Video Games as Art

A while back, famed film critic Roger Ebert made the infamous claim that Video Games are not art. At first I was mortified. How could he not see the value of these incredible works? Recently, however, after reading an excellent article by Pitchfork, I have begun to re-evaluate his claim.

The specific article at hand is his in-depth examination of Mother, Shigesato Itoi's first video game. I must give him a hand for this feature; it's one of the most brilliant examination of any piece of media that I have read in at least five years. Like most video games of that era, it had not aged well, and so reading this article will probably be one of the closest to getting Itoi's message across for anyone except those lucky enough to have played it in the 80s (which rules out any non-japanese people since the overseas versions were canceled).

To quickly summarize the article, Pitchfork describes Mother in terms of Joseph Campbell's monomyth, which is basically a kind of meta-rubrik that describes the basic plot of most cultural folklore such as The Odyssey, Beowulf, and most religious stories like that of Thor, Hercules, and Jesus.

Before I continue any further, it should be made clear as to what Art is. And that's difficult enough as it is. Some would argue that all 'media' - including movies, music, painting, sculpture and even possibly typesetting - is art. I reject that idea; Scary Movie 4 is not art, nor is a five-year-old child's fingerpainting;  the 'b-tracks' from various musicians released with every album do not qualify as art. Others would define art as something that art is anything that 'touches your heart', but that's highly subjective and therefore makes a poor definition.

Let me tell you what art is; art is a lens that allows us to reexamine a part of our selves or our world, that will change the way we perceive that which we have examined. In other words, art is not that which a person creates; art is the effect of the creation.

That may still be a bit difficult to comprehend. To make it a bit easier, let's look at some famous examples. M.C. Escher's drawings are artworks because their impossible nature makes us examine the possible flaws in perception, and how our perceptions may not be correct. Keith Harring's art highlights the joie de vivre in the viewer's life. Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey was an exploration of mortality and the meaning of life, and how that can change as technology replaces us. Music is used to explore the depths of emotion and their meanings.

But returning to Pitchfork's article, he does say something unique as he begins to conclude his findings:

This is the essential difference between a quest and a detour. What happens on the detour is its own reward, but the success of a quest is determined by what you take back with you.

With books, the same: the best books are the ones in which the reader experiences a transformation somewhere between "once upon a time" and "the end." In any other case, you're just taking a pleasure cruise through somebody else's imagination.

What Pitchfork is trying to illustrate in this point is that mother stands above the crowd because the experience stays with you. But in my case, I actually see the case for the argument of wether games are art or not. Games have always been a diversion. "Diversion" is practically the definition of the word 'game'. If you don't take something out of the experience, it can only ever be a diversion. The 'transformation' that Pitchfork mentioned is the very same qualifier that makes any given thing art!

Naturally, the next question is, "Is Mother art?" It's a difficult question to answer; as a coming-of-age tale, one could easily argue that it would only affect the young, which makes the game a subjective lens, removing it's artistic value. Let me bring up a quick example; there is a major turning point in Mother when you play the Eight Melodies to Queen Anne of Magicant and she tells us who the antagonist of the game is. For the unaware, Magicant is a bizarre dreamworld where everything can and will happen. After your last encounter with Queen Anne, Magicant disappears as you absorb it's energy and gain levels from it. Magicant was also a symbol; it was a safe, comforting, and even motherly place; there were four places to replenish yourself for free, it's the only place where you could eat your favorite food, and you could instantly teleport there if you were in trouble. The absorption of Magicant was a metaphor for growing up; you'd never be able to return there, but you were much stronger after leaving it behind. And Magicant wasn't destroyed; you carry it within you.

The neat thing about Magicant is that it was itself a metaphor for a mother; protecting you, making your favorite food, feeling safe whenever present. And that's my argument for why Mother is art; the loss of Magicant reflects on the viewer's (or, the gamer's) own loss of innocence, when they realized they didn't need their mother and could stand stronger on his or her own. It repaints growing up, from losing innocence, to gaining knowledge, ability, and inner strength.

Now the real question is, is Mother an outlier? We can't make the claim that games are art when there's only one game that contains art. There are a few more games with art though; don't forget, Mother is the first game in a series; Mother 2 had similar happenings in a new Magicant, and Mother 3 is more of the same. There are a few more games that fit the criteria though.

Perhaps the best argument for games as art is Xenogears, where quite a lot of things happen; You are half of a couple with a bond so strong it surpasses life and death; You change Gears as you become more god-like, and then you eventually kill god himself. In the same team's next project, Chrono Cross, you literally destroy Fate. In it's prequel, Chrono Trigger, you see how man's hubris lead to it's destruction. A more modern title, Nier, illustrates how love and obsession can be destructive - a demonstration more shocking and well-done than I've seen elsewhere, honestly.

And that's literally it. Those are the only games I can consider Art. There are a few earlier games by Quest that actually get pretty close, but they tend to fall just short of that goal. Braid is supposed to be art, but it seems like the people who describe it as such are vastly over-analyzing it, especially since the author refuses to explain it. Drakengard is by the same team as Nier, so I have some hopes for it, but as I haven't played it yet, I can't confirm it.

That list is small even if you compare it to the amount of games released in a single year, let alone the nearly 40-year history that video games have. So while there is a few games that are art, or at least contain some art in one point or another, they are clearly the outlier. So to answer the question, "Are games art?", no — but they could be.