When I picked up a box with a pretty, yet severe night elf woman's face on the cover, I wasn't thinking, "I want to get to level 60 and start raiding Molten Core for epic gear!" or even "I'm going to be a PvP god!" Instead, I was hoping to create characters with a personal background, with feelings and ideas all their own, and act them out in an imaginary world where no one knew who I really was, a world in which our purpose was to share creatively and interact as a team, not to make money or exchange gossip.
In short, I wanted to roleplay. But what I got was something much more than even a roleplaying experience, more than me and my characters, more than an endless stream of quests and rewards, experience and reputation, monsters and loot. I found myself in a world filled with its own people -- real people -- and a series of problems for these people to overcome together in order to progress and travel even deeper into this world. At every stage, I found something new opening up to me, whether it was access to more abilities of my own, more ways to interact with others, more vast landscapes to please my eye, or more stories to capture my imagination.
A long time has past since I first bought that box. My mother has recovered from her treatments and regained a lot of her independence. My "real life" has largely gone back to normal, except that now World of Warcraft is a part of it. I no longer have some need for a way to spend time with people without leaving home. Instead I have new friends and special activities we like to participate in. These friends and activities make me feel as though I'm growing and changing as a person too, although for a long time it was hard to pinpoint why.
I had previously gone through a long period of life in which I thought I had given up video games for good. "A waste of time!" I said. "They keep you at home, mashing buttons when you could otherwise be out spending time with people, or doing something productive." Now that I had a new game that felt different and had captured my imagination, I heard other people around me and in the media speaking of games in the same way that I once had. Of my favorite game in particular, they often spoke in slightly hushed tones, as if discussing cocaine, and they brought up how they heard on TV that it ruined relationships. If one questioned them as to what World of Warcraft really was, I doubt they could say very much, except that it was something bad.
I thought long and hard about this game. Was it really a waste of time? Was I addicted? Did it affect my life in a negative way? What was I getting from this game that I couldn't get from real life? Why not put away the game and read a book, for example, or call up my friends and visit the park?
A book, I realized, doesn't let me talk back. I love books and I love reading, but I also love interacting as much as I can with my media. I love walking in parks with friends, but the park does not present challenges for us to learn and overcome together. The redwood forests of California are so far away for me that a trip there would be hard to contemplate, but the imaginary landscape of Feralas, while obviously inferior to the real thing, is still just a few minutes away.
I realized that my love of the world -- the real world -- only increased as I journeyed through Blizzard's fantasy realm. On multiple levels, from music to problem-solving, from awesome visuals to collective storytelling, I had actually come to relate to WoW as an organic work of art in which I can grow and move even as the artwork itself grows and changes over time.
What is a work of art if not an expression of the human experience and imagination, which touches your heart in some way and makes your world a little more meaningful? WoW is undoubtedly a beautiful environment, with breathtaking things to see, powerful music and sounds, as well as difficult challenges to overcome, and imaginative stories to tell. All these have an effect on our minds and spirits. Furthermore, it is changing all the time, with new content, refinement to old content, and new ways of interacting with other people. Not only does it have all the traditional elements of art, it allows people to connect together, compete and cooperate within that art, as if it really were a world of its own. In its own way, the power of World of Warcraft to connect people together is its greatest artistic achievement of all.
Like any powerful artwork, this game has made its mark on my life. I entered Azeroth just for something creative and social to do, and stayed because I found something in this world and its community that captivated me, an exprience as powerful as any great film, book, painting or poem. One day, society at large will come to recognize World of Warcraft as a work of art too. Once the emerging global culture has come to understand and accept games alongside film and literature, with their own potential as well as its pitfalls, artists in the field of game-design can begin to exploit its opportunities for creative expression in ways far greater than any game has thus far achieved. WoW's successors will things of beauty unlike anything we can imagine.
"WoW is a Work of Art" is a three-part series. Part one focuses on the author's personal discovery that games are an art form, based on his experiences in World of Warcraft. Part two explores how WoW is not merely another work of visual and musical art, but a work of interactive, team-oriented problem-solving art as well. Part three look s at WoW as a stage on which some players choose to play writer, director, actor and audience all at the same time, in their own improvised theater.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-03-2007 @ 2:30PM
Shinobi Burger said...
WoW really does have something that other games don't. While i don't play anymore, I always check in with what's happening in this world of ours.
It gets a bad rap sometimes, but everyone i know who plays or has played have gotten something positive out of it.
It is what you make it ultimately.
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9-03-2007 @ 2:38PM
brendan said...
I think the important thing to remember is that WoW isn't in its basic form a work of art, where's the art in endlessly grinding the same monster or dungeon again and again?
WoW is a game however, that can turn into a work of art. With the right combination of exploring the beautiful environment and social interaction, it can become something special.
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9-03-2007 @ 3:36PM
Charlie said...
10/10
great article
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9-03-2007 @ 4:07PM
Wildhammer said...
Fantastic article. WarCraft brought something new to the high-fantasy table. Dungeons and Dragons arrived with its ever expansize IP, strange artwork, and odd, complicated universe filled with different dimentions, theologies, and bizzare creatures.
Warhammer brought good ol' fashioned gothic, english fantasy with all of its heroic grittiness in tact.
Lord of the Rings was very neutral in its style. Which is odd since it essentially created the modern market for high-fantasy.
There was, however, something that had yet to be used in high-fantasy until the nineties. WarCraft brought light. Warhammer was dark, Dungeons and Dragons was strange and alienating, but WarCraft was a universe with true light and true beauty. It brought heroes fighting in a universal war for Light and faceless evil beings trying to oppress them. It brought lots of true struggle and visual appear. Really, it brought everything everyone wanted.
WarCraft has a little something for everyone.
-Wildhammer
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9-03-2007 @ 4:24PM
Anonymous said...
I could not disagree more. To me, WoW is a game and only a game. I think maybe if the entirety of Warcraft stories and lore were presented in the form of a polished novel (or series of novels), it could maybe be considered art, because its scope is grand enough for it. But with it as a game, you come across people and things that ruin the "artful" experience. The quests that requires 30 spider legs with a drop rate of 0.04%, or some such? That group of Alliance 70s that ganked and camped your party the other day in Tanaris? How about guild names like , overinflated prices in the AH, hearing "stfu noob, check thottbot" whenever someone asks for help, people complaining that Warlocks are OP, lag, Barrens chat, ubiquitous Chuck Norris jokes, et cetera, et cetera?
I don't deny that WoW can be a fun game to play, but I would pause and think a moment before elevating it to the level you have done here. WoW isn't something breathtaking like experiencing wonders of nature or hearing an emotionally charged symphony; it's a video game, and video games, I'm afraid, have generally not yet come to the point where they could be considered an art. They are a form of entertainment on the same level as watching television. To me, the purpose of this article seems less like defining WoW as art and more like defending your decision to allow it to come so close to the front of your life. Nobody would watch TV or surf the Internet for hours per day and defend it as an art-form, and I suggest people stop doing so with WoW.
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9-03-2007 @ 6:59PM
Arthouse said...
Ultimately that's the really great thing about art - it's personal.
One person's soup can is another person's Warhol.
To quote 'anonymous': "WoW isn't something breathtaking like experiencing wonders of nature or hearing an emotionally charged symphony" - would not a guild's first downing of a raid boss be considered an emotionally charged symphony? I think so...that's the way all the folks in my guild felt the first time we downed Ony.
To David Bowers, WoW is art, it enriched his life and brought something to it that was not previously there. It also helped him through a difficult time.
Don't denigrate the positive things that others find. That just makes you a troll.
Great article.
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9-03-2007 @ 7:00PM
kunukia said...
"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" Who said that? Yah, I see WoW as art also, but some folks are just playing a game. Depends on the player character's viewpoint.
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9-03-2007 @ 7:12PM
David Bowers said...
I'm not an art critic, but as 7 and 8 have said, here I am, I really am having an experience of art with WoW, as are many other people out there. My experience of it makes it real.
Now, if you don't experience it for some reason, perhaps there is something blocking you -- a belief that no game could be art perhaps? Many things, from rock and roll to modern painting, have had to overcome the idea that they have to be traditionally accepted in order to be art. But that's not true -- they just have to reach out to some people (not even all people) and give them an artistic experience.
Art is one of those abstract things like unconditional love, understanding, and compassion which is so beautifully and uniquely human. The fact that we experience these things proves they are real.
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9-03-2007 @ 8:34PM
G said...
You know what? We get to choose! I choose to let all of the positive aspects of WoW make me feel good. And when anything bad happens (a friend quits, a good player leaves a guild, yet another lame pug'er gets on a nerve, etc.), then you get to say "It's just a game." And you still have fun playing that game. And you win.
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9-03-2007 @ 8:47PM
Anonymous said...
To say that art is anything that reaches out and gives someone an artistic experience is a rather broad definition. What about people for whom killing is an art (psychotic though they may be)? By this definition, then, is murder not art? If you were to kill someone and not feel the same artistic epiphany, would there just be something blocking you from it?
World of Warcraft is not art, and to say that people don't see it as such simply because of personal hangups is insulting.
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9-03-2007 @ 9:50PM
Michel said...
of course games are Arts
many artists but also engineers works to create them
pictures, characters, landscape, musics, and so on
and sometimes, you can pick some elements of them and do a great concert, or a great paints expositions.
Japanese editors did that for years.
but, true, it is art.
an art sold in products, as books, musics and movies , but totally artworks in them.
and I truly thinks Wow, even with its technical limits, show great art.
there are really fine people working for Blizzard. the first sigh in Terrokar with Shattrah in far was wonderful
the Sporeggear, Silvermoon, Feralas, and so more.
where wow shines is in great artistic direction. very coherent, high level of detail.
and so, you could take drawings and paints made to help create the "3d" world and sold books ! heck, blizzard did that.
I was born in the Atari 2600, for me art are paint, music, movie, television drame, photography, woodcraft, and many others and video games. 3D virtual art, interaction and mix of medias.
no shame in it. only more culture.
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9-03-2007 @ 11:28PM
Wildhammer said...
@5
You fail to seperate "WoW" and "WarCraft". WoW is an MMORPG built from the foundation of pixels. The art and design from the mind of Chris Metzen is a very different place. If you went to Quel'thalas, not in-game, but actually WENT to it, you wouldn't see Xlegolasx. There wouldn't be an moronic elves roaming about. Such a place is unheard of in WoW, as all places in the game have at least one moronic elf roaming about.
It's like comparing Lord of the Rings Online to Lord of the Rings, think of it that way. The online version is a game built on rules and mechanics where not everyone who plays is a Lord of the Rings fan, some are simply hardcore gamers. You have to think of high-fantasy worlds the way their creators intended.
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9-04-2007 @ 4:42AM
Keith Hoffmaster said...
To "Anonymous":
"To me, the purpose of this article seems less like defining WoW as art and more like defending your decision to allow it to come so close to the front of your life."
and later:
"World of Warcraft is not art, and to say that people don't see it as such simply because of personal hangups is insulting."
So...basically, you criticize other people's opinions because you don't happen to agree with them yet get offended when other people do the same to you. How very hypocritical.
This game is different things to different people. Each is valid those those experiencing it. Why does it bother you so much when someone has an opinion that doesn't match yours?
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9-04-2007 @ 5:11AM
David Bowers said...
I don't mean to insult anyone. I can certainly appreciate that different people perceive art differently.
As it happens, I'm studying for an MFA at the moment at this university where I live in China, and a couple years ago we had an exchange with a European university in which they came over and shared lots of their artwork with us. Some of it was neat, but for the most part, I wasn't moved at all. The things they were really proud of didn't seem like art at all to me. Maybe I was blocked? Sure. I just didn't have the same experience they did, and that's okay.
I don't see any need to define art in an absolutely way such that what I do is art and what they do isn't. That would be pretty hard, and I don't see how it would really help. If you can see some art in WoW, then great! If not, well... enjoy whatever you do think is art and have a nice day!
Think of my message this way. I'm sharing my own experience, and suggesting that as more and more people have a similar experience, one day video games will be given the same respect that symphonies and portraits have.
I grant you that what we see today is only a beginning. Video games still have a lot of limitations that they need to overcome. On the other hand, we've come a long way since Pong and Pac Man, and that deserves to be recognized.
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9-04-2007 @ 6:09AM
RogueJedi86 said...
I wish WoW had some of the more artistic elements that were in ICO and "Shadow of the Colossus". ICO was centered around one-long escort mission, but they actually made it fun and tolerable, by giving us an emotional attachment to Yorda, giving us a reason to want to care for and protect her. If only they could do that in WoW, making escort missions more enjoyable, by giving us emotional investment in it.
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9-04-2007 @ 10:15AM
Mixx said...
I'm with #5 - it's a game, a really fun, great game, but a game none the less.
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