Let's Understand Video Games

If you are one of those people who gets lost in the obscurity of, "What is art?" and its endless argumentative characteristic, stop it. Just...don't approach anything in that sort of way. Stop. What bugs me greatly are the discussions, let's just say video games but insert the medium you care for the most if you please, where the path the argument takes leads to the locale where people say, "Well, anything is art..." or, "Who cares? It is all subjective." Right, everything is subjective, trust is fake, form is nonexistent. Not only does it hinder any sort of discourse (I will come back to this point again and again in this post, just letting you know) but it disrespects the focus of discourse...or what was the focus of discourse and its intentions and expressions. You could also add that it disrespects your own intelligence if you are the one making that sort of claim, because it shows everyone else that you lack any sentiment or mental investment to treat the topic more than superficially. So, now that that's out of the way, how should we approach a certain medium like video games?

Well, I'll put it simply; what many people have said many times about many other things. It should be more helpful to consider discussing 'art form' rather than 'art' since it indicates the existence of, well, a form or how a medium expresses something through certain techniques. This alleviates convolution with discourse about what makes 'x' art and what is 'art' when it should just be about 'x'. This is a difficult thing to think about within the video game world as I have noticed with a growing internalized frustration. There is either an attempt to ignore such a discussion or an over-emphasis of such a presence in which we try to equate gaming with other mediums. My favorite of these sentiments is the 'Citizen Kane equivocation' where someone tries to find a video game as the same stature of a film, painting, whatnot, that is the pivot of the regarded art form as a whole. The outcome is that many people involved in such an equivocation will say that Citizen Kane is better than Shadow of the Colossus because it just is and it is a film or that it has more influence, this and that, whatever. The problem is that comparing canonical pieces in one art form to canonical pieces in another art form reduces itself to a topic extremely worthless in discourse and fails to really understand either piece being discussed. Why would the fact that Citizen Kane be better than Shadow of the Colossus  be because it has shock cuts, canted angles, wild crane shots and intense symbolism when Shadow of the Colossus has minimalism, expansive landscapes and excellent challenge in the boss fights? There is no way you can really equate these two pieces because when viewing both pieces with that sort of lens elaboration and exploration crumble into superficial observations and is destructive to understanding both film and video games. It is worth avoiding unless in a historical and cultural context, which needs an objective lens, anyways.

Arguing that games can't be art because they have not reached the lofty expressions of Dickens or Hemingway or Goddard is terribly disillusioned.

So, yes, form is important within the medium of video games because it helps us observe patterns in both game design, expression, and the definitive aspect, interactivity, in a manner unique from film, literature, and music. In doing so, we must realize the scope of video games as a form. An example of the opposite would be what Phillip Lipari does in his paper, 'The Video Game as an Artistic Medium According to Kantian Aesthetic Theory,' which only focuses, because of its source material (which, and I don't mean to sound obnoxious, is only from a man who lived two hundred years before video games), on immersion and narrative. Those two elements are definitely factors in form but certainly not the whole explanation as promotion of video games as an art form needs to encompass as much as we can gather through examples in the way in which video games function through its own form. Moreover, one does not need to be getting all muddled up in critical theory that has strains of thought from philosophers of the early 20th century because my goal is to not to formulate a theory but to understand a form that can be applied to video game criticism and analysis. If you want to venture forth on that sort of path, here is a study that brings forth many philosophical theories and tries to find middle ground. Just remember not to lose yourself in such philosophy and theory because it is not practice and it is not, dare I say, popular discourse. For now, let us take a look at where this form in video games comes from.

There is the inherent point of origin where all video game expression stems from and the epicenter of interactivity: the gameplay. Now, I know some theorists and critics want to do away with that word because of its general significance, including the main source of inspiration for this piece that I will come to later, but it is the defining feature of video games as a medium as well as a form. It is the entity that we much delve into to break apart the fundamental components of interaction and expression. As my definition goes, gameplay is the way in which a video game formulates its expression in interactivity. This does include narrative since the style of video game and the gameplay it constructs is influence by the style of narrative and vice versa. The importance of such a lexicon can help us differentiate between Tetris, Doom, Halo, and The Sims. More importantly, but harder for people unfamiliar with video games to understand, is that gameplay does not need narrative to function as an open door for discourse. Expression, in this case, does not mean narrative but a declaration of some characteristic of play; narrative becomes a possible component.

The art is not in emotional narrative but in interactive form. Emotional narrative is only one of many aesthetic choices for the designer.

Gameplay can be dissected into more formal methodologies such that we can extract ways in which games can express themselves through gameplay as well as institute genre specifications. I have scoured many sources from the land of academia, finding more theoretical approaches that, honestly, seem too dehumanizing for me to enjoy. Nevertheless, I found a paper by Robin Hunicke, Marc LeBlanc, and Robert Zubek called MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research. I would take a look at this before going further (it saves me the trouble of reiteration). This is a very simple, yet profound, approach to gameplay, one that articulates the multi-layered construction of the interaction between designer and player. Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics, which can be attributed to other mediums such as film, are equated with Rules, System, and 'Fun.' Here is a brief overview of each layer:

Mechanics: What the player can do within the world of the game, "The level of data representation and algorithms."

Dynamics: Through time, the ways in which the player interacts with the world of the game transform due to specific choices and events through the mechanisms.

Aesthetics: The emotional responses stemmed from the player through interaction.

These are very simple yet appropriately general such that we can easily extrapolate much of the diversity that comes with video games, especially in recent times where games seem to apply hybridization to their list of elements that are necessary to have. And with these three main elements we can further de-materialize the elements into smaller constituents. Let us start with aesthetics, the most direct element a player experiences through the immediacy of immersion. Gameplay can be broken into different styles and tones such that it will categorize the way in which the designer formulates the interactivity of the player towards a certain emotional response or immersion expectation. Here they are:

1. Sensation               

  Game as sense-pleasure
2. Fantasy
  Game as make-believe
3. Narrative 
   Game as drama
4. Challenge
  Game as obstacle course

5. Fellowship

  Game as social framework

6. Discovery

  Game as uncharted territory 

7. Expression

  Game as self-discovery 

8. Submission

  Game as pastime

Let us take two games, Shadow of the Colossus and Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, for consideration. One would describe the former as fantasy, narrative, and discovery while the latter would be described as fellowship, challenge, and fantasy. Note that fellowship contains such elements as competition as social framework. Do not be hasty to conclude the superficiality of such a method, as in, why would we be diminishing these games to several descriptors? The crucial significance of these words are in the form they outline. If Shadow of the Colossus is considered a video game with an aspect of its gameplay as discovery we need to figure out through the dynamics of its mechanics how it achieves such an aesthetic. From here, we can talk about maybe the open world mechanic, its detailed and diverse landscape, or maybe even its character ambiguity. As for Double Dash!!, its component of fellowship can be applied to its multiplayer modes and the ways in which they function with the fundamental gameplay of absurd racing. Specifically, we can point out the team aspect of the game, how two players can play with one kart, is constructed from this fellowship element.

Dynamics, what is done to achieve such aspects of aesthetics,facilitates the interactivity. This entails that, for example, with Double Dash!! the ways in which the designers have developed its challenge element is by providing an increase difficulty of tracks as well as different AI difficulties. Fellowship can be expanded upon the different modes of multiplayer that is available to the user. This is a simple example, but think about more complex games such as Deus Ex, Ratchet and Clank: Up Your Arsenal, or World of Warcraft. This does not mean simple is a derogatory description; there are games that have more aesthetics choices made and because of that have to work more with developing such aesthetics through extended dynamics. Whether they are successful or not is a different story.

Mechanics are the simplest form of gameplay, the bare-bones functions, if you will, that formulate the way in which dynamics expresses and transforms aesthetics. An easy example to give is the seminal Super Mario Bros. where the mechanics are that the player can run and jump. It also includes the enemies and blocks. That's basically it. Dynamics are spawned with the player being able to stomp on enemies and hit certain blocks as well as the assortment of levels. Aesthetics come into play with the overall look of the levels produced, the characters, story, music and tone. You can see how this might get elaborate even for a minimalist game like Shadow of the Colossus. Yet, those are nuances of game design that many people take for granted to the point where their own interactivity is even taken for granted.

If you are a little intimidated or slightly furious with the diction and prose one must write in now, the idea is that you don't need to implement it directly. If all reviews and essays of video games were written in such a  way there will be no elegance, no human connection, towards the reader and author who is trying (hopefully) tap into the nuance of video game form and expression. Just because Shadow of the Colossus can be described as a fantasy does not mean you need to literally state that as your mode of approach. Ideally, one must find a way to describe the game in that sort of way without making it feel mechanical and, instead, colorfully brings out those aspects of the game.

There is more to this than what is shown on this blog. I highly recommend you read the rest of the MDA essay I posted above, as it talks about the intriguing nature of gameplay and how it shifts depending on a player's actions with the concept of tuning. I will probably follow up with a post connecting MDA with a certain game of choice.

Regarding discourse on video games, I feel that the majority of its practice on the internet is implosive because of the negligence we, gamers, have on our own cherished medium. In addition, anyone who looks upon our medium and industry with a predetermined disdain may not be swayed by such presentations from rash and ignorant gamers. My experience with this sort of frustrating exposure is limitless since time immemorial. When I see someone interject an already defunct discussion of video games as art by saying, "Who cares? Games are suppose to be just for fun," it pains me to try and comprehend the motivation for such a statement, and to fail in that attempt. I, frankly, don't even want to talk about the suffocating slander that is all too commonplace. There is still a wide moat separating the player and the designer with not just water filled in it but populated by savage piranhas. This approach I have brought forth seems like the sturdiest bridge to connect the two entities that make up a video game in the human sense. Remember, what this analytic approach can do for video game discourse is broaden the vocabulary to identify many functions of form and why they are implemented in certain games. It adds significance to what is being created, sold, and played while articulating a sense of artistic unification rather than competitive fragmentation or confused ignorance.

Art is not just about subjectivity but about subjectivity within an objective context...or an objectivity within a subjectivity context...nevertheless, you can not exclude one from the other if you want discourse.

Here is a link to the Extra Credits video that also inspired. They use the same source: http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/aesthetics-of-play