The Vast Majority of Video Games Is Art Assets

Abstract

Videogames are i of the most significant developments in the mass arts of recent times. In commercial terms, they are now amid the most prominent of the mass arts worldwide. This commercial and cultural success does non exhaust the interest in videogames every bit a mass art miracle because games such as Grand Theft Car Iv and Fallout iii are structurally radically different from previous forms of mass fine art. In particular, the ontology of videogames, the nature and identity of their works, and how they are instanced and evaluated is a divergence from the familiar mass arts of film and popular music. This newspaper explores these differences in an try to fit videogames into a theory of mass art, merely likewise to provide guidance on the issues of criticism and evaluation that surely follow from their ontological distinctiveness.

Key Words

art and technology, interactivity, mass art, ontology, videogames.

i. Videogames and Ontology

Videogames are one of the most pregnant developments in the mass arts in the last 50 years, and they have get i of the most recent concerns of philosophical aesthetics.[ane] While the videogame Grand Theft Auto IV is notorious for its graphic depictions of violence and criminal offence, it also provides a richly immersive experience where the player enters the fictional earth of Liberty Metropolis every bit a character inside that world. Mayhem, and art, ensues. There is reason to expect that our dealings with games such every bit Chiliad Theft Auto IV have ontological implications of the kind institute in the arts generally, that is, bug concerning the ontological status of the artistic works and their varied instances, the nature of artistic performances, and the office of creators and consumers vis-à-vis works of art and their performances.[two] Indeed, I debate that understanding the ontology of videogames shows what is genuinely distinctive about this new art class.

Generating virtually of the interest in the ontology of videogames should be the observation that what is ultimately depicted in videogames is largely shaped by the activities of the histrion. The world of Grand Theft Auto 4 is not fixed at the time of its production, equally seems the case with traditional mass art fictions; rather, the game exists as a set of possibilities awaiting the input of the player. This interactivity has a profound bear on, not only on the artistic structures of videogames, but also on the appreciative practices that nourish them. The participatory function the player takes in videogames, that is, in making decisions and performing deportment that affect what is depicted by the piece of work, sets videogames apart from other forms of mass art. What, then, is the work appreciated in 1000 Theft Machine IV that is so dependent on the decisions and actions of the player for its brandish? Indeed, why should we recall that videogames establish single works, when private playings can generate such widely divergent instances? Settling these ontological questions is a prerequisite for understanding the beholden practices of videogames and formulating an art-critical framework for them.

2. Videogames and Mass Art

What is the ontology of a piece of work of art? In aesthetics, a theory of ontology is meant to explain how individual art works or art kinds exist. As well as clarifying what appreciators appoint with when they run across an art work, the ontology of art works has a bearing on issues such as what it is for art works to be created or destroyed and on piece of work identity. One of the most significant ontological distinctions in the arts is that between multiple instance and single instance art works.[iii] Some art works are embodied in single objects: the Washington monument, for example, finds its singular location in the National Mall in Washington D.C. Other works can have multiple instances. The National's album, The Boxer, tin be can be instantiated at multiple discrete locations and times by playing the disc or digital file on an audio actor.

Information technology is relatively articulate that videogames count every bit multiple instance works, and so, on some level, are appropriately grouped with such works every bit films, plays, music albums, prints, and novels. It seems reasonable to conclude that the ontological schema appropriate for videogames will be of a kind that captures the multiple case ontology in these other works. Videogames are too obvious candidates for being what Noël Carroll referred to as "mass art," a grade of fine art that Carroll argued is in part defined past its multiple instance ontology.[4] Carroll claimed that an art work is mass fine art if and simply if

ane. ten is a multiple instance or blazon fine art work, 2. produced and distributed past a mass technology, 3. which art work is intentionally designed to gravitate in its structural choices (for example, its narrative forms, symbolism, intended impact, and even its content) toward those choices that promise accessibility with minimum effort, virtually on first contact, for the largest number of untutored (or relatively untutored) audiences.[5]

On the face of it, conditions (1) and (2) seem unproblematic in regard to videogames. First, Grand Theft Auto IV has multiple displays because the game can clearly be played by many unlike people in what Carroll referred to as different "reception sites."[vi] Second, game consoles and personal computers are quite obviously mass technologies.

Status (3) might seem to be more problematic given that many pop videogames such as Chiliad Theft Auto Four can be very demanding of a player'south skills and game knowledge, and so rely on a base of relatively experienced players for their popularity. A lack of gaming skills, which are themselves quite diverse and are built up slowly over a significant menstruation of gaming, can exist a real bulwark to new players experiencing these games (as not-gamers will quickly discover if they effort playing Grand Theft Auto Iv). Many so-called "hardcore" videogames are at to the lowest degree every bit inaccessible to the uninitiated every bit are advanced works of fine art.[seven]

At that place are two responses available here. Carroll besides allowed that mass art works do involve some previous awareness of the genre or course of fine art that one is dealing with, so audiences of mass art are non entirely untutored. Much of the tutoring comes through formulaic repetition, an observation that is every bit apt for videogames.[8] The advisable comparison class for the category of mass fine art is avant-garde fine art, and when this comparison is made information technology is quite clear that videogames tend to sit alongside uncontested mass art works because of their characteristic creative structures and concerns. Call of Duty: Mod Warfare ii is of a kind with war machine thrillers and action movies, and Grand Theft Car 4 is very derivative of crime films and television shows, such every bit Heat and The Sopranos. Second, what makes demands on videogame players is not necessarily game-specific knowledge or taxing interpretative tasks, although games practise demand these to some extent, but the game's physical challenge. Carroll's theory is not framed to account for videogames. Therefore nosotros should not gauge his theory on the footing that information technology does not account for the particularities that arise from videogames' distinctive combination of gameplay and art;[9] nor should we presume that because he does non address this issue of player skill, videogames are not, in his terms, mass art.

Hence, and I think quite intuitively, videogames such as K Theft Auto Iv and the post-apocalyptic open up-world role-playing game Fallout 3 fit Carroll'southward formulation of a mass art work. When we expect more closely at the details of how videogames work, however, it becomes clear that there are some significant differences from mass fine art forms such equally movies, television shows, and music albums.

I of the most persistent and useful means of framing the multiple case ontology seen in mass art works is in terms of the logical type/token relationship.[x] The type/token relationship prevails where a type can be instantiated by a number of particular objects, such as the movie Star Wars, which can be tokened by any number of showings, while not being identical with whatsoever one of its instances. Considered equally a type, Star Wars is an abstruse object and is instanced by a number of concrete particulars through which we come to know the type. Though the blazon is known through its instances, the instances themselves are determined by the nature of the type.[xi] What is it about the blazon that does the determining, that is, what is shared betwixt instances by which they are a type? In the example of Star Wars, it is the representational structure that constitutes the work; that is, the collection of audio-visual presentations that depict a plotted sequence of events, such every bit that Luke Skywalker leaves his home world of Tatooine, joins the Rebellion, and destroys the Expiry Star.

All properly formed instances of Star Wars share this artistic structure, fifty-fifty though, by itself, the shared structure might non be sufficient since a genetic component may likewise be necessary for identity. Upon travelling to a milky way far, far away where they encounter an ancient alien civilisation and discover an audio-visual artifact looking and sounding identical to what they know as the movie Star Wars, our space-faring descendents might wonder whether this really is the movie or merely bears a strong (and exceedingly unlikely) resemblance to the work, perchance being, instead, a dramatic reenactment of actual historical events in which a historical effigy, Luke Skywalker, helped to defeat the Empire by destroying the Decease Star. Settling the issue, presumably, would be the discovery of some relevant kind of causal or intentional link, or lack thereof, to the historical creative human activity that beginning tokened the picture.[12]

3. The Creative Structure of Videogames

Taking guidance from this, we might think that a shared artistic structure between an art work and its instances, and a genetic human relationship between those instances and an original creative act, are cardinal to the multiple instance human relationship in mass art. But how apt is this logical schema for videogames?

Videogames share much in mutual with the artistic construction found in Star Wars in that their displays are comprised of sound-visual presentations.[13] Moreover, they are both works of fiction.[14] All instances of One thousand Theft Auto Four comprise a fiction, prepare in Liberty City and detailing the deportment of a recent Serbian immigrant to the city, Niko Bellic, and his experiences every bit he aids his cousin, Roman. But M Theft Auto Iv every bit an artistic construction is quite different from Star Wars. For case, whereas in Star Wars the viewer is prophylactic to wait certain events from a properly formed screening of the film (that Luke will leave Tatooine, and that the Death Star will be destroyed), the player of Grand Theft Auto Iv cannot accept such expectations of the plot of the game. In some playings of the game, afterward Niko decides to deal with his nemesis Dimitri in a drug deal that ultimately goes incorrect, Roman Bellic will be killed by an assassin's bullet meant for Niko. In other playings these events practise not occur; instead Niko's love interest, Kate, is killed in a drive-by shooting, events that are caused by Niko'southward earlier determination to take revenge on Dimitri rather than deal with him. This difference results because the narrative of Grand Theft Auto Iv has several branching points where, depending on what the player chooses, different sequences of plot events are fix into motion.

The narrative of the game is also ordered by the mission structure typical of Grand Theft Machine games, where narrative cutting scenes are cued to missions, explaining the chore to come, but likewise situating the action in the plot of the game. Because Grand Theft Machine 4 is a sandbox game the sequence in which the missions are taken is optional. Some missions do not even have to be played through to advance in the game. Thus, in instances of the game, the sequence of narrative events besides shows considerable variation. Moreover, when we look at the bulk of the fictional events, what is depicted from moment to moment in the gameworld, peculiarly those events that brand up the gameplay of Thou Theft Auto IV, [15] no two instances of the game will ever portray exactly the same fiction. In that location are some variations in showings of Star Wars (in some, in their meeting in Mos Eisley Cantina, Han Solo shoots Greedo unprovoked; while in others he appears to exist retaliating, Greedo having shot first and missed), but these are attributable to the film having different versions, George Lucas having returned to the work in 1997 to make sure (notorious) changes. The variations between instances of Chiliad Theft Machine IV, which are a great deal more numerous and significant than this, are not due to dissimilar versions of the same work only ascend through different playings of a single version.[16]

All of this means that while sharing broad similarities, unlike instances of Grand Theft Auto IV volition vary in terms of the sequence and item of the fiction they present. Function-playing games, such as Fallout iii and The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, go even farther than G Theft Auto IV in how variable their private playings or instances can be past allowing players considerable say over the qualities of the player character and their contribution to the gameplay and narrative events in the game.

Here we are struck with an ontological difficulty. The notion of creative structures was introduced to explain, in part, alongside genetic considerations, what constitutes the type/token relationship in multiple example art works. In the case of mass art works like films, the type/token relationship functions because tokens share an creative structure because they are tokens of that type. Merely given the all-encompassing variation seen in videogames, through their sound-visual presentations and the nature of fictional events thus depicted, there does not seem to be a single artistic construction shared between all instances. With Fallout 3, any two playings are extraordinarily likely to differ in terms of the name, gender, ethnicity, and appearance of the protagonist; the length of the game; the events, direction and determination of the narrative; and the majority of the very bones fictive events that make up Fallout 3 as a work of fiction. At that place volition be representational elements mutual to all playings, just the private playings rendered through these elements are likely to evidence a wide variance.

To return to Carroll's definition of the mass arts, this variation in instances might seem a complication for fitting videogames under his definition. In explaining condition (2) of his definition, Carroll claimed that "that mass art piece of work is a type whose numerically distinct tokens are identical in the sense that two dimes of the same minting are identical."[17] Thus, while videogames might conspicuously seem to exist mass art, they practice not quite fit Carroll'south characterization of works with multiple identical instances, since the instances of a videogame work are not qualitatively identical in terms of their acoustic displays in the style that instances of a motion picture are. Alternatively, if we are quite certain that videogames are mass art works, this feature of videogames might evidence difficult for the definition itself, showing that it is not adequate to encompass all cases of mass art. Thus, either videogames are not mass art works or, if they are, Carroll's definition of mass art is non capable of explaining why they are.

Indeed, given the lack of a mutual fiction, playings of Fallout 3 can be understood to not instantiate new tokens of a unmarried piece of work but new works in their own correct. Different playings might be seen as different works sharing creative elements such as characters and settings, in much the same way that an author might set up multiple works in a single fictional setting, or that works of fan fiction might exploit an established artistic setting. In fan fiction, hobbyist authors take the worlds and characters of established fictive canons, such as Harry Potter or Buffy the Vampire Slayer, to take ii popular examples, and write original works involving the established fictive content. Fallout 3 might be seen as a piece of work generator that allows the player to make up one's mind a number of open variables or representational place-holders in society to create new works of fiction. In this case the role player might count equally an author of a unique piece of work in the aforementioned way that a fan fiction writer counts as one.

I recollect that this is a radical claim and, if at all possible, nosotros should avoid concluding that playing Yard Theft Automobile Four and Fallout 3 produces a number of unique works. Showtime, there are relatively articulate intuitions on the part of creators, players and critics that instances of the game count every bit displays of a single work. This is nigh evident from the growing critical literature on videogames, much of which is predicated on the assumption that the videogame that is the field of study of a slice of criticism is the very same work that players volition experience when they play the game.

The realization that Grand Theft Auto IV is a single work with many displays seems crucial to its appreciation because office of what one appreciates about the game is the range of instances it generates. Certainly i can play through many games in a shallow style intending merely to get to the finish and unconcerned with the scope of possible variation, but increasingly games encourage multiple interpretive playings. Philip A. Lobo illustrates this quite nicely when he argues that G Theft Auto Iv is able to make interesting observations nigh freedom and responsibleness because information technology has a branching narrative in which the ramifications of the player'southward choices are manifested through differing outcomes in the gameworld, every bit discussed before here in the case of the alternating deaths of the characters Roman and Kate.[18] Furthermore, unless the player realizes that this aspect of the narrative is a contingent structure, perhaps by replaying information technology to see how the narrative progresses had he chosen differently in his dealings with Dimitri, so he volition not grasp the statement fabricated in the narrative. But even if cipher of bully narrative significance hangs on a actor's determination, the player must realize that things could have gone differently in order to brand sense of his character'due south bureau in the gameworld. That a single work can produce multiple fictions is crucial to the role player freedom that is key in open-world videogames.

Finally, equally I volition talk over afterward, there are cases of artifacts that come very close to being genuine piece of work generators, and that consideration of these cases shows what gives rise to new works rather than variable instances of a single work.

4. Videogames and Variation

While it is probable that videogames are mass art works, one of their ontological precedents comes from outside the mass arts. I suggest that, in certain respects, videogames are more like jazz performances than film or popular music. In some multiple example art works, the artistic structure that is shared between the instances of a piece of work may be less richly defined than is the example with mass art forms such as film.[nineteen] Jazz performances are not mass art works, of course, considering their production does not employ mass technologies, even though their recordings might. However, private performances of a jazz standard may share only a melody and a chord progression and still all count as performances of the piece of work. In the case of jazz standards, it is the creativity that the performers are able to bring to performances, and the performance tradition that warrants such variations, that allows for the variation between instances.

While videogames might be similar to jazz standards in terms of the variation between their instances, they differ in that the variability of instances is fabricated field of study to production and distribution by a mass engineering, that is, the figurer. In videogames the variation betwixt instances is generated not by a performance interaction with a notated or remembered precedent sound structure, but through the interaction of a player with a technological artifact that encodes the artistic elements of the work. Moreover, in videogames the technological antiquity encodes the telescopic of variation between instances of a single game, setting boundaries on the possible playings of that game.

It might be argued that these facts are as well true of some epitome non-interactive works, and and so do not count as real differences between videogames and other, non-interactive works. Granted, in some non-interactive fine art works the technological artifact used to perform a work places constraints on the works that can be produced with the artifact, then that, for example, the works produced by a piano are limited to having a certain range of notes, being within a particular range of volumes, and having the timbral qualities specific to that instrument. But the technological artifacts underlying videogames stand up in a different relationship to their works. Though a pianoforte makes possible a express range of artistic backdrop in its works, these artistic possibilities are general to all of the works that the pianoforte can exist used to produce. In the case of videogames, the artistic possibilities are specific to a single work considering the relevant technological antiquity is designed to produce that piece of work lone. Furthermore, in the example of the performing arts, the variation between instances that counts toward the identity of the work produced comes from an external source, such as a remembered sound structure or from the improvisational input of the performer. In videogames, the variations are derived from the artifact itself through the human activity of playing.

Equally a result nosotros might credibly say that videogames artifactualize the artistic variations as well seen in the performing arts, and Carroll's definition might exist saved by altering his explication of the creative structure that is delivered by mass technology. In videogames, this is not a determinate creative construction but a technological artifact that, when interacted with, can produce a range of such structures. The exact nature of this technological artifact will exist addressed in the last section of this paper.

My rejection above of the idea that individual playings of videogames produce new fine art works implies that there is a further relevant departure between the performance arts and videogaming, which also partially explains that rejection. Since the variation in instances of videogames arises from an interaction with a technological artifact and not from a creative performance, the items produced are not new fine art works in the manner that performances of jazz standards are. John Coltrane's performance of My Favorite Things is an art work quite separate just plain related to the Rodgers and Hammerstein song on which his performance is based. But with videogames, we do non consider one gamer'southward playing of Grand Theft Auto IV as meriting art work status itself, fifty-fifty if it is a particularly adroit playing. Largely this seems to be because we practice not credit videogame players with artistic intentions of the kind performance artists have, equally is axiomatic from the fact that we exercise not typically pick out individual playings for aesthetic praise. As Aaron Smuts notes, "the operation of a videogame is not normally evaluated aesthetically."[20] The playing of G Theft Car IV is non itself an art work but a playing of an fine art work. In this respect, playings of videogames align with Carroll's judgment that screenings of films are not themselves artistic performances.[21]

Videogames are like films in being a mass art class and then allow for multiple instances of the game to announced simultaneously in dissimilar reception sites. And yet, they seem like jazz works in assuasive for a degree of variation across instances that is not seen in traditional mass arts, even though videogame playings are not themselves creative performances. The ontological schemas appropriate to mass arts like pic and the performance arts such as jazz seem to partially overlap because videogame works, which are subject to distribution past mass technology, embody the variations that only arise in jazz works through a performance. They exercise so because they use the potential of that most recent of mass technologies, the computer.

The fundamental upshot in explaining the ontological peculiarities of videogames thus seems to exist how the artistic instance, playing, or token of a videogame is generated through an interaction with a technological prop. Nosotros might refer back to how such instancing occurs in other forms of mass fine art. Carroll noted that, though essential for explaining the notion of multiple instance fine art works, the type/token distinction is ultimately not "fine grained plenty" to capture what instances an art work in the various arts, and that at that place are variations in the manner of instancing in multiple instance forms of art.[22] A theater performance, Carroll argued, is instanced past an interpretation of a script; a film is instanced past the screening of a template. In each of these cases there exists an intermediate antiquity that is non itself the art work, but which is essential if the fine art work is to be instanced. Merely, to reiterate the conclusions of the this section, Thou Theft Auto IV, like other videogames, exists, not every bit a determinate artistic structure that might be rendered on a number of instances from a template or a script, simply equally a web of representational possibilities embodied in a technological artifact from which any number of quite distinct token creative structures might exist produced.

5. The Ontology of Videogames

What, then, is the artifactual basis of videogames that allows for this ontological peculiarity? There are a couple of false leads to avert. Get-go and most obviously, the relevant artifact is not the deejay or digital file that is used in the distribution of the game. Physically, the playing of a game begins with acts, such as placing a deejay in a drive or downloading a file from a server, and and then starting information technology. Increasingly, games also involve online activity, so that the origin of much of the game content derives from a location distal to its physical playing. Some online games, such every bit RuneScape, are played direct on net browsers, employing graphical applications such every bit Java. The disk, digital file, or internet application is not the game but merely a means of distributing the game, and thus is a key office of the applied science that lends back up to the concept of videogames existence mass arts.

Digitally encoded disks and downloads are ways of distributing the game programme, and hence it might be idea that the game itself is the programme that is distributed by these ways. This cannot exist correct, withal, because a unmarried game can be given different program instantiations, as often happens when a game is designed to run on different hardware platforms. Moving a game from one platform to some other, mutual since at to the lowest degree the 1970s, is chosen "porting the game," though for commercial reasons videogame releases are increasingly cantankerous-platform at the outset. Thousand Theft Automobile IV can be run on PlayStation three, X-Box 360, and a PC, and the different platform instantiations involve different programs. The differences between the varied plan instantiations of the game are driven past the differing hardware and software demands of the various game platforms, both at the developer and user ends of the process.[23]

A very obvious example of the variation in hardware demands is the differences in command peripherals betwixt different gaming platforms. On PlayStation three, the program running Grand Theft Automobile IV must specify the use of a game pad; on a personal computer, the program specifies a keyboard and mouse. But in either case, these control variations do not touch the videogame that is being played; rather they are ascribed to the varied programs running the game. In fact, in that location can be perceptible differences in single videogames as generated by dissimilar platforms. For example, a common, critical practice is the comparison of the graphics of a unmarried game from one hardware platform to the next, comparing, for example, the graphics on One thousand Theft Auto 4 run on PlayStation 3 and X-Box 360.

Every bit such, in that location must be something shared between programs that establishes game identity and hence the ontology of games. It is hither that I call on Dominic Lopes' theory that games and computer art works—and videogames, which share aspects of both—are ontologically grounded in algorithms.[24] Grand Theft Auto Four, similar chess, has a game algorithm, but where the algorithm of chess specifies the move of pieces on a board, Grand Theft Motorcar Four involves events in a fiction.[25] An algorithm is here defined as a functional item, and as such it is useful for capturing game ontology because by being substrate contained, the functional analysis allows u.s.a. to see how a game type tin have multiple instantiations and can be in different media. Moreover, algorithms tin can be implemented in different computer programs, thus providing an explanation for the problem noted in a higher place of how a single game might notice different plan instantiations across unlike platforms. What is shared past all is a single game algorithm.

Does this ontological posit of a game algorithm actually resemble anything that games designers would recognize in the programs they design? In fact, this broadly functional employ of the term 'algorithm' does not seem to exist typical of the employ of the term in game design. Games designers might speak of an algorithm involved in a graphical shader, for example, but in this use they would be referring quite specifically to the transformations that allow the shader to perform its detail task in rendering the graphics, such as adding volumetric detail to a texture. Thus conceived, algorithms solve computational problems. Furthermore, algorithms are typically defined as having terminations, just the objects being invoked here can oftentimes be run indefinitely considering there is no fix problem that they are meant to solve. Rather their function is to generate an ongoing display drawing on the inputs of an interactor (or even without the role player'southward input); this is frequently referred to equally the "game loop." Thus the utilise of 'algorithm' as a game algorithm is applied much more grandiosely than in many technical uses, and in all likelihood would prove jarring to near game designers. It is, withal, aimed at solving ontological problems, and it is non articulate that games designers typically take any interest in these sorts of concerns.

Mayhap closer to this sense of algorithm is the term 'game mechanic,' which is used in game blueprint to refer to the functional components of gameplay. But even this does not quite fit the broad sense desired here because designers typically speak of a game mechanic in a singular sense, as a unit of game design specifiable in isolation from other game mechanics, and that might notice its way into a single game or be shared between unlike games. The utilise I intend for 'game algorithm' obviously refers to the conjunction of such game mechanics that combine to form a whole game. In a game like 1000 Theft Auto IV, this collection of game mechanics is extensive.

Fifty-fifty given these clarifications nearly their functional nature, it is unlikely that the ontology of videogames can be defined solely with respect to game algorithms. Algorithms, existence functionally defined, are neutral in relation to their material instantiation, and and then they can exist given dissimilar interpretations. The significant of the term 'interpretation' here draws on the sense in which logical formulae in propositional logic can be given different interpretations by filling in their variables. Or to depict a sense that has a particular resonance in these ontological debates and to which I have already referred, the sense in which a theatrical play tin be given unlike interpretations through costume, set design, and so forth.[26] In both of these cases an abstractly defined thing is given an instantiation in a material medium, and with traditional games this is the fact that allows fifty-fifty a single game of chess to motility betwixt media. Even so, with videogames the nature of the textile interpretation of the game algorithm seems necessary to game identity and, and then, to ontology.

Illustrating this about clearly is the issue of game "mods." Game modding involves users altering or creating new content for a game, which is then distributed so that other users can play the modified game. Ane instance comes from The Elderberry Scrolls: Oblivion, where a pop modernistic added cats and rats to the gameworld. Some games develop a pregnant modding customs, and developers have fifty-fifty engaged with the modding community by giving users access to specifically designed modding tools. Fallout 3 has washed this in the form of the "GECK" (Garden of Eden Creation Kit), a level-edifice application downloadable from the game'south official site.[27] Non only tin such mods change the character or appearance of a game by making animations or textures look more realistic, or adding new monsters or objects; they can also impact the identity of the game.

The most famous such case of modding is the development of Counter-Strike from the first-person shooter, Half-Life. This interaction, even though it was with the algorithm at the ground of Half-Life, did non produce an case of the game but instead an entirely new game. This is because the Counter-Strike modern involved the cosmos of a new prepare of creative backdrop; Counter-Strike replaced the science fiction-themed content of Half-Life with a more realistic counter-terrorism military scenario. As such, the Counter-Strike modernistic of Half-Life is an example of how a change in the representational content has a bearing on work identity in videogames. Of course, the gameplay in Counter-Strike does differ from One-half-Life, just one can imagine an even stricter mod, where an unmodified game algorithm is given a new interpretation in terms of representational properties. If the new art design of the game was sufficiently original, there would probable be little hesitation in referring to the resulting work as a new game.

The existence of game engines likewise bears out this ontological point. A game engine is an executive computational structure that is increasingly common in videogames, and is responsible for binding together game-mechanics, representations, control ways, and their functional scaffolding into a coherent whole. Game engines are often proprietary pieces of software that facilitate the ease of product and execution of videogames. I noted before that we might consider videogames every bit "work generators" rather than as works with a number of instances, only to turn down this. Merely some game engines come up very close to performance as piece of work generators considering they allow developers to fill in a range of representational variables, such as art and level design, in order to create original works. Once again, this illustrates that representational content is a key factor in individuating works. Anyone who has played both Fallout three and Oblivion should be convinced of this point. On its release, many people noted that Fallout 3 was basically Oblivion "with guns," because the games shared the aforementioned game engine and much of their gameplay. But no i really confused Fallout 3 for Oblivion. Fallout 3 and Oblivion differ in their game algorithms, but one tin imagine a case of a game engine also including quite specific game mechanics, perchance consisting of generic outset-person shooter gameplay, that immune users to fill in the representational variables of graphic symbol, object, surround and sound blueprint. The result would surely exist a new videogame, although a derivative i in having a generic game algorithm. One suspects that something similar is occurring in the production of videogame clones, which are videogames that hew very closely to popular precedent games, differing only in various aspects of art design.

All of these observations tease out an of import ontological point, which is that although an algorithm may be necessary to videogame identity, it is not by itself sufficient. What is too necessary is that the game algorithm is interpreted in terms of a set of representational aspects, such equally art, character, level, and environment design, because changes in these qualities impact on identity in videogames. This artistic structure is composed of a number of detached depictive aspects, such as polygonal 3D models, animations, virtual cameras, physics, environmental sounds and music, dialogue, second elements, and graphical artifacts like shaders.[28] In game blueprint circles these are commonly called the artistic or representational "assets" or the "front-stop" of the game. This is similar to a point fabricated by Lopes, where he emphasized the importance of the "material" medium in computer fine art.[29] In videogaming, these materials include the impressive range of computer graphics techniques that has quickly developed over the last few decades, and in which a large role of the artful involvement in videogames lies. Only the representational assets of games also involve more circuitous artistic structures, such as narrative cut scenes and large, designed 3D environments.

In fact, this functional separation between game algorithms and representational assets is often axiomatic in practise and not merely in theory. In game design practice, the game mechanics and art assets are often treated separately, so that a designer might alter a videogame to alter the graphic symbol, environs, and narrative design without altering the game mechanics. This tin sometimes happen very late in the pattern process, where building and refining the game have proceeded with graphical models that are essentially placeholders made for the purpose of the build. The narrative is oftentimes the very last slice of a videogame's artistic structure to be produced. Also, at the early proof of concept stage in game design, information technology is principally the game algorithm that bears the weight of evaluation. Finally, the player-character pattern modifications that are available to the role player in Fallout 3 and like role-playing games likewise show how game algorithms are, in practice, separable from the artistic design, although in this case it is the player who is authorized to make such changes every bit a function of the interactivity afforded by the game itself.

This, then, is my answer to the nature of the structures crucial to the type/token relationship as it applies to modernistic videogames. A videogame's creative construction consists of an algorithm every bit interpreted by a set of artistic assets. Thus two different videogames may share the same game algorithm; what differentiates them is how this algorithm is specified by artistic or representational properties. This constitutes an important difference between artistic videogames and more traditional games, such equally chess, where it has been argued that representational content is inconsequential for game identity, and then a simple algorithmic theory of game ontology might actually be advisable.[30] Furthermore, we tin use this ontological theory to explicate the variation in instances that make videogames difficult for Carroll'southward definition of mass art. I take the above analysis to imply that Carroll's definition still holds in the case of videogames but with 1 revision: the artistic structure in videogames is not an extant artistic structure shared betwixt tokens but a computational antiquity consisting of a game algorithm and representational assets that tin can produce a range of such structures through the input of the thespian.

Grant Tavinor

Grant.Tavinor@lincoln.ac.nz

Grant Tavinor is lecturer in philosophy at Lincoln Academy, New Zealand. He is author of The Fine art of Videogames (Wiley-Blackwell 2009). He would like to thank two bearding reviewers of this journal for comments they made on an earlier version of this article.

Published on May 5, 2011.

Endnotes

1. The nature of videogames as art is discussed in some depth by Aaron Smuts, "Are Video Games Art," Contemporary Aesthetics, 3 (2005), Grant Tavinor, The Art of Videogames (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), and Dominic McIver Lopes, A Philosophy of Computer Fine art (London: Routledge, 2009).

2. Richard Wollheim, Fine art and Its Objects (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980); Nicholas Wolterstorff, "Toward an Ontology of Fine art works," Nous 9 (1975); Amie Thomasson, "The Ontology of Art," in The Blackwell Guide to Aesthetics, ed. Peter Kivy (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004).

3. Wollheim, Art and Its Objects.

4. Noël Carroll, A Philosophy of Mass Fine art (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998), p.196.

5. Carroll, A Philosophy of Mass Art, p. 196.

6. Carroll, A Philosophy of Mass Art, p. 199. There is a complication hither that is worth mentioning. In multiplayer Chiliad Theft Auto IV, the game allows unlike players to play against each other, so that they can all play a single game even where they may exist in geographically isolated reception sites. For the sake of simplicity, in this paper I refer to single player games only, even though the ontological issues with multiplayer games might exist interesting in their own correct.

7. Games scholar Jesper Juul has recently written of the increasing attempts by games developers to accost this inaccessibility through the production of what are called "coincidental games," which are games that can be picked upward and played on starting time contact without a significant investment of skills and learning demanded past hardcore games; Jesper Juul, Casual Games: Reinventing Video Games and Their Role players (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009).

8. Carroll, A Philosophy of Mass Art, p. 196, pp. 227-228.

9. On the combination of gaming and fine art, see Tavinor, The Fine art of Videogames.

10. Wollheim, Art and Its Objects; Carroll, A Philosophy of Mass Art; Dominic McIver Lopes, "The Ontology of Interactive Art," Periodical of Aesthetic Education, 35, 4 (2001), 65-81.

11. Stephen Davies, "The Ontology of Musical Works and the Authenticity of Their Performances," Nous, .25, one (1991) 28-29.

12. For an example of an ontological theory of art works (in this instance musical works) that takes such genetic factors to be essential to the identity of works, run into Jerrold Levinson, "What a Musical Piece of work Is," The Periodical of Philosophy, 77, 1 (1980), v-28.

13. Berys Gaut includes videogames amid the cinematic arts for this reason; A Philosophy of Cinematic Fine art (Cambridge: Cambridge University Printing, 2010). Videogames likewise involve tactile or haptic display elements, so they are not just audio-visual presentations. Tavinor, The Art of Videogames, pp. 61-62.

14. Information technology may be the case that non all videogames are fictions; see Grant Tavinor, "The Definition of Videogames," Contemporary Aesthetics, Volume 7 (2008).

15. For details of how videogames encode their gameplay in terms of their fictions, meet Tavinor, The Fine art of Videogames, pp. 86-109.

16. There are genuinely different versions of Grand Theft Auto 4. For example, in Australia, due to concerns with the adult nature of some of the games by the media ratings board of that country, certain depictions of sex were removed from the version of the game released there.

17. Carroll, A Philosophy of Mass Art, p. 201.

18. Phillip A. Lobo, "So This Is What the Dream is Like: Violence and Assimilation in Grand Theft Car IV," in Open Letters (2009), accessed 1 June 2010, archived at http://openlettersmonthly.com/event/video-game-review-grand-theft-auto-four/.

19. Stephen Davies characterizes this difference as that betwixt the ontological "thickness" and "thinness" of a given musical form. Stephen Davies, Musical Works and Performances (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

20. Aaron Smuts, "Are Video Games Art?"; Cf. Lopes, "The Ontology of Interactive Art," p. 80.

21. Carroll, A Philosophy of Mass Art, p. 213.

22. Carroll, A Philosophy of Mass Art, p. 212.

23. Complicating this picture is the fact that at that place are "portable" programming languages that are hardware abstract.

24. Lopes, "The Ontology of Interactive Art" and A Philosophy of Computer Art. On games equally algorithms, see also Jesper Juul, Half-Real (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2005).

25. Tavinor, The Art of Videogames, pp. 92-102.

26. Carroll, A Philosophy of Mass Fine art, p. 212.

27. http://geck.bethsoft.com/alphabetize.php/Main_Page , accessed thirty April 2011.

28. Tavinor, The Art of Videogames, pp. 61-85.

29. Lopes, A Philosophy of Computer Art, pp. 64-66.

30. Cf. Juul, Half-Existent, pp. 12-15.

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