If you asked me what the most important differences are in gaming discourse now compared to when I was a kid, one of the first ideas I'd throw out would be games-as-art. While some people do tirelessly continue this asinine debate, the sheer effort and craftsmanship that goes into shaping interactive narratives has, for the rest of us, cemented that video games are works of art just like films and literature.
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However, while this is settled in my mind, it has opened up a whole range of significant implications that are still worth discussing. In particular, the pressure that comes with playing games as art and the guilt complex that results from deciding what games are worth our limited time.
The Games-As-Art Guilt Complex
We all have a limited amount of time in our days. Without wanting to get too real here, we are all aware of how our jobs, families, friends and other obligations limit the amount of time that we have to spend on ourselves and our hobbies. Were it not for these kinds of responsibilities, we'd all be able to pursue our hobbies and passing interests to a much fuller extent.
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Instead though, we have to make choices. Do you go outside or stay in today? If you stay in, do you watch a movie or play video games? If you play video games, what do you play? These are the seemingly innocuous choices that we make on a regular basis. However, whenever we make a choice, we exclude the alternative we don't pick. If you stay inside, you don't get to go outside, you can't have both. In the same way, when deciding what games to play, it is only natural that you exclude whichever option you don't pick.
Now, in the past, as a kid for example, this didn't matter very much. As a kid, your little Freudian Id brain will pursue whatever gives it the greatest and most immediate gratification. But we aren't kids anymore, and games are more than just immediate gratification. As established at the beginning, they are art.
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With this in mind, all of a sudden, our seemingly meaningless micro-choices about how we spend our free time take on a lot more meaning. When we exclude a video game by choosing not to play it, we're excluding more than just an activity, we're excluding someone's artwork. This is the source of what I'm calling the Games-As-Art Guilt Complex. If games are art, then our choices of what to play take on a newfound importance and with those choices comes guilt over the pieces of art that we are choosing to exclude.
Now, this is obviously nothing new in reality. Ask any book-lover or film buff and they'll describe having the exact same problem. They feel an obligation to read classics like Jane Austen or watch masterpieces like Apocalypse Now, even though sometimes they just want to read a cheesy romance novel or watch a roid-infused 80s action shlockfest.
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In the same way, I feel as though I should be enjoying all of the finely crafted indie offerings hidden in the depths of the Playstation Store when, in reality, I just feel like playing yet another 35 hour Yakuza game because I like smacking thuggish passers-by over the head with bicycles. The guilt comes from feeling as though we should be experiencing more cerebral and emotional games that we've heard glowing recommendations for but, when it comes down to it, we often just feel like sticking to our comfort zones and the games that we know we'll enjoy.
Simplifying the complex
So, how do you overcome this pressure to experience more high-brow and conventionally 'artistic' games while also satisfying our needs and playing the games that guarantee us a basic form of satisfaction. Well, while I try wherever I can to provide answers to questions like these, I can't help but feel as though I've come up short in this case. Short of a total revolution in societal norms that gives us a lot more free time, we will all have to continue making these choices. However, while we are stuck with the choices, I can offer my two cents on avoiding these feelings of guilt.
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First off, in an ideal world, we can hopefully all find some games that satisfy both sets of needs. Ideally, we'd all have games that both deliver a finely-crafted emotional message and also adhere closely enough to our comfort zones that we don't have to push ourselves to play them. Arguably my favourite game of all time, Bioshock, is a prime example of this. Its gameplay is aligned closely with plenty of first-person titles that I'm comfortable with while its story and narrative design delivers something truly unique and artistic. Unfortunately, while it would be nice for all of us to experience games like this regularly, those kinds of lightning-in-a-bottle experiences are few and far between.
More practically perhaps, we can begin to re-frame our thinking about what makes a game 'worthy' of our time. I highlighted the Yakuza series as an example of comfort-zone games that I will sometimes play instead of something more cerebral. However, just because a game is within our comfort zone, that doesn't mean that it isn't still worthy of your time. As much as I enjoy Yakuza's bicycle-battling gameplay, there are still plenty of emotional story beats and finely crafted design choices present for it still to be considered an artistic work.
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While it is unhealthy to stay inside your comfort zone all the time, that doesn't mean there is anything inherently wrong about a game that holds an existing appeal to you. If video games are art, then that should apply to a big name series like Yakuza and to a small, finely-crafted indie game in equal measure. Both are art, even if they are aiming to achieve different things.
Finally, it is also worth keeping in mind the importance of taste to this conversation. As any high school aged teenager can tell you, Shakespeare might be a fantastic work of art, but he isn't to everyone's taste. I think it's safe to say the same of video games. I recently tried to play through all of Metroid Prime: Remastered on my Switch and while I appreciated the fantastic artistic achievement that it was, I just didn't feel like finishing it.
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Without getting into the weeds of it, while the game held a few minor irritations for me, the main thing that held back my enjoyment of it was that I just wasn't in the mood to play it. A first-person shooter crossed with a Metroidvania sounds great but it just wasn't what I felt like playing, so I shelved it on the assumption that I'd come back to it when I'm actually in the mood to play it.
Games-as-art I think is very much a two-sided coin. If games are art, that must also mean that they cannot be to everyone's taste. Art that appeals to everyone is bland and meaningless and so, as long as something is accepted as art, it must also be accepted that some people will not enjoy it. Note that I don't think this is an excuse to never leave your comfort zone, that is, after all, how we grow. However, having strayed outside of your comfort zone to try a new game, I also think that there's nothing wrong with deciding that it isn't for you or that it might be for you but you're not in the mood to play it right now.
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| (Image property of Retro Studio and Nintendo) |
Conclusion
If you've made it this far, thank you very much for entertaining my ramblings on this subject. The guilt of feeling as though I should play new, interesting and thought-provoking games instead of whatever I've been enjoying recently can be a real pressure from my perspective. As such, I wanted to share my thoughts and some of the rationale that I have for why I don't think it's always a bad thing to stick with those comfort-zone games.
As we enter a new era for video games where they can be held up alongside literature and film as accepted forms of art, I can't help but feel as though we need to tread carefully with how we see ourselves as consumers as well as the material we consume. If we want to avoid some of the snobbish attitudes that plague film and literature discourse, it's importance that we show kindness to ourselves and each other over the art that we consume.
Yes, you should go outside of your comfort-zone and experience new things but, at the same time, that doesn't mean that what you already enjoy is invalid and, for that matter, just because you try something new, that doesn't mean you shouldn't enjoy it.
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