Shadow of The Colossus

It’s a subject that comes up relatively often in gaming and (to a lesser extent) broader entertainment circles.

The question of games as art, or at least their ability to be art.  Can they be art?  Are they inherently art?  Do they have artistic characteristics, traits, tendencies?

We all might as well accept it that games are a form of mainstream entertainment.  No doubt the medium is still very young, but it’s grown by leaps and bounds in the last 20 years.  In my own lifetime, from the time I was a toddler to my present adulthood I’ve witnessed the core history of video games, save the early 80s and very late 70s, when people were blown away by Pong and couldn’t imagine it possibly getting any better.

I’ve seen games slowly outgrow the label of a childrens toy, a play thing, to something that can be taken seriously in some cases, and at the very least elevate the leisure hours of people past the age of 17.  Gamers grew up, and games grew up with them.  A lot of people don’t understand that, but I believe it to be inherently true, something as absolute as gravity.  I am an artist, and I am a gamer, and since I was old enough to have any idea what I wanted to do when I grow up, I’ve wanted to be an artist for games.  It’s a goal I’m still working towards in any case, but there are quite a few games that have the capacity to inspire, on a gut, instinctual level.  As gaming machines become more powerful this will only become more true.  It is happening.  The more technological capability there is, the more creators start to explore what they can do in a game, the different kinds of ways they can engage a player.

Some have argued that games can’t be art because of player/audience interaction, which diminishes or takes away from authorial control.  I find this to be an incredibly short-sighted idea.  Until a painting or sculpture or movie is viewed and affects an audience beyond its creator, it isn’t art.  Ask yourself, would the Mona Lisa be art if no one had ever seen it? Art has to be viewed, experienced, heard.  Art doesn’t exist for itself, it exists for the audience. Until people have seen my paintings, can I say they really even happened at all?

In this respect, games might be considered not just high art, but the highest art.  A game must, be played and experienced by an audience to be complete. Now, not all games are art.  Not all games aim to be.  I’d say 90% of games are just entertainment, and they’re meant for only that.  And that’s fine.  I wouldn’t dare coat this blog entry with the pretense that Serious Sam or Devil May Cry aim or claim to be art or high art.

But Consider Flower. A game where you play….through the dreams of flowers as they fly through endless, desolate meadows and grasslands, bringing them back to life.

Unfortunately the best I can do if you haven’t played the game is show you youtube videos of it.  It’s like showing someone photographs of being on the moon.  The emotional impact is lost, but I can only hope you pick up what I’m putting down here.

Or Noby Noby Boy, which I wouldn’t even really call a game, so much as I would call it a toy.  There is no objective, and it doesn’t attempt to be flashy or gaudy in any way.  It’s sole purpose is to be weird, and for the player to experiment and well, play.  There’s no goal, there are no enemies, no finish lines, you just pick it up and play with it until you’re done, then come back to it later.  Just see what happens, and interact with objects. It’s strangely engrossing.

And of course there’s my personal favorite, the Metal Gear Solid Series. Spoiler alert for anyone who hasn’t seen the ending and cares.  If you haven’t, why are you reading this and not playing MGS3?

Or god forbid I bring up Shadow of the Colossus, or ICO.

The first MGS (1998, PlayStation), was the perhaps first story, certainly the first game, where I’d experienced, felt loss. I was 13.

Games generally only engage the emotions of risk, reward, accomplishment, anger and frustration.  Each of the games here, and plenty of others (but I trust you’d like to get back to living your life), go so much deeper.  Games as a medium are capable of as much as, and dare I say more than, the best book, painting, movie or poem, because no other medium demands so much from its audience.  You cannot experience a game passively.  The difference between playing a game, and watching someone play a game, is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug.

Games can be art, because not all games do this, as I said earlier.  Most games are summer blockbusters, or Saturday morning cartoons as far as the level of emotional depth or creativity involved.  You enjoy them and then get on with your life (ideally speaking).  And then you remember them ten years later to see how well your nostalgia holds up, or were they actually pieces of garbage that you didn’t have the sense or taste to discard.  But it would be flat out false to suggest the pastime that has elevated my leisure hours since I was a boy has not also had a profound impact on the kind of person I’ve become.  The experiences felt in quite a few of these works has enriched who I am as a person- the same way the best books or films could.  In some cases, better than they could ever hope to.

-One love.