Let's just ignore the fact the blog hasn't been updated in a long time and proceed with the article shall we?
I've been reading reviews for the ever popular Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, when I came across the following line by 1up.com's David Ellis about the game's single and multiplayer components: "Though still a blast, the single-player campaign isn't the reason thousands of people still play the original MW on a daily basis."Ellis's comments, by no means, reveal some secret gamer practice. I never finished the single player campaign to Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne because I was so hooked on the multiplayer. But his review got me thinking about the single and multiplayer modes in relation to the "games as art" argument.
When people talk about video games being art, narrative is a big part of the critique. Games like Bioshock and Silent Hill 2 have received acclaim for not only their stories, but the way in which they presented them. Even Halo has been prasied for creating a great story and mythology to surround that story in. The point is, game naratives can present critiques and discussions about the world in the same way famous works of literature do.
So what happens when you take a powerful story like the one in Modern Warfar 2 and add a multiplayer component to it? If we were just looking at games as art in terms of narrative, there would be a problem with classifying games as "artistic." The multiplayer aspect undermines the single player's story because there is no real story attached to the multiplayer. Suddenly the game becomes less about the consequences of war and more about killing tons of dudes, either solo or with a team. And with more people interested in the multiplayer component of the game, the single player becomes the side dish rather than the main course. At best, the hardcore multiplayer gamers will play the single player campaign to gain achievements or unlock hidden bonuses.
This is why a critique of games must cover all aspects of games, and not just the narrative. Looking at games from a design perspective, artistic games may not even include a storyline at all. Super Mario Bros. is still regarded as a masterpiece not because of it's storyline, but because of how exceptional the gameplay was. Likewise, Team Fortress 2 is a strictly multiplayer experience, but the game earned the same amount of accolade as Bioshock thanks to its unique art style and entertaining gameplay. Narrative is important in video games, but it's only a portion of what constitutes an entire video game.
I obviously believe that games can be just as artistic as movies, paintings, literature, etc. I wouldn't be writing on this blog if I didn't believe that. However, I still feel there is some relevance to the multiplayer killing the integrity of a game argument. I'm currently working on a paper about science fiction stories in video games, and my professor is worried that because so many games can be reduce down to "kill all dudes," it hurts the power of those narratives. Even when considering all the other apsects of video games, that's a powerful arguement to fight against; one that I'm still trying to refute.
What do you guys think? Leave a comment or send me a message! I'd love to hear other's opinions on this matter.
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11 comments:
I think your article came to exactly 0 conclusions. Finish your train of thought! Can purely multiplayer experiences be art or can't they?
Didn't mean to come to any conclusions. Meant to start a discussion. Also, great job on paying attention during class. :p
To quote Civ 4 which quotes another dude, "Art for arts sake is an empty phrase. Art for the sake of truth, art for the sake of the good and the beautiful, that is the faith I am searching for." Or going back to CAT and Linda Strauss, what is art if not aesthetics? Techné? Art as innovation or creation? As my theories prof would say "Define your terms!"
So ml, it's a matter of perspective? Would you say that multiplayer falls under "art for art's sake" or something else?
I think that you need to define Art before you can debate if video games cease being "art" when they contain multiplayer. If you are defining art by having narrative (or at least focusing on this property of art), then you must next define "narrative". Are you talking about personal narratives ala Jim Gee or are you discussing fictionalized narratives? Are we looking at the the author's intent (narrative from an objectivist standpoint), the player's experiences in the game (subjectivist), or the dual story co-constructed between the author and the player?
As the originator I would ask you to frame the debate.
But that's the problem though. What I define as "Art" may not be what you think of when you think of "Art." For me, Art has to say something poignant about it's chosen topic and must have aesthetic integrity. You may have you're own theories about what Art is. I even have problems with this definition because it ignores some important aspects of games. I could always have a different definition of what "art" is in relation to games, but that doesn't define what art as a whole really is.
I'm asking you, the reader how feel about multiplayer as art, because I'm honestly trying to figure out this argument too. I don't have an answer for you, I'm merely posting my observations on the topic so that others may staring making their own observations.
Same person as mlcourtn, I just updated my profile.
So you are taking a subjectivist point of view toward the meaning of art, which is a difficult perspective to take in research for the purpose of research is either to reduce a whole to it's component parts or explain the parts using a united whole. If you refuse to either breakdown or unify, then you are refusing to participate in the discussion.
If we are talking about art as techne, innovative creation, then I believe multiplayer games are a powerful form of art in that they create new realities.
If we are talking about narratives in a contructivist or subjectivist way, then multiplayer games are more powerful because they allow for socially constructed story telling. It may be a "bad" story in come people's eyes, but you cannot deny that it is a compelling story. To borrow from a Information Processing tradition, the narratives in a multiplayer game follow a deeply ingrained schema of good triumphing over evil. And traditionally this schema does involve much death for both good and evil parties. Read the Bible or Grimm's Fairy Tales for historical accounts of good vs evil schema.
Here is a quick thought experiment to consider. TF2 has a simple premise, RED team and BLU team fight it out. No reason was given. Later, as part of the Halloween update, the dev's posted some of the back story, introduced us to the characters behind the TF2 world, gave us conflict, history, and a reason for the fighting.
So with those few paragraphs, did the status of TF2 as art change? The game is still the same constant fighting of RED and BLU, but does giving us a reason for the fighting change how the overall game is viewed?
If you havn't seen the plotty bits of TF2:
http://tinyurl.com/yz7zyqt
http://tinyurl.com/yl33oqm
Having gone through CAT, I can't help but define art as "someone saying 'this is special, and you should realize that because I will like you more.'"
"Art" is like the explanation for the existence of gods in Black and White, that a god derives its godliness from people worshipping it, that a god without power, at the most, can maybe move someone's heart with an amazing show. And an influence-less god is not going to sell a zillion copies of Modern Warfare 2 and make multiplayer gamers invest hours of their lives into what, to most of them, ends up being an endless cycle of dying a lot that too rarely puts them in a state of flow.
(Although I heard the co-op is fun.)
According to CAT, artifacts that amaze people in some way, like L4D2's Carnival campaign and Parish campaign, are "art" only as much as someone important to you tells you how special they are. And those campaigns are pretty special, an indisputable fact that you should agree with if you want me to like you even more.
One problem is that the gamer-culture investment in games "being" art is still in the game-as-art-text model, by which games are compared to film or novels as fully wrought "things" with meanings that can be duplicated, circulated, and received.
In actual contemporary art practice, however, there is an lively interest in what Nichola Bourriaud calls "relational aesthetics" - works of art which produce and intervene in relationships among people. In fact, there is a tradition in post-war art that involves this (include the "New Games movement" of the 70s, much of the work of the Situationists, Fluxus, the neo-Dada movement of Japan, the "Happenings" of the 60s, etc. Jane McGonigal's work is, I think, in this tradition.
You might want to look at UCSD's own Grant Kester's book on how artists now create situations that can lead directly to social change.
The problem is that the relationships created by multiplayer games are too often uninteresting or cliched.
At William: I'm not sure what you mean when you say 'the relationships created by multiplayer games are too often uninteresting or cliched.' I have some educated guesses. I'd like to know what you believe constitutes the term "uninteresting."
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