Are video games art? Noted film critic Roger Ebert went on
record firmly saying no, they aren’t. But if you are among the Entertainment
Software Association’s estimated 58 percent of Americans who play games, you
might disagree with Ebert’s stance on the matter.
“The Art of
Video Games,” curated by Chris Melissinos, founder of Past Pixels, for The
Smithsonian American Art Museum, is a traveling exhibit that attempts to get to
the core of gaming and raise and answer questions surrounding the history and
growth of gaming as an interactive art form.
The bulk of
the exhibit is experienced through short videos that accompany a walkable
timeline of home-console systems. You’ll get a look at 80 games and a variety
of consoles dating back to the Atari VCS (represented by “Pac-Man,” “Space
Invaders,” “Pitfall!,” and “Combat”), ColecoVision (a reminder that “Donkey Kong,” a Nintendo
title, actually got its home start on a non-Nintendo system), and Intellivision. The exhibits run all the way through the
DOS/Windows days (“DOOM II,” “Diablo II,” “Fallout,” “StarCraft”) and end with
last-generation consoles Wii, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360.
While the
games themselves could make strong arguments for the case of video games as
art, their presentation in this exhibit doesn’t do them justice. Short video
clips offer up tidbits about each title — such as the introduction of new
gameplay mechanics, or placing the title in historical context — but they fail
to go in-depth into any singular title or touch on the larger topic at hand.
Oddly
enough, for an exhibit called “The Art of Video Games,” there is only one small
section that contains actual concept art, and the selections within it are odd.
Personally, I was glad to see artwork from “The Lord of the Rings: Battle for Middle
Earth II” (Windows, Xbox 360) and “Epic Mickey” (Wii) included, but the
reliance on these titles actually hinders the overall message of the exhibit:
both of those games rely on adapting other worlds to the gaming medium, not
creating anything new or unique.
The focus on
Western audiences and Western gaming development, especially in the developer-interview
section, also seems strange, especially since the gaming world was largely dominated
by Japan for so long. I wonder if that was a conscious choice, or if some
developers or game studios were simply more open to the idea of providing
materials for the exhibit, thus skewing what was included.
Some genre-defining,
adult-oriented franchises, including “Grand Theft Auto” and “Call of Duty,” are
also ignored. I can’t say for sure that it was due to their adult
themes or other issues (the N64 classic “Goldeneye 007” can’t be displayed due
to copyright restrictions, apparently), but it is worth noting. Also,
the total disregard of all handheld gaming devices is a grievous oversight,
especially considering both the rapidly growing mobile-gaming sector, and that
successful handheld devices tend to sell to more units than home consoles.
The exhibit’s real goal seems to be less
about presenting the art found within games, and more about hammering home that, yes,
games themselves are an art form. Yet the exhibit largely ignores some of the
most interesting aspects of gaming. No multiplayer games are playable (although
“Pac-Man,” “Super Mario Bros.,” “The Secret of Monkey Island,” “Myst,” and “Flower” are all playable as part of the exhibit).
That seems like a perfect way to demonstrate the community and person-to-person
interaction that is practically exclusive to gaming.
The whole
concept of “the player” is also mostly ignored, save for one portion. The most
interesting part of the exhibit is a three-panel display that shows the reactions
of people playing various games. The games themselves aren’t shown, just the
expressions of people playing them. It is interesting to experience gaming in
reverse, and it also made me realize that I never actually get to see what I
look like while playing games.
Parts of the
exhibit seem aimed at nostalgia-fueled gamers, while others seem an attempt to
bring new people into the fold. But I’m not sure if it truly successfully
appeals to either audience. Being able to actually play all of the games shown
in video form would likely have been a technological and licensing nightmare,
but without that interactive element, and the player interaction, the exhibit
seems to be nothing more than an argument for how a new medium shouldn’t be
displayed and treated as art in the same way as more traditional media. A video-based
gallery format wasn’t the best choice, and there are many pieces of the larger
gaming puzzle that simply aren’t well represented here. Looking at a video of a
game and going, “Oh yeah, graphics have come a long way” does nothing to
advance the discussion of games as culturally important art.
What results
is a cursory overview of a few top games from each era of the video game. But by
not allowing people to play most of them, and lacking anything that touches on why
people play games or the experiences players bring to them, the exhibit focuses
too much on its overbearing message that games are
in fact art, without ultimately convincing viewers as to why that is. It’s ultimately
a non-interactive way to showcase and convey an interactive medium. If it can’t
convince a gamer who already thinks of games as art, the exhibit — much like
the game industry as a whole — has a lot of growing left to do.
This article appears in Jan 1-7, 2014.
