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[Campster]

I read your examples but I just don't see the art there.

Now you're just being stupid, or trolling for a response, or genuinely believe that because interaction happens, and the author isn't 110% in control of the resultant experience, the work is no longer art.

Which is bullshit, because it's not like a painter is 110% responsible for the lighting in the room his art hangs in, the humidity levels and temperatures of the exhibit, and the angle the viewer is standing at.

Hell, even non-interactive art is still active - there's a process of absorbing and analyzing the work that is done completely subjectively and at the viewer's will.

 

[MGrant]

The game is the system, and systems can totally be art. The code itself, well, that's a different debate.

Let me put it this way: a system of democracy (where universal suffrage is in effect, I suppose) operates under the assumption that every single person should not only have a say in the government, but an equal say. The system put in place reflects and expresses the philosophies of the designers. Is there no art to the design, there? It's an expression of the author, it allows interaction in a totally meaningful way, it produces a legitimate output...

I think the art behind democracy is philosophy, which is just an offshoot of rhetoric. The system itself isn't art, it's just a way of applying that art and making it law. You do make a good point, though.

I guess I'd consider the design choices behind games to be a combination of storytelling (pacing, suspense, etc.) and design (where to place a building, how many lives should the player have so that the game is difficult, but not cruel, etc.).

Really, it's just a semantics thing. I see a difference between collections of art and art itself. Other people say that said collections should themselves be considered art. It doesn't bother me too much, but I do see people who stress out about their favorite hobby not being validated by a small subset of yuppies as very insecure.

 

[alistairw]

Now you're just being stupid, or trolling for a response, or genuinely believe that because interaction happens, and the author isn't 110% in control of the resultant experience, the work is no longer art.

Which is bullshit, because it's not like a painter is 110% responsible for the lighting in the room his art hangs in, the humidity levels and temperatures of the exhibit, and the angle the viewer is standing at.

Hell, even non-interactive art is still active - there's a process of absorbing and analyzing the work that is done completely subjectively and at the viewer's will.

That was pretty much going to be my response, though you did use less swear words than I would have.

 

[MGrant]

Your reducing things to the point where they loose there meaning. I could say "writing isn't art! It just involves nerves firing to to constrict muscles to press alphanumeric characters! Doesn't seem to artistic to me."

What makes interactivity heighten emotion is not that button A does X-action, its the control that is given to the player to better immerse them in the world a developer is trying to create. Your not moving a analogue stick, your moving your legs in this virtual world.

Being able to control the outcome and elements in the world (even if that is an illusion) increases the empathy someone might feel toward the characters the universe and the character they themselves are playing as his/her fate is in your "hands."

Well I wouldn't consider the technology of writing itself an art in the first place. I just used "writing" to mean "storytelling." And even if I tried to reduce storytelling, it would still be an entirely creative process.

Even if the immersion and empathy you feel because you are interacting with a world is a direct result of interaction, which I would argue it's more due to the organic feeling that scenic artists and sound designers have achieved, using a game like Half Life 2 as an example, that doesn't mean that games are art, just that they enhance art. New methods of oil painting back in the Renaissance enhanced art greatly, too, but oil painting did not become an entirely new medium of art, just a new subgenre of visual arts.

 

[Joe Molotov]

Don't worry, guys. Just hold out for another 30 or 40 years until Ebert and his generation are all dead, and then we can enjoy our videogames in peace.

One day we can look back on this the same way we look back on people who thought "Talkies" couldn't be art or color films couldn't be art, and laugh.

 

[Campster]

Well I wouldn't consider the technology of writing itself an art in the first place. I just used "writing" to mean "storytelling." And even if I tried to reduce storytelling, it would still be an entirely creative process.

Even if the immersion and empathy you feel because you are interacting with a world is a direct result of interaction, which I would argue it's more due to the organic feeling that scenic artists and sound designers have achieved, using a game like Half Life 2 as an example, that doesn't mean that games are art, just that they enhance art. New methods of oil painting back in the Renaissance enhanced art greatly, too, but oil painting did not become an entirely new medium of art, just a new subgenre of visual arts.

Honestly, if the game part is irrelevant games are absolutely positively not art. Their stories are b-grade films at best; their visuals while impressive are nothing compared to the technological feats of strength in the demo scene. If the game is irrelevent, then games are themselves irrelevant. Pretty pictures can be found more impressively (and cheaply) at a movie theater or on a 64k contest site. Awesome comic book stories can be found for $8 at your local cinema or for about $25 for a good paperback graphic novel.

There's no reason for games to exist if interactivity is found to be meaningless.

 

[MGrant]

There's no reason for games to exist if interactivity is found to be meaningless.

Just because something isn't art doesn't mean it's meaningless.

 

[Campster]

Just because something isn't art doesn't mean it's meaningless.

If games aren't art, then those poor saps who sacrificed so much blood, sweat, and tears to produce a game are just stupid wage slaves. If games aren't art, all the people on this forum who play for 15+ hours a week aren't increasing their media literacy and spending money on works that enrich their lives; they're wasting away in front of a screen while engaged in the idle passage of time. If games aren't art, I don't see why they deserve constitutional protection as free speech.

 

[plagiarize]

as i said before, even theatre is interactive. the performer reacts to the audiences reaction to their performance. that doesn't stop it being art.

our interaction with art doesn't have to be artistic in itself for that thing to be considered art. watching, listening... these are interactions even if only one way.

 

[GhaleonQ]

Don't worry, guys. Just hold out for another 30 or 40 years until Ebert and his generation are all dead, and then we can enjoy our videogames in peace.

One day we can look back on this the same way we look back on people who thought "Talkies" couldn't be art or color films couldn't be art, and laugh.

I'm not sure that you understand how criticism and art scholarship works. That won't make a difference.

 

[MGrant]

If games aren't art, then those poor saps who sacrificed so much blood, sweat, and tears to produce a game are just stupid wage slaves. If games aren't art, all the people on this forum who play for 15+ hours a week aren't increasing their media literacy and spending money on works that enrich their lives; they're wasting away in front of a screen while engaged in the idle passage of time. If games aren't art, I don't see why they deserve constitutional protection as free speech.

The "poor saps" were creating art. For a game. Even, arguably, the programmers. And sure, gamers are spending money on a hobby that accomplishes nothing. But so are the people who collect stamps. And all the people reading Harry Potter. And all the people who spend stacks of cash to play paintball. Gaming is a hobby. It doesn't have to enrich one's life to accomplish something. And the art in games is art like any other, which is why it deserves constitutional protection.

 

[Confidence Man]

Now you're just being stupid, or trolling for a response, or genuinely believe that because interaction happens, and the author isn't 110% in control of the resultant experience, the work is no longer art.

Which is bullshit, because it's not like a painter is 110% responsible for the lighting in the room his art hangs in, the humidity levels and temperatures of the exhibit, and the angle the viewer is standing at.

Hell, even non-interactive art is still active - there's a process of absorbing and analyzing the work that is done completely subjectively and at the viewer's will.

And you accuse me of being stupid?

Obviously the author can never have total, absolute control of a subjective experience, but that isn't what I'm talking about.

A game is fundamentally not like a painting, or a piece of music, or an installation, or what have you. Like others in this thread have said, games have art in them, and are the vehicles for choice which allows the user to experience that art.

If you want to take the art as experience angle, that's fine, but I suggest you read the book of the same name by John Dewey and at least come back with a coherent argument.

 

[Campster]

And you accuse me of being stupid?

Obviously the author can never have total, absolute control of a subjective experience, but that isn't what I'm talking about.

A game is fundamentally not like a painting, or a piece of music, or an installation, or what have you. Like others in this thread have said, games have art in them, and are the vehicles for choice which allows the user to experience that art.

If you want to take the art as experience angle, that's fine, but I suggest you read the book of the same name by John Dewey and at least come back with a coherent argument.

You've done nothing but shallowly dismiss argument after argument from me with naught but a "tut tut, you're wrong," and have yet to come up with a legitimate argument as to why this medium isn't one other than to have everyone in this thread take it on your dumbass authority that it isn't.

I ask you, sir, to provide to me a simple, concise reason why interactive system design is not an art. You make exceptions for things like interactive modern art, so "because it's interactive" doesn't count. Give me a legitimate, reasonable argument that allows for things like participatory modernist works but disallows interactive system design as a meaningful artistic endeavor.

 

[MGrant]

You've done nothing but shallowly dismiss argument after argument from me with naught but a "tut tut, you're wrong," and have yet to come up with a legitimate argument as to why this medium isn't one other than to have everyone in this thread take it on your dumbass authority that it isn't.

I ask you, sir, to provide to me a simple, concise reason why interactive system design is not an art. You make exceptions for things like interactive modern art, so "because it's interactive" doesn't count. Give me a legitimate, reasonable argument that allows for things like participatory modernist works but disallows interactive system design as a meaningful artistic endeavor.

Picture a huge building. Inside the building are hallways filled with paintings, speakers playing music, screens displaying films, stages with performers. And you have a golf cart that you can drive through the building at your own pace, and view the exhibits at any desired angle. You wouldn't walk away from this experience thinking "golf carts are art," or "walls/stages/speakers/screens are art."

 

[Tellaerin]

Well I wouldn't consider the technology of writing itself an art in the first place. I just used "writing" to mean "storytelling." And even if I tried to reduce storytelling, it would still be an entirely creative process.

Even if the immersion and empathy you feel because you are interacting with a world is a direct result of interaction, which I would argue it's more due to the organic feeling that scenic artists and sound designers have achieved, using a game like Half Life 2 as an example, that doesn't mean that games are art, just that they enhance art. New methods of oil painting back in the Renaissance enhanced art greatly, too, but oil painting did not become an entirely new medium of art, just a new subgenre of visual arts.

I couldn't disagree with you more. In a story-driven game, when done properly, interactivity fosters a visceral sense of connection between the player and the protagonist. It does so in a way that even the most masterful art direction or sound design alone cannot. It's what enables games to move some of us as powerfully as books or movies can, despite the fact that the narratives and performances in games typically lag behind their brethren in other media. Devising ways for the player to interact with elements of the game world and structuring the experience to deliberately evoke emotion is just as much of an artistic endeavor as composing a piece of music to set a mood. Gameplay's not just some scaffold for hanging the 'real' art on, it's art in its own right, just as much as the narratives in film are.

 

[Campster]

Picture a huge building. Inside the building are hallways filled with paintings, speakers playing music, screens displaying films, stages with performers. And you have a golf cart that you can drive through the building at your own pace, and view the exhibits at any desired angle. You wouldn't walk away from this experience thinking "golf carts are art," or "walls/stages/speakers/screens are art."

Really, this just belies a lack of understanding of system design. When you look at the system as a content delivery first and foremost from the outset, of course the system is going to be a shallow, awful mess. Which is why I rail against Half-Life 2 and F.E.A.R. and other content-munching games all the time.

What you've presented is just a content delivery system while ignoring the potential of system design as a medium. I could just as easily make a film about a statue by recording two hours of the statue. People will walk by, ambient sounds of people walking and talking will be heard, but you won't think of the film as art, really. Just the statue itself.

 

[Armitage]

Picture a huge building. Inside the building are hallways filled with paintings, speakers playing music, screens displaying films, stages with performers. And you have a golf cart that you can drive through the building at your own pace, and view the exhibits at any desired angle. You wouldn't walk away from this experience thinking "golf carts are art," or "walls/stages/speakers/screens are art."

I was talking with someone recently who brought up a point sort of similar to this, and I threw it around in my mind today. I think that the presentation could be considered art: you're deciding the placement, lighting, atmosphere, and a hundred other things that are designed to exaggerate your feelings.

But I don't think this is a totally valid analogy. Isn't the 'gallery' for games more the console, or TV? I consider games to a be a whole piece of work; you can't really only experience JUST the visuals or JUST the sounds of a game.

I could just as easily make a film about a statue by recording two hours of the statue. People will walk by, ambient sounds of people walking and talking will be heard, but you won't think of the film as art, really.

I'd definitely consider it art. You're taking the experience of viewing a statue and presenting it to the viewer.



Anyway, don't worry whether it's art, worry about whether it's good art.

 

[MGrant]

I couldn't disagree with you more. In a story-driven game, when done properly, interactivity fosters a visceral sense of connection between the player and the protagonist. It does so in a way that even the most masterful art direction or sound design alone cannot. It's what enables games to move some of us as powerfully as books or movies can, despite the fact that the narratives and performances in games typically lag behind their brethren in other media. Devising ways for the player to interact with elements of the game world and structuring the experience to deliberately evoke emotion is just as much of an artistic endeavor as composing a piece of music to set a mood. Gameplay's not just some scaffold for hanging the 'real' art on, it's art in its own right, just as much as the narratives in film are.

What sort of interactions are you talking about? Every action in a game that results in a reaction is hard-programmed by the game's designers. The animations/models/sounds that accompany these actions are art. The fact that you had a choice of which scene you wanted to display doesn't make it art any more than choosing a DVD to watch makes your movie shelf art.

 

[plagiarize]

I couldn't disagree with you more. In a story-driven game, when done properly, interactivity fosters a visceral sense of connection between the player and the protagonist. It does so in a way that even the most masterful art direction or sound design alone cannot. It's what enables games to move some of us as powerfully as books or movies can, despite the fact that the narratives and performances in games typically lag behind their brethren in other media. Devising ways for the player to interact with elements of the game world and structuring the experience to deliberately evoke emotion is just as much of an artistic endeavor as composing a piece of music to set a mood. Gameplay's not just some scaffold for hanging the 'real' art on, it's art in its own right, just as much as the narratives in film are.

quite.

and pushing this further... is a movie like Lost Highway not art because it lets the viewer interpret the meaning of the events displayed for themselves?

does a piece of art have to evoke a specific emotion and the same emotion in everyone that looks at it to be considered art?

hell no. so just because two people can play a game and have a different experience doesn't mean that their experience isn't something the designers of the game gave them.

 

[Campster]

What sort of interactions are you talking about? Every action in a game that results in a reaction is hard-programmed by the game's designers. The animations/models/sounds that accompany these actions are art. The fact that you had a choice of which scene you wanted to display doesn't make it art any more than choosing a DVD to watch makes your movie shelf art.

You know, there's not exactly a 1:1 ratio of choices to output. It's not like playing Mario is just flicking between prerendered screenshots of the game.

I mean, programmers also create algorithmic and procedural music. Is that not art? It operates on the same premises.

 

[nfreakct]

What sort of interactions are you talking about? Every action in a game that results in a reaction is hard-programmed by the game's designers. The animations/models/sounds that accompany these actions are art. The fact that you had a choice of which scene you wanted to display doesn't make it art any more than choosing a DVD to watch makes your movie shelf art.

What kind of games are you playing? Because your description of games makes it sound like you play the gaming equivalent of choose-your-own-adventure books.

 

[MGrant]

What kind of games are you playing? Because your description of games makes it sound like you play the gaming equivalent of choose-your-own-adventure books.

I'm oversimplifying things, of course, but aren't games essentially complex choose your own adventure books? That's one of the reasons I got into those books back in elementary school, they seemed a lot like the games I was playing on my NES, granted, on a more limited scale.

Running around in Mario, beating the hell out of things in Devil May Cry, blasting things in Halo: they're all fun, well-designed, visceral experiences. But it all boils down to a complication of the standard choice mechanics. You may have thousands of choices of what to do, but it's still just a content delivery system at its core. And it's a really fun one that I like a lot. Ain't nothing wrong with that.

 

[Campster]

I'm oversimplifying things, of course, but aren't games essentially complex choose your own adventure books? That's one of the reasons I got into those books back in elementary school, they seemed a lot like the games I was playing on my NES, granted, on a more limited scale.

Running around in Mario, beating the hell out of things in Devil May Cry, blasting things in Halo: they're all fun, well-designed, visceral experiences. But it all boils down to a complication of the standard choice mechanics. You may have thousands of choices of what to do, but it's still just a content delivery system at its core. And it's a really fun one that I like a lot. Ain't nothing wrong with that.

Except you're undermining an entire artistic medium to have a content delivery system for Dante and his SciFi Channel Movie quality adventures.

Again, I don't see how films aren't just seen as content delivery for pictures, sound, and story using this interpretation. The film isn't art; the choices involved in editing and pacing and cinematography aren't art. The film just delivers pictures and sound and a story, which are art.

 

[DeadTrees]

Picture a huge building. Inside the building are hallways filled with paintings, speakers playing music, screens displaying films, stages with performers. And you have a golf cart that you can drive through the building at your own pace, and view the exhibits at any desired angle. You wouldn't walk away from this experience thinking "golf carts are art," or "walls/stages/speakers/screens are art."

 

[MGrant]

Except you're undermining an entire artistic medium to have a content delivery system for Dante and his SciFi Channel Movie quality adventures.

Again, I don't see how films aren't just seen as content delivery for pictures, sound, and story using this interpretation. The film isn't art; the choices involved in editing and pacing and cinematography aren't art. The film just delivers pictures and sound and a story, which are art.

Manipulating a motion picture camera is an art, one that was nonexistent before the invention of the motion picture camera. Yes, movies mix a lot of other mediums into the film-making process, but at its core there is still a unique form of expression. Of course cinematography is an art. Editing, and pacing are techniques involved in storytelling, which is an art.

Games also take a lot of these elements and fuse them into one, but offer no new form of expression in the end, just a way of presenting preexisting forms.

But rather than pointing out where current art forms might fall short of being traditional art, how about citing where games shine as a new form of expression?

 

[Campster]

Manipulating a motion picture camera is an art, one that was nonexistent before the invention of the motion picture camera. Yes, movies mix a lot of other mediums into the film-making process, but at its core there is still a unique form of expression. Of course cinematography is an art. Editing, and pacing are techniques involved in storytelling, which is an art.

Games also take a lot of these elements and fuse them into one, but offer no new form of expression in the end, just a way of presenting preexisting forms.

But rather than pointing out where current art forms might fall short of being traditional art, how about citing where games shine as a new form of expression?

I've already done so, however briefly and uncharitable the summary is due to my posting it at work earlier:

Look at DEFCON. It's got this wonderful pathos. The interface is cold and unfeeling, as if you're an unseen general making unthinkable decisions from afar. The sounds that play are incredible - a low, bassy rumbling when zoomed in, along with backgrounds sounds of women sobbing, men walking down an empty hallway, and cold and unfeeling computerized beeps.

But the system itself highlights the madness of a mutually assured destruction standpoint. You gain two points for every megadeath you achieve, and lose one point for every megadeath inflicted upon you. The mechanics alone set up this idea of "acceptable losses;" as long as you nuke enough people to have more points than the other guys you've won the game. Nevermind the fact that 150 million people are dead, you "won!" That's some brilliant system design that says something.

Look at The Sims, which clearly comments on the state of our pathologically consumerist society. You buy things so that you can get a better job so you can buy more things. An endless cycle of consumerism.

Hell, look at something as simple as Oregon Trail, which highlights the difficulties faced by pioneers to of the old west. Famine, death, disease, and outright failure were common, and the system of the game really demonstrates that.

 

[MGrant]

Look at DEFCON. It's got this wonderful pathos. The interface is cold and unfeeling, as if you're an unseen general making unthinkable decisions from afar. The sounds that play are incredible - a low, bassy rumbling when zoomed in, along with backgrounds sounds of women sobbing, men walking down an empty hallway, and cold and unfeeling computerized beeps.

But the system itself highlights the madness of a mutually assured destruction standpoint. You gain two points for every megadeath you achieve, and lose one point for every megadeath inflicted upon you. The mechanics alone set up this idea of "acceptable losses;" as long as you nuke enough people to have more points than the other guys you've won the game. Nevermind the fact that 150 million people are dead, you "won!" That's some brilliant system design that says something.

Look at The Sims, which clearly comments on the state of our pathologically consumerist society. You buy things so that you can get a better job so you can buy more things. An endless cycle of consumerism.

Hell, look at something as simple as Oregon Trail, which highlights the difficulties faced by pioneers to of the old west. Famine, death, disease, and outright failure were common, and the system of the game really demonstrates that.

DEFCON is a great game, but the art lies in the aesthetics, the sound design, and the history behind its concept. The game itself, like all strategy games, is just chess for a newer generation.

That interpretation of the Sims has nothing to do with the game itself. It's a virtual doll house, with goals just like any other game. It's great fun to see your Sim become head of a crime syndicate or a world-famous surgeon, but the philosophy behind it could be applied to any game.

Oregon Trail is a history lesson wrapped in a thin game shell. The eloquence of the writers in conveying the difficulty of the Oregon Trail is noted, but this game is almost the textbook example of a content delivery system. Walk a few miles, text box, choice, scene, walk some more.

 

[Campster]

DEFCON is a great game, but the art lies in the aesthetics, the sound design, and the history behind its concept. The game itself, like all strategy games, is just chess for a newer generation.

That interpretation of the Sims has nothing to do with the game itself. It's a virtual doll house, with goals just like any other game. It's great fun to see your Sim become head of a crime syndicate or a world-famous surgeon, but the philosophy behind it could be applied to any game.

Oregon Trail is a history lesson wrapped in a thin game shell. The eloquence of the writers in conveying the difficulty of the Oregon Trail is noted, but this game is almost the textbook example of a content delivery system. Walk a few miles, text box, choice, scene, walk some more.

So you're denying, then, that DEFCON's point system reflects Cold War mentalities of Mutually Assured Destruction?

Or that, among all the elements of modern suburban life the makers of The Sims could simulate, the primary action in the game is intentionally chosen as "buying?"

And you're insisting that Oregon Trail's system design, which virtually prevents you from getting to Oregon totally unscathed, is nothing more than a delivery system for a textbox that reads "You have died of dysentry?" (which is, by your count, where the art truly lies?)

 

[Armitage]

We're not in the gaming business.

We're in the dysentery delivery business.

 

[MGrant]

So you're denying, then, that DEFCON's point system reflects Cold War mentalities of Mutually Assured Destruction?

Or that, among all the elements of modern suburban life the makers of The Sims could simulate, the primary action in the game is intentionally chosen as "buying?"

Or that Oregon Trail's system design, which virtually prevents you from getting to Oregon totally unscathed, is nothing more than a delivery system for a textbox that reads "You have died of dysentry?" (which is, by your count, where the art truly lies?)

I'm saying that the connection the game's designers made to history is clever, but the way in which you play the game really has no artistic merit. And anyway, the point made by the game was already made in the movie War Games back in the '80s. Even so, the art behind the game concept is philosophy/rhetoric, and is not exclusive to the game.

My primary action in the Sims was always "not dying." But even so, it's once again philosophy, and is accomplished through other media.

The art in Oregon Trail is everything that is displayed on the screen. The act of clicking on text boxes/animals you're hunting/guiding yourself down the river (the only interaction in the game) isn't too artistic from what I can tell.

 

[kame-sennin]

Calling a game art is the same as calling a movie art.

Now, multiplayer gameplay really is not art.

We are talking about full on singleplayer story driven cinematic gameplay experience.

Not Halo 3 online.

Halo 3 single player, yes.

A multiplayer experience is like sports

single player experience is like an interactive movie.

Movies = Art.

I think this is the kind of mentality that is actually holding games back from becoming art. I don't think a medium can become an art form by simply emulating another medium. Yes, movies take aspects from plays, photography, and paintings, but they bring something new to the table that truly validates them as an art form. Through the moving image, and the juxtaposition of images (i.e. editing), films do something that no other medium can.

The unique aspect that separates games from everything else is gameplay, not cut scenes. If art is about capturing emotions and manipulating the emotions of the viewer/reader/player, than game creators need to find a way to do this through gameplay. I view video games as an infant art form that has only managed to elicit a select few emotions; joy, aggression, fear, and perhaps caring in the case of games like the Sims or Nintendogs. But where is love, rage, empathy, lust? I think games have a long way to go, but developers have to learn how to elicit emotions through gameplay instead of aping other mediums.

 

[avatar299]

One day we can look back on this the same way we look back on people who thought "Talkies" couldn't be art or color films couldn't be art, and laugh.

No one ever said that. Sound was considered a huge innovation in films. The only ones who complained were the silent actors that came to the sad realization that they can't act.

As fas as game being art....well it's a pointless question but I say it isn't. Videogames in their present forms are the bastard childs of a consumer culture. It's pretty much taking (hopefully, though we have failed at every turn) the best of cinema, the best of sound composing, and the best of the rules of any game and putting them together. They are unique in nature, yet the industry has evolved into a form where it no longer is unique.

This is what Ebert sees. He sees videogame the same way a layman, average Joe does, and the games we push down people's throat are what lead Ebert to say the things he says. It's hard to say videogames are art when if you ask some kid what the best game ever is, he says halo.

 

[Evlar]

No one ever said that. Sound was considered a huge innovation in films. The only ones who complained were the silent actors that came to the sad realization that they can't act.

As fas as game being art....well it's a pointless question but I say it isn't. Videogames in their present forms are the bastard childs of a consumer culture. It's pretty much taking (hopefully, though we have failed at every turn) the best of cinema, the best of sound composing, and the best of the rules of any game and putting them together. They are unique in nature, yet the industry has evolved into a form where it no longer is unique.

This is what Ebert sees. He sees videogame the same way a layman, average Joe does, and the games we push down people's throat are what lead Ebert to say the things he says. It's hard to say videogames are art when if you ask some kid what the best game ever is, he says halo.

If you ask some kid what the best movie ever is it's quite possible he'd say Shrek. Nothing is proven by this.

 

[Campster]

I'm saying that the connection the game's designers made to history is clever, but the way in which you play the game really has no artistic merit. And anyway, the point made by the game was already made in the movie War Games back in the '80s. Even so, the art behind the game concept is philosophy/rhetoric, and is not exclusive to the game.

But how you play isn't how the system was designed. And your subsequent arguments are just disingenuous - it's no longer artistically valid because someone's already talked about it? I guess Shakespeare and Greek plays means tragedy should never be used in art again. And you even admit there's art behind the game design in your last sentence - you insist it's not "original" somehow (which I would question) but you still concede it's there.

My primary action in the Sims was always "not dying." But even so, it's once again philosophy, and is accomplished through other media.

I'm really struggling with this "accomplished through other media" thing, because at this point we're debating what you do in the game. That isn't generated by anything else BUT the game. Even the act of "not dying" isn't something conveyed through pictures, models, or sound effects.

The art in Oregon Trail is everything that is displayed on the screen. The act of clicking on text boxes/animals you're hunting/guiding yourself down the river (the only interaction in the game) isn't too artistic from what I can tell.

Again, the act of playing isn't the artistic endeavor we're debating here (although I firmly believe expressive play is also an artistic endeavor). The system design is. Clicking on a bunny to kill it? Not that artistic. Designing a system where you have to choose between medicine and food, where making it across the Great Plains is possible but damned difficult, where random chance is intentionally factored in to represent the cruel, impartial influence of mother nature? That's where the art lies.

 

[DarkKyo]

Art isn't meant to be a game. Games shouldn't be interpreted as art.

Reminds me of those super-realistic mario paintings.

I think you greatly misunderstand the concept of art.

 

[Dies Iræ]

If it is conceived in an artists mind, painted with an artists brush and designed in an artists studio, why then, wouldnt we call it art?

It's really just a matter of being able to see the art. People who have no gaming experience, who are on the outside, like Ebert, cannot see it. The gaming industry is very immature, but it will progress to the point of an accepted art form.

 

[Evlar]

I want an explanation of why "player control of the outcome" means gaming isn't an art. I'm going to make a reference here, and I'm not in ANY WAY claiming gaming is like the thing I'm referencing EXCEPT in one limited sense: In both cases the player controls the outcome.

Is jazz composition "high art"?

In jazz composition a very loose structure of rythms, refrains, tonal patterns, and so forth are set down as an "archetype" of a song. However, the heart of jazz is in improvisation, which means no jazz song, by definition, is completely fixed. Any proficient jazz performer is expected to improvise, to bring his or her own musical personality to the song, and it is likely to be a very different interpretation between performers, and even a slightly different interpretation between the same performer in different performances. Yet we still regard the people who create the archetypal jazz songs, the jazz composers, as high artists, right? Don't we?

I mean, the fact that the performer's participation is critical to the music being jazz doesn't wipe away the artistic merit of the composition, does it?

And if it doesn't... Then why would the open-ended nature of gaming wipe away the artistic merit of developing a game?

 

[BocoDragon]

I'm not sure that you understand how criticism and art scholarship works. That won't make a difference.

... won't it? The concept of "art" is just a populist meme, and like all memes, its meaning will shift with the whim of the people.

Art doesn't mean a damn thing on its own. People give it meaning. And people will undergo a demographic shift as time goes on, from a majorty of non-gamers who have not grown up with it, to gamers who have.

My feeling is that generations of the future won't have the ability to distinguish between games and other forms of art, just as we all happily accept the connotation that books, stage and now films are "obviously" art, when that wasn't the case at all when these mediums were introduced.

If you mean that the current institutions of art are too locked down and dogmatic to ever accept videogames... well, perhaps, but I still don't see how the whole of human opinion will be kept in check. This would only mean that the dogmas of the fathers have been internalized by those who carry the criterion of what art is in the future, like a religion...

 

[avatar299]

If you ask some kid what the best movie ever is it's quite possible he'd say Shrek. Nothing is proven by this.

Kids is the wrong word. Young adults fits better, since most games are aimed at them. When those are the kind of games that are heralded, and applauded then those are the games judged as art. Ebert sees them lacking. I don't disagree.

 

[.dmc]

Games are entertainment. That doesn't make them art. Most of the rationales being used in this thread are worthless as well, especially those that state the simple act of creation is enough to dignify it as artwork.

This post particularly shitted me..

A character design to create a unique identifiable character is art.

A mech design for certain types of games is also art, as are unique guns and swords and other such props.

A driving storyline may not be on the same level as a great piece of literature, but it is an attempt at the same thing.

Even 3d model rendered to beautifully mimick a real life counterpart is a work of art, just as any 2d drawing or painting would be.

Concept art speaks for itself. Are the beautiful drawings and paintings all of a sudden non-art because it has to do with a video game? Right.

They're not, they're industrial/graphic/design/engineering produced for the sake of a piece of entertainment. Unless you accept that by your measure then a $15 GI Joe figure is just as much a piece of art as the 3d models in Gears Of War.

 

[krypt0nian]

So does Jaffe think that movies are art then?


HINT: The creator defines whether something is art or not. It's all about intention.

 

[Confidence Man]

You've done nothing but shallowly dismiss argument after argument from me with naught but a "tut tut, you're wrong," and have yet to come up with a legitimate argument as to why this medium isn't one other than to have everyone in this thread take it on your dumbass authority that it isn't.

I ask you, sir, to provide to me a simple, concise reason why interactive system design is not an art. You make exceptions for things like interactive modern art, so "because it's interactive" doesn't count. Give me a legitimate, reasonable argument that allows for things like participatory modernist works but disallows interactive system design as a meaningful artistic endeavor.

First, I'm talking about games as art, not "system design", and I didn't make exceptions for interactive modern art. Put a video game next to some participatory art project and I would say that they're both games.

There's probably an art to system design in games just like there's probably an art to designing automotive braking systems in cars. You can make it so that it works well or not, there's some creativity involved. But that doesn't make them artistic mediums. Saying the system design of Oregon Trail is artistic because you're making choices between food and medicine is a little misguided as the player is simply clicking on one box or another. You're bringing the context into it, the narrative that's giving meaning to the choices you make. The actual game part is absolutely no different than clicking on a good/evil dialogue response in KOTOR, or any other choice in any other game you can think of.

 

[plagiarize]

Games are entertainment. That doesn't make them art. Most of the rationales being used in this thread are worthless as well, especially those that state the simple act of creation is enough to dignify it as artwork.

This post particularly shitted me..



They're not, they're industrial/graphic/design/engineering produced for the sake of a piece of entertainment. Unless you accept that by your measure then a $15 GI Joe figure is just as much a piece of art as the 3d models in Gears Of War.

define the difference between entertainment and art then.

 

[DjangoReinhardt]

Is checkers art? Blackjack? Monopoly? I just don't see a meaningful distinction between those and videogames.

I could possibly be convinced that a well-played chess match was art, but the game itself? Nah.

 

[MGrant]

I want an explanation of why "player control of the outcome" means gaming isn't an art.

I'm not saying that it isn't art because the player has input, I'm saying that gaming doesn't present a unique form of expression; rather, it just serves as an outlet to exhibit other forms of artwork, like a content delivery system. It is an interface by which one can access art and have fun. No one is defining what "gameplay" even is when they call it art. Without the art assets in the game, gameplay is just a list of rules that persist in a given virtual world. That's not art. And with them, it's just a way to get from one piece of art to the next.

 

[Evlar]

They're not, they're industrial/graphic/design/engineering produced for the sake of a piece of entertainment. Unless you accept that by your measure then a $15 GI Joe figure is just as much a piece of art as the 3d models in Gears Of War.

Yes, but movies... the VAST MAJORITY of movies actually watched by critics, including the ones most highly praised by people like Ebert (and me) are also "industrial/graphic/design/engineering produced for the sake of a piece of entertainment". Or material produced with even less noble intentions: flat-out propaganda, like Triumph of the Will or The Battleship Potemkin, is occasionally praised as great art by the art establishment, and not (in my opinion) incorrectly.

 

[Evlar]

I'm not saying that it isn't art because the player has input, I'm saying that gaming doesn't present a unique form of expression; rather, it just serves as an outlet to exhibit other forms of artwork, like a content delivery system. It is an interface by which one can access art and have fun. No one is defining what "gameplay" even is when they call it art. Without the art assets in the game, gameplay is just a list of rules that persist in a given virtual world. That's not art. And with them, it's just a way to get from one piece of art to the next.

In what way is this different from the performance of a known work of literature or music? Like the orchestra performing Mozart's Jupiter Symphony, or the actors performing Macbeth?

 

[avatar299]

I want an explanation of why "player control of the outcome" means gaming isn't an art. I'm going to make a reference here, and I'm not in ANY WAY claiming gaming is like the thing I'm referencing EXCEPT in one limited sense: In both cases the player controls the outcome.

Is jazz composition "high art"?

In jazz composition a very loose structure of rythms, refrains, tonal patterns, and so forth are set down as an "archetype" of a song. However, the heart of jazz is in improvisation, which means no jazz song, by definition, is completely fixed. Any proficient jazz performer is expected to improvise, to bring his or her own musical personality to the song, and it is likely to be a very different interpretation between performers, and even a slightly different interpretation between the same performer in different performances. Yet we still regard the people who create the archetypal jazz songs, the jazz composers, as high artists, right? Don't we?

I mean, the fact that the performer's participation is critical to the music being jazz doesn't wipe away the artistic merit of the composition, does it?

And if it doesn't... Then why would the open-ended nature of gaming wipe away the artistic merit of developing a game?

Okay, I know jack shit about jazz, except that I like it, so If I'm mistaking somewhere tell me but isn't this analogy a little wonky? The artist
is controlling everything in the piece. A player might have a little control in a virtual world that is full of boundaries, no matter how open-ended the game is.

Could it be that the far greater freedom that jazz artist has is the reason what he does is art, and the restrictions we have in a game the reason we aren't on that level?

 

[MGrant]

define the difference between entertainment and art then.

To me, entertainment is anything that one seeks out for amusement. I don't mean amusement in the "makes you laugh" sense, but that it engages and interests you, and often with no real purpose other than to do exactly that.

Art is any form of personal expression, to me. Speech, dance, music, photography (both still and motion), and the like.

Art can be entertaining. To some people it isn't. A sudoku puzzle can be entertaining, but it certainly isn't art.

 

[Campster]

I'm not saying that it isn't art because the player has input, I'm saying that gaming doesn't present a unique form of expression; rather, it just serves as an outlet to exhibit other forms of artwork, like a content delivery system. It is an interface by which one can access art and have fun. No one is defining what "gameplay" even is when they call it art. Without the art assets in the game, gameplay is just a list of rules that persist in a given virtual world. That's not art. And with them, it's just a way to get from one piece of art to the next.

This is clearly the exact point at which you and I disagree.