Overshadowing: Cultural Hierarchy in Videogames

A horse trots slowly across an empty landscape, his hooves echoing in the great quiet of the air; the shrill whistle of a dense wind blows in the background as white noise. An anonymous hero sits atop the horse, his face tired and dirty; a wilted, inert body wrapped in a quilt lies across his lap. Somber, orchestral music begins to flutter as a hawk flies overhead. A short rainstorm falls along with a curious melancholy as the wanderer seeks shelter beneath a rocky overhang. After a brief time lapse, the hero passes through a large gate and stands before a long, stone bridge which stretches across an immense valley. Crossing the bridge, the hero descends a spiral staircase and enters the belly of an ancient temple, the walls lined with ornate statues of unknown beasts. Jumping down from his horse, the hero gently carries the enshrouded body to a stone alter, gracefully removing the quilt as if pulling a table cloth from beneath an array of dishes. He stands over a woman, a lost love. Without words or intrusive dialogue, the videogame Shadow of the Colossus (SotC) introduces the player to its unique, barren world and communicates a sense of unease and loneliness. Immediately, the game reveals itself to be more than an interactive piece of software; rather than simply asking to be played, SotC begs to be experienced.



While social and cultural hierarchies are almost treated as common sense today in mediums such as television (The Wire versus American Idle), film (Synecdoche NY versus Beverly Hills Chihuahua), and music (Sigur Rós versus The Naked Brothers Band), few recognize the same trends appearing in videogames. This could be due to the mediums relative infancy and its position in society as a marginalized, base pastime, an entertainment for the lowest common denominator. In other words, videogames have been joined to the proverbial hip of popular culture. Worse than that, though, they have been infantilized to an extent that forever keeps them at arm’s length from legitimate culture.

Famously, film critic Roger Ebert claimed in 2005 that videogames would never be art, stating, “I am prepared to believe that video games can be elegant, subtle, sophisticated, challenging and visually wonderful. But I believe the nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art.” The main hurdle Ebert sees is the interactivity of games and how that may compromise authorial control. Similarly, Steve Gaynor argues that games will never be considered legitimate art because of their marginalized status, their relationship to the activity of juveniles, and their relative inaccessibility compared to other mediums. Soraya Murray argues “electronic games, with their technological roots in the military-industrial complex, are commonly associated with childish play and lowbrow entertainment for the antisocial – all of which damages their credibility as objects of serious cultural consideration.” However, whether or not videogames will ever be considered legitimate art by the culture at large is not my concern. Instead, I want to argue that within the medium of videogames itself the same stratifying distinctions between high and lowbrow artifacts which permeate our greater culture exist.

Kuipers, when analyzing taste distinctions and television, argues “such hierarchical ranking of taste, drawing a clear boundary between difficult and sophisticated highbrow taste and accessible, entertaining popular taste, seems to lose much of its validity when confronted with television’s fragmented and eclectic mixture of information and entertainment; art, play and commerce.” While videogames may be similar to television in this respect, grouped with lowbrow culture along with it, and thus difficult to discuss in terms of taste hierarchies, I argue they are nonetheless stratified and hierarchical. Although one can argue that franchises like Grand Theft Auto, Halo, and World of Warcraft certainly possess qualities that could be said to cater to a mass audience (especially considering their high sales), there are foils to these experiences, games that have been culturally constructed to possess higher forms of aesthetics, convey deeper meanings, and contain transcendental experiences. One such game is Shadow of the Colossus, a game released for the PlayStation 2 in 2005.

Albert J. Bergesen in his book, “The Depth of Shallow Culture: The High Art of Shoes, Movies, Novels, Monsters, and Toys,” attempts to reveal “the ‘often unseen depth’ of the popular – i.e. the essential sameness of the popular and the elite.” Nonetheless, Patricia Cormack criticizes his arguments, claiming he forgets to discuss “the place of the consuming public in ‘making’ these objects what they are, and the politics of aesthetic judgment.” Indeed, no cultural product is inherently a masterpiece or classic. It must be granted that position through a process of enculturation and consensus. This analysis of SotC attempts to map that process. Through a discourse analysis of the forum posts, criticism, blog entries, and industry commentary surrounding the game, I will reveal how Shadow of the Colossus has been constructed to represent what is arguably the "high culture" of videogames, a strata of the medium that enthusiasts point to in order to argue that videogames can be more than just entertainment: they can be art.

In an often quoted passage, Pierre Bourdieu claimed, “Taste classifies, and it classifies the classifier.” I want to focus on the first portion of that statement, how taste classifies a cultural product, in this case a videogame, and how it shapes its meaning and value. In the future, it would be beneficial to take an equally in-depth look at the molders of videogame taste and what that taste reveals about their social positions, if anything. Nonetheless, that is not the goal of this analysis. Instead, it is the process of consecration I am interested in. Bourdieu argues “cultural consecration does indeed confer on the objects, persons, and situations it touches, a sort of ontological promotion akin to a transubstantiation” Through cultural discourse, conversation, and online discussions, the gaming community consecrated SotC, creating out of what could have been just another piece of interactive software, a unique, sacred experience, building for it an amorphous position atop the medium of videogames.

This shaping of cultural products and movements spans mediums and occurs in film, television, and music as well. When speaking about the advent of indie as a movement and genre of music, Bannister argues that it “did not simply arise organically out of developing postpunk music networks, but was shaped by media (particularly print), and was not just collective, but also stratified, hierarchical, parochial and traditional” Indeed, although a medium in many ways shunned by cultural elitists, videogames, and the community that consumes them, have created their own hierarchical system that follows the same standards for legitimacy that the greater culture follows. By speaking about SotC aesthetically, thematically, and emotionally, they have raised it above the bar of the average game.

Bannister argues that this stratification and hierarchy is created through the production of canon, or historical standards, manifested and perpetuated by “journalists, scenemakers, tastemakers” and other industry officials. Thornton shares Bannister’s view of tastemakers as molders of public opinion and perception, arguing for the cultural power of DJs and their ability to literally redefine conceptions of authenticity, hipness, and coolness in music. Bannister quotes Foucault who views canonization as “discursive practices which shape the way we ‘know’” Similarly, Kuipers urges that “taste . . . has to be understood not only as a pattern of preferences and aversion, but as a form of cultural knowledge.”
By establishing a canon of legitimate taste within games, or by establishing a way of knowing legitimate games, and by placing SotC near the top of that canon, the gaming community, including tastemakers, bloggers, and industry-insiders, created a body of knowledge that many gamers now take at face value without understanding the process of fabrication behind it. Game critics began to shape perception of the game by continually referencing its artistic value in their reviews and by comparing it to what they viewed as the status quo of running and gunning in gaming. After this initial positioning, game fans and game journalists used SotC as an example when combating claims by individuals such as Ebert and Gaynor who claim games cannot be considered high art. Finally, forum posters continue to use SotC in any discussion involving games and art or games and high culture.



As a spiritual successor to Ico, a game released in 2001 and equally toted as aesthetically superior to many games, reviewers already had a preconceived notion of what to expect of Shadow of the Colossus. Essentially, the game is little more than 16 consecutive boss battles where the player attempts to defeat one large colossus after another in order to resurrect a girl he loves. To find these behemoths, the player must travel through an enormous, dead landscape full of deserts, lakes, mountains, and subterranean ruins. To speed travel, the player rides a horse named Agro, one of the only other living creatures in the game and subsequently, as many reviewers note, a character that players develop an emotional connection to. Yet it is not the fairly simple storyline or the modest gameplay mechanics that critics champion; instead, it is the aesthetics of the game, the emotions it produces, and the singular thematic vision which strings the experience together.

Rather than argue that the aesthetics of SotC are objectively superior to those of most videogames, I posit that the reviewers have positioned them to be seen and known as such. Wilson writes, “Kant was the first to say that aesthetic judgments are by nature unprovable – they can’t be reduced to logic. Nevertheless, he pointed out, they always feel necessary and universal: when we think something’s great, we want everyone else to think it’s great too.” At the same time, when we think something is beautiful, we want others to agree. It is difficult to judge whether SotC is actually beautiful, whether it is more artful than most games, or whether it belongs in the category of highbrow games, but after a tertiary glance at the game’s reception, it is clear that there is a cultural consensus that it has something many games lack.

First, many reviewers pointed out the exceptional job SotC did in fusing the entertainment value videogames are expected to provide with the artistic value that few deliver on fully. Chris Roper, a reviewer on the popular gaming site IGN writes, “Trying to describe exactly what makes Shadow of the Colossus so fantastic is akin to trying to describe why the bodies of work of Picasso, Bach or Beethoven are unquestioned classics; you can do your best, but any of these examples must be experienced in full to truly be understood, and especially appreciated.” Here Roper describes the game as something that has to be fully experienced. Rather than just a simple game that might be picked up and played with for a short time, the experience of SotC is said to be one that, like most great films, needs to be given the player’s full attention and completed.

Moreover, in his review on Wham!, Steve Tilley claims, “Shadow Of The Colossus is equal parts entertainment and work of art.” In a similar vein, Felipe Faria Lemos writes, SotC “is much more than a simple pastime or simple entertainment. It is pure art.” Whereas most games are expected to simply provide a rewarding and entertaining experience, SotC is spoken about as offering so much more. Critics speak about it as presenting emotional and artistic gratification as well, something most games, besides perhaps being praised for their realistic graphics, are not recognized for. Finally, Christopher Martin, in his review, commented, “Shadow of the Colossus is a very important game that shows original concepts can reign supreme - it takes video gaming to a higher form of art that is rarely seen anymore and leaves most other games in its very large shadow.” Here Martin goes beyond noting how the game melds entertainment with art by directly comparing SotC to “most other games,” indicating a clear difference in value and worth.

As Kuipers points out, taste is “a pattern of preferences and aversion.” Moreover, Bourdieu argues tastes actually depend largely on one’s aversion, not just attraction, to certain cultural artifacts and products. We define ourselves as much by what we like as by what we don’t like. In paraphrasing Bourdieu, Wilson writes “Taste is a means of distinguishing ourselves from others, the pursuit of distinction.” In reviewing the game, critics distinguished SotC from other videogames by defining its qualities against what they viewed as flaws in what might be called mainstream or popular games. Josh Kramer exemplifies this sentiment when he writes, “Certainly, there is a chance that those who have become adapted to traditional videogame staples like hacking through hordes of enemies, collecting inane trinkets and platform hopping for the sake of platform hopping will find Shadow’s unpretentious gameplay wanting. However, open-minded gamers will find an artistic, thought-provoking masterpiece, and one of the only videogames that can truly be called food for the soul.”

Indeed, other reviewers were just as adamant about pointing out SotC’s uniqueness and distinction “in this age of fast twitch gaming, massive online combat and (oftentimes) mindless gameplay.” In addition, when speaking about the game’s developers, many critics shared the sentiment that other developers, by contrast, “don't have Picasso or Michelangelo swimming through the back of their cranium while they're placing a gun in the hands of some generic hero.” Here not only is SotC placed above the standard shooting game fare but its hero, even while nameless (if you look hard enough, you’ll discover it’s Wanda or Wanderer), is positioned as more interesting and original than his generic competition. Finally, other reviews mirror this largely agreed upon sentiment that SotC offers “something other than a simple button mashing experience” and tells us more about ourselves than “we like to watch things blow up.” Clearly, as Bourdieu indicates, critics described the game they liked not only by the qualities they admired in it but by the ways it differed significantly from games and genres they find tired, boring, and well-worn. They wanted to get across the fact that SotC is not like other games, and that it’s better for it.

In the debate over whether videogames will ever be considered art or part of legitimate or highbrow culture, many gamers continually reference Shadow of the Colossus when trying to argue that games not only can be art, they already are. As noted previously, Roger Ebert’s comments regarding the inability of videogames to ever be legitimate art ruffled many gamers’ feathers. In the critical wake of SotC’s release, they fashioned their artistic treasure as the perfect weapon in the battle for the legitimacy of games as art. On his personal blog, Whales Tales responds to Ebert’s claim by writing, “How are video games to grow as an art form, when the nay-sayers like Roger Ebert, won't even admit to their significance? The short answer is, they'll do it kicking and screaming, like every art form that has come before it. The long answer is: Shadow of the Colossus.” Additionally, one reviewer comments, “I’ve just completed the first title I’d enter in the ‘Games Are Art’ camp opposite film judge Roger Ebert’s arrogant stance to the opposite,” later emphasizing how SotC belongs to a class all its own. Presumably this class is at the top of the canon for highbrow videogames. Finally, in direct response to the claims made by Ebert, and several others, that there has not been a Citizen Kane of videogames, Steerpike retorts, “Shadow of the Colossus holds that honor; it deserves comparison to nothing less. Like Citizen Kane, it is not flawless, and there are those who will not understand it . . . [but f]or those who do commit, they're in for a treat the likes of which they cannot imagine.” After critics championed SotC’s ability to fuse entertainment and artistic sensibility and overtly distinguished it from mainstream games, the gaming community adopted their language and began to use SotC as an example of highbrow videogames in debates such as the one Ebert began.

In a similar dispute, Ernest Adams asks in an op-ed piece on Gamasutra whether the reason games aren’t taken seriously as cultural artifacts is because there are no highbrow games. His claim, like the Citizen Kane claim before it, is that there is no videogame equivalent to the Merchant Ivory highbrow movies in the film industry. Like Ebert’s argument before him, Adams caused a fuss amongst certain gamers. In one letter sent in response to Adams’ article, a gamer points out that both Ico and SotC should be counted as highbrow games, adding, “If those two don't fit the "highbrow" bill, I don't know what does.” Likewise, in a forum thread related to Adams op-ed piece, the very first response post reads, “Both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus transcend simple "gamehood" and, to me at least, stand as true works of interactive art. A game doesn't have to be stilted and boring to be highbrow.” In a separate article, Adams eventually responded to the flurry of emails and forum posts. Directly responding to the claim by many that Ico and Shadow of the Colossus represent highbrow games, he writes, “I’m all for more of this, no question. Whether or not an innovative game is highbrow depends partially on the extent to which it avoids clichés of the medium.” I would also argue, although Adams may not agree, that whether or not a videogame is highbrow depends largely on if the gaming community positions it and defines it as such. In the case of SotC, the discourse surrounding the game clearly identifies it as culturally superior to most other games.

Shadow of the Colossus was consecrated and placed atop the canon of legitimate art games first by critics and tastemakers and then by the consumers who subscribe to them. One might be tempted to argue that much of this consecration was done by critics who all loved the game; however, there were several reviewers who believed the game to be flawed but still considered it “a beautiful, original, and compelling game.” Ebert was prepared to call videogames “elegant, subtle, sophisticated, challenging and visually wonderful,” but he was not prepared to call them art or anything beyond simple entertainment. The gaming community, however, including its tastemakers and cultural practitioners, seems ready to elevate certain games within the medium, such as SotC, creating a hierarchical ladder of artistic and spiritual merit among games. Interactivity, to gamers, is not a hindrance to games being considered high art or culturally significant. It’s a given. As Patricia Cormack suggested in her review of Bergesen’s book, I have tried to emphasize and highlight the part the critic, the consumer, and the fan play in making a product – in this case, the videogame Shadow of the Colossus - what it is and the power dynamics and discourse that dictate aesthetic taste. As Kuipers noted about television, it is difficult to try to find the gradation between high and low culture within a medium that is itself relegated to a lowbrow status. Nonetheless, by analyzing the gaming communities discourse, it becomes clear that these distinctions and gradations do occur and are actively negotiated and discussed. Perhaps videogames will never have their Citizen Kane; however, many gamers might shrug over this and respond, well, film will never have its Shadow of the Colossus.

*For the actual document, complete with end notes and references, please leave a comment or email me.