Are video games art? The eternal question, one that has led to bitter debates and answers of bad slobber .It would be said that we are dealing with a question as old as the word itself: art comes from the Greek έχέχηη, which could be translated as »technique».if videogames have anything and, more specifically, eSports, it's technical.
AROUND THE ANSWER
A question groped with the development of the comic and I conclude with a »beyond where there is creativity and creation, there is art».Sure, this sentence can be taken with tweezers, and more in the mass production industries by contract.Aristotle whose art is that »human activity of conscious production based on knowledge».Even more difficult.
With the cinema the dilemma was fixed when Ricciotto Canudo, in 1911, proposed in his 'Manifesto of the Seven Arts' to cinema as that new and young art.There were voices faced, of course, but the perspective was clear.With the architecture there were no academic postulates, it was simply taken for granted.
Hence the videogame lives with eternal doubt , in a time where the questions are exposed to oversize.And if we seek a consensus, we can barely draw a single conclusion: art is that that, from a subjective approach, be considered .
THE SPORTS NARRATIVE
Another issue that eSport, as a genre, is exposed to is its ability to tell stories .A layman only sees a bunch of kids clicking at full speed on points of a map, going from one place to another to protect the conquered terrain, shoot more, score more, get more gold: a constant and monotonous becoming .
And, of course, it is not so simple.Think of DOTA 2, an eSport that was born in the past as a mod of Warcraft III.A stitch of young people made modifications with the editor of maps and thus 'Defense of the Ancients' was born.
THE DOTA PRIMITIVE MYTHOLOGY
What can we say about your cosmology? Its beginnings are classic of the most literary heroic fantasy: before the world was created, there was a war, an eternal conflict between two entities: Radinthul and Diruulth .These Primordials were part of a great mind that it was fragmented when the universe was created.The fight without quarter continued until Zet, another fragment of this primordial mind, got fed up and fused his brothers into a great sphere , the Mad Moon, throwing it into the drift from space.For all eternity.
This Mad Moon-like the title of Stanley G.Weinbaum's novel-is present in much of the ancient religions, and even more so the resource of that binomial between good and evil.Pagans and Buddhists share this kind of myth.foundational.It is from here where the interesting is born.
The forces continued fighting and Zet could not contain them for a long time, until the sphere broke and fell in the form of rain on the earth.Two two minerals were born: Radiant Ore and Direstone, which would eventually become two races. Where Radiant Ore fell there was mana and life; poison and destruction where Direstone fell .Civilizations could not leave behind their past and, erected by their respective Primordials, summoned the greatest heroes and began a new war.
And in this way, so direct, the player is introduced into a universe where it is possible to choose up to 113 different heroes , each with their respective attributes, and where the ecosystem of minerals and magic These arcane worlds serve as a key to tell something more about the motives of each subject.
LOOKING FOR THE METAJUEGO
But this is only the first narrative layer, which we could consider imposed by videogame designers to support a wide space where thousands of fictions written by the fans themselves fit, and where Each hero has a different story arc and a weight within the framework of the story.
The other layer, much more complex and mutant, is created by the players themselves. If you know League of Legends (LoL), you know the basic precepts of the metagame .It could be said that, on each action, A social responsibility lies with the metagame is quite confusing at first, although very simple to explain.
Meta is actually the acronym for "Most Efficient Tactic Available" (more efficient tactic possible).In other words: within the range of possibilities offered by any game, the community will seek, by pure practicality, the most competitive strategy and effective.
If we talk about MAGIC, the metagame is built from two players, 120 cards, where you select the best and take advantage of them in the most intelligent and tactical way possible.If we talk about Overwatch, you have to talk of coordination and how spaces are measured and the use of special attacks .
Each character is analyzed according to the damage, utility, benefit and practical risk they offer, they become statistics and they take advantage of these to create »character classes» (tier), something very common in games like Super Smash Bros.
In League of Legends the metagame goes further: not only is each character grouped into a category and each player can specialize in this-AD Carry, TOP laner, jungle-, but depending on where you are and the character you use have a series of responsibilities or others.What does a »tank» do between the forests? Eradicate minions in a hurry.Why does a player run to kill others, neglecting their defenses? You may want to improve your statistics as a gold collector during the early game .And so, hundreds of variables.
WE BUILD THE GAME BETWEEN ALL
The sum of the functions offered by the game, added to the functions offered by the player, give final form to how to play and how the game could be corrected and improved .It looks like a tongue twister, it's true.
An example: Riot, parent company behind LoL, has decided to implement a series of changes in the game's honor system.Its idea is none other than to stop pursuing the penalization of more toxic players and behaviors, and focus on point of view towards the other part of the balance: reward good behavior .
Through this small change the whole dimension of the game is altered: will you be more aggressive to improve your personal statistics or will you fight in a cooperative to obtain new runes that, in turn, will unlock new masters? The companerism and the value that we give to our figure within the game comes into play, becoming not so much a determining factor, but a gear inside a great machine that works in perfect synchrony .
THE ACCIDENTAL ART
But eSports face another open debate: Being considered a sport .Art and sport have lived together for generations in literature and connection has been common, but always equidistant.
Before we dropped a date, 1911, as a point in the calendar where the cinema was formally considered seventh art.1911 was also the year in which Marcel Duchamp undertook his Portrait of chess players, stating that the art should be interpreted by the mind instead of the retina .From here began a risky career to delegitimize the classic conceptualization of art.
And this is a theory that we could apply to any eSport, from the team itself that plays with an almost unattainable technical expertise in Rocket League, to the users who are watching them from home. Why should art have exclusive form of museum piece? If video games are art, it is not because the MoMA says it, but because they raise aesthetic, artistic and moral debates around them.They are a powerful tool that has changed to our way of learn and understand the world that surrounds us.
Images | Pexels, Pixabay
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