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[Airola]

You're going to tell me that a painting of a can soup is art, but not the stuff you see in video games?

I'm not going to tell you that because most likely a painting of a can of soup is art. Of course it's possible that painting has something else to it that would make it art, but if that is all there is to it then it's just a painting of a soup can. Could be exceptionally well made with tremendous amount of skill and super entertaining to watch, but that's not art.

If you have the ability to create quality content on the scale we see in video games, that's art. That's talent. I don't even know what else to say since art is subjective. A picture is absolutely art, just because you deem it "not art" there will be plenty that disagree with you.

Unless you are the sole judge of what is considered art...

Quality of content and talent does not mean art. I'm not making any quality judgments by calling something art and something not art. A piece of work does not get better or worse if it's called art or not.
Sure, today we seem to call every piece of entertainment art and every piece of art entertainment. So basically with this warped sense of what art is everything is art. Then comes the problem that where the line goes. Is a hammer made by someone art? If it's not art by default what should we say if the maker of the hammer says it's art? It's suddenly art now? And if we make some arbitrary decision to make skill and talent to be the decisive factor in what we should call art, then where the line goes in that?

Sure there is also the same kind of problem if we go on to say that art is something that reveals abstract things that are hard to articulate in any other form than in the form the art piece was made in. Where is the line in that? How much every piece should reveal such things? But at least in this case there is a distinct meaning of the word art instead of it possibly being everything as long as it's pleasing to watch or experience and as long as someone can say it's been made with skill.

I don't care if people would disagree. I think it's very much ok to have a discussion whether some certain piece of work is art or not. And if a piece of work would not be considered art it doesn't mean that work isn't good or made with exceptional skill.

Again, art is not a judgment of the value of a piece of work. It in itself doesn't bring any more or less value to anything.

A painting in itself is not art. A painting can be art.
A movie in itself is not art. A movie can be art.
A book in itself is not art. A book can be art.
A video game in itself is not art. A video game can be art.

And once more, when I say something is not art I'm not making any judgments about the goodness of that work or the talent.

 

[Shifty]

No. Games are art, it's the act of trying to imitate other forms of art that's been dragging the hobby down.

And I say that as someone who would take Robotron or Polybius over whatever the latest AAA cinematic piece or subversive indie darling is. I have no great love for swooping single-take camera shots or RPG Maker games designed to make deep, insightful commentary on how shitty modern society is, but by virtue of being a creative work even the most straightforward mechanics-centric game can be considered art.

I can't say I disagree with the points around game journalism and gatekeeping, but the article as a whole comes off as using the art argument as a platform from which to springboard commentary on the current state of the industry and the social media surrounding it. Politicizing game journos and twitter screech-bots are not mutually inclusive to the idea of games as art, they simply happen to use it as part of their rhetoric.

 

[Shifty]

Edit: Double Post

 

[Daymos]

Very interesting, i need to think on this. In the past few years I keep sliding back to super nintendo games and trying to figure out exactly why they're more compelling than some modern AAA releases, even though those modern games are praised by the masses and are indeed impressive to look at and play. I think this 'art' example may factor in to it.

 

[Nymphae]

(the intersection of art-assets with mechanical control)

Best definition of videogames I've ever read perhaps lol.

 

[Dunki]

ART per definition is basically everything that is being created by a human. It does not matter if its a knife, a book, a picture or a movie. What is difference though is the cultural importance and value of this art. Video games are made by humans therefore it is art.

 

[Grimmrobe]

http://culture.vg/features/art-theory/on-the-genealogy-of-art-games.html

And this, at bottom, is what happened — what has always happened and what will continue to happen until the entire comedy of art finally comes to an end (or, more accurately, comes full circle... and starts over): a gradual increase in the immersion factor of new artforms, accompanied by a corresponding decrease in the percentage of value of each individual artist's contribution of craftsmanship towards each completed work. If you are having trouble visualizing what I mean here by "immersion", try for the time being substituting for it the term "engagement". Put simply, a chicken-scratch on a cave wall is less engaging than a wide variety of colors mixed and painted onto a piece of canvas (i.e. a painting), which is less engaging than a photograph (which is nothing other than a photorealistic painting...), which is less engaging than a movie (which in its classical, analogue form is nothing other than 24 photographs per second plus a sound track...), which is less engaging than a movie which responds to the viewer's reactions (i.e. a videogame), and so on and so forth (actually, that's it — for, reality aside, nothing could ever be more immersive than a videogame, and reality, at least as far as we are concerned, does not count and will never count as art).

 

[Grimmrobe]

That same book defines art as "the craft of illusion".

 

[AlexxKidd]

Art seems to be a pretty useless word, like cool or fuck.

Art, cool and fuck are quite useful words.

 

[mayhemking]

I think the problem stems from people getting confused and thinking all art is political, that's not the case, art is not an inherently political thing.

You hit the nail on the head. To the PC police everything is political...

 

[Ascend]

Some are. Some aren't.

A painting is a painted picture made by a painter.
Music is collection of sounds made by a musician.
Movie is a collection of pictures made to come quickly one after another to make an illusion of moving pictures and it's often mixed with sounds, and it's made by a movie director and whoever helps him.

The label of who is doing it is irrelevant. Obviously, you can also say that someone who paints a picture is a painter, just like you can say that a painting is a picture made by a painter. So this list of sentences you just wrote don't mean much. It doesn't add anything to the discussion, because it's completely circular.

But I'll humor you. Next questions...

• Is a painter an artist?
• Is a musician an artist?
• Is a movie director an artist?

The word art can be used in different ways.
We can say something like "the art of making movies is something" or "the movie is art."
We can say the act of making a thing as an art. We can say the end result is art.
I think sometimes we have these two things mixed up.
Should we say every end result that comes from someone's art would be art?

This is quite easy... Let's simply quote wikipedia....

Art is a diverse range of human activities in creating visual, auditory or performing artifacts (artworks), expressing the author's imaginative, conceptual idea, or technical skill, intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power.[1][2] In their most general form these activities include the production of works of art, the criticism of art, the study of the history of art, and the aesthetic dissemination of art.

Music, theatre, film, dance, and other performing arts, as well as literature and other media such as interactive media, are included in a broader definition of art or the arts.[1][3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art

I think that especially in video games people are quick to call the full game a piece of art if it only has something that reminds them of other things they consider art. People think classical music is art so to make a game feel more like art they will put classical sounding orchestral music on a game. Or they will look at the surface of the game and compare the visuals to other drawn things they consider art and then call the game art. Or they have watched movies or read books that have made them cry and they consider those movies and books art, so if a game makes them cry they will call the game art.

One of the things about art is that it doesn't stop being art because you don't like it.

Making a visual thing does not mean the visual thing is art. It just means one has used the art of something to create something.

What is the difference between a house and a home?

I personally think that art has lost its meaning a long time ago and we today call art entertainment and entertainment art. That's fine. But if I personally go to look for something "deeper" than that, I will look first and foremost something in a work that speaks unspeakable things. Spoken words, written words and drawn pictures become art when the meaning of what is said and shown tells us things we can't explain in other ways. There needs to be an underlying thing going on that by words or images or sounds becomes known even if it's not directly said. But then again, not everything hidden makes the thing art. Just having a political message hidden in a story doesn't necessarily make it art. The hidden thing must be about abstract things that are hard to put in words but what we can still understand. A political message that goes far into revealing things about the human condition I can see as art though. If we take a look at The Bible for example, I don't think every book in it is art or that every line of text in it is art. The long-ass list of people and their relatives through many many generations in the Bible is not part that is art, but a Psalm that tells things beyond the words is art.

I understand where you're coming from, but I don't agree.

I haven't played Journey, but for me that seems like a game that I could consider to be art, at least from all that I have heard of it. And it's not the visuals or the sounds that make it art. It's what it wants to reveal beneath the surface.

Can gameplay be art?

tl;dr
there is an art to make things, but the things we make aren't art by default

But games are. They consist of different pieces of art combined into one package that delivers an interactive experience. For starters, every single video game has an art style. Let's quote the same quote of Wikipedia again... But this time in chunks...

Art is a diverse range of human activities in creating visual, auditory or performing artifacts (artworks), expressing the author's imaginative, conceptual idea, or technical skill, intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power.

• Visual artifacts, check (graphics)
• Auditory artifacts, check (sound, music)
• Performing artifacts, check (voice over, virtual camera position, facial expressions)
• Author's imaginative idea, check (art style, story, setting etc.)
• Author's conceptual idea, check (game mechanics, controls, underlying messages)
• Technical skill, check (gaming engines, programming, character models etc.)
• Appreciated for beauty, check (graphics, setting etc.)
• Appreciated for emotional power, check (story in games, but more importantly, joy with friends, feeling of accomplishment when winning etc.)

That's applicable to all games... Now for a few game examples that cover specific aspects.

In their most general form these activities include the production of works of art, the criticism of art, the study of the history of art, and the aesthetic dissemination of art.

• Works of art, check (see above)
• Criticism of art, check (Deus Ex, Spec Ops: The Line)
• Study of the history of art, check (Stanley Parable)
• Aesthetic dissemination of art, check (Every new AAA game basically)

It's a lot harder to find a game that is not art, than it is finding one that is.

 

[Mr Branding]

Let me sum up Hideki Kamiya:

"My feeling is that games themselves… they’re not just mass-produced things. They’re art, they’re part of the developer’s personality. It’s not like you just have the parts and a blueprint, then you assemble them like a car. I don’t want games to be that way. I want games to be about each person’s individuality so players can feel the creativity that comes from the person directing it."

https://wccftech.com/hideki-kamiya-games-art-mass-produced/

I think as stated above that they are art in a way but not necessarily artistic, if that makes sense.

 

[lukilladog]

Multiple fallacies from Kamiya, they are art because they are art, they are art because I want them to be art, they are art because you don´t put them together... but that´s how most games are made, they fabricate or create the parts, and put them together with a recipe in mind which often isn´t even their own vision... see, just because I put a tattoo in my body, my body isn´t a piece of art. I am not saying that a game can´t be a piece of art, but most aren´t.

 

[Xenon]

I am going to have to disagree with most of this article, even though I like some of the issues it brings up. His main argument is that gaming had to define itself as art to protect itself from censorship. The problem with that is Art is protected under free speech, not the other way around. Then he lays several other issues at the games as art argument, most of which have other, more influential factors. One being the casualization(sp) of gaming which was more about chasing dollars than elevating gaming. Even his biggest axe to grind misses it's mark, since the social political critics are concerned with gaming's influence as an entertainment medium.

Games can be whatever the creators intend them to be. The problem comes in when people try to dictate, based on their own preference, what games should be.

 

[Kacho]

I'm not a fan of calling games art in general but I get the sentiment and can respect it occasionally.

How are those artsy walking simulators doing these days btw? I remember hearing about people blowing through them in a single sitting and then returning them on Steam. That to me screams worthless, disposable entertainment and not something worthy of being considered art. Like they were respected about as much as Michael Bay movies, which I would also not consider art.

 

[Airola]

The label of who is doing it is irrelevant. Obviously, you can also say that someone who paints a picture is a painter, just like you can say that a painting is a picture made by a painter. So this list of sentences you just wrote don't mean much. It doesn't add anything to the discussion, because it's completely circular.

But I'll humor you. Next questions...

• Is a painter an artist?
• Is a musician an artist?
• Is a movie director an artist?

If they make art they are artists.
If they don't make art they are not artists.

Again, being a painter does not mean one is an artist.
I don't get what's that big of a deal with it. The quality of the painter's work isn't worse if the paintings they do aren't art. A good painting is a good painting. If the painting happens to be art then we can discuss if the art is good or bad or something in between.

This is quite easy... Let's simply quote wikipedia....

Art is a diverse range of human activities in creating visual, auditory or performing artifacts (artworks), expressing the author's imaginative, conceptual idea, or technical skill, intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power.[1][2] In their most general form these activities include the production of works of art, the criticism of art, the study of the history of art, and the aesthetic dissemination of art.

Music, theatre, film, dance, and other performing arts, as well as literature and other media such as interactive media, are included in a broader definition of art or the arts.[1][3]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art

Sure, and I don't deny there are people too who think every piece of entertainment is art either - and that wikipedia entry would probably agree on that.

One of the things about art is that it doesn't stop being art because you don't like it.

Yeah. I agree. And I'm not saying that because I dislike something it isn't art. Or if I like something, it is art.
Something being art has nothing to do with whether I like it or not.

What is the difference between a house and a home?

Huh? House is a building made for someone to be able to live there. It becomes a home when someone lives there.

Can gameplay be art?

That's a tough question.
While just watching a painting isn't a process of art, the mental interaction between the painting and a thinking person is essential for the piece to serve its purpose.
In a way then gameplay can be part of the art too.

But games are. They consist of different pieces of art combined into one package that delivers an interactive experience. For starters, every single video game has an art style. Let's quote the same quote of Wikipedia again... But this time in chunks...

Art is a diverse range of human activities in creating visual, auditory or performing artifacts (artworks), expressing the author's imaginative, conceptual idea, or technical skill, intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power.

• Visual artifacts, check (graphics)
• Auditory artifacts, check (sound, music)
• Performing artifacts, check (voice over, virtual camera position, facial expressions)
• Author's imaginative idea, check (art style, story, setting etc.)
• Author's conceptual idea, check (game mechanics, controls, underlying messages)
• Technical skill, check (gaming engines, programming, character models etc.)
• Appreciated for beauty, check (graphics, setting etc.)
• Appreciated for emotional power, check (story in games, but more importantly, joy with friends, feeling of accomplishment when winning etc.)

That's applicable to all games... Now for a few game examples that cover specific aspects.

In their most general form these activities include the production of works of art, the criticism of art, the study of the history of art, and the aesthetic dissemination of art.

• Works of art, check (see above)
• Criticism of art, check (Deus Ex, Spec Ops: The Line)
• Study of the history of art, check (Stanley Parable)
• Aesthetic dissemination of art, check (Every new AAA game basically)

It's a lot harder to find a game that is not art, than it is finding one that is.

I disagree with that entry at least in what the intention of art should be. It says pieces of art are intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power.
No.
If that's the standard, then what are those pieces that are ugly and that might not be intended to show emotional power? Or would you say artworks like that can't exist?

Also, just because a thing consists of other things that might be art, the one that has those things isn't necessarily art itself.
A museum isn't art even though it is littered with all kinds of artworks.

The game as a whole can be art though. But the game in itself isn't art by default. And the graphics and sounds aren't necessarily art either. But yes, they can be part of a piece that is art.

Art has been watered down into being completely subjective thing. That wiki entry is a good example of that. Art basically means nothing. It at the same time means everything yet it means nothing. Everything anyone does can be considered art. I don't mean this to say a painting as art is better than a painting as not art. I'm just saying that there is no word to define paintings that have content where the point is not how it looks like or how skillfully it has been made but where the point is the work being there to deal in abstract levels where they tell things we understand but what we have tough time to put in words but what the painting can mediate to us.

All of the things you mentioned in your check list are things that can be art and that might not be art. You can use facial expressions to creat art but a thing that has facial expressions is not art just because it has facial expressions. Story can be art, but just because there is a story it doesn't mean it is art. One can make the most imaginative story that has exceptionally skillfully used words but it might still not be art.

One story in a game that comes to mind that I think is art is in Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. It's not the plot twists or dialogue that makes it art but it's the way it goes for abstract things to tell something that hides deep within the images shown and words spoken. In fact I'm not sure if that idea can even be told in another format as well as it was told in this video game format.

 

[Do Make Say Think]

"Video games are art" is a movement started by insecure little children who want the world to approve of their hobby.

I don't give a **** what other people think about what I like to do with my spare time.

 

[Doom85]

One story in a game that comes to mind that I think is art is in Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. It's not the plot twists or dialogue that makes it art but it's the way it goes for abstract things to tell something that hides deep within the images shown and words spoken. In fact I'm not sure if that idea can even be told in another format as well as it was told in this video game format.

Great example, and yeah Shattered Memories would not be as effective in another medium. Heck, the same can be said for the classic Silent Hill games as well. Like in 2 how examining the knife too many times gives you the "In Water" ending, or how Mary's letter in the inventory starts to fade away as the game progresses.

The endings to both Nier games would also be less effective in any other medium as they use mechanics specifically exclusive to video games to enhance certain emotional moments.

I don't like this idea that people should be discouraged from doing what they want when making a video game. If they want to make a video game that has a strong focus on narrative, themes, etc., go for it and boo on anyone who tells them to stop just because they have a narrow idea of what the medium should explore.

 

[Cosmogony]

"I get to decide what art objectively is, also all games are the same thing"

Nah, sorry, not how it works on any level. It's entirely subjective and arguing otherwise is futile. Not to mention it's really fucking short-sighted and arrogant to dismiss the work of writers, graphical and sound artists, concept artists etc.

Your post is an involuntary treaty on irony.

The irony, of course, is your claim that art, ontologically speaking, is "entirely subjective" is in itself an opinion and one which you have not provided any sort of foundation for. You've simply asserted it and with the same seeming boldness you are trying to pin on the author.

Philosophers have been at it for centuries and they do tend to make a rational case for the positions they hold. Your unsubstantiated claim that it's futile to argue seems to conflate epistemological difficulties with ontological difficulties and casts the usual suspicions on philosophical disputes at large. Philosophers who, for example, claim beauty or morality are objective usually do not do so on a whim. They present a rational case and peers who object don't default to "How dare you claim it is objective?! It's self-evidently not!", "How arrogant of you!". No. They point out what they consider the flaws in the argument. Essentially, claiming art is objective, establishing an objective root definition of art that excludes games, and rationally defending the proposition is no more arrogant than any other philosophical claim about reality.

Another fallacy you fall prey to is that stating games are not art is not the same thing as saying games are inferior to art. In other words, the claim does not entail dismissing the work of writers and visual artists working in the game industry. Not in the least.

 

[hecatomb]

What about video games were you draw things or take pictures, would they say thats not art

 

[LucidFeuer]

Sorry but I won't read that crap article:

Video games ARE art by ESSENCE. There's not a SINGLE argument that you can make that it isn't, because it is by -definition-.

However, not only is there good and bad art, but also like the rest of the industries around other domains of art, it can be a pure "art piece" or it can be an art product, which the vast majority of video games are, but also movies and music today.

Dumb cunt who doesn't know shit about definitions trying to make a statement on the wrong assumption.

 

[Pot Meet Kettle]

"Video games are art" is a movement started by insecure little children who want the world to approve of their hobby.

I agree that was the direct motive.
People who got the wrong degrees (journalism, game development) and want to justify themselves.
Maybe there are some good intentioned ones who thought that would grant it more legal protections, facing some hostile efforts, but that's a thing of the past and even as pure entertainment videogames have "earned" the right to exist as a form of media in the eyes of political decision makers, so that's an unwarranted fear anymore. The real concern for the medium's survival might lie elsewhere.

On the other side, content creators look very differently on their product (not counting recent indies who try to make an "art" game first, that's very different).
For some, it was an extension of those old books "choose your own adventure". For Chunsoft, sound novels and visual novels were that... novels with some atmospheric music and graphics (not unlike old narrated books that came with tapes or vinyl discs). Kamiya, enemy extraordinaire of the "games are art" movement, made games that transcribed Japanese sumi-e artsyle in interactive ways, hired illustrators and prides himself a lot on taking care of the cinematography of his games event, but he still sees himself as an entertainer. Bizarre Japanese experimental games were about offering different interesting experiences, pseudo drug trips.

Labeling gaming as "art" isn't liberating the medium (both from external or internal constraints).
It's rather burdening it with a new, unintended expectation that immediately opens it up to "critics" who now get to say this or that game has not earned the right to exist because it failed its basic artsy mission, with the definition of art now even more muddled now that "political statements" and "messages" are expected from the game. Elektroplankton? Tetris? Jigsaw? Vib-Ribbon? All failures.
It's gatekeeping the medium because it's an elitist criteria at heart. Unlike enjoyment, length, beauty, emotions stirred by the game, the common plebian can't get to say what game is good art or not. Only a "credible" very important person at academia who has very narrow views of what is art CAN get to say what's true art or not. If a specific game fails the test, and since games are art. That means its existence is a failure. Then, if it's syphoned down the memory whole, no one will (or has the right to) weep for its loss, right? Only certain kinds of expression are valuable.

To support my case, I will just quote someone here, a professional academia typographist, doing research on videogame fonts.

This collection is basically my guilty pleasure. There are lots of things that are wrong to us, lots of decisions they made that make me go ‘why would they do this?!
They were all made by outsiders, basically

Because art critics don't totally have nothing but contempt for illustrators, 3D modelers, composers, and programmers, often self taught instead of going to their same schools and subscribing to the same views of what purpose should art have.

This font for example, that's just one year after Super Mario Bros, is "terrible"...

The reason given being, of course, its "messed up context".
It was used in a Space Invader clone with Vegas showgirls replacing the alien ships. Which is misogyny, of course. Which makes the font terrible. Won't you look at those evil, problematic letters?

This is the sort of "critical analysis of videogames as art" we're dealing with today in 2018.

 

[ZehDon]

Video games are not art. They never were, never will be, and never should be considered as such. The only reason the topic is so frequently brought up, and why the comparison was even started in the first place, was due to a very costly mistake that the hobby is still paying for to this very day.

That mistake was the use of politics to save the hobby from an outside threat. Confused? Let me start at the beginning...

 

[Hudo]

Genuine question: Why is it important for video games to be considered art? What do video games have to gain from that? The only thing I can see is that this would somehow satisfy some gamers and validate their hobby for them?

 

[Cosmogony]

Sorry but I won't read that crap article:

Video games ARE art by ESSENCE.

Unsupported assertion. Turning caps lock on doesn't magically turn an assertion into an argument.

There's not a SINGLE argument that you can make that it isn't, because it is by -definition-.

Clearly, you have not been keeping up with the philosophical debate. Robert Mckee, for example, a world renown critic, has explained why he thinks videogames are not art. Why don't you first familiarize yourself with the rudiments of the debate before attempting to cast aspersions on one side?

However, not only is there good and bad art

That's not the issue. The argument is not that bad games are not art or that games must be superlative to qualify as art. The argument tends to be that the essence of art is different from the essence of video games, just like the essence of a boat is different from the essence of a pencil. No matter how great the pencil is, it will never be a boat and pointing the fact out is not tantamount to demeaning the pencil.

Again, please do familiarize yourself with the arguments.

Dumb cunt who doesn't know shit about definitions trying to make a statement on the wrong assumption.

Please learn how to debate rationaly.

 

[Ascend]

Unsupported assertion. Turning caps lock on doesn't magically turn an assertion into an argument.



Clearly, you have not been keeping up with the philosophical debate. Robert Mckee, for example, a world renown critic, has explained why he thinks videogames are not art. Why don't you first familiarize yourself with the rudiments of the debate before attempting to cast aspersions on one side?



That's not the issue. The argument is not that bad games are not art or that games must be superlative to qualify as art. The argument tends to be that the essence of art is different from the essence of video games, just like the essence of a boat is different from the essence of a pencil. No matter how great the pencil is, it will never be a boat and pointing the fact out is not tantamount to demeaning the pencil.

Again, please do familiarize yourself with the arguments.



Please learn how to debate rationaly.

McKee's argument is quite shallow. He compares it to chess. But there is a key difference. Chess is one standard situation where gameplay takes place. It has one set of rules that are what they are and never change. Chess is best compared to football, or basketball etc. A match of football is not art, a match of basketball is not art. A chess match is not art.
But video games are fundamentally different. For starters, video games are not a standard setup or scenario like chess, nor do they have standard rules. They come in many different shapes and sizes and are constantly created with completely different messages, goals, ways of interacting and stories. Video games are best compared to paintings or movies, where different painters or directors have a completely different vision and want to present completely different things. A painting can be black and white, have limited shades, or be extremely colorful. They can be of people, of nature, or completely abstract. A movie can be a documentary, a comedy, a thriller, or a combination of them.
Video games can encompass everything that both paintings and movies can portray, in addition to interactivity.

 

[brian0057]

Let's try something for a second.

- Take your favorite game, whatever it is.
- Reduce the game down to just the gameplay mechanics. (Like how Splatoon started just as block shooting ink on a white map)

Is the game still fun to play in that state?

- If you answer YES, then the art style, music, and narrative are a bonus to an already fun experience.
- If you answer NO, then it doesn't matter how artistic your game is. You'll be too bored to care about it.

Video games are entertainment, first and foremost. The lowest bar a game has to hurdle is to entertain the consumer. Everything the game does after that (be it a superb art style, a nice score, or a gripping story) is a bonus. Do any of those elements are not up to par? No problem, you still have solid game that is fun to play.

 

[ReBurn]

I won't presume to tell a creator what their creation is. I can only tell them whether I find it compelling enough to buy, and I make that decision on my own terms. It's pretty arrogant for someone to universally declare that video games are a specific thing because everyone buys them for their own reasons.

 

[Airola]

McKee's argument is quite shallow. He compares it to chess. But there is a key difference. Chess is one standard situation where gameplay takes place. It has one set of rules that are what they are and never change. Chess is best compared to football, or basketball etc. A match of football is not art, a match of basketball is not art. A chess match is not art.

Will chess become art when someone makes it a video game?

 

[MoogleMan]

This is how I feel too. I create the art because I'm controlling it.

I also agree.

 

[Shai-Tan]

One of the problems with games is limitations in simulation and ai narrow the genre that work well. The verbs that work well in games considering the limitations of interactivity are most suited to the action genre. If you want to make a game about human drama the complexity of interaction gets collapsed into dialogue trees that can't carry gameplay enough to make it as or more enjoyable than just watching tv or a movie, especially considering the quality of writing in those medium compared to games and the amount of effort that has to go into creating open ended dialogue. You can't blame devs then for defining characters because there's always a tradeoff in the depth that developers can go. When you leave it open like Fallout you end up with a generic set of choices in contrast to more defined characters in Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines which creates a lot of extra work and issues with mission structure. "open world" can't ever be open in that sense unless you create a game within a game.

I don't see how the "games as art debate" is to blame here. Walking simulators do capture some of the immersion that sets games apart but blaming its lack of verbs with decreased complexity in action rpg games seems silly when you consider other facts like the rising cost of making games per hour of content. A lot of the faux interactivity tropes like collecting in the open world genre are there because other content is much more expensive. It seems to me that the "games as art" discussion is actually on the side of good gameplay here when it derides the "gamey"-ness of those mechanics. Making an argument that you just want games to be games isn't necessarily going to lead to more compelling gameplay.

 

[Cosmogony]

McKee's argument is quite shallow. He compares it to chess. But there is a key difference. Chess is one standard situation where gameplay takes place. It has one set of rules that are what they are and never change.

In that regard games are no different. His point, which you seem to have missed, is that the interative nature of videogames is antithetical to the aesthetic experience.

But I directed to Mckee not because my own argument rests on his points, but to offer an example of a well-known thinker who has made the case against videogames being art.

Chess is best compared to football, or basketball etc. A match of football is not art, a match of basketball is not art. A chess match is not art.
But video games are fundamentally different. For starters, video games are not a standard setup or scenario like chess, nor do they have standard rules.

Videogames are a subset of games, which are systemic puzzles. Nothing in that regard is different from chess.

They come in many different shapes and sizes and are constantly created with completely different messages, goals, ways of interacting and stories. Video games are best compared to paintings or movies,

They are fundamentally different, but one would have first to establish the nature of art. Yet these days everyone seems to be awfully scared of spelling it out, possibly for fear of excluding some self-proclaimed artist or even art movement. Establishing the ontology of art is key in this debate. One cannot move forward without having clear even if unpopular ideas about it. In that regard, Mckee is spot on.

where different painters or directors have a completely different vision and want to present completely different things

The seemingly infinite variety does not change the nature of videogames.

. A painting can be black and white, have limited shades, or be extremely colorful. They can be of people, of nature, or completely abstract. A movie can be a documentary, a comedy, a thriller, or a combination of them.

Yet paintings, as art objects, have some common quality that transcends their apparent infinite differences, their nature.

Video games can encompass everything that both paintings and movies can portray

Completely false. If that were the case art would be obsolete by now and would have been replaced by videogames altogether. What you've just done is get one inch closer to the truth, that there is a fundamental diference between the ontology of art and the ontology of videogames. It doesn't mean art is superior to videogames or that videogames are a lesser, low-brow form of art. It just means they are fundamentally different, which is what Mckee was pointing to. M y argument does not coincide with his, but his logic is sound in that regard.

 

[dirthead]

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/art

Welp there you go. Video games are art. Close thread.

 

[dirthead]

Will chess become art when someone makes it a video game?

Yes, because now it has art in it. Quite charming art, potentially. It's similar to the way that Chess, by itself, is just a set of game rules, but the actual implementation of Chess can be art. These chess pieces are art, and the actual chess board itself can be art. In the same way that the chess pieces and boards are an artistic implementation of a set of game rules, a video game version of chess is an artistic implementation of a set of game rules. In fact, most video games are artistic implementations of a set of game rules.

This argument was always so stupid. Video games are just art with an additional dimension.

Some arts only take advantage of one sense (paintings, radio, music), some arts take advantage of multiple senses (movies, video games). Video games just use the additional sense of touch to give you control over things that happen in them, which is yet another form of artistic expression.

 

[brian0057]

 

[dirthead]

The problem with using this argument to claim that video games aren't art is that all art actually is entertainment or "fun."

And you can come up with some hoity toity movie maker or author and say "no, art isn't entertainment. this is actually really deep crap with some kind of profound message or all it does is make me feel miserable."

Yeah, the phrase "misery porn" is a thing for a reason. Art that intentionally tries to make you feel bad for a form of catharsis IS entertainment. That's the fun/entertainment you're getting out of it. You want to dwell in the muck.

Given the number of number of people on this forum who pay monthly fees to play console multiplayer, you'd think that it'd be common knowledge that sadomasochism is a thing and that "fun" and "entertainment" doesn't mean that it's necessarily art about picking flowers and looking at rainbows.

 

[bilderberg]

when did the word art become held in such high regards? their can be shitty art, just like their can be good art.

 

[NahaNago]

when did the word art become held in such high regards? their can be shitty art, just like their can be good art.

The issue is that it is still art. Since just about anything can be art. You can hock a loogie onto a canvas and present it as art so why not a game.

 

[Airola]

Yes, because now it has art in it. Quite charming art, potentially. It's similar to the way that Chess, by itself, is just a set of game rules, but the actual implementation of Chess can be art. These chess pieces are art, and the actual chess board itself can be art. In the same way that the chess pieces and boards are an artistic implementation of a set of game rules, a video game version of chess is an artistic implementation of a set of game rules. In fact, most video games are artistic implementations of a set of game rules.

This argument was always so stupid. Video games are just art with an additional dimension.

Some arts only take advantage of one sense (paintings, radio, music), some arts take advantage of multiple senses (movies, video games). Video games just use the additional sense of touch to give you control over things that happen in them, which is yet another form of artistic expression.

This is my point. If you think video games are art by default, then a chess video game is art too. And if a chess video game is art because "it has art" then a normal tabletop chessboard is art too because every chess piece should be seen as art if a piece of drawn sprite graphic is too.

But then again, you mentioned chess is more like a game of football implying chess isn't art by default. But then again by those standards should football be art too because there has been a designer who has designed the look of the ball and designers have made the uniforms too, and the whole game has some serious game design thinking going on for it?

My claim is that art can't be defined just based on the looks of it. My claim is that if someone draws a picture it isn't art by default. And by saying that I don't mean the picture is better if it can be considered as art. I just mean that when a picture is said to be art, then the picture itself has some distinct meanings that make the picture be in a different analysis category than a random picture. There the word art has an actual meaning instead of being a word that just means anything and anywhere.

 

[Airola]

The issue is that it is still art. Since just about anything can be art. You can hock a loogie onto a canvas and present it as art so why not a game.

But the question is if something is presented as art does it mean it actually is art? I can present a tree as a vehicle but it doesn't make it a vehicle.

 

[dirthead]

This is my point. If you think video games are art by default, then a chess video game is art too. And if a chess video game is art because "it has art" then a normal tabletop chessboard is art too because every chess piece should be seen as art if a piece of drawn sprite graphic is too.

But then again, you mentioned chess is more like a game of football implying chess isn't art by default. But then again by those standards should football be art too because there has been a designer who has designed the look of the ball and designers have made the uniforms too, and the whole game has some serious game design thinking going on for it?

My claim is that art can't be defined just based on the looks of it. My claim is that if someone draws a picture it isn't art by default. And by saying that I don't mean the picture is better if it can be considered as art. I just mean that when a picture is said to be art, then the picture itself has some distinct meanings that make the picture be in a different analysis category than a random picture. There the word art has an actual meaning instead of being a word that just means anything and anywhere.

The rules of chess are not art. The rules of chess are game rules. We could map out all the rules in Street Fighter 2 and play it with a pencil and paper setup like D&D with three people (two fighters and one moderator). "We're currently on frame 4,509,090 of the fight. Player 1 moved one unit forward and initiated a fierce punch. Player 2 is holding back." But that's just the rules of the game. The art is the specific implementation of the idea via graphics, sounds, and controls.

Sure, football uniforms absolutely are art. The dictionary definition of art is basically "anything that's made to have some sort of aesthetic value." Yes, it is pretty much anything. I think people make way too much of a fuss about art as if it's some sacred thing. Almost anything can be art. It's not a big deal.

 

[NahaNago]

But the question is if something is presented as art does it mean it actually is art? I can present a tree as a vehicle but it doesn't make it a vehicle.

Art is whatever you make of it. A tree could easily be a vehicle if that tree is an expression of your history or feelings to that car. That bolded section is such a loaded sentence in this day and age.

 

[Cosmogony]

Art is whatever you make of it.

You can certainly assert it, but can you show it?

What categories other than art benefit from this infinitely vague and infinitely broad definition of yours? If anything can be art, then nothing is art. That's the corollary. If anything can be art, there is nothing distinctive about art and thus art does not exist.

A tree could easily be a vehicle if that tree is an expression of your history or feelings to that car.

Do you understand what a vehicle is? Does it really require reiteration that the nature of vehicles is not to serve as an expression of feelings or biographies?

Can you otherwise use a carrot as a toothpick? Sure.

That bolded section is such a loaded sentence in this day and age.

It's a perfectly sound statement. That you would deem it "loaded" is indeed a reflection of this day and age.

 

[Airola]

The rules of chess are not art. The rules of chess are game rules.

Then again right below you someone says "art is whatever you make of it." The rules of chess have been done by carefully thinking the whole thing through and designing the gameplay. And obviously games of chess most often require some sort of visual representation to go with it. People don't generally play that game on pen and paper. Even playing chess by mail usually had people have their own chess boards where they moved the pieces the way they were told to move in the letter.

We could map out all the rules in Street Fighter 2 and play it with a pencil and paper setup like D&D with three people (two fighters and one moderator). "We're currently on frame 4,509,090 of the fight. Player 1 moved one unit forward and initiated a fierce punch. Player 2 is holding back." But that's just the rules of the game. The art is the specific implementation of the idea via graphics, sounds, and controls.

So you are saying pen and paper D&D isn't art?
How about when there are game figures involved? Or a game board?
How about when one designs the room and dungeon maps for a D&D game and draws them on paper during play?

Besides you can't really play Street Fighter 2 on a pencil and paper setup anyway. It's a game of quick reactions. When it's turn based it's not Street Fighter 2 anymore. It's about doing short attacks and short reaction defenses and making counter attacks towards the attacker. The rules of the game includes the speed of the movements and the ability to freely initiate attacks or defense positions, or move around, and both players can do things exactly at the same time.

To me what you just wrote only strengthens the thought of video games being digital versions of board games where the possibilities of computers have been used to make the games more complex. The core of the game is the game being a game. Just as a board game might have a visual game board, cards, game pieces, dice and stuff like that, a video game has visual things to represent the things that make the game rules playable and interactive.

Sure, football uniforms absolutely are art. The dictionary definition of art is basically "anything that's made to have some sort of aesthetic value."

Do those uniforms and the design of the football (or goals as they are designed too - or scoreboards as there are graphics involved) make the game of football art? There's even lighting involved in football matches. Some could say the lights not only make things more visible but they also give a lot into the aesthetics of the game. Does that game become art because of the visual things it consists of?

Yes, it is pretty much anything. I think people make way too much of a fuss about art as if it's some sacred thing. Almost anything can be art. It's not a big deal.

I agree people make way too much of a fuss about art and people wanting to claim video games are art by default is exactly an example of that fuss.

When people want to call video games art they are usually wanting to elevate it to some position where they think people would give more appreciation to them. They think that if video games are not thought to be art, then people think less of them, and if video games are called art, then video games get elevated into a position where they are taken seriously. They think people don't take games seriously if they can't be called art. And they think it's a bad thing if people don't take them seriously or if they don't think they are art.

The whole thing is about making video games "legit" in some imaginary scale. Why can't people just accept that the games they play are good entertainment with more or less nice looking and sounding things making the thing more or leass pleasing to look at? And why can't they accept that some people just aren't interested in that form of entertainment and that some of them might be people who are into art. Telling them "video games are art too so you should appreciate them as such" doesn't help anything because they clearly are looking for something else when they are looking for art anyway.

 

[dirthead]

So you are saying pen and paper D&D isn't art?

No, I'm saying that game rules aren't art. A specific paper and pen implementation of D&D could be art.

Besides you can't really play Street Fighter 2 on a pencil and paper setup anyway. It's a game of quick reactions. When it's turn based it's not Street Fighter 2 anymore. It's about doing short attacks and short reaction defenses and making counter attacks towards the attacker. The rules of the game includes the speed of the movements and the ability to freely initiate attacks or defense positions, or move around, and both players can do things exactly at the same time.

Every game is turn based. It just happens fast enough in some games for you to not notice it. Your "turn" is every frame. SF2 updates every 59.6hz. Before the next update, it takes inputs and decides what to do on the next frame. That's a "turn." It's no different than two people giving two pieces of paper to a moderator with their moves for that frame and the moderator looking up the rules to determine what should be the state going into the next frame.

"Quick" is relative. You can't say that SF2 is SF2 because the hardware updates at 59.6hz. The Xbox and PS4 ports of SF2, even though they're emulated, run at 60hz. The refresh rate is different. Does that mean you're not playing SF2 anymore? See what I mean? What makes SF2 SF2 is the game rules. Thought experiment: if you're The Flash or Superman, and you have a heightened perceptual range, SF2 would look like it was playing in slow motion to you giving you effectively a ton of time to decide what to do next. Does that mean that The Flash and Superman can't play SF2? Of course they could. It doesn't change what the game is.

Do those uniforms and the design of the football (or goals as they are designed too - or scoreboards as there are graphics involved) make the game of football art? There's even lighting involved in football matches. Some could say the lights not only make things more visible but they also give a lot into the aesthetics of the game. Does that game become art because of the visual things it consists of?

Yup. The game rules of Football aren't art. A broadcast of Football with a specific aesthetic presentation in mind could be art.

 

[petran79]

Games absolutely are/can be art. The problem is that people's current definition of art is way too narrow. The gaming industry has spent way too much time and effort chasing cinema as its leading influence, but the problem is that games aren't movies. The very nature of an interactive medium sets them apart from a passive one on a fundamental level. And I feel that the constant pursuit of the "cinematic experience" is incredibly limiting to the potential of gaming as a whole. Not to say there isn't a place for games like Uncharted but the real artistry of those games are the environments, the detail of the animations, and most importantly how they merge and work with gameplay to make the world both immersive AND interesting to live in and explore. Not in their writing or cinematography, which usually at the very best passable. And on the flip side a lot of the actual art of making films is lost in video games. We should be focusing on iterating and improving on techniques that focus on the interactive elements of gaming, not its passive ones, because that is where its unique art lies. Not everyone is going to get it, and that's fine. Not everyone gets poetry either. Or interpretive dance. Or jazz. But you can still tell the good stuff from the derivative.

Games are influenced by cinema, but today it is mainly 3d animation. Which is different than movies with live actors.
Truly cinematic influence was in the 90s with the FMV craze, often with famous actors involved and earlier with some arcade games. Those games involved film and 2d animation producers and sometimes required whole studios and sets, costumes and makeup for the actors. They were also painfully expensive and time consuming. They could not be the industry's prime focus forever.

But games like Wing Commander 4 had a certain charm and prestige that even the latest Naughty Dog titles, Detroit ATH, GTA and GOW could not reach, because they are based on imaginary actors without any previous experience. That can have its own advantages but in no way should they be compared with live actors and trying to mimick them. Video games and 3d animation have the advantage of manipulating AI, space and time in ways traditional cinema could never achieve

 

[Nymphae]

I personally feel like all the assets that comprise games are art. The models, the sprites, music, fonts, writing, etc. But ultimately I think the final products we're trying to define as art, are toys. Toys made of pieces of artwork. Are toys art? To me, no.

 

[Daymos]

The guy is just butthurt that his hobby went mainstream and got dumbed down. He also seems to really dislike wealthy educated people (but I get that I guess, I'm an older gamer too and I think hardcore career minded people are wasting their lives). I don't think his point on games being or not being art backs up his complaints much at all.

As to whether I believe games are art: art is a subjective concept, it's an opinion. Its like talking about religon or poltics and thus it really doesn't interest me because I can't prove anything. I do love addicting gameplay over cinematics though.

 

[Shift!]

For many people games are not a hobby, but a way of exercising life. I don't think the general construction is valid, and the a priori comes with a lot of inconsistencies regarding the facility of "games as a counter to culture." Video games are ingratiated in our culture, and provide commentary just as reasonably as any other medium if not better. To assert that they come with this instinctive difference is like a proverbial denial of pleasure.