A particular evocative still from Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare

By Spencer Schneier, Staff Writer

Published in print Nov. 19, 2014

A note to our readers:

Our A&E writer Spencer will not be returning to this section next semester. He expressed interest in spending a portion of the remaining fall semester exploring artistic topics in a more abstract format. This article is the first in a brief, introspective series by him in which he will explore the question “What is art?” within various aspects of our everyday lives.

I am not a naturally introspective person, but in times that call for it I am more than willing to take the time to consider what I have accomplished and the purpose of it.

After making the choice to switch from Arts & Entertainment to News beginning next semester, I have thought a great deal about what art is, what makes it art, and why we care for it.

This happened to coincide with the release of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, which would have passed my radar without so much as a blip were not for the fact that Kevin Spacey would be playing a prominent role in the campaign mode.

After learning this, I immediately went out and rented the game, for the sole purpose of playing the campaign mode before I would return it to Red Box. This caused me to consider something: Are video games art?

After all, Kevin Spacey can’t star in something that isn’t art, right?

The game, without going into much detail, explores many aspects of the modern world much in the way that a play, piece of music or film could – except it does so in the form of a video game.

Initially my reaction was to reject this notion, because a game cannot be an art. While games can have moments that take on the life of art, they are hardly art forms of their own.

The late film critic Roger Ebert touched on this topic, saying on his website, “video games can never be art.” This comes off a tad sensationalist, but his reasoning allows for the point to have some staying power.

He argues that the idea that art can capture the mind and stir up emotions that are very mature, claiming that in a video game these emotions are not thoroughly explored, because when the consumer can control their own path they no longer are exploring, but controlling.

Kellee Santiago, a video game producer who graduated from the University of Southern California, argues that video games as an art form are in their infancy much like the early cave painting are for visual art. She makes the point that games are beginning to explore the deeper emotions of the human experience, pointing to examples like Waco Resurrection and Flower, although there is much debate over whether this is an accurate claim.

What is most fascinating is not the pieces of the argument, but that it exists in itself. Video games represent a combination of the endless imagination of modern media, but they also allow for the self-determination of a game, which art historically has not allowed for.

So video games pose an important question: Is art determinable? Or, is art something where it does not have definitions and it is constantly evolving along with the desires and limitations of the people who create it?

There might not be an answer to that question, although many people will surely look to answer it.