Artist or Creator?

[ThrobbingEgo]

Okay, number one, the game designer is like the director. The director is the auteur of the film, the video game designer is the auteur of a video game. The person in a movie blowing shit up isn't the artist, he's the special effects guy. The people in charge of the tech behind the HDR lighting are special effects guys. Character designs? Makeup and costume.

You might as well say movie directing is a science or psychology. You might as well say that about a writer. You could say the same thing about a composer. I'd say you're wrong in making that distinction away from artist.

Sorry, but game design is what I do for a living and I'd never equate it to being a director -- not on a large team, at least. It's a flattering analogy, but half of us deal in abstracts and psychology while the other half deal in mathematical formulas and spreadsheets. The "director" is the project's collective leads and often the producer.

On a small team, I'd happily concede to the designer taking the equivalent role of the director.

I was referring to a designer like Ken Levine or Shigeru Miyamoto. Not the guy who balances out the games. Maybe we're using a different terms for them? Creative lead? Who decides what goes into the game? Who controls the mise-en-scene?

Anyway, you know what I'm getting on about. For a games as art discussion, check this out. [http://www.destructoid.com/the-memory-card-20-the-message-in-the-glass-48554.phtml] This goes back to my crazy Cahiers du Cinema statement in the above post.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

Gameplay is the 'canvas' or tools of the art.
Game resources (graphics (unless its photorealistic) & music) are art.
Game story is art.

Games themselves arent art, but they use art.

Does a movie or a play use art "assets"? (Costume, stage, lighting.) Does that mean the plays and movies themselves not art?

Why aren't games art?

 

[RollForInitiative]

I was referring to a designer like Ken Levine or Shigeru Miyamoto. Not the guy who balances out the games. Maybe we're using a different terms for them? Creative lead? Who decides what goes into the game? Who controls the mise-en-scene?

Ah, I follow what you mean. We did indeed have our terms mixed up. I suppose in that case it would be the creative directors or similar titles, but they're still not as responsible for as much as people think. I suppose that's the curse of the rank-and-file though; do the work, get no credit. No one person is truly deserving of the amount of credit they are given, but that's off-topic for this thread.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

I was referring to a designer like Ken Levine or Shigeru Miyamoto. Not the guy who balances out the games. Maybe we're using a different terms for them? Creative lead? Who decides what goes into the game? Who controls the mise-en-scene?

Ah, I follow what you mean. We did indeed have our terms mixed up. I suppose in that case it would be the creative directors or similar titles, but they're still not as responsible for as much as people think. I suppose that's the curse of the rank-and-file though; do the work, get no credit. No one person is truly deserving of the amount of credit they are given, but that's off-topic for this thread.

Anyway, regardless, did you see the second paragraph? I believe I edited it in while you were replying. Don't you think that kind of thing, discussed in my link, is artful game design?

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

Gameplay is the 'canvas' or tools of the art.
Game resources (graphics (unless its photorealistic) & music) are art.
Game story is art.

Games themselves arent art, but they use art.

Does a movie or a play use art "assets"? (Costume, stage, lighting.) Does that mean the plays and movies themselves not art?

Why aren't games art?

Games are interactive fiction. Only the fiction is art, the interaction is simply interaction. You dont alter the games reality for the fiction nothing you do will take the games reality outside of the games designers imagination. So.... Gameplay isnt art, Games are primarily game play hence the name game & not movie so ... Games use art they arent artisitic.

A movie or a play is telling a story, the story is art the props are not artistic they are props. Unless they are created (primarily special effects) they are emulations of reality & therefore are unexceptional. The dictionary definition of art requires skilled creation to elicit aesthetic or emotional response. Driftwood isnt art, a stylised table made of drift wood is.

I disagree, because music - the instrumental kind, not the lyrical kind - doesn't tell a story. Neither do many paintings. In film, the photography is an art. In music, the tension and rhythm is the art. Am I being unreasonable saying that a game itself, by virtue of its game play, could be art? I don't think I am.

Remember that games are a very diverse medium. What is considered a video game can range from frogger, to a simulation of DnD, to The Sims. Not all the games have to have a narrative, but that doesn't neccesarially exclude them from being art.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

The games resources are art as I wrote (Reading is fun) gameplay is a mechanism of interaction. Unless your control mechanism & the intended effects are endless & allow creativity beyond the intent of the maker (The Movies for example, even though the game has nothing to do with the creation of the movies) and then the game becomes a tool to create art not art itself.

This is a video game forum so Im talking about video games as is the OP & everyone else here. A simulation of D&D ? do you mean using D&D mechanics to tell a story or replicating a gaming table to tell a story whilst playing D&D ? Yes it kind of does need a narrative a game without any objective is a sandbox, literally. Are you trying to say a childs sand box is art ?

Wait, how fancy a sand box are we talking here?

...

What I'm trying to ask is, why can we look at a theater production as a work of art as a whole, but when we get to video games we're all reductionist? This part of a game is art! This isn't! You don't go to a movie saying that the sequence of shots is less art than the makeup design. They're all elements of the greater work. In a game, the gameplay should be included in that. Or so I'd think.

I say that a video game as a whole can be art. Not just the bits and pieces of other mediums that happen to be included within a game.

About my other point - A DnD simulation needs a fairly detailed story, a game like frogger doesn't.

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

Actually I dont consider cinematography to be an art form, it is the documentation of a actor playing a role in a story. I dont consider photography to b an artform either for the same reason. I think art requires creation & individuality.

And this is why we disagree. You can get that individuality in film through a director's vision. The mise-en-scene, the world on stage - what the director chooses to show. You might not consider cinema or photography art, and, uh, in that case it'd be somewhat of a leap for me to convince you that video games are art. But cinema and photography are recognized as "legitimate" forms of art and by this same rationale, I believe video games are too. As a whole, not just in part.

You ever take a film studies class?

 

[ThrobbingEgo]

Actually I dont consider cinematography to be an art form, it is the documentation of a actor playing a role in a story. I dont consider photography to b an artform either for the same reason. I think art requires creation & individuality.

And this is why we disagree. You can get that individuality in film through a director's vision. The mise-en-scene, the world on stage - what the director chooses to show. You might not consider cinema or photography art, and, uh, in that case it'd be somewhat of a leap for me to convince you that video games are art. But cinema and photography are recognized as "legitimate" forms of art and by this same rationale, I believe video games are too. As a whole, not just in part.

You ever take a film studies class?

They are recording a staged reality & cutting it for timing & angle. One can over analyse telling a story, especially if the director is pretentious enough to state his intentions. Actually its worse than that hes so poor at telling the story he has to tell people what its about. No wait it gets worse he is imposing his will over someone elses story instead of writing his own oh wait no even worse people are gaining acedemic credit for critiquing a film which they should be doing anyway.

Or maybe you don't know a whole lot about the process of making a film. I'm not trying to insult you - there's just *might* be more to film making than you'd think. My dad's a screen writer (and a producer/director), I grew up with this stuff. I also completed a film studies class with very favorable grades. It's not my intention to use my experience as a "I'm right, you're wrong" show of force for this argument - it's just that this is a serious course of study, and there's nuance here.


You might want to look into auteur theory [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auteur_theory] a bit. It's all about why the director is considered the "author" or a film. I'm sure some writer for the Cahiers du Cinema could do it more justice than whatever I'd pull out of my ass, if you can dig up the articles referenced.

 

[Charisma]

Artist = Creator