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Fun is Fine - Toward a Philosophy of Game Design
David Kennerly writes "The Entertainment versus Art debate flares perennially. These participants may be having fun, but the dichotomy is uniquely inappropriate to games. By the end of this article, we may disentangle the faulty dichotomy. After reconsidering what we think we know about a game, fun, and art we may come to discover that Nomura and Costikyan are correct: 'If you were to write a Seven Lively Arts for the 21st century, the form you'd have to mention first is clearly games.' --Greg Costikyan"
How true this is, let's see a list:
Popular/Good Games - Awful Movies
Good/Popular Movies - Awful Games
And yet, these trends will probably never stop. We keep hearing rumblings about a Duke Nukem Movie, a Doom movie, and we're already getting another Tomb Raider flick. But as long as people keep buying these games, and going to see the movies we'll keep being exposed to this dreck.
Why can't we see more games like GTA that skirt the fine line between movie and game?
Mike
I find, as a graduate English student, that I can't really think of any generation or era where the intellectual art has really lasted well. The popular stuff tends to be what survives, largely because it was actually designed for people to enjoy, rather than praise.
If, in 100 years, we look back at any games as great works of art (And we may not - games are so dependent on the technology they run on that they may fail one of the basic tests of art, which is survivability), I do not think it will be deep and contemplative games. I think it will be things like SimCity, Zelda, and other games that were designed, first and foremost, for their players.
Philip Sandifer's academic website
And maybe after the Philosophers come up with a game philosophy SOMEBODY will define a common set of key controls so that I don't have different throttle and weapons key templates for all of my flight sims!!!!
And speaking of flight sims whatever happened to the Jane's/EA gaming colaboration? Am I ever gonna see a flight simulator better than F-18???
--Richard
According to Raph Koster the Art Vs. Entertainment arguement is inherently flawed. I could sumarise the essay for you but I am lazy.o rart.ht ml
Go read "The Case for Art" before you start arguing about being a puppet in a game designers show.
http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/casef
Interview with C&VG Miyamoto Interview Part 1
"The opera for instance is very interesting and can be fun and a lot of people consider opera to be 'art' and very artistic but really if you get down to it, all the opera is is entertainment. And of course long ago when people were writing plays, when they were writing the script for their own play in their theatre, if the theatre next door suddenly started running a production that was a very similar idea then all of a sudden the scriptwriter would re-write his script completely.
So that's probably one of the reasons that you used to see a lot of stories where things wouldn't line up at all and you'd have these crazy stories that didn't match together and people would say: "Oh, that's brilliant artistic expression" but (laughs) really it's probably more often because they were forced to change things at the last second because of other things in the market."
Whenever the offence inspires less horror than the punishment, the rigour of penal law is obliged to give way...
If you're jaded about most of the shallow games over the past decade, you might be interested in Planescape Torment to provide something deeper. It's a role-playing game from Black Isle that came out a few years ago. It's not up to par graphically anymore, but the storyline more than makes up for it. There's a typical isometric top-down perspective of your characters and the world they're in, but nearly all of the game is conveyed to you through richly worded written descriptions of people, places and objects. Most of the game is dialogue, and there are scores of interesting branching dialogue options that develop your character in whatever way you choose, even so far as to be purely evil, which, surprisingly, doesn't impede your progress in the game at all! There are MANY, many different ways to play it that almost playing experience is different. All the dialogue in the game is enhanced by an extremely talented cast of voice actors that lend credibility to their characters. All of the main characters you'll meet in the game are very unique and well-written and there are scores of interaction options that you have with them.
:P It's the closest I've ever come to actually reading a good book while still playing a game. It's currently my favorite game out of all that I've played. If you're frustrated with all the shallowness then I'd highly recommend giving this game a try. It's $10 and up on Amazon, and you can find this in practically any given Wal-Mart or Target for $9.99 in one of those little two-game bundles. For a game that good, that well-written and that interesting for so low a price, it's hard to go wrong.
:)
It's incredibly difficult to adequately summarize this game, but I have to say, the real thing is better than I've described.
I'm going to go install it again.
Games are a very complete form of expression, as such, they're able to convey or express complex messages or feelings to many of our senses simultaneously, but as I'm afraid happens with most other forms of expression, it just depends on who is trying to express something, how it is expressed and who is willing to receive it.
Many games are really complete works of art, you need people working in the plot and gameplay, music and graphics, so you practically have writers, musicians, painter and sculptors all working in a project, plus the coders and engineers to create an environment where all these elements can be merged. And on top of it, it's interactive, no other medium can ever give you that level of immersion.
Someone here mentioned having a bad experience playing PC games. Sure, I myself would say most FPS are just overrated pieces of crap, but I'd never underestimate the perception of those who are willing to appreciate a single element of the game that attracts them the most. Being the music or a single texture map.
I dare anyone to ever play Xenogears, FFVI, Metal Gear Solid, Zelda, Metroid and many other beatifully crafted games to the end, and not come out compelled on the powerful experience they can provide you. Some of them even make you question your own beliefs, some others will make you reflect upon your behavior. When an author is able to make you truly feel something, that's definitely art.
That said, I'm not pretending that ALL GAMES are art. Not all paintings, not all music, not all writings and certainly not all games are masterful pieces of art. But the subjective differences between those that can and those that can't be considered as art are what make our "art appreciation" skills meaningful.
- Otaku no naka no otaku, otaking da!!!
Fine art is not only the ceiling of the sistine chapel, but also the gazillion portraits painted of the virgin and child, still life and scenic meadows. Fine art is not only Beethoven's ninth and Miles Davis' solos but also the minor works of Saliari and the Spice Girls. Fine art contains Gone with the Wind, Schlindler's List, and Freddy Got Fingered. Fine art is Shakespeare, Vonnegut, and silly romance novels. The creative use of media on a professional level to entertain is fine art.
Fine art CAN have a philosophical point, be deep, meaningful, emotionally wrought, thematically interesting and all that, but it can be and often is quite shallow and trite. Every see Andy Warhol's Campbell Soup can? Ever listen to modern pop music? Have you been to a movie lately? Have you ever tried to delve into the meaning of Christopher Wren's St. Paul's Cathedral?
Sure the history of painting and sculpture contains masterpieces, same with music, architecture, literature, movies, and even TV. I'll tell you this for nothing, the history of video games is going to contain masterpieces as well, and because the medium is interactive and popular, it has the potential to produce more of them in the future than the other media combined.