Imagine your favorite movie. Imagine that you have the power to become your favorite character, to affect the choices that he or she makes and to ultimately decide the ending of the movie.
What you’re thinking of is a video game, and such possibilities are only the tip of the iceberg for the budding art form.
Although films may never be replaced as the top form of visual entertainment worldwide, video games have proven to be a worthy competitor in the realms of both entertainment and art. As such, it would be wise for UCLA to consider creating a small but cohesive undergraduate game design program.
Currently, game design and creation at UCLA is relegated to individual classes within the Design | Media Arts and computer science departments. Somewhat disjointed, these classes don’t do enough to give aspiring game developers a chance to create a portfolio.
A full undergraduate game design program would send a large signal throughout the world that video games are a legitimate form of both entertainment and art, and that one of the foremost universities in the country is willing to vouch for their artistic and commercial viability.
For the program to be effective, it would have to simulate actual game development, with the end goal being the production of a video game with a team of at least 10 people. Game design, programming, concept art, musical scoring, 3-D modeling and perhaps even a script would be brought together to form a video game that could be nothing but art.
Both USC and UCSC have game design majors. Prestigious universities around the nation are beginning to see the merits of an undergraduate game design program, and it only makes sense for UCLA to join them. We wouldn’t want to lag behind USC, would we?
Music and art are seen as mainstay majors for any university to have, and rightly so. They are mediums through which artistic expression is possible, their respective industries generate tens of billions of dollars each year, and their influence on culture is undeniable.
The same respect should be shown to video games. The video game industry and Hollywood operate on the same profit-driven motives, and as a result, far more entertainment than art is produced.
Despite the similar structure of both industries, video games have played second fiddle to films in the minds of consumers since their conception, regardless of signs that the industry is poised to equal or surpass Hollywood in revenue.
Last November, “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2″ made a single company more than $1 billion and easily became the largest entertainment release of any media form in a single day, raking in $310 million domestically within the first 24 hours of its release.
The only other comparable entertainment release of last year was “Avatar,” which has now grossed more than $2.7 billion, more a symptom of the widespread acceptance of films in comparison to video games than of the overall quality of either product.
Despite its reputation, the “Call of Duty” series is not a soulless representation of warfare.
In one particular scene of “Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare,” a helicopter is trying to escape the blast radius of a nuclear bomb exploded by a terrorist group. As a solider in that helicopter, you see it spin violently out of control. You see your crewmate thrown out of the helicopter. As the helicopter crashes to the ground, the screen goes black. As the image is restored, an audible heartbeat is timed to the vibrations in your controller, and your vision as the soldier who survived the crash is distorted. You have no option but to crawl out of the helicopter and into the newly created wasteland, slowly dying from blood loss and trauma to the body. You collapse and die, and the game continues on in the shoes of a different solider.
Words don’t do the scene justice, but the interaction which ultimately leads to the player’s death leaves a bigger impact than a similar scene in a movie may have.
This scene proves that even mainstream video games push boundaries and innovate in the field of storytelling. For one of the first times in a video game, you’re not told that you’re dead, that you have to restart the level. You’re the victim of a nuclear explosion, and you’re not coming back. But the war goes on.
Roger Ebert, the famous film reviewer, has been an outspoken critic of video games, stating on numerous occasions that video games are not and never will be art.
In a recent article contending this, he touches upon the game “Flower”: “Nothing … from this game seemed of more than decorative interest on the level of a greeting card. Is the game scored? … Do you win if you’re the first to find the balance between the urban and the natural? Can you control the flower? Does the game know what the ideal balance is?”
Ebert is clearly ignorant of the video game he’s commenting on, yet still holds steadfast that it cannot be art. What he misses is that in order to realize that video games are art, you actually have to play a game made in an artistic fashion. You have to feel what the creator intended you to feel.
If we can have a program at UCLA that teaches students how to create products like “Transformers 2,” doesn’t it make sense for there to be an equally funded program devoted to creating works like “Flower”?
“When you’re talking about art with a capital “˜A,’ few video games would meet that definition. Most aren’t being critical or pushing boundaries, but those that do would be considered Art,” Erin Desmond, a fourth-year art student, said. She went on to say that if things like theater and dance constitute art, which make up a much broader view of the definition, then video games can be considered art in itself.
Examples of video game artistry, however, are not as limited as you may think. Even within mainstream successes, one may find instances of fine art. “BioShock,” one of the best-selling games of 2007, is notable for two reasons.
It has an incredible audio-visual presentation which transports you to an underwater utopia set in the 1960s. Much more importantly, however, the game is based on a what-if scenario pulled from Ayn Rand’s magnum opus, “Atlas Shrugged,” and challenges the player to question what would happen if the famous author’s political goals became reality. The result is one of the most successful examples of a politically conscious form of media in recent memory.
Aside from catching up to other mediums in the art department, as an interactive medium, video games pose incredibly interesting philosophical questions which a game design major at UCLA would have to explore.
One of the most interesting questions involves games such as “World of Warcraft” and “Second Life.” These games are literally second lives for many of their participants, and in some cases can cause serious problems or be sources for incredible joy for those who become addicted to them.
Is interaction in these virtual spaces reminiscent of interaction in the real world? Is it an escape for those who find socializing in person too difficult, or is it an all new way to forge relationships in a rapidly changing technological world? Divorce, murder and theft have all been linked to various online role-playing games like “Warcraft,” “Second Life” and “Everquest.”
The positives and negatives of these incredibly unique virtual words indicate that they have a humongous impact on the people who play them. The 12 million “World of Warcraft” players would most certainly agree that video games are an art form worth teaching in universities.
On the other side of the coin, lifelong friendships and even marriages are formed by those who play these games religiously. These games are often taken more seriously than real life. “World of Warcraft” currently enjoys more than 11.5 million subscribers. This amounts to a single game making more than $1 billion in revenue each year.
Video games are not simply toys, nor are they simply entertainment. “Flower,” “World of Warcraft” and hundreds of other titles prove that. An interactive art form on par with filmmaking has emerged within the last two decades, and it deserves the same type of representation that other major forms of art and entertainment receive at UCLA.