Games And Art: The OTHER Debate
So I've blogged a bit about my feelings towards narrative and story in games, and I figured given recent happenings in the game design blogosphere, perhaps I should jot down some thoughts on the other argument, the old Games vs Art debate. To anyone who has been following my blogs to date, it shouldn't be a surprise that I think the whole debate is pointless.
Games are an art form in the same way graffiti is an art form - if people use it to express themselves creatively, it is an art form whether it is "recognised" as such by the populace or not. Its a simple case of dictionary definition, there's really no debate to be had. Whether games carry emotional weight or not doesn't matter; I saw the Mona Lisa and it didn't move me in any way, but the fact that so many of my friends harvested Adam from the little sisters in Bioshock sickened me a little bit. The emotional weight of any piece of art is in the eye(s) of the beholder; what we are arguing about is not whether or not games are an art form, but the accessibility of games as an art form, and this seems to me like jumping the gun, since we still have enough trouble with the accessibility of games as entertainment.
The problem then is with those who want to make games more accessible as an art form, and to force this to happen seems like a backwards argument. Its like forcing two people to love each other because it would make them happier; If they were happy, they would fall in love by themselves. As we explore ways to express ourselves in an interactive medium, we will find ways to express ourselves in a fashion more accessible to the public.
It seems nowadays that almost every debate to do with games design breaks down to the issue of independent gaming, and the rapid and intense monetarisation of our industry that limits the amount of experimentation that can happen - a topic worthy of its own blog post at a later date. For now, we need to not only continue opening channels for smaller, independent developers, but consider supporting them in other ways - we need to encourage more developers to be active in academia and non-profit works. As an industry, we can all benefit from new concepts and theories that will only be found through experimentation and independent development.
posted by Alan Jack at
6:06 AM
1 Comments:
I agree with the last paragraph in this post entirely. I've enjoyed watching each of the new systems open their doors to indie developers. The problem, I think, that happens with indie groups is that the development kits that these guys are trapped with ends up as console specific.
I only wish that the indie groups could be given universal access to each console; meaning, that the indie games existed across platform. I know it's a pipe dream but what can you do but dream.
As far as games as an artform. The issue with art as that you have to learn to appreciate it as art. Looking at the Mona Lisa might not mean anything to you. But learn how to appreciate art and it might mean something entirely new to you. We have to learn what art means to actually appreciate it.
If people want gaming to be an art, we need to have a method of explaining why a game is art. And in order to do that, we have to actually have game developers besides people like Pixel or the guy that did Braid who have much more to their name than a game or two.
We're also trapped by the lonely stereotype of gamer. You have the tragic artists in art but there is a romantic notion around them. Lonely gamers are as negative as you can get.
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