DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.

Shann Grewal

NMS 509 (Digital Museums & Archives)

5/24/2012


Video Games as Art: Capturing Interactivity


Legal victories, technical advances, and a half-century of development are propelling the video game towards its emerging status as a legitimate form of art. Video games have found their way into the Sundance Film Festival, the Smithsonian, and even the Supreme Court. To a large extent, the external debate as to whether this medium truly qualifies as art is over (i.e. the Supreme Court afforded 1st Amendment protection to video games in 2011). Yet, elevating the video game to an art form reveals a new struggle, internal to the technology itself. Art, insomuch as it is a statement of a society’s cultural capital, should be preserved. In the case of video games, the task at hand is one of maintaining accessibility to past works and ensuring continued access to increasingly fleeting experiences (i.e. games that rely on multiplayer interaction or downloadable content that is only available for a short period of time). So as the video game gains credibility in artistic circles, a candid inquiry into preserving the genre’s media, and associated user experiences, reveals unique challenges.


Unlike entrenched forms of art, the video game’s message does not exist apart from its spectator. In fact, the video game spectator is not a spectator at all, but a participant. The screen she watches is not simply a modern-day canvas where pixels replace paint. Rather, the space between the participant and the screen is where the true art lies. This is where the gamer realizes her capacity to alter the representations before her (and then respond anew to the altered representation from which new alterations will arise). This unique back-and-forth interaction, a relationship really, is what makes capturing the essence of video games a complex task. While screen captures can communicate and preserve some aesthetic qualities, such artifacts do not tell the whole story. Interactions with fellow gamers as well as player-specific content (e.g. unlocked functionalities and levels, bug fixes, purchased or earned content, etc.) greatly impact the narrative of certain games and so the experience of gamers. This level of interaction cannot be adequately contained in a static representation nor can it necessarily be recreated by a new player who may make very different decisions. Is it even possible to capture, preserve, and recreate the dynamic, participatory environments unique to such games? What can be archived, if not the whole participatory experience or online community?


The days of the self-contained cartridge/disk are coming to an end. Modern-day gamers (from casual to hardcore) are increasingly reliant upon networks, online communities, and downloadable content which, in conjunction, work to deliver narratives that were once singularly encased and perpetually available. These interactivity advances have led to tremendous gains in participation, particularly in terms of online communities supported by friend lists, in-game messaging/email,  and, of course, multiplayer experiences that bring gamers together across vast geographic and social distances. Yet, the same interactivity that makes the video game an exceptional vehicle for aesthetic and social expression, also equates to an archivist’s nightmare. Not only does much of the content exist outside “the frame” so to speak, but this content is disappearing as gaming platforms transition and player networks are disbanded and reincarnated. In self-directed attempts to preserve their own experience, some players have even transitioned from participation into development. In the case of Star Wars Galaxies (http://www.swgalaxies.net), a PC-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), player-created game emulators have emerged. These emulators allow the online community to live on after the game’s network—which survived for eight years—was discontinued by the game manufacturer.


In the spirit of embracing video games as art, it should be noted that such archiving and accessibility challenges go beyond technical issues of server space, unsupported networks, and product life-cycles. Video games are quickly becoming a popular forum for social activism—a natural leap as entrenched art forms have long been used to draw attention and further specific causes. Whether it is a SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) protest encased in a Super Mario Bros. emulator (http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/588160) or a clever satire on the oil industry (http://www.molleindustria.org/en/oiligarchy), video games are emerging as an important form of sociopolitical expression. In this context, preserving the accessibility of video games is not a technical pursuit; overcoming technical barriers is simply a means to an end, with the end being continued access to messages of social and political significance. Yet, realizing the significance of video games as a form of expression does not necessarily make archiving this genre’s works a prudent action. Would doing so diminish the beauty and excitement that is perhaps inherent to increasingly ephemeral gaming experiences? Perhaps the reason players are able to so engross themselves in a game’s narrative is because they understand that just like life, their virtual experience is also fleeting and thus made all the more valuable.


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DRAFT: This module has unpublished changes.