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?

Comments

Anything can be art...

[Buran]

... 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.

Re:Anything can be art...

[SuzanneA]

First, let me say that I'm a games developer, so perhaps I'm a little biased here..

Now, the way I see it is this, SOME games are art, some are simply entertainment. Ok, 'thats obvious' you might be thinking, however, WHERE the line is may not be.

The way I see it, a baseball/other-sport simulations is simply entertainment. It might have artistic elements (presentation issues usually), but overall it is entertainment.

Games such as RPGs, RTS, etc are obviously art, since a storyline is often involved, and I'm pretty sure that most people will agree that story telling is an artform.

As for games such as Quake, UT, etc. Yes, they are art, IMO, and heres why... These games are not based around existing concepts from real life, oh sure combat exists, but the environments, the character/monster design and other such issues all require a form of story telling. The story may not be a linear form of plotline, but there is still some story telling involved in designing 'scary monsters', or an alien landscape.

These elements require someone to put thought into telling the story, whether its via a plotline, or through the environment and creatures inhabiting it.

Anyway, thats the way I see things on this topic :)

Re:Anything can be art...

[nehril]

indeed. Are movies art? are photographs art? Well, it's too broad a question. Films, photography, and videogames are a *medium*, and as such they can be many different things. "movies" and "photographs" encompass things like documentaries, security camera videos, medical images, astronomical images, etc. Whether any particular product is "art" depends on what you define art to be.

In the same vein, it's ridiculous to ask whether "video games" are art. Video games can be anything from educational, to part of scientific experiments, to, well, anything.

The field of photography initially went through a stage where people doubted and debated whether photographs were art or mere transcription. As the field evolved the question became more refined: is *this particular* photograph art? That the technology of photography can produce art is no longer in question. Digital Interactive Entertainment or Video Games or whatever you want to call it will eventually go through the same cycle and come to the same conclusion.

Is Final Fantasy VII "art"? Is Mavis Beacon Typing Teacher? Is this even a valid comparison?

Let me be the first to say "Duuuuuhhhh"

[IdocsMiko]

Of course video games are art! Designing a video game is designing an experience for an audience. You balance a variety of elements such as sound, color, pace, all of which come together to form a unique whole. Different people have different tastes and will come away from the art piece with different impressions.

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.

Art or craft?

[Webmonger]

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?

Art, Schmart

[timothy]

Why do people agonize about whether particular things can be "considered" 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 ... 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.

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

Re:total hullaballo

[wrinkledshirt]

trollin' trollin' trollin'...

If there's one thing I've learned from emphasizing my studies in the philosophy of aesethetics...

Yawn. All that makes you is a critic.

However, code is just a skilled labor position, much like assembly work or something along those lines. You people really need to think before you post.

Code is to a computer game as scaffolding is to a sculpture. You've missed the point, Mr. Aestheticist. If it gives the audience an experience, that makes it comparable to any narrative work, which makes a computer game just as much a work of art as literature or film. How it goes from inspiration to final product is irrelevent.

We're still waiting for the Citizen Kane

[mcarbone]

Any time a new art form comes along it takes awhile for the public to accept it as legitimate. Take film for example. In the first 30 years of the century, film was a medium for popular entertainment mostly but had yet been embraced by the intelligentsia. The medium was mostly used for entertainment, but here and there were glimpses of art or social messages or what have you.

When Citizen Kane came along, here was a movie that used all of the unique elements that make up film for artistic purposes. It was groundbreaking in that the lighting, photography, music, camera angles, editing and so on all came together to form this wonderful work of art.

I don't think videogames have come this far yet. Now, there are many games that give us glimpses of art and beauty (Zelda games, SNES Final Fantasy games, a glimmer in Black and White, etc.) but no one has yet made the Citizen Kane.

And why not? Well, in the film industry, it took the genius of one man (Orson Welles) and the amazing backing of a studio system (which later destroyed Welles). But the videogame industry is so much harder to work with when art is concerned. Not only are videogames really expensive, but they are looked down upon by those people who could afford to fund game art. The problem here is that a game has to be aesthetically pleasing and interactive, which, if you think about it, is really hard to do. Most people just want to run around and shoot people in realistic environments.

So I put out a challenge to all of you videogame makers out there: try to make the Citizen Kane of video games - it doesn't have to be popular among teens or particularly well-liked by the public, it just has to be good. I've tried thinking of ideas myself, but I've failed so I leave it to the geniuses that I know are out there but who probably don't have financial backing. If you are someone like this, I wish you the best of luck!