Will gaming ever be an art form?
- Thread starter Calmine
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Monocle
Member
Maybe this says more about the mediums games are based in than the potential of games to endure and resonate with future generations. If a future photoreal remake of Ico could be stored and operated on some sort of a highly durable self-powered tablet with a built-in interface, who's to say it wouldn't be appreciated 1000 years later? I'd sure like to play a dead civilization's video games, if they existed.
stan423321
Member
I disagree. We didn't jump from "caveman art" to whatever you consider "timeless" directly. It is even more obvious with music. It's the hi-tech evolution tempo that is making the games feel different.
BibiMaghoo
Member
This is kind of what I was getting at. You define art in a way that avoids simple art, like a childs hand painting, or that caveman's painting, then it also equally avoids simple games. Is pong art? Or does it need to be on an Ico level to be considered as such?
Monocle
Member
That's right. Let's not forget that digital technology is a few seconds old, relative to traditional art forms. Paintings have existed since prehistory.
I'm not sure about Pong, but definitely Tetris. There's enormous room for interpretation in the basic block shapes. It's a compositionally interesting game, and that's before you even get to the interactive part.
Come to think of it, I bet some clever person could argue that Pong could be interpreted as range of philosophical statements about action and reaction, social behavior, etc., not to downplay the visual interest of its stark presentation with the simple moving elements... so yeah, Pong is probably art too.
BibiMaghoo
Member
it is certainly, painting and drawings have been drawn on a flat surface for an age. This surface changed and improved the quality, but the standard of that medium - as a flat clear surface remains. Sizes are different and have no standard because it doesn't alter the work, the 'size of the canvas' in a game does certainly make a huge difference to the quality of the work. There are artists that painted in what amounts to pixels, and I guess these are the most comparable in terms of increased details through the medium. I do consider them art, but it's a very large difference in preservation of quality from where I stand. When you take the actual mechanics of it into account, it throws it way off. Look at the hatred for tank controls as an example of how the medium has changed in a way that makes that older work inferior, as an example. It's just something I think can never be equal between these mediums, and so damages the direct comparison in a way I'm not convinced can change.
No, of course. I just mean that there is a big difference between art, and art lol. Both are defined as such, but time does not effect the quality of both equally.
Haha, yes, perhaps. It's an interesting discussion that I'm not really able to reconcile due to how I see art as an appreciated work, but art can also just be a work in itself. One a concept and the other a name for a medium.
NoblesseOblige
Banned
Does just tacking on some deep interpretation to something that was completely unintended by that thing's creator retroactively make it art? In other words, do you consider it art if I just scribbled on a napkin and someone decides it represents man's struggle with the blahblahblah and our inability to blahblahblahblah? I'm actually wondering because to me art is all about its creator's desire to influence others on an emotional level. So when that creator is just making a digital version of air hockey I wouldn't call it art.
Burgess_101
Member
I think the first thread I made was games you could showcase next to Mona Lisa and it got locked but since then I kinda realised it doesn't really matter either way. If you value the medium you enjoy that is all that matters.
It takes time and a perspective that we just don't have yet.
It takes time and a perspective that we just don't have yet.
Northeastmonk
Gold Member
I think the term "toy" could be considered an offensive word. It is not a toy. The technological advancements and creativity put it above a toy. I feel that a lot of people do not see anything outside their own definition. There are people who don't see anything besides colors and animals hopping up and down on the screen. There are artists in the gaming field who do exceptional work. I find it annoying when people think it's catered to kids and young people. It's often not even looked at beyond what it could be. There are a lot of different genres and a long line of events in gaming history. Some people see what their kids play and that's that. You don't hear about the art of TLoU or the art that went to create a Lucas Arts adventure game. It's probably a facet to gaming more than it is an art piece. There's the art of Halo and then there's the actual part of playing the game. If you don't play the game then what do you see? I think it's artistic when you can stand a character in a world and it comes to life. I think the west still has a large group of people who don't respect gaming as much as others. Even when the west developed the Xbox we still called it another video game console and some only see Mario as being groundbreaking.
I think family values and stereotypes in America get in the way of that. Places like Art galleries and museums are respected over the idea of some young person cursing online. They also don't like the idea of it maturing. I think those people have a hard time looking at games as art. They won't go any further than they already have. There's a ton of content out there. I have numerous art books and books about the art used in video games. You just can't make those things up if you aren't talented.
How many people make fun of video games? Yet somewhere someone is paying millions for a piece of abstract art. In America we have the college voice that can also hurt it. We don't have a solid foundation at times outside of when the industry sticks its head above water or someone gets offended. The only news we get is either negative or when someone makes a billion dollars off a video game. We get less respect than movies do and our ratings system gets forgotten a lot by outsiders.
I also think a large portion of Americans love to feel ashamed about video games. They only like them when they're popular or when they were young. Family values and their social life get a head of them and they can't think any other way about video games. There's many wonderful facets about games and sometimes it's like they get lost with any form of media. No one wants to take them seriously because it becomes a crux.
No one talked about the art of Doom when Columbine happened or the talented work it took to make a GTA game. Yet no other technological advancement has outperformed those games when they were released. Their legacy has a lot of art, but lots of people don't see it at all.
You can't be binary about it. That's like saying a film is automatically a work of art or it isn't.
I'd strongly argue that it's actually impossible to say is "games are art" or "games aren't" art. I'd argue this about all other mediums too.
The correct position is that games can be art. The actuality today and across the sum total of videogame's short history are that the majority of games aren't art but simply games (and there's nothing wrong with that).
Most games are pretty much exactly equivalent to playing a game of chess or checkers or solitaire. An exercise of skill (and by the way most games are no more interactive than real world physical interaction moving chess pieces, not in principle anyway, so I wish people would also stop mentioning interactivity as though it automatically confers something. We interact all the time in reality and that's neither art nor gameplay that's just being alive).
I would no more describe the majority of games as art as I'd look at a chess set sitting on a tabletop and say "hey that's a piece of art". There may be artistry (not to be confused with art) in the production of both, the chess pieces may be beautifully designed and crafted, just as the game design may be beautifully designed and crafted: but the end result is simply a game. Artistry is all too often confused with automatically being art.
That's not to say you can't take all the ingredients that constitute a videogame and create art, of course you can, heck you can raid the contents of rubbish bins and create art from the contents so you can surely create art from textures, music, sprites, polygons and all the other options for a videogame. But most games don't do this as they are either designed and created first and foremost as games or at best commercial entertainment; again making a game does not automatically mean you're created art at the same time. However the potential is there and certainly there is now a decent group of games that I'd be happy to make solid claims as art inasmuch as the sum of their parts delivers more than a mere game but a thematic and evocative experience consistent with most notions of what art actually is (which is quite tricky to pin down itself). Journey, Ico, and SOTC are obvious examples (one's called out interestingly enough at a exhibition I attended recently in Edinburgh on videogames - link below for reference).
I do think there's a misguided push to see videogames as art full stop, which as I've noted doesn't make sense no medium is automatically art no matter general perception otherwise and that includes painting, sculpture, poetry, literature,etc. It's just that some mediums have, over time, built up a much higher percentage of artistic works vs non-artistic works and have been culturally associated as such. For videogames if that's going to happen it's surely a way off yet as the prevalent focus for the majority of games simply isn't about creating art (and to be honest I'm not sure I look to videogames to primarily art, I look to them to be primarily games and fun to play although I do enjoy the sub-set pushing over the line into art).
Link to exhibition I mentioned:
http://www.nms.ac.uk/national-museum-of-scotland/whats-on/game-masters/
BibiMaghoo
Member
Good post EGM1966, I can't really disagree.
Northeastmonk
Gold Member
"...an activity for everyone".
How many middle aged people feel like it's an option? You see business men in Japan playing their 3DS around town and in America it's just the opposite. You have to define the "why I can do this now" versus "knowing you can do this and being okay with it". We have lots of people who've played video games since the beginning of Atari and possibly before. Yet there's one thing you do and that's make up or define "your reason". No one questions why someone "watched a movie" or that they went to the museum, but it can be a whole other story with games unless you know what you like or it's an opportunity for you.
I know my reason because it's been my reason since the early 90s. It's because I saw an NES as a kid. Now a days people don't want to see that nor do they see the work behind the games. They ask more about the "now" and for the most part they don't know which ends up about the industry's past, present, or future. Mind you this isn't true for a lot of people, but it's part of what I've witnessed.
The subject of video games is large. It at one time was based off one or two game mechanics, but now a days games come in a variety. If one game seems too juvenile then you can find another. As a whole they are extremely diverse.
I would have no problem considering 'Gaming' as a type of performance art.
Sure you can, watch: A film is a work of art.
Art isn't some measure of quality, and your extremely narrow viewpoint of what counts as 'art' is not some universal truth.
I'd actually love to see some examples of games or films you consider 'not art', as from the examples you've given so far (the banal and obvious Journey, Ico, and SOTC of course) you seem to be confusing 'art' for 'artsy'.
While older games require a bigger leap than older work in other mediums (having to interact with them kind of guarantees that), the gulf between them and other mediums tends to get overstated. I've seen plenty of people who aren't interested in movies past a certain age, and I'm sure I've seen it for other mediums too (hell, when I think about it the main pop music industry is almost entirely based around catering to that attitude). People who want to make the mindset change needed when going back will do so, just like they do for other mediums.
TylerDurden4321
Member
English is not my first language, but this bothers me too.
Maybe gamING can be an artform like dance could be seen as an artistical form of expression.
Discussions whether games are art are useless unless you define "art" in your argument. The discussion then becomes senseless because the opposing arguments will be centered on the weak-spots of your definition and video games will no longer be the center of this discussion. It's useless.
Btw I like Scott McCloud's definition of art.
Simbabbad
Member
What they did wasn't looked as art, but it was, since those same works are now seen as art. Just like, say, Super Mario Bros. wasn't seen as art by anybody until a few years ago. That's my point: the perception changes, but it's not the content of the field itself that changes and makes it art or not art.
RipperGrim
Member
When ever this discussion is brought up I always think of Nostalgia Critic's video on the topic.
It's hands down one of the best videos done on the subject I have seen, seriously if anyone hasn't watched it yet they should.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK-HYNXdIJI
EDIT
what an odd definition of art. I guess movies and music that involves Orchestra aren't art then?
It's hands down one of the best videos done on the subject I have seen, seriously if anyone hasn't watched it yet they should.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK-HYNXdIJI
EDIT
what an odd definition of art. I guess movies and music that involves Orchestra aren't art then?
I'd say further that any game with product placement is absolutely not art.
Some videogames are definitely art, and some are not art, just like how some movies are art, and some aren't.
I disagree, I consider BioShock for example as art, and that was made by a relatively big studio. Same deal with Okami.
I disagree, I consider BioShock for example as art, and that was made by a relatively big studio. Same deal with Okami.
But games can be made with 1-100 people.
Sword Of Doom
Member
So by that definition large production films can not be art either
Simbabbad
Member
By that logic, the roof of the Sistine Chapel isn't art. You don't believe Michelangelo painted all of it himself because he felt like it, right? The pope asked him to paint it in exchange for money, and tons of assistants did the painting with Michelangelo directing without ever touching a paintbrush. Same for movies, etc.
TheSpaceBetween
Member
It is art, whether people chose to recognize it as such or not. I could have the opinion that opera isn't art but that doesn't make it true.
My opinion is that it doesn't matter. In the end the discussion always boils down to semantics, and it's impossible to reach some sort of conclusion.
I'd personally argue that video games aren't are, since the defining part of video games aren't art, but that reasoning only works based on my personal definition of what makes something art.
I'd personally argue that video games aren't are, since the defining part of video games aren't art, but that reasoning only works based on my personal definition of what makes something art.
justjustin
Member
Yep, and always has been. Art is never the thing itself and never shows the whole picture. It's a selective representation of something based on our perception. The only difference with videogames is that they simulate things instead of merely represent them.
As someone who is an artist for a living and went to art college for 5.5 years, I've seen some shit that was considered art by other people but made me cock an eyebrow and say "really?"
. The debate of "are games art"? has always been a bit pointless since the definition of art differs from person to person. As others have said, it's a game of semantics.
Instead, the better question to ask is "Can video games (as a medium) be used as a valid avenue for artistic expression?". The answer to that is - I believe - unquestionably yes.
(hello abstract expressionism -_-')
Instead, the better question to ask is "Can video games (as a medium) be used as a valid avenue for artistic expression?". The answer to that is - I believe - unquestionably yes.