In today's society, playing video games is never really accepted as legitimate. Parents spend hours trying to stop their kids from playing them. Play too much, and you'll be labeled a loser no matter what your age or socioeconomic status.
While this article won't argue for toddlers playing Mortal Kombat or Hopkins students slaving away at World of Warcraft, it will defend video games in a fundamental way: they can be art.
From the start, let's establish the condition being placed on that statement. Video games certainly aren't always art, but neither is any form of media.
Working a video camera doesn't make you Scorsese and working a typewriter won't increase your ability with the English language. In certain situations, though, video games are capable of adding to the aesthetic; they can shape and impact our emotions in a tangible way.
Well, where can the line be drawn? In order for a game to be artistic, it must convey some semblance of a story. Madden and NBA Live don't make the cut. Neither do rudimentary forms of video games, like Pong, Tetris, and the like. Nor can we include massive multi-player online role-playing games, like WoW or The Lord of the Rings Online.
That is not to say that these games are not fun or inherently valuable; they simply can't be considered art. Sports games are just simulating a physical activity and, as such, fail to evoke an emotional response beyond that of the superficial. Tetris and the like involve no deep emotional activity.
Furthermore, we cannot include multiplayer games. At the point where one recognizes that these games revolve around interaction, they cease to be art under the given framework.
One may have artistic moments while playing, but the game can't be categorically called art. Its output depends on the real-time flow of other players' inputs.
Not only will the game's experience be different for everyone - one can say this about anything - but the game itself will depend on its players.
So what video game is art? It isn't Guitar Hero, or any multiplayer game. It isn't Goldeneye or Mario Kart. It certainly isn't a hack-and-slash game. These may be excellent, but they aren't art.
A game must be governed by its story. As such, no multiplayer games are art. The single-player aspect of a game is the only arena in which video game creators can design a meaningful, emotionally engaging story.
Furthermore, the story needs to be good. For example, Biodome had a story, but that movie was beyond the definition of terrible. Herein we see an opportunity for subjectivity; this is both necessary and expected.
Not all people agree than a single movie is artistically valuable; so too with video games.
An example of an artistically valuable video game franchise is Metal Gear Solid. These games tell a meaningful, intricate and powerful story. They often feature long lists of voice actors who lend their talents to the production of the game.
While the player has free reign to go through the motions of the game, there is an overarcing story line that he must eventually follow.
In this way, the creators of the game are forcing the player to conform to their idea of what the game should be. If this idea is great, then the game is transitively great. Great graphics, gameplay, music and boss battles can be supplementary in this regard.
A second example is Bioshock. While the game is a first-person shooter, it exposes its audience to a beautiful, macabre underwater world and allows its story to unfold through tape cassettes that one's character discovers throughout the course of the game. In this way, the elements of gameplay and storytelling are uniquely and perfectly mixed.
Historically, video games have not been recognized as art; perhaps this is because when they first existed, they were not. As the medium by which game creators can tell their stories improves, though, so too can the final product.
Films - originally called move-ees in a derogatory sense - were not always accepted as legitimate, either. One can only hope that the quality of video games continues to increase. Eventually, these works may garner the attention and respect they deserve.
