The dictionary defines art as “the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.” In other words, any creative or imaginative work which can be appreciated for its beauty or its emotional power is, in the strictest terms, to be considered art. In that sense, the debate on whether or not video games are an art form and deserve protection under the First Amendment is mostly laughable in my opinion. In the simplest terms, video games adhere to both the dictionary definition of art and the legal definition of art and therefore cannot be censored or restricted under the First Amendment. Why, then, is there even an argument or a discussion on whether interactive entertainment (IE: video games) would be considered as such? In reality, perhaps the argument is not whether or not video games are art, but whether or not video games can be considered high art. That is to say, on par with paintings, literature, poetry and film. Well, many games already exist which act as gaming’s credentials as “high art”.

To begin, one cannot simply dismiss an entire medium without looking at both its best and worst examples. If one were to utterly dismiss film as an art form based solely on the most brain-dead summer blockbusters, this would be considered unacceptable as this would also cause one to write off films like “Schindler’s List” and “Citizen Kane” simply because they share the same medium as Uwe Boll’s latest cinematic abortion. The same holds true for video games. Just because the medium holds mindless entertainment like “Call of Duty: Black Ops”, “Grand Theft Auto V” and “Doom” does not mean the entire medium is without merit. Doing so causes the dismissal of titles like “Ico”, “Okami” and “Psychonauts” which explore the world of art and the world of the mind, respectively.

Generally, visual “art” must be considered “beautiful” whether through photorealism or through a style. This holds just as true for video games as any other art form. An example of photorealism, a game like UbiSoft’s “Far Cry 3”, explores the human condition and what a man will do to protect his friends and the lengths he will go to to return home, even descending into the very madness he seeks to defeat. In essence, “Far Cry 3” hearkens to the literary classic “Heart of Darkness” for inspiration and, in such, offers its own interpretation of the situation a character can be placed in. While the player has a high level of control over the game and the story (the game’s island world can be freely explored outside of missions), the ending of the story is ultimately up to the player. However, both endings have positive and negative traits (one being a means of “tricking” the player who would choose the more chauvinistic option) but both equally satisfying and both wrapping up a dark story that causes the player to assess the choices they made and how they affected the story. In essence, rather than simply reading about or watching Jason Brody (the game’s protagonist) going to incredible lengths to rescue his friends from a murderous band of pirates, the player instead takes part in it. The first-person perspective of the game coupled with the environments and story allows the player to explore Jason’s situation, his psyche and his decisions in such a way that cause us to evaluate his choices on our own. That is exactly what art is supposed to do.

 It’s all fun and games until someone releases the panthers.

Another example of this is Galactic Cafe’s “The Stanley Parable”. This is a game about choices. Every path you choose, every action you take influences where the story will go. Oftentimes, this results in very humorous implications (as stated by the game’s hilarious and well-voiced narrator) but the end result is usually the same: Stanley dies in the end. The Stanley Parable tells that in the end, no matter what choices we make we’re all going to die.

What evil lies in these halls? Stanley knows.

It takes a very fatalistic attitude not unlike that of early Film Noir and French films of the 1920s and 30s. But it does so with a grain of dark humor and satire which makes it an overall enjoyable experience. A third, surprising entry is Rockstar Games’ latest release “Grand Theft Auto V”. Often cited as the worst offender of video game violence, “Grand Theft Auto V” is, in spite of the blood gore, a beautiful, well-designed game. In fact, if played in a certain way, “Grand Theft Auto V” can be played entirely devoid of violence. The game world replicates the city of Los Angeles and the Lancaster and Ventura County areas in a way unmatched by any previous title. In fact, the entire game can be played in exploration mode in which the player can avoid any illegal actions whatsoever, opting to take cabs or use their own car instead of stealing cars, obeying traffic laws rather than driving recklessly and rather than committing bank heists, simply driving along the Pacific Coast Highway while the sun sets, watching a movie at Sunset and Vine or riding the roller coaster at the pier at Santa Monica.

Everything you see can be explored… or destroyed.

These are all elements of a game that refuses to break immersion and create a vibrant, living virtual world that gives the player the opportunity to live a life outside their own while simultaneously allowing them the freedom to do whatever they like. In reality, the violence of Grand Theft Auto V is incidental to creating a fully fleshed, explorable world. Besides that, the violence is not without consequence; the police will react to any crimes committed within a few moments and the player has the option of surrendering and paying the fine for their crimes or… doing the exact opposite. But the point is that you are given the choice.

But what about stylized art? Can that also reach such powerful levels of storytelling? Absolutely. For instance, Double Fine’s classic game “Psychonauts” explores the adventures of a young psychic boy named Razputin (Raz for short) who escapes his circus family to attend a summer camp for psychics like him. In doing so, Raz becomes embroiled in a dark and sinister plot to take over the world by stealing the brains of the campers and uses his psychic powers to enter the “mental realms” of the people he encounters, fighting their personal demons and living their nightmares while simultaneously struggling with the act of just being ten years old. In essence, Psychonauts explores not only Raz’s personality, his problems with his identity and the way he perceives his father, but also the personal issues of everyone around him. Not only that, but it makes those issues flesh and blood (so to speak) and forces the player to interact with and often fight those abstract concepts made physical and dangerous to boot. Psychonauts is a character exploration at its heart and allows you to firsthand experience the mental shortcomings and strengths of nearly every character in the game. Razputin included. Such a character study exists in many films, but the one that draws the most parallels to “Psychonauts” is “Inception”. Without speaking much directly to some of the characters in that film, we learn about them instead from their dreamscapes. The same is true of Psychonauts.

“The Milkman Conspiracy”; a Mental Realm in the mind of a conspiracy theorist.

But many games are not quite so deliberate in their delivery of artistic expression. In fact, many of them work less like a novel or film and much more like a poem. Look at a game like thatgamecompany’s “Journey”. What begins as a trek through a desert ends as a soul-searching trip through the tragic history of an entire people as their descendents learn and relearn the mistakes of their ancestors in a hope to redeem them. At least, that’s my interpretation. “Journey” is a stylistically beautiful game with a story completely open to interpretation. Another fantastic example of this is Playdead Games’ classic puzzle-platformer “LIMBO”, which takes place in an all black-and-white world and relies on shadows and silhouettes to give objects form rather than an outright representation. Nothing in “LIMBO” is just shown; rather it is all implied not unlike the work of early 19th century silhouette artists. In addition, “LIMBO” uses a large amount of dark and gothic themes to build its world and express the danger that the little boy we play as is in and all to find his lost sister. At the end of the game, we are left uncertain of both of their fates, leaving the ending completely open much like an ambiguous poem or sonnet. It is over as suddenly as it began and the player is left unsure as to what became of these characters whose names we never knew and whose reasoning for being in this situation can only be inferred from the symbolism scattered throughout the game world. Indeed, “LIMBO” is a dark, cerebral game that causes the player to be observant in addition to considering the ramifications of their actions throughout the game, whether purposeful or not.

This is no place for a child.

Another facet of “art” is that it generally must move a person emotionally. Like many people, I have been moved emotionally by a powerful film like “The Godfather” or Miyazaki’s timeless classic “Spirited Away” and I have been brought to tears by both modern and classic literature such as “A Game of Thrones” and “To Kill a Mockingbird”. But I have also been moved to the same degree (if not more so) by a vast number of interactive experiences. For example, a game as simple as the puzzle-platformer “Thomas Was Alone” caused me to contemplate what would happen if we, as humans, created an artificial intelligence that could learn, think and had self-preservation instincts. What did this mean for our future as a species and what were the moral implications of an attempt to destroy such an intelligence? All of these questions were posed by a game that looks like it belongs on a console from the early 80’s. “Thomas Was Alone” proves something unquestionable: the way a game looks does not inform the emotions it imparts. Although graphical fidelity can assist in such an endeavor, it is not necessarily required. That said, there are a number of works of “high art” that address the exact same issues as Thomas Was Alone such as Isaac Asimov’s science fiction classic “I, Robot”.

You will get more emotional investment out of these rectangles than you ever did from the entire cast of “Twilight”

In 2006, noted film critic Roger Ebert took part in a panel discussion at the Conference on World Affairs entitled “An Epic Debate: Are Video Games an Art Form?”. At this conference, Ebert stated that “that video games don’t explore the meaning of being human as other art forms do”. Clearly, Mr. Ebert has not experienced nearly enough of the rich library of video games that exist and do exactly that. For instance, in the game Deus Ex: Human Revolution, you take on the role of Adam Jensen  the newly hired security manager at Sarif Industries, a growing biotechnology firm. After terrorists brutally attack the company’s headquarters, the mortally wounded Jensen is forced to undergo radical life-saving surgeries that replace large areas of his body with advanced prostheses. Returning to work, he becomes embroiled in the global politics of the human enhancement movement in the search for those responsible for the attack. A central theme to the game is the rise of corporations in globalization, espionage, human survival, poverty, and the ethics of advancing humans with artificial replacements for body parts. It shows Adam’s struggles with simultaneously trying to be human while being more than human. The decision of which side he embraces is entirely up to the player and does not devalue the experience nor the artistic value of the work in any way. In fact, Deus Ex: Human Revolution touches on these concepts much in the way that the film “Gattaca” does, albeit with genetic manipulation instead of cybernetic augmentation. Yet, still Mr. Ebert made this myopic, blanket statement while being completely unaware of such games.

One of the lower slums in Deus Ex: Human Revolution

However, in 2010 before his death, Ebert amended his statements saying that “I should not have written that entry without being more familiar with the actual experience of video games” (Ebert). This is unquestionably true. Many of Ebert’s statements about the validity of games as high art are both uninformed and outmoded. Ebert’s perception of what games are was backwards, stunted and shortsighted. Unlike most of gaming’s opponents, however, he recognized and rectified his statements stating that he actually played and enjoyed several games including Team Ico’s “Shadow of the Colossus”.

In the end, the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of video games as a protected form of free speech. Video games have, time and time again, shown that they are capable of being an art form both in the way of a summer blockbuster film and a piece of classic literature. Video games evoke, for many of us, a feeling of nostalgia, passion and emotion identical to the feelings evoked by a great book, movie, poem or song. In fact, video games do something very special: they combine all of the great artistic mediums into one and add a new layer never before seen: interactivity. This does not devalue gaming as an art form; it empowers it. This is a new frontier in entertainment and in art and although the gaming industry has only begun to scratch the surface of what it is truly capable of, we are only in the larval stage of what I am certain will become something beautiful. Hopefully someday, much like film was considered nothing more than a fad or escapism at a time, video games will also be considered a form of high art. At the very least, the medium has begun the first steps of being considered as such by the population at large.