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[pieyow]

Art isn't just about story at all, it's a combined medium. Movies may have great stories at times, but they can't hold a candle to books, anymore than games can to movies. Art is about making a unique signifigant creative product. Games shouldn't try to be movies, or portraits, or music, they are a multimedia with rules and standards all their own. I mean I could try to really adapt War and Peace to a game, but even if I had every event and environment it wouldn't be the same if it was direct.

I have to agree ART can't be classified into simply telling a story.
If you were to solely compare movies and books to video games based on the quality of story that would be ridiculous. Video games are more complex then that (visuals, the feel behind interacting with the game, the audio, the interactiviting between multiple people, etc...). Just as movies are much more then simply a story. Books are more then just words put together. It's the experience.

Lemme pose a thought or two on the subject.....
If a video game does not have a storyline is it no longer art?
If that's true then what of traditional art medium? They don't always have a message/story, does that me that they are not art? Of course not.
Does interactivity mean video games can't be art?
What of books that allow the reader to choose the outcome of the ending? What of plays where the audience is invloved? What of written poems read and acted out by others?
These are all interactive examples of the mediums that Ebert describes. Giving authoritive control to the audience/user doesn't mean it's no longer art.

 

[Mr. E. Yis]

So I guess anything can be art then, huh?

Yes. Art is anything you make, put effort into, enjoy, and show off for others to enjoy. It's abstract, and there's never any rules or predetermined path for its evolution. It's just a form of life, like music. Can you define music? Not in any real way.

Now if you actually wanted to JUDGE art (say something is great or sucks) that's cool. This is on a personal basis and is subjective. You might have instances where the majority 'agree' that some work of art is good or is bad, but not too often. Usually it's pretty evenly matched. But to say that something isn't 'art' in the first place is a lie, no matter how bad it is.

 

[Mr_Furious]

Good luck, but i beg you dont create interactive and player-view cutscenes/events thats all im asking.

Why not? It worked extremely well in Half-Life 1 and 2.

 

[Date of Lies]

Why not? It worked extremely well in Half-Life 1 and 2.

1 but not 2

 

[SapientWolf]

It turns out I didn't need to write much because a lot of people said what I was thinking:

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.

A game that is truly fun to play is a work of art.

Art is art. It is emotion, and the act of eliciting a response in another through your actions/creations/feelings/opinions. Games are art.

...Because art is personal. Art is the very intangible that defines human thought.

Remember that a game's story is not what is told to the player it is what the player does within the environment or rules of the game.

...Games are not emotionless as even a violent FPS may encourage feelings of stress, tension, and relief.

 

[blindrocket]

So I guess anything can be art then, huh?

I believe so yes. I'm an artist, specifically graphic artist, but I put art into everything I do. From a story idea I'm thinking about to a new design and even to how I rearrange the living room.

 

[3rdman]

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. To my knowledge, no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers. That a game can aspire to artistic importance as a visual experience, I accept. But for most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic.

As a film school graduate, I can tell you that film (unlike other forms of art that are created in solitude) is a colaborative art form. No matter how strong the vision of the director, no matter how involved he is on every aspect of the filmaking project, it is NEVER the sole vision of the director as there is just too much "interference" from the rest of the crew and cast. Actors change their lines, editors re-cut the film, Directors of photography can alter a shot on the fly, etc...there are too many interfering factors to claim that a serious film is made under "authorial (authoritative?) control".

As such, this concept is why I never had an issue with viewing games as an art form...the colaboration of the game maker is simply extended to the game player. Then again, my idea of what constitutes art begins with the notion that anything can be "art" if there is a creative or expressive force behind it. There is as much creativity going on during a film's preplanning as there is during the preliminary stages of a games devlopment and I don't see how that changes at any point of development for either medium.

Ebert makes the same mistake that preceding generations have always made...they never fully adjust to the changes around them and instead they hold everything to some pre-known constant from which everything is measured. Should we remind him how film was once considered "low-brow" or that impressionist painters were mocked for not doing things the same way as their predecessors?

I hope I made some sense, if not, just remember that this is the same guy who gave a "thumbs down" to Blue Velvet and called it trash...apparantly his idea of art is constrictive enough to hose on a true contemporary classic. Way to go, Roger!

Edit: After many years, I finally got an avatar! Haha What do you think?

 

[OmniAvenger]

I lost all respect for Ebert after an episode where he and Siskel (RIP) actually did a quick overview of the Genesis Activator (picture below if you're too yong to know what the hell an "Activator" is). Ebert was demonstrating the interactivity with a fighting game -- can't remember the name of it, Elemental Masters? Masters of Elements? The characters were featured on Slurpee cups -- and watching him jiggle his way through changed me. Since then I take everything he says with a bag of salt. He may be right about games not being on the same "artistic" level as films, books, and sculpture/painting, but gaming is pretty much in its infancy. Unfortunately for Ebert, he'll be long dead when gaming comes into its own and is mentioned in the same breath as artistic prize winners. I can even see a new category at the Academy Awards: Best Game Based on a Feature Film.

Edit: It was Eternal Champions!

 

[ghibli99]

Edit: After many years, I finally got an avatar! Haha What do you think?

Awesome. That's one of my favorite films.

 

[FortNinety]

I lost all respect for Ebert after an episode where he and Siskel (RIP) actually did a quick overview of the Genesis Activator (picture below if you're too yong to know what the hell an "Activator" is). Ebert was demonstrating the interactivity with a fighting game -- can't remember the name of it, Elemental Masters? Masters of Elements? The characters were featured on Slurpee cups -- and watching him jiggle his way through changed me. Since then I take everything he says with a bag of salt. He may be right about games not being on the same "artistic" level as films, books, and sculpture/painting, but gaming is pretty much in its infancy. Unfortunately for Ebert, he'll be long dead when gaming comes into its own and is mentioned in the same breath as artistic prize winners. I can even see a new category at the Academy Awards: Best Game Based on a Feature Film.

I remember that. It was when he and Siskel were both doing end of year consumer guide shows. I recall him loving Tennis for the SNES. I mean really loving it.

 

[Musashi Wins!]

Meme explosion!

The cover story of the Week In Review section of today's New York Times is whether games should be considered art, and what direction that art might take. Not too much that would be considered new to the crowd here, but it is one of the better short discussions I've seen yet in public media. He talks about the idea that games don't necessarily need to ape the progression of film and even briefly explores the idea of "player" as artiste in created spaces ala dance or architecture. He closes with an intriguing idea about how games are one of the few artisitc forms to constantly explore death or mortality, but doesn't explore it much.

Read this if you can.

 

[Senretsu]

interesting, I'd like to read that. Metal Gear Solid 3's fight against The Sorrow was an nice example of exploring death and the consequences of the player's "actions" during the course of the game, probably the best representation I've ever seen. Not to mention no way in a million years do you ever see it coming.

 

[junkwaffle]

 

[Musashi Wins!]

ha, I like the virtual portrait, junkwaffle.

 

[Musashi Wins!]

this is...hard not to agree with in some ways...

Games and the meta-critics

That thread at Quarter to Three that I linked to yesterday had a small amount of interesting discussion in it. The whole thing eventually boils down to whether or not games are art, or something, and yeah, there's a different thread on that again, too. Inevitably, when this comes up, someone has to invoke movie reviews, or book reviews. In that particular thread, someone asked why there aren't any George Orwells out there, writing intelligently about games the way a young Orwell wrote about books. I thought the answer was obvious.

I don't really buy the argument (made pretty clearly by Kyle Orland) that game writing is bad because games themselves are so bad. That presumes (1) that games are bad, which they're not, and (2) game writers are capable of writing "game critiques" which somehow transcend the hackneyed game review form (which he places in a separate category) and discuss games on a different level. They're not. Not because they're stupid, but because even good games don't lend themselves to this analysis.

Books are vehicles for ideas. Games are not. It's that simple.

It's not that games can't convey ideas (although it's difficult) - it's simply that these ideas have nothing to do with making the games good.

By contrast, the best books -whether fiction or non-fiction- are about ideas, and how the specific story or circumstances related in the book relate to more universal themes.

It's true that the best book reviews aren't so much reviews as they are essays. This is what The New York Review of Books does so well (no, not the New York Times Book Review). For example, what is ostensibly a review of a number of books on Russian history is really an essay on Russian history, using these books as jumping-off points. And not just by a book reviewer: by one of the foremost historians of Russia. Who is going to write this critique of all the space combat games? Buzz Aldrin?

Perhaps this is why Orland means by "game critique." The problem is that to write a real game critique, you need to talk about ideas. And there aren't a whole lot of deep ideas in designing a good game.

Imagine a game about the Reformation. Let's say it's this game. Because the game deals with the Reformation, various elements of the Reformation have to be represented in the game. Fine. You might even argue (although I won't) that the act of choosing aspects of the Reformation to be represented in the game means the game is about ideas. The problem is that what makes the game good has everything to do with good game design, and nothing to do with our understanding of the Reformation.

The best games don't have topics so much as they have themes. One of the best games of all time, Reiner Knizia's Ra, is an auction game that has the rise and fall of Egyptian civilization as a theme. But that's it. There isn't a lot of philosophizing about the actual rise and fall of Egyptian civilization. Sure, a historian of Egypt could write a "game critique" about it. But nothing about Egyptian history would have any bearing on how good a game it actually is. No omission or misinterpretation in the game would be a legitimate criticism of Ra as a game, because as far as the game goes, that's irrelevant.

I said earlier that games aren't bad. They're not. They're great. At being games. They're pretty terrible at being art, but I don't expect them to be. Unfortunately, some people aren't satisfied with this situation.

My feeling is that the problem is not with games, but with the people playing the games. Or at least the people writing about these issues in gaming. The people angry that games are not taken more seriously as pastimes have some need for games to be more widely accepted as legitimate endeavors not because they love games, but because they are trying to compensate for something. Who know what that thing is? Only those people. This isn't a psychological analysis.

I love games because they entertain me and engage my imagination. Just like books and movies. I have some ideas about what makes a good game, and what kind of games I would like to see in the future, but these don't have to do so much with intellectual content as with simple game mechanics. One of the great revelations of the "Euro boardgame" craze was that games became exponentially better as the game mechanics increased player interaction. Instead of taking your turn and having the next player wait until his turn rolled around, you could involve all the players all the time. There might be some great philosophical insight in there, but I doubt it.

Sure, maybe someday we'll have adventure games or RPGs or something that tell stories as good as Anna Karenina, and literary theorists can write essays about them. My own problem with that is that (a) why try to tell stories in a way that books already do much better, and (b) I don't think very highly of most literary theory. And I don't like adventure games. That's an extra bonus objection you get for having read this far.

Since this is supposedly a wargaming blog, let's also dispense with the idea that wargames really teach you very much about history that's useful. Yes, the Germans lost the Battle of El Alamein. No, it's not particularly important which anti-tank company took a step loss.

Wargames can be good tools in teaching history because they may interest people in the period and either make them more receptive to learning, or encourage them to investigate more relevant history of the period on their own. That's good. But playing Sword of Rome isn't equivalent to reading Edward Gibbon.

The whole "games as art" thing isn't going to go away, because people need to legitimate games for their own purposes. Those are their purposes though. They sure don't make better games.

http://grognards.1up.com/do/blogEntry?bId=6174042&publicUserId=5647873

 

[sprsk]

I'm sorry this

Books are vehicles for ideas. Games are not. It's that simple.

is simply ridiculous.

Hes totally missing the point, the art isnt in the context. Stuff like the reformation or the fall of egypt is just the back drop for the art, which is the gameplay mechanic.

Take for instance the sims, something mentioned earlier in the thread. Will Wright says the game is about greed and consumption.

The backdrop for the sims is a house\neighborhood. The basic goal is, keep your way of life consistant. The gameplay mechanic is "fufill your characters desires all the time". This guy says about the reformation game

The problem is that what makes the game good has everything to do with good game design, and nothing to do with our understanding of the Reformation.

This has nothing to do with art. While the game may not help us understand anything about the reformation, it could tell us things about human nature, war, a whole bunch of topics one associates with war. Art can tell us more about love, ourselves, human nature, all sorts of things. Art does not replace the work of historians.


I'm glad someone bumped this, because I've been thinking of what how I should reply to drinky's comment about interactivity and how it kills the "art". Gameplay, in an abstract way is the feelings of the creator. In a game, the way you play is part of the artist's intent. My pushing forward does not equal me pushing an artists brush. Games are a different medium than painting, or writing. You can't simply take the rules from those medium and apply it to gaming. The sheer nature of the medium is totally different. Painting and writing are very similar in spacial interactions and in the way you study them. Gaming is closer to installations and sculpture. In an installation you can walk in and out of it and your movement through the piece is part of the piece, part of the intent of the artist. It doesnt have to be linear to be intentional. It may be true that alot of games out there are pretty uninteresting if broken down to a "high art" level. But thats not the mediums problem thats the artist's problem. While games like Killer 7 make art sense when thinking about a painting or a book, the gameplay doesnt really say anything, it's just a method of getting around. The mechanics of solving puzzles and going from point A to B by use of menus does little to support the post modern(theres that word!) content portrayed in the graphics, story and sound. To me this means killer 7 is a faulty example of games as art.

I think when looking at games as art, you have to say that games are a 3d medium. Even though we see it on a tv the interactivity granted by a controller turns something that is visually 2d to something that is conceptually 3D. Games are not books, games are not paintings and games aren't films. I think alot of what those mediums are are totally irrelevant when thinking about games as art. Films are still a 2D medium even if you wear 3d goggles. Pong is more 3D than any film you will ever see in a theatre.




P.S. I am aware of attempts at making interactive films, films where you can choose the outcome. But the interaction in those films is simply deciding between A and B. Its asking you "do you want them to be together or no?" You aren't truely interacting with it. Youre just choosing an ending.

 

[LiquidMamba]

I want to see how games develop with improved artificial intelligence.
Instead of having you follow a predetermined story or character actions, have them change and adapt because of your interactions. Just think of all the possibilities if a game was able to generate a unique story each time you played, and dicided to do something differently.

 

[FortNinety]

My feeling is that the problem is not with games, but with the people playing the games. Or at least the people writing about these issues in gaming. The people angry that games are not taken more seriously as pastimes have some need for games to be more widely accepted as legitimate endeavors not because they love games, but because they are trying to compensate for something. Who know what that thing is? Only those people. This isn't a psychological analysis.

Wow, my mind is totally blown.

 

[White Man]

My feeling is that the problem is not with games, but with the people playing the games. Or at least the people writing about these issues in gaming. The people angry that games are not taken more seriously as pastimes have some need for games to be more widely accepted as legitimate endeavors not because they love games, but because they are trying to compensate for something. Who know what that thing is? Only those people. This isn't a psychological analysis.

I feel the same way. I think older youngins realize they should maybe be spending their time on things they perceive as more relevant than gaming, thus they feel the need to justify gaming and elevating it to a status equivalent to the other responsibilities they feel. What better way to do this than to attach the nebulous title of "art" to gaming?

 

[reggieandTFE]

Really fun thread to pick through, but I don't have to time to formulate a response to anything in particular. I would like to add that people interested in discussions like this about "art" really need to check out of the library or buy Howard Becker's Art Worlds. He posits that the creation of art depends a lot less on the "artist" than people assume.

My only other point is that I think videogame "journalism" might be the biggest stepping stone to gaming gaining credibility as an art. Until a balance is struck between unabashed boosterism and critical analysis than the industry/artistic medium will continue to be dismissed as juvenile.

 

[Lemming_JRS]

Ebert's website has posted some letters regarding the whole games-as-art thing. Here are the links:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051206/COMMENTARY/51206002

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051208/COMMENTARY/51208002


Here's a sampling:


I'm an associate producer at one of the larger game companies and I came upon the article by reading some bloggers' responses. I figured I would write directly to you, however, because I believe you're absolutely right.

My favorite film is Kurosawa's “Ran,” and no -- no video game has come anywhere close. Why not? There is the industry: the game industry is adverse to exploration and experimentation (much more so than movie studios); there is no formal system in place for recognizing and developing upcoming talent; and arguably, games cannot capture real truths of the human condition because nobody over 40 makes them.

Then there are the challenges of the medium: games cannot be didactic, because they offer choice and interactivity. Many games have a "story," but this is either a story set in stone, and nothing you actually do changes it (thus rendering player participation mostly pointless), or it allows you to see one of, say, three different endings, each of which has to be as plausible as the other. I don't think a real solution to this has yet been found.

Which is not to say that I don't think games could eventually grow into
their own as a real artistic medium... but no, it has not happened yet.

(name withheld by request)
Los Angeles, CA


I hold a Ph.D. I am a professor of philosophy. I have also played videogames since Pong, and have played most of them on most of the systems over the last 30 years. I still adore them and spend too much time playing them. I am about to play one now. But to call them art along the lines of literature, architecture, dance, theater, movies, sculpture, photography, or any other generally accepted art form is risible.

The level of writing and number of solecisms in the letters of the defenders of videogames (VGs) should serve to as a prima facie vindication of Mr Ebert's view. Moreover, the defenders of VGs doth protest too much, methinks. But we can say more.

Videogames may be difficult to make, requiring great thought, skill, planning, and care, but so is an armoire made of okra. That doesn't make either one art. VGs may be entertaining, escapist, enjoyable, and absorbing, but so is masturbation, and that doesn't make either one art. What art does that VGs do not, and probably never will, is edify and ennoble (even in the form of subversion). Moreover, and as a result, art endures. We are reading Cervantes and Goethe, performing Shakespeare and Moliere, and listening to Mozart and Beethoven hundreds of years after their works were created, with no end in sight. We aren't playing NES games 20 years after their creation. Indeed, they weren't being played 5 years after their creation. My garage is full of old videogame systems that will never be turned on again simply because new and better systems have come along. By contrast, when you buy a Chagall painting, you don't throw away your Van Gogh.

Videogames, as the name vaguely suggests, are GAMES. Games are not art, unless tennis, chess, bridge, and Monopoly are art as well. So why don't we just enjoy the great games out there and not try to make them into something they're not just to assuage the guilt we feel for letting them take up so much of our time, or to aggrandize ourselves for engaging in such a putatively lofty pursuit?

Best regards,

Dr Barton Odom
Adjunct Professor of Philosophy
Tarleton State University
Stephenville, TX

 

[Pellham]

Ebert's website has posted some letters regarding the whole games-as-art thing. Here are the links:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051206/COMMENTARY/51206002

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051208/COMMENTARY/51208002


Here's a sampling:


I'm an associate producer at one of the larger game companies and I came upon the article by reading some bloggers' responses. I figured I would write directly to you, however, because I believe you're absolutely right.

My favorite film is Kurosawa's “Ran,” and no -- no video game has come anywhere close. Why not? There is the industry: the game industry is adverse to exploration and experimentation (much more so than movie studios); there is no formal system in place for recognizing and developing upcoming talent; and arguably, games cannot capture real truths of the human condition because nobody over 40 makes them.

Then there are the challenges of the medium: games cannot be didactic, because they offer choice and interactivity. Many games have a "story," but this is either a story set in stone, and nothing you actually do changes it (thus rendering player participation mostly pointless), or it allows you to see one of, say, three different endings, each of which has to be as plausible as the other. I don't think a real solution to this has yet been found.

Which is not to say that I don't think games could eventually grow into
their own as a real artistic medium... but no, it has not happened yet.

(name withheld by request)
Los Angeles, CA


I hold a Ph.D. I am a professor of philosophy. I have also played videogames since Pong, and have played most of them on most of the systems over the last 30 years. I still adore them and spend too much time playing them. I am about to play one now. But to call them art along the lines of literature, architecture, dance, theater, movies, sculpture, photography, or any other generally accepted art form is risible.

The level of writing and number of solecisms in the letters of the defenders of videogames (VGs) should serve to as a prima facie vindication of Mr Ebert's view. Moreover, the defenders of VGs doth protest too much, methinks. But we can say more.

Videogames may be difficult to make, requiring great thought, skill, planning, and care, but so is an armoire made of okra. That doesn't make either one art. VGs may be entertaining, escapist, enjoyable, and absorbing, but so is masturbation, and that doesn't make either one art. What art does that VGs do not, and probably never will, is edify and ennoble (even in the form of subversion). Moreover, and as a result, art endures. We are reading Cervantes and Goethe, performing Shakespeare and Moliere, and listening to Mozart and Beethoven hundreds of years after their works were created, with no end in sight. We aren't playing NES games 20 years after their creation. Indeed, they weren't being played 5 years after their creation. My garage is full of old videogame systems that will never be turned on again simply because new and better systems have come along. By contrast, when you buy a Chagall painting, you don't throw away your Van Gogh.

Videogames, as the name vaguely suggests, are GAMES. Games are not art, unless tennis, chess, bridge, and Monopoly are art as well. So why don't we just enjoy the great games out there and not try to make them into something they're not just to assuage the guilt we feel for letting them take up so much of our time, or to aggrandize ourselves for engaging in such a putatively lofty pursuit?

Best regards,

Dr Barton Odom
Adjunct Professor of Philosophy
Tarleton State University
Stephenville, TX

This philosophy professor knows his stuff. The bolded sentence above should end all arguments on whether video games are art or not.

 

[Flo_Evans]

Ebert's website has posted some letters regarding the whole games-as-art thing. Here are the links:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051206/COMMENTARY/51206002

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051208/COMMENTARY/51208002


Here's a sampling:


I'm an associate producer at one of the larger game companies and I came upon the article by reading some bloggers' responses. I figured I would write directly to you, however, because I believe you're absolutely right.

My favorite film is Kurosawa's “Ran,” and no -- no video game has come anywhere close. Why not? There is the industry: the game industry is adverse to exploration and experimentation (much more so than movie studios); there is no formal system in place for recognizing and developing upcoming talent; and arguably, games cannot capture real truths of the human condition because nobody over 40 makes them.

Then there are the challenges of the medium: games cannot be didactic, because they offer choice and interactivity. Many games have a "story," but this is either a story set in stone, and nothing you actually do changes it (thus rendering player participation mostly pointless), or it allows you to see one of, say, three different endings, each of which has to be as plausible as the other. I don't think a real solution to this has yet been found.

Which is not to say that I don't think games could eventually grow into
their own as a real artistic medium... but no, it has not happened yet.

(name withheld by request)
Los Angeles, CA


I hold a Ph.D. I am a professor of philosophy. I have also played videogames since Pong, and have played most of them on most of the systems over the last 30 years. I still adore them and spend too much time playing them. I am about to play one now. But to call them art along the lines of literature, architecture, dance, theater, movies, sculpture, photography, or any other generally accepted art form is risible.

The level of writing and number of solecisms in the letters of the defenders of videogames (VGs) should serve to as a prima facie vindication of Mr Ebert's view. Moreover, the defenders of VGs doth protest too much, methinks. But we can say more.

Videogames may be difficult to make, requiring great thought, skill, planning, and care, but so is an armoire made of okra. That doesn't make either one art. VGs may be entertaining, escapist, enjoyable, and absorbing, but so is masturbation, and that doesn't make either one art. What art does that VGs do not, and probably never will, is edify and ennoble (even in the form of subversion). Moreover, and as a result, art endures. We are reading Cervantes and Goethe, performing Shakespeare and Moliere, and listening to Mozart and Beethoven hundreds of years after their works were created, with no end in sight. We aren't playing NES games 20 years after their creation. Indeed, they weren't being played 5 years after their creation. My garage is full of old videogame systems that will never be turned on again simply because new and better systems have come along. By contrast, when you buy a Chagall painting, you don't throw away your Van Gogh.

Videogames, as the name vaguely suggests, are GAMES. Games are not art, unless tennis, chess, bridge, and Monopoly are art as well. So why don't we just enjoy the great games out there and not try to make them into something they're not just to assuage the guilt we feel for letting them take up so much of our time, or to aggrandize ourselves for engaging in such a putatively lofty pursuit?

Best regards,

Dr Barton Odom
Adjunct Professor of Philosophy
Tarleton State University
Stephenville, TX

pretty good points, but I take exception to the idea that games are 'disposable' my atari 2600 is still hooked up to my TV, and I regularly play NES/SNES/GENISIS games on my PSP.

also

is over 50

 

[Musashi Wins!]

that philosophy professor was pretty good. it was funny to go to his site, see that he's writing on rorty's ironism with christianity and under interests he has, "Xbox". hahaha.

 

[DenogginizerOS]

I guarantee you that Peter Jackson would beg to differ with Mr. Ebert. I played King Kong recently and one of the T-Rex scenes clearly left an impression of visceral terror.

 

[ara]

It seems to me that more precisely, the issue here is basically whether the essence of a video game- the mechanics and rules, can actually be artistic or not.

My question is, how can they not be? Why are so many people projecting the same expectations of art in the context of movie or literature onto games? Video games are definitely not art, if you continue only to think of art in terms of what can be artistic about movies or literature. The kind of aesthetics and emotion that can be experienced in beautiful game mechanics are completely different than that which can be evoked by films.

To explore the artistic elements of game mechanics, we have to stop borrowing so much from movies. Cinematics and gameplay mechanics are not very compatible with each other, unless you severely restrict one of these dimensions- Consider this in the context of Drinky's post earlier. It's not that gameplay ruins the artistic qualities of games: Gameplay ruins the cinematic artistic qualities of games, just as cinematics ruin the artistic qualities of game mechanics.

For one reason or another, it seems difficult for a lot of people to conceptualize or understand what can be artistic about game mechanics.

There is an artistic beauty in the way the mechanics of games like Tetris, or Chess, or especially Go, or Ikaruga, or Street Fighter operate. Their aesthetics are in the structure and subtleties of their interactions.

 

[DenogginizerOS]

If "Pissed Christ" is art, then Shadow of the Collossus most definitely is art. For those that question video games as art, I challenge them to define art.

From Webster's

1 : skill acquired by experience, study, or observation <the art of making friends>

or the art of making video games.

If the artist is the game designer, then the game is most definitely art.

 

[Pellham]

I guarantee you that Peter Jackson would beg to differ with Mr. Ebert. I played King Kong recently and one of the T-Rex scenes clearly left an impression of visceral terror.

What does having an impression of visceral terror have to do with whether something is art or not? I could have an axe murderer attack my home and i'd experience visceral terror. would it be art? No.

Come on guys. ART IS OVERRATED. ART SUCKS! DOWN WITH ART! UP WITH VIDEO GAMES!

 

[White Man]

If "Pissed Christ" is art, then Shadow of the Collossus most definitely is art. For those that question video games as art, I challenge them to define art.

From Webster's

1 : skill acquired by experience, study, or observation <the art of making friends>

or the art of making video games.

If the artist is the game designer, then the game is most definitely art.

First off, it's Piss Christ, and last I checked, it wasn't a game.

EDIT: Also, I don't think Piss Christ is universally accepted as art. I'm all for it, though.

 

[Tellaerin]

This philosophy professor knows his stuff. The bolded sentence above should end all arguments on whether video games are art or not.

Except that tennis, chess, bridge and Monopoly don't have narratives and don't attempt to engage the players' emotions. Games can. Not all of them do, and that's fine - not all of them should, or need to. But the ones that do are clearly art. (All the rest is up for debate.)

 

[DenogginizerOS]

What does having an impression of visceral terror have to do with whether something is art or not? I could have an axe murderer attack my home and i'd experience visceral terror. would it be art? No.

Come on guys. ART IS OVERRATED. ART SUCKS! DOWN WITH ART! UP WITH VIDEO GAMES!

If a form of entertainment can generate the visceral terror of being chased by an axe murderer without actually being chased, then that is art.

 

[DenogginizerOS]

First off, it's Piss Christ, and last I checked, it wasn't a game.

EDIT: Also, I don't think Piss Christ is universally accepted as art. I'm all for it, though.

I stand corrected. It is Piss Christ.

 

[White Man]

If a form of entertainment can generate the visceral terror of being chased by an axe murderer without actually being chased, then that is art.

That's a pretty broad definition of art. Something that makes someone express an emotion?

 

[kaching]

At the risk of repeating what others have said here, I believe the problem with the debate on whether games can be art, on both sides, is that achieving art is regarded as a lofty goal. But art just fundamentally seems to be about taking some aspect(s) of the human experience and reproducing or reinterpreting that in some medium of our own making, regardless of what that medium is. Whether that makes for uninspiring art or great art or somewhere inbetween is determined later, based on the reactions and interpretations of those who absorb and experience it.

I think that's the basic hurdle for games - the definition of art is too often entangled with a minimum threshold of critical acceptance, often biased by factors such as medium of preference and prevailing themes regarded as highbrow at the time. So right now its too common to see opponents of the idea that games can be art creating an artificial definition of art that places it on a pedestal, and proponents of games as art are foolishly attempting to pander to that definition, rather than disassociate the perceived value of art from the basic definition of what art is.

 

[Warm Machine]

The title "videogames" was applied to the medium when it had first begun. To compare what we have now with what we had then is assanine.

You simply cannot pile everything that makes up what is generally regarded as art, such as illustration, music, writing, narrative, form, and function, and end up with something that is not art.

Page through the making of Half-Life 2 or the Art of God of War found in the strat guide and try to tell me they are artless works.

As far as the video games are not about ideas thing is concered it is also an assanine concept. Games have always about ideas in a tanglible sense and more and more recently in a narrative sense. What is the overridding theme and concept in Half Life 2? Arriving in the train station amidst facist or socialist lockdown is all idea in all manner of the term. You can't not walk around that area alone and see the characters, structures, lighting, and mood within that area and not feel emotion toward it. That is all about the stripping of freedom and the player's thirst for rebellion.

 

[DenogginizerOS]

That's a pretty broad definition of art. Something that makes someone express an emotion?

If the passive act of watching a film generates an emotion and that is well-accepted as art, then playing a game and having that same emotion evoked is similar. For example, the sheer terror of the opening scene in Saving Private Ryan is a graphic depiction of WWII that evokes terror in many who see it; The Defense of the Bridge portion in the first Call of Duty evoked a similar emotion, especially when the orchestral soundtrack kicked in and I was frantically trying to defend that bridge. When that portion of the game was over, my appreciation for those that fought in similar battles was yet again increased (just as it was in Saving Private Ryan). To me, that is art.

 

[Redbeard]

If the passive act of watching a film generates an emotion and that is well-accepted as art, then playing a game and having that same emotion evoked is similar. For example, the sheer terror of the opening scene in Saving Private Ryan is a graphic depiction of WWII that evokes terror in many who see it; The Defense of the Bridge portion in the first Call of Duty evoked a similar emotion, especially when the orchestral soundtrack kicked in and I was frantically trying to defend that bridge. When that portion of the game was over, my appreciation for those that fought in similar battles was yet again increased (just as it was in Saving Private Ryan). To me, that is art.

Evoking emotion doesn't make something art.

 

[DenogginizerOS]

Evoking emotion doesn't make something art.

If a poem evokes anger, is it art? Or is it the ability of the artist to evoke anger? Allen Ginsberg certainly generated a lot of emotion with Howl. Was that art?

 

[etiolate]

I don't get how interactivity kills art. Especially if you are referring to Ico. The animations in the game lose so much emotional impact if you aren't the one making them happen. For example, the animation of making a jump and grabbing the girl as she falls is heightened by yourself being the one doing it. Pulling the girl back up connects the player, at least myself, more to the feeling of struggle and desperation, along with kindness. It wouldn't have the same impact if you were just watching it happen.

Also, I just remembered a forgotten about interactive emotional culsterfuck within Star Fox Adventures. Remember the fear trial?(I'm pretty sure this is SFA) Tell me that's not the directors of the game showing and dictating emotion.

 

[Redbeard]

If a poem evokes anger, is it art? Or is it the ability of the artist to evoke anger? Allen Ginsberg certainly generated a lot of emotion with Howl. Was that art?

It would be art for a different reason. Evoking emotion isn't something peculiar to art; e.g. nature can be the cause, and unless you consider that to be god's art it has to be something else.

 

[Squeak]

Evoking emotion doesn't make something art.

Perhaps you think evoking new unique or shocking emotion "cords", as opposed to just strong ones makes something art.
By that definition not a lot of what is normally considered art, is art.

 

[White Man]

I don't get how interactivity kills art. Especially if you are referring to Ico. The animations in the game lose so much emotional impact if you aren't the one making them happen. For example, the animation of making a jump and grabbing the girl as she falls is heightened by yourself being the one doing it. Pulling the girl back up connects the player, at least myself, more to the feeling of struggle and desperation, along with kindness. It wouldn't have the same impact if you were just watching it happen.

One of the very few things aesthetes have ever agreed upon is that art must be intuitively understood. Art just is. Interactiveity kills this.

Games can't be played without some knowledge of their mechanics, whereas art relies on symbols, signs, and language that entire cultures could understand. Using the common to make something more. Games create their own symbols, signs, and language, and while they may mirror our own world's, it's still a layer of abstraction.

And note that I have never said that games can't be emotional, but evoking emotions alone doesn't make something art.

 

[Squeak]

One of the very few things aesthetes have ever agreed upon is that art must be intuitively understood. Art just is. Interactiveity kills this.

Games can't be played without some knowledge of their mechanics, whereas art relies on symbols, signs, and language that entire cultures could understand. Using the common to make something more. Games create their own symbols, signs, and language, and while they may mirror our own world's, it's still a layer of abstraction.

And note that I have never said that games can't be emotional, but evoking emotions alone doesn't make something art.

Only very few things are truly intuitive.
You always have to know the context and lingo to judge a "message".

 

[White Man]

Only very few things are truly intuitive.
You always have to know the context and lingo to judge a "message".

You don't even have to know these things. You could read the Rape of the Locke and understand what's going on and what it's about. Learning the context it was written in, and the events that lead up to the writing of the work facilitate greater understanding, but are by no means necessary to properly appreciate the poem.

 

[J2 Cool]

Evoking emotion doesn't make something art.

I'd argue ideas and emotion is the most important thing you can strive for in art. I'd love to hear what art really is though..

 

[Squeak]

One of the very few things aesthetes have ever agreed upon is that art must be intuitively understood. Art just is. Interactiveity kills this.

Games can't be played without some knowledge of their mechanics, whereas art relies on symbols, signs, and language that entire cultures could understand. Using the common to make something more. Games create their own symbols, signs, and language, and while they may mirror our own world's, it's still a layer of abstraction.

And note that I have never said that games can't be emotional, but evoking emotions alone doesn't make something art.

Only very few things are truly intuitive.
You always have to know the context and lingo to judge a "message".

 

[etiolate]

Games can't be played without some knowledge of their mechanics, whereas art relies on symbols, signs, and language that entire cultures could understand. Using the common to make something more. Games create their own symbols, signs, and language, and while they may mirror our own world's, it's still a layer of abstraction.

I honestly do not find some of the basic elements of games to be any more complex than basic symbolism in art. You also act as though all symbolism in art is understood, when it's quite often not by the mass public. Maybe you need an instruction booklet to know what color rupees equal how much money, but rupees look like jewels which most people would understand as having monetary value. Color symbolism is the same in games as it is in art. A dark level is dark to set somber moods as dark colors resemeble negative moods in art. I don't think these things have anything to do with games being art though.

There are interactive forms of art, even musicians sometimes don't want to divulge the absolute meanings of their songs because it might take away from what the songs mean to the individual listeners.

I just don't buy that interactivity kills art. That's not very forward thinking for a subject that is constantly forward thinking. I grew up around the arts and videogames. My mother was an art student at Davis during the Thiebaud years, I went to classical concerts as a little boy and learned violin. At the same time I'm playing Atari and asking for a Nintendo. I have no problem with games being seen as art, because I get the same feeling from games that I got from art exhibits and concerts. Which is also why I take offense to the idea that videogames take time away from 'real' arts and that is why they are seeking to be justified as art or why people involved don't understand why it's not art. Art is a part of my everyday life. I see Miyamoto's childhood mind within the world of a Zelda game the same as I see in Rousseau's work. If you want to argue based on interactivity, then you have to throw out installations and architecture, which maybe you don't see as art, but are accepted as art. It's not even games as a whole which are art, but sometimes elements of games and art in different ways.

And this gets me to another problem, the fact we're debating over what Roger Ebert said about videogames. Are we going to go seek out Larry The Cable Guy's opinion on Pollock and Rothko now? I am sure Pollock doesn't send any idea or message to him, other than to take a canvas with him the next time he changes the oil in his truck. If we debate videogames as art, lets keep it to people who understand both subjects.

 

[J2 Cool]

Videogames may be difficult to make, requiring great thought, skill, planning, and care, but so is an armoire made of okra. That doesn't make either one art. VGs may be entertaining, escapist, enjoyable, and absorbing, but so is masturbation, and that doesn't make either one art. What art does that VGs do not, and probably never will, is edify and ennoble (even in the form of subversion). Moreover, and as a result, art endures. We are reading Cervantes and Goethe, performing Shakespeare and Moliere, and listening to Mozart and Beethoven hundreds of years after their works were created, with no end in sight. We aren't playing NES games 20 years after their creation. Indeed, they weren't being played 5 years after their creation. My garage is full of old videogame systems that will never be turned on again simply because new and better systems have come along. By contrast, when you buy a Chagall painting, you don't throw away your Van Gogh.

Videogames, as the name vaguely suggests, are GAMES. Games are not art, unless tennis, chess, bridge, and Monopoly are art as well. So why don't we just enjoy the great games out there and not try to make them into something they're not just to assuage the guilt we feel for letting them take up so much of our time, or to aggrandize ourselves for engaging in such a putatively lofty pursuit?

This philosophy expert had some interesting point, but lacks experience to judge the medium.

"What art does that VGs do not, and probably never will, is edify and ennoble (even in the form of subversion)."

I had to look these 2 words up myself. Edify - 'to instruct and improve especially in moral and religious knowledge; also : ENLIGHTEN, INFORM'. Hm, so I guess his letter is art. Or is it m-w.com that's art? Anyway, the biggest themes in MGS3, unarguably IS morals. Mostly between countries, heroes, soldiers, and perspective. It's a game made to confuse and most certainly enlighten you. It's heavily cultured as well, taking certain methods and situations directly from history and combat training the development team experienced themselves. They're always trying to implement their experiences into their games. Even going as far as to study psychology during war. The gentle sounds put into the robot in the trailer.. It's ridiculously stacked with information aimed to enlighten, entertain, and inform. To think otherwise or so profoundly state games don't do this, is ridiculous. The best most certainly do.

My favorite games are ones that evoke emotions, question philosophy, and endure as an exprience. Shenmue for example.. It even tried to teach discipline within it's games, and at a different and more effective pace than it's movie-counterparts, who would do a montage if we wanted to generalize. It also speaks about revenge, about choices, about human interaction. Some people looking at this game, decided they didn't like it. It was too different, too boring, not enough action. For those people, I say fuck em. I loved that this game was different. And just as well being acknowledged as different, you can no longer generalize videogames as a whole like this philosophy guy and Ebert so badly want to. Because there is variety and fundamental differences between software in this medium. It's a medium, where if they wanted, could be simply a CG movie. CG movie's are art no? Animated Features? Toy Story, 10 years and a landmark of film. You will be able to do that in this medium, if you experimented and were allowed to by the producer. You could put art similar to that in this medium, take control out of our hands, and would it then be art? NO. Not if it was made for PS3 or 360. They would still call it a videogame, and they would be wrong in that it's not art. There's fundamental flaws with their typecasting. Software can break any preconceived notions, that's a fact. It's possible.

"Moreover, and as a result, art endures. We are reading Cervantes and Goethe, performing Shakespeare and Moliere, and listening to Mozart and Beethoven hundreds of years after their works were created, with no end in sight. We aren't playing NES games 20 years after their creation. Indeed, they weren't being played 5 years after their creation. My garage is full of old videogame systems that will never be turned on again simply because new and better systems have come along. By contrast, when you buy a Chagall painting, you don't throw away your Van Gogh."

No, you don't throw away Van Gogh. But do you think a few rocks that had a stick figure scratched on it, were thrown away in the begininning? Do you think artists throw away bad sketches, only to later create a masterpiece? I do. Videogames are still young. Art didn't begin with Van Gogh. Certainly others were thrown away for Van Gogh to stand on top of as art. But after art began, people were searching for the oldest art they can find. Arguably not even art, simply history. But because of what came after it, these fundamentals are preserved and considered art, even if this man believes something so primitive can't be art. Sure, Mario is simple. But many people treasure it's simplicity. the fact that there's nothing exactly like it, and that it paved the way for so many others. THAT makes it art. Also, art historians saved the first evidence of perspective used in art. Was it art, no. It was a method of producing it. It was invented though as a means of realistic perspective! Yeah, but so was monopoly as a realistic way of teaching kids to make money. It's a tool. A system. A game. Right? At least that's what this man pushes us to believe.

And yes, some others do take out their old systems from their garage, to play. Some never put them away. The games are unique. Irreplaceable. Just cause he has it in his garage in exchange for Xbox means nothing. Nobody can say 3D is a better use of the medium, just as you can't say perspective is better than Picasso. They're all unique. Irreplaceable. Hell, how many of them paintings you see sitting in a musuem, were once found in somebody's old attic? You don't think anybody's ever found an old original Monet sitting in their momma's garage attic? I do. Guess it's no longer art. Been replaced by nice framing and lines using tools. Throw it out.

"So why don't we just enjoy the great games out there and not try to make them into something they're not just to assuage the guilt we feel for letting them take up so much of our time, or to aggrandize ourselves for engaging in such a putatively lofty pursuit?"

So why don't we stop playing videogames, since you so obviously find no value in them. The only one wasting time and feeling guilt is you. I would too if I kept delving my time into a wasteful and meaningless game, that held as much value to me as taking a good shit. I only do that once a day though, and don't waste my time trying to break it to people, that there are no artistic shitters. I'll leave that for them to delve in.

 

[White Man]

And this gets me to another problem, the fact we're debating over what Roger Ebert said about videogames. Are we going to go seek out Larry The Cable Guy's opinion on Pollock and Rothko now? I am sure Pollock doesn't send any idea or message to him, other than to take a canvas with him the next time he changes the oil in his truck. If we debate videogames as art, lets keep it to people who understand both subjects.

I thought the whole point of this thread was unqualified folks giving their opinion on the artistic merits of gaming?

Either way, I'm going to actually go play some games now. I respect your POV, etoilet, I just don't agree with it. I don't want you to hate me though. You're a good poster and your argument has been thoughtful.

 

[karasu]

Videogames use craft and elements of other artforms to express an idea, share a viewpoint, or as a means of escape. If that's not art, neither is filmmaking. Art doesn't have to be emotional, beautiful,intuitive, or any of that. It's the concious use of craft to express anything. Whether anyone else ever gets it or appreciates it is totally besides the point. I hate when people act like there's only one degree of "Art". As if art is always something "fine" and "highfalutin". It's so pretentious. Filmmaking was considered an artform in the early 1900's. Long before realism and emotional resonance were even minor concerns of a production crew. If Charlie Chaplin is an artist, why not Hideo Kojima, Yu Suzuki, or Miyamoto? Nosferatu is a work of art, but not Shadow of the Colossus? Come on.