First, great read. I needed this.
Second, I wrote a ton:
I’ve always thought of the labeling of games as another art as a way to validate them in an already established market and in the current intellectual field (Bourdieu?) — much like when some people decided that “graphic novel” was a stronger sells pitch than “comic book”, which I’ve always find problematic — but I don’t think the label is empty of significance or value or in itself unnecessary and contrary to the game-ness of games. It is an often toxic sort of gate-keeping that ties to the “game or not-game” debate which has a ton to do with market forces, audiences, society, culture and academia in this very often not-so-nice capitalist world we live in. A complicated debate without easy solution. Can we move on? Critics and academics: hopefully. The market? I don’t know.
I appreciate your criticism of contemporary art forms. At least when it comes to museum-gallery, exposition-worthy art (in Spanish is “artes plásticas” and I struggle to find a similar term in English), whatever is art is often confusing and arbitrary. Institutions sanction one form or another for, again, probably market reasons. But art, as a form of expression takes many forms: film, theater, comics, music — it is one of the widest categories of human made things, probably, and one I believe videogames can’t aptly escape from when they are able to express and communicate emotions, notions, ideas, ideologies, sensations, experiences, etc. Art is play, also, which I’ve always found as a very compelling way of understanding the weirdest art-things out there.
(Yeah, experience is a great word, btw, to somewhat escape “art”, but it is still just another big category bucked where we can dump a ton of human expressions). Maybe I just struggle with the notion of art being devoid of meaning because I’ve studied linguistics. My bias, I suppose.
So videogames = art might be somewhat pretentious and traditionalist and sometimes incongruent, but also many times true. It doesn’t stop games from being games and it will often misguide creators, probably, but also inspire others to do great things. So yeah, screw art, also. Fuck it, even. But… also keep it in mind, no? Hard to push it away from the reality of stuff-creation.
Anyway, I agree that we have to think of games in their own terms, otherwise the discussion around them becomes derivative and stagnant. They are their own thing and I think we are slowly developing a lingo that can serve this purpose without going back and taking a hint from cinematography or narratology or dramaturgy. It is a weird struggle for intellectual legitimacy, I suppose, but an inevitable one. Film somewhat went through something similar when it was “becoming” an art form, as distinct as it was from all others at the time — as games are today so different from everything else… but they share stuff and that is part of the fun of games and art: playing with our references and the world around us –.
So… I just wanted to participate in this discussion. Thanks for the great article, again. I don’t know if I contributed anything new (doubt it). Sorry for the long post. Wish I was better at Portuguese.
