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Video Games As Art
May. 13th, 2010 11:34 pmI read Penny Arcade or I'd never have heard about Roger Ebert's stirring up trouble by declaring, "Video games can never be art."
I disagree. I think they are art. It is just the ephemeral sort of art. Art in a medium that evolves so quickly that something someone slaved over a decade ago looks like something a child could slap together in five minutes on a personal computer. There are two ways I was personally struck by this today. I created a cover for an album I own in iTunes using a free image editor because I did not like the art on the physical CD. It took me next to no time and I bet someone would have had to slave over the same amount of work when the music first came out way back in 1984.
Secondly I found a copy of Sim Earth recently in my stuff. I'm about to throw it out because I assume no one in their right mind would want a game that uses 5ΒΌ inch diskettes. I bet this game took a lot of work when it came out in 1990. There is an art there not unlike the art of putting a book together. An invisible craftsman sort of art.
Movies too can be vulnerable to this. King Kong, the original classic, is now an esoteric film buff sort of taste. I doubt most people would be willing to sit through it given its dated special effects. But there are enthusiasts who will tell us how great it is. And so I think it is with video games to an even greater degree. There are enthusiasts who collect and play these old games and old computers, admiring the work that went into making them work with so little memory and processing power.
I don't like video games. I think they're a monumental waste of time and I'd sooner dive into a time sink like TV Tropes.com or Wikipedia than allow myself to get back into wasting my time that way. But they are art, if only an ephemeral one that is forgotten almost as soon as it is made.
I disagree. I think they are art. It is just the ephemeral sort of art. Art in a medium that evolves so quickly that something someone slaved over a decade ago looks like something a child could slap together in five minutes on a personal computer. There are two ways I was personally struck by this today. I created a cover for an album I own in iTunes using a free image editor because I did not like the art on the physical CD. It took me next to no time and I bet someone would have had to slave over the same amount of work when the music first came out way back in 1984.
Secondly I found a copy of Sim Earth recently in my stuff. I'm about to throw it out because I assume no one in their right mind would want a game that uses 5ΒΌ inch diskettes. I bet this game took a lot of work when it came out in 1990. There is an art there not unlike the art of putting a book together. An invisible craftsman sort of art.
Movies too can be vulnerable to this. King Kong, the original classic, is now an esoteric film buff sort of taste. I doubt most people would be willing to sit through it given its dated special effects. But there are enthusiasts who will tell us how great it is. And so I think it is with video games to an even greater degree. There are enthusiasts who collect and play these old games and old computers, admiring the work that went into making them work with so little memory and processing power.
I don't like video games. I think they're a monumental waste of time and I'd sooner dive into a time sink like TV Tropes.com or Wikipedia than allow myself to get back into wasting my time that way. But they are art, if only an ephemeral one that is forgotten almost as soon as it is made.