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The Big Question
On one extreme you’ve got ‘art’: Van Gogh’s Starry Night, Michelangelo’s David, slabs of rusted metal elegantly posed outside an office building, a buck-naked performer howling and urinating while attempting to play a xylophone with her feet.
You know, art.
On the other extreme you’ve got ‘product’: individually packaged microwavable pancakes, Pokemon plush dolls, sunglasses for pets. Useless stuff that adds a breathtakingly small amount of value to our lives.
The space between the extremes is densely inhabited. Die Hard 4.0, though clearly pleased by its own degeneracy, was not a completely artless film. Harry Potter approaches highly competent children’s literature, but that doesn’t make it any less of a product. So what might be a summary of their distinctions? Is it that art is all about expression whereas product is all about profit?
If I believed in disclaimers, here’s one that might have kicked off my column a year ago: games usually represent a balance between art and product, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I write about the ways that games are artistic and can improve their artistry, but I don’t think we should purge everything that’s not art from the entire medium.
I doubt anyone dreams of a future in which all games are difficult works which trouble the layman, and taxpayers bemoan what percentage of their pay funds Xbox 360s for the Guggenheim. Some games provide basic creature comforts, not unlike nachos and queso or your 65th viewing of The Big Lebowski, and God bless them for it. Mario Kart doesn’t do a whole lot to expand my horizons, but I put a lot of time into it and feel gratified with what it gives back.
A more important question might be to ask how much of the average videogame is art and how much is product?
What would be your ideal mixture between the two? Maybe the latter is a trick question, because personally I believe that it’s not mandatory that they compromise. The game that ruthlessly targets the broadest appeal at all costs will wind up diluting itself to the lowest common denominator and becoming creatively bland. The game that seeks to be a vibrant personal expression at the cost of all approachability will attract the narrowest audience.
But even though the balancing act is a real challenge, the motivations to make art and product can reinforce each other. From an artistic point of view, I would certainly prefer that more people connect to my work than fewer, provided I don’t have to compromise the core to achieve that. Even under the cruel heel of the profit motive, the reality of most high-profile games, the most successful product is not just the one that reaches the largest number of people but the one that appeals to them the most.
So is art a great commodity? Look at the highest-grossing films of all time and ask how much their artistry helped them achieve that standing: Titanic, two Lords Of The Rings, two Pirates Of The Caribbean, The Dark Knight, three Harry Potters, The Phantom Menace, Shrek 2 and Jurassic Park… art or product?
If I’m ambivalent about art vs product, it’s because I believe that distinction too easily misses the point. The thing that impresses me most about Harmonix is not that they had the chops to make Guitar Hero and Rock Band into ridiculously successful products, but that they answer to a higher calling. As Greg LoPiccolo explained in my interview with him, their company mission statement is to bring the joy of performing music to people who haven’t learned a conventional instrument. That’s a lofty goal that our medium is positioned to deliver on in a unique way, and it’s not the only one. We live in a world where the pivotal topics that will determine the future of our species, such as climate change, the economy, overpopulation and genetic engineering, are dictated by massive interconnected systems whose long-term behaviours are counter-intuitive to the human brain. Would more people take the inevitability and implications of global warming seriously if they had grown up with SimEarth and had a chance to learn about large systems through play and exploration? What else can games do? What can’t they do?
I’m like you. I get off on pure, unadulterated entertainment. But the thing I’ve noticed is that the games, movies, books and songs that stick with me the most are the ones that capture an indescribable nuance of my inner self, or introduced me to an idea that I now hold sacred, or motivated me to be the best person I can be. And that this appreciation has little direct correlation with whether they are a tiny niche no one else seems to appreciate or a cash cow global phenomenon. We should be proud that, far from being just a diversion, we are part of a medium that is evolving its unique ability to approach these lofty goals in a way that’s never been done before. That there is a direct connection between blowing up asteroids with vector graphics and improving people’s lives and changing the world.
My first post certainly risks going unread.
I'm an art student, 4th year and specialised in painting. I'm also playing games and more so reading about it a lot. Yesterday I watched the Incredibles for the 2nd time. To me this is very much a product of commercial thought. Aimed to please kids and families. Easy to pick up, not confronting you with anything or trying to learn you something. But somehow, just like Wall - E, there seemed to be a profound perfection about this movie. So I watched the making of and all the extra's, To my suprise besides the music and the obvious sketching you do for this kind of movie some of it actually originated from beautifull paper cut outs. So my point? Not really any maybe. Just saying this aint art but it's sure as hell is creative, witty and innovative.
So games that are art? Hardly any full lives up to this premise. Rez comes to mind, Tetris in a way. Often parts of games are arty, like the new Prince of Persia look but nothing else about this game. I also feel that something like Super Mario Galaxy or Little Big planet is a bit art like, not the visual design, though great, but the gameplay, offering people truly new experiences just must be art.
Then there is Shenmue, as much as you can criticise this game. It's my favourite, both of them, especially the whole adventure from 1 untill the end of 2. So is shenmue art? I think yes, in a very classic way. It's not like modern art at all, it's art in that it tried so hard and succeeded quite well in recreating reality. The backgrounds, the characters, the animation and the detail. It was way beyond it's own time and even though our games are technically way beyond shenmue now, they never again have come so far in recreating the world we live in (maybe heavy rain will for a bit). Not even GTA 4, which i think also has to do with the perspective and the content. Yoú have a standard camera view that just doesn't feel like a realistic experience and the actual gameplay is far to spectacular and 'videogamie' to compete. Cause that something else shenmue did, in made you perform ordinarie tasks, it made you ask people the way and talk to your mother, you know?
I think that art oftentimes is a one men or woman accomplishment, games rarely are. Sure there's Braid and there is good old Jordan Mechner (or something) but they are the exception.
Do I want games to be more like art. It depends, too me games are in a different place than other media. Games are still growing towards the point of creating a perfect illusion, even if many develepors take a detour from that, this is essentialy what the technology is growing towards. Once we've reached that point, things will change. I just wished more developers would really take the steps towards creating something as truly immersive as shenmue, something more believable than the last thing is always a thrill to me and creating games more like an experience set in a world we know doing stuff that's not ridicolous (like killing everyone all the time) is what would make this industry more mature.
From Wikipedia:
"Art is the process or product of deliberately and creatively arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions, especially beauty."
"Product is anything that can be offered to a market that might satisfy a want or need."
Although you can argue that both can be satisfied in one object (a game, movie, book...) if a person creating it derives money from it, that means the user is paying for satisfying the need that is greater than the need the money he is paying could satisfy if used differently. You can read the sentence again, if you need. I do not charge for it. I am an artist.
Therefore only free stuff - that exists for the purpose of appealing to the senses and not attracting money - is art.
This should answer "the big question": there isn't one.
Thanks for writing this article. I'm always interested in hearing about this topic, and I like hearing other peoples' insight to influence my perspective.
For me, I think of an ideal mix of art and entertainment, as far as what I'd like the most successful video games to accomplish, would be like Steven Spielberg at top form. The Indiana Jones movies, this last one notwithstanding, were epic blockbuster entertainment, but you can tell Spielberg has a genuine interest in the material. It's what separates his movies from the Mummy series. He's passionate about mythology and adventure, and I think that kind of intellectual curiosity and creative brilliance is too often missing from blockbuster video games. Or other movies, for that matter.
That's what makes the Dark Knight so successful to me. Christopher Nolan is both an artist and entertainer. He gives audiences what they want, but not without indulging his curiosity in human psychology. I don't feel like video games have accomplished that kind of balance so successfully yet -- they're still finding their footing in many ways.
Either they are pure entertainment, which they do very well, or they aim for something higher but ultimately fall short. I don't mean to sound condescending towards video games, because that's not my intent. Most movies and books end up the same way, but in the end, I think games are artistically limited by one thing: they have to be fun. A great movie doesn't necessarily have to be fun to accomplish what it's reaching for.
Maybe it's unfair to make the comparison in the first place. If fun were a form of art, personally, I would say Super Mario Bros. 3 and Final Fantasy 6 are Titian paintings, and the SNES was the Renaissance. I just wonder, why are we so compelled to think of games in terms of art? Clearly they are artistic and made with genuine talent, but are they really trying to express something? In some cases they are, and that should always be considered, but in the end I'm not looking to satisfy my intellectual desires when I play a game. If a game can be both entertaining and intellectually crafted, but not necessarily made for intellectuals, I think that's where it should be.
But what do I know? I like Caddyshack 2.
Shadow of the Colossus, ICO, Bioshock, Braid, Passage, Portal... Who can deny that these games (to name a few personal favorites) have in themselves the potential to, in almost your exact words: 'Capture an indescribable nuance of the inner self, introduce one to an idea that can be held as sacred, or motivate one to be the best person one can be?' The way things are evolving it won't be long before videogames galvanize as a powerful medium for both art and profit in the 21st Century the same way Film did in the past one.