Games as art.

[zehydra]

I agree with the OP's notion of trying to make games art by applying artistic styles which don't belong to the medium.

When you try to make a game like a movie... you simply end up with a bunch of lengthy cutscenes where the story is told.

The quality of a game's story is not really a reflection of how good or how artistic a game is. Rather, the artistic side (with regards to story telling), comes from the game's ability to tell a story without you noticing that it is telling it. That is, story telling as game story telling should be seamless from regular gameplay. So many standards of story telling that would normally apply in theatre and movies, simply do not apply here.

 

[BreakfastMan]

The creator didn't intend for me to jump in place for ten minutes.

"What the creator intended" doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is the piece itself, not the creator intentions for that piece. Those only matter to the creator.

And hell, even going by your idea of what it means to be a piece of art, video games are still art (seeing as every element of the game was placed there by the dev; you cannot do anything they did not program). But, seeing as this is the fundamental core of your arguments, the root from which all others shall surely spring, I hope you will not be too offended that I choose to attack that head-on.

 

[Bocaj2000]

snip

Wouldn't that be because video games enact film discourse? I mean, there's angles and sweeps and zooms and all that. One of the visual languages is closely related to film. I don't think using the language of visual art alone is enough since video games are such a collage of mediums.

As for interactive art, I'd say that's different from a video game, personally, but I guess I'd say it depends on what we're talking about. I'd definitely call Tomasula's TOC art.

Also I wouldn't call that Yoko Ono piece just a string of commands. It's a poem. The whole episode (the piece and the handing it over) sounds like Poetry Bombing, to me.

Also, curious, why would you say FTL is art? I like the game a lot, but I'm pretty reserved about what I'd call art and FTL just wasn't something I'd considered there yet; is it the emergent experience?

I disagree. Interactive media isn't even on the same caliber as visual and film art; it is so much more than most people give it credit to. Film is a passive media. A room with a film playing will play the same thing whether a person is there or not. Interactive pieces, however, require interaction in order to be experienced. This leaves potential to create different experiences based on different interactions. Yes, games such as Mass Effect, Metal Gear Solid, and many others are heavily influenced by cinema, but it's not a requirement. The video games you speak of may relate to films, but that is highly restrictive and pidgenholes the medium.

-Professor Layton is more like a puzzle book
-Pheonix Wright is more like a series of short stories
-Persona 4 is more like Shonen anime (which it eventually became)
-Alpha Centauri is more like a board game
-Warhammer 40k: Final Liberation is more like a tabletop game
-Simulation games are more like real life and/or playing God

Film, books, and comics may be able to blend genres and may be able work together to compliment each other, but they cannot expand beyond their limitations. Interactive media's only limitation is that it needs interaction. That is the beauty of the interactive medium. You say that video games and interactive art are separate entities: I agree, but on different merits. I believe that a video game are only a few steps away interactive art. Like I said, the biggest hurdle is the need to "win" instead of the need to experience. Which brings me to Noko Ono:

You probably missed the point of the example I posted. Its purpose is not to be a poem and not to be a list of commands. Its purpose is to give you an experience. It is a piece of art so abstract that it cannot be contained to any medium other than action. That is the point of the piece. Yes, it is art. Whether you appreciate it or not is up to you.

Lastly, you ask about why I consider FTL art. It is a very personal opinion, I'm not trying to force it upon you. With that said, it gave me a series of experiences and emotions that cannot be easily be reproduced. I went through every emotion imaginable while playing this game: happiness and confidence when doing well; pressure and incompetence when loosing battles; relief when escaping a dangerous situation; sadness of loosing a crew mate; awe of the destruction of my ship that I spent all this time getting attached to. And then it's over. Winning and loosing is irrelevant because I now have a story that no one else will have. Not to mention, fantastic gesamtkunstwerk.

I hope that satisfies you ^-^

 

[DioWallachia]

2010 called. They want their thread back.

...

I'm going to give my usual canned response:

Just what the fuck is art?

Seriously, every damn time someone starts this discussion they never offer a definition of art. Never. You can't argue that something is or isn't a certain thing, especially something as vague and nebulous as "art", without first explaining exactly what you mean when you use that term.

Art is one of the two things humanity has produced. Humanity has only made Tools and Art. Tools serve a practical purpose and solve a specific problem in the material world. Art doesn't. Thusly, video games are art.

What if i am making a game to quantify how many people react under a simulation of extreme circunstances, that question what it means to be "civilized" in a world that tells you in every way possible that "Nessesity knows NO bounds"?

Or how about making a game like Catherine, where you get asked about your relationships and eventually you get a graphic that shows the % of people that answered one way or another?

What if i am making a really shitty game under a well know company to test the loyalty of the blinded fans?

Wont that mean that games CAN be tools?

 

[Quadocky]

Lets change the name Video Game to just Interactive.

There in an instant the art world will flounder at the chance to discover the true deep meaningful prowess of the Interactive.

 

[Zeldias]

snip

Wouldn't that be because video games enact film discourse? I mean, there's angles and sweeps and zooms and all that. One of the visual languages is closely related to film. I don't think using the language of visual art alone is enough since video games are such a collage of mediums.

As for interactive art, I'd say that's different from a video game, personally, but I guess I'd say it depends on what we're talking about. I'd definitely call Tomasula's TOC art.

Also I wouldn't call that Yoko Ono piece just a string of commands. It's a poem. The whole episode (the piece and the handing it over) sounds like Poetry Bombing, to me.

Also, curious, why would you say FTL is art? I like the game a lot, but I'm pretty reserved about what I'd call art and FTL just wasn't something I'd considered there yet; is it the emergent experience?

I disagree. Interactive media isn't even on the same caliber as visual and film art; it is so much more than most people give it credit to. Film is a passive media. A room with a film playing will play the same thing whether a person is there or not. Interactive pieces, however, require interaction in order to be experienced. This leaves potential to create different experiences based on different interactions. Yes, games such as Mass Effect, Metal Gear Solid, and many others are heavily influenced by cinema, but it's not a requirement. The video games you speak of may relate to films, but that is highly restrictive and pidgenholes the medium.

-Professor Layton is more like a puzzle book
-Pheonix Wright is more like a series of short stories
-Persona 4 is more like Shonen anime (which it eventually became)
-Alpha Centauri is more like a board game
-Warhammer 40k: Final Liberation is more like a tabletop game
-Simulation games are more like real life and/or playing God

Film, books, and comics may be able to blend genres and may be able work together to compliment each other, but they cannot expand beyond their limitations. Interactive media's only limitation is that it needs interaction. That is the beauty of the interactive medium. You say that video games and interactive art are separate entities: I agree, but on different merits. I believe that a video game are only a few steps away interactive art. Like I said, the biggest hurdle is the need to "win" instead of the need to experience. Which brings me to Noko Ono:

You probably missed the point of the example I posted. Its purpose is not to be a poem and not to be a list of commands. Its purpose is to give you an experience. It is a piece of art so abstract that it cannot be contained to any medium other than action. That is the point of the piece. Yes, it is art. Whether you appreciate it or not is up to you.

Lastly, you ask about why I consider FTL art. It is a very personal opinion, I'm not trying to force it upon you. With that said, it gave me a series of experiences and emotions that cannot be easily be reproduced. I went through every emotion imaginable while playing this game: happiness and confidence when doing well; pressure and incompetence when loosing battles; relief when escaping a dangerous situation; sadness of loosing a crew mate; awe of the destruction of my ship that I spent all this time getting attached to. And then it's over. Winning and loosing is irrelevant because I now have a story that no one else will have. Not to mention, fantastic gesamtkunstwerk.

I hope that satisfies you ^-^

Hope I didn't come off as aggressive; I love the conversations and think on art a lot (as an academic and artist), so it gets me going :-D.

I think we agree. I just used the more mainstream games to make my point, but I would definitely say something like Trauma Center or Lumines is an artistic experience, more so than Mass Effect. Or Etrian Odyssey, where you chart unknown worlds, moves more in the space of art than most JRPGs.

I think you're right, though on what you say about interactive art, and I agree that the notions of "winning" and "fun" are limiting to video games as artistic expression. I think my issue, really, is that I have limited experience with the interactive art in museums; I'm a literature guy, so most of my energy goes towards literary art.

I didn't mean to sound dismissive re: the Ono bit, just saying that in form, it looks like a poem. I'm not saying it can't serve as a part of a performance piece with audience participation and stuff like that; the point of any poem I've ever called good is to deliver an experience, whether that's to place the reader in a moment of understanding, or subvert that understanding, or disassociate us with our common understanding of language. I wasn't saying it's not art, just that it is poetry: that doesn't mean it can't also be other things, you know? Most people typically experience plays like novels, but they're still meant to be cast, performed, and directed, so a play can actually be several different kinds of art simultaneously.

And cool on FTL :-D. I agree with you; the emergent nature of gameplay is really special. But I dunno. I think the question that has to be answered for critics that want to defends video games as art is "what am I looking for out of art?" Basically, aesthetic, you know? What should art be doing, if anything? I'm not sure that catharsis and emotional experiences alone should be that. But I do think the space for telling our own stories is part of what makes game an interesting artistic endeavor: for me, FTL is this constantly feminine (although, apparently, racist, since all I have are white dudes on the Kestrel) thing where I always have a female captain piloting the ship. And I realize that it's different from the spaces other people create. Then there's this interesting thing (to me) where I'm wondering how feminist is it when I, as a guy, am doing this thing. But my take on art is that it's always doing some kind of sociocultural work, whether it means to or not.

Thanks for the response .

 

[DioWallachia]

That's true, but the cellphone analogy is incorrect. The person isn't in control of what the main character is doing in the movie whereas the person playing the game is. The people who wrote the screenplay for the film dictate movement, action and speech unless they give lee-way for small amounts of improv. But the finished product is something viewers cannot interact with. Authors of written works dictate what the characters do and say, while players get to choose almost all of what the protagonist does prior to getting involved in a scripted event or key plot point (be it conversation or event). The difference between game and movie/book is that in the latter is a set in stone depiction whereas a video game permits the player to behave in such ways that the artist(s) never intended.

If it was never intented then why is it there?

I am sure that a LOT of artists would like to get rid of things like character development, plot progression, subtlety, logic and all those pesky rules (just like the movie Prometheus did) but they cant do that, cant they? they exist for a very good reason.

So, if you think about it in a certain way, you could say that those things up there already take over the "vision" of the artist by making the story malleable in a way THEY didnt want (just like the player presence does) and yet we still call those works as art even when the artist vision is already diminished.

If the artist is talented enough, they could have explained the actions of the player by saying that "The protagonist is the only one with Free Will in a setting where Fate controls everything. That is why its perfectly capable of acting both normal or just jump around like an idiot by sheer happyness."

The message is almost always conveyed after playing, but very rarely while one is playing

You sure about that? why not give an example that i can remember? because i will show you mine:
http://osirislord.wordpress.com/2012/06/12/how-using-themes-helped-me-write-a-cohesive-narrative/

"Planescape: Torment. Nearly everything included in that game deals with the theme of torment in some way. What can change the nature of a man isn?t just a way to beat the very definite final boss, it?s what the whole things is about and every scene explores a possible answer to that question. Even if you don?t realize the game is doing that, you have to admit that there is still something at work keeping the story cohesive, how the writers are able to make a linear story out of a non-linear experience."

As long the theme/message remains consistent in every scene in the gameplay, then i find little reason to believe that the audience is ruining the author's vision by creating art over the art of the author. It is STILL on the limits that the author prepared beforehand.

 

[Comocat]

For me art is the technique of provoking a response. For example that response can run the gamut of disgust to beauty. Good art is something that provokes that reaction leading to a constructive response, bad art attempts to convey a message but fails to do so. For example the iconic photos of napalming villages in Vietnam or self-immolation are distressing, but ultimately force the viewer to consider consequences of war. Video games can also, IMO, be classified as art because they can attempt provoke the gamer into various states (amazing vistas or difficult choices). Most games, say Mario for example, don't really try to convey any sort of message other than jump on stuff and don't fall into holes. More sophisticated story driven games, like Mass Effect 3 or maybe games like Journey are less driven by avoiding holes and goombas, and more so designed to evoke some sort of feelings in the player. Likewise those games can be evaluated as good art, in that the players was moved (regardless of the outcome), or bad art, where the player is offended or confused to the point that there is no growth from the interaction.

In essence games can qualify as art if they try to provoke an emotional response from the player. Depending on how effective that response is can qualify them as "good" or "bad" art. Some games it makes no sense to apply these distinctions because they aren't striving to be art, just like mass produced books or summer blockbusters.

 

[Zeldias]

I am sure that a LOT of artists would like to get rid of things like character development, plot progression, subtlety, logic and all those pesky rules (just like the movie Prometheus did) but they cant do that, cant they? they exist for a very good reason.

Sure you can. If art had to follow rules, everyone could eventually be an artist. It's a matter of breaking the rules correctly that makes art art, as opposed to just interesting.

Check out Bhanu Khapil's Humanimal and Maggie Nelson's Bluets. A lot of rules get broken in those books, just off the top of my head. The Fixed Stars by Brian Conn also does weird stuff (though not nearly as weird), and I also like to push it because I was part of the production of the book .

 

[Something Amyss]

Huh............then why Shakespeare got the luxury alone (post-mortem i suppose) of having HIS stuff being art and not whoever else was available back then? Why was so important for the snobs of art to make his works retroactively art? Oh wait, the answer is also ponies too, isnt it?

It might be ponies, save for the fact that it wasn't Shakespeare alone. He may retroactively be known as the rock star, but he did have contemporaries.

Why did we decide to put him up so high after the fact? A lot of it has to do with people then taking a look at its context.

Similarly, my years in music theory studies came up with a lot of looks at what John Lennon did, both as a member of the Beatles and as a solo act. In the 60s, he was mostly treated as one of those pop stars who looked like a girl.

The people who wrote the screenplay for the film dictate movement, action and speech unless they give lee-way for small amounts of improv. But the finished product is something viewers cannot interact with.

I know this isn't exactly where you were going, but let's stretch our minds a bit. What about plays? The author will write a play, but every time it's performed, it will be slightly different. Each cast will be different, each director will treat things slightly different, etc. Even amongst the same cast, different things may happen on a given night. Any time a work is adapted, the same happens.

whereas a video game permits the player to behave in such ways that the artist(s) never intended.

That's not necessarily true. Not unless you're talking about things like bugs and cracking it. At that point, you could say a musician isn't an artist because the CD could skip or you could rearrange the component sounds. And like a play, people will interpret a piece differently when playing it.

Be it moving one block to the left rather than to the right, it becomes too malleable for each movement to carry a message as they can in film/literature.

What about a game where all possible choices lead to the game's theme?

The message is almost always conveyed after playing, but very rarely while one is playing...hence why I said you experience the art in bursts while bridging the experiences as an artist.

Red Dead Redemption, Braid, Metal Gear Solid (pick one) Mass Effect (again, pick one). These are just off the top of my head, games that provide you with recurring themes through the game, rather than just hitting you at the end. They may still top things off with "the moral of this story," but so can films and books.

 

[TheDoctor455]

Even after all the threads on this topic...I still don't see why games need to be classified as art. Why can't we just enjoy games as games like we have for the past what? 30 years? Why does it need to be seen as art?

Because if it is seen as art, and classified as an art form...

its less likely that another damn 'banhammer' will come up.


Also... less likely we'll hear about how games are supposedly calling all sorts of problems even remotely related to real violence.


It isn't enough for them to be legally recognized as an art form, the general public has to view them as art as well in order for the threat of the banhammer to go away.

 

[DioWallachia]

Be it moving one block to the left rather than to the right, it becomes too malleable for each movement to carry a message as they can in film/literature.

What about a game where all possible choices lead to the game's theme?

Exactly like i said twice already. I just dont see his point.

I am sure that a LOT of artists would like to get rid of things like character development, plot progression, subtlety, logic and all those pesky rules (just like the movie Prometheus did) but they cant do that, cant they? they exist for a very good reason.

Sure you can. If art had to follow rules, everyone could eventually be an artist. It's a matter of breaking the rules correctly that makes art art, as opposed to just interesting.

Check out Bhanu Khapil's Humanimal and Maggie Nelson's Bluets. A lot of rules get broken in those books, just off the top of my head. The Fixed Stars by Brian Conn also does weird stuff (though not nearly as weird), and I also like to push it because I was part of the production of the book .

And what kind of rules they break? can you spend an ENTIRE play/movie/game without knowing the motives of the protagonist/antagonist and what is it trying to acomplish?

 

[AsurasEyes]

2010 called. They want their thread back.

...

I'm going to give my usual canned response:

Just what the fuck is art?

Seriously, every damn time someone starts this discussion they never offer a definition of art. Never. You can't argue that something is or isn't a certain thing, especially something as vague and nebulous as "art", without first explaining exactly what you mean when you use that term.

Art is one of the two things humanity has produced. Humanity has only made Tools and Art. Tools serve a practical purpose and solve a specific problem in the material world. Art doesn't. Thusly, video games are art.

What if i am making a game to quantify how many people react under a simulation of extreme circunstances, that question what it means to be "civilized" in a world that tells you in every way possible that "Nessesity knows NO bounds"?

Or how about making a game like Catherine, where you get asked about your relationships and eventually you get a graphic that shows the % of people that answered one way or another?

What if i am making a really shitty game under a well know company to test the loyalty of the blinded fans?

Wont that mean that games CAN be tools?

A piece of art cannot be a tool. It'd be like a movie that heals your broken bones. Or a game that makes your ceiling tiles fix themselves. A tool is something that affects the material world and performs a material function. Psychological crap doesn't count as material function, and that's all art can affect. The human mind.

 

[DioWallachia]

What if i am making a game to quantify how many people react under a simulation of extreme circunstances, that question what it means to be "civilized" in a world that tells you in every way possible that "Nessesity knows NO bounds"?

Or how about making a game like Catherine, where you get asked about your relationships and eventually you get a graphic that shows the % of people that answered one way or another?

What if i am making a really shitty game under a well know company to test the loyalty of the blinded fans?

Wont that mean that games CAN be tools?

A piece of art cannot be a tool. It'd be like a movie that heals your broken bones. Or a game that makes your ceiling tiles fix themselves. A tool is something that affects the material world and performs a material function. Psychological crap doesn't count as material function, and that's all art can affect. The human mind.

1) http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/120164-Science-Judges-Your-Personality-Using-Fallout-3

2)
3)In the same way that a hammer cannot bake my cake or calculator cannot fix the microwave, a game cannot fix the ceiling. Good..........but who says that games can fix the ceiling? you say it yourself, they affect the mind.

4)You DO realize that the mind is part of your body, right? a MATERIAL object that works on chemicals. Just like Jean Paul Sartre said: "Descarte's error was to think of counciousness as somehow trascendent from reality, looking down to it. But in reality, you exist within the world, and its only throught your consciousness that you can make any sense of the world at all"

 

[DioWallachia]

I say this is quite possibly the most destructive thought imaginable in application to gaming as an art form. Even calling shit like Superman 64 works more as art than the juvenile experiences of those games, as Superman 64 can be argued to be a Dadaist anti-game.

Those games mean nothing. They have no depth or feeling, no universal truth behind them. They can't even claim to be id-driven experiences of the base mind, as they hold too much consistent internal logic.

Art is about the universal truths of life and humanity. It is about finding that kernel of the experience to share with your audience. It is NOT about "I liked this game when I was young, therefore it is art".

Wait, why "a consistent internal logic" would prevent the work for being art? is Citizen Kane not art in visual media then? By your definition, only SCI FI is art because its the only that that explores what would happen to humanity with X technology and what truths about ourselves as an species it unlocks.

And how can Superman 64 be a Dada piece isntead of just plain old incompetence and executive meddling? Wont a deconstruction like Spec Ops The Line be a Dada work?

Final Fantasy VI has a theme being play out before your eyes, the theme of love or be loved (different kinds of love), and we see different characters reacting their way to such thing. If there is any doubt about that, then let this guy fill you in: (Warning, 3 hours video incoming)

I think that Roger Ebert even compared games to Chess at one point. That the reason they are not art is because you "win" a game, that they are like sports.

What the fuck does that even mean? You "win" at movies by enduring through them to the end. You win at books by reading to the end. The difference between games and passive media like that is just that it requires that the actions used to progress be more complex than "sit on your fat ass" - a feat that Mr Ebert looks like he's quite good at.

I dont have clue either. When i heard about it, i just scratched my head because i havent seen in YEARS the words "Game Over" or even Highscore in a mainstream videogame (except for COD but that doesnt count). Not even "A WINNER IS YOU!". Roger just seems to believe that games are still the ones in the arcades or the Atari 2600 or something. Again, it seems that he compare games to sports, but that is only true for the Multiplayer oriented games.

But even then, are sports NOT art? didnt they had a purpose historically? isnt there a why for the rules work the way they are and what message it represents by playing it that way?

 

[Windcaler]

Im curious for those that say games arent art, why do you disagree with artistic experts such as people who work in the Museum of modern art?

Oh wait, lets go ahead and put the proof out there that the museum of modern art has accepted video games as an artistic medium and is even planning some exhibits surrounding games. So links...

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2012/11/29/moma_s_new_video_game_collection_museum_of_modern_art_proclaims_video_games.html

http://www.examiner.com/article/video-games-and-the-museum-of-modern-art-pac-man-instead-of-picasso

http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2012/11/29/video-games-14-in-the-collection-for-starters

 

[lacktheknack]

As I have said before: It depends how you define art.

I define art as "something designed to evoke emotions".

By that definition, yes, games can be art and are already are art, and have been since conception.

 

[DioWallachia]

As I have said before: It depends how you define art.

I define art as "something designed to evoke emotions".

By that definition, yes, games can be art and are already are art, and have been since conception.

Isnt that too broad of a definition? i mean, Transformers 2 and Twilight evoke in me the emotion of anger that would make a Misantrophe Supreme turn green with envy. They also evoke confidence in my by ilustrating that i will die smarter than everyone else on this planet.

But i wont call those movies art for it, would i? Neither i will praise a horror movie that uses JUMP SCARES to evoke fear in me.

 

[MasochisticAvenger]

Even after all the threads on this topic...I still don't see why games need to be classified as art. Why can't we just enjoy games as games like we have for the past what? 30 years? Why does it need to be seen as art?

Because it's not so much about games being classified as art as it is people believing such a classification will instantaneously award the credibility they believe such a classification should merit. They believe, if games were classed as a legitimate art form (who makes that decision anyway?), it would stop all the people who blame video games for pretty much everything that's wrong with the world (it won't, mind you).

The problem is, games aren't quite there yet. Granted, we're not as bad as a lot of people try to make us out to be, but there are certain segments of our community that really need to be fixed before we're ready to be given the same legitimacy as films, music or books. However, too many people believe the legitimacy should just be a god-given right, and no effort on the games side needs to be made to earn that right. That just isn't possible: we're never going to be in a situation where everything stays the same except for the stuff we don't like. That has already been proven: we wanted everyone to enjoy games, it happened, but we weren't happy because they weren't playing the games we wanted them to play. We want games to be taken more seriously, but when it does, we throw a hissy fit because someone dares to talk negatively about our games. I'm sorry, but gaming really has a lot to do before it deserves the recognition of films, books, and music.

As I have said before: It depends how you define art.

I define art as "something designed to evoke emotions".

By that definition, yes, games can be art and are already are art, and have been since conception.

Isnt that too broad of a definition? i mean, Transformers 2 and Twilight evoke in me the emotion of anger that would make a Misantrophe Supreme turn green with envy. They also evoke confidence in my by ilustrating that i will die smarter than everyone else on this planet.

But i wont call those movies art for it, would i? Neither i will praise a horror movie that uses JUMP SCARES to evoke fear in me.

Well they are art. Something being considered art doesn't automatically make that thing brilliant or even good. It is whether you consider something to be good art or bad art. After all, it all comes down to opinion: you might not like Transformers 2 or Twilight, but a lot of people do.

 

[lacktheknack]

As I have said before: It depends how you define art.

I define art as "something designed to evoke emotions".

By that definition, yes, games can be art and are already are art, and have been since conception.

Isnt that too broad of a definition? i mean, Transformers 2 and Twilight evoke in me the emotion of anger that would make a Misantrophe Supreme turn green with envy. They also evoke confidence in my by ilustrating that i will die smarter than everyone else on this planet.

But i wont call those movies art for it, would i? Neither i will praise a horror movie that uses JUMP SCARES to evoke fear in me.

No, they're art.

I wouldn't go so far as to call them "good" art, or even "acceptable" art (as they evoked emotions opposite to what they were supposed to evoke), but they're still art, in much the same way that <link=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ>Piss Christ is still art.