? Video Games = Art ?

So this question has already been addressed by numerous people smarter than I, but I still feel most discussions have entirely missed the point.

The question: Can videogames be art?

My answer: obviously, yes.

 

The rest of this post is moot based on the following opinion I'd like to posit: Art is always defined by each individual viewer.  Therefore what is art to some, is just a toilet with R. Mutt written on it to others.  This fact alone disproves the idea of an entiry category of media being negated from the possibility of being art.

 

But since I like to argue, let us forge onward.

 

Arguments on why videogames cannot, or will not, be considered art vary greatly. I've heard that videogames cannot be art because they are videogames, or because they are games that serve a purpose-to be played, or because they're just not very intelligent/beautiful/artful, amongst others.

 

First off, since when has the platform of a piece of media ever been a dependable sign of what "art" can or cannot be?  In very few scenarios is this question even considered.  As an analogy, imagine an intricately designed fork with many fascinating and beautiful engravings.  Now imagine someone telling you something along the lines of "eating utensils cannot be art!" Why not? The idea of something not being considered art because of the way the message is delivered (sight, sound, touch, etc) is one of the main things that art is always breaking down.  One of the fundamental concepts of art is breaking down barriers and preconceived notions, yet people want to judge the artful-ness an entire platform based on social barriers and preconceived notions?

 

A famous movie critic recently (in the past couple years) big stink about videogames not being art because they are a GAME with RULES and GOALS and therefore cannot be art. To me, this is like saying a beautifully designed chess-board cannot be art because chess is a GAME with RULES and GOALS.  Obviously, there is a disconnect in his argument and my argument.  Videogames exist without being played.  There is visual art, and there is music, and there is story.  Unlike chess, this art form is hard to access unless in the process of playing the videogame, but these all exist in source code, and in the bitmaps, and in the music files.  The videogame itself is to playing a videogame as a chess board is to playing chess.  The fact that playing a videogame may not be considered art has no bearing on whether or not the videogame itself can be considered art in the same way that whether playing chess may not be considered art has no bearing on whether or not the chess board itself can be considered art.  Extending the argument further, anyone who believes that a chess match can be art should also believe that a chess match played over a video-game chess board can be art, and therefore should also believe that playing a video-game could potentially be considered art.

 

The radio this morning was talking about the release of Duke Nukem 3D. The reviewer went on and on about how bad the game was, story, setting, concept, humor, etc.  This is all fine, I fully expect a title such as Duke Nukem 3D to be a bad videogame, so I had no disagreement with what he was saying there.  And then he went too far and said something along the lines of: "People like to argue that videogames can be art, and then when a game like this comes along those same people say 'What do you expect, it's just Duke Nukem?' Well you can't have it both ways, one minute they can't be art and the next be Duke Nukem." Hopefully this is an obvious illogical statement to everyone else out there.  Does the fact that there are writers making smutty romance novels ever take away from the art of Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo?  Since when does the fact that the video pornography industry is making movies have any sort of bearing on whether or not Citizen Kane is art?  Every single form of art ever invented has it both ways.  Why do videogames need to live up to a higher standard as a whole media platform, whereas nothing else needs to have this across-the-board standard?

 

-jimmy the pirate