Film, from its onset has always been seen as a way for artists to express themselves. Painting, well, that's just considered to be purely "art". Why then is it harder to associate games with art? Perhaps it is partly because of certain aspects of games. Bernie DeKoven describes games as something that only exists as long as it is created. Games are suspended from reality and have no bearing on what occurs outside of the game. Using this definition it can be easy to concur that art and games have no place along the same wavelength. However, games have evolved, gone through its own movements, and basically captured the imagination of many, and allowed a medium through which art can be presented. Even DeKoven goes on to say that games ultimately are connected with art and reality through a well-played game. In this way, games have managed to become into its own, subvert the tendencies of its own form, and become what most people would consider "art".
The New Game Movement originally arose from reactions to the Vietnam War and was based on "Play Hard. Play Fair. Nobody Hurt." It focused on outside, physical play that was concerned with a lot of the well-played game mechanics explained by DeKoven. They allowed the cooperation of all the participants and was much less competitive. An example of a game from this New Game Movement would be Knots which started off with everyone holding hands with someone else. The result of this would be a group of people all tied up as their arms go this way and that. The goal and win condition is to untie these knots by having people move around until the twisted group is a complete circle. Much like DeKoven's well-played game, the end condition is determined by the actions of everyone and requires cooperation, not competition, to win. Like a well-played game, everyone is on equal paring and if one person wins, everyone else wins too. Of course, if the untwisting process is unsuccessful, then everyone loses, but this is the beauty of the game. Everyone is together, affected equally by the same factors. In this way it could be said that Knots quietly subverts the traditional characteristics of games and competition. There is never a winner and loser, one or the other.
Coming about the same time as the New Game Movement was Yoko Ono's White Chess Set. This was in tune with the political reactions to the war and the Fluxus movement happening around then. Again, like Knots, the chess set requires cooperation because all the pieces of the game are white. Many different play methods and rules can come out of this situation but they are all rules which are agreed upon by the two players. These rules would allow a level playing field and a way for both players to enjoy the game and feel they are playing a "well-played" game. And, while it can contain the typical mechanics of games, Celia Pearce states that this chess set helps to subvert the "implicit narratives of combat and enmity" seen in most computer games.
In the early video game stages, Spacewar came out as an early frontrunner of the evolution of computers and programming in general. The game was rather simple and had all the mechanics and characteristics of a game, more specifically rules, goals, obstacles, resources, consequences, and information as listed by Pearce. But what was important about Spacewar was its origin with Hackers. The game was in tune with many of the aspects of New Game Movements and the up and coming "mods" and "patches" fields of video games. Spacewar was designed in such a way that "encouraged new programming by the user" as Stewart Brand puts it. It was easy to change the way the game could be played and certain obstacles and such could be added such as a hyperspace ability. In that way, it resembles the Digital New Games that Fron ,et al, mention as ways to convey the New Game Movement through the digital medium like Second Life and There. Fron, et al, also mentions the "new new game" movement that contains aspects such as creating a temporary world that encourages participation between the players rather than through the machine. This could also be compared to Spacewar as Brand called it a game that "served human interest, not machine". So certainly, Spacewar could be viewed as not just a precursor to video games and computing, but also as an introduction to the use of subversive art and play in video games.
Games in general are hard to see as art much on the same level as paintings and even films. But a close study and evaluation of some of the games arising from specific movements such as Knots, White Chess Set, and Spacewar show the inherent subversive nature of these kinds of video games and the use of such a medium to display art. In addition, these games also apply the characteristics of a well-played game to provide a cooperative environment where games can be above reality while still becoming grounded in real-world issues.
Bibliography
DeKoven, B. (1978) The Well-Played Game: A Player's Philosophy. New York: Anchor Books. (2nd Edition)
Brand, Stewart. "SPACEWAR: Fanatic Life and Symbolic Death Among the Computer Bums," Rolling Stone, December 7, 2001. http://www.wheels.org/spacewar/stone/rolling_stone.html
Fron, J., Fullerton, T., Morie, J. & Pearce, C. (aka Ludica) (2005). "Sustainable Play: Towards A New Games Movement for the Digital Age." Digital Arts & Culture Conference Proceedings, Copenhagen, December 2005.
Pearce, Celia. "Games as Art: The Aesthetics of Interactivity." Visible Language: Special Issue on Fluxus. January 2006.
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