Poll: What Makes a Game Art?

[Sagacious Zhu]

The kerfuffle surrounding the ending to the Mass Effect franchise has seen the word "artistic integrity" batted around the blogosphere and I'm not entirely convinced that anyone has any idea of what it means to call games "art."

On what standards to we designate games as examples of good art? Are we judging them on their own merits as a game or are we using definitions of art from other mediums to define what artistic gaming means?

Bioware has long been the golden child held up as an example of a company committed to making art in games but their focus is limited to storytelling and character which aren't necessarily examples of art exclusive to gaming. Meanwhile, Gears of War popularized the cover based mechanics seen in almost every shooter today (for good or ill) and is considered less than art for its hamhanded character interaction and generic plot.

My point is that gameplay is devalued when discussing games as art. Gamers will laud a game for having good plot or character interaction before they comment on how the game actually plays. I understand the gaming industry is still young but we should try to define what art in games means rather than using the definitions of art from other styles. That which makes a good play does not necessarily make for a good movie and that which makes a good game should likewise be distinct from other media.

 

[Terminate421]

Writing, Story, etc.
Games are also art for their design and animations and such too.


Moments like this:


Any moment that truly gives more thoughts than "Holy Shit" or "Whatever just happened". Its that moment I showed you in which you realize alot more than just the end:

Its the last Halo game made by Bungie for a while
Its your character, dying. No matter what.
The battle is lost on Reach, your one of the last pockets of resistance
Your a spartan, you may be the toughest badass ever, but you are not invincible
While you are dying, you show signs of becoming fragile, your sensors, ammo, and armor begin to fall apart. Ammo is limited besides Covenant based ammo
Spartan corpses are lying around, foreshadowing done well and doubling that your one of the last few Spartans
You're on a hill, the hill in combat is and has always been a last stand for many battles

 

[Hero in a half shell]

To be honest, after years of debating and thinking about this, I have come to the conclusion that I don't have the faintest clue of what exactly art is, apart from an excuse to make moody low budget crappy films.

Personally I would define it as anything that stirs your emotions, that makes you feel something, that creates a reaction in your thought processes on a level higher than base instinct, then it is art.

So all four of those would count as making a game art, as they can all be used to stir up our thoughts, but they aren't always used for that.

 

[The]

Personal opinion/experience with game. That's what makes it art. If you think it's beautiful or just an outstanding example of a game, then there's no need to question it further. It's art because you think it's art.

 

[default]

None of those. It's the ability to make the player feel strong and subtle emotion, and to do this through interactivity. Such as the crushing, sublime loneliness the player feels as they wander the empty lands in Shadow of the Colossus.

 

[Acier]

A very personal definition, but one that I have found to work for all mediums of art I apply it too, it a object (grammatically speaking, not literally) that is designed to attempt to elicit an emotional or intellectual response.

Paintings, sculpture, poems, prose, architecture, theater, music, film, and video games all attempt to do something along these lines at the base of things, and video games are valuable because they are intrinsically interactive, which other mediums may only have interactivity present in a minority of works.

Red Dead Redemption tackles the concepts of both revenge and redemption (taking a quite cynical view on things making them to appear empty and meaningless) is this suddenly not as valid a discussion because it's Jack pulling the trigger instead of Hamlet dueling Laertes and poisoning Claudius?

Silent Hill 2 is a game about repentance and punishment for sins, but because it has an inventory it can't be discussed along side Atonement?


I'm going to be quite frank when I say I think a majority of people are being pants-on-head retarded about this idea that games can be art somehow damages their games, if done correctly he mechanics can be artisitc or used to strengthen the message/emotional goal/ whatever. A perfect example (in my mind) is a mission from Starcraft 2

Spoiler

The flashback (forward?) mission where you play as the Protoss in the final stand against the hybrids. There is no way to win, no matter how good of a player you are you are only fending off the inevitable. Why is this glorious final battle less artistic than ones in movies or books? The player can even choose how they want to go out, in a blaze of glory or just give up and let the hybrids overtake then almost immediately.

To be honest, I think a lot of this anti-art movement is a result of the initial defense of ME3's ending. I remember that most people were fine with the idea that games could be considered art and all the benefits it can bring and a majority <3'd Extra Credits, who are all about furthering games as a medium and artform. But it seems that when Bioware tried to flimsily justify it's terrible ending as art, instead of focusing on Bioware's last ditch effort to explain themselves to fans, there has been a focus on attack artistic videogames as a whole. Even though it's pointless. Why can't games be art? Do you no longer like your favorite movie because Citizen Kane exists? Does Beethoven negatively effect your enjoyment of your favorite metal band? Since when did the existence of high concept art negate enjoyment? And since when was it impossible to enjoy highbrow art?

Gamers need to honestly think to themselves if they don't want games to be art because games will stop being fun (which there is no evidence of and no other medium has ever suffered because it is considered art) or do you want developers to be held accountable for bad choices? Because it seems to me most people actually want the latter but think they want the former.

Just remember, being considered art can only push games forward. That is not a bad thing.

It's comments like this that make me think a majority of gamer's opinions are a bit clouded

Developers refusing to change anything despite what they have currently being clearly terrible.

 

[Fleetfiend]

Personal opinion/experience with game. That's what makes it art. If you think it's beautiful or just an outstanding example of a game, then there's no need to question it further. It's art because you think it's art.

Exactly this. Everyone has heard about how subjective art is, and I don't think this is any different. When a game affects me emotionally, I consider it to be art. To me, Mass Effect is art, and also Okami and Final Fantasy X. All of them are completely different and affect me in different ways, but they are art to me.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

Developers refusing to change anything despite what they have currently being clearly terrible.

 

[wintercoat]

Where's the "it depends" option? Because art is determined on a case-by-case basis, it depends on the game in question. Each of those four elements can be individually used to make an artistic game.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

I'm going to be quite frank when I say I think a majority of people are being pants-on-head retarded about this idea that games can be art somehow damages their games, if done correctly he mechanics can be artisitc or used to strengthen the message/emotional goal/ whatever.

Not according to my definition lol.

It's comments like this that make me think a majority of gamer's opinions are a bit clouded

Developers refusing to change anything despite what they have currently being clearly terrible.

Uh huh.

"art is x, therefore art is good," versus "art is y, therefore art is bad."

If the term "art" wasn't such a buzzword this conversation would be more interesting. As it stands, the only thing I can say is that my definition is at least more relvant and current atm for video games.

It is pretty "pants on head retarded" to lecture someone from your personal dictionary.

 

[FFHAuthor]

I just posted this on another thread and should have posted here rather than the other one, rather more appropriate. I believe that mechanics are what makes a game a UNIQUE form of art.


While I don't go so far as to say that the player has artistic input, we have something that is just as important, the ability to interpret what is created.

I will always argue that in Games the storytelling and the experience are shaped by two things; The narrative intended by the Creator, and the narrative created by the Mechanics. What do I mean by that? Simply put that the narrative in the story is shaped as much by what is intended as it is by what the player can do.

I personally feel that if we strive to call games art, then we MUST call all games art, and if we call all games art then we need to define games and define what sets games apart from other forms of art. That defining characteristic is the mechanics, and the problem that most members of the games journalism industry haven't picked up yet (other than Extra Credits and they've missed some of their own statements when it comes to the ME3 ending), is that mechanics can tell a story that the creator doesn't intend. A game with a excellent and deep plot that fashions itself towards a particular goal can be totally undone by the actions that a player takes through the games mechanics.

My dissatisfaction with the ME3 ending has always been that the plot of the game and the story being told DOES lead up to a particular ending, one of total sacrifice and loss, but of final triumph. That ending is reached and it DOES work for the story because in retrospect the story does work towards it, foreshadow it and generally build up to it...but the mechanics of the game allow for a different interpretation of it.

What do I mean? Out of the numerous people who I've asked who say they enjoy the endings, only ONE person said they saved everyone in ME2, saved Wrex, and only lost people when it was unavoidable. Overwhelmingly, the people who lost characters on the suicide mission, lost them in ME3 and lost Wrex in ME1 felt that the tone of the game led to an ending of loss. On the inverse, the players I've spoken to who do not like the Mass Effect 3 ending went out of their way to save and resolve issues. They went through the suicide mission without loss, they made peace between Geth and Quarian, they talked down Saren, they saved Wrex and the Krogan AND made the Krogan more galactically friendly.

The Story tells us one thing, while the Mechanics of the game lead us to a different interpretation of the story one that isn't intended. If you establish in your mechanics that it is possible to approach unreasonable or untenable conflicts and resolve them rather than ascribe to the options that are simply 'there' don't be surprised when your players are discontent with having to chose between options that are presented without any ability to realign the situation. If your mechanics establish that a mission that will almost certainly result in the deaths of you and your teammates can be survived without a single casualty do not be surprised when your players express surprise that they're in a situation that can't be overcome.

That's something that I don't think has really come up in gaming before because a game like Mass Effect 3 has never come out before. ME3 is truly a watershed in gaming, it gives us an experience that no other form of media has every created, and it is a form of Art, but in it's creation, we can see what can go wrong with our art-form. ME3 was an excellent attempt at creating something that shows how Games are an art in their own right not simply art as taken from other forms (graphics, audio, story).

If we look at games based upon story and mechanics, I submit that Modern Warfare 3 was a greater work of art than Mass Effect 3. That Gears of War 3 was a greater work of art than Mass Effect 3. Yes, I said it, and I mean it. Because in those games the narrative is united in mechanics and intent.

The story remains set to interpretation within the boundaries of what the mechanic allows. There's no option to negotiate with the Russians in Modern Warfare 3 and have them leave America and Europe willingly, and if the Mechanic of the game gave us that option at some point, we'd be confused and displeased. There's no Locust character in Gears of War 3 for us to get to know better and have as a squadmate so we empathize and understand the Locust point of view better...if there was we'd be more than a little off put by it. But those games don't, their mechanics are consistent. Story is told with one intention, and there is no way to step around and look at the story from another way.

 

[The]

Personal opinion/experience with game. That's what makes it art. If you think it's beautiful or just an outstanding example of a game, then there's no need to question it further. It's art because you think it's art.

Exactly this. Everyone has heard about how subjective art is, and I don't think this is any different. When a game affects me emotionally, I consider it to be art. To me, Mass Effect is art, and also Okami and Final Fantasy X. All of them are completely different and affect me in different ways, but they are art to me.

Yeah. People tend to forget the emotional side. Many see the art in the visuals.

 

[Vanitas likes Bubbles]

Where's the game is not art option. Games are games, not art. I study art and I still don't have the faintest clue of what it is.

 

[Zayle79]

It's a pointless argument when nobody can agree what art is to begin with. Some consider it to be anything that you enjoy that doesn't have a materially useful purpose, a definition under which games would definitely be considered art. Others consider art to be the above, but all deep and emotional or philosophical, which would make some games art. Others consider it to be one of the above two, unless it's a video game, a definition under which no games are art.

When we argue whether or not games are art without establishing what art is, all anybody can do is come up with arbitrary reasons why games are or aren't art then argue over which arbitrary reason is the best, which goes nowhere and only serves to drive everybody involved crazy.

 

[217not237]

What makes a game art, you ask? The same thing that makes anything art. People working hard to make a product, even if it turns out awful. Nothing was made without work, and art is just creation.

 

[DoPo]

In Hastur's name, people, haven't we been over this like a thousand times? The very definition of art does not exclude games. Why? Because the very definition of art is highly subjective. Sure, pull all sorts of dictionary entries but in the end, somebody has to agree that a piece of turd with black pepper sprinkled on top is art and wham, it's not art.

We aren't using "the definitions of art from other styles" because we just straight up agree (well, mostly, not all of us but enough) that games are art. Just like a bunch of other people agree that something completely different is art. I may not like and/or understand it but I can't take away it's status.

None of the options in that poll are relevant. Or rather, all of them. What makes movies different than other media, what is the one thing that makes them artsy? Is it the camera angle? Or the script? How about how well the set was decorated? What? Can you see how ridiculous what you're asking sounds? It's all of these and more. Same way with a game - it's a blend between all of these and more.

 

[Twilight_guy]

Actually nobody can accurately define art for any medium. Much less for something as debated as games. Looking at it from a cultural stand-point, art is mostly defined by the way people treat a certain set of objects. There is a sort of respect and reserve toward certain objects that define art. The way we treat games qualifies them as art. (also, yes I'm declaring all games art here). If you want some set of rules, you'll never get them since art has no hard and fast regulations its just what people arbitrarily decide is art and then later make up rules to justify. Any examination of art history will show you the arbitrariness of what any culture defines as art and how what makes art changes over time.

 

[Gatx]

Shouldn't there be an "everything" option? I mean, if games are an art then that means "games as a whole" are an art, no one piece is more important than the next.

 

[NightmareWarden]

What makes a game art is that it evokes emotion. What makes a game a "game" is that it evokes emotion and give you a sense of involvement. Art captures your attention. Games capture your attention, push and pull on your sense of involvement due to good and bad parts of it, and do their best to become...for lack of a better way to put it, "important to concentrate on" by running together characters, plot, and a combination of mechanics. Ideally, they capture your attention and mold your feelings according to what that game wants you to experience. Such as anger and/or a feeling of competition in multiplayer games.