Games as art and why you shouldn't care.

[Nebu]

And again, music as advertisement is a really recent invention. Who knows, people may be studying Alan Thicke in class 200 years from now.

I disagree.  Music has been selling religion for centuries.

[Mrbloodworth]

No where did I say anything about detracting from the art. You keep implying this yourself Nebu.  Ebert and whats his nuts, likely are.

As for money making, They have to eat don't they? Most artists, like myself, will sell you anything out of the piles sitting around, in fact this one here I pulled from the bottom of the pile, I made just for you, just now, because of your request. Lets me tell you how its related......


 

[stu]

You're saying intent changes the outcome, but the outcome is always art. That's the point. Whether or not the art can be sold is moot. All video games are art.

[Malakili]

Serious question:  Are board games art?  Table top games (Warhammer, D&D?).  If not, what sets video games apart, if so, are all games art?

[Ingmar]

Serious question:  Are board games art?  Table top games (Warhammer, D&D?).  If not, what sets video games apart, if so, are all games art?

Story. 

[Mrbloodworth]

All video games are art.

I said that on page one!

[Modern Angel]

I think the entire premise of the conversation is off. Nerds and nerd culture have a craving for being taken seriously by Real Serious People. It's the same thing driving people insisting the latest Batman is as much literature as Nabokov. One, it's not. Two, it doesn't matter. Whether what I'm playing is "art" or should be taken seriously by those Serious People never once crosses my mind.

[Ingmar]

I think the entire premise of the conversation is off. Nerds and nerd culture have a craving for being taken seriously by Real Serious People. It's the same thing driving people insisting the latest Batman is as much literature as Nabokov. One, it's not. Two, it doesn't matter. Whether what I'm playing is "art" or should be taken seriously by those Serious People never once crosses my mind.

Rap isn't music, rock and roll isn't music, jazz isn't music, 12 tone music isn't music, etc., etc. The new thing NEVER counts as far as the establishment is concerned. It has nothing to do with nerds craving acceptance and everything to do with the fact that new mediums always take time to gain academic acceptance.

[jakonovski]

Art is such an annoying word and people always end up in a semantics slapfest. Let's instead ask, are (video) games more than insipid entertainment where the creator feels more than craftsman's pride? Cos that's where the key to Serious People lies. Games are inevitably done half-assed, lacking either soul or competence.
 

[stu]

I believe concepts can be art, like an equation or a strategy. With board games, you have a basic frame in which the outcome is derived through nearly unlimited iterations. The creator of the game provides the shape of the frame and color of the canvas, while the players compete for outcomes. A game of chess which has lasted weeks, sitting on a den table, is art.

Games such as Monopoly and Life reflect some of our values and provide enough variables that the object of the game can be achieved in numerous ways. With these games the players are given a chance to express themselves through the framework given, just like in video games.

Board games are an expression of our competitive nature. Expression is art. Board games are art.


(I hope I don't sound like some artsy fartsy douchnozzle)

[Modern Angel]

Rap isn't music, rock and roll isn't music, jazz isn't music, 12 tone music isn't music, etc., etc. The new thing NEVER counts as far as the establishment is concerned. It has nothing to do with nerds craving acceptance and everything to do with the fact that new mediums always take time to gain academic acceptance.

False analogy. Music is an objective thing. Outside of some of the more extreme power noise subgenres something either is or is not music and it can be objectively proven. Art is a far more loaded and ambiguous word. And as far as academic acceptance goes, video games had that forever ago. There are plenty of video game classes, video game history classes, video game pop culture classes... what's not happening is that video games are not being taught alongside Botticelli in stuff like art history. THAT is where the craving for gravitas comes in because the arguments almost universally run into a post modern demand that they be taken just as seriously in those fields of study.

I should add by way of edit that games are certainly low art. If Transformers the movie is art (and it is, just not good art) then video games are. But again, that's never what these discussions are actually about. John Waters would agree if someone ever asked him; he also would never compare his films to the finest cinema.

[Merusk]

Ebert's so out of touch he hears Video Game and still thinks Pac-Man, to put a fine point on it.  However, being a collective of video gamers it's not surprising to find the borg here feels they are all art. 

I'd argue some are, some aren't.  There's artistry to them all, but not all elevate to art.  If you're just a collection of rules with pretty graphics, no you're not art.   When you're using those rules to express something or evoke a feeling then you're at least attempting art.

To illustrate this to Ebert, someone should have asked him if the early days of Edison filming his assistants art or sunrises were art or merely technical demos.  At what point did filming become art, hm?

[Quinton]

I'd certainly agree that not all games are art, just as not all paintings or movies or songs are art.

[UnSub]

To my mind, video games aren't Art because they don't last long enough on an individual basis to stick in cultural memory. Arguably Pac-Man IS among the closest thing video games have to Art because it has been 30 years and people still talk about the character. BioShock was held up as a successful game that was Art, but it isn't generally discussed anymore.

Film became Art when it had pieces that lasted long enough to be absorbed into the cultural fabric. Video games (individually) actually have a problem sticking in cultural fabric because every 5 years or so you need an entirely new 'language' (read: console, operating system, etc) to be able to experience the game as intended. On top of that video games are all about day 1 / week 1 sales and the idea of being able to buy 'old' games (say: released 3 or more years ago) is a relatively new event (and before that there were lots of issues with abandonware... and probably still are).

Meanwhile, I can watch "To Kill A Mockingbird" at any time I want.

So, although games do contain artistic elements, they aren't Art yet. Video games are much too culturally disposable to be serious Art at this point. Give it another 10 years and we'll see.

(Oh and the 'art = emotional response' doesn't work as a definition given that sports also create an emotional response and is typically considered at the other end of the art scale.)

[Merusk]

The difference with sports is it's not being done to evoke that emotion, it's a secondary effect in nuts living vicariously through someone else's ritualized combat.

[Furiously]

I thought art was in the eye of the beholder.

I find all of it to be a bit pretentious, I mean a hick might love a jackalope on his wall, instead of the Mona Lisa.  And you can say, it doesn't change the fact the Mona Lisa is art. But, it does to that person.

I might think God Only Knows by the Beach Boys is about as artful as music gets. But if you like rap or classical your vision of art will be different.

It's hard to have an art show showcasing a video game. It's a lot easier to show a movie or hang a painting or listen to an orchestra.

Move the thread to politics is my suggestion.

[rk47]

two words. Heavy Rain. 

[Margalis]

Man who gives a fuck?

Creating a good game takes both art and craft.

[lamaros]

Man who gives a fuck?

Creating a good game takes both art and craft.

[apocrypha]

The question "Is it art?" is stupid and pointless. The only question that really matters is "Is it good art?".

But then that also depends on who's definition of "good" you're talking about. What most of us know as "good art" is really just "art that has made a lot of money for rich people" or "art that elitist art critics decide is good".

The time spent discussing the nature of art (and any specific medium in relation to it) would always have been better spent just going and creating something instead. And yeah, I'm aware of the irony inherent in that statement. 

[tgr]

The real problem with the "art" of games is that there aren't enough artists working on them.  By artists I mean creative people with good ideas.

Whereas this is creative and a great idea:



I'm actually somewhat curious as to why it seems to be so important to some people to insist on games being art. Honestly, as has been said before here, it adds nothing to the games themselves if they are (or aren't) seen on as art, except maybe an added pride of the profession. I mean, I'm all for calling games art if that'll give the guys that make games art feel more pride, but I'm not entirely sure you want to invoke the art clause when you have "artists" sprinkle icing on a dog poo and call it art:



I mean, really...

[Nebu]

Well, it does evoke an emotional response for some.  Does that same analogy make Serek Dmart games "art"?

[apocrypha]

Birthday cards evoke emotional responses. Doesn't make them art. Or does it?! 

[Samprimary]

I think the real reason that one shouldn't care about this debate is because .. well, it's not a debate, and one side is unambiguously wrong.

Mike Thomsen:

What's most ironic about Ebert's latest round of criticism is that it's based on an invalid reading of the works he's arguing against. After watching a video of "Waco Resurrection," Ebert concludes that it is a "brainless shooting gallery." Of Braid, he says the time reversal mechanic breaks the "discipline of the game," and doubts that "I can learn about my own past by taking back my mistakes in a video game." Ebert concludes by addressing Flower: "Nothing she shows from this game seemed of more than decorative interest on the level of a greeting card." He reaches these conclusions by virtue of having streamed clips of each work online. This would be the equivalent of dismissing a film after having read a dismissive essay about it.

"Videogames by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control," he wrote in 2005. Videogames are art precisely because their interactions—player choices, as he puts it—necessitate authorial engagement. When Ebert criticizes the aesthetics and general concepts of a game based on a recorded excerpt, he is experiencing them as film. A videogame is not a videogame on YouTube. The language a creator uses to express her heart or mind is discovered through a firsthand experience of the allowable actions and their consequent significance. To criticize an individual work on those grounds, let alone an entire medium, is invalid, a fine exemplar of how stupid even our most curious and articulate minds can be.

To be a debate, there has to be some credible level of discussion between two sides, and describing Ebert's participation in his flailing controversy that way is inaccurate. His 'side' is as a single person who professedly knows jack shit about video games, and the other 'side' is everyone else. Even Ebert recognizes the depth of expression and the amount of creativity that goes into video games. The only thing that he's doing that turns him into a 'side' is that he has has drawn an imaginary, arbitrary line in the sand which he refuses to define, he can't credibly show to exist, and that he's sticking with for no good reason.

[jakonovski]

I like the whole "this piece of poop is art" phenomenon precisely because it causes so much outrage.

[Mrbloodworth]

Birthday cards evoke emotional responses. Doesn't make them art. Or does it?! 

[Sky]

Serious question:  Are board games art?  Table top games (Warhammer, D&D?).  If not, what sets video games apart, if so, are all games art?

In 9th grade my friend and I designed an Indiana Jones-based (hey, it was the 80s) board game with a giant map and counters, with tables all along the borders of the gameboard. For art class.

[Lantyssa]

Birthday cards evoke emotional responses. Doesn't make them art. Or does it?!