Control Mechanics as Art???

Can a games control scheme have artistic value? Can it emotionally reach an audience on a cognitive level? A game controller is the direct physical connection someone has with a video game so surely it should be an important aspect of an artistic vision within a game, but often I believe it is overlooked. Here is a post on destructoid.com by Jason Leray titled Shadow of the Colossus' controls are an exercise in art. Leray makes some very interesting points on how Team Ico's Shadow of the Colossus and how its control scheme contributes to its artistic vision. I believe he makes some valid points, for example the games grabbing mechanic used to grab hold of ledges and scale the colossi (the huge beast that must be defeated to progress through the game) instead of just hitting the r1 button the once to grab hold of a ledge you have hold onto the button allowing you as the player to have a connection with the games protagonist. "There is never a rift between what's happening on-screen and what's happening in your hand."

Also mentioned is the control mechanics of Argo the protagonists trusty stead, later in the game you are reliant on Argo's "AI and ability to take care of himself... as some colossi are impossible to beat without his help." This creates a bond between you as the player and argo and contibutes "To a compelling artistic metaphor (friendship)."

Henry Jenkins - The New Lively Art

This Publication by Henry Jenkins Games, the new lively art. Is an application of popular aesthetics to games and there cultural value.  It revisits Gilbert Seldes The seven lively arts (1924) and how it "Might contribute to our current debates about the artistic status of computer and video games." Seldes argued that a primary source of artist expression in america had formed through emerging popular culture such as jazz and hollywood cinema. It also says how critics at the time were quick to dismiss Seldes argument much like todays topic of games emerging as a form of artistic expression. Jenkins concludes that games are in indeed maturing and progressing towards an artist value and that healthy criticism and debate can help drive them foreward.

Chris Crawford - On Game Design

Chris Crawford's book On Game Design has an interesting chapter titled Creativity: The missing ingredient. In this chapter Crawford explains how "Nowadays, games design itself is a cold mechanical process requiring little in the way of creativity." He is not referring to game designers as not being creative people but that "The problem is that in the long grind from inspiration to product, the most creative aspects of the design are ground away until the final result is little more than yesterday's big hit with a few minor embellishments" He describes that as budgets have gone up designers are less likely to take risks than they would do with smaller budgets and thus the creativity of games is affected, money making over innovation and creativity. After-all a majority of games are made to make money. Does this mean they have the right to earn an artist status?

Chris Crawford - Dragon Speech

Click here for a link to a Section of Chris Crawford's famous dragon speech at the Game Developers Conference 1992. He begins by talking about language and how it is used to teach people, and the concept of mass media, a way to teach many people, and that this is the genesis of art. "Because art really is just a way of communicating ideas." He says. He refers to Michelangelo's statue "pieta" that shows mary cradling the crucified body of her son (Jesus Christ) and that the statue he says "Conveys to you, the audience the message of motherly love with tremendous power, it is compelling, it is clear, it is powerful and because of these things, it is so great, we call it beautiful." He later talks about the mind being an active agent and not a passive receptacle and if art puts us as an audience in a passive role then it is in conflict with "The basic structure of the human mind." To explain this further he talks about effectiveness over efficiency if he were to convey his views in this lecture on a one to one basis with someone then they would interact bouncing back and forth with conversation and it would be different, that person would learn more, the one to one conversation is an active audience and the lecture is a passive audience. Though the lecture is more efficient. He explains this problem has been with us for centuries "Every artist, communicator... has been forced to sacrifice effectiveness over efficiency.Until now." He says this problem has been solved because now with floppy disks and computers we can convey our ideas in games and these games can be mass-produced and then the ideas are interacted with, with effectiveness. This says to me the potential of games as a artistic expressive medium.