A while back, fairly well respected film critic and writer Roger Ebert famously declared in his blog that video games cannot be art. This caused an online sensation, although I’m personally not sure what all the fuss was about.
Whether or not my favourite hobby prescribes to some vaporous set of arbitrarily defined rules so that it may be considered “art”, makes no difference to how much I enjoy defibrillating campers in BC2, or leading Commander Sheppard and his team across the galaxy to save mankind.
So, I didn’t much care when Ebert said that gaming is not, and will never be art. And I still don’t think it matters that he has now changed his mind, admitting that one day games may “someday be great Art.”
However, over 4500 comments were left on Ebert’s blog, arguing that games are art. So clearly, a lot of people do care.
The first problem is that art is one of humankind’s vaguest concepts. Artists themselves cannot agree as to what constitutes art, and a lot of “art” has been created for the sole purpose of challenging the definition of the word.
If art was finitely defined, and there was at least a majority agreement over what properties something must possess to be considered art, then I would sort of understand the desire to want gaming to be part of that.
Take this example:
The term “mammal” is concrete and finite. There are certain properties which we have agreed on that all mammals (bar a few exceptions) must have. So, when we say a dolphin is a mammal, we immediately know that it is an air-breathing vertebrate. Now, if the term “mammal” was constantly being disputed, and no one could agree on the properties which make something a mammal, the word would would lose its value. In this case, if someone told us a dolphin was a mammal, it would mean nothing because the term would be so contentious to the point of being ultimately uninformative.
I would say that the term “art” is currently in such a malleable state, that it is bordering on becoming meaningless. OK, sure there is some agreement on a broader scale, but it’s shaky at best. So much so, that when someone doesn’t like a proposed piece of art, they can reshuffle their own definition of the term to exclude that thing, resulting in accusations of “that’s not art” being thrown around at various creations, from black metal music, to bizarre abstract art. This sort of constant back and forth is what hurts the credibility of the term “art,” which is now so open to interpretation, that it almost means nothing.
So my first point in sum: the term “art” is so vague and contested, that saying gaming is art really means very little.
On to my second point.
Even if there was a globally agreed upon definition for the term “art,” what real benefit does something get from falling in line with that definition?
So imagine we all agreed on the following definition of art:
“The products of human creativity” – Online Dictionary
Under this basic definition, games would surely be considered art. So what? Where does that leave us?
Would Van Gogh’s Starry Night be any less special if by some freak revaluation of the word “art”, it was decided that the painting was excluded from its definition. Of course not, the painting’s real properties would be unchanged.
Ebert noted that from the 4572 comments on his blog, the one game that came up the most which readers felt proved that games can be art, was Shadow of the Colossus.
Many who played the game seem to feel it is the perfect example of a game which is art. But does the respectability of a game like Shadow of the Colossus even remotely depend on whether or not it falls within the confined definition of the term art? Does it being art make it more fun, or emotionally engaging? Again, of course not, which means that whether or not it is art is immaterial.
This friendly Colossus doesn’t care if he’s art, and neither should you
Whether or not the game is art is neither here nor there, as it will be played and enjoyed for what it is.
Sure calling games art may sound fancy, but in my view, you’re just playing with a meaningless label.
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