Video Games Are Now Art

Yes, you read that headline right. Video games are now legally considered art. This means that the government will now be able to fund small independent companies. 

Braid, an amazing indie game

It will not, like some news outlets will lead you to believe, (I'm looking at you Fox News) give money to large block-buster games like Call Of Duty and Gears Of War.

THIS IS EDUCATIONAL, SEE?! IT ENCOURAGES TEAM WORK! 

Government funding will help promote more educational games. If there's anything I love in a game, it is when it makes me think and use my imagination. 

 

Someone built a cathedral in Minecraft. With his bear hands.

The NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) will be funding all of this. Game companies will be receiving grants of $10,000 to $200,000 next year. Not only this, but since video games are now legally considered art, they are being shown as exhibits at government funded art museums. 

 Japan was always ahead of us anyway.

For, how could something that explores and combines different arts not be considered art in itself?  

The difference of being horrified and startled

Many “horror” games are starting to forget the difference between being horrified and being startled. Being horrified is to truly and profoundly fear something, to the point that just thinking about it sends shivers down your spine. Being startled is being briefly frightened by something because of a sudden movement. My brother can jump out of the closet and startle me, making me jump a bit, but that doesn’t mean he’s freaking Cthulhu.

 

 Although, if your brother does look like Cthulhu you'll probably want to get serious medical attention. 

A perfect example of this is the popular game “Dead Space”. Many people call it a horror game, as if it was the Mona Lisa of its genre. Yeah, I felt jumpy a couple times because I was scared, but I was never horrified. I swear, this game has more jump scares than a Halloween convention for Mexican jumping beans.

 Sorry, adorable picture of a kitten, but you did not. 

A necromorph jumping out of a ventilation system might scare me the first or second time, but it gets rather boring after the nineteenth time. If the main element of horror is compromised mostly of aliens jumping from behind a corner/ventilation system/the ceiling/boxes/the ground, pretending to be dead, the game is going to start to feel rather boring. True horror is getting into the players' mind, messing with the way they react to things, the way they see things, the way they think. True horror make us feel completely defenseless, make us feel totally and utterly alone, and I love it.

Why we have regenerating health

I duck behind cover. The sound whizzing of a bullet flying over my head. Peaking over to my left I make out five enemies, but I can't be sure if there's more of them. I glance over at the ammo counter on my hud (heads up display), I’ve exhausted almost all of my ammo and I only have 14 health points left. If I could only get over to that new weapon behind the enemies I think. I decide to make a run for it. I die, of course.

 And I was so close.

We’ve all been in a situation where a room with enemies seems near impossible, only because we had the misfortune of entering the room with low heath. And with no heath packs in sight, the room becomes considerably harder. It even becomes impossible sometimes.

 Because nothing heals bullet wounds to the face like running over a first-aid kit

That is where regenerating health comes in. With regenerating health game developers can program games according to how much health they know the player has. Not only that, but it helps make the game play smoother. Nothing breaks a games immersion like having to start a level over, because there weren’t enough health packs lying around.  

 AGAIN!?!

Morality, problems and choices

Do I bomb the animal shelter or do I make sure that each animal gets a loving and caring owner?

Bomb, obviously.

Far too often the moral dilemmas in video games are black and white. One choice being solely good and the other solely evil.

This often makes choices only problems. A real choice would be if you we offered a blue healing potion and a red healing potion, both the same price, both healing the same amount of health but both have a hidden factor you are not aware of. A problem would be if you were offered a red healing potion for five dollars and a blue healing potion for ten dollars. You will obviously buy the red potion because it cost less and is equal in power to the more expensive blue potion.

  Important stuff right here. 

Another “choice” that is often used in games is telling the player that their reward for an action, before they have completed that action. This simply makes the choice into a simple problem, “What will benefit me the most?”.

A bit like math really.

Video games need to change from simple problem solving to complex moral dilemmas. Choices where we don't know if we did the right thing. Where we have outcomes that are debatable. We have to plunge into the unknown.

Video Games = Art part 2

I would be lying if I said that I didn’t play and enjoy games like God of War and Halo. The only problem is that these types of games are completely dominating the market. It would be like if almost every movie (with a big name behind it, like MGM or Paramount) that was released was about steroid addicted macho men killing hundreds of people. It might be entertaining at first, but after a while it would all start to become bland and samey. 

Oh joy....

This is why more companies should explore non combat games. Games like; Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Portal, Machinarium, Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent and World of Goo all feature no combat in them. Am I saying that games should steer clear of combat completely? No, of course not, but too many games focus on combat as their only game play element. A game like Mirrors Edge blended parkour game play and combat perfectly . 

Just like a NINJA

We have to start exploring other game play mechanics more. Imagine a whole game based around dialogue. Or a game where the sole mechanic was exploring the world you inhabited. Learning about the history of a fallen empire, solely by examining the ruins and environment. We need to innovate. 

Video games, as an art, look like this right now.

Video Games = Art

The flames begin to surround me, and I know that I do not have much time. Panicking, I shoot a blue portal at a ledge nearby and an orange portal at a wall to the left of me. I jump to the left quickly emerging on the upper platform. I have survived yet another of GLaDOS’es maniacal attempts to kill me.

If you haven't played Portal I highly recommend in doing so. 

In only a couple of seconds I have been engaged in a way that no other medium can. And yet, many people still haven’t accepted video games as a legitimate art form. Why is it that a person could spend a whole day reading a book and seen as brainy, and yet, another person could spend a whole day playing a video game and they would be seen as “a no life”?

 His Nintendo 64 isn't even plugged into anything. 

It’s simply because of the games dominating the market. What does the average person see when they walk into their local GameStop? Posters for games like; Gears of War, Call Of Duty, Halo and God of War, all displaying these macho male fantasies. Or games like; Bayonetta, X-Blade, Heavenly Sword, Tomb Raider and Dead or Alive, all of which display highly sexualized women. 

 This doesn't help our image guys.

 Games will never advance as an artistic medium unless companies start taking risks. The world of gaming needs more Portals, Mirrors Edges and Amnesia: The Dark Descents. Video games will  only continue to be seen as a toy for the easily entertained and juvenile if we don't.

We can do better than this.