Games People Play
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Games People Play Robert VerBruggen
Published online: 23 October 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media New York 2012
Today’s video games aren’t even a little bit like the ones that came out a few decades ago. Not only has the underlying technology dramatically improved, but the medium has matured remarkably in the years since Pong and Space Invaders ruled the arcades. At last, what was once a pleasant diversion—merely a game—has become a fascinating form of expression, worthy of serious commentary and criticism. This is not to say that your average blockbusters—most of the games you see advertised on TV—are brimming with artistic merit. In fact, virtually every stereotype you’ve ever heard about games and the people who play them is true to some degree. But, as is the case with movies, if you look a little deeper, you will find actual artists producing valuable work. And this is important, because video games do things that other forms of media do not. Modern processors are capable of displaying stunning visual creations, and game developers are happy to use them this way, making games a last refuge of aesthetic pleasure in a world where much “art” is deliberately ugly. In terms of plot, the fact that video games are played, and not merely experienced passively, dramatically broadens an artist’s capabilities—not only can a video game present the player with an interactive world to explore and in which to tell a story, but a game can force players to make choices and live with the consequences. Further, the rise of “indie” developers reveals a subset of game designers who are serious about treating games as an art form.
Robert VerBruggen is a deputy managing editor of National Review and a contributor to the video game website Cheat Code Central; [email protected].
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The artistic promise of video games has yet to be fulfilled. No reasonable person could deny this. But the current state of the medium is impressive in many ways, and the possibilities—for education as well as art—are boundless. The question of whether video games are “art” is difficult and ridiculous, and it divides the experts. In 2010, prominent film critic Roger Ebert headlined a blog entry “Video Games Can Never Be Art,” and proceeded to employ all of the tricks any participant in this debate must use—he played with the definition of “art” and played with the definition of “games” until he arrived at the answer he sought.1 Earlier this year, meanwhile, no less an authority than the Smithsonian American Art Museum debuted an exhibition entitled “The Art of Video Games”—featuring games that were chosen by a popular online vote, almost as if to admit that the institution doesn’t take the exhibit seriously.2 Far be it from me to mediate a debate between Roger Ebert and the ballot-counters at the Smithsonian. When I say that video games are “artistic” or worthy of serious critical consideration, I mean merely that they convey high-quality stories or ideas to an audience, much the way that the best movies do. With t
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