Videogames Are Not Art. But They Are Important.
It’s fairly common to hear videogame scholars describe videogames as art. In fact, there are whole books and articles arguing that videogames are art. People who study videogames sometimes call them “mass art,” or an “emergent art form.” Personally, I think this is a confusion. Things don’t always get labeled correctly in our culture, but in this case I think the word “videogame” was wisely chosen. Videogames are games, and games are not a subcategory of art. Videogames are in the same category as chess or Monopoly or poker, not Picasso’s “Guernica” or Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. But I’ll argue later on that this does not make games any less important than art.
I’ll say more about the difference between games and art in a moment. But first, why would anyone call videogames “art” when our culture has clearly labeled them as “games”? I think there are at least two good reasons why people, and especially academics, like to think of videogames as art.
The first reason is that videogames use a lot of forms and techniques traditionally associated with the fine arts. Videogames often use very sophisticated visuals and music made by very artistically-talented people. Videogames sometimes have compelling narratives and dialog written by talented writers. A lot of artistic and literary technique goes into making many videogames. Because of this they might seem to have more in common with art than with games like dominoes or Parcheesi. But here’s the key point: Making use of traditionally artistic media is not the same as being art. Or to put it more simply, if less accurately: using art is not the same as being art.
The other reason I think people, especially academics, like to think of videogames as art is that art has higher status in Western culture than games. When the average person thinks of art they think of a painter like Rembrant or a work like the “Mona Lisa.” When the average person thinks of games they’re apt to think of Candyland or tag or Super Mario Bros. And there seems to be a vast cultural gap between “Mona Lisa” and Mario.
Our prejudice is that art is for the mature and sophisticated, while games are for kids. Sure, there are games like chess and Go that require a huge amount of learning and intelligence to master. But, at least in the recent past, the main game-playing time for most people was childhood; as you got older, you were expected to spend more time appreciating art than playing games. I find that a thought experiment brings out most people’s bias: Consider a young man who spends all day playing video games in his parents’ basement versus a young man who spends all day studying art in his parents’ basement. Which one sounds more sophisticated to you?
So I think academics who study videogames are subconsciously anxious about the cultural status of what they study. And this muddles their view of the ontological status of what they study. They’d rather think of themselves as studying high-status art instead of low-status games.
This is understandable. As an academic I want the things I study to be taken seriously by the wider culture. Unfortunately for ludologists (people who study games), there’s not much to be done about it except wait for the culture to catch up to the idea that games are, in fact, important in their own right — and that great games involve as much skill and creativity on the part of makers and users as great art. I’ll say a bit more about this at the end.
So videogames often look and sound like art, and some of us would like them to be seen to be as culturally important as traditional art forms. Yet I’m going to claim that they are not art. Why?
As I said before, history was wise in using the word “game” in the word videogame. Actually, the first videogames were simply called “games.” The term “video game” was probably coined by a journalist in 1973. This was after several videogames and videogame systems had already been on the market for a few years. The point I want to make is that people early on recognized videogames as a new form of game rather than as a new form of art. And they were not mistaken.
So what, anyway, is the difference between art and games? And can something shift from being a game to being art?
Well, there are two ways to look at a cultural artifact: from the perspective of the maker and from the perspective of the user: What was a person’s intention in making it, and how do people actually use it? From the perspective of the maker, art is anything made for the purpose of being apprehended from within what I’m going to call the aesthetic attitude. From the perspective of the user, art is anything apprehended from within the aesthetic attitude. In other words, not necessarily everything made to be art is apprehended as art; and not necessarily everything apprehended as art was made to be art. The important thing is the attitude we bring to it.
So what is the aesthetic attitude? To treat something aesthetically, to take the aesthetic attitude to something, is to treat it as an experience in and of itself. The practical attitude, in contrast, always treats objects as means beyond themselves. From a practical perspective, a fork is a means for getting food into our mouths, and food is a means for quelling our hunger or getting energy.
Now, we can experience a fork and food aesthetically. We can treat them as art. We can appreciate the design of a fork for its own sake, without using it for its intended purpose; we can savor our food for the sake of tasting the flavors that are there, without having the further purpose of satiating our hunger. This is to apprehend these objects from within the aesthetic attitude.
Most forks and food, however, are not primarily made for the purpose of aesthetic appreciation. When an artist makes a painting or a sculpture, when a composer makes a piece of music, they want their spectators or audiences to experience the fullness of what the artwork offers. This is true, at least, if the artist is controlling his/her behavior mainly by an aesthetic interest. Of course, artists have other motives for making paintings and poems, such as social prestige or financial gain. But, as I said, what matters at the end of the day is the attitude the user brings to an object.
A key point is that to approach an object in the aesthetic attitude is to reduce overt doing to a minimum. You let the object guide your perception. The choices have already been made by the object’s maker. The job of the receiver is simply to experience fully the results of those choices.
So that’s art and the aesthetic attitude. But wait: I’ve said that forks and food can be aesthetically appreciated. Can’t videogames be aesthetically appreciated? Yes, games, as well as virtually anything else in existence, can be aesthetically appreciated. But here I’m concerned with why something is typically made and how something is typically used. The reason why we don’t call a McDonald’s hamburger, or a Timberland hiking shoe, or a pile of leaves at the side of the road, pieces of art is because they’re not typically made for appreciation within the aesthetic attitude; nor are these objects (hamburgers, hiking shoes, piles of leaves) typically used as opportunities for taking the aesthetic attitude. You can, if you want, take the aesthetic attitude to them, but that’s not really what they’re for.
Games primarily make use not of the aesthetic attitude but of what’s been called the lusory or ludic attitude (I’ll use the term “ludic,” since it’s consistent with the term “ludology,” the study of games). A game, as opposed to an artwork, has a goal and more-or-less explicit rules about how that goal can be achieved. In chess, the goal is to checkmate the other player’s king, and there are rules about how you can and can’t do this.
Videogames are like this. However beautiful the visuals and the music, however compelling the story, when most people spend time with a videogame they are trying to achieve certain goals or objectives. They might flicker into the aesthetic attitude from time to time: they might pause to appreciate a well-designed background or an especially beautiful passage of music. But most gamers most of the time are trying to achieve objectives set by the game designers, and this means making choices about what to do within the limits of the game; and all this goal-directed effort and decision-making is quite antithetical to the aesthetic attitude. The ludic attitude and the aesthetic attitude are mutually exclusive.
That said, the aesthetic attitude and the ludic attitude do have something in common, and this is why they are sometimes confused. They are both distinct from, and opposed to, the practical attitude. To appreciate an artwork or to play a game is to do something not directly related to survival. To experience art, to play a game, is different from activities like eating to fill yourself, working to support yourself, building a house to shelter yourself, etc.
This is not to say that art and games have nothing to do with human survival, only that their connection is more indirect. What is the use of art and games? In my view, art and games are both protected areas of human life — we might call them toy universes — where it’s OK to experiment and it’s OK to fail. The costs for trying and failing in art and games are much lower than trying and failing at your job or in your marriage.
But recognizing this similarity should not lead us to overlook important differences. Within its protected domain, the aesthetic attitude emphasizes experience or undergoing; within its protected domain, the ludic attitude emphasizes action or doing.
The philosopher Susanne Langer called literature virtual experience; and by the same token, we can call the playing of games virtual action. Aesthetic experience is experience in a protected, non-practical domain. Ludic action is action in a protected, non-practical domain. Art is a relatively safe way to experience what another wants you to experience; games are a relatively safe way to interact with complex systems designed by others. This prepares us for real life, which often challenges us with new experiences and with systems (social, political, economic, etc.) that evade easy comprehension.
Let’s sum things up this way: Art is about a protected form of experience accompanied by a minimum of action. Games (including videogames) are about a protected form of action accompanied by a fairly limited range of experience. Let’s not deny hybrids and crossovers: You can treat art as a game and use games to make art; and you can treat games as art and use art to make games. Similarly, you can make hybrid art-game forms. There are, for instance, such genres as literary games and game novels. And there are things that look like, for instance, videogames, but that would better be considered digital art. Nevertheless, none of this alters the fact that the aesthetic attitude and the ludic attitude involve very different ways of attending to the world. And it’s the attitude you bring to an object that determines what that object is for you. The vast majority of videogames are made to be received by, and are received by, people holding the ludic attitude — not the aesthetic attitude.
Therefore, generally speaking, videogames are not art. This does not mean that they’re not culturally valuable. Videogames are valuable not because they are art but because they’re a highly complex and compelling form of game. And games are important because they allow us to practice behaving and decision-making within complex systems in a protected space. I think that giving up on the idea that videogames are art would allow game scholars (ludologists) to more clearly and forcefully state why games matter, and matter not just for kids. The world is becoming ever more complex, and we need games that are ever more complex, yet still attractive and accessible. We need these kinds of games because they allow people — in fact, encourage people — to practice acting in the face of complexity.
(For the record, the views on art as expressed here were influenced by the theories of philosophers John Dewey and Susanne Langer. The views on games were influenced by the theories of philosopher Bernard Suits and game designer Jonathan Blow.)