Video games aren't art
But, they could be.
If you're like me, you've probably seen plenty of Twitter accounts online insisting that Games Are Art and need to be taken seriously as such. Normally, this includes very mainstream, uncontroversially heralded video games that are considered classics. That's fine, I guess.
But that's as far as I've seen Gamers take this concept.
Gamers want to engage solely with the positive, reaffirming aspects of games. They're either puzzles to solve or feel good experiences that let them escape the long day at work. I get it. But video games as a medium have become nothing but toys. I'm not saying toys are inherently bad. There are games where the entire appeal is its combat, or a fun gameplay loop. What I am saying is that there doesn't seem to be much of a serious vested interest in games making significant artistic statements.
Remember the widespread reaction to Death Stranding? Rather than "I want to see Kojima improve" it was "Kojima is a hack", "Where's my METAL GEAR", etc. The problem is we've become incredibly stagnant and afraid of new artistic statements, chasing after the old and comfortable.
Copying soul
There are a fuckton of indie games out nowadays that (respectably) try and buck the trend. My issue with the bulk of those I've experienced is they constantly find themselves pulling from other games as influence rather than other art forms. It's an insulated cycle. Signalis is a great example of this. I think it's an okay game, but it's stuck within the trappings of Silent Hill 2 and some of its other influences like Resident Evil that I felt it lacked its own identity. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is another game where I picked it up, enjoyed it, and realized that it was just Jet Set Radio Future at home. Not a bad game at all, but it's also not something that's making much of its own artistic statements.
So, what's the solution? Well, look at Silent Hill 2 as an example again. That game pulls heavily from David Lynch's discography, from Lost Highway to Blue Velvet. Akira Yamaoka was bumping Nine Inch Nails, Portishead, Metallica, and tons of other shit. Silent Hill 2 coalesced as a fusion of these creative influences, as well as the original game as a framework to build off.
Since AAA games as a whole seem to care less and less about delivering anything but a positive toy-like experience, I think it's up to these talented, passionate indie developers to really kick things off and just do what games do best: become an art form that ties many others together.
Clunkiness, jankiness, and repetition
I'm not saying video games should necessarily all feel like scraping your balls against sandpaper, but I really do think that game design as a whole is almost scared to make characters fee l physically limited in movement or introduce friction and frustration in the way things are approached. From Software sort of does this by making their games generally pretty difficult and having a high difficulty curve, but as a whole I see more focus on seamless, smooth movement, mechanics, etc.
Persona 3 Reload
Persona 3 Reload is currently in development as a ground-up Unreal remake of the original RenderWare PS2 title. Outside of my opinions on this game specifically being remade, or remakes in general as a concept, it's a fact that this is something coming out in the near future. One of the things that REALLY puts me off about this game is the "rollback" mechanic introduced in the menu, that allows the player to undo mistakes they've made throughout the story.
In typical Atlus fan fashion, any kind of frustration with this mechanic was instantly shut down by most people. I can understand really liking the direction of the remake and not understanding why others don't feel the same, but the issue here is that Persona 3 is fundamentally a game about the brevity of life on earth and making use of your time.
Time never waits. It delivers all equally to the same end. You, who wish to safeguard the future, however limited it may be... You will be given one year; go forth without falter, with your heart as your guide...
Mechanically, the experience of the original is centered around making connections and Giving A Shit about the world around you. Time never waits, and you're running out of time, so make the best use of it. That's not to say lose your mind and panic over it, but... use your heart as your guide. Live life, and make sure when it's over you don't have too many regrets. A big aspect of this is permanence in the choices you make and your time management -- you can't just roll back time, you can only adapt and move forward.
I get that Persona 3 has a load function built in, but I feel like that's just something you expect out of JRPGs. I don't particularly love that you can load saves from anywhere within the menu, but whatever. There's still a difference between a load function where the intent is clearly not to constantly roll back your choices and a ROLLBACK function within the menu. It highlights a difference in priorities and a focus on immediate convenience and avoiding "clunk" over making narrative statements through mechanics.
Drakengard
Drakengard 1 and 3 are Taro's casual shirt and sweats projects in comparison to the work clothes, business casual Nier Replicant and Automata. They're irreverent, disgusting, and parodic. They revel in repetition as a narrative device, because Taro looooves to hammer home the idea that killing and violence are unpleasant, and so is going through and experiencing a violent video game. This thematic statement can be perceived by just OPENING the original Drakengard and hearing the orchestral sample loops designed to drive the player insane. It's a Dionysian experience that desensitizes you to the way we transfigure horrific acts of murder into toys.
Drakengards are repetitive, like most things in its genre, and have Something To Say. You don't have to like them, at all, but it's one of the most popular examples I can think of of aggressive frictive elements in video games, mechanics and design that is explicitly designed at points to frustrate and upset the player.
I don't need every game to be a Drakengard 3, but the frustration and negative emotions it delivers should be examined as a whole and explored more within games.
Video games ARE art, but we don't treat them as such.
I love games. I think a lot of people don't take them seriously. But I also refuse to retweet your dumb animation"games are cinema pass it on" posts about The Last of Us or some other movie game being Sophisticated and distancing themselves from the medium. I don't want to call games art after a large chunk of people don't give the slightest shit about game preservation and think anything older than 2010 demands a remake that "fixes" it. If games are art, they should be engaged with as such -- and we should try and connect with their artists and what they're trying to say.
M.