'Systems-As-Art' In Games

GameSetWatch has an interesting essay about the relationship between games and art. Matthew Wasteland discusses the difficulty in translating other artistic creations to video games, giving Moby Dick as an example. "If Melville had so much as allowed for any possibility at all where Captain Ahab 'wins,' no matter how remote, the work's message and its interpretation of the world completely changes. Instead of destiny and fate, we would now speak of probability and chance." He then goes on to examine whether the logic systems and rules that define a game can achieve the status of art. "Distancing the work from the 'entertainment' of popular games is fine, but even the most artsy, obscure and difficult works must connect with an audience somehow. I am not sure a system of rules by itself is the best method to achieve that. If rules are art, could not one just as easily publish a rulebook, and leave it at that?"

Comments

Rules are regularly a part of art

[Anonymous Coward]

There are rules when reading music, or reading poetry. You don't read a book backwards, or watch a movie from the middle.

Re:Rules are regularly a part of art

[utopiandelusion]

Rules are created after the artform has been around long enough to be studied and compared to a large amount of works. Picasso did not define Cubism as a set of rules and then create his paintings, he worked from his ideas which were later defined as Cubism, using him and a few others artists to cite. The same works for music, most emerging forms of music were created in order to make a sound that was different, strange, new, interesting, etc. They were not created because someone followed some set of guidelines. All art forms are a result of someone finding an appealing and interesting idea, a new way of doing things. Would you design a better software algorithm or car engine by following a guide book?

Re:Rules are regularly a part of art

[Skrapion]

Oh, come on. Live a little.

Re:Rules are regularly a part of art

[Talgrath]

"High Art" is mostly bullshit; it's an attempt to say that something is greater than it is and has no clear definition. Art is art, there are various ways that art is expressed but ultimately they all serve to "explore the human condition", generally "high art" is used as an excuse for snobbery. In short, "high art" is a good way of saying "things are this way because I say so"; when Roger Ebert was given ample proof that video games are art, he hid behind the "high art" shield and those with any sense dismissed him as an idiot (which he is).

I'd say trying to isolate the rules of the game is a disservice to games as art; or art in general. If we take the "rules" away from various forms of poetry and just studied them, they're just rules governing structure in writing poetry; by the same token, if we just take the rules of a game away from it, they're just rules as to how the character interacts with the world. Instead of looking at the rules of an artform, we should instead look at the piece as a whole; as we do for any other form of art.

Re:Rules are regularly a part of art

[xappax]

If games are made out of rules, paintings are made out of brushstrokes. Nevertheless, an ordered list of brushstrokes isn't the same as a painting. And similarly, a rulebook isn't the same as a game.

Rules are simply the material used to build games, and in both a good game and a good painting, one stops thinking about the materials used and is captivated by the emergent properties of the whole work.

you know

[nomadic]

Games are not only going to be handicapped by their interactivity; they're also going to be handicapped by their setting. After 100 years science fiction still hasn't escaped its literary ghetto, and a large percentage of games incorporate science fiction aspects.

This makes assumptions about the nature of 'games'

[Sierran]

...that may not be true. For example, nothing says you can't have a game which forces Ahab to lose. See 9:05 from your favorite interactive fiction archive for an example, or for a more graphical one think about the original 'Postal'. You can make the *gameplay* the point rather than the ending, if you're good enough at it. It does, however, produce a stress on the gameplay designers which is quite different from that of the writer, and it is a mechanic which is not nearly as *common* as the twist ending in stories.

Play-balance is optional

[argent]

While I would say that there are very few games that have noticeable depth as literature, that doesn't mean that's inherent in the medium.

For that matter, very few movies have as much depth as novels, even novelizations of movies explore areas that the movie simply can't reach, and that doesn't mean movies aren't art. Not all games are "play balanced", and not all books are "Moby Dick".

And speaking of Moby Dick...

There are plenty of stories where the ending would be just as satisfying and meaningful if you got there by a different path, or even with a different character. Getting there can even give you an appreciation of the trials of the protagonist that you wouldn't gain if success or failure didn't depend on your decisions.

And play-balance doesn't mean giving Ahab a chance to live, there are plenty of games where it's impossible to "win" one side, and the "victory conditions" are based only on how well you lose. There are even games where the story is almost completely fixed, and all you can do is spend more or less time exploring the scenery.

What is art anyway?

[Forrest Kyle]

This is silly. What is art? Is Beethoven's 9th Symphony not art, simply because its meaning is decided upon by the listener and not by predefined plot elements?

If everything had to have a predefined "plot" in which only one thing could happen in order for it to be art, then things would be rather bleak indeed. One of the best things about art is that it can elicit different emotions and ideas from different viewers.

An artwork is some kind of media tapestry (a painting, a story, a play, or a game or device) that causes the participant to receive external stimuli that elicits a reaction that is meaningful in some emotional or intellectual way. I would argue that a magnificently engineered machine is a piece of art, or at least is so in the eyes of some observers. Who here hasn't look at some amazing code and thought it was just downright beautiful?

How can we not feel like victims of artistic inspiration as we read the fundamental theories of science? The artistry of these elements can be found in the elegant thinking of the men who gave birth to the ideas.

If this guy really lives in a world where art must be a novel that goes from point A to point B, then I'd say he's missing an entire universe of art. Art is multi-dimensional and unique to the person perceiving it.

Like all great artists, I did not read the article. I'm willing to take a break from my homework in order to spout off my casual, possibly ill-formed opinions, but not enough of a break to actually read something and check to see if I'm being a moron. =)

Not now, but..

[utopiandelusion]

Video games can be considered as art. It is a form of media, which means that the medium allows itself to be judged as an artistic form. Video games are also an emerging form of media.

How long did it take society, and even more so the high and mighty art critics, to judge someone like Monet or Picasso and consider it art? At the time it was viewed as rebellious and demeaning to concept of "art".

Every medium has its problems. Photography for instance, introduced the concept of "the original" and what people most often saw, the copies. The original was the negative, whereas what most people saw was the photo produced from the negative. The fact that the copies were what most people judged disturbed the idea of considering photography an art. Yet today, photography is studied and is most definately considered a form of art. Video as well has had its problems, on whether to consider video as simply a mashup of sounds and a series of photos, or to consider the elements as a whole and judge the final product as a separate art form.

Video games introduce a new element. There's interactivity. That's where the art comes in. The audience participates within the performance, and that demonstrates the true art form.

There are no rules for art. A study of art demonstrates that the artists that leave the "rules" of what is currently considered art will be looked upon as progress. All art attempts to accomplish is to show further insight into our nature. Video games demonstrate this exceptionally well, as they utilize both performer and the audience, instead of directing a one way message.

A company I know

[nawcom]

they are working on a few games in where they are integrating what you could call art into games. More experimental than anything. I'm keeping an open eye for when they release their own version of the red riding hood story, the Path.

Tale-of-Tales.com:
The Graveyard
The Endless Forest

Yah, yah, mod me down if you think this is offtopic. Personally I've found their work linked to art the most. I can think of many other games, but for some reason they came up in my head at the moment.

Dance

[Mr_Blank]

Blah blah blah. Is this art. It is all in the eye of the beholder. The author goes on and on, but if you skip to the conclusion you will find

Citizen Kane is accessible and easy to like. It synthesized much of what was known about filmmaking up to that point into a coherent whole. It married technical innovations with a good story. It showed that a film could be high and low, art and spectacle, serious and entertaining all at once. A medium that can deliver all of that in one package is a great medium indeed.

By that definition, dance is art. Dance has highs and lows, can entertain, incorporate a story, and bring spectacle. If these little swans are art then so are these little morons. If we want to argue that the first is art then the same applies to the second, even though there is a pretty big quality difference.

For the players of games, each has their own Citizen Kane. Maybe it is Halo. Maybe it is Super Mario Brothers. Maybe it is WoW. The particular game does not matter - some people hate the movie Citizen Kane and no game is loved universally. The point is that games have highs and lows, can entertain, incorporate a story, and bring spectacle - just like every other medium considered to be 'art'.

Let's get past this dumb debate and move on to talking about the merits of the great games. AND! while we are doing that, let's avoid trying to compare games to other art forms directly. It would be insane to compare Citizen Kane, to the Mona Lisa, to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. That is part of the reason games are having trouble getting their art credits: Art is art and comparing it to other art only detracts from the appreciation of what is.

An incorrect assumption

[Dutch Gun]

...at least for me.

Most people in the video game industry, and many people who write about them for a living, hope for games to be taken seriously as art or literature.

I've been a programmer in the game industry for 11+ years now. I don't recall ever wishing video games to be taken as seriously as art or literature. I love what I do, but I have no illusions about creating "art", at least as this author is defining it. To me, "art" isn't some lofty goal - it's a department.

I take professional pride in creating the best game I know how to. For me, the best part of this job is knowing that someone is having a blast playing the game I had a small hand in creating. If someone wants to call that art, or a toy, or even a game, that's fine by me. As long as they had fun playing.

A different art form

[4D6963]

The Moby Dick example is weak, it's just a case of a work of art that wouldn't translate well into another art form. Big whoop, you can find tons of examples like this between any two art forms. Besides works of art are best when made for the art form they were intended for, and not "ported" between art forms. If all you want in a game is tell a story just like in a movie or novel maybe you're on the wrong art form.

Games as an art form has, just like any other art form, unique advantages, mainly the huge advantage of being more "alive" than any other art form in that it changes depending on your actions and reactions, i.e. it's interactive. Of course you can try to tell a scripted linear story in a game, but in order to use the full capabilities of the art form you'd rather make a story that depends entirely on the actions and decisions of the player. Linear scripted story games are somewhat like a movie in which you'd play a part, you have a certain degree of freedom in what you do but ultimately the story remains the same. Of course it can make up for great games, but it's an under utilisation of the possibilities.

Multiple outcome stories are a step in the right direction, but still an under utilisation of the possibilities, considered games allow you to experience a story that wouldn't occur twice, the "full possibilities" I'm talking about would be a game which would last more than 10 hours in which the whole story would depend on what you do (kind of like real life if you will) and not be a bit scripted. At the end of it you would have experienced a unique story that only your memory would allow you to remember. Of course that's theoretical, it wouldn't be easy to make a game which would allow you to experience very memorable stories, but all the art of it would lie in the algorithm(s) that make up the story, and just like classical story writing it takes a talented writer. Because that's what art is all about, talent.