The Waiting Game

Screenshot of The Legend Of Zelda: The Wind Waker/Nintendo (top), Screenshot of Metal Gear Solid/Konami (bottom)

Art history shows us that it takes time for the mainstream media and populace to accept and recognize an artist's accomplishments as culturally vital. Toulouse-Lautrec's affinity for depicting prostitutes was taboo during the 1890s. He was more renowned as a draftsman than a painter, and his large assortment of posters and lithographs were too commercial to be considered fine art in his day. When Picasso's Guernica was unveiled at the Spanish Pavilion during the Paris Exposition in 1937, it was panned by critics as the work of a madman and criticized by some as something even a child could create. Kandinsky's spiritualistic beliefs were controversial and clashed with the oppressive and conservative materialist values of the early 1900s—so much so that he organized his own exhibitions to ensure a venue for his paintings.

The Legend Of Zelda videogames are consistently fawned over by "hardcore" gamers and the press alike as an epic and wondrous adventure quest, but few recognize the game as an expression of Miyamoto's childhood and personality. Gamers also largely dismiss Kojima's visionary statements in the Metal Gear Solid games and choose to focus on its convoluted storyline and praise its cutting-edge action movie-like visual and audio presentation. Rez suffered probably the worst fate of the bunch. Unable to bridge the relationship between the game and modern art, fickle audiences were confused by the subjectless gameplay and stayed away in droves. Rez sold so poorly that its publisher, Sega, was forced to pulled the plug to cut financial losses, making the title nearly impossible to find on store shelves and highly marketable on eBay. If art history repeats itself, then it may take several generations before the public begins to see videogames as more than Christmas stocking stuffers for little Johnny and truly appreciate the groundbreaking efforts of developers like Miyamoto, Kojima, and Mizuguchi.

The Motion Picture Connection

It also takes time for the mainstream to accept a new medium as a legitimate form of artistic expression. The evolution of filmmaking closely parallels that of videogames. In their infancy, motion pictures were largely thought of as a novelty and past-time. In 1895, audiences would be literally frightened out of their chairs by the presentation of an incoming train projected onto a large screen. In the early 1890s, people would insert nickels into stand-alone Kinetoscope machines and peek into viewfinders to watch short clips of dancing, juggling, or clowning. Kinetoscopes were the precursors to coin-operated videogames like Pac Man and Space Invaders. Like videogames today, early motion pictures were also thought of as high-tech entertainment products to be sold to the masses.

It wasn't until filmmakers like D.W. Griffith and German Expressionists created films with epic and complex narratives like Birth Of A Nation and The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari that audiences began to see films as a legitimate medium for storytelling. Later, avant garde auteur filmmakers like Jean Renoir and Federico Fellini continued to push the envelope of motion pictures and eventually made people recognize cinema as a viable medium for culture and artistic expression.

D.W. Griffith's The Birth of A Nation Poster, 1915

Videogames currently seem to be at the Birth Of A Nation stage. Gamers and press are recognizing the technical merits and legitimacy of videogames in being able to convincing convey a story. Popular games like Final Fantasy X, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City and The Getaway are good examples of that. Whether videogames will progress to the next 'cinema' art stage is largely dependent on two things. First, developers need to stand up as artists and continue to envision and create new possibilities of expression with videogames. Second, gamers need to see videogames as more than time-wasting stress-relieving outlets and appreciate the efforts of revolutionary developers like UGA and titles like Rez.

Until developers and gamers expect more of themselves and of videogames, the financers and publishers of videogames will continue to clone the latest proven bestseller rather than innovate new ways to challenge gamers intellectually and emotionally. The consequences will be an endless procession of homogenous titles, one barely distinguishable from the next. Unique and pioneering games like Rez will disappear; the diversity of content will continue to dwindle; and the dilemma of whether videogames are art will no longer be an issue because no one will be inspired to ask the question.

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