“My faith in the gaming industry has officially been destroyed. Fuck the industry, and fuck the indie knockoffs that think they’re producing art. Video games aren’t even close to being ‘art’ until someone can prove to me that they can outdo movies, images and novels.”
That was a comment sourced from an artists journal on [SITE REDACTED]. It was in response to dissatisfaction with Bioshock’s ending, a disappointment I share. But the writer goes on to condemn games as an entire MEDIUM over this slight, and that… well…
I would first like to note that if the ending of Bioshock destroyed your faith in the gaming industry, you pretty clearly didn’t have any to begin with. But moving on… this vexes me, because it’s the kind of attitude that gaming fans have had to deal with for awhile. “It isn’t art because it’s not like a movie or a book!” Well… of COURSE it’s not like a movie or a book, you fucking idiot. It’s a GAME. And the notion that any medium has to “outdo” any other medium to attain legitimacy is, flatly, bullshit. Also, I love that the person in question cited “1980′s movies” as something better to do than games. Yeah, because Sixteen Candles has sooooo much narrative depth, as compared to brainless schlock like System Shock 2.
Do you know when games are at their most artistic? When they’re just being games. The whole stumbling point of the industry is neglecting the gameplay in favor of “art,” to the detriment of both. Take Killer7, for example. At least in my humble opinion, it falls flat as a game, and even flatter as art, coming across as a nonsensical, ludicrous mishmash of badly shoehorned-in design elements. Why? Because it tries to be something it isn’t, and as a result it’s not good at either.
Compare something like… Eternal Darkness. It used the elements of the game world to fuck with the player: the environment going wonky, statues turning to face you, even faked system errors. It told it’s story by using the gameplay to create an oppressive sense of wrongness about the whole experience, it made you question every single thing you bumped into. Does that not qualify as “art”?
Or going beyond that, take the simple, flawless joy of a game like Super Mario World. The satisfaction of it comes in just being in the moment, in negotiating the platforms through learned skill, in play. It doesn’t attempt to drag in a hundred disparate elements to cater to some silly notion of legitimacy, it simply IS. And it’s damn near perfect.
Saying a game has to outdo books and movies is ludicrous, because if they’re trying to be those things they’ve failed from the start. If you go to a Chinese restaurant and spaz out when you find they don’t serve pizza, your disappointment isn’t the fault of the restaurant. And you should probably reevaluate why you went out to dinner in the first place.
Games don’t need to outdo books or movies. Games are games, and there is art and beauty just in that.
I understand where you’re coming from with some games seemingly trying too hard at creating visual or interactive nuances in the pursuit of ‘art’, but I still thinks those titles shouldn’t be discarded for that fact.
Take ICO for instance. Absolutely beautiful game, simple yet fascinating plot, wonderful areas to explore, but can you really honestly say the gameplay is particularly good? No, the combat is awful, the camera angles make some of the jumping puzzles an absolute shore, yet the game is still a fantastic piece of visual and sensory art.
On the subject of Killer7, the game itself is bad (read: AWFUL), but I absolutely love the visual style and themes portrayed in the game. I couldn’t bring myself to play much of it, but everything surrounding the core gameplay I simply adored.
Until more companies find the sweet spot of artistic stylings and gameplay, like Team ICO seem to have found with Shadow of the Colossus and (hopefully) The Last Guardian, we just have to take the good with the bad, especially when the most fun games in terms of gameplay may not be masterpieces in any other sense (despite how good it was, could you really class Prototype as ‘art’? Didn’t think so). Companies are getting it down more these days, and at the risk of sounding repetitive, just take a look at Borderlands and the visual change made during its development. Despite the game’s focus on ‘badass’ gameplay, the visual style andd art direction give the game a character all it’s own, and because of this the game is definitely going to stand the test of time visually. Jet Set Radio shares much the same benefits, even today the game looks absolutely fantastic.
Yeah, I agree with you for the most part. I’m firmly with you on the “sweet spot” thing, since I loved ICO despite hating the gameplay, because it was trying something NEW. Okami is another one I should bring up. It’s a Zelda-alike, sure, but it’s one that’s BETTER than most Zelda games and certainly one of the prettiest games I’ve ever played.
What I mostly worry about is games where, rather than STARTING with an artistic vision and building a game around it, like ICO and Okami, they start with the two separate and try to just jam them together(see: Killer7). When the two flow naturally from one another, it’s golden, but in Killer7 and games like it you can REALLY see the seams where everything is sewn together, and that’s never good.
And Jet Set Radio Future for the XBox is one of my favorite games of all time, visually and gameplay-wise. Anything that series has spawned is basically raw awesome.
I got Jet Set Radio with my Dreamcast way back in the day. I still get the songs stuck in my head form time to time (though none of the horrible Rob Zombie they added into the US version. I’m English, we’re above trying to change things to ‘appeal’ to the masses) (kidding)
UNDERSTAND, UNDERSTAND
UNDERSTAND, UNDERSTAND
UNDERSTAND, UNDERSTAND THE CONCEPT OF LOVE
*jams out*
Some simple flash games of late lend credit to the less-is-more argument. Try out Small Worlds some time for example.