Games are Art!

It seems that mainstream media is still up to its old tricks again, i.e. talking about something it clearly doesn't understand in order to change the uneducated public opinion. Journalism is about reporting the news not fabricating it, am I right?! 

If you're wondering "what the hell is this guy talking about?", then let me direct you to an article published by The Guardian, an UK news site, in which a blogger (don't you even dare compare me to this man) claimed that the Museum of Modern Art is wrong to add games in its lineup. 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/jonathanjonesblog/2012/nov/30/moma-video-games-art?mobile-redirect=false 

Now why am I, and many other people especially those working in the games industry, upset by this article? Because if you get published in The Guardian, you shouldn't say such stupid things as "games are not art, they are just games". This man, Jonathan Jones, wrote an opinion piece filled with bias, and with a complete lack of  reasonable arguments, condemned video games as nothing but a child's play thing and that they can't possibly be art because of their interactivity. What is the logic behind that again? He claims that "Art may be made with a paintbrush or selected as a ready-made, but it has to be an act of personal imagination.". So how are games not art again? Last time I checked, it was "personal imagination" that created those games and made them unique (or at least some of them). 

"The worlds created by electronic games are more like playgrounds where experience is created by the interaction between a player and a programme. The player cannot claim to impose a personal vision of life on the game, while the creator of the game has ceded that responsibility. No one "owns" the game, so there is no artist, and therefore no work of art."

This statement just throws logic out the window. Someone should inform this person of reader response criticism, i.e. the fact that people claim what it is art and not the creator of said art. People who claim to be artists don't even grasp what the simplest notion of what makes you artistic. And how come "No one "owns" the game"? The people who make it own the game, and this is even better presented in the Indie side of the game industry where 1 or 2 people work on a game and they have the right to claim all ownership. 

This is the part where you question how could anyone have said "yes" to this man's article. I ask you all, how can someone, who claims to know the importance of "Ma Jolie" by Picasso and "Starry Night" by Vincent van Gogh, can also claim that video games are just toys and something to distract ourselves with? He would either be completely mad, completely uneducated towards the subject or afraid of change. I personally believe it's all three. He didn't show any particular knowledge toward game design, nor did he gave any valid reason as to why these games should not be a part of the Museum of Modern Arts. This is just him beating down on an young medium which is on its way to improve the way we tell stories for the better. Criticism exists because we need to learn from our mistakes and better ourselves, not because we don't like something because it doesn't appeal to our personal tastes. 

Let me get back to reader response criticism for a moment. Not all works of art we know of today was intended to be artistic. Since this man was kind enough to mention the importance of Vincent van Gogh's work in the Museum of Modern Arts, is he also aware how many commissioned paintings van Gogh had made? They weren't intended to be art, they were just a way to earn money on the side. Because art is not defined by the artist! Something this man refuses to accept, and in a very condescending manner, tries to belittle interactive narratives by comparing them to chess.

This man doesn't understand the subject of his own writing, so in order to educate him on what art is, I will quote Mr. Bob Chipman, a film critic over at The Escapist and host of Escape to the Movies and The Big Picture, something that he said in this video On the Subject of Violence:
"Movies, and books, and games and all the rest are sacred. The Arts aren't just how we distract ourselves, they are our most powerful voice, our stamp on the world, our gifts to the future, they are our legacy and the only form of immortality we know for sure actually exists." 

I cannot begin to explain how much I love him for saying that. I am not an artist myself but I want to be. I want to become a writer whose work influences people and inspires and changes their lives for the better. Art is about reflection and introspection, especially about things that signify what makes us human. I love video games and think they are the best art form at our disposal. I am still against calling them Video Games or Interactive Entertainment, because after all, not all art is there for simple entertainment. Art is a method of telling stories which has been adapted through modern mediums such as Movies, Books and Video Games, but is yet one of the oldest and most preserved occurrence of the human culture. 

Let me tell you why Video Games or Interactive Experiences are in fact art. There are two things that make them shine above all other mediums as far as storytelling goes. Kinaesthetics and interactivity.

Kinaesthetics is the study of body motion, and of the perception (both conscious and unconscious) of one's own body motions and other movements. Or to put it simply, game feel. In order for a game to keep the player engaged and for a better simulation, it must have good game feel. Fluid controls and feeling weight behind interaction in the game are what make a game even better and what immerses the player in the game's world. Something 3D Cinema is striving so hard to achieve, yet falls short when it comes to the kinaesthetics that an interactive medium like gaming can provide us with. The interactivity part is something that a lot of developers are still struggling with. How can you write a story for a video game when the player is interacting with so many takings within the game's world? It's not the same as writing a novel, although one could manage to make a game that tells a story in a similar fashion, but it wouldn't be as powerful as a fully emergent and interactive story driven by the player's action. It's pretty difficult to do but we are slowly getting there. This is why the only valid argument Jonathan could have had is that games can't really be displayed in a museum. You need to play the game and see how it feels for yourself. Paintings are fine to display because they represent everything visually and that's why they are a passive medium. Not games though. They can still represent a lot of things visually but it is the interactivity that puts them above the rest. But, of course, our good friend Mr. Jones didn't even think about that.

This is why games are better than every other medium. But unfortunately, it has existed for about 30 or so years, a lot less than Movies or Books. Now gaming will have to get through the same growing pains as those works of art did. Handling difficult subject matter and themes, facing controversy and innovating for the betterment of the medium. There is a hard road ahead of it but if people like me take the time and explain to the masses why games matter to us so much, maybe the road won't be so bumpy. Maybe the more people know about how gaming has affected the lives of others, the more they will learn to appreciate it like myself and developers who are constantly trying to do more with the medium. Can we at least try this time? Can we not just sit on the sidelines and shrug off an article like Johnathan's which is on a major news site, just because he is talking complete nonsense? NO! We shouldn't let people like that just speak their mind freely without calling them out on it or debating their views. I love all art in general, I understand most of it and I know how to appreciate its quality and significance. I will not let something, I feel so passionate towards, be attacked like this.

Let me show you something:

This is Spec Ops: The Line, a Third-Person Shooter released earlier this year, which is the closest thing to a video game version of Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" or Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now" that we are gonna get.

Here are some videos about the game and it's significance toward the topic of "Games are Art!":
Errant Signal - Spec Ops: The Line
Zero Punctuation - Spec Ops: The Line
Extra Credits - Spec Ops: The Line (Part 1)
Extra Credits - Spec Ops: The Line (Part 2)

Let me also introduce you to JOURNEY:

Or one of the most beautiful and evocative gaming experiences to have ever come out for this medium. The art style you see in the picture isn't giving the game's graphical fidelity justice. The game looks even more beautiful while you play it.
Exhibit A: Entire playthrough of the game
Extra Credits did videos on Journey as well:
The Hero's Journey (Part 1)
The Hero's Journey (Part 2)

I can go on for a very long time and list out all the reasons why some games are art on top of being entertaining, while others exist for the sole purpose of entertaining us without trying to convey difficult metaphors through their mechanics, and why some shouldn't even exist because they abuse the medium to manipulate the player's view on something. Oh yes, games can do that, and it's really scary, but of course none of that was mentioned in Mr. Jones' article because he doesn't understand what he is writing about and he doesn't care. He got the money from writing that abomination. It's a common problem with journalistic integrity these days, in that there is none. Journalists are govern by the people who pay the bills, and those people are govern by personal interest. They don't care about truth, justice or anything like that. This is why the world has gotten so rotten, because of men like that.

Oh don't worry, I have a video to share with all of you on that subject as well:

Too bad nowadays people don't know the meaning of what Charlie Chaplin's character spoke of in "The Great Dictator".

At the end I leave you with this my friends, will you listen to people like that, people who tell you what to think or what to feel? Because the only thing I listen to is reason, and reason never told me to lie in order to prove a point.


More videos from:
MovieBoB: Escape to the Movies and The Big Picture
Campster: Errant Signal
Yahtzee Croshaw: Zero Punctuation
Extra Credits: Extra Credits



“The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.” -Oscar Wilde

Writing and why I think it's great

Before I begin I would like to apologize for my previous entry. I didn't really put much effort or even thought into it so it came out completely different from what I had in mind. I just want to put this out here and now so all of you can be familiar with who I am and what I stand for. Of course with every passing entry you will come to know me better.
I am a very serious individual. I always try to be, especially with my work. I came off as a slacker last time and I don't want people to think of me that way. I was only trying to be funny in order to intrigue anyone in reading what I have to say on this Journal. but it seems I used a very dull and dry sense of humor. It was forced and I don't like that. If I want to be funny it will come naturally to me when I write. OK, enough of that. I think that cleared up some things.

So let's talk about Writing(yes I will write it with a capital letter because it's important). "Writing is the representation of a language put into a textual medium through the use of a certain set of symbols." That's actually what Wikipedia says about the subject with it's very first sentence. And it's spot on. To put in a simpler way we use Writing to put our understanding of a given language into words. I am amazed how great writers use it not as a tool but an extension of the soul. To share complex opinions for everyone to see and put all their heart and soul into their work. Whether their readers understand it or not, in most cases, is not up to the writers themselves. But the best writers can actually form very complex sentences and yet explain themselves in a simple manner that most people can understand, without breaking the flow of writing.

So Writing is an art, science and discipline. So why do I like writing? Well most of what I said in the top paragraph gives a reasonable explanation. But there's so much more to it. I love it because I can create with it. I can conjure entire worlds just by a slight movement of my right hand. Looking it this way, Writing sounds like an epic adventure. Well to me it is but I am very big devotee to this art, science etc. What about most people? What do they think of Writing? How do they use it?
Well, these days they use writing in order to connect with each other through text messages, chat programs like the infinitely famous Skype, MSN and others. So has writing been dumb down because of the new age of technology? Well, no. Writing is still the same as it used to be. Only less popular in it's purest form.
Most people don't know how to write properly, even on an average level. I myself am a poor writer(in more ways than one). But I at least try hard in order to put my thoughts and opinions in a textual format. I wouldn't say that Writing is a dying breed, but it's not the way it used to be. There were very few writers back in the day and it was considered a profession for the most creative and imaginative. There's a reason I named this blog/journal "Imagination". Because imagination is the border in which one can create through writing. And it is limitless. Now we can see "professional" writers everywhere. Tell me, if they are so "professional" why do they waste their skills writing gossip about celebrities? Is it that prestigious? I don't think so...

There are a lot of problems with Writing and writers these days. It is being comercialized and abused as an art form. Becoming more of a tool for the everyman. This is the second biggest reason why I want to improve my writing. To make a change. Of course music and the other mediums are going through a similar phase and I do hope people are trying to change that as well. Let's not make writing into something trivial and shallow but show how great it is. I will certainly do that. Until next time...