(mashedmarket)

My last post suggested that “some of the most exquisitely designed games are…a sort of digital folk art” in that they represent “products of skill and insight rooted in a particular subculture’s social values and traditional practices.” I was reacting to Iroquois Pliskin’s idea that game design is less an art and more a craft than we players sometimes imagine. His was a notion I’d been toying with, but had never quite gotten right. I thought I’d try and add to the conversation, but, after blurting out that little business about digital folk blah, social valyadda, and traditional plastics, I decided I STILL couldn’t reason through it. So I tacked on a dopey elliptical noting that digital folk art/craft barely represents the half of games’ collective potential.

But I left that thought vague and largely incomplete for a reason. This blather was supposed to end my post, after all. At the time I thought I was being evocative, like, Here, chew on this — it’s a lot to take in. Now I realize I was just afraid to say something unpleasant. My closing sentence probably should have read:

Of course, [digital folk art/craft] isn’t ALL [games] are, or all they can be…but, sadly, few of them are much more than that at the moment.

If this sounds a bit bleak, I can only blame the fossil fish pottery.

Here. Look. Isn’t that vase a beauty?

Er…wait — it’s not supposed to seem like a trick question. What I’m getting at is that, if games are, in fact, secondarily art and primarily craft, then maybe it would be beneficial to examine something analogous. I hit upon the above object.

As a vase, it’s more than proficient, functionally speaking. In fact, it’s elegant. One might even call it compelling. Then again, most of that is decoration; it’s in the glaze. We have to remember that, though this vase, much like the above teapot, is almost undeniably pleasing, it was made to do a very particular thing.

But hey, hold up — would flowers even look good in there?!

And what if I don’t like tea?!

Well, that’s okay…if the form of the object itself is pretty, then it doesn’t need anything else in order to be appreciated. Functionality can go by the wayside — this is art we’re talking. Some things have the power to exceed their humble origins.

Ah-ha! Now we’re getting down to it. So. What about games? Can games manage an aesthetic impact independent of their own closed systems?

The short answer is No.

For games are beholden to players. A gorgeous vase doesn’t need flowers. A lovely teapot doesn’t need tea. But even the most magnificent game NEEDS to be played. Without at least one at active participant setting its rules into motion, a game can’t even begin to be appreciated.

Which isn’t to say that games are merely wonderfully elaborate wind-up toys. But in order for a game to transcend pure entertainment, it must first achieve success on an eminently utilitarian plane. Thus even today’s most ambitious art games are comprised of necessarily careful, tiny steps — their designers are metaphorical dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants. We’d do well to be patient with them. These masters will show us the finest vessels only once their techniques have been perfected.