The games are art defense

[JochemHippie]

They aren't art, they're media...
How is this so difficult?

.

There's a fine line in there somewhere.
The one that separates greedy developers like EA from whichever small Indie company might have your preference. CoD, Battlefield, TES. Those are media, made for one purpose only, to make money.
Art is the the artistic view of an artist, on whatever medium. Making a multi million selling game, set by strict guidelines for the sake of commercial design however, is not.

Personally I think very few games are art. There are some out there, but overal games are not a freely created form of expression.

To you videos games like those aren't art to the devs who make it maybe they see it as art. listen living cost money. To survive you must have money. As much as game designers love making games. I am sure as hell dont think they want to live in a dumpster eating trash. And few ppl go into game design for money and those who do dont survive long. This is due to the long work hours, and very demanding enivorment especially during crunch hours. I am aware certain companies like zynga does it in a product style form. out of curiousity how much do you know of the work enivorment of the Game industry?

Also getting into the industry is a bit of a challenge, not impossible, but for those wanting to make an easy buck thinking game making is as easy as playing games. They dont get in the door sometimes.

And exactly for that reason, I don't think they're art. You're saying it yourself, they need to make money. To make money with games you need to follow protocols and neglect the artistic expression, I'm sure there's some idealistic programmers and Dev's out there. As long as they follow a purely business protocol it'll not be art. Painting for example is one, it's the artists unbarred expression on the paper. They have to make money, ofcourse, but the artistic expression comes first. That's art, games are media.

Do you consider books art? Movies art? Animation art? Listen No one can afford to make games free. With art comes business they work hand in hand. Business aspect is to allow game makers to put food on their tables when the studios close for the next 6 hours. Like someone said Michaelanglo didnt do his art for free. do you think what he did was not art, what about sistine chapel? I am sure as hell Michaelanglo did not paint for four years without wanting a paycheck to afford food. Artform is the combination of thoughts illustrated in some form on something someone can recieve that triggers some natural desire emotion or etc. of the persons subconsious mind. Your looking at it from a business model stand point, but I think you neglect to look at it from anything but that. Movies, books, artwork all follow a business protocal.

And all I'm saying is that artistic expression is not relevent to gaming dev's because the people that make it. The programmers, have almost no creative input on it.

I am not going to call everyone who makes something an artist, that's all.

 

[Westaway]

There one argument about why games aren't art that does make sense. They say that art, really, at it's core, is uselss. You can only look at it.
Now, that makes sense. However, that's nit my definition of art. Toys, for example, can be art; imagine a master crafted wooden toy car. That would be art, plus you can use it to roll it around.

 

[Sean Hollyman]

To me, art is something that can inspire, shock, connect, or amaze you. Not all games do this, but the ones that do, and are very good at it, are art

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

There one argument about why games aren't art that does make sense. They say that art, really, at it's core, is uselss. You can only look at it.
Now, that makes sense. However, that's nit my definition of art. Toys, for example, can be art; imagine a master crafted wooden toy car. That would be art, plus you can use it to roll it around.

Pretty sure no one has ever said art is useless.

 

[rob_simple]

You make a couple of interesting points, EA does seem to be pulling the "artistic integrity" defense a lot and people are quick to say "it's their artistic vision, they shouldn't have to change it" even though Mass Effect 3 got kinda its artistic integrity screwed over before it even hit the shelves, I seem to recall people never shutting up about day one DLC, marketing, homosexual relationships and Ashley's new look before the game even came out, but now complaining about the ending and how it should be different is being entitled despite massive amounts of content being ripped out of the game KOTOR 2 style and Casey Hudson (if this rumor is true) being an idiot and writing this ending without the approval of the writing team! So what? Are we supposed to say "I don't like what you're doing but keep doing it because if I tell you to change what you're doing that's being entitled?" So are we supposed to just accept EA/Bioware being idiots? Let me tell you people, we need to make a point if you EVER want them to change, and asking nicely isn't gonna cut it. I don't see why we should just bend over and accept everything that EA/Bioware does.

Apparently some people just can't accept that stupid people can mess up good things and that they need to be fixed. So what? Was Broken Steel a result of gamer entitlement? If it was, don't expect me to apologize for it! You know what? I do a little writing on the side, a couple of times when people criticized a part of my work, I went back and changed it, looked at it from a distance, and thought that it was actually better that way. In other words, sometimes the reader knows better than the author.

EDIT:..sorry, this has become a topic that tends to get my blood boiling.

You actually raised some interesting points and if that's true about the ME3 ending being written like that it actually puts a different perspective on the whole issue for me so I'd just like to thank you for giving this pointless thread a glimmer of justification.

The thing that bothers me about the ME3 debacle is that it sets a precedent for gamers everywhere in terms of the voice they have. This can be good because it will show some of the more flippant developers/publishers that we won't stand for any old bullshit.

It can also be bad, because it means now everyone will think they should have a say in how a game is made and that complaining loudly enough when things don't go their way will bring about a change of some sort.

 

[Westaway]

There one argument about why games aren't art that does make sense. They say that art, really, at it's core, is uselss. You can only look at it.
Now, that makes sense. However, that's nit my definition of art. Toys, for example, can be art; imagine a master crafted wooden toy car. That would be art, plus you can use it to roll it around.

Pretty sure no one has ever said art is useless.

Pretty sure someone has, in the sense that they are only useless in expanding the mind and such. As in, art can only be observed, not used or interacted with directly.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

There one argument about why games aren't art that does make sense. They say that art, really, at it's core, is uselss. You can only look at it.
Now, that makes sense. However, that's nit my definition of art. Toys, for example, can be art; imagine a master crafted wooden toy car. That would be art, plus you can use it to roll it around.

Pretty sure no one has ever said art is useless.

Pretty sure someone has, in the sense that they are only useless in expanding the mind and such. As in, art can only be observed, not used or interacted with directly.

Because thought, emotion, philosophy and statement through image are all widely considered useless? Also, you say you cannot interact with art, but both the process of creating and observing art is a direct interaction. Moreover, playing a video game is about as interactive as one can get.

The only person who would suggest art is useless because you can't "use it" would be a fool.

 

[Westaway]

There one argument about why games aren't art that does make sense. They say that art, really, at it's core, is uselss. You can only look at it.
Now, that makes sense. However, that's nit my definition of art. Toys, for example, can be art; imagine a master crafted wooden toy car. That would be art, plus you can use it to roll it around.

Pretty sure no one has ever said art is useless.

Pretty sure someone has, in the sense that they are only useless in expanding the mind and such. As in, art can only be observed, not used or interacted with directly.

Because thought, emotion, philosophy and statement through image are all widely considered useless? Also, you say you cannot interact with art, but both the process of creating and observing art is a direct interaction. Moreover, playing a video game is about as interactive as one can get.

The only person who would suggest art is useless because you can't "use it" would be a fool.

Look man, I'm not saying that, chill the fuck out. I'm saying "useless because I don't have a better word. I mean th-
Wait a minute. I clearly said in my first post I don't even agree with the point of view. I'm sure you can find it on google. Stop trying to argue with me.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

Lets break it down into a simple observation of my argument. Ill use food as an example because primitive people such as yourself can understand it.

You have A meat pie and a quiche . Both different flavours/food types, both called different things.

I ask for a meat pie, and you give me the quiche because you say that they are both contain pastry and are the same.

Hence Games are Games, Art is Art even though one may contain the same elements of art. They are still two completely different things.

So in that same analogy, how would you differentiate film, literature, music, painting, sculpture, Dance etc. from Art? After all, those "mediums" are appreciated globally as art forms (though not all content from them is art). By your logic they are all meat pies, but all those flavours and textures are VASTLY different, been made from different ingredients and combinations... heck even different cultural palettes.

Your analogy doesn't work.

You seem to be defining Art as a medium in and of itself, when it isn't... art is a concept that is applied to mediums. It is not an independent thing. It has to be applied to something in order to be art.

I'm trying to be gentle here, because ignorant people struggle with concepts that might challenge the foundations of their knowledge.

 

[kingthrall]

Lets break it down into a simple observation of my argument. Ill use food as an example because primitive people such as yourself can understand it.

You have A meat pie and a quiche . Both different flavours/food types, both called different things.

I ask for a meat pie, and you give me the quiche because you say that they are both contain pastry and are the same.

Hence Games are Games, Art is Art even though one may contain the same elements of art. They are still two completely different things.

So in that same analogy, how would you differentiate film, literature, music, painting, sculpture, Dance etc. from Art? After all, those "mediums" are appreciated globally as art forms (though not all content from them is art). By your logic they are all meat pies, but all those flavours and textures are VASTLY different, been made from different ingredients and combinations... heck even different cultural palettes.

Your analogy doesn't work.

You seem to be defining Art as a medium in and of itself, when it isn't... art is a concept that is applied to mediums. It is not an independent thing. It has to be applied to something in order to be art.

I'm trying to be gentle here, because ignorant people struggle with concepts that might challenge the foundations of their knowledge.

There is no helping you, even with delicious pastries you are doomed.

You just argued pretty much an assortment of different categories all named different thing, and just called them all pastry yet again.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

Lets break it down into a simple observation of my argument. Ill use food as an example because primitive people such as yourself can understand it.

You have A meat pie and a quiche . Both different flavours/food types, both called different things.

I ask for a meat pie, and you give me the quiche because you say that they are both contain pastry and are the same.

Hence Games are Games, Art is Art even though one may contain the same elements of art. They are still two completely different things.

So in that same analogy, how would you differentiate film, literature, music, painting, sculpture, Dance etc. from Art? After all, those "mediums" are appreciated globally as art forms (though not all content from them is art). By your logic they are all meat pies, but all those flavours and textures are VASTLY different, been made from different ingredients and combinations... heck even different cultural palettes.

Your analogy doesn't work.

You seem to be defining Art as a medium in and of itself, when it isn't... art is a concept that is applied to mediums. It is not an independent thing. It has to be applied to something in order to be art.

I'm trying to be gentle here, because ignorant people struggle with concepts that might challenge the foundations of their knowledge.

There is no helping you, even with delicious pastries you are doomed.

You just argued pretty much an assortment of different categories all named different thing, and just called them all pastry yet again.

I'm sorry, I what? That sentence came across as gibberish on my end... must be a bad signal.

But seriously, I can't believe anyone would consciously post that and think to themselves any semblance of meaning was transmitted. Hint: What you think isn't always what ends up on screen when you drag your knuckles across a keyboard. I know your trying really hard, so kudos for that.

You are the one who said Art is like a meat pie and games are like quiche. While that's a weak analogy at best, you proceed to make no sense whatsoever by implying Meat Pies represent everything under the sun that is Art. I then ASK you how would you distinguish between various artistic mediums under this analogy, and you then tell me that I'm just saying different things and calling them pastry!?

I then interject an assumption that Art isn't a thing, but a concept... something that requires a medium to have meaning. Art isn't just there (which you implied earlier by saying Life isn't art... and calling me a moron), therefore it needs something to exist. That something is Painting, Drawing, Sculpting, Dancing, Writing, Composing, Filming etc. Pick whatever one you want, all of them are MEDIUMS through which ART can be made.

I now ask you, why can't the MEDIUM of interactive computer programs (like GAMES) be used in the making of Art?

 

[I.Muir]

So how does a game being art make it unable to be criticized?

How's this for ya?

A creator of a film, book, movie, game, drawing, etcetera reserves the right to accept, address, and dismiss criticism at his/her own discretion.

If Infinity Ward thinks that the Modern Warfare games are fine they way they are, your only valid response is to not buy them if you don't like that.

If BioWare thinks their ending to ME3 is fine, your only valid response is to not buy it.

If Bethesda thinks the "Open World Exploration" format for all their games is how they would like to make games, my only valid response is to not buy them if you don't like that.

If Valve wants to keep using the Source Engine for all their games and design 4-hour puzzle games, my only valid response is to not buy them if you don't like that.

If a game developer is unhappy with their finished game, they're doing it wrong. Give up this bullshit about "Comsumer rights violations" or "broken promises" as those only exist in your head.

Good thing I didn't buy the first two then but that didn't stop me from playing them. Why does everybody assume that just because I have an opinion I must be thinking that I can force people to do what I want? I already know I can't force anybody to do anything at all but if nobody says anything, how are they supposed to listen? I would have thought there was less of a point in continuously telling everybody that they shouldn't bother even attempting to complain unless they were afraid that they might succeed.

Just because they can decide to close their eyes and ears to the world and act like children doesn't mean they should. Whilst they are exerting their rights to do whatever the hell they want with their intellectual property ill be watching them burn from afar.

Is there a problem with not having a extreme for or against opinion? As long as the criticisms leveled at however are constructive why does anybody care? Are people so afraid to be seen as being another one of those take back me3 gits that they automatically assume anybody complaining at all must be one as well? If your only response is to not buy the game how will they know what you don't like about it, or do you assume that your opinion has no value for them at all?

 

[I.Muir]

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS "ARE GAMES ART?" FOOLISHNESS.
ART IS JUST A WORD. IT CAN MEAN WHATEVER YOU DEFINE IT AS. CALLING SOMETHING ART DOESN'T CHANGE WHAT IT IS. SO JUST SHUT UP ABOUT IT!

(I'm not directing this at anyone in particular, just to people who perpetuate this entirely made up debate topic)

You and the guy below you!
Did you read the topic? Did you read the few posts that are on-topic?
I did not ask you or anybody else whether games are art or not. My opinion was set in stone when they became art under law. I asked you whether by attaching the concept of art to a video game it's granted additional protection against criticism. I stated that I think this is bullshit.

You may think otherwise and post as such
You may agree with me
You may think this is a grey area and sit on the fence
You may even continue to post about whether games are art or not as there appears to be no stopping them
OR you can do yourself a favor and leave, ignore all posts that have games and art in the topic and most importantly STFU. I'm not interested in being told that it's not up for discussion by you or any other git on the internet. You won't really benefit anybody from trying to censor the internet and so long as these topics contain reasonable debate I doubt much bad can come from it.

Also by nobody in particular, you meant me.

 

[kingthrall]

Lets break it down into a simple observation of my argument. Ill use food as an example because primitive people such as yourself can understand it.

You have A meat pie and a quiche . Both different flavours/food types, both called different things.

I ask for a meat pie, and you give me the quiche because you say that they are both contain pastry and are the same.

Hence Games are Games, Art is Art even though one may contain the same elements of art. They are still two completely different things.

So in that same analogy, how would you differentiate film, literature, music, painting, sculpture, Dance etc. from Art? After all, those "mediums" are appreciated globally as art forms (though not all content from them is art). By your logic they are all meat pies, but all those flavours and textures are VASTLY different, been made from different ingredients and combinations... heck even different cultural palettes.

Your analogy doesn't work.

You seem to be defining Art as a medium in and of itself, when it isn't... art is a concept that is applied to mediums. It is not an independent thing. It has to be applied to something in order to be art.

I'm trying to be gentle here, because ignorant people struggle with concepts that might challenge the foundations of their knowledge.

There is no helping you, even with delicious pastries you are doomed.

You just argued pretty much an assortment of different categories all named different thing, and just called them all pastry yet again.

I'm sorry, I what? That sentence came across as gibberish on my end... must be a bad signal.

But seriously, I can't believe anyone would consciously post that and think to themselves any semblance of meaning was transmitted. Hint: What you think isn't always what ends up on screen when you drag your knuckles across a keyboard. I know your trying really hard, so kudos for that.

You are the one who said Art is like a meat pie and games are like quiche. While that's a weak analogy at best, you proceed to make no sense whatsoever by implying Meat Pies represent everything under the sun that is Art. I then ASK you how would you distinguish between various artistic mediums under this analogy, and you then tell me that I'm just saying different things and calling them pastry!?

I then interject an assumption that Art isn't a thing, but a concept... something that requires a medium to have meaning. Art isn't just there (which you implied earlier by saying Life isn't art... and calling me a moron), therefore it needs something to exist. That something is Painting, Drawing, Sculpting, Dancing, Writing, Composing, Filming etc. Pick whatever one you want, all of them are MEDIUMS through which ART can be made.

I now ask you, why can't the MEDIUM of interactive computer programs (like GAMES) be used in the making of Art?

 

[RedFeather1975]

I can criticize a video game all I want when the reason it exists is a form of soliciting.
Calling it art doesn't protect it and grant the right to freely express itself without consequence, when it was made to ask for money up front in order to view it.

 

[Olas]

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS "ARE GAMES ART?" FOOLISHNESS.
ART IS JUST A WORD. IT CAN MEAN WHATEVER YOU DEFINE IT AS. CALLING SOMETHING ART DOESN'T CHANGE WHAT IT IS. SO JUST SHUT UP ABOUT IT!

(I'm not directing this at anyone in particular, just to people who perpetuate this entirely made up debate topic)

You and the guy below you!
Did you read the topic? Did you read the few posts that are on-topic?
I did not ask you or anybody else whether games are art or not. My opinion was set in stone when they became art under law. I asked you whether by attaching the concept of art to a video game it's granted additional protection against criticism. I stated that I think this is bullshit.

You may think otherwise and post as such
You may agree with me
You may think this is a grey area and sit on the fence
You may even continue to post about whether games are art or not as there appears to be no stopping them
OR you can do yourself a favor and leave, ignore all posts that have games and art in the topic and most importantly STFU. I'm not interested in being told that it's not up for discussion by you or any other git on the internet. You won't really benefit anybody from trying to censor the internet and so long as these topics contain reasonable debate I doubt much bad can come from it.

Also by nobody in particular, you meant me.

Did you read MY post? Stop being vain and thinking my post was somehow in direct response to anything you said. It wasn't. It was to the fact that this is about the 12th thread I've run into in the last month about games and art. By nobody in particular I meant nobody in particular. If what I said offended you I'm sorry.

The problem is that there's literally never been a good consensus on what the term art actually means. Never. It's just a silly word we slap on some stuff to make it seem more important.
If I had it my way the word art would be taken out of the english language today.

The only answer I can possibly give to your question, which presupposes that [a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp)"]art[/a] is somehow a meaningful term, is that I think games should be priced whatever the invisible hand of the market says they should be priced, and that no game (or anything else) should ever be above criticism from anyone for any reason.
You can call games art, you can call them fruitsalad, you can call them geropyjomes.

As far as I'm concerned a thread debating whether it's good to call games geropyjomes is as sensical as one about art.

 

[I.Muir]

(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS "ARE GAMES ART?" FOOLISHNESS.
ART IS JUST A WORD. IT CAN MEAN WHATEVER YOU DEFINE IT AS. CALLING SOMETHING ART DOESN'T CHANGE WHAT IT IS. SO JUST SHUT UP ABOUT IT!

(I'm not directing this at anyone in particular, just to people who perpetuate this entirely made up debate topic)

You and the guy below you!
Did you read the topic? Did you read the few posts that are on-topic?
I did not ask you or anybody else whether games are art or not. My opinion was set in stone when they became art under law. I asked you whether by attaching the concept of art to a video game it's granted additional protection against criticism. I stated that I think this is bullshit.

You may think otherwise and post as such
You may agree with me
You may think this is a grey area and sit on the fence
You may even continue to post about whether games are art or not as there appears to be no stopping them
OR you can do yourself a favor and leave, ignore all posts that have games and art in the topic and most importantly STFU. I'm not interested in being told that it's not up for discussion by you or any other git on the internet. You won't really benefit anybody from trying to censor the internet and so long as these topics contain reasonable debate I doubt much bad can come from it.

Also by nobody in particular, you meant me.

Did you read MY post? Stop being vain and thinking my post was somehow in direct response to anything you said. It wasn't. It was to the fact that this is about the 12th thread I've run into in the last month about games and art. By nobody in particular I meant nobody in particular. If what I said offended you I'm sorry.

The problem is that there's literally never been a good consensus on what the term art actually means. Never. It's just a silly word we slap on some stuff to make it seem more important.
If I had it my way the word art would be taken out of the english language today.

The only answer I can possibly give to your question, which presupposes that [a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_(Duchamp)"]art[/a] is somehow a meaningful term, is that I think games should be priced whatever the invisible hand of the market says they should be priced, and that no game (or anything else) should ever be above criticism from anyone for any reason.
You can call games art, you can call them fruitsalad, you can call them geropyjomes.

As far as I'm concerned a thread debating whether it's good to call games geropyjomes is as sensical as one about art.

I guess I was a bit heavy handed and jumped to conclusions for which I also apologize. However if these threads bother you that much why participate at all. If it's obvious that a consensus will never be reached as there will always be two people with unshakable, strong opposite opinions wouldn't it also be obvious that they will keep arguing about it until the end of time. The threads will keep coming up and all you can really do is ignore them and move on.

I have considered what you have said and will now refer to games as potato.
Actually since people earlier in the topic have a thing for calling games pastry instead it should be shepherds pie.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

Lets break it down into a simple observation of my argument. Ill use food as an example because primitive people such as yourself can understand it.

You have A meat pie and a quiche . Both different flavours/food types, both called different things.

I ask for a meat pie, and you give me the quiche because you say that they are both contain pastry and are the same.

Hence Games are Games, Art is Art even though one may contain the same elements of art. They are still two completely different things.

So in that same analogy, how would you differentiate film, literature, music, painting, sculpture, Dance etc. from Art? After all, those "mediums" are appreciated globally as art forms (though not all content from them is art). By your logic they are all meat pies, but all those flavours and textures are VASTLY different, been made from different ingredients and combinations... heck even different cultural palettes.

Your analogy doesn't work.

You seem to be defining Art as a medium in and of itself, when it isn't... art is a concept that is applied to mediums. It is not an independent thing. It has to be applied to something in order to be art.

I'm trying to be gentle here, because ignorant people struggle with concepts that might challenge the foundations of their knowledge.

There is no helping you, even with delicious pastries you are doomed.

You just argued pretty much an assortment of different categories all named different thing, and just called them all pastry yet again.

I'm sorry, I what? That sentence came across as gibberish on my end... must be a bad signal.

But seriously, I can't believe anyone would consciously post that and think to themselves any semblance of meaning was transmitted. Hint: What you think isn't always what ends up on screen when you drag your knuckles across a keyboard. I know your trying really hard, so kudos for that.

You are the one who said Art is like a meat pie and games are like quiche. While that's a weak analogy at best, you proceed to make no sense whatsoever by implying Meat Pies represent everything under the sun that is Art. I then ASK you how would you distinguish between various artistic mediums under this analogy, and you then tell me that I'm just saying different things and calling them pastry!?

I then interject an assumption that Art isn't a thing, but a concept... something that requires a medium to have meaning. Art isn't just there (which you implied earlier by saying Life isn't art... and calling me a moron), therefore it needs something to exist. That something is Painting, Drawing, Sculpting, Dancing, Writing, Composing, Filming etc. Pick whatever one you want, all of them are MEDIUMS through which ART can be made.

I now ask you, why can't the MEDIUM of interactive computer programs (like GAMES) be used in the making of Art?

Fair enough. That clears everything up then. Good chat.

I guess the pastry analogy was too stupid to dig yourself out of.