Slashdot Mirror
Are Videogames Art?
Angry Black Man asks: "The San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art is currently debating whether or not videogames can be considered a type of art. They are currently holding a symposium entitled "ArtCade: Exploring the Relationship Between Video Games and Art." What do you guys think about this? Also, if videogames are considered art than what stops other computer programs from also being considered art? Censoring videogames because of violence or even programs because of DMCA-type laws may be considered censoring art - something that many Americans have traditionally been very opposed to?" When Slashdot covered computer graphics as fine art, many of you agreed that it was. When asked about beautiful code, many thought so and gave their reasons as to why. Now comes a question about the combination of the two. Are computer games not considered art simply because of its nature as an entertainment medium, or can video games be considered art precisely because they can be thought of as combinations of graphics and code?
... if their creators believe that it is. Whether or not someone thinks my drawings are art, I think they are -- and that makes them art. They take skill to create, and I take joy in making them. That, I think, is art.
i am a soviet space shuttle
Video games are as much art as movies are. In fact, one of my hopes for the gaming industry is to see it mature - at least in some ways - into something similar to the movie industry, where there is room not only for the heavily-produced blockbusters, but also for more artisticly-inclined "indy" titles.
Art forms like video games tend to get mired in these sort of debates because they lack snob appeal. People figure that if it doesn't need an endowment, it's not art. People don't sit in high-rent apartments in an artsy-fartsy section of town in fancy clothes sipping spritzers and discussing the finer points of Q3, so it must not be art.
Science fiction has gotten mired down in this debate, as has commerical art of all forms, as did theater at one time. Good grief.
To me, it seems that computer graphics can definitely be art. But programming is more of a craft. It's about making something well. And just like a well-executed piece of furniture, a program's internal beauty is irrelevant to the users-- it's how it looks and how it works that matters to the people who use it.
Sure, computer games contain art. Their music and images often have artistic worth. But we want computer games that are well designed and skillfully executed, not artistic statements.
I'm a programmer, and I've got a lot of respect for the creativity and hard work that goes into computer games. But I see them as a craft, not an art.
Anyone know why this is a story instead of a poll?
The same is true with video games. System Shock 2 *IS* scary and only a skilled team of artists could craft such a thing. Does anyone remember playing DOOM at night and being in an area with strobe lights, those invisible demons growling and the like? Did that stir any emotions in you? Probably yes. Such a feat is a work of art.
Creating such things is an artform that is developed and perfected by people who like to do it.
I dunno, consider when Unreal came out.
Absolutely stunning even in low res.
Remember the userfriendly cartoon:
"That is the prettiest slide show I've ever seen.
What is it called?"
Answer: "It's 'Unreal'".
Now, the code being beautiful, by extension.
Humm...code is the tool of the trade, the brush, if you will, the screen the canvas and the results can be artistic.
But then again, coding has been called "an art form".
Form is the active word. Not art, per se, but a way to create art, or express yourself via code.
Any other thoughts out there?
If it is not on fire, it is a software problem.
If I throw a urinal into a museum, or yell "DADA!" out in the streets, everyone agrees that it's art (because it's been established as so).
But if I band together some talented artists, animators, and ingenious programmers, and create something truly remarkable like Deus Ex or Halo, people question it.
Such things (vidgames) would not exist without human creativity. They're physical manifestation of human creativity. If that's not art, what is?
Moderators should have to take a reading comprehension test.
Why do people agonize about whether particular things can be "considered" art?
... again, a matter of intention. If I make an object with a long metal prong flattened into a small, blunted, flat-edge blade that happens to fit into the slot at the end of a woodscrew, and declare that the primary purpose and my artistic intent is for it to be manipulated by human hands to express the beauty of simple machines by inserting or removing screws from objects, Fine -- it's art that happens to serve as a screwdriver. That doesn't make every screwdriver art.
If you consider something to be art, who the heck is going to stop you? Other people might disagree (hey, my thoughts on art may vary from yours -- so what?) but that's about the extent of it.
Now given that, I don't particularly agree that video games are art, *unless that's what the creator intended*, in which case I have no objection -- then it's art. IMO (which one one else has to buy), Art is *intentional* - accidental doodles, sunsets, plants, shadows, streams or functional objects might be artful, or beautiful, or even artistic, but things get too floppy for me if anything that happens to look nice, or that makes you think, is automatically "art." Not everything sculptural (Zhang Ziyi, for instance, or a Nagra tape recorder) is actually sculpture.
Having groused that practical objects which happen to be pretty aren't, I would say that the other direction is not quite the same, though. An artwork could have a hands-on function which rendered it a useful object
Maybe this helps to explain why I think the money given to the NEA would be much better given to model rocket clubs around the country, or never taken from taxpayers in the first place.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I'm an avid video game player, and have been for several years. At first, I read this story and said to myself "HELL NO", as I really don't buy into much of the modern art out there today. A lot of it does not seem to be the result of talent, thought, meaning, or artform. The same thing can be said about MANY video games. This is why I originally said "HELL NO". However, there are exceptions. Final Fantasy is perhaps one of the most moving video game series every produced on this planet. It has story, it has beauty, depth, and meaning. It is art. Just as there exists art with little or no apparant worth to me, there exist video games with little or no apparant worth. Yet, there are the few that truly qualify as art. So, in conclusion: some video games should be considered art, just as some "art" should really not be considered art.
Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains.
As many of my compatriots have already stated, there is no doubt that Games are art, or have the potential to be. The question for me is: What can Games do as an art, which is different from Movies and Books? The answer is simple, if not a little obvious: The if statement. Although it has been tried with interactive movies and Choose-your-own-adventure books, only in games have truly interactive stories come to some sort of life. The basic difference is the role of the viewer/reader/player in the story world. For both Movies and Books, the user is just a passive observer, seeing exactly what the artist wanted them to see. With games however, leeway is given; they become an active character in the story, which opens up whole new avenues of experience. Very few if any games have taken real advantage of these differences as of now. But I think (or hope perhaps) that as games become a little easier to develop (via more generalized code components) it will become a much more rich medium. For a first glimpse at this sort of thing, check out the 2001 Interactive Fiction Competition
So there I was, juggling apples and small animals, when I accidentally bit into the wrong one...
Ok, movies are considered art. Music is considered art. These are both entertainment mediums so I would highly doubt that if it is infact because it is an "entertainment medium" that video games would not be considered art. I think the biggest deal lies in the interactive nature of it. A sculpture, painting, etc are not interactive besides looking and maybe touching. Video games take in all your senses except smelling and I'm sure the ps7 will even do that. But think about it, how many of you have put a game on and just been blown away by it to the point where you sit there like an idiot just watching? I can humbly say that there have been a few ocasions I have done that... the biggest being the Lunar series for Sega CD which blew away anything else at the time. Lets see what else... maybe Myst the first time I saw it (even if it is a stupid game), Ecco the Dolphin on Sega CD, etc. I guess it all comes down to the definition of the word art, which dictonary.com says is:
art1 (ärt)
n.
1. Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature.
2.
1. The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.
2. The study of these activities.
3. The product of these activities; human works of beauty considered as a group.
3. High quality of conception or execution, as found in works of beauty; aesthetic value.
4. A field or category of art, such as music, ballet, or literature.
5. A nonscientific branch of learning; one of the liberal arts.
6.
1. A system of principles and methods employed in the performance of a set of activities: the art of building.
2. A trade or craft that applies such a system of principles and methods: the art of the lexicographer.
7.
1. Skill that is attained by study, practice, or observation: the art of the baker; the blacksmith's art.
2. Skill arising from the exercise of intuitive faculties: ?Self-criticism is an art not many are qualified to practice? (Joyce Carol Oates).
8.
1. arts Artful devices, stratagems, and tricks.
2. Artful contrivance; cunning.
9. Printing. Illustrative material.
I would say that just based on the first two definitions that video games are not only art but infact are more art than anything else. Just read them again and think about them in regards to video games.
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
Forgive me if this doesn't seem to have much direction, but this is something I've thought a bit about. I'm a student at a private fine arts college, and I'm one of the few there with interests in video games, programming, etc.
Scott McCloud of "Understanding Comics" fame once wrote that art is anything not springing directly from man's need to survive or procreate. In that sense, well, playing video games could be considered an art, but making them stems from a creator's need to earn money, so he can eat, so he can survive-- not art. But there are other, easier ways to make money; the video game creator chooses to make games because he or she is good at it and (hopefully) has an interest in the field. He or she puts personal touches into their work and it's different from what anybody else could do-- art.
It's a tough call, this. Because since Marcel Duchamp put a bicycle wheel upside down on a pedestal almost a hundred years ago and declared that it was art because he said it was, a sort of Pandora's Box has been open: we've got the most liberated sense of art there ever has been (an artist can do anything he wants and try to sell it, really) but we've also got cretins that feel art is simplistic and easy, because they don't understand the thought behind found objects or abstract expressionism or anything else to come along in the twentieth century.
I tried telling a friend while we were in a Renaissance history class about how it seemed to me that the development of 3D engines like Carmack's Quake and Sweeney's Unreal had some interesting parallels to the development of rendering techniques in Italian painting of the 15th century onward. The Italian painters started off with flat images, little depth, and distance was conveyed by placing objects higher on a picture plane-- it was the Wolfenstein era, you could say. But then artists like Giotto (if memory serves) came along, and started figuring out better ways to shade, to manipulate color, and to make objects seem rounded-- to actually occupy a space. The Renaissance of painting started, and it was like the first Quake. And so on and so forth.
Where are we now? Well, the technical craft has all but been mastered in video games; it's not photoreal, so games are somewhere around the middle-18th century, I'd wager. I can't wait until the technical aspect becomes so perfected that it becomes boring to the artists making video games; then the modernist era of videogames begins, and we can see just what kind of creativity these guys really have.
(A note on the above: I'm no expert in the history of painting or the history of games, so the paragraphs above are mostly meant to illustrate the similarities in the goals of the painters and the programmers. Anybody's free to correct me if I'm wrong.)
But then there's the commercial aspects of the video game industry. A lot of games are made for money. It's much like the film industry, I think, where you've got some works that are obviously done to make a buck (the latest Schwarzenegger flick) and then some that are done for the passion of the craft (Wes Anderson, Darren Aronofsky, to name a few of the better of the younger generation, and so on). But it'd be impossible to say that there is no art in the film industry, just because it's driven by money. It applies the same way to video games: Miyamoto's "Pikmin" is art, the new "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" probably is not.
So where am I ending up with all of this? I don't know, I suppose it's all just food for thought. My personal feeling is that video games certainly are art, and it's nothing but snobbery from the elitist old guard that says they're not. You've gotta get with the times.
Code is the paint. Video games are the art.
You know that Beethoven was the first musician be considered an artist. Before that, they were considered skilled laborers. Mozart was very skilled at cranking out beautiful music in short order. Now, we consider music to be art. Photography and motion pictures went through the same transition. What happened? Debates like this. So, thank you for calling programming a "skilled labor position." It gives this debate a certain legitimacy.
You should note that "assembly work" (by which I assume you mean "assembly line work") is not considered to be skilled labor. Also, I was not aware that "code" is a position. Maybe you, too, should think before you post.
Mind you, idiotic posts like yours are kinda what I expected from this thread. I mean, ask a bunch of twatty nerds what art is and receive a bunch of retarded answers, why don't you?
Can they be any less of an art than cinematography?
The effort to combine storytelling, visuals, music and game mechanics requires an enourmous amount of talent on the part of a director / producer for his vision to shine through. The same is true for movies.
This is why it is much easier to look at a painting or a poem and see that it is a reflection of the artistic and creative vision of the creator, as he or she had full control over the creative process.
As far as coding itself is concerned, IMO the idea of it being a craft seems for the most part a little more fitting. Squeezing performance out of a limitted hardware platform is more a result of skill and intelligence, much like an innovative design for a bridge.
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
___
Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum.
Not all programming is art any more than all painting is art. Some painting is just putting a color on a house. It's not artful, it's functional. Some programming is exactly the same way. Being the hundred thousandth CS student to write a quick sort does not make you an artist.
Videogames are art. I define "art" as anything that requires creativity. However, most videogames aren't fine art. This is because the medium of video game is inherently a form of entertainment, and was created as a way to make money. Yes, video games have come a long way since SpaceWar!, but most still aren't fine art.
For a videogame to be considered fine art, in my opinion, it must have an emotional impact upon the player. Therefore, most engaging RPGs could be considered fine art, in the same way that an engaging story would be. What about those "survival horror" games? Fine art, they (most of them *cough cough Clock Tower*) cause fear, even though most of them don't tell stories.
Or, fine art videogames must be original. You can't just put an artsy spin on a cliched genre and succeed. When I think of videogames as art, several titles come to mind: Diablo I, Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill, Super Mario 64, Zelda: OOT, Ultima IX, Baldur's Gate. All of these introduced new things to their genres, all of these were original. Sequels are rarely fine art because they're not original. Example: Resident Evil = Fine art. Its sequels, however, were mainly rehashings of the original with new puzzles and enemies.
Or, a fine art videogame can be innovative. Game developers, add something new to games! All platformers were mostly the same, then Abe's Odyssee came along. All 3rd person shooters were mostly the same, then MGS came along. All PC RPGs were mostly the same, then Baldur's Gate came along. Did anyone realize that these games actually added something new to the genre? That they weren't clones of old games? Cold that be why they were so fun? Innovate! Arguably one of the most underrated titles in the PSX's history was Ape Escape. Why? It actually used the 2nd analog stick as control for weapons! It was a work of art - it forced us to think about controlling differently.
My two cents.
-ChardishAll those board games were about entertainment and/or fantasy. Did they serve a purpose like a tool? No, they were there for the purpose of entertainment to the beholder. Video games I would say are even more so art than boardgames. They let you live out fantasies or just enjoy the beautiful surroundings (i.e. riven). Some would even bring into question alot about ethics and political espoinage, etc. (i.e. dues ex). So it really is a matter of perspective, which is what art is anyway.
;)
p.s. Of course only free and open source games are truly art. The other stuff is commercially produced so it doesn't really count.
"It has always been this way and it won't change, god bless the fucked up USA" The Briefs
The difference between art and craft, as defined by my college English department, is as follows:
-Art forges new ground and manifests new ideas
Pros: Can be the most interesting creations
Cons: Often misunderstood, too strange, or
just meaningless
-Craft repeats what has been done before in new combinations and perhaps with a new twist
Pros: Gauranteed to be decent; based on a
previous success
Cons: Gauranteed not to raise eyebrows; based
on a previous success
Obviously this is not a clear-cut distinction - one could easily find border cases in any medium which is somehow considered art. However, it seems obvious that craft cannot exist without art of some degree; in order to copy an idea, the idea must have been created new by someone once.
We can easily find computer and video games that seem to fall well into either catagory. Art would be a game that broke new ground and was unlike anything that came before it, like Wolfenstein 3D, or Lemmings. Craft would be a game that did what has been done before, with little creativity (Spear of Destiny, or an add-on of new Lemmings levels) or a lot (Half-Life). Once again, it's easy to find border cases, like each new iteration of the ID 3D engine, which were full of new ideas but based on the same old one.
We can see, though, that even if most or almost all computer games fall into the Craft category, and even if some are border cases (they eventually fall into one of the two categories), that the medium as a whole is an artistic one. Craft is simply a word that means uncreative art. Just because it lacks snob appeal doesn't mean it isn't aesthetically pleasing.
Since all computer and video games have no purpose other than to entertain, the medium must be considered an artistic one. Craft does not exist in a medium without the potential for art. The quality of the art, and whether or not it is ideal enough to escape the title "craft," does not, even in the cruelest cynic's video-game-hating eyes allow its dismissal as anything less than poor art. We may notice that the assertion that the art is poor is a qualitative statement, which is in the eye of the beholder, but that the asswertion that it is art at all is a quantitative one and bears no argument. Cogito ergo sum - if someone thinks it's art, the harshest blow one can deal it is say it isn't very good.
PUBLIC SPLIT ON WHETHER BUSH IS A DIVIDER -CNN scrolling banner, 10/15/2004
Simply designing an experience for an audience does not necessarily create art. A balance betwixt sound, color, and pace is not necessarily art. (The following example is not designed to draw flak. I am not anti-porn or pro-censorship or whatever by any means..) Most porn, for example, is an experince designed for an audience in which sound, color, and pace is more or less balanced. For the most part, however, porn is an object for consumption and not for contemplation. It's just a quick way to get from point A to point B. Porn, again for the most part (not exclusively), is not an end unto itself but a tool designed for a very specific purpose or set of purposes.
Many modern conventional movies are the same way. Though they may be artistic -- that is, the camera work may be spot-on, the scoring unusually good, or the costumes particularly well-done -- as a whole many movies cannot be admitted as art in large part, I think, because of a lack of an intention to be treated as such. Intention _must_ be taken into consideration. There *is* a difference between a movie and a film, between "movies" and "cinema" (beyond, of course, the fact that 'film' and 'cinema' are, I think, derived directly from French). The difference lies not only in how members of each are treated but in why they are made. So too are most (not all by any means, but most) video games designed for consumption and not contemplation.
I imagine that a 'movie/film'-type paradigm will emerge among video games once they begin to be looked at and criticized more seriously. I seriously hope that game reviewers will learn to stop throwing around the term "beautiful" so much. It and other similar terms imply a degree of depth that for the most part I just haven't yet seen in most console and computer releases. I think it's *entirely* appropriate that we ask ourselves the last time -- or indeed, if ever -- we were truly moved by a piece of electronic entertainment. Could we perhaps throw these out into the before we christen the entire genre as art? Please? Ones that occur to me include:
Homeworld (the destruction of Kharak was particuarly unbelievable...poignant music, great voice acting, the slow movement of the fireball across the surface of the planet, the piteousness of the task of retrieving the 600,000 colonists, the last of their race...play it, it's amazing)
Photopia, retrievable at the author's home page -- http://adamcadre.ac -- dubiously interactive, but a very moving story that I don't think could have been as effectively told through another medium)
Check out http://www.ifcompetition.org/ -- a lot of interactive ficiton is really straining the borders between computer games and art..indeed, there is an interactive fiction art gallery... http://members.aol.com/iffyart/gallery.htm But I ramble. aanyway.
Are books art?
The only difference between literature and videogames is interactivity and paper.
Both are highly narrative, both tell stories, both are creative escapes.
Some video games might not qualify, because of their limited focus or nonexistant plot. Tetris and space invaders and Civilization, for example, have more in common with a board game then a novel. These might be cultural achievements perhaps, but are no more art then Chess or Checkers.
However, how do some video games _not_ qualify? How can stories like those told in Half-Live or Unreal or Arcanum or Diablo or even Doom be considered anything but storylines?
Demoscene - Music, Gfx, DEMOS!
The largest computer artforms is the demo. These demos are music and gfx wrapped into a small package.
There are contests around the world called "Demo Partys" which give awards on best gfx, best music, best demos in sizes (64K,etc), 1 hour to compose tunes with a set of samples, best mp3, best Gfx, most genuine.
Many of these artists and musicians are working in the game industry or entertainment industry. Many of the older 64/apple/amiga game musicians are working for the largest game companies, creating tunes for your games you play today.
Assembly - The largest Demo party in the world
OrangeJuice - Demoscene information center
Google demo directory.
Nectarine - 100% scene music radio!
Crystal Melon - Famous cracktros (minidemos) many converted to Shockwave so people can view them. (They were on a c64 and Amiga!)
If you interested in video game, demo music, mods (4 channel) music, is like a midi with the wave files included.
Check out
Nectarine - 100% scene music radio!
Mod Archive
Google Mod directory
Aminet AmiNet mod archive.
C64: Back in Time CD Rob Hubbard, Martin Galway, Ben Daglish, Chris Hülsbeck, Peter Clarke - Music Game Gods.
Video games are also art in other, more subtle ways. Just as artists celebrated "pop art" by enshrining elements from everyday life in their works--such as the famous painting of Campbell's Soup cans, or the countless works which used the pixellated dots of the print medium--so are videogames a celebration of their times and the aesthetics of the time.
Take the vector graphics of many early arcade games--they reflect their times, and have their counterparts in films of the day such as *WarGames* where the computer Joshua plays through scenarios on giant vector screens at Norad; they are an enashrinement of the technology of the period, and embody it. Take the vector game Star Wars, and show it beside clips of the same actions that occur in the Star Wars movie, and you have a pop art statement as interesting as any made by the great pop artists.
How about Dragon's Lair as an attempt to express something in a medium that wasn't entirely adequate, resulting in a quirky experience that transcends the limits of the medium even for its shortcomings?
The very design of arcade game machines and game consoles is art, much as authentic furniture from the fifties and sixties is prized today for its aesthetic qualities. Such furniture was designed to be entirely functional, not as art--yet it embodies a style and spirit which is today viewed as a certain artistic style, just as the art nouveau reflected in turn-of-the-century Continental signs and gates and baubles, or the art deco reflected in common household decorations of the twenties and early thirties.
The same sort of art can be seen in these functional bits. Look at the extreme angles in a Defender cab, the sweeping design of a Star Wars cockpit--as worthy of being called art as any art deco figurine. Or, how about setting up an exhibit to contrast the design of home consoles, from the 70s inlaid fake woodgrain and brushed metal of an Atari 2600 to the functional boxiness of a NES to the sleek black of a Genesis to the colorful GameCube.
The games themselves can be displayed in a similar manner, with demos running to show the simplicity of Pong's attempt to represent tennis in a 2d world on through Star Wars' attempt to represent the cutting-edge 3d technology of the film through simple vector displays on to the ever more complex and imaginative titles which left simply trying to recreate reality in the 80s and went on to create whole new worlds and fantasies--the Mario of Donkey Kong and Super Mario Brothers as a simplified representation of the hero saving the princess; Pac Man best expressed by the hunger which his Japanese creator in interviews says is the driving (pizza-inspired) idea behind him; Doom's attempt to put the player in a post-apocalyptic world as the protagonist, whereas films have always kept the viewer as a third party to the action; Quake 3 or UT's realism, while portraying the same post-apocalyptic sort of dystopia; the dizzying multi-axis world of the Descent games; Tomb Raider's attempt to make everyone an Indiana Jones; House of the Dead, in the words of the judge who recently struck down a local ban on violent arcade games, who noted it has creativity and even instills a positive message of protecting the innocent by attacking the evil; Duke Nukem and his countless fan levels as the epitome of masculine stereotypes; Discworld the videogames as concrete visual implementations of the world created by the Discworld novels; etc. etc.
To distill my longwinded claptrap: yes, videogames are obviously art.
Chasing Amy
(We all chase Amy...)
"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws"-Tacitus
Take a good computer game, rip out the story. Place that story in book form. If that book in any way can be considered art (or literature), why isn't the game art?
Games don't speak for the human condition or mind? Go play Sanitarium or Planescape:Torment or Deus Ex.
Before we ask whether something is art, perhaps we have to specify what we mean by art and, presumably, what we mean by entertainment.
If that question remains unanswered, there could be no meaningful discussion of whether something is art or not.
A simple (and simplistic) definition is that art aims at making one a better person while entertainment is just a pastime. By that definition computer games (most of them anyway)
do not qualify as art.
The other criteria I have as to whether something is art:
Does it try to make you *feel* something?
This should be considered part of the above post.
-Kasreyn
Kasreyn: Cheerfully playing the part of Devil's Advocate to hairtrigger
art1 (ärt)
n.
Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature.
The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.
The study of these activities.
The product of these activities; human works of beauty considered as a group.
High quality of conception or execution, as found in works of beauty; aesthetic value.
A field or category of art, such as music, ballet, or literature.
A nonscientific branch of learning; one of the liberal arts.
A system of principles and methods employed in the performance of a set of activities: the art of building.
A trade or craft that applies such a system of principles and methods: the art of the lexicographer.
Skill that is attained by study, practice, or observation: the art of the baker; the blacksmith's art.
Skill arising from the exercise of intuitive faculties: "Self-criticism is an art not many are qualified to practice" (Joyce Carol Oates).
arts Artful devices, stratagems, and tricks.
Artful contrivance; cunning.
Printing. Illustrative material.
I would most definintely consider videogames to be an art form. Actually, I believe they represent a particularly exciting confluence of art and science. The success of a videogame is essentially rooted in its storytelling ability and capacity to elicit emotion from the subject gamer. Sometimes this takes the form of something a little more artsy-fartsy (e.g. Final Fantasy, Resident Evil or of course Myst), and sometimes the appeal is fairly lowbrow (e.g. DOA3).
But even in the case of wham-bam fighting games, the appeal of a game its ability to draw a user in to the action of combat and the clash of fighting styles and personalities contained therein. It's not all that different from what makes a dance piece successful (or not).
Bottom line, videogames represent the germination of a legitimately new form of art, one that combines classic elements such as storytelling, visual art, choreographed movement and music with technology like no other. It is a young form, and one that has its roots purely in the value of entertainment. But is also an evolving form, and as someone who alternately wares the hat of artist and techie, I'm excited to see where it will go.
Howard Dean for president
Probably the best argument for video games as art is Next Generations "Top 100 Video Games of All Time" article. (Next Generation Sep 1996 p 37) Seldom are graphics mentioned as even part of a reason to be listed. They mention things like feel and depth and give descriptions of that intagible something that made each game great. How do you program feel without some measure of artistic sense?
I recently did a simple mod for quake3 were I made the rockets corkskrew. Easy to impliment but they did not "feel" right. Only after several hours of tweeking simply for the right balence of feel an functionality was I satisfied.
You can look at this from two perspectives, either it just a matter of me being willing to take the time to get the behavior right which any one can do, or I had a sense of how the rocket flight should feel verses how it did feel and felt around till I found it. I would say it was the second.
So often you have developers that are very willing to put alot of effort into hammering out all the little details like my example above, but lack the artistic sense to make it work just right and get the "feel" right. That intangible thing that make you come back for more after you've beaten the game 8000 times. A good example (and oh man am I going to take heat for this) is Mortal Kombat. Alot of effort went in to each installment of that game. But the developers lacked the sence to realize that the game is incredible stiff and repeditive. When ever you land a jumpkick you apponent responds in the same way. It just doesn't feel right either. If the developer were sensitive to this and corrected it we would have not seen the games popularity plummet the same day every one had seen all the fatalities.
Now we look at Street FIghter 2 an you can see huge variety of things that can happen off a landed jumpkick all dependent on a number of factors like angle and location in the arena. But, more importantly, each result "feels" like that was what should happen.