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Hideo Kojima Says Games Aren't Art
Next Generation reports that, in a February OPM article, the maker of the Metal Gear series of games says games aren't art. From the article: "'I don't think they're art either, videogames,' he said, referring to Roger Ebert's recent commentary on the same subject. 'The thing is, art is something that radiates the artist, the person who creates that piece of art. If 100 people walk by and a single person is captivated by whatever that piece radiates, it's art. But videogames aren't trying to capture one person. A videogame should make sure that all 100 people that play that game should enjoy the service provided by that videogame. It's something of a service. It's not art.'"
Although video games as a whole may not be art by some opinions, the scenery and graphics often are. I'm sure most of us have seen scenery in a game before and thought it was beautiful. And the graphics start somewhere. With design sketches, so just because you bring them into a 3D world, they are not art anymore?
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But videogames aren't trying to capture one person. A videogame should make sure that all 100 people that play that game should enjoy the service provided by that videogame. It's something of a service. It's not art.'
So how is this different from a movie? Last time I checked that is what a movie does as well.
I just bought Resident Evil 4 over the weekend. I'm having trouble buying this guy's argument.
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A videogame should make sure that all 100 people that play that game should enjoy the service provided by that videogame.
Sounds like he is saying that video games try to cater to the lowest common denominator.
1) Such video games, will almost certainly suck.
2) If catering to the lowest common denominator is sufficient to disqualify a creation as art, then most of hollywood's productions are not art either.
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That's unfair. From TFA:
"Art is the stuff you find in the museum, whether it be a painting or a statue. What I'm doing, what videogame creators are doing, is running the museum--how do we light up things, where do we place things, how do we sell tickets?"
So he's trying to make a distinction between something that contains art and something that is itself art.
That seems like a fair distinction to me. Whenever I challenge someone to name a game that is a work of art they always cite things like Ico. A classic example: it's full off pretty graphics, but it's not clear that the rather pedestrian gameplay is part of anything I want to call art.
Even if you don't agree with Kojima yourself, I don't think the point he makes is one that can be dismissed so casually.
Saying it isn't art is not the same as showing animosity.
If there is one question I have been struggling with for the past year, it has been about the nature of videogames and art, and I am inclined now towards Kojima's position. The main problem is attention: there is a kind of aesthetic mode of attention, a way of looking at things that is open to certain types of signs, feelings and thoughts. The videogame mode of attention is not an aesthetic mode. When you look at a videogame "as art," you have to actually suspend looking at it "as a game." There is nothing wrong with it being a game, but one needs to recognize "gameness" as essentially and perhaps incompatibly different from "artness." "Gameness" is still culturally interesting, important, can be well- or poorly-done, etc.
This is part of my PhD research, so I'm not going to eat up this thread with this issue yet. But it is a more important issue than I originally thought, and my views have changed dramatically.
That definition is, in my opinion, a weak one. Everything someone puts some thought into then becomes art. If that's what you call art, fine - but instead, I think of art as a special kind of production motivated by certain kinds of experience (aesthetic or discursive). What makes something art, in my view now, isn't the way it was created, but the way it is meant to be experienced/consumed. Videogames are very specifically meant to be experienced/consumed as games. There can be aesthetic experiences within those games - as someone else noted, they can "contain" art - but when you are really appreciating that experience, you really have to suspend thinking "as a gamer" to do it.
In an MMO, think of the gap that occurs when someone stops thinking about optimal battle tactics, buffs, timing, etc. to comment "wow, this area is really beautiful - the mood here is so melancholic, etc." Many of us have that experience, but it is so out of sync with the "gameness" that is going on that it is striking.
There is an artfulness is creating good "gameness," too - it can take intuition, intelligence, experience, even talent. But that doesn't make the product art, even if the skills required to make it good are themselves also skills that could be used to create good artistic experiences.
art is in the eye of the beholder... you stop understanding art the minute you try telling others what it should be to them.
or even photographic, or music. When you start saying "if you want to sell to the "folk" then do not make art" is the de facto most elitiste crap I heard. HECK, some of the most "artful" old painter or classic musician did not paint for the fun of painting, but because they needed the money. What make something art is not the way you do it. What make it art is the "recognition" the final product gets.
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That's JUST what came to my mind when I was playing Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, and stopped to admire the surroundings of the "Garden Forgotten by Time". It was beautiful. The floor that resembled an old mansion's garden, the textures, the vines on the walls, and the plants, along with the classical music, it had just a "wow" effect on me.
I wanted to stop playing and just walk around that garden. That game is DEFINITELY a masterpiece of art.
Art isn't.
He's right, but people that say that games are art are the same people that say programming is like speaking a language. It's a way for those that do games or other programming types to think what they are doing is a step above others in the IT/Programming ladder. Numerous things that people do incorporate art, but I wouldn't call those things art in and of themselves.
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The game part is where you are trying to beat/master a system - where you are competing against either a computer player or another human, trying to solve problems, master skills, understand the state of the system to respond to it. It isn't just interactivity (much art is interactive), it's the cognitive orientation of the player. It is a very active mental state - while art as such has, as a prerequisite, a reflective one.
I'm not saying that one can never be part of the other. And again, this is very important: I do not think of art as a question of the object or even its production per se. Rather, what makes art are the relationships between object, audience, and context.
I have been increasingly influenced by Gilles Deleuze's perspective on art, in which he describes it as a way of dealing with the world that has two counterparts: philosophy and science. The more I study art as such (particularly painting, new media, and poetry) the more I am inclined to agree with him. There are artists who use games and gameliness to produce art - Eddo Stern and Brody Conlon are among them. But that's a far cry from saying that games as such are art.
Architecture is very specifically meant to be experienced/consumed as architecture. There can be aesthetic experiences within those buildings - as someone else noted, they can "contain" art - but when you are really appreciating that experience, you really have to suspend thinking "as an inhabitant" to do it.
In an house, think of the gap that occurs when someone stops thinking about getting in out of the weather, cleaning and maintaining it, floor area available for furniture, number of bathrooms, etc. to comment "wow, this house is really beautiful - the mood here is so melancholic, etc." Many of us have that experience, but it is so out of sync with the "residents" that is going on that it is striking.
There is an artfulness is creating good "architecture," too - it can take intuition, intelligence, experience, even talent. But that doesn't make the product art, even if the skills required to make it good are themselves also skills that could be used to create good artistic experiences.
Does any of this disprove that food is edible?
No, but it does suggest that "edible" is a bit too broad and should be refined, especially if "food is edible" is asserted to show that X is food because it is edible.
If games should be considered art because they evoke an emotional response, then many other things could be considered art for the same reason: terrorism, funerals, weddings....
I don't dispute that art is evocative (or even that some games are "art"), but I would hope that isn't regarded as a sufficient condition.
There is some truth to this, except that videogames do not made directly onto "architecture." They map more directly into "architecture and use planning and construction." There is architecture within videogames themselves, obviously - the architecture of virtual environments.
The way that it doesn't map over is that architecture as art still relies on an artistic mode of attention and perception when it is trying to achieve the effect of art. Videogames as such demand a mode of attention which, I feel, precludes that aesthetic mode. I don't feel the analogy really applies, though it is one that I have thought of myself (and I consider architecture to be a closer cousin of videogame design than cinema is.)
But I'm really not approaching this as a way to look at art that says games are art, I'm starting from the premise that games are art and showing some areas in which they are common. I jumped in to counter that the measure of art is not beauty.
/dev/zero >/dev/audio for 273 seconds.)
If you're looking for a definition, perhaps one should start with what art is not. Though even then one could come up with a counter-argument, or counter-work-of-art. E.g. if interactivity excludes games from art, I counter John Cage's 4'33" where it is the sounds created by the listeners that is the true performance. (4'33" isn't just cat
Perhaps the definition of art is like the old saw about the definition of pornography: you know it when you perceive it. I perceive the quality known as art as part of the form of games. (It sure is hard to write that so as to exclude misinterpretations (art in games vs. games as art) in English and not come off as pretentious.) A debate on the issue with examples and counterexamples would be endless. Even if one thought pornography and art were exclusive categories, one could still incorporate pornography into another work and have the whole become art.
Someone suggested a live observation of a sunset is not art. I presume that that is because it is a natural phenomenon not crafted by man. Yet man chooses the vantage point from which to observe it and at what time of the year. Especially if he had to construct that ideal vantage point to achieve the effect. As much art as David Copperfield placing an audience in just the right position to achieve the illusion of making the Statue of Liberty disappear.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?