December 20, 2010 by

In the current state of the gaming industry, a common discussion that comes up is whether games should be considered art.  After Roger Ebert let it be known that he didn't believe as such, a high number of industry media members have come out in video games' defense.  For a while, you couldn't consume any games media for longer than 10 minutes without hearing someone's take on the subject.

Normally, I personally don't get riled up when I see people's opinions that belittle or are against gaming.  I have faith that public perception will change in favor of them, especially when our generation is the one that comes to power in the world.  However, when I read a quote that seems to bash the talent of game creators, it irks me a little bit, especially when it comes from someone who I believe should already understand what games are as a whole.

If any of you aren't familiar with Steve Lisberger, he is the creator of Tron; a movie about a game developer who is pulled into a digital mainframe and has to battle his way back to reality.  Mr. Lisberger is also a personal friend of "everyone's favorite IGN Staff member"; Jessica Chobot.  As someone who was inspired to create Tron from playing Pong and is a friend to a well-known gaming ambassador, I would expect him to have an understanding of the true creative talent of video game developers.  However, I recently read something that suggested otherwise.

Earlier, Yahoo News published a story from the Hollywood Reporter that talked about how Disney is hoping that the Tron franchise will be extended by its video games.  The article mainly talks about the games that are currently in development, but Mr. Lisberger made a statement that didn't sit well with me.  His quote is as follows...

"I like the fact that the games in some ways are a visual and a narrative test bed for Hollywood, where some of the more far-out ideas can be experimented with on a somewhat smaller scale than having to ratchet them all the way up to a film like 'Tron: Legacy.'"

Read that quote a few times.  Deconstruct it for what it says.  If you're reading it the same way that I did, what it's basically saying is that video games are a "test" for ideas, and if they're good enough, they can be "upgraded" into feature films.  At best, it's a back-handed compliment to gaming, but I felt like he's essentially saying that gaming is a lesser form of entertainment in comparison to films.

While most people might take what he said at face value, I have a hard time doing so.  Saying that Hollywood is a step up from gaming is something that I don't agree with.  Neither form of media is "lesser" than the other.  I might not like country music as much as metal, but that doesn't mean I think of it as a lower form, it's just different.  One isn't a training ground for another, and it's silly to look at things in that way.

In fact, one might argue that movies could be beneath gaming.  Triple-A game launches often break industry records and garner impressive sales numbers amongst all media.  Most recently, Call of Duty: Black Ops was named "the biggest entertainment launch in history", with a reported $360 million earned within 24 hours of its release, and that was only in the US and UK.  In comparison, Avatar, which is the highest-grossing film of all-time, fell short of that number, earning $242 million worldwide in its first weekend; a three-day total.  When you look at those stats, it seems as if gaming rubs its dirty underwear on Hollywood's face.  Also, consider the fact that Avatar's sales figures are aided by the higher price of 3D tickets, and it looks even more like games hold dominion over film as far as total profit is concerned.

But it's not the sales that are important to me.  What really bugs me is the thought that game creators are a step below filmmakers.  Ideas for games can come from some of the greatest creative minds in our time, and the way they're able to pace a story and blend it with wonderful gameplay is a great talent that shouldn't be looked down upon.  Maybe a game's lead writer or lead gameplay designer can't make a Hollywood movie, but I highly doubt that any screenwriter can just walk in and create an engaging story for a game on their first try.  The two are art forms that require practice to do them correctly, and if one is able to do both, then that only shows that the creator themselves is where the talent lies, not in the media they use.

Think of something like Bioshock.  It's a game that is consistently thought of as a shining example of video game story-telling and is often considered at or near the top of people's lists of favorite game plots.  The pacing of it was well-implemented, and although the climax was a bit of a letdown, it still stands out as a remarkable example of the high levels of creativity that gaming has within its ranks.  But could Ken Levine, the game's creator, walk into a Hollywood studio and write the greatest movie ever?  Could a top-level film director or writer walk into a game studio and pump out something as good as Bioware has done?  Could a film director create a set with as fantastic of an atmosphere as Rapture was for Bioshock?

Hard to say, really.  Both mediums take an exceptional amount of talent to produce great works, but with Tron: Legacy looking like it could be somewhat of a box-office bust, much like the original movie was in theaters, and now Disney looking to the franchise's games to help prolong the life of the property, it seems a bit ironic for Lisberger to have made such a statement.

As gamers, we know that games can be a work of art just as good as any movie or song or painting is, but even we need to stop comparing ourselves to other, more "legitimized" mediums.  Whether one form is better than the other is a bit of a senseless argument, and I feel that it's a bad idea to compare them to each other.  They are each their own special thing, and should be appreciated for what they are on their own, not in conjunction or comparison with anything else.  The sooner we can get everyone to see it this way, the better everything will be.

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