Art and Videogames

Oct 14, 2013 by bganter

Ask a person on the street about art and the answers you’ll get will probably be along the lines of the Mona Lisa, Greek sculptures,, and maybe Monet. Ask this person to define art and the words you get would probably be something along the lines of beautiful, classical, extraordinary, and something that can be displayed in a museum. However, if we we only to define art by these criteria, videogames wouldn’t even be worth considering. On the other hand though, no one would dispute that Warhol’s soup cans are art, ordinary and odd as the focus of the painting is. Then wouldn’t this mean that art is something more than the definition given before?

The modern definition has expanded to encompass works that are thought provoking and open to interpretation and not necessarily beautiful and static. True, most videogames exist only to entertain, but ones that inspire discussion and have stunning art are becoming more and more common. “The Marriage” might not fit in the second category, but it did, in my opinion, fit the first.

The balance of the game was surprising more difficult and harder to maintain than the simple graphics would have me believe. It was, as Ian Bogost termed it, a very proceduralist game, relying on on gameplay to convey meaning instead of using stunning imagery or music to do so. Much like life, or in this case, marriage, lthe game itself didn’t provide any instructions and I spent more than a few play through trying to figure out how it worked before returning to the page I downloaded it from to read the creator’s comments. The game wasn’t unsuccessful in it’s purpose I think. From what I’ve observed about marriage,  it mirrors the game in that it can seem almost easy. The reality, however, is that it takes more work than that and everything can easily end if the people involved didn’t give enough attention and care to it.

I’m still undecided as to whether or not this game can be called art. Maybe I’m still too much like the average person one could interview on the street about art and that it has more to do with what the artist intends more than anything. The game was actually interesting to think about though.