Why videogames are art

[Cooperblack]

I think the real important question is that why it's so imperative to some people to label stuff as art.

It's not like games or movies or whatever gets any better by calling them art.

The way i see it is that you either adopt the view that art is something that is created for the sole purpose of existing - then no games and movies are not art since they are created to earn money - they can employ a lot or artists though but that doesn't make the combined effort a piece of art according to this definition.

Or you can adopt the stance that anything that involves a creative process is art - if that is so then pretty much everything is art and the term art is just another word for creativity, by this definition then yeah games are art.

Still i fail to understand why people get so hung up on this.

 

[Netrigan]

I would say video games are an artform, but I'm not sure if I would categorize anything I've played so far as art in much the same way that movies are an artform and 99.9% of the movies released have absolutely no artistic pretense. Terminator 2 is a great movie, but most people aren't going to call it art, despite some impressive visuals.

The nature of video games is what gets in the way of it, I'm afraid. Firstly, most video games center around action sequences or puzzle-solving. In the same way Terminator 2 isn't considered art, a Rubik's Cube isn't considered art. Braid certainly is an artsy game and it's quite inventive; but somehow it doesn't quite come together as art for me. I think it's within spitting distance, probably only needing to develop its characters and story beyond the rough form seen in the game (all the elements are there, it just needs to be fleshed out).

As for games like Bioshock or Uncharted... these are certainly well-crafted games, but the stories involved are absurdly thin. I once heard that Mission Impossible 2 was written after John Woo came up with the action sequences, so the script's job was to connect those set-pieces... and this is how most video games strike me. The action and the story rarely seem joined up properly. Large chunks of the story are simply "go over there" in some sort of disguised key hunt. Instead of a character saying "meet me in the control room", he tells you how you need to go down into the sewers to turn on a circuit breaker, then head up to the penthouse to get an access card, then meet him in the control room. And virtually every video game (Half-Life included) features a lot of this padded story telling. This makes for a good game experience but tends to drag down the game's marks as an actual story.

And it occurs to me, the length is a bit of a problem. I think if you crafted a video game story that could be played in two or three hours, you might have a better shot at crafting a piece of art. Do something that insures that every thing in the game is there for a reason. Let the player experience a short, intense story (not necessarily action-based), while being able to explore that world. If the story is about a character's descent into madness, then you could have a short, intense story filled with lots of amazing imagery, and short effective action... instead of padding the game out to get a six-to-eight hour game. And within that game, you could fully explore this person's descent with journal entries, photos, home videos, etc.

But until then, I think games will just have to be content to be a popular entertainment medium with moments of pure art.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

journal entries, photos, home videos, etc.

But not games.

 

[Netrigan]

journal entries, photos, home videos, etc.

But not games.

Actually, that would be kind of cool. A video game designer who goes off the deep end and creates his own "All Work And No Play Makes Jack A Dull Boy" moment in video game form.

I liken the situation to what happened with comic books in their first few decades. Publishers took the new artform and flooded the market with garbage designed to separate kids from their pocket change, leading a lot of people to make the rather logical assumption that the medium was incapable of art. And an entire industry grew up around this marketing practice that virtually insured that they were right.

Only when the industry started breaking the established rules did they start producing art... and even today, there's not tons of it.

The video game industry has some very set patterns that get in the way of someone coming in and creating a true work of art. The potential is there; you see moments and sequences of pure art here and there; but the bread-and-butter of the industry dictates that it can't expand on those moments in any meaningful way.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

^Like the walls of text in the Warrior comics.

 

[Exort]

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

It is... It always has been that way. To ban Video game, you need to disqualify it from Free speech. To do so game need to fail something know as the Miller test, and one part of the test is "whether game is a part of art, science, politic, or literature". So to ban game you need to show that games are not art(, science, politic, or literature.) Which no one has done it in US yet.

 

[Chewster]

I think that, much like the film industry during its early days, we are still waiting for games to become truly great. There are enough of games out there that are worth celebrating, and that will, I think, eventually become the equivalent of silent film classics, but for the form to meet its potential it is going to take years of experimentation and development. What we are seeing now looks good, but many modern games just fall flat or seem uninspired if you ask me, which is (sometimes) in keeping with the commercialization of any medium. Naturally, this will lead to many bland games and occasional gems, which is how other media industries operate already. That is to say, the boring blockbusters support and facilitate the small experiments, as experimentation takes a degree of capital.

And I'd say that of course games are art, though many gamers don't really care. I do because games have become my media poison of choice so to speak and so, for whatever reason, they speak to me. If art is meant to reflect life back at us, to make us think, to move us, to share interesting stories with us and to compound and build upon already existent culture, then how can games not be considered art? As is with all popular media, some or even most of the content is questionably "art" (no one would say the Transformers films were especially moving or creative, I'd wager), but as I already said, this is no different than any other medium, and we call most of them "art" already, so why not games? What is the big difference, other then the medium being in its relative infancy? Ultimately, if curmudgeons like Ebert want to conclude that they are not, I don't much care personally because I am reasonably satisfied with my experience and understanding that, given the wide definition of art (on a basic level, I'm not making value judgments over "good" or "bad" art) the medium does indeed count.

This is more an argument against naysayers and the indifferent, I guess.

 

[Littlee300]

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.

Well I was thinking about the sneaky parts not the nicely choreographed fights /;

 

[masonfr8kr]

Ok, sorry to sound like I'm a 14 year old just because I don't play M games. Also many of the things that have been said here sound familiar to people because all the arguments have been made. I didn't even start this forum to debate whether games are art. In my opinion some games are when others aren't. All the arguments have been put forth and now as a gaming community we have to wait until November 2 to see what the Supreme Court decides. I started this topic for people to share similar experiences when they feel like a videogame experience has made the impression of artistic to them. Simple as that.

 

[boholikeu]

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?

Actually, other games are considered art as well:

Yoko Ono's chess board = board game art
"Ping Pond Table" by Gabriel Orozco = ping pong art

Both works slightly change the rules of the games in order to make their point, so you can't simply argue that they are "games with art tacked on".

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.

That's a bit like arguing that the only way for a film to be great art is to be a poor movie. IE unless a movie is constantly barraging you with action and visuals it fails as a good movie.

journal entries, photos, home videos, etc.

But not games.

Actually, that would be kind of cool. A video game designer who goes off the deep end and creates his own "All Work And No Play Makes Jack A Dull Boy" moment in video game form.

Didn't this already happen in Bioshock? The "twist" of the game is pretty dependent on interactivity. If that part were re-created in any other medium it'd lose almost all of its impact.

 

[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.

Well I was thinking about the sneaky parts not the nicely choreographed fights /;

It's true that the stealth is less like poetry in motion, however it is alot more akin to sun tzu's art of war.