The debate about whether or not videogames can be considered art or not always makes the rounds at least once a year. Every time, in our opinion anyway, the vote always ends in a 'yes'. This time, someone from another medium weighed in. That someone is Kong: Skull Island director Jordan Vogt-Roberts.
Speaking with Glixel, he describes his love for video games while on the topic of the Metal Gear movie he's involved in. He even admits that the aesthetic feeling of gaming bleeds into the Kong movie somehow.
He explained that he's always looking for artistic experiences like Zelda, Ico, The Last Guardian, and obviously any of Kojima's titles. He even expressed fondness for indie titles, which have the advantage of focusing on story and breaking the mold, like Firewatch, Inside, Journey and Gone Home. He states without question that these games are art.
"I just want to see things that do something new. It’s really hard for me to just pick up a Call of Duty or something like that and just play it. I love Arkham Asylum, but it’s hard for me to pick up a sequel to something unless I feel like it’s really doing something new. Granted, I will always pick up a new Zelda and a new Metroid. I haven’t played Breath of the Wild yet because I am still getting my bearings and I need to get a Switch, but there are certain things that are so seminal in my life, and a lot of that old Nintendo stuff falls in that category – Zelda and Metroid in particular. I will always pick those up, but it’s hard for me to really give that much time to something if I don’t feel like it’s evolving the art form in some way.
From Ico to Shadow of the Colossus to The Last Guardian, the fact that games like that are able to be event games now, it’s amazing to me. I hope those games are able to make a profit and I’d like to think that those companies see the value in flagship entertainment that is pushing their artform forward, but for every success story, you hear a bunch of horror stories about an indie company that got shuttered before their game was released. The fact that it’s even a question anymore, when people even raise the idea of whether games are art, I just want to look at them and be like, “F*** you. F*** yourself for even questioning.”
Personally, we couldn't think of a better director for a Metal Gear movie after that monologue.
