Just as I don't see eliciting emotion as proof of art, nor do I beauty.
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The Final Bosman Show
- Thread starter iNvid02
- Start date
It's AniHawk, it's what he does.
i intensely disagree with the philosophy at the top of naughty dog and have so for the last ten years. that doesn't mean good games can't come out of it. it just means it's pretty unlikely. druckmann seems to have found a narrow path through the shit most developers find themselves mired in. it's really hard to have done what he did. i just don't know if he's a one trick pony, but i find his aspirations to bring the exact thing to other mediums pretty silly.
like i don't think the comic book is a bad thing. it's a new thing. it's different. it takes place in the same world but it's not a retelling of stuff we already know for the sake of doing that or attempting to be some sort of junior-level college performance art major. make a last of us movie, but make it a new story with new people. the last of us's world is broad enough for that.
to you, what is design?
Competent functionally.
Are we talking about gameplay design in regards to mechanics, story, what?
Art is what an artist produces, design is what a designer produces.
Art is something which is a definitive article. Games are not, games require the player to be an active participant, then have rules, and goals, and toolsets.
This is my favorite painting:
It exists for you as it does for me and anyone who wishes to view it, it doesn't change, it doesn't make Ellie clip through a doorway because you came back through the room too quickly, it doesn't require me to clear out twelve men from a room before the music relaxes and I can leave the area, it is definitive and fixed, as the creator intended.
You can create interactive things which I do think would certainly be art, but once you strip away the goals, and rules, and gameplay, what you're left with might be an interactive piece of art, and it might play on your PS4, but it is no longer a game.
I think Dear Esther and Proteus are on their way to being interactive art, but they're also on their way to not being games.
game design is all of those things, not specifically in relation to just one element.
i am a little confused as to what you mean by competent. if something functionally was incompetent (poorly made), it would cease to be design? or do you mean that design is purposeful functionality?
Not at all, competent is serviceable, it gets the job done. It simply works.
okay. i think that make sense. like a car should actually turn on and drive you someplace (and you should be able to see where you're going). or a building should have a door to get inside and not collapse in on its occupants. standard design should be second-thought to the people interacting with it.
so then to continue down that line of thinking, what do you believe makes good design?
An art piece is never definitive, since it's a piece of communication that requires the viewer's interaction.
When you paint a painting, that interaction is there and it will bounce off of every single person in a different way.
Just like your predetermined rules (in a game) will be used in different ways from each different individual.
--
Suppose i make a videogame, where you are a person with one vial of antidote, and there are two different poisoned individuals in front of you.
You can take the antidote yourself.
You can flush it down the drain.
You can cure one of them.
Or you can cure the other.
It's a videogame, you have an interactive scenario with different results, you're playing in my (the artist) ruleset, and through it, i'm making an artistic statement about an aspect of life and human nature.
I decided what the two ill people look like and represent, I decided to face you with the dilemma, I created the scarcity of antidote to make a point.
That requires no cutscenes nor anything that isn't interaction like the most classic of adventure games, and yet it totally can carry an artistic meaning through sheer design.
And I completely disagree. Before a single other person saw that painting, I believe it was art.
I'm ok with that statement, only if you also consider the artist him/herself as the very first consumer of said art.
Art is what an artist produces, design is what a designer produces.
Art is something which is a definitive article. Games are not, games require the player to be an active participant, then have rules, and goals, and toolsets.
This is my favorite painting:
It exists for you as it does for me and anyone who wishes to view it, it doesn't change, it doesn't make Ellie clip through a doorway because you came back through the room too quickly, it doesn't require me to clear out twelve men from a room before the music relaxes and I can leave the area, it is definitive and fixed, as the creator intended.
You can create interactive things which I do think would certainly be art, but once you strip away the goals, and rules, and gameplay, what you're left with might be an interactive piece of art, and it might play on your PS4, but it is no longer a game.
I think Dear Esther and Proteus are on their way to being interactive art, but they're also on their way to not being games.
By that definition a film can never be art because a director directs. The problem is it's a literal definition mindset. An artist also "design" his work(how he brushes, color used all ahead of time), the world is functionally meaningless in that regard.
As for the painting itself, I would disagree that it exists equally for both of us. Not only is there a discrepancy in how we interpret it, there is a difference in how it could be used. I could tear the painting up, fold it in two, crumple it, draw on it, etc. As it stands, every single person who has TLoU has the same content, what differs is how we interact with it, what differs is that it is art that just doesn't offer involvement, it demands it, and thankfully we all can experience it differently.
A definitive definition for a "game" is flawed as well, given that it, like art, is inherently subjective and wavering. Dear Esther and Proteus offer freedom of interaction, certainly more than a movie or visual novel do. Who's to say their not games? If you apply "player authorship" to the definition and consider what you can do as determining if something is a "game" or not than you are going to open a very divisive Pandora's Box that exclude not only the earliest of games(I can go up and down in Pong) but also cutting off and excluding adventure titles that largely require input via dialogue.
To say something is not a game just because you explore is like saying something is not a poem just because it has one sentence, a painting not a painting because it has only one image, or a movie not a movie because it has no dialogue. Somethings complexity should never exclude it from what group it belongs to. It simply doesn't work like that.
tly.
Therein lies the subjective issue.
That post doesn't know how lucky it is!
I actually agree with you on the TLOU movie up to a certain point, I think retelling the video game is pointless, and a waste of time for all involved, particularly Druckmann and ND. And there's a higher chance of the Vita being the best selling hardware of all time than there is of a video game movie not being abject trash. But at least the creator is writing it, and he proved he's a really good one, so there's that. Wish he would focus his efforts on games. It probably won't even enter production anyway, like the Castlevania, Uncharted and Shadow of the Colossus movies that were announced at some point or another.
Brad Grenz
Member
Unfortunately for you, creators are not actually the final authority on what is or is not art. Many things we consider art today were made by people who never thought of their work in that manner.
Art is what an artist produces, design is what a designer produces.
Art is something which is a definitive article. Games are not, games require the player to be an active participant, then have rules, and goals, and toolsets.
This is my favorite painting:
It exists for you as it does for me and anyone who wishes to view it, it doesn't change, it doesn't make Ellie clip through a doorway because you came back through the room too quickly, it doesn't require me to clear out twelve men from a room before the music relaxes and I can leave the area, it is definitive and fixed, as the creator intended.
You can create interactive things which I do think would certainly be art, but once you strip away the goals, and rules, and gameplay, what you're left with might be an interactive piece of art, and it might play on your PS4, but it is no longer a game.
I think Dear Esther and Proteus are on their way to being interactive art, but they're also on their way to not being games.
All you've done is created an unsupported tautology. That's not an argument for why games aren't art, or why things that are art cease to be games. You've done nothing more than state they are mutually exclusive without offering any explanation for why that should be.
I agree with you there, but I'd say the same thing about a game. UrbanRat was, however, rightly pointing out that many artistic endeavors are interpretive and participatory. Is a symphony art when it's on the page? Does is have to be performed? But then every performance is different and nothing was static at all! If there is a "definitive article" as you put it, it's only sheetmusic, but the same can be said for a game which exists as a package of assets and code waiting to be brought to life.
yeah, i don't care if druckmann wants to write a movie. i just don't want the same thing that was in the game trotted out over and over. the game was its own thing and should be celebrated as such (and left alone as such). it was well-made in ways games usually aren't, and doesn't need to aspire to a higher level. it's already there.
my mind is exploding at the speed of light at how someone can authoritatively state that no one is an authority on something.
Brad Grenz
Member
I'm sorry. Phil 101 can be a shock to the system for some. Also: I didn't say that no one can be the authority, only that we by no means must defer to a few game designers about what is or is not art.
oh okay so you're the authority on who is and isn't an authority or even if such power exists in the first place (i'm just having fun here).
I didn't say they weren't games, nor did I say they were art, I don't think they are.
And I do think I can determine what a game is, maybe not for you, but I don't really care about that.
Subjectively, sure. But coming from on high and dismissing things for their simplicity just because there may not be combos, open world, etc. makes a very bad point.
Id say this is perhaps the most diverse medium and I would like to keep it that way. They're all games in the end.
Brad Grenz
Member
No, I'm pointing out that appealing to authority is a logical fallacy. You either need to reproduce their argument for why games can't be art, or present one of your own. Simply saying "Miyamoto said so" is not persuasive.
This is the root of AniHawk point too, in no way is that being dismissive. If for some reason you see the term 'interactive entertainment' as a pejorative versus 'video game', that is on you, not me. I think Dear Esther is incredible, massively better than hundreds of games I've played. And as I said, I do still consider it a game, you do have to traverse an environment, there are optional things to see, but it's closer to being a definitive vision as it's reducing player agency hugely.
I don't see this hypothetical things as below games, just as I don't see games as being below film, just because I see one as art and not the other.
DC1
Member
Stu. You may have backed yourself in a logical corner on this one.
Your statement projects that art can only be considered in a non - complex format.
Even simple complexities would likely be disqualified such as lithographs or structures that incorporates dynamic lighting or an integrated fish tank.
If games can be art deconstructed then games can be art through a compilation of artifacts or events.
Your definition implies to much and invites restrictions that can potentially ruin Pollack and Picasso.
To me those things differ because they are still complete unto themselves. Art can require maintenance, like replacing dead fish in a tank within an installation, but the people doing that are still doing so in order to maintain the article. Video games aren't that at all, the player isn't attempting an artistic performance, they're just playing a game. You can reduce player agency to the point where literally all they can do is what the creator envisioned, such as that God awful desert section in UC3 seen in LastNac's avatar, but at the point where your only option is to hold up on the stick for a bit, you are left with a binary choice, you can choose to continue this sequence or not, which is the choice you have with all films too.
InfiniteNine
Rolling Girl
Dick move about your friend there Kyle. If I had the choice I'd always pick the better version of a game available to me especially if it was on a system I was interested in getting soon.
Brad Grenz
Member
So games are not art because they aren't interactive enough now? Come, now. Any definition of art will necessarily allow for a broad spectrum of types and kinds and experiences. You can't simultaneously discount games for being both too subject to a player's whims, and not responsive enough. That's like saying art is by definition representational and then saying a painting isn't art if it looks like a photograph. There is plenty of room in the tent for all kinds.
That's not at all what I said.
That moment in UC3 is a few minutes in a ten hour game, it's irrelevant to the complete package. I just used it as an example of a player having literally no input beyond choosing to have something continue to play or not. That is not a game. If you had an eight hour cutscene but you were forced to hold the X button the entire time or the scene would pause, it would not be a game, just because it costs $60, and plays on a console doesn't make it a game. A game needs player agency, which to me is what prevents it from being art.
Brad Grenz
Member
Ah, OK. I misread your previous post, but you still haven't articulated why interactivity or participation precludes the possibility of a thing being considered art.
But (this is driving me nuts, lol) why is player agency preventing it to be art, if that agency is perfectly within the confines dictated by the artist themselves and the very agent of their artistic message?
DC1
Member
I appreciate the response Stu.
But now your measuring what complete is.
We are not comparing a musical piece to a game of hopscotch (hope I spelled that correctly), As you would agree, its more complicated than that.
What those other forms of art provide are interactive elements by which the consumer can view and appreciate the art differently.
or, in other words:
Interactive Elements by which the user can appreciate the art.
Sure, it can tell a story,
and it can incorporate other forms of art,
and it can incorporate control mechanics to alter perspective
and it can also be a game or toy like the Rubik's cube.
If all the above is true, then why cant Journey be interactive art?
Stop making so much sense! You're arguing against a brick wall.
Interactivity and art are mutually exclusive, Stu has decreed it. For something to be art it must be immutable.
Even though immutability or permanence isn't a part of any known definition of art, it's an expression of a message through aesthetic principles.
Imagine a sculptor makes a statue and places it outside. Over time, the statue will be acted on by forces of nature which are not in the sculptor's direct control. As the statue is eroded and chiseled by the elements, does it not retain it's original meaning? Is it not still beautiful? If it was part of the sculptors original meaning for his work to be acted on by nature, and the result of that action was part of the message, is it not even more beautiful?
Stuburns also tries to say that for something to be art it has to appear exactly the same for everyone. This completely misses the point of art since everyone's take away from a piece is different, even if it's physical appearance is the same. Interactivity changing the piece's appearance is just a further manifestation of the idea that everyone interprets art differently.
Well, see, I'm not arguing that film is greater either. You know my talking points, you know I dislike cut scenes and film adaptations. I do think the term "game" is antiquated and personally I do feel that "interactive entertainment" is a much better description, not to sound pretentious or to imply a sense of legitimization, I just think the term "game" implies objective play, and I don't think something like Journey or the desert in Uncharted 3 are things you beat as much as they are things you experience. I think largely it's not about winning or losing(challenge) anymore, it's about being along for the ride, hence my problem with the term "game."
I'm a fan of film, that's not to say I want to recreate film 1/1, but I would be inspired heavily by it. At ND there is this mindset to make a "playable movie" and I think largely that's what they have achieved with their last four releases. Truth be told, that approach(with a little bit from The Order) is preferable to me because in most situations, it renders the need for a film adaptation mute if you're already using film techniques. So no, I'm not arguing for film as the superior medium at all, if anything it is the reverse. Film is drastically limited compared to this medium as budget and run time are massive constraints placed on stories. Where as I champion the "playable movie" approach that isn't constrained by a film's budget nor its time limitations.
People don't seem to realize that Star Wars 1313 was born out of the Star Wars Television series. Lucas was never going to get 100 episodes at one million dollars an episode. 1313 offered a drastically decreased budget while still maintain film production values and technique:
Honestly, instead of making film adaptations down the road, I would rather some experiences beat film to the punch and try to make it as cinematic as possible during gameplay.
What I still don't understand though is how you can consider film and literature art when you don't consider games though?
Well now you're just trying to piss me off.
Well that's a fallacy, there are no such things as playable/interactive cut-scenes. Sure, their are QTE's, but even then they are still game play mechanics. Something is either completely, 100%, unequivocally passive or it is interactive, regardless of the extent of the interaction is irrelevant. It is still interactive. There is no grey.
And yes, it still would be a "game." Journey for the most part involves the use of one button to drive it forward. Still a game.
My Mother****ing Man.
Spot on.
As someone who's played it, I can assure you the gameplay works. It's a shooter. What excites me is the presentation during gameplay.
Journey is nothing like that UC3 sequence in the desert, the comparison is absurd. Journey allows you to traverse and explore a 3D environment, there are hidden things to find, enemies to avoid, creatures to interact with. It requires jumping, stamina management, little things in the direction of puzzles.
I agree there is no grey area, however, for the exact opposite point. If the player choice is to continue the sequence or not, there is zero meaningful interaction, it's not a game at all.
Why do you guy need to jump down Kyle's throat? 200+ awards is apparently not enough congratulatory noise to drown out the concept that The Last Of Us (as a game) is not as good as the movie/screen play/novel/interpretive dance etc.
While playing TLOU it's apparent the gameplay is 1:1 Uncharted 2 with little to no improvements, the game pulls itself along with it's cutscenes and voice acting.
This isn't like Tetris where people play because they enjoy the mechanics or DotA where they enjoy the competition, this is a movie-game where people play to listen to a story.
While playing TLOU it's apparent the gameplay is 1:1 Uncharted 2 with little to no improvements, the game pulls itself along with it's cutscenes and voice acting.
This isn't like Tetris where people play because they enjoy the mechanics or DotA where they enjoy the competition, this is a movie-game where people play to listen to a story.
For some odd reason people have taken a fanatical defense of TLoU despite the fact that the game does have some flaws. Depending on your perspective those flaws are practically irrelevant or significantly detrimental to the overall experience.
It's cool to have opinions, but its weird to defend a game like it was some kind of sacred artifact.
uomoartificiale
Member
Art is what an artist produces, design is what a designer produces.
Art is something which is a definitive article. Games are not, games require the player to be an active participant, then have rules, and goals, and toolsets.
This is my favorite painting:
It exists for you as it does for me and anyone who wishes to view it, it doesn't change, it doesn't make Ellie clip through a doorway because you came back through the room too quickly, it doesn't require me to clear out twelve men from a room before the music relaxes and I can leave the area, it is definitive and fixed, as the creator intended.
You can create interactive things which I do think would certainly be art, but once you strip away the goals, and rules, and gameplay, what you're left with might be an interactive piece of art, and it might play on your PS4, but it is no longer a game.
I think Dear Esther and Proteus are on their way to being interactive art, but they're also on their way to not being games.
This is the Ebert argument: art implies authority, and calls for contemplation. therefore any subversion of that process, i.e. interactivity, cannot create art by definition.
I don't agree completely with that statement about art, not because it hasn't been true in the past, but because is too restrictive for contemporary arts (I mean art of the XX century). I consider theatre, and jazz music, arts based on the "happening" of the artistic project, where the presence of the public and the interaction are just are important as the genious of the artist itself.
But this is a defensive move, I concede that. I'm more interested in the many flipside of seriously considering art as you presented it:
1) Find the Author! The absense of a physical, individual person as the producer of the art doesn't mean there's no artist. Contemporary art clearly leaves the possibility for the concept of shared authority between artists and between the public, willingly or unwilllingly - sometimes even unaware of - partecipating in the artistic process. Interaction may be the new form of shared construction of the artistic autority.
2) Games can be art after all! Even this definition leave space for artistic expression in the medium. A you pointed out Dear Esther and Proteus, quite adhere to the definition. Calling them "not a game" is a reductionist move on your part. You're right though, they are "differently games".
3) Games are entertainement first! Wait do I mean that games are not art because they are entertainement instead? NO. There are many contemporary examples of things that are entertainement first and foremost and are art. Again: jazz music, movies, theatre. The idea that art is art only if it's produced outside entertainemnt has to be dropped. Otherwise Shakespeare's tragedies are not an art.
What makes those things art too is quite difficult to define but that doesn't mean that an entertainement product "cannot be" art at the same time. That said, I don't think The Last of Us is art, it's just good entertainement.
4) Art has not necesssarily to do with emotions. What do I feel inside the Berlin's Pergamon Museum? I don't know: thoughtful consideration of the passing of time through the ages of human history? Sure. An horror b-movie makes me more emotional, but I don't think it's art, or better art jut by that standard. Again, maybe the movie is more entertaining but its meaning is not as strong or relevant as than the Peramon Altar.
5) Games are not at their core a traditional narrative media. They don't tell a story from the beginning to the end in the authoritative hands of a narrator.
That's the most interesting point in Ebert's position: interactivity and player agency are inherently at odds with the concept of artistic authority.
From which doesn't follow that this clash of concepts cannot produce art. I would argue the exact contrary, that art is naturally born by unresolved tensions.
Games that allow for this tesion to resolve, or games that enphasize this very tension are meant to succed in this respoct more than games that are simply oblivious of this basic notion. I always enjoyed this article by Anthony Burch about Heavy Rain: http://www.destructoid.com/why-heavy-rain-proves-ebert-right-165034.phtml and I too think that creators oblious of the unique features of the medium they are using have to be called out.
This is just BS.
And again, interactivity doesn't in any way negate authorial control over a piece.
Games don't fall out of the sky, they are designed, every action you are ALLOWED to take, is because an author has decided you are able to.
It doesn't exist a game where you have freedom beyond what the author of a game has given you (unless we consider glitches, but that's like faulting a movie for a continuity error, it doesn't say anything about the medium itself).
The idea that player interactions nullifies the artist's authority is absurd, as it implies that player agency is unlimited and boundless, when it's not.
Or maybe we should start considering every film or book with an open finale as not art, since they're actively asking the audience to fill in the void.
Not every piece of art is a question and an answer, sometimes the question itself is the point, and beyond that lies the viewer's interaction.
I seem to remember Ebert thinking the medium itself was of inherently less worth than the arts though, I certainly don't believe.
Rats Off To Ya
Banned
This isn't even remotely the argument Kyle was making in the video. In fact it's nearly the opposite.
EDIT: Actually I'm not even sure what your point is here. That is a very poorly constructed sentence.
ElectricKaibutsu
Member
Those laurels are really silly.
Excellent post. This is what I got out of the episode too.
Sorry, but I have to disagree.
Journey and Chapter 18 of Uncharted 3 aren't as different as you are making them out to be. Yes, The Desert is a 9 minute sequence and Journey is a two hour experience, but both share a strong foundation in design.
Journey and "The Desert" rely on visual objectives to push people forward, for Journey it is the Mountain and for Uncharted 3 it is the
Red Rock, The Well, and Sully mirage.
Here is the other problem I have with the quote. Art can be subjective, and it is pretty hard to argue otherwise. Sure, to you "Art" is a passive substance that can/must exist solely without the involvement/interference of it's audience, I would argue that by this definition Film cannot be art given it's dependency on outside involvement via projectors, sound systems, etc. That notion is, to me, ludicrous. I consider "Art" a level of quality. Film's can be art but I would not say all of them are. Hell, by your definition of art, these two images are 100% equal.
But now we are getting into "Art" theory, I merely want to present my narrative on this subject.
No, what I want to bring attention to is your definition of a "game." See, "Art" is subjective, but I would not say entire mediums are. See the problem with this:
"If the player choice is to continue the sequence or not, there is zero meaningful interaction, it's not a game at all."
Is that it is based of a fallacy, specifically with the phrase "meaningful interaction." To be "meaningful" requires meaning, and of course "meaning" is dependent on the individual. I'd argue an event's context is still very much meaningful. Sure, there maybe simplicity in the controls, but a man carrying his daughter through the streets is meaningful from both a story perspective and as a vehicle/device for empathy. Story is within itself action and dialogue, like it or not, game's have strongly been invested in their own story's for sometime now. Story is now meaningful and the actions to progress said story, be them the
TLoU prologue/Ending or UC3's Desert
push Drake up off his feet and keep him walking
Now, if your "meaningful interactions" equates complexity then you have just alienated entire genres that have existed for ages. The adventure game genre in particular is mostly "walking." There are no sweet, "Platinum Approved" Button Mash moments, no fantastical JRPG leveling system. Pong's "meaningful interaction" was up and down, hell, assuming if mechanical complexity is what you mean by "meaningful interactions" than the grandfather of games was never really a game to begin with. Mario was initially "Left or Right", so no, let's hope you don't equate "meaningful interactions" with how you mechanically interact with something.
There are subcategories, sure, but you can never completely dismiss something into the realm of "medium-less." To say something is "not a game" based on the level of interaction is folly, given that interaction, regardless of degree, is still present. I reiterate, there is no Grey Area, something is either passive or it is interactive. In Jurassic Park I can't linger or change the camera angle to look at the Visitor's Center like I can for the Desert sky in Uncharted.
You might not like the experience, but it doesn't change the fact that it is interactive, and in being so still a part of the family in which we call "Games." To say otherwise is disingenuous.
The eShop of Horrors
Kind of a stinker.
I like a more researched, thought out episode, well, on the road I guess.
Kind of a stinker.
I like a more researched, thought out episode, well, on the road I guess.
Smiles and Cries
Member
the show is suffering due to this move
still watching but
still watching but