When looking at a society, one thing really cultivates culture. That being the idea of leisure time and what is done with it. What is done with leisure time is often forming societies; creating new, interesting creations and weapons; and creating ideas that would be preposterous in times of the average caveman, namely the formation of government and religion. However, what seems to be the most important ideal for a society is art: movies, pictures, animated gifs, and the one most closest to my heart, video games.
It has been a topic up for discussion, whether video games themselves are an art form. The main issue being that they are somewhat hard to read in a scholarly sense. It seems that they lack an easily understandable context.
In a book, it’s read, and it’s understood. In a movie, watch, it’s understood. The video game however, is not confined to the camera or the outlet that books and movies take. The context is based on what the audience does within the game’s borders. It’s about how the player forms the world, as well as the context that the world and the narrative are giving back and reacting. The mechanics are simply something that you add to the discussion on “what is art?” rather than just throwing the whole thing out and calling the product garbage.
Video games are a burgeoning new medium, and thus, have had little time to grow and evolve, rather than becoming something spectacular overnight. A lot of childhood games can be looked at as works of art, and a lot of them can be read into, but they have the superficial trappings that most films had. Namely, the fact that a lot of them were dealing with technical limitations that were apparent in the age. However, the mechanics and how the characters moved around in the world were more of a barrier to the more deeper and interesting forms of storytelling. There is a reason why a lot of the two-dimensional plat-formers lacked in storytelling. However, video games create stories through game play, rather than telling stories based on text or voice. Art is apparent in these games, but it is the art of an up-and-coming generation.
Now that the technological knowhow has improved and many games have reached levels of storytelling, characterization, and graphics otherwise thought impossible golden gem at our feet, gamers are fighting harder than ever to legitimize their medium.
Why is this? Honestly, the most important aspect that has to be focused on is that video games may share technical similarities with the movie (staging a frame, cut scenes in general, dialogue). Game developers either take the story at face value and do not put that much merit in what the story could be, or focus too much on the story and lose the ideals of the game. Video games are still growing and must hold onto the medium’s highest aspects: the player’s agency and the story of old. Developers must realize that it is through game-play that their art is formed and through the use of the player’s agency, gamers can have more and more thought provoking games.
Suggested Titles:
Missile Command
Papers Please
Bioshock
The Walking Dead
The Sims
Bastion