Do you consider video games as art?

[Morgoth]

http://newswire.gamehelper.com/articles/463.htm

 

It's certainly not the first article where this question came up, but I feel discussions about that subject are always fun.

I'd say video games obviously contain art, but are they an art form, or just pure entertaining? Isn't it quite disturbing that most of the progress in this industry today is too much relying on presentation (aka better graphics), "borrowing" movie/literature elements and satisfying immature jerks like us (yeah, me included) with immature media coverage and general hype that still raves too much about production values and too less about intellectual substance?

 

Personally, I think (with a few exceptions) video games aren't art (yet). Those exceptions that immediately come to mind are System Shock2 and Thief(2), because of the way these games lead you through. No ingame cutscenes or static text lines to choose, instead the world the designers created contributes to the whole story progression. Log-books lying around, overhearing guards to reveal some clues etc. and then make a plan, and continue your exploration. I like this more then "run to A, talk to B" or stumbling from cutscene to cutscene.

 

I guess it wouldn't be too hard to make a movie about KOTOR, or a novel based on Planescape.... but how would, for example, a director catch the quality, or "feel" of Thief and make this unique feel an integral component of a movie? Dou you think this might work? Me not, hence it's something special to me, something I'd consider not only as entertainment, but as art too.

 

I'd love to hear something from the devs too!!!

[Nick_i_am]

novel based on Planescape

 

Been done, it sucked apparently, and not suprising since writing a novel of the game in the first place completely misses the point.

 

Computer games ARE the 'ultimate' storytelling medium, where you can both tell a story AND let the user interact with that story in the way that THEY want to. But it's also such a young medium that bearly anyone is even starting to use it right. For example, I KNOW my parents would apperesiate almost every aspect of planespace, and I even asked them directly 'if you were to take one of your favorate stories and put in an element of 'interaction' could you deny the boon to immersion and overall experiance'. They could not deny that the statement was true, and yet, that's not what stops them 'playing computer games', and this is similar to why computer games are so 'under appresiated'. This 'under appresiation' isn't unfair either given the current trends the most popular computer games follow.

[Hurlshort]

I think Roger Ebert wrote a pretty major article over this...

 

I agree that not all games are art, but I also don't think that all movies or books are art. If something is interactive, does it stop being art? It's an interesting argument though. I guess it will be answered in about 50 years when game have a solid history behind them.

[Oerwinde]

I think it depends on the mindset behind the developers. If they believe its art, then its art, if they believe they're just providing entertainment, then its not art.

 

Though if you look at it this way: Literature is considered art. 3d graphics are considered art, music is considered art, games contain all that and more. Doesn't necessarily mean its GOOD art, but still.

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

Computer games most certainly are an artform, but like any artform you get good and bad art.

 

Thing is, some of the artistic quality isn't even recognised by the end user. The art is partially in trickery.

[astr0creep]

The video games business surely must be an art?

 

Seriously I think it's like movies. Video games are an artform that is profitable enough to be a business.

 

Many people express themselves through artform in video games, just like in movies.

Designers have a style of game all their own, like the 3D artists modeling creatures and NPCs, like the writers layout stories and dialog, sound designers each have a personal sound design technique. A producer will hire a team based on each person's individual style on the whole. Everyone expresses themselves, except the executives who only see the colour green but still think they know everything.

 

There is definitely art in video games but it is also a business, like movies.

[metadigital]

... but how would, for example, a director catch the quality, or "feel" of Thief and make this unique feel an integral component of a movie? Dou you think this might work? Me not, hence it's something special to me, something I'd consider not only as entertainment, but as art too.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Of course it could be done. You've watched The Omen, I trust? (If not, go and do so.) Any good director is able to covert the subjects and moods of the written word (arguably the richest and most vibrant medium, though I am happy to note that this is the target of the fiercest competition by the best and brightest of all media: cinema, television, audio, theatre, etc).

 

Witness for the defence: Max Payne. Is your main cross-examination that it borrows from an existing genre (film noir) and therefore fails to be art because of unoriginality? (Or did I misunderstand your critique?) I think that is specious: art is continually re-inventing and re-discovering old forms and re-interpreting them in different ways and means.

 

Photography was originally regarded as the antithesis of art; for the second witness for the defence I draw your attention to luminaries such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and the recently departed Lord Litchfield.

[AlternaFurkle]

Do you consider video games as art?

 

 

[DGwar]

i consider video games an art. it takes great talent to make the things that are created. it is basically 3d sculpture. digitalized and interactive.

[Morgoth]

i consider video games an art. it takes great talent to make the things that are created. it is basically 3d sculpture. digitalized and interactive.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Many things take great talent and effort, but putting your best paintings, your best original looking 3D sculpts, your best written NPCs etc. into the hands of a wrong composer (director, designer etc.)....well, then it end's up in shyt.

As I said, there's no doubt that video games contain art, but a film noir presentation a'la Max Payne doesn't make it stand out, or trying to copy the moody atmosphere of Thief into a movie doesn't make it Thief to me, either. Playing Kotor or NOLF2 gives me quite a similar feel to watching an average movie (with average I mean formula-working movies), as is the feel of getting sucked in by playing Torment similar to getting sucked in by reading a novel.

Shock2 or Thief however gave me an experience that is searching for something comparable. Those games were generally slow paced, and allowed you to use the time/space for exploration and to set up things in context.... something you couldn't do in your 90min Thief movie.

[Llyranor]

Blame the industry for bad games, not the medium itself.

[metadigital]

So Thief and System Shock 2 are irreproducible (by your argument) in other media?

Plus, they contain a poorly defined charismatic quality that draws the player into the virtual universe better than, say Torment mimicks the immersiveness of a good book.

Ergo they are an artform.

 

The primary duty of art, after all, is to give innovative revaltions about the ordinary world.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

YES!

 

deadly_nightshade

[Morgoth]

Blame the industry for bad games, not the medium itself.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I never said those games were bad.... in fact, I quite enjoyed Kotor and loved NOLF2.... but due to the lack of progression, formula-working concepts are getting old. As long as the journalism remains geeky and immature, developers/publishers not willing/able to look beyond the plate-edge (is that used in English btw?) and nobody's able/willing to concentrate resources on e.g. better AI instead of kewl FX features, this medium will remain inferior.

[Morgoth]

So Thief and System Shock 2 are irreproducible (by your argument) in other media?

Plus, they contain a poorly defined charismatic quality that draws the player into the virtual universe better than, say Torment mimicks the immersiveness of a good book.

Ergo they are an artform.

 

The primary duty of art, after all, is to give innovative revaltions about the ordinary world.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yes, I think so that Shock2, Thief and a few other games are irreproducible.

Torment's immersiveness (if I'd had to pronounce that, my tongue would get a cramp! ) isn't better or worse, just different. Like a good novel. I enjoy it for once, but then never touch it again.... with Shock2 etc. on the other hand, I never get bored.

[Serious Callers Only]

Personally, I think (with a few exceptions) video games aren't art (yet). Those exceptions that immediately come to mind are System Shock2 and Thief(2), because of the way these games lead you through. No ingame cutscenes or static text lines to choose, instead the world the designers created contributes to the whole story progression. Log-books lying around, overhearing guards to reveal some clues etc. and then make a plan, and continue your exploration. I like this more then "run to A, talk to B" or stumbling from cutscene to cutscene.

 

I find it funny that you qualify thief(2) since that excludes the superior game thief gold that is in almost any way heads and shoulders above its sucessor (if you aren't a wimp).

 

A good thing that thief 2 has over classinc thief is the fan-missions. Which is ironically mostly used to transplant thief I undead levels (just look at the most ranked missions).

Edited February 7, 2006 by Serious Callers Only

[mr insomniac]

Wasn't the novelization of PS:T loosely based on pre-release material? Thought I remembered reading that somewhere. It still was pretty bad, in any case.

[Joseph Bulock]

I'm going to point out a fact that has generally been beat to death. Video games are a brand new medium. Most of us forget that because most of us grew up with video games, and have seen the dramatic development of the technology that fuels the medium. However, we can't forget that movies were the exact same way back at the turn of the century. Once film and cameras were developed, technology expanded rapidly for about three decades, but many of the films are not what we would consider "a movie" by modern standards. They were explorations of the technology, with only a secondary consideration given to content and meaning.

 

I think were still generally in that phase of maturation as far as interactive media is concerned. We have our Shadow of the Colossus's and our Half-Life's, but these are only the Nosferatu's of our generation, pioneering gems that found a balance of technology and vision that hint at the possibilities of the future.

[Darth Drabek]

Yes.

 

And also, haven't there been several artists who have created art based on the fact that people would interact with it? My memory is hazy (my last art appreciation class was at 8 a.m. a few years ago), but I remember some avant-garde dude who inserted himself in a cube of some sort and became part of the exhibit. Capturing the reactions of the people was part of the reason he did it.

 

You can make the argument that walking through a sculpture exhibit is "interaction." Just perceiving art differently than the person next to you makes that piece of art interactive.

 

Is a screenplay considered art? What about a landscape designed by an artist fluent in a certain type of graphics software? Sure they are, so why wouldn't a combination of the two be considered art?

 

So, again: yes.

[Darque]

Games aren't art.

 

But as the medium develops it is gaining the potential.

 

Take Indigo Prophecy for example... this may be a "Game" but it was built like an interactive movie.

[Shadowstrider]

Creating games is an artform.

 

Writing is art.

Music is art.

Painting is art.

 

All of these are combined when making a video game. They're all art.

 

Playing games is not an art.

[Morgoth]

Creating games is an artform.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Acknowledged.

Writing is art.

Music is art.

Painting is art.

Acknowledged.

All of these are combined when making a video game.  They're all art.

Acknowledged, but it's not widely accepted yet.

Playing games is not an art.

Acknowledged.

 

 

As Herr Bulock or Fr

[DGwar]

Playing games is not an art.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

you haven't seen me play Halo2 yet, have you?

[Darth Drabek]

Creating games is an artform.

 

Writing is art.

Music is art.

Painting is art.

 

All of these are combined when making a video game.  They're all art.

 

Playing games is not an art.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Yep. Games are art. Look at all those people at E3 or the other gaming expos. They're like museum openings where all the artists show off their newest creations. The gamers can appreciate the art the devs make by playing it, but playing the game is not an art.

 

Now, a modder, that's somebody who's got the tools of the trade, but they're aren't a pro. But that's why modding is such a big step - it lets the masses create their own art.

[Shadowstrider]

The maturity, or lack thereof, of game development has no real bearing on whether or not it is art.

 

I wouldn't tell my kid that her finger paintings aren't art. I won't tell my writers, programmers, or artists that their works aren't. The producers... well, we don't like to talk about them.