Are games the right medium to tell meaningful stories?

With video games eclipsing both film and music combined as a commercial medium, it is very tempting for artists to decide to branch into this medium as a method of finding new audiences, and creating new artworks, stimulated by the possibilities of the interactive format — but are games the best medium for quality artistic engagement, and therefore are they the best direction for artists to take?

One of the issues with games as a medium is that they require a form of engagement and literacy that other medium don’t necessarily have to have, and also aren’t necessarily being formally taught (Colville, 2017). Gaming, therefore, can act as a filter to, or disengage us from, experiencing meaningful impact as a direct result of the medium, lending itself to different messages that other media may manage better.

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as Adorno’s work on purposeful and critical artistic creation used a similar form of filtering in order to illustrate the value of “high” art, in that individuals would have to work to access the lessons and messages encoded in his work.

However, the idea that mechanics take time to learn, that we need to develop “game literacy” may also serve to unintentionally distort the reach of our message. Rugnetta (2014) has even gone so far as to ask whether the mechanics and their complexity of games are even “actually what games are about” as an artform.

Rugnetta (2014) notes that “worldbuilding, character defining, action driving, narrative elements fuel … games as an artform, experience-giver, and vehicle for meaning” but also, as Colville notes, the mechanics can easily get in the way of intent. Colville also notes that mechanics aren’t necessarily transferable between different genres or even hardware platforms (in the form of different controllers and interfaces). There are also, as Rugnetta notes, games which don’t have deeper meanings and narratives embedded within them naturally (such as chess or poker).

So how does the medium of “games” work as art, or is it just an intrusive, clumsy medium, best avoided by curious artists?

Colville’s point about players not valuing the nuance and mechanics of play may be a misguided assumption however, in that by attempting to get players to recount the specific instances game-play they may be dragging the player away from the art-form itself. Rugnetta compares this to the cinematography technique of the jump cut — a technique which we have internalized in modern cinema viewers, and so do not necessarily notice outside of its intended effect. That players must take time to learn may be present not due to clumsy technique, but instead may be because of the relative novelty of the medium. In other words, because we are still learning to engage and communicate with each “work” (game) through emerging media, we need to learn each games mechanics, genre and therefore art style.

We often see this in our natural language around games, where we will describe something as a Need-For-Speed-style racing game, or a Diablo-esque dungeon crawler. These references give us an introduction to the medium of the new artwork that we are about to engage with, assisting us to position our expectations of the mechanics and dynamics of play, and helping us to decide if the game is worth us learning to access the artwork in greater depth — to access beyond the superficial aesthetic experience.

Literacy and Investment

Another key difference between games and many other media is that many of the more rewarding games require many hours of investment — often an order of magnitude above that of a film, and several orders above a piece of music. Thus, while having mechanics that are unique and artistically innovative might seem like a good idea in order to differentiate the artwork from others in the same medium.

Games as adaption

A last point that I would like to touch on is the idea of games as adaptions of other artworks. This topic allows for a strong comparison and contrast of the mediums of similar content produced by those artists often most familiar with the artwork.

Henry Jenkins, as quoted by Mirasol (2011), describes the art and medium of a game designer in the following way:

“The game designer’s craft makes it possible for the player to feel as if they are in control of the situation at all times, even though their game play and emotional experience is significantly sculpted by the designer. It is a tricky balancing act, making the player aware of the challenges they confront, and at the same time, insuring they have the resources necessary to overcome those challenges.”

Mirasol then goes on to further clarify by saying:

This statement clarifies why many video game adaptations from film and film adaptations from video games ultimately fail. Each art form’s success or appeal depends on how each operates intrinsically. Crossing aesthetics is like driving a left-hand drive car on the left side of the road. This also serves to show why we shouldn’t compare films with video games, any more than we should compare apples and steak.

Through these statements, Mirasol is discussing not only the medium of video games, but also how and why such adaptions of artworks often fail to live up to expectations. The seek to establish links outside themselves, lacking integrity. Despite this, games often tie into other media — using scripted cut scenes, background music, design processes both artistic and animated but, ultimately, a distinct medium that contains distinct forms of discipline.

So, do games have less value than other media? And are games the right mediums to tell meaningful stories with?

Ultimately, as Calville points out, we don’t focus on every stage of the gaming process in the same way that we may do with films or other media. We often allow ourselves to relax into the experience of the game, predicting the supporting and competitive mechanical challenges, and may occasionally miss meaningful elements within games as an artform.

This does not and is not the case though, as Rugnetta rebuts, and there is room within the scope of games for them to be more than just mechanics. Lastly, as Mirasol points out — making a game is a different medium than making film, games, or other pieces, and artists often fail because of compromises that they introduce by shifting to an ill-fitting medium while trying to tie their works together in ways which do not fit well.

So, in summary, games are the right medium in which to tell meaningful stories, they just must be stories which fit them well, and they may filter them differently to other media.

References

Colville, M. (2014, October 15). Digging Deeper — Do Games Have Less Value than Other Media? https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=418&v=7lPUlN0dnKk&feature=emb_logo

Colville, M. (2017, February 8). Basic Game Literacy — Why It’s Hard to Learn How to Play — Extra Credits. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNV2xtiBk5U

Mirasol, M. (2011). Why video games are indeed Art. RogerEbert.Com. https://www.rogerebert.com/far-flung-correspondents/why-video-games-are-indeed-art

Rugnetta, M. (2014, October 15). Are Videogames About Their Mechanics? | Idea Channel | PBS Digital Studios. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsybY6dcXAQ