Games as Art--- Why do you think so?

[Chefodeath]

I presume that everyone on this website would say that games are art (me included), my question is why do we think this. I'm a philosophy student and I want to write a paper about why videogames should be considered art. I just want to have a discussion about why we think that games are art and get some tangible reasons to write about.

Thanks

Because there is no solid definition of what constitutes "art". It's just a series of concepts baring family resemblance to each other. Because video games bare some of the elements that can be found amongst what has been previously called art, the idiots of this site decided that it must be art. You can't say they're wrong, but they're definately not right either.

Gamers say games are art because they want the respect afforded to other artistic mediums. Nothing more. Personally, I don't think games have reached the point where they deserve that respect.

 

[NiPah]

I presume that everyone on this website would say that games are art (me included), my question is why do we think this. I'm a philosophy student and I want to write a paper about why videogames should be considered art. I just want to have a discussion about why we think that games are art and get some tangible reasons to write about.

Thanks

You have to provide a definition on what art is, and what a game is for that matter before you can have that answer. There is no consensus on what art actually is, especially in the world of art history and academia you get varying definitions that either allow games to be defined as art or not.

 

[Phlakes]

games are made by artists, that doesnt make games art, if Leonardo made a sandwich it was food not art, if artists make digital entertainment then thats what it is

This is MY PERSONAL opinion, so dont tell me im wrong.

What if Leonardo made a sandwich for the sake of it being art?

 

[Lilani]

I presume that everyone on this website would say that games are art (me included), my question is why do we think this. I'm a philosophy student and I want to write a paper about why videogames should be considered art. I just want to have a discussion about why we think that games are art and get some tangible reasons to write about.

Thanks

If you're looking for an objective or analytical point of view, who makes video games?

Concept artists, modellers, animators, programmers, writers, event and scenario planners, set builders, actors, voice actors, and so many more in specialized or custom roles based on the project (maybe historical or cultural consultants for games steeped in history or lore, or even philosophic consultants for existential subject matter). All of these creators plying their trade, working together to build a specialized experience for the player, or receiver of the experience.

With how loose the definition of art has become since abstract expressionism, I think the fact that so many still oppose the idea of video games being art is just stubborn petulance. Two days ago, I learned about a performance art piece called Seed Bed [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seedbed_(performance_piece)]. Basically the artist hid himself below the wooden floorboards of a gallery and masturbated for 8 hours straight, with the room hooked up to loudspeakers which projected the sounds throughout the gallery. Then in general there's Allan Kaprow's Happenings. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happenings] If individualized experiences like this are considered art, why aren't video games? Of course it would be hard to put Call of Duty on the level of a well thought out happening, but the potential is there. Video games engage the viewer in a way that standard film cannot even come close to.

One of the most vital parts of human experience is interaction. Can you even call someone a human if they've never interacted with anything? That is what video games do--they bring the person in not as a passive viewer, but as a player--someone fully engaged and invested in the current experience. Your role may be as a champion or a warrior, or maybe you're subdued and only capable of small actions. But either way you are there, making calls, being addressed not as someone to be presented something but rather as a part of what is being presented. You learn the most about a person from the way the deal with adversity. And that is what video games can provide that few other mediums can--adversity, challenge, trials. Will you choose to stand in the back and heal your party, or will you take up a warrior class and help them cut down the enemies before you have to heal? Do you rush through the level and get to the princess as fast as possible, or wait around and collect all the goodies and secret treasures you can? Are you the type to press the reset button when you've lost, or will you suffer through the humiliation of the game over screen and let it reset you where it will? These are all elements indicative of someone's character. Games have a huge potential to make us see ourselves in a different light, which has been a common goal of art for nearly a century now.

Again, I think the people who still refuse to admit it's art are really limiting their perspectives. There is far too much you can do with it without there being the potential for art or unique experiences. You can't look at art history and say something as huge and as different as video games aren't the start of a new medium.

 

[Baldr]

Same reason pottery is art - they are things made by human beings designed to elicit a reaction from other human beings.

For me this is the worse type of Art imaginable.

Platonic, Design, Purpose, Mastery of skill is Art. Computers, the space shuttle, a pair of tennis shoes. There are reasons things are mass reproduced. Yeah they are cheap, but they stem from ingenuity and purpose.


And games are art. That just plain stupid to say they are not. The real question is are games part of "High Culture"(High Art)?

 

[Kahunaburger]

Same reason pottery is art - they are things made by human beings designed to elicit a reaction from other human beings.

For me this is the worse type of Art imaginable.

Platonic, Design, Purpose, Mastery of skill is Art. Computers, the space shuttle, a pair of tennis shoes. There are reasons things are mass reproduced. Yeah they are cheap, but they stem from ingenuity and purpose.

Are these things mutually exclusive?

 

[Baldr]

Same reason pottery is art - they are things made by human beings designed to elicit a reaction from other human beings.

For me this is the worse type of Art imaginable.

Platonic, Design, Purpose, Mastery of skill is Art. Computers, the space shuttle, a pair of tennis shoes. There are reasons things are mass reproduced. Yeah they are cheap, but they stem from ingenuity and purpose.

Are these things mutually exclusive?

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0180%3Atext%3DIon%3Asection%3D530a

 

[FalloutJack]

Art would appear to have been involved in the creation of the game. The entire visual is due to the artistic talents of renderers, artists, and animators. Logically, this would be even higher up than a single painter and an easel.

 

[Don Savik]

Art is subjective, so you can't really define it. It can be everything, and it can also be nothing. I can look at a painting of colored squares and say its a boring painting of colored squares, and any self-respecting adult with a career in painting can surely paint better than colored squares, but to SOME people it might be considered art.

 

[Signa]

Because words can not simply describe the experience of playing Okami, and the types of literary references you find in Bioshock would keep a college student busy for a semester.

There are other "arts" in games too that don't mirror other established forms of artistic media. Good level design and play mechanics are an art to themselves. They have to be created with the right mood and feel to give the player the right experience that encourages them to see more of the game. No one would have liked Doom if the guns felt like pea-shooters, and the levels were straight corridors. Super Mario Brothers wouldn't have been a classic smash hit if each level wasn't as carefully crafted to encourage and reward players for finding secrets or finding the easiest path.

 

[RuralGamer]

Yes and no; yes, games can be art, but no, not all games are. Some games do elicit a reaction from me, but others are about entertainment entirely and those are the ones I often feel are a bit soulless, therefore I wouldn't call them art.

 

[Mystify]

The key to art lies in its ability to elicit a response from the viewer, especially to evoke emotions. The interactivity of a game can be a great facilitator to do this, if done right. Look at Iji as a great example of a game that is fully deserving of being called art. It is a very good game as a game. It has fairly typical mechanics, you run, you jump, you shoot, you dodge exploding bullets, you purchase upgrades. It is 100% a game. Yet, it has a really powerful story that is woven into that gameplay. It is emotionally very powerful. Your actions have a direct impact on the story, and that heightens the impact. It could have been a novel or a movie, but it would not have had the same impact it does as a game.
Even when dealing with less blatant examples, there is still an art to it. Whether or not ALL games are art is more questionable. It depends on whether you consider a child's crayon drawing art.

 

[Yopaz]

In general I don't consider games art. I guess this is mainly because what I have been taught is art is boring. The most boring books I've ever seen is art, while good books are not. Basically my impression of art is that you are supposed to say more about it than it says. A book that says nothing, but you can write books about is art. A book that says enough to keep you entertained is not. Also I wont consider Call of Duty art just because it doesn't entertain me.

 

[WoW Killer]

Regardless of whether or not games are considered art, it seems to be true that they function in very much the same way. We hold games to the same values as other art forms. That which is good and bad from an artistic viewpoint tends to be the same when put in a game. An image that would be seen as artistic in its own right is considered good when placed in a game. A good within literature would be a good plot in a game, and so on. There is a process of construction and evaluation in gaming that is artistic in nature. You construct a game according to objectives, then evaluate it in terms of subjective qualities. Based on this evaluation you choose new objectives for your next construction. This evolutionary and partly experimental process is found throughout the arts. If something acts like art, is it art?

But this discussion seems to be centred on aspects like graphics, sound and story. Though important, these are superficial elements to a game. An interactive movie is not a game. Is gameplay art? That is the most important question. There are again similarities in the values we look for. An important value in aesthetics is simplicity over complexity (not to be confused with depth). A work of art seeks to create depth through simplicity. Similarly, we find that games like Chess and Backgammon as regarded as effective due to them having simplistic rules that create deep strategies.

Try reversing the burden of proof for a moment. What value held to art contradicts one held to a game? In other words, what would be considered good in a piece of art but bad within a game, or bad within a piece of art but good within a game?

 

[Phlakes]

if Leonardo made a sandwich it was food not art

food has been artistic for as long as they have booth existed.

I must be missing something here. And even then, what makes food artistic but games not?

 

[DoPo]

if Leonardo made a sandwich it was food not art

food has been artistic for as long as they have booth existed.

I must be missing something here. And even then, what makes food artistic but games not?

do i really need to tell you that their is a big difference between food and a digital discs content? the thing that gives food its artistic value is the thing games dont have. physicality.
artistic food is art because of the delicate blend of coulors and textures and the way its sculpted.

So the delicate blend of colours and textures as well as music, story and the way the game was build does not in any way correspond to food? Can't we say the same thing about movies? They are considered art but aren't much more physical than a game. How about pictures?

Spoiler: Is this photograph not an art because it is digital?

Is this photograph not an art because it is digital?

And music? The a content on a disc, a magnetic tape, or few sheets of paper with notes written down on them - are those music? I don't think so. I cannot touch it, nor see it, nor taste it. It lacks physicality.

Are you saying that games are not art because they are intangible? Because if so, I should remind you that by this definition lots of art isn't art.

 

[Scrustle]

In general I don't consider games art. I guess this is mainly because what I have been taught is art is boring. The most boring books I've ever seen is art, while good books are not. Basically my impression of art is that you are supposed to say more about it than it says. A book that says nothing, but you can write books about is art. A book that says enough to keep you entertained is not. Also I wont consider Call of Duty art just because it doesn't entertain me.

Sounds to me like the reason you find "art" boring is because perhaps it was forced on you, and you were expected to find something in it that you don't find there. I think a lot of people have had this kind of experience from education. It's pretty much the reason why I don't read books and I hate To Kill A Mockingbird. But I still regard literature as an art form, I just don't enjoy most of it.

If my assumption is accurate then I ask why stick to that definition? Why does art have to be boring just because you were told something was art which you didn't enjoy? There must be some other kind of art form which you enjoy. What about painting, sculpture, music, film, animation, or even photography? You must enjoy at least something out of those media? Is it not art purely because you enjoy it? What if you enjoy an example of something in a certain art form but another? Does that mean the thing you enjoy isn't art, and the thing you don't is?

 

[Yopaz]

In general I don't consider games art. I guess this is mainly because what I have been taught is art is boring. The most boring books I've ever seen is art, while good books are not. Basically my impression of art is that you are supposed to say more about it than it says. A book that says nothing, but you can write books about is art. A book that says enough to keep you entertained is not. Also I wont consider Call of Duty art just because it doesn't entertain me.

Sounds to me like the reason you find "art" boring is because perhaps it was forced on you, and you were expected to find something in it that you don't find there. I think a lot of people have had this kind of experience from education. It's pretty much the reason why I don't read books and I hate To Kill A Mockingbird. But I still regard literature as an art form, I just don't enjoy most of it.

If my assumption is accurate then I ask why stick to that definition? Why does art have to be boring just because you were told something was art which you didn't enjoy? There must be some other kind of art form which you enjoy. What about painting, sculpture, music, film, animation, or even photography? You must enjoy at least something out of those media? Is it not art purely because you enjoy it? What if you enjoy an example of something in a certain art form but another? Does that mean the thing you enjoy isn't art, and the thing you don't is?

Well, it is in part because that it was forced on me through school, but mostly because our teachers had a very strict view of what could be considered art and not. The definition I have heard in recent years is that a piece of art is quite simply something meant to inspire thoughts and feelings. By that definition there is no reason why games should not be considered art. However we learned that not all books are art, Sherlock Holmes or The Lord of The Rings which represent some great classics are not art. A book about someone wandering around in a city being hungry who keeps repeating that he's hungry, now that is art.
Because of what I have been taught about what I should connect to art and what is merely entertainment I am unable to see anything entertaining as art. 6 years of being fed this definition of art makes me unable to dismiss the definition. I also don't enjoy either paintings, sculptures, photographies or the kind of music or movies I've been taught can be considered art. Sure I can appreciate that a picture looks nice or that it's painted well, but it fills me with no emotions whatsoever.

I also think this could be in part because I don't really see a reason to consider the things I like art. I like the things I like and if someone wants to say it's not sophisticated then I consider that a bonus. I've had several arguments with my teachers that if I had the choice to don't give a damn about their art or sophisticated books and be considered a simple man I'd prefer that over reading even one of them and be considered sophisticated. I am quite satisfied not caring about art and I see no reason to change my ways.

 

[MetalMagpie]

I've always been the behind the definition of "art" to be anything that is produced by someone who could be describe as an "artisan" (a skilled worker who uses creativity in what they do). It wasn't that long ago that people who made products as diverse as furniture, wallpaper, carpets and even some types of bread were described as "artisans", and so what they made was "art".

However, the Oxford English Dictionary (great lord of all the English language) defines art as "works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power". Which rules out furniture, bread, video games and even most books and films, as they have a primary purpose which is not simply "beauty or emotional power". They're designed for sitting on, eating, entertaining the masses, etc.

So by the first definition, video games are art in that they are produced by creative skilled workers. And by the second definition they aren't.

As I said, I personally prefer the first definition. Long live artisan bread!

 

[Scrustle]

Well, it is in part because that it was forced on me through school, but mostly because our teachers had a very strict view of what could be considered art and not. The definition I have heard in recent years is that a piece of art is quite simply something meant to inspire thoughts and feelings. By that definition there is no reason why games should not be considered art. However we learned that not all books are art, Sherlock Holmes or The Lord of The Rings which represent some great classics are not art. A book about someone wandering around in a city being hungry who keeps repeating that he's hungry, now that is art.
Because of what I have been taught about what I should connect to art and what is merely entertainment I am unable to see anything entertaining as art. 6 years of being fed this definition of art makes me unable to dismiss the definition. I also don't enjoy either paintings, sculptures, photographies or the kind of music or movies I've been taught can be considered art. Sure I can appreciate that a picture looks nice or that it's painted well, but it fills me with no emotions whatsoever.

I also think this could be in part because I don't really see a reason to consider the things I like art. I like the things I like and if someone wants to say it's not sophisticated then I consider that a bonus. I've had several arguments with my teachers that if I had the choice to don't give a damn about their art or sophisticated books and be considered a simple man I'd prefer that over reading even one of them and be considered sophisticated. I am quite satisfied not caring about art and I see no reason to change my ways.

Well I've certainly not come across anyone with an opinion of art anything like yours before. Curious indeed. But I think it's wrong to say that something entertaining is not art. Art is entertainment. We don't need it. Most people would say art is more profound than something purely created to entertain, but it does entertain and art can be found within entertainment media.