Games Are Not Art, Are They?
Games are not art -- they're better. It just depends on whom you ask.
There's this on-again, off-again argument within the intelligentsia as to whether games should be placed on the same pedestal as books, movies, music, and paintings. But even the newest of the accepted fine arts, movies, have had at least a century to develop.
Conventional videogames--and I'm taking Pong, the equivalent of cave drawings, as my starting point here--commenced less than 40 years ago. In that time, games have mimicked movies, electronically emulated books, and tried their hand at playing on some emotional heartstrings. The big difference is that most conventional art forms are passive and two-dimensional experiences: You sit in front of and soak in whatever the artist presents you with. Videogames attempt to create an interactive experience that puts the viewer/ player in control of the palette.
Enter Shanghai-born Xinghan "Jenova" Chen, creative director of ThatGameCompany. Since earning his graduate degree from the University of Southern California Film School's Interactive Media program, he has helped craft several simple-but-surreal game projects that do more than cater to a twitch response. His thesis project, Cloud, floated along, accumulating a following on the indie gaming scene. Flow cast players as an ever-evolving single-celled organism--and that, no doubt, inspired the first stage in Spore. The best way to describe Chen's latest game, Flower: It's a first-person gardener. And it's well-worth the $10 asking price at Sony's PlayStation Store.
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