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The concept of video games as art is a controversial topic within the entertainment industry. Though video games have been affirmed of legal protection as creative works by the Supreme Court of the United States, the philosophical concept that video games are works of art remains in question, even when considering the contribution of creative elements such as graphics and music. Even art games, games purposefully designed to be a work of creative expression, have been be challenges as works of art by some critics.
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At the 2010 Art History of Games conference in Atlanta, Georgia, professor Celia Pearce described the emergence of art games as a collision between the worlds of art and video games. Professor Pearce noted that since the Fluxus movement of the 1960s and Marcel Duchamp's art productions, procedurality has taken a central position in certain forms of art. By imposing strict rules in the interest of artistic creation (e.g. the production of an entire painting while the artist is cross-eyed), the concept of artwork has expanded to the point where video games can come into collision with it to form art games.[1]
Pearce suggests that developing directly from more modern perspective in game design such as the New Games Movement, art games in their current form were presaged by the work of artists such as Frank Lantz (co-founder of the game studio area/code. Pieces such as Lantz' Pac Manhattan, suggests Pearce, have become something like performance art pieces. Pearce identifies the earliest true art games as originating in the early 1980s with games such as Jaron Lanier's Alien Garden. Art games often are designed with a message such as the addition of female characters to a traditionally male-centric game or are designed to force the audience to re-examine a work with which they are familiar in a different light.[1]
Most recently, a strong overlap has developed between art games and indie games. This meeting of the art game movement and the indie game movement is important according to Professor Pearce, insofar as it brings art games to more eyes and allows for greater potential to explore in indie games.[1]
In May 2011, the United States National Endowment for the Arts, in accepting grants for art projects for 2012, expanded the allowable projects to include "interactive games", furthering the recognization of video games as an art form.[2] Similarly, the United States Supreme Court ruled that video games were protected speech like other forms of art in the 2011 decision for Brown v. Entertainment Merchants Association.
The characterization of games as works of art has been controversial. While critics have never denied that games may contain artistic elements in their traditional forms such as graphic art, music, and story, several notable figures have advanced the position that games are not artworks, and may never be capable of being called art. Further fueling the debate are the difficulties involved in defining the word "art" (as for instance in analyzing static versus interactive art) and the word "game" (for example, regarding the centrality of plot and the classification of nongames). The lines between video games and art become blurred when works fit the labels of both game and interactive art. An upcoming exhibit, "The Art of Video Games", as the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 2012, is designed to demonstrate the artistic nature of video games, including the impact of older works and the subsequence influence of video games on the creative culture.[3]
Games which are not video games (such as basketball) have also been given artistic consideration for the aesthetically pleasing forms that highly skilled players employ. The observation of gameplay without interaction (such as watching someone play a game) may also be compared to art criticism.
Noted film critic Roger Ebert has participated in a series of controversial debates and published colloquies regarding whether or not video games may be fairly considered as art. In 2005, Ebert described video games as a non-artistic medium incomparable to the more established art forms:
To my knowledge, no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers. That a game can aspire to artistic importance as a visual experience, I accept. But for most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic.
In 2006, Ebert took part in a panel discussion at the Conference on World Affairs entitled "An Epic Debate: Are Video Games an Art Form?" in which he stated that video games don't explore the meaning of being human as other art forms do.[5][6] A year later, in response to comments from Clive Barker on the panel discussion, Ebert further noted that video games present a malleability that would otherwise ruin other forms of art. As an example, Ebert posed the idea of a version of Romeo & Juliet that would allow for an optional happy ending. Such an option, according to Ebert, would weaken the artistic expression of the original work.[7] In April 2010, Ebert published an essay, dissecting a presentation made by Kellee Santiago of thatgamecompany at the 2009 Technology Entertainment Design Conference, where he again claimed that games can never be art, due to their rules and goal-based interactivity.[8]
One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome. Santiago might cite a immersive game without points or rules, but I would say then it ceases to be a game and becomes a representation of a story, a novel, a play, dance, a film. Those are things you cannot win; you can only experience them.
Ebert's essay was strongly criticized by the gaming community,[9][10][11] including Santiago herself who believes that video games as artistic media are only at their infancy, similar to prehistoric cave paintings of the past.[12] Ebert later amended his comments, conceding that games may indeed be art in a non-traditional sense, but lacked the patience or desire to try a game to prove to himself otherwise.[13]
At the 2010 Art History of Games conference, Michael Samyn and Auriea Harvey (founding members of indie studio Tale of Tales), argued in no uncertain terms that "games are not art" and that they are by and large "a waste of time." Central to Tale of Tales' distinction between games and art is the purposive nature of games as opposed to art: Whereas humans possess a biological need that is only satisfied by play, argues Samyn, and as play has manifested itself in the form of games, games represent nothing more than a physiological necessity. Art, on the other hand, is not created out of a physical need but rather it represents a search for higher purposes. Thus the fact that a game acts to fulfill the physical needs of the player is sufficient, according to Samyn, to disqualify it as art.[1]
Gamers were surprised by this controversial stance due to the frequency of prior third-party characterizations of Tale of Tales' productions as "art games," however Tale of Tales clarified that the games they were making simply expanded the conception of games. The characterization of their games as "art games," noted Samyn, was merely a byproduct of the imaginative stagnation and lack of progressivism in the video game industry. While Tale of Tales acknowledged that old media featuring one-way communication was not enough, and that two-way communication via computers offers the way forward for art, the studio argued that such communication today is being held hostage by the video game industry.[1] To enable and foment this futuristic two-way art, suggests Tale of Tales, the concept of "the game" must be eviscerated by games that do not fit within the current paradigm and then "life must be breathed into the carcass" through the creation of artworks Samyn and Harvey refer to as "not games."[1]
In 2011, Samyn further refined his argument that games are not art by emphasizing the fact that games are systematic and rule-based. Samyn identified an industry emphasis on gameplay mechanics as directly responsible for the marginalization of artistic narrative in games and he described modern video games as little more than digital sport. Pointing to systemic problems, Samyn criticized the current model whereby the putative artist must work through a large and highly efficient development team who may not share the artist's vision. To create art using the medium of the video game Samyn suggests that the artistic message must precede the means of its expression in the guidance of gameplay mechanics, the development of "funness" or economic considerations must cease to guide the work's creation, and the development process must embrace a model wherein a single artist-author's vision gains central primacy.[14]
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