What game(s) do you consider art?

[DesertMummy]

Just to clarify, you can't say every game. Yes, I understand that all games technically qualify as art. However I an talking about like what game or games do you consider a Mona Lisa of games, something to convince a video game virgin that the medium is art not simply something to kill a couple of minutes with. Also, loving your guys answers! Keep then coming!

P.S. I forgot about Half-Life 2 and Bioshock. Those are also on my list.

 

[Someone Depressing]

Ico
SocT
Silent Hill (No. All of them.)
Penumbra (Once again: All of them.)
Mother 3
The Path
Heavy Rain


Well, I guess these games are more "artsy" more than they are solid "art". What I get by "art", is that they revolutionise the others in their media. Like how Half-Life revolutionised the entire action/horror genre. Or how Silent Hill 2 messed around with symbolisism, something no-other-game up 'till that point done.

 

[Trololo Punk]

All games are art in their own right, but certain one's stick out in my eyes, games like shadow of the colossus, bioshock, okami,and maybe limbo.
Lots of others as well but these 4 are sticking out in my mind at the time.

 

[Hekateras]

The reason why I make this distinction is that I don't think the mechanical aspects of games (the "game" part as opposed to, say, the animations, visuals, sounds, music, dialog, voice acting, writing, etc.) are art yet.

I've read of an (IMO) pretty convincing argument against that, using an example of some war game (Call of Duty something?) in which the main badass, invincible protagonist up and died in a cutscene, just like that. Like any soldier on the warlines can die, no matter how "important" they are. It was, in fact, more of a gut punch to the player because dammit, this is the person you've spent god knows how many hours controlling and keeping alive, you should be able to prevent this. The gameplay elements - namely the implicit interactivity - actually *augmented* the impact of the protagonist's death.

The argument that gameplay or such does not belong in art or is not artsy is sounds completely arbitrary to me. Why should "artness" and interactivity be at odds?

All of them. Just like all books, all movies, etc are art by definition.

I agree with Kahunaburger. They are all art.

Now, they may not all be good art. But bad art is still art.

Seconded like hell.

I had the weirdest "discussion" once (that started by the other person flat out saying that I've never been to an art gallery if I consider games art) with someone who kept demanding that I provide a game that can be compared to the work of Mozart or Leonardo da Vinci. In short, for her art was Art, no less than a complete masterpiece that would be remembered forever.

Either art is a matter of medium, or it isn't. If it's a matter of medium, then I've heard no convincing argument that the entire medium of videogames is disqualified. Bad videogames are still art, just like the unskilled but soulful stick figure drawing of a kid is art, just like Twilight is art, and may the gods of literature forgive me for saying this.

Or art ISN'T a matter of medium and whether something is art must be determined on a case-by-case basis. There are different criteria one can adopt here, such as measuring the impact or memorability or the meaning and message of a work. Obviously, there are videogames that can and do fulfill such criteria, but agreeing on which of them do (as well as the criteria themselves) can be a matter of opinion. So it's simpler to just go with "all video games are art", in my opinion.

 

[trooper6]

Seconded like hell.

I had the weirdest "discussion" once (that started by the other person flat out saying that I've never been to an art gallery if I consider games art) with someone who kept demanding that I provide a game that can be compared to the work of Mozart or Leonardo da Vinci. In short, for her art was Art, no less than a complete masterpiece that would be remembered forever.

Either art is a matter of medium, or it isn't. If it's a matter of medium, then I've heard no convincing argument that the entire medium of videogames is disqualified. Bad videogames are still art, just like the unskilled but soulful stick figure drawing of a kid is art, just like Twilight is art, and may the gods of literature forgive me for saying this.

Or art ISN'T a matter of medium and whether something is art must be determined on a case-by-case basis. There are different criteria one can adopt here, such as measuring the impact or memorability or the meaning and message of a work. Obviously, there are videogames that can and do fulfill such criteria, but agreeing on which of them do (as well as the criteria themselves) can be a matter of opinion. So it's simpler to just go with "all video games are art", in my opinion.

I think the big problem with most of these discussions is that people confuse "artsy" (which is basically a genre) with "art."

There is a genre called an "art film." I like to call them "Oscar bait films." And I actually quite like many of them. But a film doesn't have to be a British costume drama to be art. Terminator is also art. And yeah, we have "artsy" video games...like Silent Hill 2 or Bioshock...but high art or low art...it is still art.

Ballet is dance...but so it The Twist or Krunking.

 

[AyreonMaiden]

I said Majora's Mask in an old thread of the same nature, but I'll change my tune for this one.

The Metal Gear Solid series is some serious video-games-as-art, in my book. Very few games achieve the "complete package" feeling of this series. It tells a complex story with a positive message, presents it in a wildly entertaining way, manages to not forget that it's a videogame at heart by showcasing an astounding attention to detail in its mechanics and open-ended approach; all while making fun of itself.

It's a game series that truly showcases how videogames are different from the other media it's so commonly compared to. It tells a story as meaty as any novel, presents it as well as any movie, all while still immersing you with gameplay that thinks of just about all the possibilities.

I never believed Hideo Kojima wanted out of the series at all. There's no way he could have made MGS2, 3, and 4 as good as they were if he had resentments about making them.

I also find it extremely disingenuous that people criticize Hideo Kojima for the amount of cutscenes in his games, saying that they may as well be movies. No, they may NOT as well be movies because there's plenty of detailed, fun gameplay to be had in the time you aren't watching the characters and plot develop. An aspiring film-maker wouldn't care enough to pack the world full of details and easter eggs...wouldn't care enough to craft a whole close-combat system - that's purely OPTIONAL, by the way - just so you can have another way of going about your mission outside just killing/tranq'ing your enemies...the list goes on. Kojima is a game-maker, not a failed movie director or anything.

TL;DR - Metal Gear is art because it showcases how games are a synthesis of many different media, all while demonstrating that there's no way in hell it would have worked as anything other than a video game. For me, it's the foremost "complete package" of gaming and my second favorite series of all time, behind Zelda.

 

[Mungular]

L.A. Noire
Katamari Damacy (series)
Limbo
Bioshock(series)
Heavy Rain
Uncharted(series)
Flower
Fallout(series)
Mass effect(series)
Final Fantasy(series)

 

[TailorTF]

Dwarf Fortress.
It has so many things to do,all compiled into a free game that looks like a drawing in Notepad.

 

[Nouw]

By the definition of 'art', every game.

 

[Yoshemo]

This.

 

[II2]

Every game that's been made.

Pretty well, yep.

All games ARE is [art x discipline/profession] + interface.

 

[Grabbin Keelz]

If the new shight cash grab movies can be considered art, then every video game can be considered art, whether it was made for the purpose of art or just to get money.

 

[emeraldrafael]

... EDIT:Just to clarify, you can't say every game. Yes, I understand that all games technically qualify as art. However I an talking about like what game or games do you consider a Mona Lisa of games, something to convince a video game virgin that the medium is art not simply something to kill a couple of minutes with. ...

The phrase you're looking ofr is called high art. Though that can cause some arguement in the art world as to what counts for high art and what is low art and whether you should split them into high art and low art or just art itself and it gets to all sound dumb. But I think what you mean is high art cause thats the stuff like Picasso and Da Vinci and Van Gogh and Rembrandt and Greek sculptures and such.

OT: Psychonauts

Shadow of the Colossus

Ico

Persona 3 Fes (not so much in visuals, but in the message it can convey)

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time

Silent Hill 2

Legend of Zelda: Windwaker (the feeling it inspires on you, like looking at a painting of a wide open ocean with a boat ready to sail, though I would also say visually.)

Rez

I would say Pokemon

Dragon Age (particularly Origins)

inFAMOUS (at least I thought so)

I would say Soul Calibur, except you'd have to look at it in terms of the series. if you could make your fan made character's story in the game to follow, it would without hesitation be art.

... thats about all I can think of, and that looking now at hwats been said, I just feel like contributing/repeating.

EDIT:

oh, quick edit and while I'm about to piss alot of people off, Minecraft. the creativity it opens and the canvas it leaves for you, plus just some of the things I've seen people make I couldnt consider anything less then art.

 

[Lunoir]

Okami of course is one of the most stunning games I have ever played. Other games that require the art status are:

Viewtiful Joe
ICO
Shadow of the Colossus
Morrowind
Zelda OoT
Zelda Windwaker
Persona 3
Digital Devil Saga

 

[JMeganSnow]

The reason why I make this distinction is that I don't think the mechanical aspects of games (the "game" part as opposed to, say, the animations, visuals, sounds, music, dialog, voice acting, writing, etc.) are art yet.

I've read of an (IMO) pretty convincing argument against that, using an example of some war game (Call of Duty something?) in which the main badass, invincible protagonist up and died in a cutscene, just like that. Like any soldier on the warlines can die, no matter how "important" they are. It was, in fact, more of a gut punch to the player because dammit, this is the person you've spent god knows how many hours controlling and keeping alive, you should be able to prevent this. The gameplay elements - namely the implicit interactivity - actually *augmented* the impact of the protagonist's death.

The argument that gameplay or such does not belong in art or is not artsy is sounds completely arbitrary to me. Why should "artness" and interactivity be at odds?

A cut scene is not a MECHANICAL part of the game. It is a MOVIE. MOVIES ARE ART. It's the gameplay aspects that are not art. I won't say interactivity in and of itself can't be art, but I have yet to see a game where this is the case. The gameplay is not integrated with the rest of the artwork. All those instances of you pulling a trigger or picking up health packs or hiding behind cover are not integrated with anything--you could perform exactly the same tasks in a featureless gray cube and they would be precisely as meaningful.

Some games integrate SOME gameplay aspects into the game. If you draw your weapons in town in Gothic, people yell at you to put them away and will attack you if you don't. Likewise in the same game you almost always will make an effort to find a bed and sleep through the in-game night because it is too effing dark to see where you're going. This also helpfully refreshes your health and mana. However, every complex game still has wild dissociations between the gameplay and the world. Simpler games ("casual" games) actually tend to be far better integrated.

I don't understand why people get so crazy about this. It's not like being "art" is some medal or title and we must knight games under its auspices. It's a word. It has a definition. Things either fall within the definition or they do not. It's not a condemnation to say that something isn't art. It's a game. That's what it is. Nobody is going to say that Monopoly is art because you've painted the Mona Lisa on the board. You can take a first-person shooter and slather it with as much artwork as you like, this won't disguise the fact that it's still a GAME with a bunch of artwork on top of it. GET OVER IT.

 

[Hekateras]

If you use the term like that, the term becomes meaningless, and you're arguing semantics. You could tell we were discussing good art, and when we say art we're referring to good art, so why did you feel the need to say "Everything is art", a phrase thats meaningless by definition.

"All games are art" does not equal "Everything is art". If the latter had been said, I'd agree with you. But it wasn't. The implicit definition of art that's used here is something that has an *impact* on you, be it emotional, intellectual or what have you. Or, something that is *supposed* to have an impact, has the *potential* to have an impact, as intended by the creator - as said, bad art is still art, and actually learning to paint/write/compose/whatever so that the end result causes the impact you want it to cause is the very meat of trying to become a better artist.

A cut scene is not a MECHANICAL part of the game. It is a MOVIE. MOVIES ARE ART. It's the gameplay aspects that are not art. I won't say interactivity in and of itself can't be art, but I have yet to see a game where this is the case. The gameplay is not integrated with the rest of the artwork. All those instances of you pulling a trigger or picking up health packs or hiding behind cover are not integrated with anything--you could perform exactly the same tasks in a featureless gray cube and they would be precisely as meaningful.

I think you missed the point. A cutscene is a movie, and presumably art, but it is the interactivity, the gameplay, the mechanics *outside* of that cutscene that gave it the context and meaning necessary to pack a player punch in a far more *personal* way than regular movies can usually achieve.

Gameplay has several inherent qualities. Most importantly, it achieves the feeling that it is YOU in the character's shoes, effectively, that you are them. This can easily be exploited for artistic effect, e.g. by making it more personal when the hero bites it, or making YOU feel like a wretch for failing to save someone or choosing to do target practice on kittens. It's an inherently different experience from merely *watching* someone do these things. Getting someone to identify with a character on such a strong level in any other medium is a much more difficult, arduous and hit-and-miss process.

Gameplay and non-gameplay don't exist in a vacuum - they're tied to each other and influence the way the other is experienced, like two neighbouring colours in a painting. Neither one would be experienced the same way without the other, and would probably be worse off for it. (Can you honestly say that you miss the days of the early games that were just about killing monsters, gathering collectibles, and advancing to the next dungeon, with no more than an excuse for a story present?) As such, since gameplay and non-gameplay elements both contribute something significant to the end result, I see no reason to distinguish between them in terms of "artness". Like the ingredients of a dish, they contribute something vital to the end result. To dismiss gameplay as being inherently non-art would be like dismissing a particular type of sauce as "not real cooking".

I don't understand why people get so crazy about this. It's not like being "art" is some medal or title and we must knight games under its auspices. It's a word. It has a definition. Things either fall within the definition or they do not. It's not a condemnation to say that something isn't art. It's a game. That's what it is. Nobody is going to say that Monopoly is art because you've painted the Mona Lisa on the board. You can take a first-person shooter and slather it with as much artwork as you like, this won't disguise the fact that it's still a GAME with a bunch of artwork on top of it. GET OVER IT.

It's inevitable that somewhere in a debate somebody will infer that the opposing side is effectively just being silly and making a big deal over nothing, but it doesn't strike me as a very relevant argument, sorry. Debating about why people are debating sounds like a roundabout type of ad hominem to me.

 

[Bostur]

Yoshemo's vid is pretty awesome. Thats a good candidate.

The game that got closest to art for me was probably Grim Fandango
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grim_fandango
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hV1NBHL9Fa4

or Delta
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=02YBWKxDXPI

 

[Espsychologist]

Tetris. Tetris is art. The original, not the duded-up BS that comes out now, but the original ARCADE Tetris. An L-Block crafted from blue marble with the origin of the game carved into it should be placed on a pedestal in The Louvre. Tetris, for me, is also the FIRST artistic game (sorry, Mario).

Also, before anyone makes a remark about my comment, I am completely serious, and I challenge anyone to come up with a reason Tetris is not art.

 

[dogenzakaminion]

Yes, all games ever made are art blah blah, but one game that really moved me was Passage. I had no idea what it was, until I got the end it finally dawned on me what it was about. Teared up a little bit.

 

[NinjaDeathSlap]

I'm going to put a word in for the Assassins Creed games. Seriously they are just so goddamn pretty, and the best part is it's not just a pretty background to look at while you go down an essentially linear path. You can climb and stand on every single texture, and not one texture has been overlooked. It feels like an interactive, 3D landscape painting. I'm probably one of the few people who never got bored of all the tower climbing you do in them because for me it was just one more excuse to look around and go "wow".

/fanboy drool

Apart from that everything else I would have said has already been mentioned several times, so I won't bother going into them.