Written by: Carl Shan

In case you missed part 1.

One objection to the concept of video games as an art form is that they contain commercial and selfish motivations, tainting their artistic purity. Developers create games to be mass marketed to the public in hopes of generating income (according to market research firm Pricewaterhouse Coopers, the games industry is growing at an annual rate of 9.1%). Yet this objection does not hold, since other recognized art forms share the attribute of profitability. In particular, early 20th-century cinema was criticized for this exact reason. Henry Jenkins, co-director of MIT’s Comparative Media Studies program, points out the parallelism. “America [was] skeptical of [the] cinema in particular for many of the same reasons that contemporary critics dismiss games – they were suspicious of cinema’s commercial motivations and technological origins, concerned about Hollywood’s appeals to violence and eroticism, and insistent that cinema had not yet produced works of lasting value.” Yet decades later, it’s obvious that these were not obstacles in the way of the ability of a medium to cogently convey the emotions true art is able to elicit. Furthermore, the absence of a monetary impetus is not to be found in the realms of other arts. Many painters and artists look to their work as a source of income. Musicians such as Beethoven and Mozart composed for aristocratic patrons. The lack of the pursuit of monetary gain is not a characteristic that defines art. In fact, the opposite is true: artistic quality can determine art’s financial success. The very reason paintings can be worth millions of dollars, operas such as Mozart’s “The Marriage of Figaro” become universally acclaimed, and games such as Shadow of the Colossus become instant hits is because they are all masterpieces of art.

Another rejection of the artistic value of video games lies in the argument that games are interactive, unlike literature or film, in which the viewer is simply a non-participatory observer. The ability of the player to modify the outcome of a game through his own action takes away from the artistic quality of the game. Film critic Roger Ebert espouses the view that control is wrested away from the artist, analogous to a reader rewriting Shakespeare as he or she flips the pages. “If next time, I have Romeo and Juliet go through the story naked and standing on their hands, would that be way cool, or what?” Ebert holds that artists must have authorial control. Games, in his opinion, are unlike serious films and pieces of literature in that they rely too heavily on audience participation to create the experience.

There exist two problems with Ebert’s objection. The first is that art is a collaborative process. While it is true that artists generally paint their paintings by themselves and authors write their novels alone, one medium of art relies heavily on collaboration – film. The very best and most artistically rendered films are the ones that have top-notch cooperation between all elements: actors, writers, directors, etc. The cohesive unity of the distinct sections of a film is what engenders an artistic masterpiece. Even in literature there exists an almost mechanical clockwork harmony of parts (writing, editing, cover art, binding, etc.) that come together to produce great literary works. But even beyond the fundamental synthesis that rests internally in art, a crucial part of the artistic equation is the audience. All forms of art elicit viewer participation to create the basis for common understanding and the sharing of feelings and experiences. Readers do not simply lie there and let the words wash over them. Instead they actively picture the unfolding settings, characters and narratives. And filmgoers often become deeply invested in movies, with stories that frequently include unanswered questions and vague endings. The influence of the film extends beyond the theatre as the audience discusses the questions the movie has raised. Art is art through its innate ability to move us and stir the imagination. Pieces of art that neither leave viewers with questions to ponder nor unresolved issues are hardly art at all; the most artistic contributions are those that can lift from audiences’ detached apathy and pull them to become close collaborators.