This is a continuation of my previous Video Gaming post. You can read that here.
https://sites.psu.edu/heodrewart211y/2014/03/09/art-211y-journal-4-video-games-money-and-art/
In my previous blog post from last year, I made the bold declaration that as video games as a whole cannot be generalized as art. I still remain by this statement, but must add an addendum. While I was writing the journal entry last year, I completely ignored an entire sub-genre of video games, indie games. Incidentally, indie games the one exception to my previous statement. Indie games have the ability to be generalized as art.
Independently developed video games are a unique sub-genre of video games that explore the potential the medium has to offer. Indie titles are usually made with little-to-no-budget and can achieve the same polish (or lack thereof) as larger, mainstream video games; due to being unfunded by any publisher and privately developed, indie games can break mainstream conventions and turn into interactive, collaborative, dynamic works of art. Indie games are the only kind of video games that can turn into avant-garde video games and, as a result, become art.
(Note: As part of the longstanding terminology of game theory, all further mentions of video game “players” will refer to the player as female.)
Brian Schrank, author of Avant-garde Videogames: Playing with Technoculture, identifies the entire market of indie-titles that can fall into this avant-garde sub-classification. In order to be an avant-garde video game, an indie title must fulfill at least one or more of the following identifiers:
1) The game must change, alter, or disrupt the flow (the state of mind where the player is “in the zone”, and can reliably trust her intuition as well as the game itself in order to complete the tasks established by the game).
2) Challenge traditional concepts of play (the state in which a player, or players, abide by the games set rules even when it contradicts reality or even other game conventions).
3) Question if video games (and all other mediums) are a valid form of expressive art.
4) Blur the lines between reality and video gaming by integrating the two together.
In addition, avant-garde games must hold some sort of presence: be a narrative (or challenge the idea of a narrative), hold a political agenda, or modify culture in significant, self-reflective ways.
Schrank also identifies a spectrum in which these video games fall upon and divides them into four parts: radical formal, radical political, complicit formal, complicit political. Additionally, these games fall under two other classifications of narrative formal or narrative political.
There is a lot of gray area, since many indie titles strive to be mainstream. Mainstream games also fall into the narrative-formal and complicit formal spectrums, which is the reason why the above constraints exist, to try to reduce the gray area between an indie-mainstream game and an indie-avant-garde game.
Incidentally, both Brian Schrank and Christiane Paul identify the same games for exploring video games as an artistic medium – Toywar and Velvet-Strike both make an appearance. Schrank identifies both of these games as complicit political games, which use games as a way to modify culture by using Populist anyone-can-do-it techniques for a player to both play a game and join in on modifying the culture surrounding video games, all of which concurrently agrees with Christiane Paul’s statements.
As an Avant-garde video game, indie games substantiate themselves as a work of art proper. Whether or not the piece of art is received particularly well is a completely different story.
On a tangential note, the ongoing argument for games as art also continues with with the indie-avant-garde sub-classification. For those that argue that avant-garde video games cannot be consider art, I leave them with this.
Gamergate:
http://deadspin.com/the-future-of-the-culture-wars-is-here-and-its-gamerga-1646145844
Gamergate is a current, ongoing cultural bash riddled with gaming journalism ethics, cultural taboos, and equal rights politics, and at the heart of this debacle is actually a video game which actually classifies as an avant-garde narrative-political and complicit political game about depression. While the event of Gamergate isn’t necessarily centered solely on the video game, the game and its developer, along with multiple other parties, have become the center of intense discussions and awareness the same way traditional art does.
If video game-related things can generate the same amount (if not more) discussion as traditional art, then video games (particularly of the avant-garde variety) are completely justified in being called art. Highlight mainstream games too can also be considered works of art. Video games as a whole, however, are still not fully capable of being unanimously generalized as art.
Works Cited
Entertainment Software Assocation. Video Game Essential Facts. 2011-2012. Accessed, Mar 2014. <http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2012.pdf>.
Game Theory. Developers Vs. Publishers. Gametrailers. 2011. Accessed, Mar 2014. <http://www.gametrailers.com/full-episodes/d31bde/game-theory-developers-vs–publishers>.
Paul, C. Digital Art. 2nd edition. NY: Thames and Hudson, Inc. 2008.