Hi guys, I’m a newbie here so be gentle, heres a LONG essay I wrote for my first year in a games development course here in Ireland in 2007 as part of a media module. If you have time to read it, do so and let me know what you think!

p.s.-look out for me trying to describe Katamari to a non-gamer!!!

“Games represent a new lively art, one as appropriate to the digital age as those earlier media were for the machine age. They open up new aesthetic experiences and transform the computer screen into a realm of experimentation and innovation that is broadly accessible. And games have been embraced by a public who have otherwise been unimpressed by much of what passes for digital art.” The importance of an inspired artistic direction and indeed a creatively enthusiastic art director on board the formation of a computer game cannot be underestimated. Marcel Duchamp’s famed “Fountain” (voted in 2004 by 500 selected British art world professionals as ‘The most influential art work of the 20th century’ ; this piece simply consisted of a urinal turned 90º and renamed as a fountain. By conferring the status of ‘art’ to a urinal Duchamp forced viewers to see it in a new light and in doing so overthrew artistic conventions concerning meaning and aesthetics) is another less refined definition of the theology behind what it is to be art. Is it an eternal and often frivolous debate in which I shall not be discussing in much detail. I will however, leave a favourite quote of mine concerning art, from the writer Scott McCloud: “Art, as I see it, is any human activity which doesn’t grow out of either of our two species’ two basic instincts- survival, and reproduction.”
It is difficult to define the exact point in time at which the hobby of gaming became an artistically driven medium. The earliest games were text driven though, and encompassed the act of choices (through the players imagination) for your character in the story, the correct choices, and the game was won. The seeds of imagination were sewn and the gamers thirsted for more. One of the earliest graphics based games was ‘Pong’ (a primitive tennis game – now iconic – consisting of two white bars on either side of the black screen and a square ‘ball’), developed by William Higinbotham in 1958 to entertain visitors to the research facility where he worked. The revolution and creation of a medium was nearly in full swing. The first digital artists had strict limits to their creativity, and the arrival of the ZX Spectrum which could manage 8 colours on a 256×192 screen laid the foundations to gaming trends which follow even today. The games produced by this machine though were two dimensional, and it wasn’t really until 1977 that the first mainstream three dimensional game was produced, ‘Speedfreaks’, a black and white racing game with crude ‘wireframe’ blocky cars in which colour could not be rendered and cars could be seen through. Despite this though, it laid the ideas down that form the games industry today. Consequently, art was not really explored, technology was.
As a result to the technology being explored though, processing power evolved, which led to ensuing artistic endeavours. More and more colours, polygons (which are the minute, coloured, geometric – usually triangle – shapes which form a 3-D model), effects, innovations and advances in graphical engines (which render images on the screen) led to brilliant colours being displayed. Graphical artists now tried to copy our own reality and gaming themes developed. A tone was created in-game for the first time not just through music but through visual effects. Darkened grey-brown corridors seen in every horror game created to date became a staple beacon for wariness, for example. Recurring characters were invented for the first time, given back stories and unique worlds in which they inhabited. This was now the dawn of a continuing competitive trend in which every designer now strives for- the sequel, and therefore the mark of a great character and game. Some of these characters (many of which are still going today) have been elevated to legendary status. Icons. Synonymous with the word ‘video game’. An Italian plumber named ‘Mario’ is now an institution. He stars in a series of over 100 games spanning over 10 platforms with his own feature film, cartoons, merchandise range and even a star on the Hollywood walk of fame. Another similar star on that same walk is ‘Sonic the hedgehog’, a blue, super sonic hedgehog and rival to ‘Mario’. These were and remain mascots of the video game medium. It is difficult to understand why though, and yes it is due to the advertising influence of Sega and Nintendo, and the groundbreaking gameplay employed by them in these games. But also, due to their design. Vividly colourful and brilliantly designed quirky yet oh-so-cool characters you control dance across the screen in wonderfully realised environments at your command. These mascots were not just a spark in the industry, they were trailblazers. The trend exists today, and not 1 month ago ‘Halo 3’, the conclusion of a long trilogy of sci-fi games featuring elite soldier ‘Master chief’ was released with record breaking pre orders to the game and attracting phenomenal international sales. Sometimes simple is best, Mario is constructed of three colours. The modern ‘Master chief’ largely of three aswell. But the aesthetic potency of their design seems definite. These icons not only shift millions of games, they shift consoles, becoming the reason people invest €400 to €700 on a games machine.
The invention of these characters stems from an inspired artistic vision. That same spark of vision has helped develop video games from mere games to fully immersive experiences. Indeed, how every art form should behave – the provocation of emotion. Creating emotion in games is a difficult balancing act of retaining artistic integrity while fully engaging the player. Emotion is not just humour, grief and anger etc. A racing game does not generally evoke these senses, but if creative enough, enthrals the player in a form of often competitive escapism. Chris Kingsley, founder of ‘Rebellion Games’ claims “I find it really bizarre that people don’t understand what an all encompassing art making games is…we’ve got actors and dancers, and choreographers because we need them to move. We’ve got architects to build environments, sculptors who create characters; we’ve got painters who make textures, writers to write stories- interactive stories. We’ve got lighting guys.” The right game is not a game but an interactive world. MMORPG’s (a common term in a gamers dictionary standing for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) are the best game form to explain this. They involve countless thousands internationally all playing the same game. ‘World of Warcraft’ and ‘Guild Wars’ are similarly themed MMORPG’s and both have literally addicts that play them. Millions of people the world over are infatuated by the artistic merits of such worlds, which involve role playing (as a mage, warrior or some other creature for example), exploring the vast ever-changing living lands. Leave the online game for a fortnight and chances are a previously inhabited village (by real people’s characters) has been moved on by constantly raiding orcs and become overgrown and dangerous. These are experiences that not only force a player/inhabitant of these inventive worlds to think about their actions like never before, but crank up the immersive intensity of the games as well. Artistically therefore, worlds are now being realised in their entirety. They live. In-game grass is growing in real time, it snows in winter, and the sun stays out longer around May, June and July. Many more artistic aspects encompass these and similar games that have captured the hearts and minds of millions too.
“They’re dangerous physical appliances that teach a kid how to kill efficiently and to love it,” says Jack Thompson, an infamous right wing American lawyer on a self proclaimed crusade against the evils of videogames, sees the direct congruence between games, and violence in reality. The man has been widely criticised but does explore an interesting debate, albeit in a ridiculous fashion. The power of an art form can reach the viewer, listener, reader or player in a variety of ways. Evoking emotion once again, film, game and book can delight, concern, and terrify. A violent horror game, like film requires a level of maturity, hence the 18 age rating many games now carry. Nevertheless, through many of these games potent realism they have been linked to violent acts in the real world, killing sprees and suicides from those few individuals blaming a game they own. This, is art as a weapon. The content – according to some – sparks a volatile reaction within the player. Often mercilessly training the participant to kill. According to the journal www.gamestudies.org, “On 21 March 2003, a day into the war in Iraq, Sony filed a trademark application for the phrase “shock and awe,” apparently for future use as a PlayStation game title. The phrase, and the American military strategy it describes, was in fact not such an unlikely candidate for the PlayStation. The console system has long flirted with game formats based in realistic scenarios, from Sony’s own SOCOM: U.S. Navy Seals (2002) to Electronic Arts’s Madden NFL (2004) [A realistic game based on American Football]. A month later, responding to criticism, Sony dropped the application, stating they did not intend to use the expression “shock and awe” in any upcoming games. But they have not dropped their fetish for realistic gaming scenarios.” This realism is getting to a stage where the lines are being merged. The American military frequently employs computer games (many of which have been released as proper games, e.g. the desert team-soldier based game now on the Xbox ‘Full Spectrum Warrior’) as training simulations. Most famous though is the Grand Theft Auto series, the last of which was GTA: San Andreas and the fastest selling game of all time and arguably most controversial; the last three of the games have been banned in Australia. These are ground breaking ‘playground’ games in which entire cities are your playground, with set missions and story lines you can do but only if you wish. You get around these cities by car jacking any car you wish, hence the title. These have reportedly led to increased car robberies, and even murders (you can shoot pedestrians if you wish, but there are repercussions, the police chase you). They are controversial in the extreme, but still excellent games. The artistic direction of the breathing, neon soaked, culturally enriched cities is incredible. The scripts wonderfully sardonic in their approach and the work that has gone into creating the pieces obvious. Unlike, as Jack Thompson claims; games are “a public safety hazard”, and merely make violence “pleasurable and attractive.”v
As detailed textures were painted onto environments and characters in games, developers continued to strive towards perfect photorealism in games and they still do. Hardware power has increased and the arrival of this generation of consoles has heralded a new wave of very nearly photorealistic games. New effects have been employed, for example the physics behind water in games cause it to behave exactly as it should now, which was previously nigh on impossible, rippling and dancing the sunlight and vivid reflections off of fluid waves. Sunlight is another hard environmental factor to portray in games that has effectively been overcome, the rainbow refraction of light through glass, sunsets and rises painting the entire screen in an orange haze and light hitting other surfaces and textures while creating flawless shadows in a realistic manner all result in ever more lifelike games. However, it can and will reach a saturation point. André van Rooijen, Art Director of Davilex games reckons “The graphic power of PCs and consoles will keep on growing rapidly so there’s no way to tell how many polygons we will be able to render in 5 years time even. I also believe that we will use those polygons until there’s almost no difference between the real world and the rendered one. By the time we get to that stage, the question will become how useful it is to recreate the real world. It is similar to the question asked among painters when photography was invented. You can create an exact copy of reality – but why bother? Why don’t we use all that processing power instead to create worlds and experiences that no one has ever seen before? For painting, this was the dawn of abstract art. What will it be for game art? Maybe we’ll see the creation of some sort of sub-genre between art and entertainment. The results will be interesting.”
This is when the art of abstraction will flourish. Fascinating and diverse abstract games of course have been created for years, usually stemming from Japanese culture. One of which, on the Playstation 2 is ‘We ♥ Katamari’, a bizarre, distinct and very colourful game in which you control a katamari, an infinitely sticky ball which you must roll around to pick up objects, until it gets bigger and so can pick up even larger objects, and eventually are able to pick up buildings, mountains, countries, continents and planets, in order to keep your king happy. This is popular in Japan and demonstrates the value of ‘charm’ in games. These surreal artistic endeavours are what games should be about, they are the ultimate escapism. But if the video game medium is a niche one, these abstract peripheries are currently a niche within a niche. James Paul Gee, art critic, argues that “Game’s distinct artistic status require us to develop unique interpretive frameworks.” As a result the future of the game art world is impossible to define, but abstraction will always remain as an important tool in a game artist and designer’s mind when creating another work of art.
A novelist once said, “Games will never be art.” Similarly, Jack Kroll from News Week claims “Games can be fun and rewarding in many ways, but they can’t transmit the emotional complexity that is the root of art.” Well, I say art isn’t a rarefied concept for the elite few. Art forms are difficult to define, especially a rapidly evolving and constantly shifting one such as games, Gee claims that “Videogames are a new art form, that is the one reason why now is the right time for games studies, and as a new art form, they are largely immune to traditional tools developed for the analysis of literature and film.”viii And that is the heart of the subject, art by distinction.

Bibliography:

i. www.gameart-web-linked.com – Bittani, M. 2006, ‘Game Art’. Quote by Jenkins, H.

ii. www.wikipedia.org – ‘Marcel Duchamp’

iii. McCloud, S. 1993, Understanding Comics. MA, United States: Kitchen Sink Press Inc.

iv. Kingsley, C. 2007, ‘Brighton Peers’ Edge Magazine. Vol. 180, 78-79

v. www.wikipedia.org – ‘Jack Thompson’

vi. www.gamestudies.org/0601 – Galloway, A. R. 2006, ‘Social Realism in Gaming’ Game Studies. Vol.4, Issue 1

vii. Hartas, L. and Morris, D. 2003, Game Art. London: Collins

viii. www.gameart-web-linked.com – Bittani, M. 2006, ‘Game Art’. Quote by Paul, J.G.

ix. Kroll, J. 2005, ‘Are Games Art?’ News Week. July 5