Why Are There No Highbrow Video Games?

simoniker writes "In his latest 'Designer's Notebook' question, columnist Ernest Adams asks a very simple question: are video games' lack of cultural credibility partly due to the fact that "we don't have any highbrow games"? Titled 'Where's Our Merchant Ivory?', Adams asks: 'Almost every other entertainment medium has an elite form... We produce light popular entertainment, and light popular entertainment is trivial, disposable, and therefore culturally insignificant, at least so far as podunk city councilors and ill-advised state legislators are concerned.' Do games have an image problem compared to other popular media, and how do we fix it?"

Comments

Re:Isn't art highbrow?

[sottitron]

These are EXACTLY the two games that came to mind for me, too. The problem with saying there are no highbrow games is that makes it seem like the author has seen them all... So maybe this is a stretch, but, who is to say a game like Rallisport Challenge 2 isn't highbrow?? First of all, its gorgeous and doesn't have anyone killing anyone else with a machette. And do you know what the bankroll of someone who is really into Rally racing is like? I mean if you can travel to another country or even another continent to see a race, you are not exactly sweating it.

There are some "High-Brow" games

[XxtraLarGe]

Chess and Bridge come to mind. Those are two games that are often played by the literatti...

No interest in high art that doesn't elevate.

[dominion]

Anybody remember Grim Fandango? Brilliant stuff.

But to be honest, I don't know if I can take somebody seriously who says something like 'Suppose the only music in all the world were rap or heavy metal.'

I mean, honestly, has the guy never heard of Saul Williams?

I am that timeless NGH that swings on pendulums like vines through mines of booby trapped minds that are enslaved by time. I am the life that supersedes lifetimes, I am. It was me with serpentine hair and a timeless stare that with a mortal glare turned mortal fear into stone time capsules. They still exist as the walking dead. As I do, the original suffer-head, symbol of life and matriarchy's severed head: Medusa, I am. It was me, the ecclesiastical one, that pointed out that there was nothing new under the sun. and in times of laughter and times of tears, saw that no times were real times, 'cause all times were fear. The wise seer, Solomon, I am. It was me with tattered clothes that made you scatter as you shuffled past me on the street. Yes, you shuffled past me on the street as I stood there conversing with wind blown spirits. And I fear it's your loss that you didn't stop and talk to me. I could have told you your future as I explained your present, but instead, I'm the homeless schizophrenic that you resent for being aimless. The in-tuned nameless, I am. I am that NGH. I am that NGH. I am that NGH. I am a negro. Yes, negro from necro, meaning death. I overcame it so they named me after it. And I be spitting at death from behind and putting "kick me" signs on it's back, because, I am not the son of Sha Clack Clack . I am before that. I am before. I am before before. Before death is eternity. After death is eternity. There is no death there's only eternity. And I be ridin' on the wings of eternity, like yah, yah, Sha Clack Clack.

Hell, even Tupac wrote books of poetry, and with artists out there like Mos Def, Talib Qweli, Outkast, etc., it's hard to understand how somebody could use rap music collectively as an example of "low art".

But then again, given his examples of high art being the kind of things that wealthy white people put on tuxes to clap softly to, I'm not sure I'm particularly interested in what he has in mind.

Re:Very simple answer

[Opportunist]

Whatever it may mean...

Let's face it, though, that the computer culture is, so far, a short one. It's a very new medium, unprecedented by anything it developed from that could be viewed as the "heritage" of it. Music developed during the ages. Even movies had their roots in theatres and plays. Computer games have nothing to draw from.

Thus they are not taken serious as a cultural element. One could argue that the junk that's currently sold as music is at best what fast food is to cooking, but there is "good" music, maybe it's a bit dated, but there are pieces of music that can be considered true art. And it needn't be something along the lines of Mozart or Beethoven. A lot of "pop music" is very capable of moving people, inspiring them, it had some serious impact on our life and it even had influence on politics and the way people see the world. I'm especially thinking about music from the peace movement in the 60s, for example. Most of it can be considered pop music, but it had a "message", it contained elements that are thought provoking, it's not just easy listening and entertaining.

Such precedents are missing in the computer games history. And now is maybe one of the worst moments to try something like that. Making games is costy. It's not like you can sit down in the basement with your friends and you strum your guitars 'til something with a message comes out. You need good people, with a lot of math and physics in their brains, and I do take a serious background in computer languages as granted, who spend a lot of time working out the game.

And then, nobody will buy it. It doesn't carter the fast food generation gamers, who want a quick, fun game to rush through and then go on to the next. And, as stated before, people who are looking for entertainment with depth, meaning and message are not looking for it in computer games.

"High Brow" means inaccessible

[Kunta Kinte]

The problem is that "highbrow" is not defined

I agree with your point, but my theory...

I think "High Brow" means inaccessible. It's a socio-enconomical class marker; In many ways, it is often legitimate.

The upper socio-enconomic classes have more money to educate and entertain themselves. These people thus are introduced to a variety of forms and influences. Sometimes, allowing them to develop a more 'nuanced' taste. This has nothing to do with the person's natural abilities, which are equal across classes. This is all nurture.

The elite, now 'learnt', begin to take interest in different things. Everyone else 'below' this elite socio-economic class begin to follow suite because it is ingrained in us to 'improve' our socio-economic class. It's a bain hardest felt by the middle class.

So why 'dig' inaccessible things? Exclusivity is one yes. But these forms of art may also simply provide enjoyment to people who prefer to invest more into their enjoyment, and choose to do so in that fashion.

Re:Does it matter?

[Thyamine]

"High Brow" activities aren't mutually exclusive with other activities. I enjoy going to the art museum, I enjoying reading, I enjoy theatre, and I enjoy video games. I'm sure there are plenty of others here who enjoy those activities as well. Enjoying something high brow doesn't require you to have a butler and live in an estate where you don't have to interact with the common man. In fact I used to play the violin, currently practice martial arts, and this weekend I put up drywall. Go figure, I'm not just a computer geek ready to be pigeonholed for my entire life. Sorry if this sounds a bit aggressive, but I dislike how people have the notion that someone can't cross boundaries. If you use computers you don't know how to use a hammer, you work on cars so you can't be intelligent, or you like video games so you can't be mature.

Re:Very simple answer

[timster]

Art is essentially a medium of communication, from the artist to the audience. The best art conveys feelings and notions which can not be conveyed with literal descriptive language alone. The interactive nature of gaming, almost by definition, excludes it from being regarded as an art form, beyond the creative trappings of the game's "eye candy" and music soundtrack.

This is a very sophisticated notion, and the greatest challenge for gaming designers and critics today. I do not agree with it, but it's not trivial to refute.

Part of the problem is that video games are not homogenous in an artistic sense. Most art forms are, and thus they can be placed in a fairly straightforward conceptual box: film consists of moving pictures and sound; music in essence consists of sound only; sculpture consists of arranged and constructed objects; literature consists of language only; etc.

A video game always contains music, and it may contain cinematic sequences, and it will certainly contain still images of some sort. Many games include some amount of text material and a story. Certainly all of these can be art in and of themselves, but they all have their own history, so it's tempting to strip them away and examine the game without these "tacked-on" elements.

There are only a few games which betray this notion with clarity, and many of these are not well known. Rez is the best example I know; while it is indeed futile to consider Rez without its music, the game also adds something that the music doesn't have on its own. (Go play Rez now, if you care about art. I'll wait.)

Games like Rez can be regarded as unique, though, if you consider the game side of the experience a mere hypnotic device designed to increase mental immersion and thus increase the effect of the music. Also, this example doesn't apply so easily to a game like Super Mario Bros. However, I feel it is a good starting point to show the fallacy of the notion that interactivity excludes artistry by definition.

To go from there, I argue that the nature of art in a video game in general is what I call the "constructed experience". Traditional art can discuss and portray what it's like to be a pirate, or a race-car driver, or a spider; video games aspire to replicate the experience itself, within various limitations.

Of course, the real-world experiences are more or less dull, so we throw in a princess or two to spice things up (just like painters rarely paint the many dull scenes that they would see). Actually, this has led to the more imaginative practice of inventing the experience out of whole cloth, so that you too can spend a day in the life of the Prince of All Cosmos as he rolls up anything and everything to make new stars. When we hear talk of "gameplay", this is what it means -- the creativity and hard work that goes into creating a meaningful and textured new experience for the player. In a great game, this communicates something more than mere "fun", and that is where the art is.

Re:Isn't art highbrow?

[aichpvee]

I'm not going to read the article (it isn't "highbrow" enough for me), but maybe the point he should have made is that there aren't ENOUGH "highbrow" games. This is probably because of the high cost and low sales (considering the price) of video games and the relatively "lowbrow" demographic that they continually fall back on because it is cheaper and safer than chasing other groups of end users. So of course there isn't that much content there, because it's all being aimed at the lowest common denominator, which is often too low to even be common.

Re:Isn't art highbrow?

[Mindspider]

I don't think the author was saying that we need a romance game; what the author meant was that we need more games with intellectual subtlety. Comics are an excellent example here: comics aren't lacking in technical skill. I'm currently studying art in college, and even though I may understand the intricacies of a Caravaggio or a Michelangelo painting, sometimes I'd rather just read Spawn. Comics aren't lacking in complex plotlines, either... there are many examples of fantastic writing in the comic-world.

The bottom line, though, is that true classics of any artform have layers upon layers of subtleties. There just aren't many examples of comics that are truly rich in intellectual value. From my own experience, I've found that most classical painting was done using very conventional, often uninspiring, subject matter. Look at the Mona Lisa- a standard portrait of a woman. Nothing exciting. What makes the Mona Lisa so amazing is the incredible subtlety and thought that went into the painting, and that isn't something you can pick up at a glance. A Spawn cover may look more interesting, but it pales in serious comparison.

So back to video games- there are many examples of intelligent, extremely well-executed video games out there. However, I don't see any games that are comparable to Bach or Rembrandt or Dickens. Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are beautiful pieces of art, but beautiful doesn't necessarily mean "high brow".