Tag Archives: Games

Violence & Video Games, Yet Again.

Posted by on May 10, 2013 9 comments
Manhunt (video game)

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

While there is an abundance of violence in the real world, there is also considerable focus on the virtual violence of video games. Interestingly, some people (such as the head of the NRA) blame real violence on the virtual violence of video games. The idea that art can corrupt people is nothing new and dates back at least to Plato’s discussion of the corrupting influence of art. While he was mainly worried about the corrupting influence of tragedy and comedy, he also raised concerns about violence and sex. These days we generally do not worry about the nefarious influence of tragedy and comedy, but there is considerable concern about violence.

While I am a gamer, I do have concerns about the possible influence of video games on actual behavior. For example, one of my published essays is on the distinction between virtual vice and virtual virtue and in this essay I raise concerns about the potential dangers of video games that are focused on vice. While I do have concerns about the impact of video games, there has been little in the way of significant evidence supporting the claim that video games have a meaningful role in causing real-world violence. However, such studies are fairly popular and generally get attention from the media.

The most recent study purports to show that teenage boys might become desensitized to violence because of extensive playing of video games. While some folks will take this study as showing a connection between video games and violence, it is well worth considering the details of the study in the context of causal reasoning involving populations.

When conducting a cause to effect experiment, one rather important factor is the size of experimental group (those exposed to the cause) and the control group (those not exposed to the cause). The smaller the number of subjects, the more likely that the difference between the groups is due to factors other than the (alleged) causal factor. There is also the concern with generalizing the results from the experiment to the whole population.

The experiment in question consisted of 30 boys (ages 13-15) in total. As a sample for determining a causal connection, the sample is too small for real confidence to be placed in the results. There is also the fact that the sample is far too small to support a generalization from the 30 boys to the general population of teenage boys. In fact, the experiment hardly seems worth conducting with such a small sample and is certainly not worth reporting on-except as an illustration of how research should not be conducted.

The researchers had the boys play a violent video game and a non-violent video game in the evening and compared the results. According to the researchers, those who played the violent video game had faster heart rates and lower sleep quality. They also reported “increased feelings of sadness.”  After playing the violent game, the boys  had greater stress and anxiety.

According to one researcher, “The violent game seems to have elicited more stress at bedtime in both groups, and it also seems as if the violent game in general caused some kind of exhaustion. However, the exhaustion didn’t seem to be of the kind that normally promotes good sleep, but rather as a stressful factor that can impair sleep quality.”

Being a veteran of violent video games, these results are consistent with my own experiences. I have found that if I play a combat game, be it a first person shooter, an MMO or a real time strategy game, too close to bedtime, I have trouble sleeping. Crudely put, I find that I am “keyed” up and if I am unable to “calm down” before trying to sleep, my sleep is generally not very restful. I really noticed this when I was raiding in WOW. A raid is a high stress situation (game stress, anyway) that requires hyper-vigilance and it takes time to “come down” from that. I have experienced the same thing with actual fighting (martial arts training, not random violence).  I’ve even experienced something comparable when I’ve been awoken by a big spider crawling on my face-I did not sleep quite so well after that. Graduate school, as might be imagined, put me into this state of poor sleep for about five years.

In general, then, it makes sense that violent video games would have this effect-which is why it is not a good idea to game up until bed time if you want to get a good night’s sleep. Of course, it is a generally a good idea to relax about an hour before bedtime-don’t check email, don’t get on Facebook, don’t do work and so on.

While not playing games before bedtime is a good idea, the question remains as to how these findings connect to violence and video games. According to the researchers, the differences between the two groups “suggest that frequent exposure to violent video games may have a desensitizing effect.”

Laying aside the problem that the sample is far too small to provide significant results that can be reliably extended to the general population of teenage boys, there is also the problem that there seems to be a rather large chasm between the observed behavior (anxiety and lower sleep quality) and being desensitized to violence. The researchers do note that the cause and effect relationship was not established and they did consider the possibility of reversed causation (that the video games are not causing these traits, but that boys with those traits are drawn to violent video games).  As such, the main impact of the study seems to be that it got media attention for the researchers. This would suggest another avenue of research: the corrupting influence of media attention on researching video games and violence.

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Story & Games

Posted by on June 8, 2012 30 comments
La bildo estas kopiita de wikipedia:es. La ori...

All the roll playing you need. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As a philosopher who teaches aesthetics and a gamer, I find questions about games and art to generally be rather interesting. As I have argued elsewhere, I take the intuitively plausible view that video games can be art. However, even if that matter is considered settled (which can be debated), there is still a rich vein of philosophical issues to mine.

One topic that I and many other gamers often find interesting is the matter of the importance of story in games. John Carmack, who knows a bit about games, said  that ”story in a game is like a story in a porn movie. It’s expected to be there, but it’s not that important.” Folks who delight in story driven games no doubt disagree with this view and there does seem to be an issue worth discussing here. For the sake of this discussion, I will be assuming that games (specifically video games) can be art. I have argued for this in an earlier essay and hence will not repeat my arguments here.

Obviously enough, there are games that have no story at all and are still fine games. To use the obvious examples, Tetris and Asteroids are story free, yet fine games. Naturally, these are not the sort of games that people debate about when it comes to whether or not story is important. However, it is worth noting these sorts of games because they provide a relatively pure context in which to present two relevant points.

The first is that game mechanisms (that is, the purely game aspects of the game) are reasonably seen as being distinct from the art aspects of the game (that is, the game as art).  After all, while all games are games and some games are art, not all games are art.  This can, of course, be argued against. However, it does have enough intuitive plausibility that it is well worth considering.

The second point is that even the art aspects of a game that is (or contains) art can be distinguished from each other. For example, while Tetris and Asteroid do not have plots, they do have game artwork and sounds (which might be dismissed as mere sound effects rather than having any status as art). As another example, the music and visual art of Halo can be distinguished from each other in that one is music and the other visual art. This point seems reasonable certain.

The matter of the importance of story is most interesting when it comes to games that do, in fact, feature a story. Obviously enough, the story (or plot) of games have varying degrees of integration into the game. For games that have a story, in one end of the spectrum lives the games whose story have an extremely minimal role in the game. One excellent example of this is Serious Sam: The First Encounter. The game does have a story: an evil alien threatens earth and you, as Sam, have to travel in time and kill wave after wave of monsters. That is pretty much it. Despite the rather limited story, the game works amazingly well as a game-that is, it is fun to play. On the other end of the spectrum are games that are heavily story driven, such as Knights of the Old Republic and Star Wars the Old Republic. These games are, not surprisingly, role-playing games. In these games the player takes on the role of a character and spends considerable time talking to non-player characters, making decisions and experiencing the plot unfold. As might be imagined, the story in such games seems to be rather more important than in the typical first person shooter. In the middle are games like the Halo series which have well-developed stories and unfolding plots, but do not actually have any role-playing elements. For example, in Halo your choices mainly revolve on what gun to use to kill which alien in what way.

As might be imagined, the significance of the story would seem to be proportional to its role in the game. After all, a first person shooter whose plot is rather lacking or poor would suffer less than a full blown story-driven role-playing game whose plot is lacking or badly done. That said, it could still be argued that plot is important.

It is tempting to compare a game with a story to a movie and, obviously enough, plot seems to be somewhat important to a movie (although Michael Bay, some might claim, endeavors to prove otherwise). The idea of plot being the most important aspect of poetical works (broadly and classically construed to include theater) dates back at least to Aristotle. To steal his argument regarding tragedy, the following argument can be given for the importance of plot in games that have a story element.

Games are not an imitation of humans (or elves, aliens, or dragons), ”but of an action and of life, and life consists in action, and its end is a mode of action, not a quality.” It is, of course, the actions taken by people that  ”make them happy or miserable.” As such the “the incidents and the plot are the end of” the game  and “the end is the chief thing of all.” Thus the story is important, at least on the key assumptions made by Aristotle.

For Aristotle, a key part of having a good plot is ensuring “that the sequence of events, according to the law of probability or necessity permits a change from bad fortune to good or from good to bad.” In more general terms, the plot must be such that the events make sense and fit together to form a coherent whole. In my own experience as a gamer, I have consistently disliked games in which the story fails to meet that basic requirement that events play out in a way that makes sense (except, obviously enough, for games that are supposed to not make sense). After all, if you are running around in a game doing things that make no sense for no apparent reason that leads to nothing, then that will tend to be a disappointing gaming experience (although it would be a fair approximation of life).

The rather obvious reply to this is that there are games that are rather weak in the story department that seem to be great successes as games, thus helping to support Carmack’s claim. This seems to be a rather consistent aspect of the top tier first person shooters-they tend to be marked by weak, implausible or otherwise lame plots but are top-ranked for game play, especially competitive multi-player. As I once jokingly put it, “I don’t really care why I am killing, I just care about whether I’m enjoying it or not.” That, I think, nicely captures the view of most gamers.

Interestingly enough, this view often extends into games in which story would seem to be rather important, such as role-playing games. While some people do enjoy going through all the dialog and getting into the story, my general experience has been that the main focus is on the game-play rather than on the story.  This even extends to my experience in traditional role-playing games, like AD&D and Pathfinder:many players are far more into roll-playing (that is, simply killing monsters in combat) than role-playing (that is, talking to the monsters before killing them).

Getting back to the point raised earlier, namely that the game aspects of a game are not art this does seem to suggest that the story is not as important to the game as the game aspects of the game. Alternatively, it could be argued that the game aspects of the game are still art, but they are a different sort of art than a story. After all, the name of the game is, well, “game” and not “story.” In the case of a first person shooter, the game is (obviously enough) about shooting things from a first person perspective. Story is thus secondary. Even in role-playing games, such as Pathfinder, all the actual game mechanism are about rolling dice, usually while trying to kill monsters who are blatantly and shamelessly holding the loot that rightfully belongs to the party. While the game can be augmented by art (acting, beautiful maps, and well-crafted stories) the core of the game is , it can be argued, the game mechanics. As my friend Ron puts it, “if you are not rolling dice, you are not playing the game. You are just sitting around the table talking.”

The idea that a game should be focused on the game is, interestingly enough, also consistent with Aristotle’s view: “each art ought to produce, not any chance pleasure, but the pleasure proper to it.”

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Can the Dead Walk?

Posted by on October 31, 2011 9 comments
A participant of a Zombie walk, Asbury Park NJ...

Image via Wikipedia

While George Romero introduced zombies to movie goers years ago, the fascination with the walking dead continues to grow like a zombie horde. While it is fun to watch the fictional zombies, it might be wondered whether or not the dead can really walk.

While “science” based zombies are standard zombies of most movies, there is also the classic supernatural zombie. These zombies are driven by supernatural forces rather than mysterious radiation or some sort of super virus. For example, the zombies I use in my Pathfinder campaigns are corpses that are possessed by unintelligent evil spirits of negative energy. Obviously, these zombies are make believe and are almost certainly not the sort of thing that could exist in this world. That said, if there is a supernatural aspect to this world (which seems rather unlikely) then supernatural zombies might be possible. I am, of course, inclined to think that they are not-mainly because of the lack of evidence.

As might be imagined, “science” based zombies would seem to have the best chance of being possible. It is also worth considering the possibility of what can be called a corpse suit. A corpse suit is a dead body that is “worn” by another living organism that moves it about, using it as protection or camouflage. Plants, insects and fungus have (in fiction, including several of my Call of Cthuhu adventures) been cast in such a role. While no known organism does this with human bodies, it does not seem like an impossibility. Of course, this sort of thing would not be a zombie in the strict sense. After all, the dead body is not walking itself but is being manipulated like a puppet.

One common cause of the “science” zombies is a virus or other such agent that re-animates (usually after killing). For example, my own Nightsiders (specifically “Dead Island”-not to be confused with the recent video game that uses the same name and basic plot) features a zombie agent that was being developed as a weapon. While an agent that causes people to act in zombie like ways certainly seems possible (as vividly portrayed in 28 Days Later), these people would not be zombies in the sense of being the walking dead for the obvious reason that they are not actually dead.

As might be imagined, the main challenge with creating the walking dead is getting a corpse to move under its own power. If the body is completely dead, then it would seem rather unlikely that it would be able to do so. After all, the dead nerve cells would not be able to direct the dead muscle cells to fire. Presumably the dead muscle cells could not fire, even if somehow signaled to do so by undead nerves.

One way around this, other than imagining some sort of undead cellular activity that is somehow not life (which might seem a bit supernatural), is to cheat a bit and allow for zombies that are partially alive. If parts of the brain, nervous system and muscles could remain alive (or were re-started after death) then a zombie of sorts would seem to be possible. After all, there could be enough neural guidance and muscle power left to move the mostly dead body around under its own power. This could, perhaps, be accomplished by a virus or bacteria that was rather selective.

Merely having a mobile mostly dead corpse would, of course, still not be quite enough. After all, the sort of zombie we are looking for does more than just lie on the table and twitch. It pursues the living and is presumably driven by an endless hunger for their brains.

Getting that sort of zombie seems rather tricky. After all the zombie would need enough mental functionality to be able to recognize and pursue the living yet be lacking enough so as to be a zombie (which are suppose to be unintelligent). The zombie would, of course, also need the motivation to hunt the living. Mere hunger would, of course, not be enough-otherwise zombies would just eat whatever they could find and would not be totally fixated on humans.

This challenge could be overcome by imagining that the agent that creates the zombie modifies the nervous system in such a way that the zombie behavior is created. There are, of course, diseases (such as rabies) that affect behavior and there are fungi that radically impact behavior (albeit primarily in insects rather than humans). However, there is enough of a precedent to provide a foundation for the imagination. Throw in the hypothesis that the agent was developed for military purposes and it would seem that we have a winner.

Thus it would seem that zombies (of a sort) are possible.  Happy Halloween.

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Are Used Video Games Theft?

Posted by on September 15, 2011 10 comments
Heavy Rain

Image via Wikipedia

According to the French game developer Quantic Dream, the company has lost  between €5m and €10m due to the selling of used copies of its game Heavy Rain. This estimate was calculated by matching the sales figures of new games with the number of players registering Trophies on PSN. The company’s co-founder Guillame de Fondaumiere summed the matter up by saying, “on my small level it’s a million people playing my game without giving me one cent.”

While de Fondaumiere is not actually accusing buyers of used games of being involved in an act of thievery, the parallel to piracy seems to be an apt one to draw. After all, one stock argument against the digital  piracy of video games is that the piracy is costing the companies money via lost sales. However, the people who buy (and sell) used copies are clearly not engaging in piracy: the buying and selling of used property is well established and the burden of proof rests on those who would argue that the owner of a piece of physical property (in this sort of case, a game disk) cannot re-sell his used property. To use the obvious analogy, if I buy a house, then I have the right to resell it again. Imagine, if you will, a developer complaining that he is not getting a cut every time the house he sold is re-sold. Obviously, they would like such a cut. But, when it is sold, it is sold and the right to re-sell it goes along with the purchase (unless specified in the contract).  To use another analogy, when I do my job, I do not expect to be endlessly paid for the work I did (even when my students use what I taught in their careers)-I get paid for it and that is the end of it.

The matter become a bit less clear in cases of digital purchases, but Fondaumiere is discussing the re-selling of the actual games disks. As such, there seems to little foundation for his complaint, other than the fact that he is worried he is not getting every cent he thinks he is owed.

One obvious factor worth considering is that the reselling of a used game does not entail that a sale is lost. As a gamer, I can attest that there are games that I have bought used that I would not have bought new. As such, calculating the “loss” from used game sales would be somewhat tricky.

A second factor is that gamers sometimes wait for the price to drop on a game. For example, I bought Borderlands when the Game of the Year edition came out (with all the expansions included). It was much cheaper than the original version, yet it would be odd to say that my delay robbed the company (they did, of course, get some money from me).

A third factor is that when gamers buy games, they often factor in the fact that they can resell the game or pass it on to someone. Laying out $60 for a game is more palatable when you know that you’ll get some of that back or that you can give it to someone. While it is difficult to calculate the positive sales impact of the ability to re-sell or give away games, it would seem to be a factor worth considering. As such, the re-selling of games might not be a losing proposition for game companies. At the very least, this factor would mitigate any harms done by the reselling.

A fourth factor is that gaming stores generate significant income from re-selling used games (often over and over). While this has also been a point of contention, it does help retailers stay in business and thus be available to sell new copies of games.

However, de Fondaumiere  contends that the retailers will ultimately hurt themselves by selling used games. He asserts that game companies will think that they cannot make money via retail and will instead go to direct online distribution (which is already an option for many games), thus eliminating the retail game sellers by removing their access to products. From the perspective of retailers, this would be rather bad-after all, many retailers make their main profits from selling (and re-selling) used games. It is, of course, worth noting that the used record and CD retail industry took a severe hit with the advent of the digital revolution. The same could very well happen to the gaming world. While I have bought games via Amazon, it has been years since I bought a game at an actual physical store and I often buy download versions of PC games.  This trend might solve the problem of used games, at least how he sees it. Of course, this might also lead consumers to be more reluctant to purchase games on release-after all, being unable to sell them back or give them away does reduce their value for some customers.

My considered view is that the selling of used games is acceptable and companies have little grounds on which to complain of such losses.

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Pathological Gaming

Posted by on January 19, 2011 13 comments

Video games have been accused of being corrupting influences that lead to violence and other bad behavior. A recent study now appears to show that gaming can lead to pathological gaming-a state that seems to be on par with other serious and harmful addictions.

The study in question was conducted in Singapore using 3,034 students from grade 3 to grade 8. The study found that 7.9-9.9% of those in the study could be classified as pathological gamers. Interestingly, 16% of those classified as pathological ceased to fit this classification over the two years while only 1% of the participants shifted from non-pathological to pathological. While the study was limited to one country, the results are supposed to be consistent with what would be found in other countries.

The study revealed that risk factors for becoming a pathological gamer include the time spent gaming, the person’s social competence and the person’s impulse control. Not surprisingly, people who spent more time gaming while possessing less social competence and impulse control were more likely to become pathological.

This is a matter of concern because there seems to be a link between being a pathological gamer and depression, anxiety, social phobias and reduced school performance.

Not surprisingly, certain spokespeople for the gaming industry rushed to condemn the study. After all, if a solid link were made between video games and psychological harms, then it would seem likely that costly lawsuits would soon follow. Of course, the mere fact that the folks in the gaming industry has a financial stake in the matter does not prove that their criticisms are mistaken.

In any case, the study does raise some interesting concerns and does provide a clear focus for discussing causation.

Even it is assumed that there is a correlation between playing video games and the harms the study purports to reveal, there are still legitimate questions about the causality involved.

First, there is the possibility that cause and effect are being reversed. To be specific, people might turn to playing video games excessively because they are depressed, doing poorly in school and having other problems. If so, the video games would not be the cause of the problem. Rather, the pathological gaming would be the effect. To use an analogy, a person who drinks excessively and is depressed and unemployed might be drinking because he is depressed and unemployed.

Naturally, it is worth considering that there might be a feedback mechanism in play: people turn to video games because of these problems and this approach makes the problems even worse. Alcohol presents a clear analogy here: people do turn to drink because of problems and then the drinking can make things worse.

Second, there is the possibility that there is a third factor that is causing the alleged cause and effects. To illustrate this, consider an example from my own life. When I was 15 my mother bought me a copy of the D&D Basic Set. Soon after, I became less social (aside from gaming), I was depressed, my grades dropped badly and I spent a lot of time playing D&D. While it might be tempting to explain these problems by blaming D&D (which was blamed for all sorts of things then), the real reason was that shortly after I started gaming my parents went through a rather rough divorce. After things settled down, I still played D&D (and video games) and my grades, socialization and so on recovered and then improved significantly. As such, my spending a lot of time on D&D did not cause my problems. Rather, the divorce caused me to spend more time on D&D and caused many of my problems.

As such, it is worth considering whether or not there are other factors that are causing the pathological gamers to be both pathological gamers and suffer from the various problems attributed to them.

Third, it is worth considering whether the problems are actually specifically caused by video games or whether it is some other factor, such as the excessive time spent on one activity. To use an analogy, consider blaming obesity on junk food. While this has some appeal, it is not actually the type of food that causes obesity but rather the quantity. A person could eat a diet of bacon wrapped Twinkies and not get fat, while someone else could eat health food in massive quantities and get very fat. If it is the excessive time spent that causes the trouble, then video games might be off the hook for the blame. Then again, there might be something about video games that makes them a special risk. Going back to the junk food analogy, it is tempting to blame junk food because it is high in calories and very appealing.

Based on my own experience, I am inclined to hold that excessive time spent on a single activity can lead to problems-be it video games, a sport work, or texting. However, it does seem reasonable to consider that video games are crafted to be addictive and that they might have more capacity to create problems than other hobby activities.

Of Heroes and Leaks

Posted by on December 15, 2010 14 comments

The town of Berkeley recently considered a motion to declare Private Manning a hero. Manning is, of course, accused of leaking classified information to WikiLeaks. While some see him as an obvious villain and other see him as an obvious hero, this is a matter worthy of some consideration.

The first point of concern is to provide a rough idea of what it is to be a hero. While I do not purport to be giving a necessary and sufficient definition of what it is to be a hero, I think that there are two core requirements.

The first is that a person must put herself at significant risk. Since risk comes in degrees is would thus seem to follow that there are degrees of heroism. This is intuitively plausible. For example, if I merely risk a minor injury, then I am only being (at most) somewhat heroic. If, however, I run a considerable risk of being horribly killed, then my potential heroism would seem far more significant.

Obviously enough, putting oneself at risk is not sufficient for heroism. After all, if a person drinks several Four Loko and runs out into traffic, he is putting himself at risk. However, he is not being heroic. This leads to the second core requirement.

The second requirement is the moral element. An act of heroism is, intuitively, an act that aims at a moral good. We would not, for example, call someone who undertook considerable risk to commit a murder or rape a hero.

As with the risk, the goodness can come in varying degrees. So, for example, if someone risks an injury by climbing a tree to rescue a cat, then she is being a little bit heroic. As another example, Ginger Littleton acted to try to save the lives of her fellow school board members which would make her rather heroic.

Naturally, there are all sorts of other factors that must be taken into account when assessing specific acts for heroism. For example, there is the matter of whether the person acted knowingly. As another example, there is the question of intent. However, I do not want to become bogged down on these details at this point (I’ll leave that up to commentators) and will now switch to the main issue or whether Manning is a hero or not.

Since it has yet to be proven that Manning leaked the information, the discussion of his heroism (or lack thereof) is hypothetical. For the sake of the discussion, it will be assumed that he did leak the information. However, this is not to be taken as a claim that he did, in fact, leak the information.

Manning’s alleged leak does meet the first condition. Such a leak brings with it considerable risk (such as the possibility of an extended amount of jail time) and presumably Manning was aware of these consequences. However, the critical requirement is the moral requirement.

While Assange seems to regard himself on a moral crusade, it is not entirely clear what motivated Manning nor what Manning hoped to achieve with the leak. There has been some speculation that he leaked the information because of his dislike of the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy. If so, it could perhaps be argued that his leak was a moral protest against what he regarded as an immoral policy.

However, the information about Manning seems to indicate that he was unhappy about his job for various other reasons. As such, his leak might have been a case of a disgruntled worked who aimed at getting back at his employer. This is hardly an act of heroism.

The above is, of course, speculation. At this point it is not certain what motivated Manning nor what he hoped to accomplish with the alleged leak. As such, there seems to be little solid evidence of heroism.

In cases in which the potential hero’s intent and aims are not known, it does make sense to try to assess the action itself as well as the consequences. For example, if someone rescues a drowning person from a frozen lake, then we are inclined to call her a hero-even if she slips away without revealing anything about her motivations or aims. As another example, if someone secretly steals your wallet/purse while you are out shopping, then you would probably not be inclined to regard that person as a hero.

The ethics of the leak is, of course, a matter of great contention. Some people hold it to be an act of wickedness, on par with 9/11. Others hold it to be a morally upstanding act that strikes a blow against the evil of America in specific and states in general. Those who assess the matter more with reason than emotions generally seem to hold the leak to have caused some problems in diplomacy but to be neither a great good nor a significant evil.  As such, there does not seem to be  clear case for Manning being a great hero (or an epic villain).

At this point, the most likely narrative is that Manning leaked the information because of his dissatisfaction with his situation. The leak itself does not seem to have done significant good nor very significant damage. As such, it would seem that Manning is not a hero.

There are, of course, alternative narratives. Some that paint him as a hero and others that cast him as a traitor.

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Can Video Games Be Art?

Posted by on April 22, 2010 48 comments

In short, yes.

Of course, being a professional philosopher, I am obligated to more than make a mere assertion. I had, oddly enough, thought that this matter had already been settled. However, Roger Ebert argues (at length) that video games are not and perhaps never can be art. This was done as a reply to a YouTube video by Kellee Santiago in which she claims that video games can be art. The folks at Penny Arcade also weigh in on the matter.

As with most classification battles, this conflict hinges on the definition of “art.”  After all, with definition in hand a person could sort the world into two piles: art and non-art. While Santiago goes with Wikipedia as her main source, Ebert considers more historical definitions, such as those offered by Plato. However, all these definitions have serious flaws. Since I have been published professionally in the field of aesthetics and have taught a university course on the subject for sixteen years, I am somewhat qualified to discuss definitions of “art.” My considered view is that although we have many interesting and appealing definitions, we have yet to develop one that is truly adequate. To be specific, the definitions all tend to be too narrow (leaving out too much) or too broad (letting in too much) or have other serious flaws. Fortunately, it is possible to argue whether something is art or not without having that elusive perfect (or at least adequate) definition.

One effective way to argue that something is art is to use an argument by analogy. If it can be shown that X is analogous (in relevant ways)  to something that is a paradigm example of art, then this goes a long way in establishing that X is art. Naturally, this is an inductive method and is also subject to some serious criticism.

Turning to video games, they seem to have components relevantly similar to established art forms. First, video games have graphics. These can be compared to paintings or movies (since video game graphics often move). While some video games might not actually hit a level that would qualify them as art (not even bad art) at least some of them would seem to be adequately similar to paintings, drawings or films in ways that would qualify the visual component as art. As far as the main argument, it seems that anything that can be said that would argue that a sketch, painting or film is art (references to creativity, imagination, expression of emotion, proportion, imitativeness, and so on) could also be applied to the graphics of a video game.

Second, video games have sounds and even sound tracks. While the simplest bloops and bleeps most likely are mere noise rather than music, games such as Halo have true musical soundtracks. Since music can clearly be art, the musical elements in video games would also seem to be eligible for this status.

Third, video games often have stories and narratives. While this is not true of all of them (Tetris lacks a plot, for example), some of them have plots and narratives that rival those of novels. For example, the  Mass Effect and Uncharted games serve to illustrate the narrative depths of games. The Uncharted games have been compared favorably to movies and movies are clearly art. Also, as with graphics, almost anything that can be said about a story or novel (or movie) can also be said about certain video games. As such, the story aspect of video games would also seem to qualify some of them as art.

It might be objected that although the parts that make up a game can be artistic elements, to infer that the whole game is thus art would be to commit the fallacy of composition (to assume that what is true of the parts must be true of the whole). That is, while the game has artistic parts, the game as a whole is not art. To use an analogy, the fact that a house has art on the walls and music playing within its walls does not make the house itself a work of art. To use an even better analogy, if someone decided to play checkers using great paintings as the pieces, this would hardly make the game of checkers art.

In reply, if the components are art, then the coherent combination of these parts into a whole should not someone render this whole into non-art through some sort of mysterious alchemy. In the case of the checkers analogy, the fact that the pieces are art is not actually relevant to the game of checkers. The art is not serving a role in the game as art, but rather as mere objects. This role would be served as well (even better) by small pieces of plastic. If the art is actually serving a role in the game as art, then that would change matters in a relevant. way. Provided that the art is playing a role in the game in which it being art is relevant, then it would seem to be able to give the game itself some standing as art. It could even be argued that the burden of proof rests on those who would claim that video games composed of such artistic elements are not art. Of course, such burden of proof arguments are rather weak.

As for a better argument, a reasonable approach is to consider what fatal alchemy would somehow deprive all the artistic components of a video game from combining into a work that qualifies as art as a whole. If no such fatal alchemy exists and a game is meaningfully composed of artistic elements, then the game as a whole could qualify as art.

One possibility is that video games, unlike works of art, are played rather than merely experienced. One views a painting, hears a song, or watches a movie. The artist delivers a work of art and the audience receives this work. In a game, the work is unfinished (in some cases, so much so that patches are needed) and the player is required to complete the process.

While this is a tempting argument, it can be replied to in two ways. One is that there are numerous types of accepted art that are interactive. For example, stand up comedy is an art, yet we do not say that it ceases to be an art if the comic interacts with the audience in her act. Also, there are plays that invite audience participation yet this does not deny them their status as art. At the very least, the audience interacts emotionally with the works.

A second reply is that perhaps the player is also an artist by adding his input into the game. In role-playing games, the player selects and modifies the flow of the narrative, helping to tell the story along with the creators of the game. As such, this does not seem to disqualify video games from being art.

Another possibility is that there is something else inherent to games that is able to nullify the artistic elements of video games. However, it seems difficult to sort out exactly what these fatal elements might be. Games have rules, but so does art. While art cannot be won, there are some games that are also not based on winning or losing. One could, I think, run though all the elements of games and fail to find that fatal ingredient. However, I am clearly open to this possibility. True, not all games are art. However, this hardly shows that video games are thus not art because they are games.

As somewhat of a side point, there are some arguments that attack the status of video games as art by pointing out that video games cannot match the greatest paintings, novels, films and so on. However, this argument rather misses the point. Even it is conceded that video games have not matched the greatest works of art, this does not show that they are not art. It would merely show that they are not on par with the greatest works. This would be like arguing that the Twilight books are not art because they are not as good as Shakespeare’s works or arguing that I am not a runner because I cannot place in the top ten at the Boston Marathon. Bad art is still art and non-world class runners are still runners.

Finally, I obviously have just presented a sketch of a case. One glaring weak point is that an account of what it is for artistic elements of a video game to combine to form an artistic whole. Fortunately, this is the sort of challenge any composite work faces. For example, a film has to combine the plot, the visual aspects, acting, sound effects, sound track and other elements to create a whole. As such, an analogy to films can be pressed into play here and perhaps help serve as the basis for building an account of video games as works of art.

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