deanb Posted February 4, 2011 Report Share Posted February 4, 2011 I'll probably regret this later, but what the hell. Anyway thought I'd bring it up cos I read some interesting quotes on Gamasutra today I thought kind of vaguely summed up my thoughts on the matter: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/32840/Zyngas_Tian_Games_Are_Craft_Not_Art.php Yes it's Zynga, but it'd be stupid to completely dismiss it because of that. I've always been of the thought they're not exactly an art. Yes there may be many artistic elements, but it's mostly added on and unnecessary; it may have writing work for it, but it doesn't need it to be a game. It may have fancy graphics or FMVs, doesn't need it either. A novel without writing is nothing, a movie without moving images, is just a Voice over. etc. What games have in common, from Pong to Uncharted to Ico is programming. And you'd be hard pushed to call that art. But it is a craft, it's a skill. Even the more flamboyant looking games than Pong level stuff it's closer to design than art. Which the two are separate. Design has aesthetic, but planned and functional form. That's why it's Web design, Architectural design, Product design etc. I think many folks who argue that games are art get art and design mixed up. My Bed is not intended to be slept in. It's purely for the aesthetic. Whereas games are functional, they have to, to be playable. MS Office is also functional and programmed (and up until 2003 version had games built in too) Also I'm not putting games down. Nothing will change in gaming anyway whether they were called art or not. I kind of find the whole thing to be a bit of a farce. Call of Duty isn't suddenly going to get better plotlines because some unknown organization headed by, I assume from the way folks go on about him in this matter, Roger Ebert declares games art. Shadow of the Colossus won't get any less moving because it's called programming. It just seems like gamers grasping for straws in some effort to say their past time is more worthwhile than person x's past time. Oh n anyone who suggests that art is something that evokes an emotional response? I will ban you. And if you get pissed off at that I shall submit your ban report to be hung up at the Tate gallery. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enervation Posted February 4, 2011 Report Share Posted February 4, 2011 Games do elicit an emotional response from you, though. I get nerd rage all the time. =| Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strangelove Posted February 4, 2011 Report Share Posted February 4, 2011 I dont think art is defined by what is a necessity and what isnt. I also dont think it needs to be specific of one or several elements. A game made up of music, art graphics, voiceacting, animation, writing, and countless other arts doesnt make it art? I cant say i agree with that. Then again, i dont really define art or try to in any way. The jersey shore is art as far as im concerned and mulholland dr. Is so boring and nonsensical that i wish others didnt call it art. im also crazy. I guess its all black and white to me. Either everything is art or nothing is art. No one has the right or privilege to tell a person what they do is or isnt art when even art as is defined by others changes every day. I dare say no one knows what art really is. Its all opinion and no truth. Sometimes the artist doesnt view what they do as art yet everyone else does. Nothing really makes sense. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyber Rat Posted February 4, 2011 Report Share Posted February 4, 2011 Games, as any creative output, can be art, but don't have to be. Both music and movies are considered art, but compare the amount of popular "fun" stuff to real "art" on a yearly basis? And that's not a bad thing, not every movie needs to inspire a person. Entertainment and art are both equally important in creative forms. That said, very few games have any artistic merits and I think gamers try to push gaming to be accepted as an art form because they want all their time wasted playing games to have the same acknowledgement as, say, reading books like crazy your whole life. But it gets really awful when companies like EA or Activision start using the phrase "games are art". There's nothing wrong with making entertainment for the sake of entertainment. Oh, and here's a good response from the article Dean linked: I think that you hit on the real issue in this article. As I've mentionedbefore, there are two ways you can look at making games. It can either be looked at as a creative process, or it can be looked at as simply producing a commodity. From a business standpoint, either one is valid, as anyone can see from Zynga's success. However, creating a commodity has a much different business model than creating a creative work. It's no longer about people wanting to hear your symphony or see your painting, it's about people deciding whether your wingnuts are cheaper than your competitor's wingnuts. Profit margins are much slimmer when you make a commodity product, because your advantage comes from edging out the competition by a few cents. In the long run, I don't think Zynga's approach will give them any kind of lasting advantage in the way that Nintendo or other big names in videogames have achieved. As soon as other companies get their assembly lines cranking out games like Zynga, their lead will be minimal, if they can maintain it at all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commander Shepard Posted February 4, 2011 Report Share Posted February 4, 2011 Subjective thread is subjective. What one person calls art another may not agree. Art is subject to interpretation, it can be found everywhere and it can be found nowhere. Games can be many types of art, and they cannot be art at all, it just depends on who the audience is. Some people may think of games like Call of Duty or Halo as art, whereas others may see games like Rez, Okami, or other games as art. I've seen blank canvases hung in art museums, heralded for their depth, and I've seen detailed drawings dismissed as rubbish and games will be the same. Art is stupid. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hot Heart Posted February 4, 2011 Report Share Posted February 4, 2011 A tin of Campbell's tomato soup is art. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NeoStarr Posted February 5, 2011 Report Share Posted February 5, 2011 a movie without moving images, is just a Voice over. I nitpick way too much. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_%281993_film%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kid_Stays_in_the_Picture Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyber Rat Posted February 5, 2011 Report Share Posted February 5, 2011 I've seen blank canvases hung in art museums, heralded for their depth, and I've seen detailed drawings dismissed as rubbish and games will be the same. I thought the same before I had my art teacher actually explain that to me. It's not a matter of "anyone can hang a blank picture with a dot and call it art", it's about how it's a disintegration of reality. If you follow the progress of painting through history, you would notice it got to its peak at one point regarding mimicking reality. There was nowhere to go from that point, so artists started destroying reality through their pictures and it started going from impressionism to basic objects and finally that dot on a blank canvas. At the moment though, I don't believe there is any clear art direction in our world, so drawing that dot on a blank canvas doesn't serve any purpose because it has already been done and it fulfilled its purpose. The person who did it first though, he didn't do it because he couldn't draw better, he did it because he understood painting quite well. (this was just paraphrased, but I hope you get what I mean) The point I'm kinda trying to make is that because you get inspired by a muffin, doesn't mean the muffin is a work of art. A lot of people use "random lines/blank canvas" as their argument how art is subjective, but I think that argument is flawed for the reasons I mentioned. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Commander Shepard Posted February 5, 2011 Report Share Posted February 5, 2011 I've seen blank canvases hung in art museums, heralded for their depth, and I've seen detailed drawings dismissed as rubbish and games will be the same. I thought the same before I had my art teacher actually explain that to me. It's not a matter of "anyone can hang a blank picture with a dot and call it art", it's about how it's a disintegration of reality. If you follow the progress of painting through history, you would notice it got to its peak at one point regarding mimicking reality. There was nowhere to go from that point, so artists started destroying reality through their pictures and it started going from impressionism to basic objects and finally that dot on a blank canvas. At the moment though, I don't believe there is any clear art direction in our world, so drawing that dot on a blank canvas doesn't serve any purpose because it has already been done and it fulfilled its purpose. The person who did it first though, he didn't do it because he couldn't draw better, he did it because he understood painting quite well. (this was just paraphrased, but I hope you get what I mean) The point I'm kinda trying to make is that because you get inspired by a muffin, doesn't mean the muffin is a work of art. A lot of people use "random lines/blank canvas" as their argument how art is subjective, but I think that argument is flawed for the reasons I mentioned. I'm just saying art is subjective and open to interpretation. What one man finds art another might not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted March 14, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 14, 2011 Just because there's wind blowing and a minimal soundtrack and vast open spaces to explore and a slow pace doesn't mean that the game you are playing is art.And just because a game's story and presentation contains elements you've see in the 'big boy movies' doesn't make a game adult or mean the medium is maturing. These are all surface elements that-while challenging as anything else in games to produce well- do not speak to the maturation of the medium one iota. I'm tired of seeing gamers- and game journalists especially- falling for this. Game journalists of all people need to be calling us developers out on our smoke and mirrors bullshit. If we really want to get to the top of the mountain we have to be honest about the current state of the 'art'. Just because your game wears the trappings of relevancy does not make it relevant. Any more than putting on a beret and a black turtle neck and sitting outside a Parisian cafe makes you one of the intelligentsia. Just because your game's surface elements shout from the rooftops that 'this is important and artistic and meaningful' doesn't make it so. And in fact, the more a game- or anything for that matter- rambles on and on telling you how special it is, the more reason we have to assume that the claims come from a place of ego (or marketing) and not real passion and innovation. Real art and genuinely important work doesn't need to continually toot its own horn. The very nature of something being artistic and important means that- except in rare cases- its power is evident without anyone having to tell you that it is. And the sooner the people who write about games for a living start reporting on this angle of the story, the sooner us developers will be forced to shit or get off the pot. David Jaffe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnny Posted March 14, 2011 Report Share Posted March 14, 2011 As I see it it's pretty simple: if something fits into ANY of the normally accepted definitions of art, it can not be objectively denied as art. Wether it's good art or not, is a completely different matter. For reference, here's a list of some such definitions from wiktionary: (uncountable) Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature. (uncountable) The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colours, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium. There is a debate as to whether graffiti is art or vandalism. (uncountable) Activity intended to make something special. (uncountable) A re-creation of reality according to the artist's metaphysical value judgements. (uncountable) The study and the product of these processes. (uncountable) Aesthetic value. (uncountable, printing) Artwork. (countable) A field or category of art, such as painting, sculpture, music, ballet, or literature. (countable) A nonscientific branch of learning; one of the liberal arts. (countable) Skill that is attained by study, practice, or observation. According to some of these, games are art. This discussion, as I see it, is pretty pointless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thursday Next Posted March 14, 2011 Report Share Posted March 14, 2011 To say that a game cannot be art because it is written in C++ is as ridiculous as suggesting that a book cannot be art because it is written in English. Both must be readable, both have to conform to rules of spelling, syntax, and so on. Badly written books are no more useable than badly written games. This doesn't mean that all games are art any more than all written media is art. The cooking instructions on a microwave dinner are not art (I'll come back to this). From Cyber's quote: I agree that "Artistic Intent" matters. For example, "That Game Company" and "Team Ico" seem to build games from an artistic viewpoint. Their games feel "Arty", like there is something to be found beneath the layers of Coding. Titles like Call of Duty, Battlefield, FIFA, Pro-Evolution, Forza feel like they are less about "Art" and more about entertainment. There's no deeper message in these games, they can be taken at face value. I also agree with Commander Sheppard's point on "Artistic Interpretation". Take "Pong", at the time, just a paddle/ball game. Now it has a "Retro", "Minimalist" feel to it. Similarly, though I said that cooking instructions are not art, they could be interpreted as such. You can infer a sense of bleak despair in the instructions on cooking for one. Hell, if Tarantino is able to make a discussion on Global Burger Nomenclature into art, then why not lines of code? In conclusion, people who make games and want to call them art should feel free to. People who play games and want to call them art should feel free to. Anyone who disagrees, well that's fine too. Art is a matter of opinion. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WTF Posted March 14, 2011 Report Share Posted March 14, 2011 Jaffe has a point, which is that hey what we made is now art and should be celebrated does not really bring out the 'art' from any medium. Art needs, to be honest, a lot of negativity. In fact creativity needs negativity. it's only when we are bound do we understand freedom and it's only when we appreciate freedom do we express imagination. Most of the best artwork has come from some form of repression. It may not be oppression culturally, it can also be oppression based on one's own family even. There are few artists who are able to express without this oppression and sometimes it's because of the repression from being unable to express their thoughts and imagination in one media. Art in my opinion is an expression of imagination which has some aesthetic - beauty is subjective because grotesque is an art form. Appreciation of art being subjective is where a part of the problem lies, no two people can agree 100% on all their thoughts, so when a mind interprets something it interprets it individually. There are commonalities, it can be derived, contrived, forced upon and of course opinion can be shared too. Why some companies succeed in making artistic games is because they are not game designers but come from an artistic background and do not let go of it. But most games are not art. Calling it art is detrimental because do you really want the current type of games to be the only ones. Do you not want to encourage growth. When has something just grown from sitting pretty. It just gets stagnant. Is stagnation an art? I don't think so, you don't consider sitting on your laurels art. In short, for anything to become art it needs to consistently evolve, needs to change, needs to be oppressed/repressed/held down or back so that something comes out of it. Art is celebrating the human spirit and the projection of human consciousness. Also art needs to be noticed. A pretty painting sitting in a forest seen by none isn't art but rather a pretty painting. I do not agree with labelling everything as art because it prevents progress. In fact if you think something is art, you should try your best to say it's shit if everyone else encourages it because that one criticism will provoke them do something even better. Most artists get worse as they get complacent. While I don't like him personally I do believe a good example for the last case to be Damien Hirst. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RockyRan Posted March 15, 2011 Report Share Posted March 15, 2011 (edited) The concept of "art", especially in recent years, has been perverted by the legions of talentless, ego-centric and pretentious hacks posing as "modern artists". Essentially, the word has lost all meaning, so if nothing else it's pretty easy to call video games art because these days any unintelligible drivel shat out is considered "art". Might as well throw video games into the mix. Edited March 15, 2011 by RockyRan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WTF Posted March 15, 2011 Report Share Posted March 15, 2011 The concept of "art", especially in recent years, has been perverted by the legions of talentless, ego-centric and pretentious hacks posing as "modern artists". Essentially, the word has lost all meaning, so if nothing else it's pretty easy to call video games art because these days any unintelligible drivel shat out is considered "art". Might as well throw video games into the mix. Well that sounds more like giving up. You know if you don't stand for what art truly means and let those take over, that's what the whole world will be filled with. It's like with anything, if you truly believe something is worth fighting for you do sort of need to. Art is something intrinsic to human culture. We've had it from cave paintings to certain expressions in modern times. Just because there are a fair few pretentious few does not mean that it has lost meaning. It means that we should strive to make art something harder to achieve and stop feigning praises on those who try to destroy what it really means. We need to be far more critical and perhaps also be more clear in it. When we give biting criticism and stand for what we believe in, despite the masses initially against one, they will give in. Nothing in the world loses its meaning until we give up and there is no lost cause, particularly in media. Since it can be shaped, all we need are the right people and the right tools. It's just your pessimism coming out, that's all . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyber Rat Posted March 15, 2011 Report Share Posted March 15, 2011 The concept of "art", especially in recent years, has been perverted by the legions of talentless, ego-centric and pretentious hacks posing as "modern artists". Essentially, the word has lost all meaning, so if nothing else it's pretty easy to call video games art because these days any unintelligible drivel shat out is considered "art". Might as well throw video games into the mix. Art and originality aren't perverted or dead, it's just the influx and amount of information via the Internet that makes one feel that way. (Potential) Artists and art lovers weren't exposed to the works of millions of people before the Internet, but today, everyone has their personal webspace and it's easy to lose track and hope for "art" until you realize that those kinds of people always existed. They were just anonymous and far away from you so you didn't know. This post has been brought to you by lack of caffeine. EDIT: Also, saying since art is tacked onto worthless stuff, games can be called art doesn't really mean much. I don't think any good art was appreciated during its own time alone. I am always reminded of Don Quixote, which is often regarded as one of the best written works ever. It was originally "just a parody" of popular knight novels during Cervantes's time. Fast forward till today, and nobody remembers the knight novels, but everyone looks at Don Quixote as a work of art. What I'm getting at is that whether someone calls Heavy Rain, Bulletstorm or Crash Bandicoot art matters very little, because as time goes by, people might be less enthusiastic about these titles and be more objective about it since they weren't exposed to the actual release. We will probably end up with only a few games being remembered. I'm not talking about nostalgia though, like the way people feel towards Mega Drive Sonic games, but rather something in like 50 years. And I'm guessing a good deal of those games will be stuff that was panned or received lukewarm response from reviewers (here's to hoping Nier and God Hand get up there ). Remember that movies were entertainment only when they first appeared, being 5 second clips. Gaming still needs to evolve much more as a creative medium, but it did manage to evolve into an industry, which is slowing down that process, in my opinion. What the Heavy Rain author said (in some thread, either this one or a different one, not sure) about games needing to mature and change was kinda true, but I disagreed with him because I though he went the completely wrong way about it and was on an ego trip. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WTF Posted March 15, 2011 Report Share Posted March 15, 2011 Totally agree with cyber rat. Overexposure to personal works is an issue. The Internet is like a public fridgedoor in that sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted March 16, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 16, 2011 http://www.gamesetwa...rtys_apolog.php It kinda spins off from the many clashes between Ebert n games. It's pretty much a very lengthy essay on what I've been trying to get across which is game mechanics aren't art (otherwise folks would of been arguing the artistic merits of Chess for hundreds of years) There may be some other bits, I kinda skimmed towards end as the BAFTA thing popped up. The guts for those not wanting to read, especially wit the terrible paragraph structure: Unlike Mr. Ebert, I have played many of the games widely regarded as great and seminal. I have the privilege of knowing many of the authors personally. But as much as I admire games like M.U.L.E., Balance of Power, Sim City andCivilization, it would never even occur to me to compare them to the treasures of world literature, painting or music. ... Video games are an industry. You are attending a giant industry conference. Industries make products. Video game products contain plenty of art, but it's product art, which is to say, kitsch art. Kitsch art is not bad art. It's commercial art. Art designed to be sold, easily and in quantity. And the bigger the audience, the kitschier it's gonna get Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyber Rat Posted March 16, 2011 Report Share Posted March 16, 2011 Related to your comment, not the actual essay you linked: you cannot completely compare chess with video games, because they both function as "a game". Chess lacks a story, narrative and characters that have any use besides pre-determined ways to act with variables. Chess is the same to games as books are to games, as music is to games, as acting is to games. It is an element that makes a whole. You'll never say the color purple is art, but a painting containing the color purple could be a work of art. It's a stupid and faulty comparison. Related to the quoted paragraph: movies and music are an industry as well, and neither of those are disregarded as lacking artistic merit. Like I've said before, right now 99.9% of games are not works of art. They and the whole medium have the potential to be at one point, but people are listing all the wrong reasons why they are not right now. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
deanb Posted March 16, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 16, 2011 I pulled the chess bit from the article: Games are not new. They've been part of our culture for thousands of years. They're much older than the belles arts of the Renaissance, older than the representational art of the Greeks, older than the cave art of prehistory.By what right do games suddenly demand the status of great art? If Chess and Go, arguably the two greatest games in history, have never been regarded as works of art, why should Missile Command? Are digital games somehow privileged, somehow more artistic than analog games? Or does the fact that video games are now almost as big as dog food somehow entitle them to a free museum pass? Oh n there's that great paragraph structure I mentioned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thursday Next Posted March 28, 2011 Report Share Posted March 28, 2011 One thing to add to this. It's really, really, REALLY important that games are recognised as art. The reason that some games get "banned" or softened in Germany is because games don't yet fall under the category of "art", or rather they don't by default. Once a medium is accepted as "Art" the barriers start to fall down, films are considered "Art", so "Inglourious Basterds" could be shown in Germany with all the Swastikas and such on show. Medal of Honor (the WWII ones) are not "Art" so they face a ban or the developer needs to produce a softened version. Not to mention that "Art" gets numerous tax breaks and help from many governments. So while this may be a purely mental exercise for many of you, it has some striking real world consequences for the industry as a whole. Personally, I believe that games area creative medium, the rules that make up the games are perhaps not art (though they could be), but the finished product is. To take the "Chess" analogy to it's logical conclusion: Are all chess sets art? Probably not. Are they capable of being art? Absolutely. The same goes for games. Not all games are art, but the medium, and the individual games are all certainly capable of being art. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
P4: Gritty Reboot Posted March 28, 2011 Report Share Posted March 28, 2011 What about a chess set themed after a video game? Didn't consider that in your little analogy now didya?! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hot Heart Posted March 28, 2011 Report Share Posted March 28, 2011 That's not art. That's artrocious. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kovach_ Posted March 28, 2011 Report Share Posted March 28, 2011 (edited) That' s not art. That's artrocious. Yeah, i mean, Luigi is the queen. Seriously Nintendo? Edited March 28, 2011 by Kovach_ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheFlyingGerbil Posted March 28, 2011 Report Share Posted March 28, 2011 obviously Birdo should be the queen. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.