Video Games as Architecture

When we talk about whether video games are art, we usually think of them as fundamentally narrative pieces, most comparable to movies, which also integrate storyline and character with visuals and sound. Part of the difficulty in arguing that video games are art lies in showing that video games can tell a tight story, that (in spite of players' ability to change the course or details of the story) game designers can craft a narrative that affects its players on a level deeper than mere amusement. Even if we can point to some examples of deep characterization and narrative in games, that also leaves out at lot of video games, and there may be games that we thought affected us aesthetically but which don't have great narrative strength. (Ocarina of Time is one game that I wouldn't describe as having particularly sophisticated character or narrative, but which I find profoundly beautiful). So what I want to argue is that the aesthetic effect of some games resembles architecture-as-art more than it resembles film. Let's get a few other points out of the way first, though.

One thing I want to make clear is that I'm not arguing that all video games are more like architecture than like film, nor that all video games are art. I think it's possible for movies, music, and food (among other media) to be art, but not all pieces within these categories are art either: I saw Jurrassic World for the fighting dinosaurs, I sometimes listen to Disturbed to amp myself up for Halo, and I like to eat a big bowl of calorie-rich rice and lentils before I jog. Analogously, I sometimes I play video games just to distract myself for a couple of hours or for the fun of competing. I've never felt aesthetically moved by the Halo series (except perhaps by Reach), but playing it gives me kind of a rush.

Since I already feel heat on the back of my neck from all the Halo players who hate Reach, I want to make a related point. I think that what aesthetically moves us varies from person to person, and, for that matter, from situation to situation. Sometimes I play Kerbal Space Program just for the fun of problem-solving. Others times I find myself feeling genuinely moved toward the aesthetic sublime. Once it caught me by surprise; as my rescue pod took off from the Mun, ferrying a stranded kerbonaut to safety, my heart went pitter-patter, and I suddenly felt very small. So I'm not trying to tell anyone which games they should or shouldn't be aesthetically touched by. I am trying to describe one manner in which games can aesthetically affect us.

I'm also not sure that the other motivations for playing games--for a rush, for problem-solving, for the challenge, etc.-- are necessarily at odds with aesthetic experience. When I rescued my stranded Kerbal from his camp straddling the Munar sunset, I had already put my free time (as well as in game resources) into training that character, as well as into designing the rescue-craft and getting it to the Mun. I suspect that my previous commitment of "resources" to that mission and my desire to succeed were partly responsible for my unexpected empathy with the character I was rescuing. Similarly, when I first took my Skyrim character through the Barrow at Bleak Falls, I felt a real sense of dread, which I wouldn't characterize as a "fun" in any simple sense, but which I might characterize as aesthetically interesting. I think the dungeon inspired this feeling in part because I was actively trying not to be killed by hidden enemies. Though sometimes I really do play video games just for the fun of trying to win, I suspect that the trying-to-win aspect of games can actually contribute to their aesthetic impact.[1]

"But what about this architecture business?," you may ask as I meander through my thoughts. Well, I think that video games in some ways more closely resemble architecture than they do narrative artworks, and that some of the reasons people might use to disqualify video games from the artworld would also disqualify architecture.

Unlike films, games, to one extent or another, encourage players to explore the game on their own terms. This is taken to an extreme in open-world games like GTA and Skyrim, but also characterizes some level-based games like Dishonored and some slow-moving strategy games like the Civilization and Total War series.[2] Similarly, most architecture doesn't limit its viewer to a single perspective, nor does it require you to view it in rigid order of perspectives. Of course, there are some limits in both cases: It's pretty much inevitable that you see bottom floor of Sainte-Chapelle before you see the upper floor; you can't play the last level of Dishonored without playing through the previous levels. But you do have some control. If you want to, you can dwell on Sainte-Chapelle's more dimly lit lower floor for a long time before walking up into the light of the chapel's nave, which might heighten the intensity of the second experience. You can also choose whether to go out to the chapel's balcony or stay inside viewing the windows. In larger cathedrals, like Notre Dame, it's impossible to see everything at once, and you can choose your path through the structure as well as which elements of the cathedral you focus on. Likewise in games, you have some latitude to explore the game-world and its mechanics as suits your preferences; the aesthetic experience isn't engendered by a highly crafted and tight narrative, and we don't complain that cathedrals aren't art on this basis.

Architecture also shares with video games the integration of a variety of aesthetic forms and media. It's true that films contain music, background images, 3D spaces, etc., but in architecture, as with video games, the components need to be appreciable individually as well as within the context of the whole. Whereas in films, viewers are limited by the director's choice as to how closely they can observe the art forms that comprise and back the film, with architecture, the viewer can study each piece individually. A film may pass over a painting briefly, but (keeping with the cathedral examples)  viewers of the building's stained glass, frescoes, or sculptures can dwell on those aspects for as long as they choose. Video games share with architecture the need to form some kind of coherent whole while containing a number of separate works that are individually appreciable. If you look around a cathedral, you'll see one story told by the Stations of the Cross, stories of saints depicted in the windows, and maybe a story of judgment or creation laid out on a ceiling fresco. Each of these works can be in itself visually beautiful (or sublime), and it at least has to be complete enough to evoke something on its own. Whereas films are usually praised as art when they focus in on the psychology of a single character and tie that personality into a tailored story, it seems to me that architecture can work on us by winding together the themes of many artworks and smaller narratives into a great narrative or a great theme. As a lone artwork, a gargoyle, a window, or a fresco may not evoke religious awe, but when all of these smaller works are combined architecturally they can evoke something which none of them can on their own.

This willingness of architecture to play on "great themes" (grandeur, salvation, modernity) by assembling constituent works reminds me of the relation between a video game's whole and its parts. The quests of Ocarina of Time, which stand on their own as mini-narratives, can be fun, enchanting, pretty, and creepy in turn. Individually, most of them probably don't have the narrative weight to be art-fiction. What's of interest (to me) is the thematic interplay between the quests. The first half of the game, characterized by fairy-tale-esque quests, bright spaces, and friendly people, gives way to an incredibly dark second half: The people of Castle Town have been replaced by soul-sucking undead; the realm of the Zoras is frozen solid, and you can never fix it; almost every part of Link's childhood has been transformed into something threatening or macabre, and when you return temporarily to Link's childhood you descend beneath Kakariko Village to find that a darkness has been festering there all along. Even at the end of the game, when the realm of Hyrule springs anew, Link needs his childhood magically restored -- Along the way, he's lost something he otherwise can't get back. In many ways, the game that I remember most from my childhood is about Link's irreparably shattered innocence. It's very lovely and very sad. So without performing as art in the way we expect narrative fiction to, the game is able to generate a thematic interplay that many players, myself included, find quite moving.

I want to point out one more way in which video games and architecture resemble each other: they are both highly technical and industrial, and if we refuse to call video games art for this reason, we'd also need to deny architecture art-status on the same grounds. It's true that video games require highly technical skills, and well as the mobilization of large scale industry to create the computers and servers they are played on, the computers used by the developers, and the networks involved in their distribution. But architecture also is highly technical and requires a large number of skilled workers. For a building to stand, it must be built so that the forces of gravity are distributed properly into the ground; you need to know which materials are strong enough for the job; you need to take into account environmental dangers to the structure. All of this requires architects to make a number of technical decisions to realize their aesthetic vision, as well as to leave much of the execution up to skilled workers who may have minimal personal interest in the aesthetic vision. As with video games, architecture involves a lot of technical skill, and much of the skilled work isn't executed by the work's "auteur." So, I think if we disqualify video-games because of their technical and industrial aspects, we'd also have to disqualify architecture from being art, which seems an undesirable implication.[3]

So what's my point? It's not that all games are just like architecture. Rather, I'm trying to show that we shouldn't assume video games are like films or automatically judge them according to the same standards as films. Some video games are primarily narrative, but there are plenty of non-narrative artistic media, and video games come in many varieties. Perhaps we can expand our appreciation of video games as aesthetic objects if we expand the ways in which we understand them to function aesthetically.

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[1] I think I may be remembering this argument from somewhere else, but I can't recall who should get credit. 

[2] I personally have a hard time getting anything aesthetic out of fast-paced strategy games like Starcraft II, but I'd be interested in whether others experience those games differently.

[3] Come to think of it, I think Roger Ebert made a passing remark similar to this in one of his writings on video games.