Critical evaluation

Over the course of this research so far it has become clear to me that to find a definitive definition of art, to me is impossible. Taking my own philosophical approach, art is a subjective concept it can not be objective because it is open to interpretation, basically one persons view is different to another, many peoples definitions are different to others. So for me to grasp some kind of an end to my question of "Can games be considered art?" I need form my own definition, a personal enumerative approach I can take when analyzing whether a game is a work of art or not. So I propose not a solid definition to "What is art?" but in relation to whether games can be considered art, a gathering of ideals that I have collected other my research. Of-course a game must be aesthetically pleasing, if a game doesn't look appealing or fun to play it wont be bought and played. This should be the obvious first step, but this does not make it a work of art alone, the game needs to be able to communicate, but I do not mean that in the obvious sense, for example the two games I chose to analyze that I believe are works of interactive art have very little dialogue and text, yet they communicate very well aesthetically, through the images, motions, music, touch even, as I explained earlier while controlling your direction in Flower your hands themselves move as though they are in the wind. Also the AI of argo in Shadow Of The Colossus creates a real sense that he is a living creature and not just a vehicle, and because you have to use him in certain battles to bring down the colossi you feel companionship and friendship with him.

Some interesting points arose while I was reading Chris Crawfords On Game Design, on creativity being lost in game design because of big budgets and that developers are not willing to make creative risks on a large budget then they would have done in the past on a smaller one, this I found valid as it has proven to be the case in the film industry, but through further investigation I have found out that this may not be the case anymore with the aid of the Playstation Network as Kellee Santiago points out "With downloadable games you can have smaller teams, smaller budgets, which means we can take more creative risks and now we are seeing all sorts of games that wouldn't have been published with out the Playstation Network." and she is right would publishers take a risk producing games such as Keita Takahashi's unique and artistist game Noby Noby Boy if it was not for playstation network? When asked "Do you think that Playstation Network, PSN is opening doors to new types of gaming expanses?" Which can be found on this link, Keita's reply was "Yes I believe so, I really want developers to come out with unique games thats totally out of the box and I really really want that to happen and PSN is definitely something that that could happen."

I feel as though my process of this investigation has been organic from my early posts looking at dictionary definitions of art and games designers own definitions to philosophical definitions and understanding the restrictions and opportunities within the industry that will influence the future of artistic expression within games design. If I had had more time I would have researched in to film theory also, though I feel I have gathered enough research to gain a good understanding to the Questions I set myself.

So this brings me through to say that though I believe Flower and Shadow Of The Colossus to be great examples of games as art the industry still has a long way to go. I do not believe that all games should be classified as art but through investigation some do indeed qualify. But they could be if creativity is feed and encouraged in to the industry. A point id like to make, you can put film, literature, and music in to a game and they are all considered art, but not the other way round. Video games have the potential the be great pieces of art. So I conclude this research with the notion that games do have the potential to become great pieces of artwork, like Jenkins points out in Games, the new lively art, with the help of healthy criticism and debate, games do have the potential to have artist value.

References

 

Chris Crawford on Game Design

By Chris Crawford New Riders Publishing

Pub Date: june 10,2003

ISBN: 0-13-146099-4

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbSDdQ08bfs

http://www.us.playstation.com/PS3/Games/Flower

http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/henry3/GamesNewLively.html