Video games can have artistic elements in them, but it is an entirely different medium. I'm not saying it's inferior or superior to film or anything, but video games are on a whole other level. You're combining film, music, art, and technical oriented coding and programming to create a unique media form. Who would have ever thought that pressing buttons on a controller and watching what happens in response on a television could have an emotional impact? LoZ:OoT, ICO, FFVII, MGS, these are some of the most defining games in recent years. The difference between a movie and a game is with a movie you're passive, you can only see what the director wanted you to see, and you have no say in what happens. With some games, you can explore to your hearts desire and your choices could have an effect later on. With a game, you are assuming the role of a character, which adds a whole layer of depth that movies just can't do.
Not really. Artists have been pushing to involve the audience more and more in their art, looking to put the person into the piece. I get the feeling you should know this.
Your comments get stupider and stupider. Ignoring the fact that traditional art forms are pointless until perceived by someone (even if the author), there are all kinds of interactive art forms. For example, some of the activities of the Fluxus movement. Or, oh, let's say Andy Warhol's Chelsea Girls film/s, which he gave people the ability to run in a variety of ways, sometimes with one, two or even four vignettes projected at once in a staggered manner, the timing of which was completely at their discretion.
Your comments get stupider and stupider. Ignoring the fact that traditional art forms are pointless until perceived by someone (even if the author), there are all kinds of interactive art forms. For example, some of the activities of the Fluxus movement. Or, oh, let's say Andy Warhol's Chelsea Girls film/s, which he gave people the ability to run in a variety of ways, sometimes with one, two or even four vignettes projected at once in a staggered manner, the timing of which was completely at their discretion.
I don't accept (most*) fluxus as art. I don't accept performance art as art. Some of Warhol's films may have given the folk's hosting the work multiple ways to show it to an audience, but in the end, it was all on film. Whether the version shown was on one or three reels, it wasn't interactive to its intended audience.
EDIT: A lot of reputable artists have been interested in fluxus, which similar to several early 20th century schools, mixed a whole bunch of popular forms up into a single piece.
Games are the interactive conglomeration of almost all other major art forms. That they cannot be considered art is ridiculous and only points out the agenda or lack of understanding in those that basically label it as less because it's not 'pure'...whatever that means. Really, they are a co-operative form of art. One that allows the creator(s) to express something to the user, while employing all of the manipulative psychological devices to evoke emotions and responses that film, music, and literature can and do use. The co-operative element they have is unique to them and allows the creator to allow the user a chance to form their own experiences, opinions, and such from their deliberately-created boundaries and freedoms. The more freeform and dynamic the design, the greater the chance for more varied and personalized experiences. Still, the author has the last word in what's possible outside of a bug/exploit in the game, anyway.
The interaction is the narrative. The rest is context for the interaction (as reward or consequence/punishment). Too many titles masquerade as games while actually aspiring to be films...when the reward becomes the focus, as in the liberal use of cutscenes and non-interactive content, the game suffers...implicitly conceding that film is superior by just trying to ape it at great cost. This is fucked up.
Games will gain their acceptance among the masses as an 'legitimate' artform thanks to enthusiasts, writers, and others that live long past the old folks who can't bridge the generational gap themselves thanks to their ignorance, fear, and general foolishness. Those that understand it as an artform create compelling arguments for their favored medium's worth and have a far more receptive generation of people that accept it. It'll be like film in that way, I think. The whole three stages of truth bit: going unnoticed and then ignored. The period of vehement denial following this. And, finally, the truth of it held to be self-evident. Same shit, different generation...IMO.
If games want to be taken more seriously, the creators have to take it more seriously and start upping the ante in ways that go beyond just better graphics and knee-jerk interaction. The content and interaction has to change in ways that challenge the traditional game design philosophies. It's obviously not going to be easy, inexpensive, or swift in its metamorphosis to the masses, but it will happen. The great thing about art is that's it's TOTALLY subjective. Not every painting will even come across as artistic to everyone, nor will every film, song, book, etc. mean the same or anything to everyone. That's what's so cool about art...it's personal, but can still draw groups of likeminded folks together to discuss its qualities...or even debate whether its even art at all. :lol
A friend said that trying to understand and explain away art is like trying to understand and explain away masturbation; it's pointless.
:lol I don't even really understand what I just typed up.
99% of the narratives in video games are garbage. Cliched, B-movie level drek. I don't think anyone who's looking at this realistically would disagree. So then what makes video games as an artform stand shoulder to shoulder with an artform like cinema?
Sure, but 99% of movies are garbage, cliché B-movie drek, too. Just because there aren't any prostitute/astronauts, that doesn't mean prostitutes are incapable of being astronauts.
-jinx- said:
Ebert IS clearly biased against games, but his second paragraph does have a nugget of truth in it. The time you spend with games is time that you DON'T spend on something else. Whether that "something else" is "better" than games is a personal judgment...but I get the feeling that people are not as cultured as they used to be.
I'm wondering what sort of time and place you're comparing the modern world to? Aside from how we define "cultured", I can't help but think that simply due to technological advances, I can't imagine, say, the average US citizen of the 1880s having access to a great deal of artistically significant... stuff.
Mr_Moogle said:
I just think its ridiculous to bash games because they dont have stories as powerful as something like "To Kill a Mocking Bird".
On the one hand, I want to make a correction on that title. Mockingbird, one word. On the other hand, I want to thank you for making me think that your version would make a great story about Drinky Crow!
blackadde said:
I think a lot of it is sheer expectation. Walk into a gallery and expect to see art, walk into a theatre and (maybe) expect intelligent cinema. Turn on your PS2 and you expect mechanical tasks that reward you like a trained dog. For the most part with games, you're not really looking, ya know?
Great point. How often do things go over our head, until something makes us look from a slightly different angle, at which time we start seeing it everywhere?
Flo_Evans said:
which makes me wonder: Do we even WANT games to be a social commentary? I would say 90% of games today are an escapist reality, or an outlet for agression. How could you make a game about racism fun?
Well, I remember back in elementary school we had edutainment titles where we played as slaves escaping to the north. Of course, most kids just treated it like a game and would repeatedly restart until their random slave had decent abilities.
Sure, but 99% of movies are garbage, cliché B-movie drek, too. Just because there aren't any prostitute/astronauts, that doesn't mean prostitutes are incapable of being astronauts.
I don't disagree, but one of the points I was making is it's a losing battle to compare video games to movies in terms of artistic merit when the best that video games have to offer doesn't even come close to the best cinema has to offer in terms of impact. There has been nothing, nothing in video games as remotely profound as 2001, or as emotional as Million Dollar Baby, or as heartwarming as It's A Wonderful Life, or so on and so on.
But, again, the disclaimer: I don't consider that so much a failure of video games as it is just a reminder that it's a different form with different intentions. Everyone expects video games to be entertaining, period. You can't make the Million Dollar Baby of video games when the driving force is to provide the most entertaining experience to the user as possible.
Gameplay = Music
Abstract games = Instrumental music
Games with theme/characters/world = Vocal music with lyrics
Games with story (told through cutscenes) = Musicals/Singspiel
Games with story (integrated with gameplay) = Opera
I don't disagree, but one of the points I was making is it's a losing battle to compare video games to movies in terms of artistic merit when the best that video games have to offer doesn't even come close to the best cinema has to offer in terms of impact. There has been nothing, nothing in video games as remotely profound as 2001, or as emotional as Million Dollar Baby, or as heartwarming as It's A Wonderful Life, or so on and so on
You speak for yourself, I haven´t found a film yet (including the ones you name) that moves me so much as certain videogames. In a film I´m closed at the view of the director, that move the characters like muppets. I don´t feel myself so inmersed in the experiece.
A couple pages back someone made a derisive comment about the idea of code as art, so...
Donald E. Knuth said:
When I speak about computer programming as an art, I am thinking primarily of it as an art form, in an aesthetic sense. The chief goal of my work as educator and author is to help people learn how to write beautiful programs. It is for this reason I was especially pleased to learn recently that my books actually appear in the Fine Arts Library at Cornell University. (However, the three volumes apparently sit there neatly on the shelf, without being used, so I'm afraid the librarians may have made a mistake by interpreting my title literally.)
My feeling is that when we prepare a program, it can be like composing poetry or music; as Andrei Ershov has said, programming can give us both intellectual and emotional satisfaction, because it is a real achievement to master complexity and to establish a system of consistent rules.
Furthermore when we read other people's programs, we can recognize some of them as genuine works of art. I can still remember the great thrill it was for me to read the listing of Stan Poley's SOAP II assembly program in 1958; you probably think I'm crazy, and styles have certainly changed greatly since then, but at the time it meant a great deal to me to see how elegant a system program could be, especially by comparison with the heavy-handed coding found in other listings I had been studying at the same time. The possibility of writing beautiful programs, even in assembly language, is what got me hooked on programming in the first place.
Some programs are elegant, some are exquisite, some are sparkling. My claim is that it is possible to write grand programs, noble programs, truly magnificent ones!
C'mon. I like videogames, but Metal Gear Solid is a high piece of art? Whaaaa?
It does neat things for a videogame in that it's very cinematic... but it's also trying to be a movie that's actually a game. MGS2 did some neat things and had a "message" that is unlike any other game out there, and, when it was released, was pretty poignant.
But, "art?" You still had to kill the bisexual vampire and the mad bomber on rollerblades. And, despite all they say about the human condition, there's not really a lot of artistic merit there unless it touches you as a gamer. MGS3 doesn't have anything like that, it's just straight plot-driven stuff. It's very good for a videogame story, true enough, but, really, there's nothing MGS3 did that couldn't have been done in a movie in less time. And it stands out as one of the best tales told in videogame form.
I think the act of creating a videogame is an art. I think videogames are an art unto themselves. I don't think they will ever be, uh, I guess "real art?" They're not universal. Not everyone can play videogames.
On the one hand, I want to make a correction on that title. Mockingbird, one word. On the other hand, I want to thank you for making me think that your version would make a great story about Drinky Crow!
Sometimes I agree with that quote, especialy when I hit the START button to bypass some lame cutscene. I think it's one of the reasons why many people have a problem with games as an artform. But hey, Ron Jeremy's an "artist" in his own right too I guess.
What I find funny is that a good chunk of people are assuming that narrative is a requirement for art... sculpture and paintings don't require narrative, nor does music. Each form of "artistic endeavor" has a central aspect that defines that field... I'd argue that games can be art through their gameplay. A story does not make a game "art" -- the gameplay does. The graphics don't make a game "art" -- again, the gameplay does.
A game can not be beautiful if it isn't fun to play.
A game that is truly fun to play is a work of art.
Interactivity makes videogames either a sport or a, well, game. Not a piece of art. How many board games would you call art? Is Dungeons and Dragons art? Flames of War?
Ever been to an installation? A happening? Interactivity doesnt take away the art. the only thing it might do is displace the responsibility of the artist a little.
Interesting that nearly every element of a game can be described as art, right up until the interactivity. Music, artwork, lighting, architecture design, etc. But make it interactive? Not art.
Ha! What a copout, Heian. I guess my pointing out that the narratives in 99% of video games are lowest common denominator hackneyed drek doesn't fit into your rosy, wide-eyed college kid view of artistic merit being this magical, highly personal thing that anyone can define to any manner they see fit. That's enjoyment you're talking about. No one can define enjoyment, but I'll be damned if you can't define artistic merit to some quantifiable degree. The fact that you were so rudely dismissive makes me think you shouldn't engage in debates like this at all if you don't know how to debate in the first place, college boy.
One, considering your absurd opinion on ICO, you're one of the last people that should be judging the overall quality of game narratives. Two, how does pointing out that a large percentage of game narratives being poor (in your opinion) prove anything? Gaming is an entertainment medium, and I'd love it if you could point out a competing/comparable entertainment medium that doesn't suffer from the same lack of artistic integrity.
I'd also like to see you define artistic merit. Mr. Jaffe has been kind enough to give us a couple great examples of how varying games can be interpreted in meaningful and legitimate manners. So how would you define artistic merit? Does it transcend mediums? What of the narrative do you deem artistic? Emotional resonance? Interpretative depth? You say nothing in gaming has approached the greatest we've seen in films, yet you really have no idea how you're comparing the two. Media are not directly comparable, and until you realize otherwise, you're simply trying to prove a point that doesn't exist.
And rudely dismissive? Please. You don't have a jack shit clue what you're talking about, and you simply keep spewing the same rhetoric. Justify your opinion and quantify it in a manner that demands my and others attention. Then maybe a ridiculous comment such as ICO having no narrative whatsoever can be responded to in anything more than a slight against your inability to know what a narrative even is.
Art requires introspection, what exactly do games say about us? For all the (rare) excellence in its component fields, the end result is an activity that requires very little emotional thought. It's not art just because it's pretty or tugs your heart a little. Maybe when games get beyond good and evil (that includes white wearing black vice versa...).
A. Yours is the most civil of countless messages I have received after writing that I did indeed consider video games inherently inferior to film and literature. There is a structural reason for that: Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control.
I am prepared to believe that video games can be elegant, subtle, sophisticated, challenging and visually wonderful. But I believe the nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art.
Ebert doesn't seem to to make a difference between playing the game and the actual game itself. Is playing the game an art? Offcourse it isn't, it playing a game, it's a skill. Neither is watching a movie or listening to music art. But nevertheless the game it self is art.
I'm sure the similar arguments were leveled against film when it first appeared. Since film has existed throughout MR. Ebert's lifetime, he does not question its artistic value.
Trying to classify an entire medium as art or non-art as a whole is a flawed practice to begin with, what did xXx communicate to us, that Vin-Diesel can't act? It isn't often nowadays that games truly do posess artistic value, but every now and then there is a game like Deus Ex or System Shock where the story is told not just in static cutscenes, but in the thematic elements that make up the game world. J.C.s selection of bio-implants tell us just as much about the world around him and the role technology plays in his and everyone else's lives as does any plot point in the narrative. Games naturally have a long way to go, but this is, in part due to the age of the industry and technologies involved, as well as the preceived maturity level of the people who play games. I personally beleive games have lots of un-exploited potential in terms of unique gameplay concepts that persuade the player to act in a certain manner based on perceptual patterns in the world around them (such as putting the player in a moral dillema where the answer is not black and white, and the outcome has lasting effects on how the game plays out the rest of the way through, not just in terms of story, but in terms of a world that really reacts to your decision.)
Also, not all art is expressed solely in terms of subjective communication, non-verbal, abstract communication is every bit as important a qualifier (and in some artists minds more important) as a subjective message, while some art leaves the interperetation entirely up to the viewer, sometimes to the point where the viewer fails to see the message at all and will subsequentially render the work meaningless. I'm not trying to say that every video game has some sort of deep-seated meaning that any one who criticizes them fails to see, just simply that some critics don't even look.
In summation, no, not every game is art, but then again, neither is every movie, book, painting, or peice of music. They don''t have to be either, but to me it is the mind behind the medium that is ultimately more important than the delivery, and I beleive interactive entertainment is a strong enough media to portray the same messages as it's older cousins, but like any other media, the delivery methods don't translate point to point (movies don't tell stories in the same way muisic does, but their messages are equally engauging when done right.)
I agree with some posters that most stories, characters and events in games are inferior to movie and book stories/characters, but there are rare exceptions. I think Vagrant Story has a very clever, deep story that do well in book or movieform when slightly adapted. Atmosphere in games as Rez, Jet Set Radio and ICO/SotC is also something I think can be considered equal of quality when compared with other forms of media.
Interesting that nearly every element of a game can be described as art, right up until the interactivity. Music, artwork, lighting, architecture design, etc. But make it interactive? Not art.
I think Symphony of the Night is a shining example. Each aspect is art IMO but someone like Ebert will just see a simple game about jumping and beating enemies.
I think Symphony of the Night is a shining example. Each aspect is art IMO but someone like Ebert will just see a simple game about jumping and beating enemies.
I'm sure the similar arguments were leveled against film when it first appeared. Since film has existed throughout MR. Ebert's lifetime, he does not question its artistic value.
well maybe that's why this is such a watershed moment in game history. and it's so important that conversations like this take place NOW with people who play and design games. because obviously it's a medium that's very important to all of us. and it doesn't feel like a waste of time. and we want the experiences we have while playing these games to be as meaningful as they could be. at least sometimes and I'm sure that goes for the people who are designing them just as much.
as i've said before though, it's going to be a strange growth because games and their medium are so tied to business. you can't go and make a game and have the same sort of hope that it can be shared with many people in the same way as writing a book or play. especially if you want comparable technology to any mass market release. add to that the closed platform of consoles, etc. I'm not saying it's impossible, but it's unlikely.
but it's also good to see that major developers are thinking about it themselves. maybe the future is brighter than I think.
Gaming is an entertainment medium, and I'd love it if you could point out a competing/comparable entertainment medium that doesn't suffer from the same lack of artistic integrity.
I don't consider that so much a failure of video games as it is just a reminder that it's a different form with different intentions. Everyone expects video games to be entertaining, period. You can't make the Million Dollar Baby of video games when the driving force is to provide the most entertaining experience to the user as possible.
I'd also like to see you define artistic merit. Mr. Jaffe has been kind enough to give us a couple great examples of how varying games can be interpreted in meaningful and legitimate manners. So how would you define artistic merit? Does it transcend mediums? What of the narrative do you deem artistic? Emotional resonance? Interpretative depth? You say nothing in gaming has approached the greatest we've seen in films, yet you really have no idea how you're comparing the two.
You can go through the world's greatest works of movies and fiction and each one will reveal a "piece of the puzzle" concerning the human experience, whether it's the big questions (like 2001: A Space Odyssey) or the minutia of interpersonal relationships (Annie Hall, say). Video games simply do not do this.
You see, I did address all of these points, but you were so put off by the fact I dared to debate your brilliant musings (cough) on the nature of art that you didn't seem to read a thing I said in my posts before trying to discredit me as not knowing what I'm talking about. I mean, who would disagree with you but a fool, right? I explained my position thoroughly. But I'll do it again...
In my opinion, great art illuminates or comments upon the human condition. Video games generally don't do this, or don't do it in much depth, but they're not artless, either. They're unique, have their own levels of artistic merit and shouldn't be compared to other media because their goals are somewhat different. However, if someone really wanted to compare video games and cinema on the basis of artistic merit, video games lose because in my experience, even the greatest games have not made the same philosophical or emotional impact the way the greatest movies have. I fully understand that all "art" isn't communicated solely in the narrative, or the art direction, or the dialogue, but even with that said, video games still don't hold up. Let me ask you this: If we ever received visitors from another planet and we wanted to put forward a work of art that would help them understand what it is to be a human being, you're not handing them a copy of ICO, are you? Mario Kart DS? That's nonsense.
However, I don't look down on video games because they haven't achieved the same heights that cinema has. As others have said in this thread, the medium is very young. Cinema didn't have very many masterpieces 35 years into its history to those who weren't big fans already, either. Video games are a very creative and unique form of entertainment. There's nothing wrong with it, unlike Ebert suggests. But I do contend that as a whole they haven't been as intellectually or emotionally deep as other forms of art. Have I explained my standards for high artistic merit well enough now or must I do it again for the tenth time?
This, of course, is just my opinion on what makes great art and how video games fit into that. And it is, of course, debatable. But to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about, well, bite me you self-righteous twerp.
These are recent comments from Ron Gilbert's (Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island) blog that I thought might be interesting. www.grumpygamer.com
The Game Designer behind God of War (haven't played it yet), David Jaffe, wrote a scathing editorial proclaiming that people who write about games are not true Journalists, not in the Game Industry, and that (according to stuff I made up) hate their mothers and kick puppy dogs.
Now, Game Journalist and Puppy Dog Kicker, Bob Colayco of GameSpot lets fly a rebuttal that claims, among other things, that he doesn't care what Game Designers have to say and it's all about the game.
...
But, the debate does bring up some issues that are all tangled up in the "Are Games Art" argument (an argument that drives me crazy because once that argument starts, some moron brings up the "Art" in the game, completely missing the point that "Art" has nothing to do with "Art").
...If you read the major gaming sites, they are mostly filled with reviews that give scores for "Graphics" and "Sound" and (let's be honest) come across like they are written by fanboys. They make what we do sound more like Toys than a rich emerging Art Form.
But maybe that blame lays more in our laps than the game reviewer's, after all, what are we giving them to review? Are we just mad because they don't see Shakespeare in our Transformers.
I just finished Call of Duty 2. Damn fine game. But when I was done, I was done. I didn't think about what war means, who I was or my lost friendship with any of my countless spawning squad members. I didn't wonder about the ravages of war. The Call of Duty 2 world is empty except for my squad and the clone army of Germans. What if it was filled with civilians caught in the fight, dying from my haplessly tossed grenade or Rambo charges into a house. What if the designers were trying to tell me something. Anything. War is fun. I don't care. But something that made wonder and feel.
Compare that to the first time I saw Saving Private Ryan. I really spent some time thinking about that film, especially the opening scene. That was the first time I saw a movie showing WWII like that and it made me think. Movies are good at doing that. Platoon or The Deer Hunter are other examples that questioned your assumptions about war.
I watched David Lynch's Mulholland Drive again last night and I am still thinking about that movie. It's complex and there are a lot of layers to mull over. It's twisted and days after you see it you find yourself saying "Oh, that's what that means".
Do games do that? Not to me. True Art is something that makes you think (and not in the puzzle-solving way) long after you're done with it. It's something that changes a little bit of who you are.
If we expect Game Journalists to be better, maybe we need to give them something better to be better at being better with.
Given the fact that Roger is not a game player, and that there is enough debate about this very subject from within our industry, this is not surprising.
The one line that really jumped out at me was this:
There is a structural reason for that: Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control.
"Authorial Control".
1) Is Authorial Control necessary in art? Is Art someone expressing an idea, and therefore requires there to be a someone behind the idea?
Yes, I think this is true.
2) Do games have Authorial Control?
This is where I disagree with my childhood hero Roger Ebert.
I think games need and have Authorial Control. There has to be someone at the helm who is giving us their vision for the experience. Movies have a Director, Books have a Author, and Games have a Designer (titles in games in a complex issue I won't get into here).
I don't think Roger has thought about this. He sees toys and doesn't see the person or people behind them and that is our fault (dear lord... when will be stop screwing up).
Take GTA:SA. Who designed it? I don't know. I could probably look it up but I won't because I shouldn't have to. During the debate about GTA, where was the designer? Why was he or she not speaking out, letting us know why they did things the way they did, defending their art? Did I miss it?
During the controversy surrounding Natural Born Killers, Oliver Stone was very vocal about the film and his vision behind it.
This is why the games industry needs more visibility to the people behind the games. It is this humanizing that will ultimately pull them into the realm of art.
True Art is something that makes you think (and not in the puzzle-solving way) long after you're done with it. It's something that changes a little bit of who you are.
It's a (very) narrow and personal definition of art but one that I connect with. I don't agree with it as a broad definition of art for obvious reasons but this is essentially my internal definition (how I categorize things without thinking objectively) for novels and films.
I don't know if I consider games art or not. There was a time when I considered software engineering an art and the games with the best game mechanics would definitely qualify but now...
I think his statement has much merit. How much culture, education, advancement of society comes out of playing BloodRayne or Tomb Raider or Mario Tennis or insert FPS/GTA or GTA clone here < >? Videogames sure aren't Dostevsky (SP?) or Hemmingway or Camus or insert religious text here <> or Citizen Kane or Casablanca...
Videogames have a purpose, but enculturation is not one of them. The ones that try usually fail: MGS, Xenogears/saga, etc. Interesting, but coming across as trite or pedantic.
I think his statement has much merit. How much culture, education, advancement of society comes out of playing BloodRayne or Tomb Raider or Mario Tennis or insert FPS/GTA or GTA clone here < >? Videogames sure aren't Dostevsky (SP?) or Hemmingway or Camus or insert religious text here <> or Citizen Kane or Casablanca...
Videogames have a purpose, but enculturation is not one of them.
He's making a point about your choice of Titles. BloodRayne, Tomb Raider, Mario Tennis, or GTA clones have never held themselves up to be art. Most of this forum wouldn't hold them up to be really great games either. Comparing them to Hemmingway and Citizen Kane of course you come up short. The point that some games even now can be a more broadening and interesting experience, than movies like Billy Madison, or even books like the latest Grisham. I don't think many modern movies or books would stand the comparison to Citizen Kane, Camus, or Papa without wilting either.
The games I consider to have the most in common with art -- Killer 7, Silent Hill 2, Rez -- have exceptionally limited, simplistic (and in the first two cases, downright BAD) gameplay but are completely engaging as a ride through a multimedia museum exhibit might be; they're a demonstration of a tight, controlled, cohesive vision wed to a strong multimedia narrative that challenges many of the audience's assumptions about the medium as well as the narrative itself.
The titles I listed SUCK at being GAMES, but they DO begin to approximate art. The strength of art doesn't allow for anything but the most rigidly controlled and tightly scripted audience participation, despite modern attempts to declare otherwise. Good art is about the expression of those who have specific vision and a mastery of technique, and the more a game diverges from passive controlled content delivery (linear, but not necessarily sequential) into more detailed mechanics, the less a game becomes art itself and the more it becomes a medium for the player (amateur) to express him or herself, which moves rapidly backward from a completed work to a canvas anyone can splash paint on.
In fact, games like Silent Hill 2 really start to suck when the player is allowed to actively participate in the game by solving silly puzzles out of context, or by bashing mannequins ad nauseum. Did anybody REALLY enjoy those aspects more than wandering through a moody museum, piecing together the history of guilt-deadened man and shivering from the music and art direction? Same for Killer 7 -- the stuff that made it engaging really involved little player interaction at all; it probably would have worked BETTER as some sort of crazy lo-fi CG cinema where the player was simply shepherded through its crazy environments at a pace fixed by the director. And for its ultimate lack of interactivity, Rez was just a kickass audiovisual synthsizer that let the player introduce trivial aural accompaniments while they ogled a perfectly-paced graphic design orgy -- it was a full-sensory museum ride with only the most rudimentary of basic shooter mechanics attached to its expression of a musical subculture, letting you play as a sort of abstracted DJ in a delightful multimedia representation of the world of club electronica.
Could Killer 7 and Silent Hill 2 worked as noninteractive cinema? I think the very limited audience participation works in both cases, oddly; the "gameplay" in Silent Hill 2 is the players ability to progress at his or her own pace, and to tender his or her level of fear in response. The tentative creep into a hotel room; the mad dash down a rusty hall; these are tightly controlled responses engineered by the designer. It's linear, but it preys on feedback from the player to create a tight little loop between the game and the audience, and the designer is the one largely in control. The same is true for Killer 7 -- the excruciatingly limited gameplay is designed to prey on assumptions made by gamers about videogaming in general, placing them under the director's control and curbing their own expression in favor of the artist's. A GTA game or an ICO or a Zelda can "instances" of art: a moment where the frame buffer eloquently captures a moment; a beautifully modeled character; or a subtle, evocative score -- but as long as the player is tightly in control and not the director, as they SHOULD be in the best games, the relationship between the artist and the audience is completely compromised and the game as a whole can be nothing more than mere entertainment.
I don't consider ICO or Shadow of the Colossus very close to art. In both cases, the directorial staff tried to introduce too much gameplay at the expense of the artistic vision. To a great extent, I think the more you increase the ability of the player (the amateur) to interact with your game, the more you conversely move the game away from art. You're putting the gamer closer to the canvas and further away from your tightly authored experience; they're almost mutually exclusive.
I have a pretty protracted history of attacking games that attempt to be art because I have an extreme case of gamer's hubris: I wanna be the person directing the play, not a puppet dancing on the stage at the director's discretion alone. It takes a really talented, Orson Welles-esque puppetmaster to make me ENJOY experiencing a game as I would cinema, since the sense of audience betrayal is so strong for me. I'm supposed to be in charge, dammit! But in a few cases, the skill of the director and the synchronization of all the disparate voices that contribute all of their "art" instances to the game convince that just THIS ONCE I should agree with them and not my cultivated gamer's instincts, and in letting go of the disconnect, I actually find a fair bit to appreciate about them -- even if the experience isn't really "gaming" as I know it.
EDIT: For my "fans" who hate it when I'm serious and/or pretentious: DS SUX LOLZ! BUY A PS2!
Yeah but Eva getting hurt works because you've had over an hour of cut scenes where you've become attached to her using more cinematic elements/tools....no real difference than playing a game based on a movie you love where you care about the characters because a different medium has conditioned you to feel that way...and this is great, I LOVE MGS....but it's still really the game piggybacking on the other medium (film) in order to get an emotional punch...
...for me, right now ,I'm struggling to see if we can get our OWN emotional punches JUST using our own tools....or at least primarily using our own tools....
Part of the problem, I'd argue, is that art is slippery. Exactly what criteria must something meet to merit the distinction? Rothko's paintings make the critical cut for their alleged ability to conjure emotion, for formal qualities, etc., and yet they lack several of the artistic attributes of a Brothers Karamazov. On the other hand, if we're stacking the deck against one medium by, say, demanding that it meet every single criteria on the great checklist of great art, he's right: we may never have a canon. But here Ebert prioritizes the ability to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic, and I think that this is something games can and will accomplish, and in a language uniquely their own.
Let's set aside cutscenes and say that Eli's newspaper clippings and Kleiner's desktop photos are a stab at immersive storytelling. Imagine more intercative rooms in which every artifact acts as evidence to its owner's identity. We are voyeurs in ways that Hitchcock's camera could only make us by proxy. We're saying which drawers we want to snoop in, which scraps of paper we want to read, and, as with acknowledged art, we're actively creating our own matrices of meaning, and the message, too, is sitting between the lines as it should be. Perhaps what we find doesn't jibe with what we know of its owner, the way its owner presents himself, and so on? Want punch? Nothing knocks harder than finding reason to think a lover has betrayed you.
And then, instead of citing the overpraise that accompanies Katamari et al (let's not argue that Rubick's Cube serves the same purpose as Proust), I'd point to the promise in stuff like Spore. if God cares about his creatures, maybe we can, too?
If its extracting an emotional response from me - whatever that emotion is - then games *are* art.
ICO slowly absorbed me into its environment and characters without any need for overly forced storytelling or cutscenes. And it created an emotional attactment and, ultimately, a strong emotional response at the end.
Good survival horror games can instill fear into you as well as quality horror movies can.
Even a simple FPS like serious sam, or a shooter like Gradius can create tension, and anxiety which some action movies could only dream of.
The games I consider to have the most in common with art -- Killer 7, Silent Hill 2, Rez -- have exceptionally limited, simplistic (and in the first two cases, downright BAD) gameplay but are completely engaging as a ride through a multimedia museum exhibit might be; they're a demonstration of a tight, controlled, cohesive vision wed to a strong multimedia narrative that challenges many of the audience's assumptions about the medium as well as the narrative itself.
I agree with you about the simplistic and bad gameplay in those titles, but especially in Killer 7 and Silent Hill 2 would you argue more interesting gameplay would be actually be a draw back? Most people this generation have been clamouring for Silent Hill 2 with a RE4 Combat Engine. If it didn't make you feel too powerful and kept the gritty realism of hitting a horror with a pipe, I think it would be a more immersive piece of art.
Drinky Crow said:
The titles I listed SUCK at being GAMES, but they DO begin to approximate art. The strength of art doesn't allow for anything but the most rigidly controlled and tightly scripted audience participation, despite modern attempts to declare otherwise. Good art is about the expression of those who have specific vision and a mastery of technique, and the more a game diverges from passive controlled content delivery (linear, but not necessarily sequential) into more detailed and mechanics, the less a game becomes art itself and the more it becomes a medium for the player (amateur) to express him or herself, which moves rapidly backward from a completed work to a canvas anyone can splash paint on.
Movies are a combined art that doesn't always rely on the central vision of the director. They are a collaboration of different artists with unique visions, so the end piece of art doesn't always have a singular vision but multiple avenues of approach. I can watch Citizen Kane trying to take all the elements into a single viewing, but usually my reaction is more linked to the dialogue, or the inflection, the sets, the camera angle and movements. These focuses color my impression of the art. Music is a medium that must be played by artists, hopefully experts, in order to be heard and appreciated by experts in listening. In that the original vision is pondered, highlighted or not according to a professional conductor, and finally by professional instrumentalists and vocalists. Part of what makes these mediums unique and interesting is that the end result of a vision isn't static, rather is changed by both amateur and professional to color and angle it. Though there are always amateurs who will skip the cutscenes and run into the wall several times, as there are people who talk through the important parts of a movie, there are gaming connoisseurs and in those hands the freedom offered by the medium of videogames becomes a benefit to the art I would contend.
Drinky Crow said:
In fact, games like Silent Hill 2 really start to suck when the player is allowed to actively participate in the game by solving silly puzzles out of context, or by bashing mannequins ad nauseum. Did anybody REALLY enjoy those aspects more than wandering through a moody museum, piecing together the history of guilt-deadened man and shivering from the music and art direction? Same for Killer 7 -- the stuff that made it engaging really involved little player interaction at all; it probably would have worked BETTER as some sort of crazy lo-fi CG cinema where the player was simply shepherded through its crazy environments at a pace fixed by the director. And for its ultimate lack of interactivity, Rez was just a kickass audiovisual synthsizer that let the player introduce trivial aural accompaniments while they ogled a perfectly-paced graphic design orgy -- it was a full-sensory museum ride with only the most rudimentary of basic shooter mechanics attached.
Immersing myself into Silent Hill 2, and not understanding where to go at first, my empathy with James was increased by wandering around the world he found himself in finding the abrubt jutting edges of highway that went into nothingness, the straightjacketed figures crawling like bugs from underneath cars. I was further drawn into the story simply because I searched and became desperate like James did. Feeling the loneliness of the simulated town was unlike reading about a character feeling alone in a book, or watching one stumble around in a movie. It gave me a feeling of involvment other mediums have yet to invoke, because of the freedom I was given. I can admit that the puzzle with the clock seemed out of place and sometimes the random combat interrupted the mood, but I think those are failure of Silent Hill 2 in design, not of the medium in general, as gaming still isn't perfected as a medium. The hanging mens puzzle, with the poems of the condemned men was executed much better, having me read and consider the crimes of these men reflecting my own doubts about why James was there being persecuted by Pyramid Head, increasing my sense of dread about the town it's power and history, and the different levels of first hanging an innocent men, and then those whose crimes were minor for such a death.
Drinky Crow said:
Could Killer 7 and Silent Hill 2 worked as noninteractive cinema? I think the very limited audience participation works in both cases, oddly; the "gameplay" in Silent Hill 2 is the players ability to progress at his or her own pace, and to tender his or her level of fear in response. The tentative creep into a hotel room; the mad dash down a rusty hall; these are tightly controlled responses engineered by the designer. It's linear, but it preys on feedback from the player to create a tight little loop between the game and the audience, and the designer is the one largely in control. The same is true for Killer 7 -- the excruciatingly limited gameplay is designed to prey on assumptions made by gamers about videogaming in general, placing them under the director's control and curbing their own expression in favor of the artist's. A GTA game or an ICO or a Zelda can "instances" of art: a moment where the frame buffer eloquently captures a moment; a beautifully modeled character; or a subtle, evocative score -- but as long as the player is tightly in control and not the director, as they SHOULD be in the best games, the relationship between the artist and the audience is completely compromised and the game as a whole can be nothing more than mere entertainment.
I agree that the experience needs to be in the control of the developement team, but I still think that the leash doesn't have to be that tight. Games like Spore or Unlimited Saga rely more on the gamer becoming an artist, are more from a music school where the piece is written, but it must be highlighted, orchestrated, played and heard to be fully produced, but as long as the gamer doesn't fall flat on their face, I think they can produce art in the playing of such games just it's harder and I haven't seen it done yet. In games like Silent Hill there needs to be more control than that, more impetus to move from area to area, but by limiting control too much, we risk being better suited to a movie or animation.
Drinky Crow said:
I don't consider ICO or Shadow of the Colossus very close to art. In both cases, the directorial staff tried to introduce too much gameplay at the expense of the artistic vision. To a great extent, I think the more you increase the ability of the player (the amateur) to interact with your game, the more you conversely move the game away from art. You're putting the gamer closer to the canvas and further away from your tightly authored experience; they're almost mutually exclusive.
I disagree depending on the playing of the game, the accent on gameplay was not a detriment in those titles. Are they art, i'm not sure, but watching me fight and continue falling from the third colossus my first time through ( I couldn't figure out how to climb up further ) and seeing my frustration when I fell, my friends watching me, rather than laughing like they would at my efforts at resident evil, put that feeling on the Hero. His slim hope as punctuated by the seemingly impossible task of destroying eighteen giant creatures for possible hope at resurrection was punctuated by my failure at number three. The relief and gladness at destroying it, and
the sadness learning it all was for nothing
resonated more because of those attempts. Shadow of the Colossus uses strict simple gameplay to indirectly control which situations are likely to arise.
An interesting topic for me as right now, I am in the process of working with the team on our new game to decide if we should REMOVE alot of the more cinematic aspects (i.e. a character who goes thru a profound change as the story moves forward; scenarios that unfold the way I want them to in order to create an emotion in the player)....but the more I work on the game, the more I lean towards PULLING THESE MORE TRADITIONAL CINEMATIC ELEMENTS OUT of the design as they just feel forced....I have NEVER played a cinematic game- that uses cinematic elements- and really felt the game WORKED as an emotional experience...I get the game is TRYING to make me feel and I applaud it but it's using elements from a medium that is not OUR medium and in doing so, pulling me out of what makes our medium so great...
...so for me, right now, I am embracing more of the minimalist approach that games like ICO and HALF LIFE do, where you leave alot up to the player but you create and craft key experiences that you feel WILL create some form of emotion in the player BUT you are not FORCING that emotion (like you would in a movie)....in other words, playing to the strengths of the medium while STILL trying to create something more than just a virtual playground that has no artistic meaning...
...not sure if it's gonna work, but it sure is fun to try!
...he's right: we may never have a canon. But here Ebert prioritizes the ability to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic, and I think that this is something games can and will accomplish, and in a language uniquely their own.
....
I'd point to the promise in stuff like Spore. if God cares about his creatures, maybe we can, too?
Games are games and should not be art. Im sick and tired of playing games masquerading as movies or works of literature. These types ot titles are interactive stories, not games.
I dont consider poker art, I dont consider tic tac toe art, and I dont consider video games an art.
Good art is about the expression of those who have specific vision and a mastery of technique, and the more a game diverges from passive controlled content delivery (linear, but not necessarily sequential) into more detailed mechanics, the less a game becomes art itself and the more it becomes a medium for the player (amateur) to express him or herself, which moves rapidly backward from a completed work to a canvas anyone can splash paint on.
What about those that don't directly participate in the game, but instead, are the audience viewing it pushed forward via the manipulations (and expressions) of the artist's work by an engaged player? Can non-participants get something out of that experience, the work of both the player and the artist? I think so. What's the real difference between mere entertainment and art? Is it something that entertains, but ends up, for whatever reason, having much more personal meaning to the audience? Or is it some level of elevated craftsmanship and execution that makes it art?
and I'm sure that goes for the people who are designing them just as much.
