泥中蟠龍's Game愛歌
[A love song for games of the dragon waiting for an opportunity]
Are video games art?
December.26.2013
Recently I read an article about why video game is not an art. Summarizing the critical review, video game must reflect its artistic side to become part of a culture, however, game graphic is just a skill which lacks elements of art and video game story doesn't have literary value on the lower level of collect and edit without any meaningful factors.
In fact, I never knew the game critic who wrote the story. He is a total stranger and it's nothing personal against him. Both as a gaming industry employee and as a person who loves games, I just want to say a few thing about it which is, I guess, being ignored.
To begin with, I don't agree with a proposition which states that artistic aspect is essential for defining as a culture. Should a culture reflect artistic side? A culture embraces an art and a culture is not a subset of an art. We use a word of culture not art referring to the gift-giving culture to exam candidates—conventionally Chapssaltteok (glutinous rice cake) or Yeot (Korean hard taffy)—when the college entrance exam is just around the corner in Korea.
Furthermore, the opinion that game graphic is just a technique is no different from the view that fashion design, character design, industrial design, and motion graphic design etc. are just a skill. Video game graphics bring together character costumes, concept art, items, mechanical design, and character motion graphics etc. And they are the fruit of teamwork of a lot of designers. Of course I assume that not every game shows result with artistic value. But I don't agree with the opinion that all essentials for game graphics are only a technical skill far from arts. This is equivalent to calling everything painted by an artist not works of art. I could ever agree to the idea "game graphic is a skill" in a situation where many game designers create works of art with their concept arts, sometimes famous artists join a game-making project, and there are exhibitions of concept arts.
Lastly, he jumped to conclusion that video game stories don't have literary value just by analyzing a small number of local online games. There is Resident Evil, the film adaptation of a game story and Enter the Matrix, the first game based on The Matrix series of films and there are some games with video game characters of famous movie stars. Game story is one of the most important factors for game and users sometimes are extremely impressed by the story itself. Of course game story is not essential for some games or specific genres and there are some games with poor structure of the story. Nevertheless, the hasty conclusion that game story doesn't have any literary value is a hasty generalization.
I assume that it will take long time for video games to be valued as an art by the public. Many genres of pop culture were viewed by people as being trivial and dumbed-down before finding consensual acceptance form the mainstream. Photograph, cinema, and popular music came under heavy criticism for the first time. Not too long ago, there were many people with more negative perceptions toward comic strip, however, it is already accepted as a legitimate art—the "ninth art" in the '90s across the globe regardless of the others' evaluation of the artistic and literary value of the cartoon. Video games recently turned sixty and there is a long way to go.
I guarantee that video game is a culture with plenty of artistic factors. It only needs time to be accepted as an art by the public. Therefore, gaming employees should examine themselves and make great efforts.
※ This is from Kyunghyang Games column by 泥中蟠龍 since September 2013.
(http://www.khgames.co.kr)
Translation by Kim Ki-hui
