Reading Response: Daniel Radosh is clueless.
November 7th, 2009 by panfriedmoogleI don’t even know where to start with this article. It’s so short yet I have so many complaints.
It’s no surprise that somebody who is playing Halo 3 and using FPS/action movie examples in his writing (Splinter Cell, Terminator, James Bond) is going to claim that video games haven’t achieved that “high art” status (or even just the “art” status). He’s playing all the wrong games. Of course first-person shooters aren’t going to yield “high art.” I think that in order to yield the “art” that this guy is looking for, you need a good, thoughtful narrative.
It’s bad journalism on his part to only be focusing on first-person shooters as an example for how the video game industry hasn’t created anything artful. I’m going to take a guess that he prefers run-and-gun games and has barely ever played an RPG in his life.
To his credit, he mentioned interactive fiction from the 80s, but he failed to give any examples of this while simultaneously contradicting himself a few paragraphs above when he said that “the games that come closest to achieving artistry tend to be non-narrative.” Make up your mind, Radosh. Are you a ludologist or narratologist? …Or did you just get stuck writing about a topic that week that you had no knowledge of?
Moreover, to be comparing video games to cinema is ridiculous. There is no interaction with movies. You are not controlling the actors. Isn’t the creation of interaction in video games an art in and of itself? Isn’t narrative an art? What about graphics?
I’ll give it to him that good graphics don’t make a game art, but when you combine interactivity, narrative, and graphics in such a way that it moves the player like a good movie would, hasn’t art been created?
He makes the claim that cut scenes undermine the sense of involvement/play, but I don’t think that this is always the case. Some games do this very well. The Final Fantasy series, for instance, has always had cut scenes that have enhanced the story of the game without boring players and making them wish that it was over. Cut scenes are not always detrimental to a good game.
People shouldn’t be close-minded and just assume that games haven’t reached that “art” status because they are too afraid to venture outside of their FPS, run-and-gun genre. Lack of “art” may be present in shooters, but I can immediately write a laundry list of RPGs/adventure games that are truly art:
- Final Fantasy 3, 7, 8
- The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, or Ocarina of Time
- Legend of Dragoon
- Earthbound
- Chrono Trigger
- Bioshock
- Mass Effect
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
- Secret of Mana
- Super Mario RPG
- Vagrant Story
- Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
- Xenogears
- Star Ocean
- Shadow of Colossus
November 9th, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Totally agree with you. That’s like qualifying all books by looking only at teen girl adventure series (like the Babysitters Club).
You used some awesome examples. I need to replay Vagrant story…
November 9th, 2009 at 11:13 pm
These games are good, but are they art? Except for maybe shadow of the colossus, I’m not sure that these other games necessarily apply (although I agree that his cursory exploration doesn’t delve deep enough). They might be good works of story writing, or they might contain good aesthetic visuals, but do they contain significant cultural commentary or criticism? Maybe Bioshock… but maybe a stretch for others.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:01 am
Legend of Dragoon, Xenogears, and FF definitely contain cultural commentary and criticism.
And isn’t “good works of story writing” art? Can art only be defined by visuals? Isn’t an opus or Dostoevsky’s ‘The Possessed’ art? Why does a game have to be considered artistic just based on its graphics? Isn’t that what is contributing to the output of more and more crappy games? All these awesome graphics and NO story or character development.
November 10th, 2009 at 4:15 am
Some of them might be a stretch, but they’re at least a good start.
November 10th, 2009 at 10:39 am
Art does not have to pretty pictures, it can be works of literature that change our perspective of the world or leave a deep impression on us. Personally, I have never played a video game that really affected how I viewed the world or changed me as a person. I recently played through FF7 again and found that the story doesn’t seem as amazing as it was to me when I was younger. In fact the dialogue is kind of silly to me now. Its a good story but it doesn’t rock my world. Sure it tries to tackle some issues but it does it superficially. Maybe my tastes are just changing.
November 11th, 2009 at 10:47 pm
I actually don’t like FF7 at all. I only included it because everyone seems to feel like it’s one of the best games ever, and I didn’t want to only list ones that I alone felt were worthy.