Slashdot Mirror
Making Statements With Video Games
You may have heard about the recent controversy at the Leipzig Games Conference over a modification of Space Invaders in which the invaders are slowly demolishing the World Trade Center. The creator intended it as an artistic expression, but has since removed the game, saying, "it was never created to merely provoke controversy for controversy's sake." Kotaku took this occasion to ask whether "statements" can and should be made via video games, and how it affects the ongoing question of whether video games should be considered art.
"The entire issue begs comparisons to Danny Ledonne's Super Colombine Massacre RPG!, an unsettling and involved title that tasks players on the most basic level with acting out the 1999 Littleton, Colorado school shooting in the role of killers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Ledonne told the Washington Post that his intention with the title was never to glorify the tragedy, but to 'confront their actions and the consequences those actions had.' Like Stanley's Invaders!, Ledonne and his title stopped short of providing a direct interpretation - neither artist has been especially specific about 'what it means,' or in instructing players on how they should interpret their work or what 'message' should be taken away."
"neither artist has been especially specific about 'what it means,' or in instructing players on how they should interpret their work or what 'message' should be taken away."
That's because saying "to intentionally be controversial to garner attention for myself" doesn't go over well when you're trying to maintain a facade of artistic merit.
That's kind of insane - you're basically conditioning yourself to snipe random people in a real setting, which is highly divorced from sitting in an arcade messing with a game (or at home). Basically, it's one step removed from senseless slaughter, and yes, you'd probably get shot for your stupidity. Hell, I get nervous contemplating stuff like this
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Funny, that coming from Hideo Kojima, whose games are the most deep in terms of their artistic value and explorations of morality, power and other concerns.
Compared to MGS, every other game is infantile and single-dimensional.
Sometimes I wish Hideo Kojima did an RPG. It would be interesting, I think.
Art, through, is not something that's easy to define. Why is painting an art and wall paint isn't? Or maybe it is, if it's done by an artist? Etc. To me, what art is and isn't is defined by the observer.
Taking a train ride is not art until you make it art, and then it is art. Anything and everything can be art if we allow it. But then you can examine a statue of David and fail to see any art there. Anything is possible. Whether the games are art or not depends on the motivations of gamers and game-making teams.