Games +/- Art: Stage 1-1: The Game of Art
So, in a very clumsy play of devil’s advocacy, I proposed last week that games are not art.
“Games aren’t art! Hah! Poo-poo to you! And your opinion!” -your author, last week.
Well, without getting into the hazy world of art philosophy (not yet anyway), I thought I’d spend this post stacking the deck with reasons to argue for the legitimacy of games as art.
I’ll do my best to be impartial & fair, but remember folks, this is just a blog post. 
*Ahem!*
STAGE 1 ===================================================
-Video games, as they’ve evolved till now, still fundamentally depend on the input of a user (player), and within the structure and rules of the game itself, interact (play) within this virtual space (levels, boards, stages, areas, etc. etc.) Ultimately, said player attempts to complete a specified objective (reach the flag at the end of the run, defeat other players, collect X number of items, etc.)
For example, the player in Tetris, organizes seven arranged shapes to fit seamlessly together as they fall from the top of the stage to the bottom, and [every horizontal line created is automatically cleared, as long as the stage remains clear enough for the player to place more shapes. When there is no more room, the game is over.]
The player in Halo 3 utilizes a selection of weapons and vehicles, with the aid of non-player characters to navigate an area of space, defeating enemies to [reach the next area checkpoint and/or complete the particular mission’s objective.]
You can fundamentally break down almost any game out there into a sequence of player & environment/parameters of play/[objective.]
So… what happens if you remove this dynamic? What happens if one of the links in this chain disappears? What if there’s no “reason”, no [objective] to achieve?
STAGE 2 ===================================================
The player in the Grand Theft Auto series is introduced to the virtual city through opening cutscenes, given a brief instructional tutorial on how to navigate the area, and is free from then on to choose missions, collect items, explore and open up new areas of the map, and interact with characters. The player can approach the game at any time, in any way they see fit, and can ignore even narrative-based objectives with no consequences that would end the game.
There’s no hard defined way for a player to fail the game of Grand Theft Auto. The narrative opens up only when the player chooses to interact with that aspect of the game. “Sandbox gaming” encompasses this idea. A player loses a match in Tetris if they fail to clear lines of blocks. A player loses in Halo if they are defeated by the enemy before they reach their mission result. But that aspect of gaming without borders, leaving the player free to approach it as they wish, is what makes this and similar titles truly notable. Let’s explore that further, and take the player ***out*** of the virtual world…
STAGE 3 ===================================================
In the MTV Music Generator series, the virtual studio space allows the importing (and exporting) of samples into a series of sound channels, assigning a sequence of notes on a scale. [Musical compositions ranging from classical, modern, to experimental ones can be created, saved and even used as non-copywritten stock in a professional production.]
While there is a “virtual studio”, there is no player avatar. There’s no representation of a character or facsimilie of the player, unless one counts the cursor that allows a player to select their options & save their work. There’s technically an objective of creating sound or music, but this is a game devoid of a mascot or symbol that directly interacts with the game enviroment. Furthermore, the enviroment remains fixed, no matter what the player does. There’s no destructable walls, there’s no timed event scripts where a secret passage opens or a non-player character appears. A creator in Music Generator can plug-and-play with samples, and script out music, but there’s no way for that user to alter the interface directly. Mario smashing bricks with his head, obtaining powerups from question blocks and kicking turtle shells into enemies and obstacles *and defeating or destroying said obstacles* is a drastic influence of player + environment – a hallmark of interactivity.
So, let’s complete the trinity, and take the environment ***out*** of the equation — or can we?
STAGE 4 ===================================================
Magic Pengel & Graffiti Kingdom allow you to virtually construct new avatars, and remarkably accurate player characters completely from scratch… that won’t work…
Fable offers [drastically changing sequences of objectives] and influence over other non-player characters, as well as the effect on the player themselves… no…
Now, in the realm of homebrew & doujinshi gaming… Fraxy allows the player to craft an array of enemy machines, assigning weapons and power cells, and even affecting their schemes and frequency of attack. The player is only able to select their own weaponry loadout and is largely attempting to defeat their own creations. Though there is an “environment”, it’s extremely loose in definition — there’s only a backdrop that the player can select from (up to three.) [There’s no obstacles outside of the enemy and projectiles themselves, and as long as the enemy creation remains within range of the player’s ‘radar’, the game ends only when the player or enemy is destroyed.]
The SimCity series gives the player an absolute blank slate or at least a raw “environment” on which they attempt to attract citizens, assign and build city zones and provide resources for this virtual city to grow. External factors such as riots, disasters, bankruptcy and disrepair affect the city, but [the starting wilderness given to the player is up to them to forge into a metropolis], and they have a fair degree of control over excavating new areas or building up natural resources as well.
Interesting, isn’t it? There are games that can eschew the ‘fundamental’ structures of their design; games that don’t depend on or rely on all three aspects of a player, a set of rules or an environment in a rigid definition. But then, all these games still have an arguable structure in place to maintain their interactive nature. But…
STAGE 5 ===================================================
Imagine a game of Mega Man wherein he fights the enemy robots without ever setting foot in ANY stage. They tumble endlessly in a gray void, where only their attacks separate success or failure. Any attempt to navigate just moves them around in aimless directions. No environment, no level structure, not even a stage selection.
Imagine a game of King Of Fighters where there are no fighters. The player has control over the foreground and background elements… but can’t directly interact with another fellow character. Even in a less extreme case, how about a vs. fighting game where you only watch two selected player avatars fight and have no direct control over the match. (Many genres of games actually have a mode dedicated to this, or at least have an option wherein two ‘bots’ could be posed against each other.) A game that has no players (can it play itself then?)
Think of a Sonic the Hedgehog game where there is no enemy, no Dr. Eggman to antagonize or Chaos Emeralds to collect. Sonic has the ability to run and jump seamlessly across ALL his levels at any time, limited only by the player’s choosing (and the speed at which Sonic can tear through a level.) Because the environments themselves are highly dynamic, there’s still an element of interaction, but with no objective, that clearly would change how the game is approached — or regarded.
Metroid and Castlevania are built more around the exploratory aspect of gaming, but they still function with a clear objective. Even a series of subquests in those games drive the player to an endpoint. A game without an objective at all, becomes observation and experimentation instead of narration.
A piece of art however, only needs a viewer to interpret the sensory signals (sight, sound, touch, smell, taste) given. Art easily has a participant (player), and be it a canvas or sound stage, has a place or time in which it’s displayed (environment.) But does the Mona Lisa have an end-of-stage marker? Does Duchamp’s installation of a toilet seat support multiplayer or online play? A player could set up an HDMI TV and a PS3 in a Franklin Lloyd Wright house, but the consequences of destruction and death in the latest Warhawk only go as far as the screen and not in the real world…
STAGE 6 ===================================================
Interaction in the arts is a realm of postmodernism, where the creators challenge the nature of a gallery space (allowing visitors to actually “invade” the secure distance between works, forcing the viewer to be a physical part of the piece, etc. etc.) But there’s a de-emphasis of any sort of narrative goal. Instructions and or definitions of the “rules” in an interactive gallery space are left to the viewer to stumble through and determine on their own terms. Games do offer options to customize and craft their own control schemes, levels of difficulty, and more… but a game that eschews a cohesive virtual world for a nebulous, subjective one? Is there such a thing? Ever played a “game” that was entirely up to the “player” to interpret, their actions impacted the nature of the “game” itself — defining the parameters in real time? Or maybe seen a “game” that eschews all manner of player/environment/rules — a game that refuses to be played, conquered or interacted with? (A doujinshi flash game, “The Life Ending Adventure” is pretty close…)
Sit back & think about this for now. The Art of Games is next week.
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