Why videogames are art

[Exort]

You want to know what a legend in comics thinks about the artwork they produce? Steve Ditko used his old Spider-Man pages as cutting boards. He did 38 issues (39 if you count Spidey's first appearance), can you imagine the amount of money he could've gotten for those first 600 or so pieces of art? (Admittitedly he is deeply into Ayn Rands Objectivism so it kind of makes sense.)

Basically, where we see art, the creators might just be seeing their job. Can it still be art? I think it is more worthy of the term art than people like Jonathan Blow who are trying to make art because the art and emotion comes out naturally when they aren't thinking of art instead of coming off pretencious like Braid does.

Wait you are arguing because there are people that don't treat a medium as art, it is not art?

I remember I wrote: "it is the people that create the game that decide whether it is a art, and the industry is going down the right path."

True in the industry some or even many developer that don't treat game as art, but there are many developer that do, specially among indie, becuase they didn't join the industry for money to begin with.

 

[Ampersand]

Batman Arkham Asylum felt truly like art (ignoring the action parts)

If you didn't think that the combat in arkham asylum was art then you and I have a very different definition of what art is.

 

[Exort]

-cut-

Okay this is going to be my last reply since your English is so bad it is actually giving me a headache trying to decipher it.

Now your entire post is worthless because of one key fact. And I am going to put it in caps so it is even more obvious and insulting.

I NEVER SAID GAMES ARE NOT ART!
I CLEARLY POINTED OUT THAT EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING IS ART WHICH INCLUDES GAMES!

I do not give a flying fuck if douchebag #74 claims it fails some idiotic test.
The fact is that they have to prove how games are not art.

Now since you probably wont understand half of what I have written I will not bother going any further.

Im sorry for my bad English, but there are clear some people that did understand it, and understand it enough to give reply.
In short and in your words: "THEY FAIL TO PROVE THAT F$#KING GAME ARE NOT ART"
Losing arguement is one thing, insulting is another. Try to be more mature next time. Thank you.

Edit: From the same person:
"People just keep dragging its tired old corpse to argue over to somehow think they are intellectual or deep or just to try to convince themselves that games aint just for kids anymore."
"I NEVER SAID GAMES ARE NOT ART!"

 

[Exort]

-cut-

First off, I did not lose any argument. You simply are unable to understand. Secondly I was being mature but there is only so many times you can repeat a point before you get annoyed at someone elses inability to understand what they are saying. Especially when they stupidly try to put words in your mouth that go against everything you were saying.

Seriously man, learn english. If you can not understand english then what are you doing on a english speaking forum?

Contradiction:

"People just keep dragging its tired old corpse to argue over to somehow think they are intellectual or deep or just to try to convince themselves that games aint just for kids anymore."
and
"I NEVER SAID GAMES ARE NOT ART!"

 

[RowdyRodimus]

You want to know what a legend in comics thinks about the artwork they produce? Steve Ditko used his old Spider-Man pages as cutting boards. He did 38 issues (39 if you count Spidey's first appearance), can you imagine the amount of money he could've gotten for those first 600 or so pieces of art? (Admittitedly he is deeply into Ayn Rands Objectivism so it kind of makes sense.)

Basically, where we see art, the creators might just be seeing their job. Can it still be art? I think it is more worthy of the term art than people like Jonathan Blow who are trying to make art because the art and emotion comes out naturally when they aren't thinking of art instead of coming off pretencious like Braid does.

Wait you are arguing because there are people that don't treat a medium as art, it is not art?

I remember I wrote: "it is the people that create the game that decide whether it is a art, and the industry is going down the right path."

True in the industry some or even many developer that don't treat game as art, but there are many developer that do, specially among indie, becuase they didn't join the industry for money to begin with.

No, you misunderstand (it could be the way I wrote it out, too lol)

What I said is that I think the most artistic things occur when the person making it aren't trying to make art. That their emotions and thoughts come out more naturally when they aren't trying to put them down for everyone to see. You've heard it's not what you say, it's what you don't say that matters or show don't tell when describing something? Like the Steve Ditko example I gave, he felt he was just doing his job, he wasn't trying to make art but if you really look at his style and what he drew you can get a pretty good profile of the man himself-the lonliness, the desperate need to escape from the way things are, etc...

But like the Braid example when a person sets out to make art, they usually (not always mind you) make a pretencious piece that is more of a "see how witty or deep I am" pat on their own back than something that is truly art. It's more manufactured than a lot of the yearly AAA games, not financially, but they are made to try and evoke a specific meaning or feeling and the tropes used in it are picked specifically for that. To some that might be art, but to me I prefer the natural, unseen stories that the piece gives to me.

I can see why it's hard to understand me, it's hard to describe. It's just that a lot of times the games that are hailed as the most artistic feel the most artificial to me.

 

[Exort]

@RowdyRodimus
Oh, thank you for the explaination. I appreciated it.

 

[RowdyRodimus]

@RowdyRodimus
Oh, thank you for the explaination. I appreciated it.

I'm sorry if I came off like an asshat. It's just that sometimes I know what I want to say but I just can't type it. The funny thing is if I'm actually using a pen or pencil, I have no problems doing it. I guess it's just a mental tick or something lol.

 

[Vault101]

I love the ME series so much because it feels like it was made especially for me, as in it has exactally everything i love about a game

 

[SimuLord]

im seriously researching this for a paper please let this commence

Then do a search for this subject and read through the 7000 billion topics on this a week we have here...

Roger Ebert is still right.

(dunno, felt empty without me posting that, now I'm gonna get flamed out the ass, not be arsed to reply, and the cycle will be complete.)

 

[merman]

Also, Mass Effect is cool but the decisions you make (which are just dialogue options) only slightly change future decisions (which are well...just more dialogue options.)
You never get the chance to like, save or exterminate a village, but if you did I bet the game would just go "Oh ok 5 more paragon/renegade points for you, carry on."

I personally feel it will only be fair to judge Mass Effect once the final part of the trilogy is out and we see how decisions taken early on affect the ultimate conclusion.

But to get back to games as art... gaming is a medium that is still growing and evolving. If we are talking purely about aesthetics, then yes games can be as beautiful as any artwork (for example, Flower). But there is still a way to go in terms of provoking genuine emotion and reaction. One (lazy) opinion you will often hear is that "gaming is still looking for its equivalent of Citizen Kane". Well, as a gamer I don't want to play that, much as I wouldn't choose that film for "fun". I can appreciate it on a critical level, but I'd rather watch The Blues Brothers. Likewise with gaming, players will gravitate to entertainment rather than an artistic statement. Which explains why a beautiful looking game like Okami doesn't sell.

 

[rockyoumonkeys]

Okay, am I the only one who was completely thrown by TC's first sentence? Like, what does that have to do with anything? I read this whole thing expecting it to turn into a "and that's why I think little kids should be allowed to play M-rated games" argument, but so far it doesn't seem to have.

In which case, I'd have to ask, why bother telling us that? Now it's just an "aren't I insightful for a 14 year old?" topic even though everything you said is pretty much copy/pasted from every other "games are art" topic that's ever happened here.

 

[boholikeu]

Why do video games need to try to be art? Why can't they try to be good games?

Games where a series of cutscenes and dialog are the 'art' tend to get pushed into being movies with awkward scene-select. The gameplay gets squeezed away or minimized so the author's story can predominate. That's my beef: what makes a game a game seems to get stripped away the closer it gets to being considered art.

I'll accept videogames are art when Tetris and Mario Brothers are allowed in. It can't just be about the games that imitate movies or books, it has to be the ones that are about the core gameplay.

Games like this already exist. For example, there's a game called Passage where pretty much every gameplay element has a second "deeper" meaning to it. The game does all this without the help of cutscenes or even in-game text to spell this out to the player.

im seriously researching this for a paper please let this commence

Then do a search for this subject and read through the 7000 billion topics on this a week we have here...

Roger Ebert is still right.

(dunno, felt empty without me posting that, now I'm gonna get flamed out the ass, not be arsed to reply, and the cycle will be complete.)

I'm not gonna flame you, but just place this post:

Games as a whole are not art, but the components that make them up are definitely art.

For example: graphics, music, story.

Rather than drag out "Roger Ebert is Still Right" Standardized Rant #4, I'll just drink to this, except for the story part because let's face it, most game stories are about as artistic as finger painting at the school for severe intellectual-disability special-needs children.

Hey hey now, I thought we just had a discussion two weeks ago in which you conceded that gameplay could hold artistic meaning as well.

No fair going back on it now just because this is a different thread. =)

Hah, saw this in my inbox and thought to myself "hmm, I don't remember posting in this thread".

It's nice to see that other people read the posts I make here. Thanks. =)

 

[shadowcypher]

Ooh, feel free to ask me anything. I would be majoring in video game storytelling if such a major existed: as it is, creative writing is as close as I can get. But seriously, I'd be glad to help.

I minored in it, it's overrated... stick to creative writing :/
(Major in computer game design, ie ALL the creative (non coding) stuff)

 

[Razgovory]

Never have been convinced video games are art. Other games aren't considered art. Nobody considers boardgames or ping-pong a form of art. Why should video-games be considered different?

 

[Halo Fanboy]

A fixed story or at least a semi-fixed story like in Mass Effect is worthless in an RPG. Mass Effect can not be used as a pinnacle of anything because it is quite bad as an rpg.

I guess that's this whole argument in a nutshell the only way to be GREAT ART is being a poor game.

Anything is art.

Everything is art.

The 'video-games are art' argument is a backwards step.

Worse definition yet.

 

[mParadox]

for some reason,i have a feeling that the argument "is videogame art" will be used in the game case.

 

[dickseverywhere]

never really undersstood why there was any controversy over whether videogames were art. if music, books and movies are all art what makes games any different? if anything their interactive nature should make them a richer method of communicating whatever it was the creator wanted to. ultimately art simply seems to be about producing something a person can experience in the hope that it will induce some sort of emotional response. games seem to fit that just fine.

A fixed story or at least a semi-fixed story like in Mass Effect is worthless in an RPG. Mass Effect can not be used as a pinnacle of anything because it is quite bad as an rpg.

I guess that's this whole argument in a nutshell the only way to be GREAT ART is being a poor game.

hmmm.
"Halo Fanboy"
ah yes i think i see the problem here.