Relax, It's a Fucking Game

[Ace of Spades]

I have no problem with you viewing games primarily as a method of entertainment, but you are thinking entirely as an individual and not about the whole industry. You're a consumer, and it's your prerogative to look out for your own interests, but if games are going to develop as an art form, you need to recognize that we, players and developers alike, are a collective, and if the majority still view games as just toys to pass time, we aren't going to make any progress.

Not all gamers view so called "fun" games as simple toys, there are gamers out there who are very competative and serious in how they appoach their gaming and some games are as deep and complex as chess.

Ppl who just make blacket statements on either gamer or art side are just as bad as each other imo and part of the problem as to why more and more modern AAA games really are just shallow toys with no other value other then playing in a half assed way for a few hours as just a means to pass the time before they move onto their next half assed game.

Both art and games can co-exist together, hell sometime in the future we might even get a perfect game that successfully joins the two together! (mindblown) But that'll never happen while gamers continue to be snobs and wont embrace both sides equally.

Judging from the tone of your first statement, I'm guessing that you think your argument is superior to the arguments in favor of either art or fun focused games just because it's the moderate one. The idea that art and fun games shouldn't be diametrically opposed is admirable, but the conflict between the two isn't going to simply disappear because you say it should. Ideally, there should be no difference between games as art and games as entertainment, but as of now, there is, which is fine; the two types can coexist until they can integrate. However, people like the OP, who argue that games [strong]shouldn't[/strong] develop artistically are wrong, and that's not an opinion.

 

[PeePantz]

However, people like the OP, who argue that games [strong]shouldn't[/strong] develop artistically are wrong, and that's not an opinion.

Hi, OP here. I never said games [strong]shouldn't[/strong] develop artistically; hell I only said art once in my OP. At the very end. As a different name for video games.

This thread has seem to be derailed by the "Rabble, rabble. Games are art". When I stated the "EC sheep", which too many have seen as everyone who watches EC are sheep (well then, "baaahhh" I say; you can check out the million EC badges I received if you'd like), I was talking about this specifically. Without much reading or understanding, people have been on the art v. not-art topic. Very much derailment.

I am under the belief that video games aren't art because they are games. Games that are made up with art, but not art themselves. Games will always develop artistically due to that being what they are composed of. With greater innovation and creativity in the field, of course they will expand artistically and I'd be the "consumer fascist" I mentioned if I felt the need to cease the "artistic innovation" of games.

My original post was more of a questioning of the mindless fanatics who put down games due to being childish and low brow. Games that don't offer any intellectual merit. The shocking thing is that these aren't Senators, Prime Ministers, or reporters. These are fellow gamers. These gamers are willing to condemn their own and will bash anything they don't view as "pushing the medium" forward.

For me, as everything is opinion, I honestly believe that we should not sway one way or the other. The primary goal for these developers and publishers is money. It would be a pretty poor business model if you didn't put time or resources into innovation and pushing boundaries of what we know of gaming. This is naturally going to happen whether we clamor for it or not.

I'm about to use one of my biggest pet peeves and compare gaming to movie watching (only because people have done this throughout this thread. side note: Video Games Are Completely Different From Movies!). The people I'm alluding to are similar to those who protest porn in the film industry. They feel they need to erase the smut and will use many things as a crutch to help their cause, such as art. However, porn sells and people love it. Sure, I love great movies but I can appreciate what porn has done for the film industry and our culture overall.

So these little artistic toys I love don't need to be regulated or be forced to be more intelligent or "artsy" for those who want to use that term (also, I want to know what will make these fuckers more artistic. What exactly are people wanting when they want more art? Is art just a pretentious word being used to say less trashy or more intelligent?). They can be marketed as games and toys, and that's fine. They can be obscene and offensive, that's fine too. If a publisher want to market it as an artistic journey, go right ahead.