“Philosophy of Video Games”
Amy Kooiman
PHI 253
Fall 2007
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In May of 2005, hundreds of video game fans celebrated their interest in the art of games at a popular gaming festival known as E3, while the Illinois Legislation oppressed it. In fact, Illinois State Senator Deanna Demuzio supported a bill that would regulate restrictions on selling video games to minors. On The Press Buttons, she quotes, "Video games are not art or media. They are simulations, not all that different from the simulations used by the U.S. military in preparation for war." Upon the subject of the restrictions, fans at E3 continued to defend video games against the bill and harsh judgment. In addition to Demuzio's claim, Jack Kroll from Newsweek claims, “Games can be fun and rewarding in many ways, but they can't transmit the emotional complexity that is the root of art.” Kroll had received hundreds of letters from fans claiming that he has very little gaming background and therefore does not know the limits of the emotional intensity in entertainment. Although video games are heavily based on technology, it also includes the same elements any art form would. Using knowledge of aesthetics in art and a background of video games, there is no doubt that video games are an art form.
In order to define art, one must have a good understanding and background of the disciplines. According to Britannica, art is defined as the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others. Music, paintings, or any legitimate art may include formalism, the rhythm, contrast, or structure of the piece, as well as representation on a subject, and may even express emotion through the piece. Using Britannica's definition and focus on two specific video games that have been highly rated by audiences will reveal the art in games: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Hotel Dusk: Room 215.
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time has included several different art forms for the audience to enjoy. The game focuses around the protagonist, Link, citizen in the land of Hyrule, who sets out to save Princess Zelda from Ganondorf by earning the triforce pieces, a magical object that grants wishes to whoever touches it. Link uses an Ocarina to control time and the Master Sword to switch between
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adulthood and childhood. Not only is the Ocarina and Master Sword is representational in sending Link through time, but the Master Sword is also representational in displaying him as a hero in his hometown village. The story is displayed with a very specific storyline to invite the audience through a fictional story, just as any novel would.
Along with its critical acclaim as the best game by many surveys, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the Nintendo 64 also excites the viewers through classical music. Hundreds of of orchestras and symphonies, including Video Games Live, have been known to celebrate the game's music. Koji Kondo and opera composer, Phillip Glass, composed the music for Ocarina of Time to create the closest form of classical music that its technology would allow while managing to satisfy music critics and enhance the emotional complexity in the game. Much like any orchestra of classical music, The Legend of Zelda uses melancholic guitar picks, ambient noises to represent emotions, subtle water in a river, howling wind, thunder, bird calls, and even enemy noises to evoke fear and excitement in the player to enhance game play. The only difference between video game music and musical representations in a symphonic orchestra is that within the gaming process, the way the music is interpreted, such as the swish of a sword, or the speed of Link's footsteps, are completely in control of the player, making it much more interactive than a piece of classical music. While representing emotions or subjects, the music also includes theme songs within different territories of the game which offers an acceptable piece of music used by classical musicians. For example, the final song in The Legend of Zelda begins with the different repeated ocarina melodies heard throughout the game to give each territory a representational feature. Each part of the song is backed up by violins and wind instruments in various octaves to give the piece a full sound as well as using the same rules of rhythm and and repetition as any classical piece would.
Not only do the fiction elements and music create an artistic experience for the viewers, but also the animation. Just like movies, video game animation derives from pencil sketches which is then
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transferred into technology. The only difference between movie and video game animation is that
game animation is meant to interact rather than to be viewed. Animating for video games involves a
more difficult task as the 3D environments must allow the player to interact in any angle and area in the visual field, whereas movies have control of their focus. Therefore, working with a 360-degree level, the animation elements in gaming typically requires much more effort in understanding the formal elements of angles in drawing. For example, a scene where a door is open and the viewer can see on the other side of the door, a movie or painting can create an imaginary area past that door; however, in a video game, the animator must create the freedom for the player to interact through the door into the next environment in order to create a believable environment. Not only does the visual art depend on interactivity of the animation, but it also focuses on the general three levels of model detail. According to Animating for Video Games vs. Animating for Movies, the three model details for typical video games include the lowest-detailed, which are typically the cell-shaded and over-toonified, intricate, normal-sized, but low quality used in combat scenes, and finally the most detailed, smooth models used in cut scenes in the non-interactive scene. Because video games is such a new art form, many animators cannot use the most detailed model for the interactive game play, for many systems do not have capable engines to handle the render time needed. For example, The Legend of Zelda uses both the inticrate-normal sized and the most detailed model in the gaming. Although most of the art is focused on imitation of castles, trees, rivers, and climates in its atmosphere, it still presents a unique way of looking at the detail through the interactivity in its game play.
The second video game focused on is Hotel Dusk: Room 215 for the Nintendo DS. According to MyGamer, it is a “real page turner”, more of an interactive novel than a game. Taking place in the 1970's, you play as the protagonist, Kyle Hyde, an ex-detective who now makes a living as a door-to-door salesman that stays at Hotel Dusk, only to find many clues of betrayal of the apparent survival of his ex-partner, who he had shot. As a mystery interactive novel, the player also holds the DS vertically
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to give a feeling of holding a book to read and help in the investigation in viewing Hyde's perspective
while using the touch pad to click on items to view more closely. The game is filled with more dialogue than most games as well as a deep plot in solving a mystery.
Not only does Hotel Dusk offer a puzzle to solve within the interactive novel, but the artistic style uses music which enhances the emotional intensity of the story while imitating the sound of a pencil sketching, a phone ringing, footsteps, and other subtle reminders of the atmosphere in the hotel which also creates suspense in many scenes, much like a movie would. Within the dialogue, the game acts as a novel by working through Hyde's head as he detects motives of other characters, where the reader must pay close attention to every detail of each character Hyde meets. The visual art is a reminiscent of the 1985 video, “Take on Me”, by the A-ha's, using sketches, rather than the inticretely detailed or the smoothly detailed figures. Through the pencil sketches, each character is given emotions with intense detail which is worthy to any pencil sketch artist. Although the pencil sketches strive for realism and detail, the imagery of the rooms and the atmosphere is given a detailed, yet not so realistic look to give the feeling of an old novel. The camera is more closely related to movies, where the boundary ends at the door you exit through as the cameras are very specific and is not very player-interactive, however, give the maximum dramatic effect.
In understanding the art in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Hotel Dusk: Room 215, one must understand that the art in video gaming is a combination of the elements of fiction, movies, music, and moving images, more closely related to digital animation. However, with the knowledge of the artistic elements combined, there continue to be debates on the art in video gaming. For example, Philosopher Collingwood criticizes video games as being non-creative,
"The audience is not collaborating, it is only overhearing. The same thing happens in the cinema where collaboration as between author and producer is intense, but as between this unit and the audience nonexistent.”
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In response to Collingwood, Noel Carroll argues in A Philosophy of Mass Art that Collingwood sees mass art, with video games under the category, as a limitation of expressive potential of art produced
through technology. More specifically, he criticizes that mechanical creations, much like video games, lack the opportunity to adjust the audience during the experience because the programmer is not working in person with the audience; moreover, although films might be unable to directly address the audience, video game artists continue to experiment with ways to make an interactive movie where the audience pay easily participate in the first con creative mass art. For example, in Hotel Dusk, the player has options in decisions throughout the game. In a particular scene, Kyle Hyde had an option to befriend a little girl in the hotel who is looking for her mother, who happens to be a major witness to the Bradley case; however, if the player chose not to befriend the girl, he would have to take a much more harsh route in questioning the major witness, which would lead to suspicion of his past.
With an understanding that video games are a mechanical art which is an interactive, or con creative art, one must understand the overall art in gaming using Britannica's definition of art. Using the idea that movies are a form of art, video games can also be compared to movies as an art form. In the last decade of the history of movies, there has been a lot of influence between movies and video games as we see movies based off of games and games based off of movies. During the process of comparing movies to games, many game designers attempt to tie the influence by including cut scenes to imitate a cinematic event in a movie. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is filled with video sequences, especially during the boss scenes or while Zelda is getting captured by Gannondorf. The cinematic experience is used as a technique in displaying important events as a memorable and to display the importance of the event in the game. Not only are the cut scenes used to display closeness in the art of movies, but designers use traditional aesthetic considerations used by animators, writers, and set designers for film and theatre. In game development, creating maps, lighting, detail in setting, and complexity in texture is used just as a novelist or set designer might give a visual idea of a room
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through props and scenery. All animators carefully construct the characters' movement.
Throughout the many vastly growing schools to learn video game design as well as museums,
the institutions draw in a crowd that wishes to understand the technological development to the digital arts included in video games such as MIT, NYU, CalArts, and other programs focus on the graphic attributes in game design. According to the University of California at Irvine information of the program, the school is developing a MFA program for game design. Many exhibits, such as E3, and several video game competitions are held by major developers to get reviews of the game play and aesthetics of the final product. Just like any program or institution focuses, game design is closely related to film production as it is a collaborative project in which several groups within the production team pursue the aesthetic goals. As movies were developed out of photography, video games are now being developed out of movies as video games are also growing out of digital animation.
Many claims as to video games being violent, therefore not art, have been made. It is true that there are many violent games, such as Resident Evil, or Half Life, where the player carries around a gun in self defense. The games are typically relateable to the literature of horror novelists which appeal to the young. However, it is art because of the thematic events and the similarities between the literature, movies, and video gaming. Although many continue to claim whether or not survival games are good art, it still continues to inherit the rules of art as it arouses emotions through interactivity as any horror film would. As the survivor defeats its enemy, the game then becomes about victory as it puts the players in the position to make the decisions in battle, a more personal goal than novels or movies.
Through the many explorations of comparisons between video games, movies, novels, and theatre, video games are, in fact, art. The continuities tie between each other as games share similar expressiveness between other art forms. Many institutions have focused on the legitimacy of video games with a background of photography and cinematics. Although games may be considered good or bad art, games such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Hotel Dusk: Room 215 have been
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included as two of some of the most innovative games in history.
Bibliography
Carroll, Noel. Philosophy of Mass Art. 1998.
G, Matthew. "Illinois Legislator Claims Video Games are Not Art." The Press Buttons. 3 Dec. 2007 <"Video games are not art or media," she said. "They are simulations, not all that different from the simulations used by the U.S. military in preparation for war.">.
Jack Kroll, Newsweek, March 6, 2000.
Hatcher, Britannica Online, 1999
Sanders, Adrien-Luc. "Animating for Video Games Vs. Animating for Movies." About. 8 Dec. 2007 .
Smith, Kieth C. "Staying the Night." MyGamer (2007). 8 Dec. 2007 .
University of California, Irvine. Irvine: UCI, 2007.
