worst arguments why games aren't art.

[nuba km]

snip

thank you for clearing that up for and making me laugh with the Marcus fenix bit and hope thinks go well for you in the future.

 

[AmrasCalmacil]

This is a little off-topic, but I think realism can sometimes lend itself to art, I wouldn't call Call of Duty anything close to realistic, but there's something about say, Operation Flashpoint, which Arma doesn't achieve, that is strangely artistic when you get shot, and it switches you to a third person view as you watch yourself squirm in pain on the ground, as all light, colour and sound fades from the world.

Although I'm not sure how realistic that portrayal of death is, and I'd rather not find out any time soon.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

Repost from the dupilicate:

Since games are X which can't be qualified or defined, And art is Y which is simlarly undefinable, any argument that X = / != Y is going to be terrible by default.

 

[CombiBlood]

Moviebob must be show to this man because he is an idiot.

 

[Vampire cat]

2. To why they aren't art? Uh, none I guess. Games are maybe too young to be accepted as art right now anyway, just give it some years and people will start to come around, just as soon as the fear-mongers of the world find something else to make people afraid of.

I said STUPID arguments to why they aren't art that you have heard maybe from an old lady or California.

Are you assuming I didn't get your question? I said I haven't heard any stupid arguments to why it's not art... Primarily because it's not something people discuss a lot... And then I explained to you WHY I think games won't be accepted as art at the moment, which is why you'll still hear a lot more stupid arguments if you discuss it.

 

[veloper]

What little influence we have on gaming, is limited to our choice to buy games.

Gaming won't get any respect nomatter how we spin it and gaming doesn't need respect to prosper, only money.

I like gaming as entertainment and I would love for game studios to cater to nerds again. The opposite of pandering for the respect of the public. Less casual fratboy games and more games like JA2, MOO2, XCOM, PST, Elite.

I rather people see that games aren't corrupting their youth but are just like movies books or tv it has it's good it's bad and it's mediocre stuff this will come over time but I was just trying to give people an inside to what I spend so much of my time on and I want to include more people into video games then keep people out and that will be easier when games have respect then the game industry also makes money more money then if it just went for nerds and this would mean we see more variety and more risk in games because they are more likely to make money. the games industry still caters to nerds but

We've had a dry spell for over a decade already.

There's nothing to pick up where spacesim classics like Elite or Privateer left.

The sequels for XCOM and JA2 are getting dumbed down and changed into completely different genres. Old XCOM1 and JA2 are still all we got after all these years.

Dragon Age sold more copies than Mass Effect 2 on a promise that we'd finally get a worthy successor to 2000/2001 BG2 and then Bio proceed to dumb down DA2 even further.

Only on the 4X side of gaming did we still got some semi-decent stuff like SE5 and galciv2, but neither is as good as 1996 Master of Orion 2. Shit, I prefer old MCGA MOO1 to galciv2 and I started a new MOO 1 game yesterday.

None of the old classics needed any T&A or gore to be great games come to think of it. We've got nothing to fear from legislators and the media.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

the games industry still caters to nerds but it needs a LARGER not SMALLER audience to prosper we need to avoid the collapse that comic books had when they decided to make their audience smaller which caused comic books to be seen as mainly for nerds one of the reason they need to raise prices on them so they will get their money back but if they had a larger audience the prices could be and properly would be smaller in order to attract people with less money to them and even a larger audience.

Dead wrong. More of the games industry needs to embrace the long tail or die. So much money is wasted making "second tier" phoney AAA games that are very expensive to make and are marginally profitable at best. All this stuff about making high profile, easy action games with a Hollywood narrative is more about empty suits in the industry chasing prestige and job security than any great business insight.

The smaller group of more "nerdy" gamers is the one that has been proved over and over to actually buy games with actual money that appeal to them. If the conventional wisdom is that games can't be made to appeal to them any more then that is where one of the best opportunities is.

The number one problem for games is never whether they are seen as art of if the female characters are too sexy but apathy. But maybe apathy about games can be countered by making games like a very boring piece of modern conceptual art or by having all of the female characters being overweight with unpleasant personalities?

 

[nuba km]

snip

so you are saying movies haven't released any artistic movies in the past decade because citizen Kane and eraser head have already been made and because nothing has been better then them or same quality as them therefore movies as a whole haven't been artistic. my friend you are clouded by nostalgia and dislike thing that change it too much.

snip

Oh ya I forgot the symbol economics were a growing industry should get a smaller audience to support its weight (Sarcasm). the fact is there is a reason why Nintendo is till making a bundle of money even though most nerds don't buy their games. Even though it is starting to try win it's old friends back it's still trying to get the general audience to enjoy games and we need new people to be interested in games or the industry will collapse under it's weight.

 

[veloper]

snip

so you are saying movies haven't released any artistic movies in the past decade because citizen Kane and eraser head have already been made and because nothing has been better then them or same quality as them therefore movies as a whole haven't been artistic. my friend you are clouded by nostalgia and dislike thing that change it too much.

No, I'm saying a big part of the original audience is getting ignored by the industry.

It is not nostalgia. The games I listed are better than what few titles infrequently came after them, if any. I still play them afteral and so do the other fans of the old genres.

The reason for this is NOT that these games were absolutely perfect, but because only smaller studios (rarely) attempt to do those genres as the big publishers are all chasing after the lowest common denominator.

It is interesting to note that when Bioware finally did a half-succesful attempt at approaching BG2 levels of scope and gameplay, fans were already so desperate for more, it still sold great, despite it's flaws.
The publishers are cutting themselves ignoring the original gamer audience and everybody loses.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Oh ya I forgot the symbol economics were a growing industry should get a smaller audience to support its weight (Sarcasm). the fact is there is a reason why Nintendo is till making a bundle of money even though most nerds don't buy their games. Even though it is starting to try win it's old friends back it's still trying to get the general audience to enjoy games and we need new people to be interested in games or the industry will collapse under it's weight.

"Nerds" do buy Nintendo games.

You are, however, mistaking making all games big budget Hollywood blockbusters for the exact same audience of "everyone except nerds" with making games for smaller more specific audiences of "whoever is interested in that particular game." I don't know if this is the symbol economics that you are talking about.

 

[nuba km]

snip

the old games had much larger time gaps between good art games and bad art games then the ones in the last decade

snip

o ya i forgot about all those nerds buying dance games and wii fit.

FOR BOTH OF YOU: many more games are released each year compared to the old days of gaming and I say the same number of games aimed at nerds are coming out I mean revival of old franchises, Nazi dinosaurs a SQUEAL to a great batman game it's just that the people making games for nerds are treating use with more maturity and therefore it isn't as apparent and that the reason casual games and games for day-to-day people are made is because they make a lot of the money needed to support the industry this makes the proportion of nerd games to every man games very different because they aren't just appealing to nerds and I sure as hell don't think that's a bad thing I mean movies wouldn't be that good if they would just focus on cliché family and detective movies. An industry needs to have variety in it and that isn't achieved by aiming at only one small audience.

 

[veloper]

snip

the old games had much larger time gaps between good art games and bad art games then the ones in the last decade

I accept the challenge:
BG(1998),Ps:T(1999),BG2:SoA(2000),BG2:ToB(2001) ------------> DA (2009)

Fallout(1997),FO2(1998) -------------------------------> FO3 (2008), NV(2010)

Elite2(1993),privateer(1993)---------->freelancer(2003)------------------> ()

UFO:EU(1994),JA(1994),XCOM:tftd(1995),JA2(1999),FO:T(2001)---------------> ()


It appears the big titles of their genre's are concentrated between 1993 and 2001.

 

[nuba km]

snip

the old games had much larger time gaps between good art games and bad art games then the ones in the last decade

I accept the challenge:
BG(1998),Ps:T(1999),BG2:SoA(2000),BG2:ToB(2001) ------------> DA (2009)

Fallout(1997),FO2(1998) -------------------------------> FO3 (2008), NV(2010)

Elite2(1993),privateer(1993)---------->freelancer(2003)------------------> ()

UFO:EU(1994),JA(1994),XCOM:tftd(1995),JA2(1999),FO:T(2001)---------------> ()


It appears the big titles of their genre's are concentrated between 1993 and 2001.

first of all games take lnger to make now and second of all there are a bucket load of games that you have forgoton to mention that aren't in those genres:
limbo
at least two dozen flash games (these are just the ones I have played and i'm sure their are more)
mass effect1,2
bioshock (maybe bioshock 2 but not sure about that one but it's dlc with sigma is good art)
silent hill 1-4
shadow of the colossus
metal gear solid series

so last decade 11 (2 are from this decade arguably 3) this decade 15 + the metal gear solid series (but only the main ones) + more then 24 flash games made by single a single person each in most cases but still being around the same length as games in the old day which were made by several peopl well that 4x as many wow you are right the past is so much better with good art games.

 

[veloper]

snip

the old games had much larger time gaps between good art games and bad art games then the ones in the last decade

I accept the challenge:
BG(1998),Ps:T(1999),BG2:SoA(2000),BG2:ToB(2001) ------------> DA (2009)

Fallout(1997),FO2(1998) -------------------------------> FO3 (2008), NV(2010)

Elite2(1993),privateer(1993)---------->freelancer(2003)------------------> ()

UFO:EU(1994),JA(1994),XCOM:tftd(1995),JA2(1999),FO:T(2001)---------------> ()


It appears the big titles of their genre's are concentrated between 1993 and 2001.

first of all games take lnger to make now and second of all there are a bucket load of games that you have forgoton to mention that aren't in those genres:
limbo
at least two dozen flash games (these are just the ones I have played and i'm sure their are more)
mass effect1,2
bioshock (maybe bioshock 2 but not sure about that one but it's dlc with sigma is good art)
silent hill 1-4
shadow of the colossus
metal gear solid series

so last decade 11 (2 are from this decade arguably 3) this decade 15 + the metal gear solid series (but only the main ones) + more then 24 flash games made by single a single person each in most cases but still being around the same length as games in the old day which were made by several peopl well that 4x as many wow you are right the past is so much better with good art games.

That's cute, but none of the games you listed are old school.

You might have countered with the Civilization series, as the 4X genre still gets some representation, but that's pretty much it for the paced thinking man's game.

ME2 and Bioshock are shooters with RPG elements. ME is a hybrid. SH games are cheap thrill horror games. SotC and MGS are action games.

Whole genres are under-represented for the past 10 years.

 

[nuba km]

That's cute, but none of the games you listed are old school.

You might have countered with the Civilization series, as the 4X genre still gets some representation, but that's pretty much it for the paced thinking man's game.

ME2 and Bioshock are shooters with RPG elements. ME is a hybrid. SH games are cheap thrill horror games. SotC and MGS are action games.

Whole genres are under-represented for the past 10 years.

I said their are more GOOD ART GAMES now a day never did I say old school games.
ME and Bioshock are amazing games with thought put into them and shouldn't be ignored if just because they aren't old school. I will just say silent hill 1-4 are not cheap horror thrill games after that they were sold to a different company which turned the rest of the franchise into cheap horror thrill games. Silent hill 1-4 are complex thought provoking games that have done better then any other game, movie or book with the horror genre apart from maybe the grudge put I can't say anything about because I barely know anything about it. If you are one of those people wanting retro games just ignore the games as art argument and play super meat boy because retro games don't have anything to do with games are art some older games are example of games are art but if they came out know a day they wouldn't have anything to do with retro gaming.

 

[veloper]

That's cute, but none of the games you listed are old school.

You might have countered with the Civilization series, as the 4X genre still gets some representation, but that's pretty much it for the paced thinking man's game.

ME2 and Bioshock are shooters with RPG elements. ME is a hybrid. SH games are cheap thrill horror games. SotC and MGS are action games.

Whole genres are under-represented for the past 10 years.

I said their are more GOOD ART GAMES now a day never did I say old school games.
ME and Bioshock are amazing games with thought put into them and shouldn't be ignored if just because they aren't old school. I will just say silent hill 1-4 are not cheap horror thrill games after that they were sold to a different company which turned the rest of the franchise into cheap horror thrill games. Silent hill 1-4 are complex thought provoking games that have done better then any other game, movie or book with the horror genre apart from maybe the grudge put I can't say anything about because I barely know anything about it. If you are one of those people wanting retro games just ignore the games as art argument and play super meat boy because retro games don't have anything to do with games are art

There you have another reason why some of us aren't too keen about this whole games as art push: not our prefered type of games. Should it catch on, our genres will get buried even deeper.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

many more games are released each year compared to the old days of gaming

No thanks to the industry or people who like to talk about art a lot.

and I say the same number of games aimed at nerds are coming out I mean revival of old franchises

I want games made for and by nerds, not marketing campaigns that play on nostalgia for a time when the industry actually gave a fuck about us.

it's just that the people making games for nerds are treating use with more maturity

They are more patronising than ever. They make whatever the hell that they want for their own selfish reasons then complain about how what they make is too good for us and we are too stupid to understand their greatness when we are not satisfied.

An industry needs to have variety in it and that isn't achieved by aiming at only one small audience.

The movie industry has variety because it balances the "everyone" movies with niche movies with lower budgets aimed at smaller markets.

 

[nuba km]

That's cute, but none of the games you listed are old school.

You might have countered with the Civilization series, as the 4X genre still gets some representation, but that's pretty much it for the paced thinking man's game.

ME2 and Bioshock are shooters with RPG elements. ME is a hybrid. SH games are cheap thrill horror games. SotC and MGS are action games.

Whole genres are under-represented for the past 10 years.

I said their are more GOOD ART GAMES now a day never did I say old school games.
ME and Bioshock are amazing games with thought put into them and shouldn't be ignored if just because they aren't old school. I will just say silent hill 1-4 are not cheap horror thrill games after that they were sold to a different company which turned the rest of the franchise into cheap horror thrill games. Silent hill 1-4 are complex thought provoking games that have done better then any other game, movie or book with the horror genre apart from maybe the grudge put I can't say anything about because I barely know anything about it. If you are one of those people wanting retro games just ignore the games as art argument and play super meat boy because retro games don't have anything to do with games are art

There you have another reason why some of us aren't too keen about this whole games as art push: not our prefered type of games. Should it catch on, our genres will get buried even deeper.

rpg's aren't being pushed under their just changing because most fail at being tactical I mean ironically pokemon and rpg for kids has more tactic behind it then most rpg's I have played so rpg's are mixing with other genres were skill is already needed making (when done right) a game that needs tactics and skill which is great. Action games aren't done that much because if you release a wacky action game most people now a day will look at the packed and say it's crap unless it's part of an already existing game serious like DmC, GoW or castlevania (DS ones are great) but hey bayonetta was great. So the only reason why action games are not made now is because they don't sell so this is really more because of people buying games and nothing to do with games as an art form.

 

[nuba km]

snip

1)the industry makes them and people make games like this because they like them and they sell
2)the industry still cares about us it's just trying to expand it still has other nerd games
3)never heard stuff like that plus they make games that they think will sell which sort of is selfish but if it doesn't sell they don't go 'you no understand genius' they just try something different
4)ahem:
super meat boy (uper retro)
mass effect (sci-fi opra)
bioshock (steam punk adventure with two great mind fighting)
dinosaur d-day (wacky crazy idea only nerds find fun(me included))
halo (sci-fi adventure)
dragon age (medieval fantasy)
elder-scrolls (medieval fantasy)
wow those crap games they make for us nerds

Also you seem to have a very negative view of things and i find people who go into the game industry are nerds making games that they would enjoy and think others would enjoy.

 

[veloper]

That's cute, but none of the games you listed are old school.

You might have countered with the Civilization series, as the 4X genre still gets some representation, but that's pretty much it for the paced thinking man's game.

ME2 and Bioshock are shooters with RPG elements. ME is a hybrid. SH games are cheap thrill horror games. SotC and MGS are action games.

Whole genres are under-represented for the past 10 years.

I said their are more GOOD ART GAMES now a day never did I say old school games.
ME and Bioshock are amazing games with thought put into them and shouldn't be ignored if just because they aren't old school. I will just say silent hill 1-4 are not cheap horror thrill games after that they were sold to a different company which turned the rest of the franchise into cheap horror thrill games. Silent hill 1-4 are complex thought provoking games that have done better then any other game, movie or book with the horror genre apart from maybe the grudge put I can't say anything about because I barely know anything about it. If you are one of those people wanting retro games just ignore the games as art argument and play super meat boy because retro games don't have anything to do with games are art

There you have another reason why some of us aren't too keen about this whole games as art push: not our prefered type of games. Should it catch on, our genres will get buried even deeper.

rpg's aren't being pushed under their just changing because most fail at being tactical I mean ironically pokemon and rpg for kids has more tactic behind it then most rpg's I have played so rpg's are mixing with other genres were skill is already needed making (when done right) a game that needs tactics and skill which is great. Action games aren't done that much because if you release a wacky action game most people now a day will look at the packed and say it's crap unless it's part of an already existing game serious like DmC, GoW or castlevania (DS ones are great) but hey bayonetta was great. So the only reason why action games are not made now is because they don't sell so this is really more because of people buying games and nothing to do with games as an art form.

And yet the Japanse have still got the knack of making engaging tactical RPGs(or SRPGs) like FF:tactics, Jeanne d'Arc, Tactics Ogre, it's just the western studios that are dropping the ball on the RPG front. Rarely we even get to see a positive indie exception like Knights of the Chalice.

In any case, a good tactical RPG can be done and there is a sizeable market for them, but the stupid publishers would rather compete on one front, flooding the market with more shooters, where there can be only 1 winner: Activision.