{"id":1090,"date":"2007-04-17T11:00:29","date_gmt":"2007-04-17T16:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=1090"},"modified":"2008-09-17T09:21:54","modified_gmt":"2008-09-17T14:21:54","slug":"games-are-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/?p=1090","title":{"rendered":"Games Are Art"},"content":{"rendered":"

Roger Ebert <\/a> made the assertion that videogames aren’t art. Demosthenes<\/a> offers a rebuttal, which is so comprehensive that there is little for me to add. Jaquandor<\/a> takes on the role of a cunning provocateur by soliciting my opinion<\/a> on the matter. <\/p>\n

But for people making the games-cannot-be-art assertion, I would issue the following assignment: Give me your definition of art.<\/em> This is a difficult task, to come up with a description which would include all of the established and accepted forms of creative expression and yet somehow exclude<\/em> videogames. It will require some degree of verbal contortions or qualifiers which have no other purpose than to define around<\/em> games. <\/p>\n

It is<\/em> strange to see Ebert (who I enjoy reading<\/a>) dismiss games like this, although it doesn’t get me too riled up. For a while there were people who assured the rest of us deluded fools that Rock and Roll wasn’t music. Without exception this claim came from people who hated Rock music. The games-aren’t-art position is the same thing in another form. It’s coming from people who don’t play games and don’t care to. That’s fine. His position will go the way of the Rock-and-Roll haters in another generation. The only time I get heated up about this issue is when I see it in this context<\/a>:<\/p>\n

“[There is] no conveyance of ideas, expression, or anything else that could possibly amount to speech. The court finds that video games have more in common with board games and sports than they do with motion pictures.”<\/p>\n

— U.S. District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh Sr. (2002)<\/strong><\/div>\n

And here Limbaugh demonstrates his own art, which is the weaving of ignorance and apathy into the very fabric of our laws. I don’t care for the performance myself, but I have to hand it to him: The guy is good<\/em>.
\n
\nWhat can we say to the Eberts and Limbaughs of the world? Is sculpture art? Is architecture? Is storytelling? Is acting? I’ve never heard anyone suggest that any of these lacks art, and yet all of these arts are employed in the making of videogames.<\/p>\n

Case in point – Jade Empire<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The characters of Jade Empire were crafted by 3d artists, without using art.<\/td><\/tr>
The characters of Jade Empire were crafted by 3d artists, without using art.<\/td><\/tr><\/table>Those 3d people in the gameworld were made by a human. Someone shaped them, formed them, designed their faces, their bodies, their costumes. The artist didn’t work with pewter, or clay, or iron, or silly putty. In this case their chosen medium was polygons, but I fail to see how that would deny them their artistry.<\/p>\n

Who would deny that storytelling is art? Guess what? Games tell stories. Go into the software store and count the number of games which tell no story at all. You won’t need both hands.<\/p>\n

The floating Imperial Palace of Jade Empire was envisioned and realized without the use of art.<\/td><\/tr>
The floating Imperial Palace of Jade Empire was envisioned and realized without the use of art.<\/td><\/tr><\/table>The buildings in the gameworld were also designed by a human. They chose a style, thought about how the places would be constructed, how they might be used, and what they would be built from. Architects do this all the time, using a computer. In fact, if you were to peek over the shoulder of an architect and a game “level designer”, their work would look more or less identical. It’s the same job, it’s just that in the case of games nobody takes the final step of putting together the lumber and concrete.<\/p>\n

Patrick Stewart<\/a> did voice acting in Chicken Little, bringing an animated character to life through his vocal performance. He did the same thing in Oblivion. Is one of those performances art and the other not? Is one acting and the other not?<\/p>\n

The characters dance, emote, and perform graceful martial arts without the use of art.<\/td><\/tr>
The characters dance, emote, and perform graceful martial arts without the use of art.<\/td><\/tr><\/table>Andy Serkis<\/a> brought Gollum to life in Lord of the Rings by performing the motions for the character. That’s performance art. Lots of motion capture actors do the exact same thing, using the same process, only the resulting character appears in a computer game instead of a movie.<\/p>\n

You can buy the Jade Empire Soundtrack<\/a> if you like. Is music deprived of its art when it is played within the context of a videogame?<\/p>\n

Is there some way in which games could not<\/em> be art? Is there some process where we might take all of these varied forms of expression and deprive them of their art without destroying the works themselves? Does the act of combining the work of all of these sculptors, architects, musicians, storytellers, and actors somehow result in a final work which can contain no art?<\/p>\n

Games contain art. Games are made from<\/em> art. Games must therefore be<\/em> art. You may dismiss them, dislike them, mock them, or denounce them, but to deny their art is to proclaim willful ignorance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roger Ebert made the assertion that videogames aren’t art. Demosthenes offers a rebuttal, which is so comprehensive that there is little for me to add. Jaquandor takes on the role of a cunning provocateur by soliciting my opinion on the matter. But for people making the games-cannot-be-art assertion, I would issue the following assignment: Give […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[120],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1090","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-videogames"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1090\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}