*this post is a translated, shortened and slightly altered version of a chapter in my final exam thesis. At my school we get one year to write an extensive thesis on a subject we chose freely, and mine is video games*
I, myself have always been fighting to persuade those I consider close-minded people that video games are in fact culture. They are a cultural medium on equal level with books, music, art and movies. It’s obvious ain’t it? Yet still for some reason so many are still in denial, whilst I sit here actually thinking of video games as the ultimate cultural medium. Think about evolution. Many different species on earth, all with very different skill sets and levels of intelligence. Evolution culminated in man. A being with the skill set of millions of other species, refined, perfected. Nature did that. Like so many animals we can crawl on all four, but for us that’s a choice because we don’t have to. We have two legs and we can stand up. We can think, run, climb, jump, swim, analyze and so much more. Nature evolved and created one new being, possessing more skills than any single being before. Now go back 50 years and we didn’t have video games. But we had most everything else within entertainment, we today consider culture. We had music, dancing, art, literature and movies. Culture has also evolved. From the simple folk tunes of ancient Greece and the middle ages, to something that is all around us at all times, in every possible genre. If you look at the first movies, there is simply no comparison to what we see today. Just like that, literature and art has evolved to become amazing, riveting stories. Wouldn’t the law of nature dictate that culture, as everything else, eventually evolve into not only being better at existing genres, but create something entirely new. A mix of all the others. Yes, it does, and that’s exactly what culture did. We now have video games. I will agree that in the first few years video games where not as much traditional culture because technology didn’t allow people to create anything very complex. Designers simply didn’t have the technology to put their culture and their own distinctive personality into a game, but even those first games are, just as all the games today, where and are a big part of pop-culture. Today, even if you argue that video games aren’t culture, you really need to think about it because at the very least they are a big part of pop-culture. My hopes however, is that if you didn’t believe video games are culture before, then you will after reading this.
I, myself have always been fighting to persuade those I consider close-minded people that video games are in fact culture. They are a cultural medium on equal level with books, music, art and movies. It’s obvious ain’t it? Yet still for some reason so many are still in denial, whilst I sit here actually thinking of video games as the ultimate cultural medium. Think about evolution. Many different species on earth, all with very different skill sets and levels of intelligence. Evolution culminated in man. A being with the skill set of millions of other species, refined, perfected. Nature did that. Like so many animals we can crawl on all four, but for us that’s a choice because we don’t have to. We have two legs and we can stand up. We can think, run, climb, jump, swim, analyze and so much more. Nature evolved and created one new being, possessing more skills than any single being before. Now go back 50 years and we didn’t have video games. But we had most everything else within entertainment, we today consider culture. We had music, dancing, art, literature and movies. Culture has also evolved. From the simple folk tunes of ancient Greece and the middle ages, to something that is all around us at all times, in every possible genre. If you look at the first movies, there is simply no comparison to what we see today. Just like that, literature and art has evolved to become amazing, riveting stories. Wouldn’t the law of nature dictate that culture, as everything else, eventually evolve into not only being better at existing genres, but create something entirely new. A mix of all the others. Yes, it does, and that’s exactly what culture did. We now have video games. I will agree that in the first few years video games where not as much traditional culture because technology didn’t allow people to create anything very complex. Designers simply didn’t have the technology to put their culture and their own distinctive personality into a game, but even those first games are, just as all the games today, where and are a big part of pop-culture. Today, even if you argue that video games aren’t culture, you really need to think about it because at the very least they are a big part of pop-culture. My hopes however, is that if you didn’t believe video games are culture before, then you will after reading this.
No first, let’s ask ourselves: «what is culture?». Well, in general
«Culture is the characteristics of a particular group of people, defined by everything from language, religion, cuisine, social habits, music and arts and more.»
Well; religion, cuisine and social habits, although they’re all culture, are not relevant for this particular article here quite simply because if games are culture they fall within the entertainment category. So now let’s consider entertainment. I don’t think a lot of people consider the bowling alley or an amusement park as culture, even though they’re both most certainly entertaining. No, when talking culture and entertainment, we’re talking the examples I’ve been using earlier here. Movies, books, art and music. Well, I challenge you sir, I challenge you to find anything in either of those three that makes them culture, that isn’t also present in video games. Simultaneously, let’s get rid of those haters saying games have no depth compared to other pieces of entertainment. Let’s rank them, based on complexity:
5. In a book we have a story, and that’s it
4. A painting is a painting, it’s art, absolutely, but it’s still just a painting
3. A song (can) require(s) not only a story to tell, but also a melody
2. Movies need a story, concept art, music, acting and the art of creating beautiful images in motion
1. Video games need a story, concept art, music, acting (yes, the people you see on screen are (for the most part) actors who have been recorded and then had their motions put into a digital skin) and above all: to create a good game it requires a painstaking attention to detail. The finesse, skill and artistic sense required to digitally create the beautiful environments gamers often are treated to, is absolutely enormous. Not only that, but it isn’t a movie, where the creators have full control. The game designers have to tell a strong story and deliver a riveting, beautiful or just adrenaline-fueled experience whilst simultaneously letting someone else take control. Potentially millions of people will play it, and they will all play it differently. How do you tell a great story, if someone else is playing it out for you? Naturally this changes with the type of the game. There are those who are much more tightly choreographed, and there are those who give you pretty much full control over your own story. The ladder ones are where the creators really have their work cut out for them, because they’re not so much making a story, but creating the tools for someone else to make their own. I often hear people (in particular women…hmm) saying «what’s so great about books that movies don’t have, is that you can make your own images». Well, compared to movies, you are right. You have no control and nothing left for you to create your own images in your head. But if use of imagination is what you want, I advise you to take a look at fantastic titles like Skyrim. Everything you do is up to you. You have (as good as) total control and the life you live is your own. You truly feel like a part of the world, and the only thing that is given you is a eventful world and interesting characters. Who you chose to be is completely up to you. And yet still, this is all created by someone. How is that possible? Isn’t that what you would call amazing? How can creating something like that be anything other than an art form? If you can’t see a video game as one singular art-piece after reading that, then consider this. No matter how you look at it, the game world is art. Every environment is created by an artist. It’s sketched out, drawn, designed and digitally created. Modeled. Sculptured. The characters in the world are created the same way. Then, what makes it into a video game is simply lines of code and animation added to make it move and react to your input. I’ll have a hard time taking you seriously if you say that taking art, and then adding some lines of code «under the hood» to make it move, all of the sudden make it so that it’s no longer art.
Now let’s back up a bit. When we talk about culture, we’re talking about the culture of either a specific part of the world or a country. Naturally, video games all have a country of origin, and as far as style, they’re pretty much divided up as the rest of the worlds entertainment. When overlooking the exceptions, the movies, books and games of the world are very much divided into western and eastern. It’s often rather easy (now I’m of course not talking about language) to tell if a movie is asian, and the same goes for video games. There is something distinct about asian culture that comes out in their video games, just as it does in their comic books, movies and music. If we move to Norway, my native country, the video game industry is not very huge, but we can see a trend in indie games to take on themes a norwegian would be familiar with through our folklore, ancient legends and children stories. We can see a bit of norwegian culture in them. Now that being said, in most cases the game industry has gone the same way as the movie industry. It’s becoming harder and harder to tell where something is coming from because the whole world is undergoing globalization, and this has especially heavily impacted the entertainment industry. We can be certain this is because the people behind the products generally want to make as much money as possible on their products, so they push for them to be as international as possible. That’s why if you want to examine a game for culture more specific to a country you need to look at indie games, in the same way for the same reasons as with movies. If you want to find a piece of preserved culture, and a bit of a countries soul and inside humor, you can’t look for the big budget studio productions. You need to look for those minor, locally produced, slightly weird gems. This goes equally for games.
Maybe now you’re sitting here waiting for a conclusion, telling you just why video games are culture. If you do, I’ll ask you to read this article again because you should have drawn that conclusion yourself several times over whilst reading this. Maybe you feel large parts of this article has been dedicated to explaining why video games are art; well yes. I talked quite a bit about that, and I feel I pretty well established that video games are art. I also established that they are an art form that often are heavily impacted by where they come from, and can typically be recognized in the same way, through the same characteristics as other pieces of culture from that part of the world. That being said, isn’t it pretty damn well established that art is culture?
