroid Prime (2002) to Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane (1941). “The game industry is not waiting for its formative masterpieces to materialize from the hazy future,” writes Thomsen, “They're here, right now, walking among us,” quite contrary to what Giersch wrote.

In Giersch’s piece, he mentions Heavy Rain in the hopeful future of videogames as art. Heavy Rain comes from French videogame designer David Cage. Heavy Rain is the spiritual successor to Cage’s previous game Indigo Prophecy (2005). Cage’s previous game was hardly anything more than an interactive movie with a diverging storylines that suffered from narrative as well as design flaws. The interaction for the most part consists of “quick-time events,” which are button prompts that appear on the screen that must be followed in order to progress. Heavy Rain looks to adhere to that formula but looks to add more flexibility, which Indigo Prophecy promised but lacked, and has arguably the most realistic graphics on a videogame console.
“Modern videogames are only a step away from cinema in terms of production values and presentation,” says Hutchins. Cage certainly goes for a cinematic approach in his games. Cage’s interest in creating a cinematic experience in gaming goes so far as the tutorial for Fahrenheit taking place in a studio. By making the association to Cage’s games, Giersch further implies that videogames need to adhere to the standards of other mediums in order to be art.

Another major misconception in the art/videogame debate, one that critics such as Ebert and Giersch make, is to assess videogames through the standards of other mediums. Videogames do utilize elements from other mediums, cinema in particular. One is open to criticize a games cinematography and use of sound in the same way that one criticizes film since they are used in the same way in both mediums. But one wouldn’t judge sentence structure in Beethoven or the use of recitative in Shakespeare. Videogames are a medium all its own and has elements all its own with which to be judged. Videogames should be judged on their own merits, not solely on the merits of other mediums.

Player interaction is an inherent element to videogames from Pong to Heavy Rain. Saying interactivity keeps an actively interactive medium like videogames from being artistic would be like saying cinematography keeps film from being artistic. “Interaction is what mechanically defines games as art and is the essential expressive core that designers have to express themselves,” says Thomsen. It is an aim of videogame developers to further interactivity, especially in this current generation of videogame consoles with the introduction of motion based control schemes such as the Nintendo Wii and DS.

Whenever the case of games as art is brought up, Japanese developer Fumito Ueda is usually mentioned. Ueda’s publisher Sony Computer Entertainment gives Ueda free reign to work on his games, which usually take four years to make, double the development time of the average modern videogame. Ueda is allowed to exert complete creative control over his projects, similar to auteurs in the film industry. Ueda is the games’ director as well as the conceptual artist and a primary programmer.

Ueda’s games Ico (2001) and Shadow of the Colossus (2005) are the most used examples of videogames as art. Internationally acclaimed director Guillermo del Toro considers Ueda’s games to be “masterpieces.” Ueda’s games convey a feeling of isolation. Ueda creates large, empty locales with designs that reflect the influence of pre-Surrealist Giorgio de Chirico. A feeling of isolation is conveyed by having these expansive environments occupied by a single character. Ueda furthers the feeling of isolation by having the audience explore those locales through their own control, something only the medium of videogames can do. Ueda also uses the connection between the characters as a means of developing a connection between the player and the game. His games tend to evoke an emotional response in the player through the player’s actions as well as the music and sounds, cinematography, and overall visual design. Ueda willingly sacrifices gameplay over visual fidelity to maintain the presentation in his game.
At the Evolving Game Design panel, of which Ueda was a panelist, during the 2009 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, Ueda claimed that his games are not art. "We're making a game to entertain people… It might look like art, but it is a game to entertain people. That kind of feedback is welcome but it's not what I'm trying to achieve," said Ueda.

"Early films were meant to entertain and became art along the way,” remarked Emil Pagliarulo, another panelist and lead designer for Fallout 3. “I think the whole Roger Ebert 'are games art' thing gets taken a little too far. We don't have to push the issue… I think game developers should concentrate on making good games. The art thing will happen naturally."

To the people playing those videogames, the “art thing” has already happened and has been happening for quite some time. The internationally renown reviewer or filmmaker or game developer or journalist may come to their own individual conclusions on the artistic value of videogames, but is not their prerogative to ultimately decide such a matter for all of society. The individuals experiencing the game are the judge and jury.

Cinema and videogames’ similarities extend beyond form. The games that garner the largest audiences are the big, multimillion dollar spectacles like the blockbuster summer releases in the movie industry. When the average audience member refuses to or is unable to look beyond the pure entertainment value of the medium, it makes legitimizing the medium as art to the mainstream more difficult. When most gamers are silent in the issue of videogames being art, the conversation still exists and their silence speaks volumes.