It’s been almost two weeks since I first sat down at the Art History of Games symposium, and I’m still processing what I heard and learned while I was there. I keep flipping through pages and pages of notes, circling back to the same ideas, mulling them over and thinking of how to approach them in the blog. Over the past few days, I’ve been returning to one key question — are art games games?

Let me start out by saying that I’m approaching this question from a player’s perspective. Even if I had an advanced degree in game studies or art history, which I don’t, I couldn’t really fit what art is or what games are into a blog post. What I have to go on is what led me to attend the symposium in the first place: a genuine interest in and curiosity about both games and art. That said, Twitter chatter during the course of the symposium led me to this definition, from a 1994 article by Greg Costikyan, which works pretty well for me: “A game is a form of art in which participants, termed players, make decisions in order to manage resources through game tokens in the pursuit of a goal.” (Costikyan put out a newer version of the same article in 2002 — both are interesting reads.)

During the Feb. 6 morning panels, the artists and designers who had created commissioned games for the symposium, along with game designer and artist Brenda Brathwaite, talked about their games and their process. It was undoubtedly one of the most engaging and dynamic parts of the symposium. But it also shifted the symposium’s focus from games as art to art games — those nebulously defined games that emphasize art over game play. It’s a distinction that’s tricky to make, but when it comes to the way people actually use the terms, it seems like games are things you play. Art games might have some elements of games, but they exist to be appreciated and thought about rather than played. For example, you might take all the recognizable visual elements out of the game “Quake,” leaving the game’s mechanics intact but its appearance nonsensical, winding up with something that’s like a game but not exactly playable: “Untitled Game” by art duo Jodi.

You can see examples of the distinction between “game” and “art game” in the games commissioned for the symposium. Moving from the most traditionally game-like to the least traditionally game-like (and perhaps the most art-like):

• “Sixteen Tons,” by Nathalie Pozzi and Eric Zimmerman, involves the movement of large colored pieces on a board, along with the exchange of real money.
• Jason Rohrer’s “Sleep is Death (Geisterfahrer)” is a two-player computer game in which one player essentially takes on the role of the game’s AI.
• “Vanitas,” by Tale of Tales, is an iPhone game in which you can open a box to reveal three items — the items and the box change as you play.

The games are on display at Kai Lin Art in Atlanta, and I had some time to experience a little of each of them during the symposium. “Vanitas” is on my iPhone, so I’ve spent more time with it than with any of the other commissioned games, and it’s where I stumble on the line between “game” and “not-game.” “Vanitas” feels almost like a toy — but a toy meant to be used as a tool for introspection and meditation. It reminds me of the Buddha Machine, a stripped-down MP3 player that has only a few tracks, plus controls for pitch and volume. The Buddha Machine and “Vanitas” both put me into contemplation mode — but neither of them feels like something I’m “playing.”

I could make the same argument about other games I’ve played that were cited as examples during various parts of the symposium. Jason Rohrer’s “Passage” feels a lot like a game — you control a man and collect treasure. But no matter what you do, you reach one inevitable ending after about 5 minutes. I’ve also played “the Graveyard” and “The Path,” both by Tale of Tales. Even though the duo stated clearly during their presentation that games are not art, Tale of Tales is often cited as a developer of art games.  Like “Passage,” both of these games have some of the traits most video games do, like collecting objects or interacting with items in the game environment. But “the Graveyard,” like “Passage,” is very brief and has, most of the time, one possible, inevitable ending.  I don’t feel like either of these games has a goal I’m working toward — instead, they have an inescapable conclusion.

“The Path” is the most game-like of Tale of Tales’ games, at least among the ones I’ve played. But, as Auriea Harvey and Michael Samyn pointed out in their presentation, in “The Path,” they met players halfway by adding these traditionally computer-game-like elements. And even with them in place, my time in “The Path” feels like something I experienced rather than something I played.

More mainstream games weren’t left out in the cold at the symposium. “Braid” and “Shadow of the Colossus” both came up during the symposium, for example. Both games are elegant in their visual art and their game play, and they both have definite earmarks of games. As a player, I wouldn’t hesitate to classify either of them as art — or as games. But in the context of the symposium, they seemed to be held up more as examples of “almost-art” in the video game world.

I wonder — is it because they’re obviously games, with the rules and conventions players are used to?