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Are Videogames Art?
Game Politics, as always, has some meaty thoughts on offer. Today they're revisiting the perpetual question, 'Can videogames be considered art?'. They touch on the words of Roger Ebert, and discuss a recent piece on the subject in the Sydney Herald. From the article: "Brendan McNamara, game director for Team Bondi, makers of the upcoming film noir PS3 game L.A. Noire, has no doubt his team is creating art. With a project plan that includes 170 pages describing cinematic moments, and 1,200 pages detailing interactive events, the game has a Hollywood-like budget of more than $30 million. 'We control the delivery of the information ... We give players a setting and a framework, we control what they see and do. So how are we not authors?' McNamara wonders if video games are stigmatized because they are a mostly commercial venture. At the same time, he believes that being driven by sales is a good thing." What is the Slashdot opinion? Are games too different from other form of expression to be considered art? Is Shadow of the Colossus comparable to Leaves of Grass or Citizen Kane?
Sorry, but the number one reason that games are not considered art is that they are thought to be for young people only--in particularly, only boys. It has nothing to do with "commercialism". I'm not saying it is good or bad. Go to your local game store--see how many little boys you see. Chances are, it's a lot more than 50%. Yes, you have some (still male) people in their 20's and 30's who grew up with them.
I remember, just on the radio, how a professional personal ad writer said that an example of an unworthy person is "living in his mom's basement, playing Nintendo". Sorry, but that's the public's view.
McNamara wonders if video games are stigmatized because they are a mostly commercial venture.
Because movies, of course, are made for no more reason than pure artistic expression...
You must think in Russian.
Games probably haven't been very good at pulling together into a cohesive art form so far; however, film also had a terrible time getting its act together, wasting years copying stage plays before discovering its own language. Personally, I think that games actually have far more potential than any of the other artistic mediums, especially as they encompass most of the other forms of art within each game. Read more of my ideas on this subject below.
i terature/
http://www.thegamechair.com/2006/02/03/games-as-l
only one everything
Of course video games are art. An interactive visual narrative is still a narrative. Simple games, like Tetris and other plotless games, are simply "games" but almost all video games incorporate some kind of plot or story. "Are video games art"? The answer is 'yes'. Video games are art, just like novels, comic books, films, paintings, and a guy hitting a watermelon with a sledgehammer.
"Good art" is another question entirely.
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DesireCampbell.com
Well, I would not consider GTA as art, but some graphics really are art like projects for ImagineCup But those are more like demos, not games.
Only when people are truly moved by a videogame, however, will videogames be accepted as an artform. I haven't played one yet, though I have been touched by the humor in Nintendo's games, particularly Paper Mario.
Let's be controversial here.
I think the deeper message that we can draw out here is that there is no such thing as art. In other words, there is no unbreachable division between what is art and what is not, and there is no magical quintessence that makes something automatically artistic. Art, I propose, is just a label applied by self-appointed judges regarding their own arbitary tastes. The proper response is not to endlessly try to justify electronic entertainment as 'art' in the eyes of pretentious old men, but to note that their opinion does not actually matter. The next generation, no doubt, will have their own idea of art, and their own view of what will be culturally significant, and the scorn of today's judges have no meaning in this respect.
The question arises though is Vaporware art. When someone says Duke Nukem forever, your mind conjures up some imagery. I'd say Vaporware maybe more artistic than text adventures. You really have to imagine good to imagine a game that's never been made.
God spoke to me.
Well, I think they probably are, but bringing up the budget and number of pages they wrote is kind of missing the point.
ccalam - acoustic versions of new songs.
There is a very fuzzy line between design and art. What qualifies as art is mostly in the mind of the creator. Usually, design is done for a practical purpose and art is done to express something within the artist. Of course, it is possible to do both at the same time. Consider the 'found art' phenom. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Found_art Even stuff that wasn't intended to be art can be if it is presented right.
Concordia University in Montreal has a Computation Arts program. It's about making art on the computer. The graduates find jobs in the video game industry. http://design.concordia.ca/
So the answer to the question is: sometimes.
I wish someone would clearly establish what art is so that this debate makes some kind of sense. The obvious problem is, of course, that you can't really define art, at least not in a way that everyone can agree on. Is beautiful level design art? If not, why not? Why is it art when you put a Jesus Christ crucifix into a glass of piss?
I think "art" is "a bunch of pretentious asshats being pretentious."
Try this and see if you can handle the addiction :q Carnage Blender
Video games simply haven't been around for long enough. We've seen developers that are attempting to create "artistic" games (Rez, Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, others) as well as developers trying to push forward in gameplay, storytelling, etc. However, none have managed to be a breakthrough success (either commercially or artistically).
I believe that the growth of independent games is absolutely necessary for video games to mature as a medium. We as a community need to support those developers that are willing to take risks. We need to support those people that are willing to challenge conventions. Right now, the big developers have no reason not to make more crappy FPS/strategy clones. If you look at the movie scene, most of the creative and challenging movies don't come from the large studios, they come from independents. We need that in video games.
Look at some of the best games of the last couple years. Quake 4, Doom 3, Civ 4, Half-Life 2, etc. are all games that are taking minor steps forward. Sure, the gravity gun is cool, but how special is it? Ten years ago, could you say that you would be blown away by any of these games? Other than the graphics and minor gameplay tweaks, nothing much has changed. We need people willing to take risks to challenge accepted styles, and we need a community to support these people.
To decide whether video games are art or not, it must first be determined what art is. After that, discussions of what qualifies as art become much simpler.
How many times is this silly argument going to come around? Games are not art. Games and art serve two different cultural purposes. Art is about self-expression and developing critical thinking skills. Games are about following rules and dominating others. Just look at the authoritarian mindset of the typical "gamer": these people who pledge allegiance to videogame consoles.
"Shadow of the Colossus", to use one example, is in no way comparable to "The Sea and the Mirror" or "The Adventures of Augie March" or "Bonnie and Clyde". SotC is a kids' game. I don't mean that in a derogatory way, but the fact is that SotC is just a visually dazzling exercise in puzzle solving. Any bright thirteen-year-old can finish SotC.
Which is not to say that elements of game and art do not overlap, nevertheless the two are fundamentally opposite. This is also not to say that one is better than the other. Moderation in all things is preferable.
Some notable titles that, to me, were true art. Another World (AKA Out of This World); Altered Desinty; Star Control 2; X-Com Enemy Unknown; Max Payne; Little Big Adventure; System Shock 2; the Space Quest series; Prince of Persia; Myst; The 7th Guest; Reah; I could go on... "Another World", one of my all time favourites featured an artistic flare I had never seen repeated in any other game, with rich atmosphere, amazing gameplay, and a stunning, fresh and *personal* artistic feel. Very few games grab me on an artistic level, mainly because most big profile games come from big studios, lacking that personal, artistic feel.
Pure art. Almost all the game was artwork on top of a very simple on-rails shooter.
Conker's Bad Fur Day - actually moved and saddened by the ending.
I'm sure other gamers will have their own opinions about games which they consider highly artistic, but the people making this rubbish up are not gamers. They have never played a video game to that depth, never empathised with characters, or felt a strong emotion at some point in the game. Also, the artform is young - someone claiming there are no games that are art would be like someone claiming in 1915 that there were no films that were art.
But then, I think the Mona Lisa is a drab painting of an ugly heifer, so what do I know?
There is no way you can say all movies are art, same with video games.
As a game developer, I would say that games are not quite art. There are a great many aspects of a game that can be considered art. The games visuals, the music composition, and the story are all art. But simply because the medium can make great use of art, not all aspects quite qualify.
The definition of art, for example, does not quite cover things like the gameplay design, the AI, and the game mechanics. Can anyone here actually consider the game Pong as art?
The word 'art' is all about aesthetic properties of the object or thing in question. Pong proves its possible to have a solid game with essentially nothing in it that is aesthetically pleasing. The sound effects suck, the graphics suck, and there is no narrative what so ever. It is still very much a game, but it is not art.
It is possible to create a game that has very compelling art that utterly fails as a game due to ill conceived controls, or having other short comings that basically make the game unplayable.
Art can make a game much better, but that does not mean video games in general are art. So to paraphrase the C++ inheritence concepts from Effective C++:
Games possess a 'has a' relation ship to art, not an 'is a' relationship.
END COMMUNICATION
Is Days of Our Lives art? Is Battlefield Earth? Yes. But not exactly Da Vinci now is it. Games are pretty much in the same area. They qualify as art because they're creations of subjective value created for human pleasure. But they're not going to be elevated to the level of serious art because they're produced in a cynical manner purely to make money. Nobody is out to make a statement with a video game. Nobody is trying to stir any serious emotion from the gamers. They just want it to be fun (and yes, there probably are exceptions).
Games will probably mature and people will expect more from the medium. Right now, they're low grade commercial pulp.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2000/03/01 Penny Arcade settled this shit back in 2000.
ResidntGeek
I find the question blantantly stupid, but then again, it's a question that needs to be asked. The answer is an absolute yes, positive, uh-huh, 10-4 good buddy, whatever...
I'd say the base definition of art is a soul or group of souls creating an expression that, at least to them, seems interesting. Maybe we could even space the 'seems interesting' part...
A video game is probably the most creative venture that I can think of for a single soul, or group of souls, to be able to perform. Could you imagine one of the people these days considered a 'GREAT' artist of days of old being able to do something that wasn't just paint or scribbles on paper, but instead something that could move, and more importantly, REACT to the person experiencing that art? That would be something!
I don't think we've even seen such a thing. We were seeing something close back a decade or so ago with the C64 "demo scene" and their crazy stuff. But I've gotta say I've not seen anything that that in years. If the demo scene still exists, or something has since surpassed it, please point me that way. I always liked that kind of stuff.
http://gamesareart.com/
Alright, time for you to get off of your computer and go outside, breathe a little, take a break away from slashdot, it'll be okay.
Art is about expression of the self, about sharing an emotional experience with someone else. Movies, music, paintings and poems express a broad range of emotions and often in a profound manner. People cry in movies. People define their relationships with 'our song'. These forms can be about anything and can express any emotion. Many examples of these forms (hollywood blockbusters, bubblegum pop) may have little or no artistic merit but that does not invalidate the large body of important work. Good art is generally ageless. A very few games are perhaps sufficiently fluent and emotionally sophisticated to qualify as art (maybe Max Payne, maybe Final Fantasy, some others) but those are so few as for games not to be recognisable as an artform. Like very early cinema, games are an amusing novelty that may well flourish into a fully fledged art form but are currently in their infancy. The vast majority of games offer little more than exhilaration and distraction, no more artistic than a Lumiere short.
Video games can be art, just as films can be art. Video games integrate visual design, sound design, music, animation, and narrative into an interesting means of story telling. They offer an immense palate of artistic opportunities for people who have a philosophical or social point to make, just as any other artistic medium does. Like any other medium, however, the vast majority of output is artistic but not "art" at best, and tripe at worst. A few shining gems of true artwork are tarnished by the many trashy pieces, but so it is in film, literature, painting and sculpture; yet their stature as artistic media are not questioned. The vast majority of people once argued that photographs were not art due to their being "taken" and not "made". Video games are similarly objected to on different grounds.
As a graphic arts student, (insert self-important crack here) the question "what is art" has been asked at every turn. Personally, I use a very simple definition of art. Art is an expression of you in the universe. Now the way this is interpreted is incredibly subjective. Does the intent of the piece undermine the purity that say, a painting posesses? For example a videogame is primarily a commercial vehicle. Does the fact that the intent of a videogame (to eventually return a profit) undermine the intent of the individuals creating it as art? It depends on who you ask, from a jaded outsiders viewpoint, videogames are as much art as a carsalesmans pitch. A well crafted presentation to illicit a desired response, like getting money. However from the point of view of the person working on a texture, or a model, or a storyline, the elements of craft, passion, refinement, and expression are all present. As subjective and touchy as subject of art is, if you look at principles that can be agreed on by atleast a majority of people, and simply objectify your criteria for declaring something art, the picture becomes much clearer. The bigger question here is, what are the basic qualifications art must pass before the general populace will accept it as art. I think the biggest two when talking about videogames is the fact that they are (primarily) commercial in nature, and that they have yet to really change the way people think about the world at large. Once a game comes along that breaks boundaries and helps, or starts a paradigm shift in peoples thinking the verdict will come through. This is what has cleared the line for controversial mediums in the past like videography, and photography. Begin the breakdown!
How's that -1 on pretty much every post you've made working out for you?
Is this actually a debate? If we think about the definition of a debate, we expect to have two sides making reasoned arguments about a common topic. "Are video games art?" produces two sides that define art how they feel, then point out that under their definition it obviously is/isn't art. Since this activity cannot be classified as reasoned and furthermore the two sides aren't even discussing a common topic since they don't agree on the meaning of the term art, it's safe to say that "Are video games art?" is not a debate at all in the true sense of the word.
The question is off because we can barely define 'art' anyway. In any case, games subsume art, because they contains music and graphics anyway, so are we talking about the raw playability of a game? If so, then Outrun, Bubble Bobble, Sega Rally, Lemmings, Strider, Speedball 2, Super Aleste, and Zelda 3, are classic examples of games that have stood the test of time and continue to be fun to play even today.
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HL2 I think is the greatest example of art for games so far, though Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are certainly qualifiers as well. Why do we care what Roger Ebert thinks, though? He's the only movie critic whose opinion I even care about, but he's only a movie critic. He knows NOTHING about games. Even his friend "experts" know nothing. I remember them talking about Doom being the height of gaming. That's like saying a Bruckheimer movie is the height of cinema. He just doesn't know. We gamers do know, though. Games most definitely are art.
Nicely summed up. We can't keep running around shrieking that something "isn't art" just because it doesn't meet someone's particular bar of exellence. Let's not forget that there can be "bad" art. For every meaningful and/or breathtaking piece of art that gets created these days, there's scores of folks laying red carpet inside of a large tube to make something resembling a birth canal and sticking it in a show as an "interactive installation". Don't like that example? Name another cliche. It'll probably be not particularly interesting or expressive, too. Maybe it's creative as a "meta cliche", but not for long...such provokes the reaction of "cheeky bastard" in many. But still, you can't say it's not art.
Someone once said, "The essence of all art is to have pleasure in giving pleasure." I would argue that video game developers enjoy making their games and that they want people to enjoy them, so that qualifies as art. Game developers are delighted when they are told how much people enjoy the games that they create. From a more intimate perspective and working for a game development company, I can tell you that a great deal of creativity and hard work goes into making a game. There are many, many artists who work together to make a game. Even if games are not enjoyed by everyone, they are as much art as a painting, or a sculpture.
The quote link didn't work for me.
I think this might be the link (but it's in Australia?).
Game Design Requires
3D Sculpting and Design Architecture, Painting and/or Photography and Photographic Manipulation, Animation, Story Telling and Script Writing, Voice Over Performance, etc.
In all of the above fields of work (sculpture, painting, photography, film making, acting, architecture, writing, animation, etc) the results are sometimes art and sometimes product (sometimes both). Sometimes the creators are Artists, and sometimes they are Craftsmen (sometimes both).
But Art is more then just a product, it's an aesthetic, a meaning, a feeling, a vision, or none of these.
So are video games art? YES (sometimes...)
for all the same reasons that movies can be considered art.
they Awe us with colors.
they excite us with emotions.
they make us think and ask why.
this does not mean all games are great works of art anymore than all movie deserve an award.
I think Richard Serra (the noted sculptor) gave the best definition I've heard on Charlie Rose a few years ago. Charlie asked him if he would ever collaborate with Frank Ghery. Serra said no, that the difference between art and architecture is that art is necessarily useless and therefore architecture is out of his domain of expertise. Richard Stalman utilizes a similar definition with regards to what he considers can constitute intellectual property. He maintains that it is ethically valid to charge for things that are only meant to be appreciated (e.g., music, literature) and invalid to charge for things that have a practical use. (e.g., productivity software, compilers, etc...) These definitions seem to lend themselves to the idea that video games can, in fact, be art, as long as they exist only for pleasure. However, when one considers competitive aspects of certain games, they become more like sporting events than literature. I think that we can all agree that the game of football or golf isn't art. This leads me to think that video games are a new type of applied art, like architecture. Architecture is art applied to engineering-- that is, it not only involves making a building stand up, but making a building that stands up and meets certain aesthetic criteria. Video games could be art applied to sports-- creating an artistic venue that responds to a unique game. Therefore, I'd have to say that the answer is strictly no. However, it's a semantic distinction, and it does not mean that video games, like architecture, should be excluded from the contemporary art community.
Also, there is an aspect of timelessness to art. Quoting Ebert (and his main argument)
The video game age is very young, and this perception will inevitably change as it matures. I'll encourage my kids to play Final Fantasy and listen to Nobuo Uematsu.
If you can't nail it to the wall and admire it, all you have is a decoration or an amusement.
That's the problem: Games could be art. And games that would be art, would likely be good games (unless you screw up the gameplay/interface part). But unfortunately: 170 pages describing cinematic moments, and 1,200 pages detailing interactive events - this is not art. This is craft, and a low craft. Industry. Production. Manufacturing.
Yeah, the "entertainment industry" is just that. Industry. Recent discussion about Episode 1 commentary was just about that - good plot well blending with the gameplay and the gameplay not breaking immersion into the plotline. Most of game plots are crafted, not created, projected, not inspired. It's bad, boring writing, broken even worse for making some "fun" gameplay elements possible. "The player may feel tired with combat by now so we introduce a physics puzzle arena here" and the player feels "oh god, another puzzle arena" instead of getting interested with how it influences or is influenced by the world events. Who, why built this nonsensical contraption, what for? The answer is one: developers, to keep the player occupied. The rebels wouldn't have time, condition and need to build this - it would take them a week to make, and you can't spend two minutes without being shot at. It's not their security device, it's a physics puzzle. Immersion broken. Or the player is to follow Mankar Camoran to the Paradise. So despite the fact that according to the game he's supposed to be your worst enemy, and should be killed at all cost, if using all your creativity you managed to smuggle your super-poison, super-dagger and all kinds of useful spells into the shrine, then you manage to stab him with the poisoned dagger before he makes it to his portal, he falls to the floor, you get a message saying he's unconscious (a quest character - cannot be killed) then he stands up and departs through the portal. The game simply cheats on you because the plotline dictates you're not supposed to kill him there. Horrible, horrible breaking of immersion. Craft, not art.
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If art is driven by sales, then it becomes entertainment (which is nonetheless art, but also entertainment).
Everyone has their own definition of art. Art can be thought of as anything from Design to Architecture. I think though, if we want the word itself to hold value it should be important to differentiate between what is Art and what is Design, which can often be Artistic. I am a Designer, I am also an artist. Although my Design takes years of practice, as artistic as it is, it is very rarely Art. Art should be inspiring, timeless, original, limited and should hold or gain in value over the time of its creation, that in my opinion is real Art, often imitated rarely duplicated. By this definition games are certainly not art, but that does not take anything away from them being Artistic Designs.
games are definitely an artform. who hasn't ever gone "aww" out loud at chrono trigger, or cried when aeris died, or perhaps even sniffed a bit when both x and zero "died" at the end of X5? it's much easier to create such a touching story when the player can't save everywhere, that's something i noticed. also a constant action isn't a good thing story-wise. a good story needs some good calm moments as well, but not too much. it needs to be well-balanced. anyone else got any ideas on creating a good story?
Yes. No. Maybe. Depends.
I've often considered that the thing which is most functional for its purpose is the best art. Think "chair." Four legs, seat, back. A perfect representation of "that upon which people sit," and you can actually sit on it.
So let's think about videogames. Are they art? Is Monopoly (the board game) art? Is chess? Is a paper airplane? Is masturbation? All these things entertain us, in one form or another.
Fact is, whether or not $THING is art is wholly subjective, depending on the person making the determination. Beyond that, there's whether or not $THING (which may or may not be art) is good art or bad art.
That's a whole other discussion.
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Let's define art.
Art: The products of human creativity. (Source)
Art: The expression of creativity or imagination, or both. (Source)
Art: The formal expression of a conceived image or imagined conception in terms of a given medium. (Source)
With these definitions, I consider video games to be art. I always have considered them art. They are simply an expression of human creativity. Being on an interactive medium only adds to the art.
For sale: Parachute. Used once. Never opened. Small stain.
I think the deeper message that we can draw out here is that there is no such thing as art. In other words, there is no unbreachable division between what is art and what is not, and there is no magical quintessence that makes something automatically artistic.
Maybe "everything is art" is closer to what you are getting at?
Wikipedia, as usual, as a good writeup on Defining art ( Why the editors don't routinely include WP links on core concepts, is beyond me ).
My personal definition of art is anything that inspires without obvious utility.
Based on upvotes, Ageism is the only "-ism" Slashdotters care about and think isn't SJW
More Sport than Art. (Former game designer/developer here.)
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Consider all the artists who don't find an audience in their lifetime. We think their stuff is great now. Their stuff was art when it was made. It didn't just become art when it became popular.
Frank Zappa had a great view of what constitutes art.
Art is anything that somebody intentionally makes and then points at and says, "that's art."
That's it.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
I think Kojima-san's direction of non-game cutscenes in titles like MGS and ZoE can be considered an alternate form of the seventh art. However I think this debate will keep repeating itself without any clear answers, and thus I have no interest in pursuing it any further.
Let's refine the question. Is 'Citizen Kane' art?
Now how about 'Ace Ventura: Pet Detective'?
Technoli
Yes yes a thousand times yes, video games are art. Images, sound, story and interactivity all work to create atmosphere, emotion, reactions and entertainment. That's art by definition. The best examples of this are, as stated before, Ico and Shadow of the Colussus. Games like Metal Gear Solid and it's sequels advanced cinematic storytelling in video games and are notable examples as well. Just because there is an interactive component does not mean it is not art.
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There is much more to survival than just eating and screwing. Play is a vital part of development. It is used to form social bonds and develop an animal physically. Video games probably don't do much for our physical development, but we are at a point in video game's development where there is little denying the social aspect they hold. Whether in mmorpgs, LAN parties, or just groups of friends that want to play some Super Smash Brothers together, these games can foster interaction.
As we reach closer and closer to the point where photo-realistic images can be generated I would predict that, while many games will try and use this technology all out, others will try more artistic endeavors. Much like the rise of photography and the advent of surrealism. I think this can already be seen in games like Paper Mario (especially the as of yet unreleased Wii version), Shadow of the Colossus, and Loco Roco.
I think the transition between something being artistic and something not being artistic, is rather smooth and not distinct. Like in Movies, the position in the art-rating, is very variable. A movie like The Godfather, is definately art, The Matrix is quite desputed, wether it is art or not, Escape From New York? Now add all the Cartoons and Animes to it, and deciding what's art and what not, becomes even more dificult. Wether something is considered art or not, depends heavily on the medium, a theatrical play is considered art, no matter how boring it is. Theater is art, period. Things are easy for those classic art-media, like paintings, music, sculpting. Other forms of artistical expressions are quite difficult to be identified as art, architecture can definately be art, but can also be simply 'drawing houses' same thing applies to designing cars or furniture. Things that we use every day, sometimes blend into being art, but are often considered something that has to be functional in the first place. This is the problem, games - and I'm not talking about computer-/video-games exclusively here - have to deal with. Wether chess is art, depends usually on the craftsmanship of the game parts, a set of chess that is manufactured by a mass-production company in Taiwan, is not really art, though, is it? Now when we port something that classical to another medium, like Computers, it does not become art instantly. It heavily depends on how the game is made for that medium. I think it is best compared to sculting, because the more detail it has, the better the crafsmanship, the more artistic it is. A simple cylindrical pillar, made of stone, wouldn't be very artistic, but by adding lots of details, and manufacturing with superb craftsmanship skills, makes it art, like in ancient greece or italy. Now lets take a look at some Computer games. Is a game dealing about a hitorical event art, when it is well made? Things like Return to castle Wolfenstein, or Battlefields 1942 is - in my opinion - art. I would even go as far as tagging Unreal Tournament 2004 as art, just for being great generally. A Sudoku generator? Well, I'm not sure if this is really art, this is an exampla where the use of a program is more important than it's artistic aspect. Think if it like photographs. There are those photos you look at, and that simply amaze you. Those picture, are not necessarily something elaborate, something made just for being photographed. Sometimes pictures that are ment to act as information source become art, sometimes accidentally, like the 9/11 "Falling Man". A Photo you take with your friends when you're on vacation is usually not really artistic. This is what modern media has to deal with, when it comes to wether something is art, or not. But I think, the general idea, that some game could be art, has to be accepted. Right now, it seems like a mere impossibility for games, to be art. We need to accept, that a computer- or video-game can be art, and asses wether it is actually art, or how artistic it is, afterwards. Just like what we do with movies, photos, design of cars and houshold-items, architecture, pop-music and other modern media. --polemon
EOF
I believe Bionic Commando for the NES (a.k.a. Hitler's Resurrection: Top Secret, translated from the Japanese) is itself a work of art. Play control, story, and overall game design come together synergistically to give a game that is more than the sum of its parts. The guard interrogation scene (fully fleshed out in the Japanese version) juxtaposes the real world concept of torture with the video game wrapper it comes in, begging the question, "Is violence a means to an end or an end in and of itself?" Overall, the game brings forth beauty from pixels and simple pushes of a button from the player, just as the works of Tim Hawkinson inspire thoughts of creativity, spirituality, and mortality.
it depends on the creator. in my own personal "oppinion", if the creator creates the game to output his ideas and fantasies, and etc. then i would consider it art. yet, if he were only to do it for a profit, i would consider it a science of making games.
/sans/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[sahy-uhns] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
-noun
1. a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws: the mathematical sciences.
/rt/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ahrt] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
-noun
1. the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.
**MORE DETAIL if the reader thinks about it, it makes sense. art, the purpose of it is to output ones emotions, visions, and etc. some creators work only for profit, so this i would believe would be the study of getting money out of everybody process. ive included two definitions from dictionary.com
science
art1
and this is my reason.. solely depends on the creator
All your bases are belong to us?
Near as I can tell, by refusing to grant things like videogames entry to respected art, they are indirectly defining art as a medium that is static in nature. Any item that can be directly influenced and changed through human interaction is disqualified.
So how does this apply to other outlets of human creation... like patents or copyrights?
8==8 Bones 8==8
I'm doing the old /. "Joe Sixpack" view. The average person considers video games as the boy equivalent of a barbie doll. It's something you get the little boy for Christmas--and that's it! I'm not saying this is good, but it's the fact. We all have to realize this--especially the ramifications when it comes to parents worried about adult video games.
They are as much art as are movies, music or books like novels. They are just another medium. Like any of their counterparts they may convey a narrative, even a 'message' or an aesthetic aspect, yet they can also simply be dull uninspired trash. The problem with games is its 'mainstreamification', i.e. trade-offs are often made to please the masses, which leads to mega-productions with no soul; it shares this problem with the other media as well, but e.g. a single author writing a novel or a poem will be more likely to express a vision or meaning in his/her work.
Btw here's Merriam Webster's definition of art: 'the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects'
And when you gaze long enough into the code, the code will also gaze into you.
a video game presents a scenario/problem every user has his own individual way of attacking the problem (or in some peoples instances, avoiding them altogether) this isn't art that you hang-on-the-wall per say, but it engages and invokes all sorts of creative and alternate thinking in the player. i could watch the individual player demos of all the CPL/CAL counter-strike teams and have tremendous appreciation for the players individual actions, the team's overall strategies, their execution, christ the list goes on and on. when a player charges into gunfire, its quite interesting to ask the player why he did so, just as much as an audience might be mesmerized by a painter's choice of color or canvas. the third post said it best, really, as cultural climes change as a cause of time, what is deemed interesting or entertaining will obviously change as well.
Myst
Nice try at relativism but the world doesn't really work that way. There is a reason we still read Dostoevsky and not other dime store novels of the same era. Some art works for whatever reason have lasting value, and other don't. The best way to express why they have lasting value is that they move us in a non trivial way and give us deep insights into what it means to be human.
c ards/stereocard.htm
Note lasting value does NOT equal boring, I predict that the Sex Pistols, Radiohead, Spike Lee movies, Public Enemy and the art of David Hockney will also have lasting value and these are all radical non boring artists. By lasting value I mean that we will listen to or watch and admire the works of these artists 50 years from now. The trick of course of identifying which works have lasting value in the present which is a very tricky proposition. Perhaps there are video games that will have lasting value, the original Sim City and Myst seem to point in that direction but even these high quality games don't move me very deeply, sorry. Again perhaps there are games capable of moving people in non trivial, non melodramatic, or visceral ways, but I haven't seem them yet.
I think the fundamental problem with video games now is that they are an ephemeral medium very tied to having the latest video card and processor, and may not even viewable at all in 50 years except in crude emulations. This is not does not mean that this isn't capable of change, but it does mean it's hard to make a work of lasting art on a moving platform. Perhaps this is the reason that 3-D post cards from the turn of the century left us nothing of lasting value. Again video games MAY transcend being a novelty item in historical terms but to me they haven't proven that proposition yet.
http://www.sandiegohistory.org/collections/stereo
Another problem is that artistic masterworks are identified strongly with the personality of their creators, where as video games don't have that same strong personality and are identified more with their publishing houses than their authors. Again not that these things can't in theory be overcome but to not even acknowledge them as hurdles and to go for easy relativism would be very naive.
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
Courts typically determine if something is "art" based on its cost. If $thing costs more than its utilitarian value, then its art. For instance, if $thing = Wal-mart chair, and if someone will pay me substantially more for the Wal-mart chair then it sells for at Wal-mart, $thing is art and I'm an artist.
The best real-world example I have found is a woman in NYC who has sex with men on videotape for money. She charges > $20,000 for this and her tapes are displayed at respected art studios. Various legal minds think she could not be convicted of prostitution, because she charges 5x the market rate for her performances, so they must be art. AFAIK, she has never been arrested despite being well known.
... are those that refuse to partake.
I could say "Interpretive Dance isn't art" so long as I never view a performance -- based on the selective opinions of my peers.
But if I attended a performance and I enjoyed it, then certainly I would defend the position that it was art if my peers questioned that.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I can see that as being a legal definition of "art." Following that, the question "Is $THING art?" is unanswerable, being that no context is stated. "Is $THING legally art?" is a question that can be far more easily debated, as would be "Is $THING relatively art?" (example: a sculpture is art, because there are a wide variety of similar historical examples which are almost universally considered "art").
So, when asking "Are videogames art?" one must provide a context. "If a movie with multiple endings, where the ending is chosen based on the input of the viewer is art, then are videogames art?" To that I would say yes.
You make my friends list simply for knowing that. Got a reference?
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
When a game designer says something to the effect of "I wanted to make something that inspired/excited/changed the player", and it's obvious the director/producer/designer had a large role in the games development, then it's pretty clear cut. That's art.
When a game designer says "I want to make the most intense RPG game ever", then it's a just a good game (potentially).
Sometimes a game gets created for fun (and no particular purpose) but in retrospect could be considered art. An example of this might be kkrieger (I'm probably not the first person to claim that), or perhaps the original Asteroids.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
I'm afraid, to Joe Sixpack, comic books are what you buy your growing boy when you get "Seventeen" for your growing girl.
if by that you meant:
-- both works are by all means great titles, that every person interested in their respective fields should experience, but that are also overrated and are taken way too seriously by fans.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Pong is most certainly art (moreso than many other games).
... the whole thing coming together and having a significant impression upon the user that makes it artistic.
It is that achieves a satisfactory experience through the user's experience that is much more than one would expect when looking at all the pieces individually (sound, graphics, interface).
You could have a massively hyped game with great individual assets (think Daikatana), yet the composition and feedback loop with the user is decidedly lacking. Some character models could be very artistic, but the whole combined product is forced; dead.
Pong is the opposite and it succeeds with the sparse resources allocated to it. That is what I believe makes it a work of art. It is the precisely the unity of design, mechanics
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Download a few recent party/compo winners. You'll find many excellent examples of artistic expression through sheer computing power, even as video card acceleration has begrudgingly become accepted.
Check out "1995" by kewlers/mfx, really impressive use of vertex shaders.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Inspiring, useless, YET not art: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half_Dome
Inspiring, useFUL, YET clearly art: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallingwater
Please try again. Your definition of art needs revision. Everybody thinks they can do better than philosophers who've been debating this since the dawn of civilization (and, likely, before).
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
You sir are ignorant.
He was a mortal combat character.
And he did the ball punch.
If someone 'wrote silent music' - they too should get the ball punch. Also anyone who think's that 'silent music' is worth studying or art.
Is Shadow of the Colossus comparable to Leaves of Grass or Citizen Kane
Of course it is. The comparisson is question runs something like :
"Unlike great works of art like Citizen Kane or Leaves of Grass the overhyped and rather pointless game Shadow of the Colossus contains little in the way of feelings or any real depth of expression".
kartune85 : Incapable of reason, observation or learning. A kind of dim, drab, flightless parrot.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Where did the word artificial come from? After a lot of time art began to mean "the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance." Such an ambiguous definition.
First of all which aesthetic principles? Aren't aesthetic principles the thing that varies the most between different people? Then it is the word appealing. Or "of more than ordinary significance" . Then since a game can be considered "an expression of more than ordinary significance" then that video game is art according to some people, if you could deny so then we could also deny that Shakespeare is art. After all Shakespeare is just a bunch of violence and tragedy just like an anime. I intentionally made the most offensive phrase ever written, notice that everyone is going to have his own opinion of what is aesthetic, appealing or significant.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
I disagree with your definition of music. Music, in my opinion, is a language or means to convey emotion. Silence conveys nothing, but takes on whatever color someone brings into it. It is not art, but philosophy.
No it isn't. It's status as a performance is in question, but not it's status as music. It still conveys the same feeling and emotions. If one chooses to be an audience, those feelings will be comunicated to you. Therefore, it is still music. The recording itself may be concidered a performance if the artists truly tried to convey music. Most "elevator music" may be questioned. But music that is mis-used (tounge-in-check) is still music.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
It's all subjective, but my personal working definition for art is "a creative work intended to inspire emotion". If you balk at the idea of intent being part of the definition, you might prefer "a creative work that inspires emotion", which puts classification into the hands of each audience member. In either case I think video games can qualify. There's a bunch of people who won't every accept it because it doesn't inspire emotion in them. There are people who don't believe any music has been recorded since 1960. It doesn't matter. If it's art to you it's art.
Cheers.
being driven by sales is a good thing
While I believe the creating process of a video games to be very close to what we'd call "art", and game design usually probably needs or involves a lot of creative thinking and production, I won't ever call any production process being driven by sales goals "art". It's just that, a production process, like factories do. Like parfume companies do, like cloth companies do. They produce products that are likely to be paid for by the masses in order to gain profit. Nothing else. Artists [well, in my onw little world] create things driven by their imagination, inner creative forces, a need to express themselves in a special way. Of course I'm also living in this world and I know everybody has financial needs. Still, I refuse to think of artists like commercial product fabricators. This whole issue is always taken up by some people who would like to be taken as artists, and they always take two approaches: either try to raise themselves to the level of real artists, or try to make an image of the artists that would seemingly bring them down to their level. Here they say we are artists and being creative with sales goals is an extra feature. Well, famous painters also painted painting for orders for money. But fame usually didn't came from those works. Working driven by sales goals will create works that are fashionable, that can be sold [hey, this is your goal, right] in masses - art is very often not about that.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
It's a waste of time to even think about this question. Every work has many aspects worth noting, and none of them appear or disappear based on whether the establishment is willing to call it art. A person interested in art for its own sake doesn't care whether the work in question is a bona fide work of art, because that person is busy experiencing and examining the work. The only people who really care about whether something is art are the ones whose egos stand to gain from it: artists and art critics. Artists because they are fragile and need to be validated, and art critics because they would be out of a job (and worse, a reputation!) if everyone noticed that "art" is an insignificant distinction.
I don't mean to recommend that we lower our standards -- certainly some works are more worthy of note than others -- but a work's worthiness does not depend on where it falls on the "art" continuum. It depends on many orthogonal factors which are different for every medium, and are only apparent to those with deep knowledge of the field. It's worth mentioning here that art experts, by and large, are not video game experts. They are in no position to make any sort of judgement about video games, whether that judgement is (artp video-games) or something entirely different.
In the USA it's either science or useful art if it gets copyright protection.
I refer you to US Constitution, Article 1, Section 8, paragraph 8: [Congres shall have the power] "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."
Don't get indignant about it, just say "congress says it's Art, with a capital A."
Some games qualify as great technical acheivements. Some games might be bad art.
Some, like The Neverhood, are great art.
Anyone who has ever taken a screenshot knows that...the game itself can also be art. Take rez for example. There was nothing better than binding the screenshot to +attack in AQ2 then shooting someone in the head w/a sniper rifle...beauty I tell ya.
Look, it's just a fact. I'm kind of annoyed I ended up with 2 nieces--I'll have to really push video games onto them. Boys soak it up automatically.
was done as an entirely commercial venture. I wonder very much how much thought went into that part of the commentary for this story.
Of course video games are art. If they have rehabilitation for them why cant they be a from of art?
GI
called his books the art of computer programming, so I guess games must be an art...
A: Yes. Anything can be art, for there is no counterpart to art.
I don't know if Shadow of the Colossus is comparable to Leaves of Grass or Citizen Kane, but I'd certainly put PacMan on the same level with a Warhol soup can.
PacMan is art and Doom is art as well as many very few other titles. The rest is garbage. Just like with any other art form: Paintings, movies, books, etc.
A pile of giant mammoth metal turds painted red is worth what ??
Less than a screenshot of Pac Man in a frame that's for sure.
Unfortunately, the gullible ("Emperor has no clothes") administrators keep lapping up the total bullshit art crooks and dealers feed them about the true worth of their "discoveries".
The modern art market is completely disconected from reality. Speculation and greed from
fat morons with more money than sense is the rule.
Example : Dan Flavin. Sticks coloured neons next to each other and suddenly it's worth millions.
Ridiculous. Something that gets sold 50000$ should objectively be worth maybe 2000$ max.
And it's like that with most sham so-called "modern" artists.
"Oh but nobody's done that before !"
AHAHAHAHAH
And nobody's put a pointed stick up your ass yet but that doesn't mean it's worth something.
That goes for you too, you stupid bitch painting roadkill like cartoon characters...
And this is not just genre snobbery. Comic books became graphic novels when Art Spiegleman wrote Maus about the holocaust. This was again almost instantly recognized as a true work of art and he is exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York along side Picasso, Warhol, etc. Call me when the Museum of Modern Art exhibits some video game screen shots.
http://www.ithaca.edu/news/release.php?id=394
There are such a thing as standards, until video games grow up and get some standards and move beyond sophomoric relativism they can be guaranteed to never produce a work of greatness. Why, because guess what like all great things good art is hard work and relativism encourages laziness. Why bother to strive to produce great and moving art if everything is just the same and no different than clouds drifting by in the sky in it's level of attainment?
Tired of all the isms, don't exploit people as an employer, or a government, mmmmK?
When we say games are art, are we talking about the indivudual elements or the whole thing? Obviously games have art in them. They have music and story telling. Maybe we are talking about strictly the gameplay, and the verbs of what you can do and the art is just to enhance "experience". Part of the problem in my eyes is that humans have a tendency to disect a piece of work and aren't able to appreciate the whole thing. It would be like walking into a museum and appreciating the entire experience and call the entire thing, the building, the art inside, the museum workers as art. I don't think many ppl can handle the scope of calling games art, because of the depth of what contitutes as art.
If we are to take games as art seriously, we would also have to see games on an even playing field where one can't be rated 3 out 5 and the next 4 out 5. ET is the same as Ico if we are to view this from a purely artistic standpoint. You can compare the craftmanship between the two, but not the artistic value.
I actually googled that, and in addittion to the heaps of expected results for such a query I found this:
0 1044.php
http://www.16beavergroup.org/mtarchive/archives/0
It mentions the tape in question, and also various other performances in the same vein.
A friend of mine who studies art told me that the audience and their reactions many times are an important part of the exhibit, especially in the more explicit performance acts.
Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors!
The 30 year old figure is a statistic thrown around a lot without any explantion. How many of these gamers are playing bejweled on their phones? From Costco to Gamestop, what I see are little boys.
The haunting music in the first level of "Johnny's Odyssey", the silhouettes of your dead bodies in "Johnny's Nightmare", and the deaded piano room in Seiklus, they all simply drip with art.
This same discussion was existent when film began moving into the 'mainstream', and it is now accepted as a contepory art form. The same is true for video games, but it is still a maturing medium. I am currently studing Bachelor of Fine Arts and I have seen a lot more obscure things classified as art; it seems to be anything where you can read any underlying message or that presents any idea (whether intended by the author / artist or not) is an artwork. That being said you could argue that the individual elements that construct the game (level design, skins, sound design, etc) are art but in their combined form they are meerly a device for entertainment.
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Art is a process. It is not just about the product. Example: Martial art. Let me be techincal for a second. You can watch guys beat each other up in the schoolyard, or two guys in a ring for the money, and can label that as art because you are expressing your fear, anger, determination, or whatever emotion is propelling the fighter. Keep in mind that art can be expressed in shades and levels. You can express the idea of world peace everytime you throw starfish back in the ocean. Even if you're right or wrong. Can video games be art? Of course. The funding may be dished out through commercial purposes, but if every team member expresses their inner vision (the game), art is made, and the player travels it, like a looker in the gallery. And if $30 million is being funded, it better be a damn masterpiece. Video games that consists of sports, puzzles, and fighting don't have the need for artistic expression, although it can be done.
...is still a product. "Art" is in the eye of the beholder. Painting, sculptures, and video games are all just different kinds of creative products. I have to agree that "being driven by sales is a good thing". Otherwise, you end up with a supply of product for which there is little or no demand. So call it art or software or whatever you like, if it sells, it succeeds.
I believe it is instructive to understand Kojima and Ebert's viewpoints. Ebert says that: "...I did indeed consider video games inherently inferior to film and literature. There is a structural reason for that: Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control...[T]he nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship [however elegant or sophisticated] to the stature of art. To my knowledge, no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers... for most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic."
In typical Japanese fashion, Kojima is rather elliptical in his reply: "...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. But I guess the way of providing service with that videogame is an artistic style, a form of art."
Ebert's argument falls under the assertion of "authorial control." Regardless, his definition falls down all over the place. Yes, books and movies do walk the experiencer through a narrative that the author controls. But try applying this narrow definition to poetry, or even worse, to a painting. A painter may have a certain feeling that he wants to convey, but the affect of all art exists in this tenuous, liminal space between the experiencer, the work, and the artist. In any given work, the reader's own mind exerts dramatic control over their final experience of the work. Whether this happens based on overt choices on the part of the player or simply on how they mull a work over internally is immaterial. The viewer is always an integral part of constructing the final artistic experience. Ebert simply points out how games differ from film and literature, but that doesn't mean that one is art and the other isn't.
Ebert would do well to examine what fellow film critic, Pauline Kael had to say about that other old chestnut of what's appropriate to film versus what's appropriate to stage performance: "What movies share with other arts is perhaps more important than what they may, or may not, have exclusively." I assert, the same can be said of games.
Although I feel that Kojima's thesis differs in significant ways from Ebert's, they share a notion that art is an expression of an individual: an "artist." And that the intention of this expression is intrinsic to the definition of "art." It is unstated, but implied that the artist intends for his or her expression to be rather singular in intent and interpretation. Kojima's thesis seems to argue in part, that since he is trying to make a popular work, it cannot express his authorial vision, and therefore is not art. But Ebert offers the additional claim that the act of playing games holds no inherent value.
Frankly, neither thesis even begins to make sense. Shakespeare wrote plays that needed to be popular, but that in no way means they
Come on. For one, it's computer gaming (which obviously trends upwards in age). And, 45? I highly doubt there are a lot of 45 year old gamers.
As for costco and gamestop--I go there all the time after researching on the internet what I want. I don't want to deal with shipping.
Why is everyone discussing this so narrowmindedly focused on video games/movies?
m b.jpg
0 .jpg
a ble/chess_board.jpg
Is this art? http://www.eteamz.com/spfldfire/images/soccer-thu
What about this? http://www.shopnbc.com/media/products/K/K12599_20
and this? http://www.fashionglobal.net/game_tables/inlaid_t
They're all interactive and much of the enjoyment someone gets from them invovles making their own 'stories' with them much like you would in a video game. Does that disclude them from being art?