David Jaffe Dumps on "Art Games"

[Tomo Stryker]

He's behind God of War. A generic consoley game with as much quality narrative as a re-enactment of sesame street by drunken Icelandic sailors. A game with as much mechanical complexity as an IKEA bought cheese grader, and an art direction so populistic it could give Joseph Goebbels a run for his Deutsche Mark.

Where is the +respect button, you sir deserve it.

 

[Saelune]

I think I understand what he is saying, but he is taking it to the extreme. If I am right, he is saying a game's merits is not its visuals, but its mechanics. Sort of saying he prefers games to have personallity, not just a pretty face.

 

[mjc0961]

He's behind God of War. A generic consoley game with as much quality narrative as a re-enactment of sesame street by drunken Icelandic sailors. A game with as much mechanical complexity as an IKEA bought cheese grader, and an art direction so populistic it could give Joseph Goebbels a run for his Deutsche Mark.

And if that's what you think about God of War, fine. I won't try to tell you that you're wrong to think that about the game. I will however tell you that none of what you just said makes the game shovelware, because that is not what shovelware is.

These are examples of shovelware:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Coach
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagine_%28video_game_series%29

The point being piles and piles and piles of low quality crap. Piles so big that you need a shovel to dig through it all (hence the term shovelware). There are 5 God of War games (2 on PS2, 1 on PS3, 2 on PSP), and Jaffe only had a hand in the PS2 titles. Thus, God of War does not qualify him to be called a "shovelware creator", because he has done no such thing.

This man is a one man controversy machine. He should team up with Pachter, Kanye West, and Yahtzee to make the most controversial gaming statement of all time.

Excuse me good sir, but what do you have against Pachter? I'm not defending the guy, but he does seem to be 50/50 most of the time.

I'm not Onyx, but while we're talking about Pachter, let me tell you my problem with him. It's that he's either stating the obvious, or he's completely missing the point and making a very stupid and incorrect statement. Take today's "EA & Activision Dismiss NDP Data [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108459-EA-Activision-Dismiss-NPD-Data]" article. It talks about how EA and Activision feel that the NDP's monthly reports that only discuss retail sales and not digital sales are misleading and possibly irrelevant. Pachter, in his eternal idiocy, says "EA saying physical game sales don't matter is like Best Buy saying television sales don't matter." Okay, that's nice Pachter. Except EA didn't say that physical game sales don't matter, so what the fuck are you talking about?! They said that physical sales aren't the only kind of sales out there and only talking about those sales is misleading (which is true). But does Pachter care? No. He just wants to see his name in more articles so he can get a few +1's toward his e-peen.

 

[Tomo Stryker]

I'm not Onyx, but while we're talking about Pachter, let me tell you my problem with him. It's that he's either stating the obvious, or he's completely missing the point and making a very stupid and incorrect statement. Take today's "EA & Activision Dismiss NDP Data [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108459-EA-Activision-Dismiss-NPD-Data]" article. It talks about how EA and Activision feel that the NDP's monthly reports that only discuss retail sales and not digital sales are misleading and possibly irrelevant. Pachter, in his eternal idiocy, says "EA saying physical game sales don't matter is like Best Buy saying television sales don't matter." Okay, that's nice Pachter. Except EA didn't say that physical game sales don't matter, so what the fuck are you talking about?! They said that physical sales aren't the only kind of sales out there and only talking about those sales is misleading. But does Pachter care? No. He just wants to see his name in more articles so he can get a few +1's toward his e-peen.

You got a point, but that wasn't the exact impression I got from him. But I mean what are you going to do? There will always people like him, he just seems less like a douche than others ya know?

 

[Aurgelmir]

Does it bother anyone else that our "industry giants" cant agree amongst themselves on the whole are games art thing?

No



I personally do not think games needs to be art, for that reason. Nobody can decide what it means for games to be an art, because art is subjective.

I just want the developers to make games I want to play, just as I want movie makers to make good movies. I could care less about if it is art or not.

Besides my favorite game of the past few years, StarCraft2, is more or less considered a sport. So can a sport be an art? and if not what happens to e-sports the day games become only art?

I know those questions are silly, but my point stand: Why does games NEED to be art?

 

[mjc0961]

I'm not Onyx, but while we're talking about Pachter, let me tell you my problem with him. It's that he's either stating the obvious, or he's completely missing the point and making a very stupid and incorrect statement. Take today's "EA & Activision Dismiss NDP Data [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/108459-EA-Activision-Dismiss-NPD-Data]" article. It talks about how EA and Activision feel that the NDP's monthly reports that only discuss retail sales and not digital sales are misleading and possibly irrelevant. Pachter, in his eternal idiocy, says "EA saying physical game sales don't matter is like Best Buy saying television sales don't matter." Okay, that's nice Pachter. Except EA didn't say that physical game sales don't matter, so what the fuck are you talking about?! They said that physical sales aren't the only kind of sales out there and only talking about those sales is misleading. But does Pachter care? No. He just wants to see his name in more articles so he can get a few +1's toward his e-peen.

You got a point, but that wasn't the exact impression I got from him. But I mean what are you going to do? There will always people like him, he just seems less like a douche than others ya know?

No I don't know. He seems like a total douche to me. He's the kind of douche that should be sent a copy of this video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_QDGdbg-QQ] and be forced to watch it repeatedly until he has a Grinch-style change of heart and decides to stop saying things, no matter how inaccurate or irrelevant, just to get his name mentioned in more news articles.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

I tend to agree with him. The art of making a game is making the game enjoyable to play. It is an interactive medium, remember? If you manage to do that in an innovative way props to you, but if you're just making the game look "arty" and not playing to the medium's strengths, you're still making art, just not video game art.

Does it bother anyone else that our "industry giants" cant agree amongst themselves on the whole are games art thing?

No



I personally do not think games needs to be art, for that reason. Nobody can decide what it means for games to be an art, because art is subjective.

I just want the developers to make games I want to play, just as I want movie makers to make good movies. I could care less about if it is art or not.

Besides my favorite game of the past few years, StarCraft2, is more or less considered a sport. So can a sport be an art? and if not what happens to e-sports the day games become only art?

I know those questions are silly, but my point stand: Why does games NEED to be art?

Let's take that back a step even further and say "Nobody can decide what it means for anything to be an art".

 

[Tomo Stryker]

No I don't know. He seems like a total douche to me. He's the kind of douche that should be sent a copy of this video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_QDGdbg-QQ] and be forced to watch it repeatedly until he has a Grinch-style change of heart and decides to stop saying things, no matter how inaccurate or irrelevant, just to get his name mentioned in more news articles.

Hey man its your opinion, but I respectfully disagree.

Funny link though, should definitely save that and use it later on, thanks.

 

[Lokithrsourcerer]

I disagree entirely; I think that by trumpeting the potential of the medium, we ultimately attract new artists who push new frontiers, and that encourages innovation, not stagnation. The assumption that it has to be a zero-sum game is entirely fallacious. But for anyone interested in the games as art debate, it's well worth reading. Check out the whole thing a

perhaps I've misunderstood but to me it seems that he is saying that attention being taken away from other games is the problem combined with games that are bad being given a free ride by claiming to be artistic.

I would say that there isn't a problem giving art games some of the spotlight but traditional games should not be pushed aside in he process and that spot light should still illuminate the flaws in these games as well as the qualities. at the end of a day if a game is a bad game its a bad game and all games/gametypes should be represented without any being left to stagnate. even if that means we find out they're crap.

just because a game has lots of violence and guns or whatever doesn't mean it cant be art. I think the problem is people are confusing "art" with pretentiousness

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

He has a point.

We are so worked up about games like portal and shadow of collusios that we miss the art that goes on in simple stuff like "super gore fighter 2 THE XTERME!".

I think he's talking more about games like "Limbo" that have really crap gameplay but are praised as art solely because they're cryptic and stylized. Shadow of the colossus was actually good when you got to the "killing mountains with legs" parts.

 

[Twilight_guy]

He's conflating pretentious art and regular art. Every book can be categorized as art but not every book is about bullshit pretentious philosophy in the same way any game can be art but not every game is about bullshit pretentious slow wind blowing non-sense. Games already fit into the same social structure as art, within the more exclusive cultural group of course, and its not about the subject matter or physical form so much as it is about the way we treat something or perceive it.

 

[lord waffles of taco]

thats what hes saying the games can have nice art but they also have to have good pacing and game play like shadow of colossus

 

[gibboss28]

I agree completely with what he's saying and he makes a good point which unfortunately is covered in ramblings

 

[GeorgW]

This man is a one man controversy machine. He should team up with Pachter, Kanye West, and Yahtzee to make the most controversial gaming statement of all time.

Sounds like a plan!

He does have a point, like moviebob says, "Games are toys!" But there is a golden medium, why can't games like shadow of the colossus and Duke Nukem co-exist?

 

[ObsessiveSketch]

I think he's got more of an issue with the games that try too hard to be artsy, AKA:
<youtube=xI2MQkihhM4&feature=related>

 

[KrazyKain]

We're talking about a dude who designed a game about a big manly demi god cutting up bodies like a hot knife through butter, and having sex at least one point in every game...

does this really sound like the person you want to be taking art advice from?

 

[Mouse One]

I think he's got more of an issue with the games that try too hard to be artsy, AKA:
<youtube=xI2MQkihhM4&feature=related>

Is the problem with that clip that it's surrealist? Or is it just that it's not very good? Take the old "Bingo the Clown" Maya/CG demonstration-- I'd argue that stylistically, it's in the same catagory as your example. But it's also well done:

<youtube=1OBUj-LBsVo&feature=related>

 

[ObsessiveSketch]

snip

Is the problem with that clip that it's surrealist? Or is it just that it's not very good? Take the old "Bingo the Clown" Maya/CG demonstration-- I'd argue that stylistically, it's in the same catagory as your example. But it's also well done:

<youtube=1OBUj-LBsVo&feature=related>

Lol, no. It's a real-life reenactment of a clip from Family Guy. Said clip was purposefully poking fun at surrealistic films, specifically the notion that if it's weird enough and completely incomprehensible, it must be "fine art". My point was that Jaffe isn't dumping on artistic games, but rather games that try too hard to be "artsy".

Btw, that video's awesome, thanks for sharing it.

 

[Jumplion]

"Yeah! Games are about fun man! We don't need no stinkin' pretentious dickweed art games! We just want to blow shit up, who gives a crap about story, it's the game part of Video games, man! GO JAFFE!"

Augh, I hate the "fun = explosions" crowd. Fun means you are enjoying yourself, and yes, all games should try to do that. Fun does not mean explosions everywhere, with a side of blood and maybe tits.

I prefer to use the term "entertaining" becaues that is the core of any successful medium. Anything in a game can be "entertaining", whether it's the story, gameplay, or the cartoony visuals. Schindler's List wasn't "fun" but it did "entertain" its audience to an extent with a gripping, yet tragic, story of the holocaust.

snip

I do recall you getting into debates in Extra Credits videos, though I never bothered to read what you guys argued about. Still, I find it difficult to disagree with you with your dashing, European charm since we seem to be on the same boat here pretty much.

I am a huge advocate of "balance" and "middle-ness-es" stuff. You need to have a balanced diet of junk foods and healthier ones, you need a balance of criticizing and praising your children in what they do, you need a balance in government power and citizen control, and you need a balance of story and gameplay to make a truly good game. Sometimes an extreme is needed, like you need to gain weight for a boxing match, or war is on the horizon, and while I do enjoy the occasional extremes in the "entertaining" and "meaningful" sides of the games, in the end the best games utilize both the story and the gameplay to its advantage.

 

[Mouse One]

snip

Is the problem with that clip that it's surrealist? Or is it just that it's not very good? Take the old "Bingo the Clown" Maya/CG demonstration-- I'd argue that stylistically, it's in the same catagory as your example. But it's also well done:


Lol, no. It's a real-life reenactment of a clip from Family Guy. Said clip was purposefully poking fun at surrealistic films, specifically the notion that if it's weird enough and completely incomprehensible, it must be "fine art". My point was that Jaffe isn't dumping on artistic games, but rather games that try too hard to be "artsy".

Btw, that video's awesome, thanks for sharing it.

Oh, I get it now. There's always some slow kid in the room that doesn't get the joke, guess that was me this time. In that light, yeah, there's a lot of pretentious film student drek out there. They emulate the style of some of the old masterpieces (there is a lot of good film noir out there, after all), but miss the whole point of, well, having a point.

I don't think that's a problem with videogames, though. I just haven't seen that many deliberately pretentious art videogames, at least on the mass market level. I know some people didn't like The Path, for example, but it really does have a point. One might find the game play far too slow, but now we're just evaluating it on the basis of whether it succeeds, not whether the sub-genre of exploratory environments is flawed by its very nature.

I guess I'm just trying to say that "art" games aren't bad, games with bad art are bad. If that makes any sense.