There is a recent article on whether games should become ‘art’. From the first sentence, I began to disagree.
One hundred years from now, schoolchildren will study the computer game classics just as they study classic books, music, art and film.
Since when do school children study classic books, music, art, and film? Rather, it is placed in the curriculum. It is more proper to say that such works are inflicted on students.
Anyway, the question of games as ‘art’ is a non-issue. What is and is not art will not be defined by anyone living today. If such games are being played and enjoyed a century from now, then, perhaps, we can call it ‘art’. I still question whether some games, such as Super Mario Brothers, will survive when the original fans die off. I don’t see younger kids playing NES games. Super Mario Brothers seems ‘dominant’ more because the young fans grew up and Mario is in many new games. Young kids I know look at the NES and SNES era games with contempt. They are consumed with the newer, fresher games. Timeliness is a requirement of art (despite what the art academics say. The poor starving artists will proclaim almost any work they produce as art to charge highway robbery prices).
Gamers are well aware how many ‘cool’ games don’t age well. But what gamers aren’t as aware of is that the so-called classics are not yet classics. The original fans just grew old. Classics must jump to a whole new generation. Do you see young kids playing NES games? I don’t. Or Atari 2600 games? Nope.
Some games appear to have made the jump. Pac-Man has. It looks like Tetris will. Galaga and Dig-Dug have. But these games are very old (except for Tetris), older than even the NES. The question of games becoming art will be proven or disproven long after we are in our graves. Let’s not worry about it.
But I wonder why people seem consumed by the question. At first, I thought it was a hardcore sentiment that they want to be ‘cultured’ instead of being cursed by outsiders for wasting their time. Then, I wondered if the ever crazy artist personality, which makes up most game makers, was forcing them to make ‘art’ instead of ‘products’ not unlike the prestige movies. But now I wonder whether it is an intoxication of history. Everyone loves history and wants to be part of history. When a historical event occurs in our modern times, watch how everyone attempts to put themselves into the story. For example, when Princess Di died, countless people gave flowers and all not so much becuase they cared but because they wanted to be part of history. You can witness a similiar behavior with the 9/11 attacks where everyone has a story that somehow, someway, links them to the destruction (“I had a relative who…”).
The reason the desire for history is my current suspect is it is something I have noticed lately in journalists. Advocacy Journalism appears to be more about advocacy about what they believe is ‘historic’. It could be a political candidate getting elected, Man landing on the moon, something. When journalists look at their profession, they tend to do so in the prism of history. Artists, political leaders, all share that tendency to submit to ‘history’.
Of course, history attends to itself. If my hypothesis is correct as to the reason why people keep desiring games to be art is a desire to be part of history or, for game designers, to make history, it would explain the infinite top ten lists, the stupid hype that surrounds every ‘revolutionary’ game, and even the ‘Console Wars’. For what are the ‘Console Wars’ but history of gaming in the making? Everyone wants gaming’s history to have a purpose, to not just be nothing.
Notice that Star Trek and Star Wars fans, who obsess over the ‘history’ of the canon and show, defend it by proclaiming how it is ‘art’, ‘culture’ and all that good stuff. They don’t want to be seen as nerds.
Most of the junk that is called ‘art’ in the present won’t survive a century. The question isn’t whether today’s video games are art. The real question is whether today’s books, movies, and paintings are.