266: Videogame Myths Debunked

[Eri]

40 percent of gamers are women (42 percent in an online capacity)

I've said this before and I'll say it again. This is false. These statistics include girls who sit on facebook all day and play farmville as "gamers". If they sit around and play wii fit and sometimes play bejeweled online that they are a "gamer". These people are not gamers. They may occasionaly play a game, but that doesn't make them a gamer. (Obviously doesn't apply to all women, don't jump on me)

 

[AngryMongoose]

only 7 percent of conversation is the words themselves, the rest is tone of voice, body language, facial expression and the like.

Only 7% of in-the-flesh conversation is verbal. 100% of online conversation is made up of speech (including tone of voice) or whatever we can get to show on the screen

And 63% of statistics are made up. Far, FAR, more than 7% of communication is verbal. The most you can get accross with tone and body language is basic emotion; something that can be effectively, often better, transfered through words. Various artforms are devoted to this. Everything other than that basic emotion is communicated through words; just try communicating without them.

 

[SonicWaffle]

Debate here! Portal? It's a quirky, funny puzzle game. A work of art? Not even close. Just being different doesn't make it art. Ocarina of Time? Immersive. Excellent game. Solid narrative. Doesn't make it a work of art. Same with BioShock.

Good graphics, music and/or narrative do not make games artistic. None of those games I mentioned (Having not played Braid of Shadow of the Colossus) have gameplay which helps acheive an artistic vision. The closest games I've played have been Ico and I Wanna Be The Guy.

The Mona Lisa? Just a picture of a woman with a wonky smile. Nice to look at, but art? No. The Lord of the Rings? Immersive, great book, solid narrative. Doesn't make it a work of art. The Godfather had a fantastic story and masterful acting, along with solid direction, but does that make it art?

My point here is that the arguments you're using against those games being art can equally be used against things which the majority of people do consider art. To me, art means something that'll evoke emotions, really make me feel something. I'm currently re-playing the original Mass Effect, and just the other day I finished Noveria. Since I'm the kind of guy who always plays the good guy, I'm being evil on this playthrough, which meant killing the Rachni queen:

It genuinely upset me. Despite being, at the back of my mind, fully aware that it was a fictional character I felt awful when I made the decision to kill her. I had a much more powerful emotional reaction from a simple choice in a video game than I would have to most classical works of art. That is the "artistic vision" that games are aiming to achieve - to make us feel, whether it's exultation at finally beating a boss, joy at a happy ending, fear when stumbling around Silent Hill in the fog or anger at ourselves for what we've chosen to do within the game.

 

[Dhatz]

I disagree that single player is still the gaming cornerstone. Yes, you still have your RPGs like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, but games such as Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Modern Warfare 2 are all about the multiplayer. In my opinion, the single player campaigns felt sort of tacked onto the multiplayer experience.

and Alien swarm, Left 4 deads, etfc.

4 the article author: I'll show you what casual is: tutorial to gaming.

 

[H0ncho]

A better title for this piece would be:

7 THINGS I AM VERY UPSET ABOUT

In order to call something a "myth debunk" you should have pretty incontrovertible evidence on your side. The author claims several things that are based upon loose definitions, such as the "games as art"-problem, are myths.

Also he repeats piss poor statistics, like those on the gender issue. Not to mention that he thinks hardcore gaming isn't dying because Red Dead Redemption sold well...

All in all an interesting opinion piece but nothing like myth-debunking.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

A few points I'd like to touch.
..
__
Games have no artistic merit. This is something that is up for debate. And mentioning a few games and then claiming your argument to be foolproof is absolutely the worst kind of fallacious argumentation in my honest opinion. It's absolutely ridiculous.

Now, to the actual issue. I don't think of games as art because they are not something you merely gaze at. I don't think art is something you interact with. I would call games a utility or an application of sorts. Even if the point is entertainment. With no practical applications, but maybe mental or psychological applications (we need something to keep our spirits up).

You gaze a pictures, and maybe discuss them. You listen to music. You don't do these kind of things with games.
I would like to stress, however, that this is my opinion on games as art.

While I do agree with you that just spouting examples without giving them context or further explanation, I also disagree with your idea that something isn't art just because it has utility use and "clams us down" (I can think of tons of calming music).

I would argue my self, but since your argument was the same as Roger Ebert's ill fated reasoning, and I don't think I can word this better, I will post the Game Overthinker's (aka moviebob's) respounce to him as my counter argument. http://screwattack.com/videos/TGO-Episode-35-A-Response-to-Roger-Ebert

 

[bglamb]

I have to say I am very disappointed with the opening of this article. To open with such a controversial topic (games causing violence) and then 'debunk' it in one short paragraph with no evidence or references or, seemingly, any actual research done into the subject seems very lazy.

Like the second 'myth' you tackle, these are issues that interest me, and that I have read a lot about. I'm not saying games cause violence, but there is an awful lot of scientific research which has been done on the topic, with the usual variety of results.

You seem to have got away with this due to the fact that you're writing to a particularly biased audience (male gamers), but it's bad science and terrible journalism.

If you're going to tell me that what I think is wrong, you're going to need to back it up a little more than just saying "The blunt fact is...".

And games causing violence isn't a cliché, it's a real issue, and if you want to address it, you need to know what you're talking about.

I'm sure everyone else on this comments page will tear me apart for that, since people like to hold convictions and then worry about finding proof for them afterwards, but I'm afraid the evidence DOES matter.

Similarly with your comments on games and intelligence. IQ tests are designed to be unaffected by a person's experience. If playing games raised your IQ test score, then the IQ test would be broken. There is however a lot of research being done into the application of intelligence, and that games can be used as a valuable tool. Again, this just stinks of you having done no research. A two paragraph debunk, which seems to only address the issues that Brain Traning is rubbish (I could have told you that) and that the people who play video games are no more likely to be smart (a very different statement to the one you were supposed to be debunking).

 

[CitySquirrel]

only 7 percent of conversation is the words themselves, the rest is tone of voice, body language, facial expression and the like. so you see, the seemingly social aspects of mmo's and online gaming is really a tiny snippet of actual socialising. its just not very social.

%7? Where does that statistic come from? That seems like a very small amount, especially since words are crucial to expressing any idea beyond basic mood or intent. Also, like Scobie said, people have developed ways to express these things online. It is why you say "lol" after a joke... no one is really laughing, but it is a form of punctuation denoting "JOKE HERE". Or why you add "=)" so that the person knows it was said with pleasant intent. In fact, internet emotional punctuation might be plainer than peoples body language and facial expressions.

 

[JEBWrench]

The Mona Lisa? Just a picture of a woman with a wonky smile. Nice to look at, but art? No. The Lord of the Rings? Immersive, great book, solid narrative. Doesn't make it a work of art. The Godfather had a fantastic story and masterful acting, along with solid direction, but does that make it art?

The difference here, and the crux of my point, is that those aforementioned pieces take full advantage of the entirety of the medium they are in, rather than a few pieces.

Until GAMEPLAY can be used to effectively convey artistic vision, than video games will not be an artistic medium, rather than a collection of other media.

Until the experience of a game can somehow evoke the question of "why am I pressing X to jump" in a contextual sense, then I stand by my earlier statement.

 

[Delusibeta]

I'd imagine the No Girls In Gaming myth is an extention of No Girls on the Internet fallacy. I think there was an Escapist article on that, back in the early issues.

 

[bglamb]

Until the experience of a game can somehow evoke the question of "why am I pressing X to jump" in a contextual sense, then I stand by my earlier statement.

You need to play more games. There is lots of this out there.

I read a recent quote attacking a similar point of view regarding popular games which went along these lines...


Criticising gaming as a medium while only referring to the commercial game scene is like watching the top 10 hollywood blockbusters and then claiming that films cannot be art.

There is a lot of good stuff going on in the indie game scene. Get into it. It's art, and the kids love it. Win.


EDIT: Also, claiming the the Mona Lisa takes full advantage of the medium of 'paint on canvas' is absolute Bull.

 

[Helmutye]

In order for a game to have artistic merit, its gameplay must help achieve its artistic vision.


Debate here! Portal? It's a quirky, funny puzzle game. A work of art? Not even close. Just being different doesn't make it art. Ocarina of Time? Immersive. Excellent game. Solid narrative. Doesn't make it a work of art. Same with BioShock.

Good graphics, music and/or narrative do not make games artistic. None of those games I mentioned (Having not played Braid of Shadow of the Colossus) have gameplay which helps acheive an artistic vision. The closest games I've played have been Ico and I Wanna Be The Guy.

What is an artistic vision, and how does a game like Portal fail to achieve such a thing? It makes some very statements about science without ethics, and these statements are made much more profound by the fact that YOU are the rat running around in the maze. You're not simply watching it, or reading about it, or hearing it, but rather you become that role and get to experience it first hand. That is the artistry of a game--you get to see it from the inside.

Take the ending sequence of Portal (SPOILER!). When fighting Glados you knock off pieces of her, and drop them into an incinerator, but while you're carrying the pieces they talk to you. If you listen to what each one says, it's clear that they each represent a cornerstone of science. And the first module to go (and in science, the first thing people forget) is Ethics. After that is Curiosity (the module keeps asking you a bunch of questions "Who are you? Where are we going? What's that?), then Logic (the module flatly spits out a bunch of mathematical mumbo-jumbo), and finally Frenzied Zealotry (the last module snarling and hissing at you as you carry it). The fact that you are destroying them is really satirical.

So there you have symbolism, metaphor, social commentary, satire, and a vision. That sounds pretty artistic to me. That's more than many movies have. And the gameplay is the medium by which this is all conveyed. It wouldn't work if you simply watched it like a movie, or looked at a screen shot like a painting. You have to play it to feel it.

In addition, almost every game incorporates several elements that, by themselves, would meet most peoples' criteria for art--artwork, music, story, etc. What about a game de-artistic-ates these elements? I think we can all agree that a picture a video game artist draws is art, when it's just on a piece of paper or scanned into a PC screen. Why does it become non-art when it is part of a game?

Ultimately, Art is just a word, and this whole debate is a silly dispute over word definitions. And regardless of what anyone else thinks, games are art to ME. I suppose you can make your own decisions about that. But I would argue that, at this point, games exhibit so many similarities with other accepted mediums of art that it is up to someone to prove why games are NOT art.

 

[JEBWrench]

You need to play more games. There is lots of this out there.

Criticising gaming as a medium while only referring to the commercial game scene is like watching the top 10 hollywood blockbusters and then claiming that films cannot be art.

Having been a gamer of all sorts for the past 20+ years, I think I can debunk the "you need to play more games" thing.

There is a lot of good stuff going on in the indie game scene. Get into it. It's art, and the kids love it. Win.

EDIT: Also, claiming the the Mona Lisa takes full advantage of the medium of 'paint on canvas' is absolute Bull.

From the indie game scene, The Path and World of Goo come close, as does the aforementioned I Wanna Be The Guy. Miegakure looks extremely promising.

As for the Mona Lisa, like any paint on canvas, there's more than just the picture. There's the use of broad vs. narrow brush strokes, the blending of color, the choice of what kind of paints. Direction of strokes, orientation and perspective of subjects.

 

[JEBWrench]

Ultimately, Art is just a word, and this whole debate is a silly dispute over word definitions. And regardless of what anyone else thinks, games are art to ME. I suppose you can make your own decisions about that. But I would argue that, at this point, games exhibit so many similarities with other accepted mediums of art that it is up to someone to prove why games are NOT art.

Except that, and this is where Portal falls flat:

The Gameplay itself is still separated from the artistic experience. Cinema manages to make the collective experience of group viewing be an integral part of the artistic experience.

Games as of yet fail to take advantage of their single greatest difference between other media.

 

[Captain Booyah]

Whoever wrote that article for the Telegraph gave me rage. They're the kind of women who give the rest of us a bad name, by obsessing over falling in love and white weddings and eventually having 2.1 children. I'm not saying that anything about this is wrong (albeit annoying), and that there's not genuine gaming addicts out there ruining relationships, but by God, they don't half support the stereotype that anything outside that realm of domestic perfection is shockingly outrageous.

Gee, lady, ever think that your husband just wants to escape to a world that doesn't contain his nagging wife?

More OT: That thing about around 40% of the gaming market are girls. Is that entirely accurate? Because I'd imagine that for some girls, qualifying as a 'gamer' would be mostly playing games like FarmVille, Wii Fit, etc.

 

[Scobie]

DELETED

 

[Nincompoop]

snip

While I do agree with you that just spouting examples without giving them context or further explanation, I also disagree with your idea that something isn't art just because it has utility use and "clams us down" (I can think of tons of calming music).

Music that is calming is not art, by being calming, if that makes sense. If you would create a tune which would invoke a certain feeling, I wouldn't call it art. Neither is music art by definition, and using that, combined with examples of music that can be used as an application, isn't a valid argument in my opinion.

I would argue my self, but since your argument was the same as Roger Ebert's ill fated reasoning, and I don't think I can word this better, I will post the Game Overthinker's (aka moviebob's) respounce to him as my counter argument. http://screwattack.com/videos/TGO-Episode-35-A-Response-to-Roger-Ebert

After watching the video, I can only say that I simply don't think of art the same way. I wouldn't call a movie art, and I am partially to the side where there shouldn't be a collaboration of talents and minds when it comes to art.

Having said that, I do find that, perhaps, one specific idea in a game could be called art. Like a specific model (where it comes down to sculpture), or maybe a specific gameplay mechanic, or soundtrack.

But I will never see an entire movie or a game as art. And frankly, it's not as if I put art above anything. In no sense is it derogatory when I say that I don't think games are art.

Also, if I were to publish a big game, and people referred to it as art, I would feel insulted, as art (for me) implies creativity and vision, more than hard work, careful thought, skills and intelligence.

 

[bglamb]

Having been a gamer of all sorts for the past 20+ years, I think I can debunk the "you need to play more games" thing.

From the indie game scene, The Path and World of Goo come close, as does the aforementioned I Wanna Be The Guy. Miegakure looks extremely promising.

As for the Mona Lisa, like any paint on canvas, there's more than just the picture. There's the use of broad vs. narrow brush strokes, the blending of color, the choice of what kind of paints. Direction of strokes, orientation and perspective of subjects.

Well I definitely count World of Goo as a commercial game, both from it's gameplay, the way it was marketed and the amount of money spent on it. If you've played all the the amazingly artistic games out there, including ones which literally do force you to question why you're pressing x to jump, and whether you really should, then I don't know why you disagree with me. I can only assume you are not playing the right games.

I also don't understand why you think World of Goo is more artistic than a hundred other games I could mention. I am coming to the conclusion that you have no taste.

But I can't seriously take your point about the Mona Lisa. Whilst I accept that it has many hidden qualities (far more than I can appreciate), you claimed that it takes "full advantage of the medium", like nothing that's happened in the art world in the last hundred years or so can add anything to the medium that wasn't already present in the Mona Lisa.

 

[JEBWrench]

I also don't understand why you think World of Goo is more artistic than a hundred other games I could mention. I am coming to the conclusion that you have no taste.

I also enjoy the Myst series, so you wouldn't be the first to say that. As for what I was referring to, its gameplay was very much crucial to what the game was trying to convey, even if it was borderline psychotic dark comedy.

But I can't seriously take your point about the Mona Lisa. Whilst I accept that it has many hidden qualities (far more than I can appreciate), you claimed that it takes "full advantage of the medium", like nothing that's happened in the art world in the last hundred years or so can add anything to the medium that wasn't already present in the Mona Lisa.

Taking full advantage of a medium does not mean that the medium cannot be added to. Metropolis is a fine film that took full advantage of the medium, however plenty has been added to the medium since then. It doesn't degenerate Metropolis though. Technological and social factors are also an important part in assessing artwork.

For the record: I'm not saying games cannot be art. I'm saying they haven't quite reached that point yet. And there are lots of games I haven't played, but since I haven't played them, I'm not going to let that change my opinion one way or the other.

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

snip

While I do agree with you that just spouting examples without giving them context or further explanation, I also disagree with your idea that something isn't art just because it has utility use and "clams us down" (I can think of tons of calming music).

Music that is calming is not art, by being calming, if that makes sense. If you would create a tune which would invoke a certain feeling, I wouldn't call it art. Neither is music art by definition, and using that, combined with examples of music that can be used as an application, isn't a valid argument in my opinion.

I would argue my self, but since your argument was the same as Roger Ebert's ill fated reasoning, and I don't think I can word this better, I will post the Game Overthinker's (aka moviebob's) respounce to him as my counter argument. http://screwattack.com/videos/TGO-Episode-35-A-Response-to-Roger-Ebert

After watching the video, I can only say that I simply don't think of art the same way. I wouldn't call a movie art, and I am partially to the side where there shouldn't be a collaboration of talents and minds when it comes to art.

Having said that, I do find that, perhaps, one specific idea in a game could be called art. Like a specific model (where it comes down to sculpture), or maybe a specific gameplay mechanic, or soundtrack.

But I will never see an entire movie or a game as art. And frankly, it's not as if I put art above anything. In no sense is it derogatory when I say that I don't think games are art.

Also, if I were to publish a big game, and people referred to it as art, I would feel insulted, as art (for me) implies creativity and vision, more than hard work, careful thought, skills and intelligence.

Would you define indie games developed by one person as art? There are plenty, like Castle Crashers was entirely programmed by one person while another did ALL the art work. If you need examples of stuff done by ONE person, and ONE person alone, check out Newgrounds.com, which has plenty of great works done by a single entity.