Games As Art: The Sole Privilege of the “Artgame?”
The debate about whether or not games are art rages ever on. Some people will probably always think so, and many people probably will never think so. Such is the case when it comes to a debate in which very little can be definitively proven. While I would fall in the camp of those who agree that games are art, my discussion of the topic today is a bit of an aside. In Ian Bogost’s book, How To Do Things With Videogames, he discusses the idea of games as art, but he privileges specific types of games. The three games he draws on for the majority of his discussion are Passage, Braid, and The Marriage.
While I would not disagree that these games are art, having had personal experience with the former two, I would not agree that it is only these kinds of games that are able to be art. Games like these reject the idea that they are literature, instead relying on the unique nature of a game to deliver the artistic experience. I contend, however, that this is not the only artistic experience that a game has to offer.
The underlying assumption here, being that because narrative in games is “concrete” that it cannot be subjective. I would first call this concreteness into question. Because a narrative tells a story we assume it is objective, but why is that assumption made in games but not in films or literature? When we read a story, or even watch a film, on some level we understand it to be the subjective experience of the given character or characters. There is meaning to be pulled from a text that can go beyond the characters’ experience or even the author’s intention. It seems like we do not afford the writing in games the same opportunity. While it is all well and good to study games as games, for what makes them different than other texts, it does not sit well with me to disregard what they have in common with other texts in its entirety.
The above clip captures one version of events in the downloadable content story campaign for Fallout: New Vegas called “Dead Money.” While the video runs a somewhat lengthy five minutes there is one moment of just the subjectivity I was speaking of that I would like to discuss. While the video is chronicling for the player what has happened to Dog, a supermutant that assists the player in this campaign, the following comment is made, “the mutant prayed that the courier that had saved him had been saved in return.” This speaks to a future moment in a future campaign in the game, to a time in which the player character will be in physical danger, but the kind of saving meant here is not of the player character’s life but of something more. You see, the courier helps Dog reconcile two split personalities, one bent on sole control of the body (but is also violent and destructive), the other, who is subservient to any master which exerts control. Through the player’s intervention Dog is said to have manifested a new personality in the epilogue, one which is neither of these two but something more. The courier helps Dog to become more than just destruction or servitude.
This is a moment loaded with both in world story implications as well as the potential to give the player something to think about beyond just the game’s context. Because this is effectively a cutscene there is no interaction, but the moment is enhanced (even, changed?) by the gameplay experience that came before it and is still to come. Cutscenes in games are sometimes derogatorily seen as static and antithetical to games as games, and while that can be the case it does not have to be. This epilogue does not exist in isolation, and the player has a greater response to it because of the game they have experienced leading up to it. While games should be appreciated for what they offer as a unique medium, I think it would be presumptuous to take their narrative elements for granted.
