Art game

An art game (or arthouse game) is a work of interactive new media digital software art as well as a member of the "art game" subgenre of the serious video game. The term "art game" was first used academically in 2002 and it has come to be understood as describing a video game designed to emphasize art or whose structure is intended to produce some kind of reaction in its audience. Art games are interactive (usually competitive against the computer, self, or other players) and the result of artistic intent by the party offering the piece for consideration. They also typically go out of their way to have a unique, unconventional look, often standing out for aesthetic beauty or complexity in design. The concept has been extended by some art theorists to the realm of modified ("modded") gaming when modifications have been made to existing non-art games to produce graphic results intended to be viewed as an artistic display, as opposed to modifications intended to change game play scenarios or for storytelling. Modified games created for artistic purposes are sometimes referred to as "video game art".

Art games are often considered a means of demonstrating video games as works of art.

A definition of the art game was first proposed by Tiffany Holmes in her 2003 paper for the Melbourne DAC Conference, "Arcade Classics Span Art? Current Trends in the Art Game Genre". Holmes defined the art game as "an interactive work, usually humorous, by a visual artist that does one or more of the following: challenges cultural stereotypes, offers meaningful social or historical critique, or tells a story in a novel manner." The paper stated that an art game must contain at least two of the following: "[1] a defined way to win or experience success in a mental challenge, [2] passage through a series of levels (that may or may not be hierarchical), [3] a central character or icon that represents the player." This definition was narrowed by Rebecca Cannon in an October 2003 paper where she highlighted the competitive, goal-oriented nature of the genre in defining art games as "compris[ing] an entire, (to some degree) playable game... Art games are always interactive—and that interactivity is based on the needs of competing [...] Art games explore the game format primarily as a new mode for structuring narrative, cultural critique." In a 2015 article, Colombian video game theorist Carlos Díaz placed importance on the "reflection experience" as an integral aspect of the art game. This experience can pertain to a variety of cultural avenues, but it transcends the medium and its structure.

Within the topic of the art game, further subdivisions have been proposed. In her 2003 paper, Holmes identified two common art game types as the "feminist art game" (an art game that generates thinking about gender and typecasting), and the "retro-styled art game" (an art game that juxtaposes low-resolution graphics with academic or theoretical content, and that creatively subverts the format of an arcade classic to support a conceptual creative agenda). In 2005, art theorist Pippa Tshabalala née Stalker broadly defined the art game as "a video game, normally PC as opposed to console based, that generally but not exclusively explores social or political issues through the medium of video games." She proposed two different categorical schemes to further subdivide the genre by theme and by type. Subdividing by theme, Stalker defined "aesthetic art games" to include "games that deal with using the game medium to express an artistic purpose," and she defined "political" or "agenda-based art games" as art games that "have some sort of ulterior motive other than aesthetics" and whose basis is in "using the medium of the computer games to bring an issue to the public's, or at least the art world's, attention in order to attract support and understanding for a cause." Subdividing by type, Stalker identified the "art mod", the "physical manifestation art game" (the player is involved physically in the game, often experiencing physical consequences, such as pain, for their actions), "machinima", and "3D real-time [art] game" (an art game that displays all the characteristics of a complete level-based commercial game, both on the programming and commercial side). The identification of art mods and machinima as forms of the art game conflicts with Cannon's definition of the art mod that highlights the non-interactive and non-competitive nature of these forms of media.

Distinctions are drawn in describing the art game as a genre compared to traditional video game genres (such as the platformer or first-person shooter). Rather than describing the game on a surface level, descriptions focus on the artistic intent, as well as the execution and implementation of the gameplay. For instance, Bethesda's 2008 release Fallout 3 is considered to be a role-playing game with first-person shooter elements, but it could also be considered to have elements consistent with art games—it implements moral player choices for the sole purpose of provoking emotion or thought in the player. There are several recent instances of video games that similarly involve the characteristics of art games, such as Braid and Undertale. Games like these aren't necessarily created or marketed under the classification of "art game", but are still created for artistic purposes that transcend their respective structures. The potentials and limitations of the medium are increasingly discovered as the video game industry develops, therefore resulting in the recent popularity of art game elements. If nothing else, the genre can be seen as a means to push the medium to its conceptual limit.

Since the development of these early definitions, art theorists have emphasized the role of artistic intent (of author or curator) and further definitions have emerged from both the art world and the video game world that draw a clear distinction between the "art game" and its predecessor, "video game art". At the core of the matter lies an intersection between art and the video game. Easily confused with its often non-interactive sibling art form video game art, and the concept of video games as an art form (irrespective of artistic intent), the essential position that art games take in relation to video games is analogous with the position that art film takes in relation to film. ACM SIGGRAPH opened an online exhibit "The Aesthetics of Gameplay" in March 2014, featuring 45 independently developed games selected via a nomination process, where the mechanics of gameplay are, in part, tied to the visuals and audio of the game. Greg Garvey, the curator of this exhibit, compared this to the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk where the work attempts to encompass other art forms, though as Garvey comments, the "merger of interaction with the aesthetics" drives these games beyond this concept.

Due to the contemporaneous improvement of graphic capabilities (and other aspects of game art design) with the trend toward recognition of games as art and the increases in video game art production and art game releases, discussions of these topics are often closely interleaved. This has led to the drawing of a number of critical distinctions between the "art game" and the various kinds of "game art".

In drawing a distinction between games with artistic imagery and art games, commentators have compared the art to sculpture and have emphasized the concept of artistic intent in the creation of the art game. This difference has been described by Justin McElroy of Joystiq as "the same [as that] between a sculpture and a building. Though a building/game can be aesthetically pleasing, an art game/sculpture is using its very structure to produce some kind of reaction." This same comparison has been used by Jenova Chen in an interview discussing art games and the prominence of non-games to the artistic gamer community. Along with expanding on the notion of art games as comparable to architecture in a 2010 interview with Nora Young for Spark, Jim Munroe stated that whereas video games such as the "art game" are shifting in the direction of the "high arts" within the realm of art generally, traditionally video games have occupied a position in the "cultural gutter" (making up the "low arts").