All or One: Judging Artistic Status by Work or Form

Since this has and will continue to come up a lot, I am going to make a distinction between two different ways of judging a work's status as art.  So this week isn't too full of specifically game-centric theory, but it's important nonetheless; bear with me.

When deciding whether something is a work of art, there are usually two approaches.  One is to examine the work itself, its composition and its history, and decide whether it is worthy of the status of "art."  The other is to examine a broader category under which the work fits (usually referred to as a "medium") and decide whether it has artistic merit; if the medium is artistic in nature, any example of said medium is a work of art.  Both approaches both have their pros and cons, but often times one tends to be applied where the other is necessary.  Problems ensue.

By-the-work judgement is based on the artistic value of a specific given work.  It is through this type of artistic judgement that one could say, "Okami is art, but Call of Duty is not."  This reasoning is based on the fact that Okami has beautiful visual design, a compelling story steeped in Japanese mythology, an exceptional musical score, and well-designed gameplay largely inspired by (but not entirely lifted from) the tried-and-true Legend of Zelda formula.  Call of Duty, while visually impressive, seems to be designed specifically with multiplayer in mind, making it a competitive game if anything (for the record, I think Call of Duty 4 has one of the best FPS campaigns of the last decade, so this is not actually the position I hold).  One could also argue, especially as the series has progressed, that even the story-based campaign is more about war simulation than telling a war story.  Beyond that, one could argue the problem of intent; perhaps the makers of Call of Duty were not making it as an art, or were designing it for the sole purpose of a paycheck without thought to the meaning of their work, whereas Okami proudly displays exceptional artistic sensibility and intent.  Thus, judging by the work, Okami could be considered art whereas Call of Duty might not.

By-the-form judgement is based on the artistic value of a general category of works.  The idea is that a given medium inherently involves artistic and creative acts; take painting, for instance.  Painting is so generally considered art that most of us focused almost solely on painting and drawing in elementary school art classes; things like literature or photography were barely mentioned, or only studied in the context of their bigger categories (literature in English classes, etc.).  This is because painting requires creative and skillful creation or recreation of imagery.  It is considered an art form, because whether one is designing a monster for a fantasy film or capturing a moment of busy urban life, they are using creativity and skill to do so.  Even those pictures we drew as small children are examples of art; they may not be very good (rainbows and stick figures can only carry an artist's career so far), but they are art, because they belong to a form of creation that fits artistic criteria (creative, skillful, and purposeful). Of course any work that belongs to the form must also fall under that criteria; a spilt bucket of paint, for instance, is entirely accidental, lacking in creativity, skill, and intent.  The simple involvement of paint does not make it a work of art, because it must fulfill the same artistic criteria as the form itself.

Fountain, Marcel Duchamp, 1917

And yes, it's an old urinal.

In both of these methods, there is debate as to the status of some works.  Abstract and post-modern art tends to spark the most debate, as much of it seems to be nothing more than random splatters of paint, or a picture of a messy room, with no real purpose or unifying idea, let alone skill.  However, these criteria are applied regardless of which system of judgement is being used; this ambiguity is not a weakness of either method, but simply an example of the difficulty that is encountered when trying to define and study art.

The problem starts when a by-the-work method is applied to culture and art as a whole.  Studies of things like cinematography, sculpting, drawing, pottery, etc., would be the study of only the few who find it worthy of attention.  Imagine if every art form were generally regarded in the same way as impressionistic art; with a few claiming it as visionary while the rest of the world scoffs at the pretentious fools.

For the purpose of studying art in its various forms, we have decided what artistic pursuits are truly worthy of study so that we might further understand and explore them, united as a culture.  This is why English majors in universities usually have a specific literature track; to study the art form of literature.  It's why film schools have become widespread over the last few decades; to study the art form of film.  It is why art history classes educate students on the history of painting and sculpture; to study the art forms of painting and sculpting.  Certain forms of expression are especially relevant to a given culture, and those art forms are given focus as an area of study.

All that to say, regardless of whether your personal aesthetic recognizes specific works or general forms as artistically viable, it is important to consider which forms of artistic expression are worth attention from the culture, and equally important for said culture to recognize that worth.  If a culture does not regard a given art form as worthy of study, it will not apply itself to the development of said art form.  It will be confined to a small portion of people who attempt to make worthwhile art, and maybe eventually something like this happens.

See you next time.  

Counterpoint: Games Have Art In Them, But Are Not Art Themselves

This is the first installment in a recurring series I'll be doing called Counterpoint.  It is where I focus on a particular argument against video games as an artistic medium in order to hopefully provide a decent defense against it.  I think it is important that we understand the ideas fueling this notion rather than simply write them off.  Besides, maybe it will help you out a bit next time you encounter someone who staunchly claims no artistic value in video games.

This particular argument is an interesting one to me. Most of us have probably heard this at some point. Music is art. Graphic design and computer animation are art. Storytelling is art. But while a video game may have these things, the game itself is not a work of art.

The Louvre: a metaphor for video games.

I have heard games compared to an art museum. A museum houses multiple works of art, all connected by a common theme, be it location, era, or medium. However, the museum is not in itself a work of art. Of course the works contained are art. Even the building is a work of architectural art. But no one considers a museum and its contents to create a single cohesive work specified as “art.”

There is but one fatal flaw in this idea; a museum does not try to create a single work of art. It is expressly a building in which many different, separate artworks are contained and displayed, a collection of separate artworks. There may be a common theme, but this does not unify it into a single, cohesive work; one can enjoy and appreciate the Mona Lisa without also viewing The Fortune Teller. The collection of paintings in the Louvre is just that: a collection of separate paintings. When combined, they do not make a single artistic experience but a collection of multiple experiences. A trip through the Louvre is a single experience, but it’s an experience comprised of multiple, exclusive experiences. The presence of The Fortune Teller does not somehow enhance the experience of viewing the Mona Lisa because they are two entirely separate artworks.

A video game, as well as any other storytelling medium, uses many elements to create a single, cohesive experience. It is not a collection of separate artworks, but a single artistic experience comprised of many interwoven artworks.  Proof of concept: immersion. The very concept of immersion is the combination and integration of each and every element of the game; everything about a video game contributes or detracts from the factor of immersion. So for the sake of comparison, let’s take a look at Bioshock.

Would Bioshock have been as immersive with no music, or a metalcore soundtrack? Would the ruin of Rapture seem as real without junk strewn around, or if it had the graphics of Deus Ex (nothing against Deus Ex, it's awesome, it's just old)? Would players have been as deeply impacted without the philosophical elements or the famous plot twist? Bioshock was the immersive, memorable experience it was because each of these elements combined to create a single experience. One could possibly enjoy each individual element of Bioshock without the others, but they would not experience Bioshock. Each of the individual elements that make up Bioshock, or any game, have meaning that simply cannot be understood outside the context of the other elements.

The strongest example of this principle in this particular game is the use of old music like Beyond the Sea. It is a beautiful piece of music, not terrifying in the least. But put in the context of Rapture, a ruined world violently tearing itself apart, it becomes haunting and atmospheric. Meaning is added to this single artwork because of the other elements in the game, meaning that simply does not exist outside of that context. This is what cohesiveness does; uses multiple artworks to create new meaning for them all, weaving them into each other to create a single, unified artwork.

Film has done the same thing for a long time. Even radio and literature do this, if to a lesser extent due to the comparative lack of media variety involved. Yet none of these get this complaint. Film has been considered an art form for a long time now, to the point where many of history’s great filmmakers graduated from film school (and by the time the academic world accepts something, it’s probably been a long, long time coming). No one argues that the soundtrack and cinematography are art, but the film itself is not. This is not the only double standard video games must deal with, but it is no less dangerous.

Video games, like most other art forms, are made up of many different artworks, but rather than simply being put together as separate works to be enjoyed individually (such as a museum), they are interwoven to make a single, cohesive experience (an artwork). This interweaving of artistic elements creates something new entirely, something that could not exist if each artwork is experienced apart from one another. Next time someone tells you otherwise, ask them if listening to the Beyond Good and Evil soundtrack is the same as playing the game.

The Narrative/Gameplay Paradigm: Why Games Depend on Violence

There is a phenomenon in game design that demands the presence of violence (as a specific type of conflict) in the stories of video games. Though this principle is not universal, and can be overcome, it is powerful, and the overwhelming majority of video games conform to it. This principle is the Narrative/Gameplay Paradigm. This, at its heart, is the fundamental problem of the juxtaposition of gameplay and narrative.

Were I to sum this principle up in one sentence, it would be as such: A game’s structure must be known to the player, whereas the story’s structure should not. Hopefully this somewhat cryptic idea will make more sense by the end of this article.

First, though I am not going to launch into a lesson on story structure, I am going to emphasize one thing about it. Though stories are structured, and most good stories share many structural similarities (even all, if you strip them down to their most basic forms), the way that structure plays out should never be known to the viewer/player/reader (excluding, of course, adaptations of known stories or historical events). Though we usually know how a movie begins based on a trailer, we should not know how it ends. Though we know that the end of the movie will feature either the success or failure of the protagonist’s quest, we should not know which and what it will mean to the story’s characters and world afterwards. Stories are structured, yes, but the one experiencing the story should not have full understanding of a given story’s structure until it has ended.

However, games, by nature, are not like this. A game, be it a video game, board game, sport, whatever, requires the player to know their goal and the ways they can accomplish it. Even games like the classic point-and-click adventure games, in which much time is spent trying to figure out what the player has to do, the structure is constantly present. The controls are the rules, the tools by which the player completes his/her goals. Completion of the goal is success, whereas failure is to lose the game, and the criteria for either outcome are part of the rules. Even if the goals are unclear, the game’s rules, its structure, must be understood by the player. The game cannot be played otherwise.

You may already be seeing the paradox that is forming between the two. The combination of a game, which must be understood in order to be played, and a narrative, which must involve mystery in order to have full effect, can cause issues. Namely, if you know that victory in the game equals victory in the story, there is no surprise in the narrative, but how can one know they are making a victory-oriented decision in a game if the mystery of the story is preserved? Both narrative and game need conflict, but how can both play out when the structural difference is so great?

Sometimes it's hard to tell what the
best choice is in Clannad's
emotional romance story.  

For instance, consider a video game that tells a romance story. What is the goal? You could say it is for the protagonist to “get the girl,” but is life really so simple? Is there any one “right” way to win a girl’s heart that could be emulated by a set of rules? If the protagonist ends up losing this girl, is that really failure? In a game it could be, but that approach weakens the story by not considering the potential good that could come of this outcome; life is never so simple for such a thing to be considered an absolute failure.

However, the opposite is true as well. If story attempts to wholly dictate gameplay, how can a game possibly emulate the amount of choices and abilities that would be available in real life? It is a technological and creative impossibility. There is a reason the player cannot roundhouse kick an enemy in the face in Halo; it would be fully possible for the Master Chief as a character, but including every action he could perform in the gameplay mechanics simply would not be possible, least of all practical (thus leading to the whole, "That cutscene was awesome; why can't I do that in the game?" issue that plagues so many action games). For that matter, if you’ve played Phoenix Wright, you know how frustrating it can be to work out a solution and find out you were mistaken, not because your conclusion was wrong, but because it’s not the specific solution the developers programmed into the game. This is inevitable; it is impossible for a game to include every response Phoenix could have, or even every logical path he could follow to a solution.

In this way, gameplay and narrative are inherently at odds. How does one provide the player with a clearly rule-based game while also presenting a narrative not driven by these rules, but by a workable plot and natural characters? It is a difficult question that few developers have even dared to stare in the face, which leads to the most important function of the Narrative/Gameplay Paradigm.

Take a look at your game library, or at least think through the games you own for a second. Consider how many games you have that are not centered around a life/death conflict. If you have mostly adventure games or visual novels, you're in a minority; think about the majority of games as a whole. The vast majority of narrative games are like this; one obviously thinks first of violent games like Grand Theft Auto or God of War, but even Pac-Man and Asteroids are defined by a life-or-death struggle. Have you ever wondered why this is?

The Narrative/Gameplay Paradigm gives us this answer (though it’s hardly considered anymore since violence has become the base model for most games); death is the only thing in life that can really be considered an absolute form of defeat. Guy doesn’t get the girl; maybe he can win her back, or maybe there’s another girl. Detective doesn’t find the evidence he needs; there will be more opportunities, more crime scenes. But death is the end. Unless a game's story goes into the afterlife or something, death is the end. No questions asked. If the player character(s) die, that is the end. There is nothing left.

What better way to work around the Narrative/Gameplay Paradigm than this? Consider Halo: if Master Chief dies, the player fails and has to try again. If he lives to advance through the story to the eventual end, he wins. Survival is success, death is failure, and there is no reason to question either. The same works for Mario, Prince of Persia, even older games like Missile Command. The struggle between life and death is the easiest thing to portray in an interactive context, because it provides a straightforward framework for victory and defeat.

The resulting problem is that video games mostly tell stories that could best be compared to action films. There is nothing wrong with that kind of story: as it is, video games have told plenty of stories that, in my opinion, belong among the best works of classic literature and great film. But video games can only evolve so much as a medium when genres such as romance, domestic drama, and mystery are as overlooked as they are.

There are many ways to overcome this paradigm. Far too many for me to cover here, else you’d still be reading this article an hour from now (or, more likely, you'll have stopped a good deal before then). I’ll cover them later, either in their own articles or mentioning them in other contexts, whatever works best for them. Until then, feel free to comment with your thoughts on this concept! This is one of the original ideas I’ve had, and I’ve been developing it for a while, so feel free to criticize and help me develop it further in your comments or emails!  If you think this stuff is interesting, please consider liking Binary Narrative on Facebook.

Relative Inferiority: How Video Games Stack Up

We live with the constant idea that, though video games are a narrative art form, their stories are not the best stories ever told.  That video game stories are not yet as good as stories told in other mediums.  This irritates me.

You will not find me denying that most video game writing sucks.  I think it's pretty well established that most developers do not spend enough effort or give enough priority to storytelling, and the writers end up needing to work around a half-finished game.  There are also problems of writers being brought in from non-interactive mediums and having no idea how to write for the relatively new idea of interactive storytelling.  Most game stories and writing are pretty terrible; you won't find me denying that.

But first of all, that is true of everything.  Everything artistic, at least.  The arts almost always follow the second principle of Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crap.  There are many people out there with the creativity to create great works, but lacking in the skill to bring their creative vision to life.  There are also many people out there with the technical skill but lacking in the creativity.  Many people think they can do great things artistically, and only so many people actually can.  This is why Youtube is simultaneously home to some great talent and a lot of pointless video blogs and stupid music videos.  It is why most movies are derivative and badly-made, but many are quite good and a few per year will be remembered for decades to come.  It is why books are the host medium of some of the greatest literary works in history, yet the harlequin romance section of the library takes up about half of the building.  And it's why most video games tell terrible stories.  It is a widespread artistic principle, not some disability only video games bear.

There are other things to consider as well, such as the fact that video games are more diverse than other mediums and can include works made solely for competition or social game nights, the artistic status of which can be debated.  But it is usually assumed that when we are talking about bad game stories we are talking about games that tried, at least to the extent of having a story at all.  It is debatable whether we should criticize a game made solely for the sake of online competition for its lack of artistic vision when art was obviously not their intention, but I think it is much clearer that we should not judge the quality of an entire medium based on these examples.

When looking to see if video game stories have told tales worthy to stand with history's great stories, we should not look at the worst of the medium but the best.  We do not determine the comparative worth of film to literature by comparing The Room to The Odyssey, nor should we use Killzone as the measuring stick we put next to Star Wars to determine the relative worth of video games as a storytelling medium. 

I imagine anyone who plays video games for their story can name at least one game that has impacted them emotionally just as much if not more than any other story from other mediums.  I know many people, myself included, can say that about games as far back as the Super Nintendo, possibly even before that.  Thing is, most gamers who claim the storytelling inferiority of video games know that perfectly well.  So why do they say that games haven't told truly great stories?

I think there is one thing games need to get better at before they will more widely be considered able to stand among the greats.  Developers need to figure out how to best integrate interactivity and gameplay with the narrative.

Consider what Citizen Kane is to film.  It used brilliant cinematography and revolutionary storytelling techniques to set the standard for what film is capable of.  It was the first to create many film equivalents to well-established literary techniques, and presented itself visually like no film had.  It took advantage of the medium's strengths and potential to create an experience like no other at the time.  It is remembered now not because it is the best film ever made, but because it set the precedent for what the medium is capable of doing and the ways it can uniquely present it.

Though we have some stories in video games that, in my opinion, deserve to stand among history's best, we have yet to see a game that fully, completely, and effectively ties interactivity into it.  We have had games that do one or more of these, but not a game that revolutionarily does so on the level that Citizen Kane did for film.  Once that happens, I believe people will more easily accept video game stories into the same league as the greats of history.

Is it necessary to take full advantage of a medium's unique strengths to make a good work in it?  Absolutely not; that idea causes a lot of problems that I plan on addressing in a later article, as it's too big a topic to tack on to this one.  Suffice it to say that good, well-told stories are good, well-told stories regardless of their medium or how thoroughly they utilize said medium's unique abilities, else we begin to settle into a decorum-based, systematic art theory.  But despite this, a medium comes fully into its own when it figures out how to separate itself from other mediums in one or more important ways.

The problem?  Gaming will never have a single work that revolutionizes the entire medium's storytelling.  Video games are a much more diverse medium than any other because of the varying styles of gameplay.  For example, storytelling techniques that could revolutionize RPG storytelling do not necessarily work for a shooter, and vice versa.  Take the idea of first-person games taking place entirely from that perspective; the player becomes the character, with no cutscenes or even lack of control to take them out of the experience of being that character.  This simply would not work as well for an action game or a JRPG, or at least it could not have quite the same effect.  The diversity of gameplay styles and the subsequent diversity of storytelling principles that go with them makes it impossible for a single work to revolutionize the way every game and genre tells stories.  Video games will eventually learn to very effectively interweave interactivity and storytelling, but I have a feeling it will sneak up on us rather than arriving in one grand artwork.

If you have not played a game that impacted you emotionally on the same level as a book or movie that you've read, that's fine.  But if you have, I see no reason why that story shouldn't be considered on par with many great stories of other mediums.  However, I bet we will be seeing more and more games that reach the heights set by the great literary works of history, not only because of excellent storytelling, but because of the interactivity that only video games has to offer.  

The Importance of Video Games as Art

I was trying to figure out how I could start this off, and I think this is a good topic to cover early on.  Hopefully this first post can address some of the basic questions and criticisms people might give early on.  I can’t possibly address everything, so if enough people make comments I may very well write another post on this subject, but for now I’ll address this as I can.

Now and again in various internet forums someone will post something regarding video games as art, and many views on the subject start flying.  There are often some interesting things said within this sea of mostly repetitive arguments, but there is one simple thing I keep hearing that has been getting to me for a long time: “It doesn’t matter.”

Most gamers argue that video games should be looked upon more favorably by society, but many of them do not feel as strongly that society should look upon games as an art form.  The ideas behind this viewpoint are varied.  Some claim that as long as they can enjoy their games, it doesn’t matter whether or not they are an art form.  Some say as long as gamers know and understand games as an art form, society as a whole does not need to.  Yet others claim that the very meaning of “art” is subjective, meaning that video games are art if you think they are, and they are not if you think they’re not, so the entire issue is meaningless.  All of these arguments are based on some degree of subjectivism, but regardless of whether that fits into your personal philosophy, there is something very important that they all ignore.

If you’re not one for art theory, think back to your high school or college sociology class and what it said about art.  In short, art is an absolutely vital, critically important part of culture.  Art is the way humans try to explain and explore some of the less quantifiable aspects of the human experience.  It’s the way we both influence and record our culture of the time.  Creativity, the driving force of art, is one of the things that separate us from animals.  Art brings culture together, defines and enforces societal values, and has the power to affect both individuals and culture as a whole.

'Cause these two are totally the
same, right?

Since art is so important to culture, it makes sense that the concept of art must be solidified enough to study it.  In fact, this is already done in many ways that we often take for granted; consider genres, for instance.  Despite the complexity of art and all the ways it can be presented, in order to more effectively study artworks, we have assigned them labels based on their themes and settings even though these things are much too difficult to grasp with a system of simple labels.  What chaos would ensue if we tried to study Citizen Kane in the same way we study District 9, or if we applied the same analytical logic to Sense and Sensibility as to Lord of the Rings!  However, there are always the occasional works that challenge these genres, often resulting in new genre labels until there are so many sub-genres that most people can’t figure it out.  How do you categorize Apocalyptica, a hard rock band comprised of four cellists and a drummer (no, I’m not kidding; check them out)?  Has anyone yet put Shawn of the Dead in a definitive genre, or does it still stand alone in the “romantic zombie comedy” category with a healthy dose of parody thrown in?  Genres are important because they allow us to more effectively study artworks, but they are ultimately an attempt to quantify the unquantifiable.  Impossible though it may seem, it is very important.

So considering the importance of putting a definition on the indefinable, one must ask what bearing a subjective art theory has on this.  The answer?  Nothing at all.  Because even if the very definition of art is up to the individual, that is not an effective way to study or categorize something.  Such ambiguity has its place, but this, a situation where something must be categorized and studied, is not it.  We as a culture must attempt, as best we can, to solidify these slippery concepts of art and creativity so that we may analyze them, explore them, and allow them to affect culture as they can and must.

This is why, regardless of whether “art” is a subjective or objective concept, definitions regarding what general medium is and is not an “art form” must be made if a culture is to effectively study, explore, and truly experience what art has to offer.

This is my view on the issue, at least.  If you have any questions, disagreements, encouragements, suggestions, whatever, feel free to comment.  And if you like what I’ve said so far, like me on Facebook!  Or if not, just wait to see if I ever say anything good first.