Are games art ?
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Join Date: 2002-11-04 Member: 6944Members
Join Date: 2002-11-04 Member: 6944Members
in Off-Topic
<div class="IPBDescription">Gamasutra debate I found</div>While doing my 3 months Gamasutra reading catch up, I noticed this article they have about "<a href="http://gamasutra.com/features/20070316/ochalla_01.shtml" target="_blank">Are games art?</a>".
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Film critic Roger Ebert is one such skeptic. On his website in 2005, Ebert dismissed the idea of video games as art by saying they “simply can’t compare to great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers.
“There’s a structural reason for that,” he added. “Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control.”<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I was just curious on how this kinda of debate would turn out in the NS forum.
What do you think ?
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Film critic Roger Ebert is one such skeptic. On his website in 2005, Ebert dismissed the idea of video games as art by saying they “simply can’t compare to great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers.
“There’s a structural reason for that,” he added. “Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control.”<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I was just curious on how this kinda of debate would turn out in the NS forum.
What do you think ?
Comments
<img src="http://www.roland-collection.com/rolandcollection/images/stills/34-482B.gif" border="0" alt="IPB Image" />
Than games are too. Why not? They have original scores, and music's an art. They have stories, literature's an art. They have awesome visuals, and that's definitely art.
They're not really evocative or poignant, but some are masterpieces. See avatar/sig.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
They still paint a pretty picture buddy <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mad-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":angry:" border="0" alt="mad-fix.gif" />
Multiplayer games are a science. The science of competition and fun. The trick is to give the player as many options as possible and still keep the game fun and balanced in the end. There is still going to be art in most multiplayer games, but it's used primarily as a pacer, basically you let the player move between a high pace competition and a slow paced immersive series of events in order to increase the fun of the game. That's why some games with poor art feel like a chore, they aren't well paced between acting as a player and acting as a character, and it causes the player to loose a sense that what they are doing in the game is any way relevant. This is especially important in a new play experience. When you first play a game you tend to judge it more harshly on what it does to your emotions then how many skills you have mastered in order to be what you are at the game. However, as more skills become mastered it becomes an issue of being talented, people enjoy doing things they are good at. Would you rather play a game of chess with gorgeously carved stone pieces on an oak board, or black and white plastic on a green checkerboard? Yet chess is not art, chess is DEFINITIVELY a strategical game experience.
Overall, I'm really reluctant to call any game an art piece... Some games are inherently more artistic and some are less... Video games IMO are the sum of both great art and great systemic design. Sort of like asking if a hot car is art... It's not strictly art, but there is certainly artistic ascetics that went into it, ultimately though it's a machine with a designated purpose and it shouldn't ever be compared without some recognition of it's value in preforming that task. The same is true for games, while a great artistic ascetic element to the game is massive part of the quality of a project, depending how art directed your game is (like I said before, more story based games are more artistic. You barely make any relevant choices at all in a final fantasy game for example, you basically just idly advance the plot), it's not going to be a good game without a good game based design as well.
Look at the campaigns in Warcraft (RTS, not the MMO). The cinematics in between missions are just as legitimate as any CGI movie, and even though the missions themselves put the player in control, they are still on rails. Certain objectives get completed, and the story progresses.
Adventure games are an even better example. In an Adventure game, you aren't just solving puzzles, you are actively progressing the story. Go play Grim Fandango and tell me that that rich storyline, and environments, voice acting and music don't make art.
Art isn't a really well defined concept, and whether or not something can be considered art is really a matter of interpretation.
Running back to the car analogy, you can have an engine and frame with a very simply body design and still have a good car. You can have a game with very little art or immersion and still have a good game (chess for example), but you flip it and in either case it isn't any longer true. A car with a crappy engine that looks "good" is a laughable item, similarly, a game with gorgeous art, modeling, texturing, music, can still suck massive amounts of ###### of the mechanics are built incorrectly.
Art can be a function of just looking good, or just sounding good, or just reading good, with little real substance. Games never really can be that, the less substance the less game you have. A game like spore can be tonnes of fun with all procedural art design.
I'd never claim there is no art in good games, or there is no reason to try to include as rich an artistic environment as possible in your games. Could you imagine playing FF if it had a dry story and didn't look good? That being said, art alone has never saved a game.
Finally don't fool yourself into thinking that games are entirely subjective in quality. They aren't. A huge segment of the industry is going under because of the lack of that realization.
art isnt determined by subject, its determined by design. if a piece of metal in a park can be classified as art, then i dont see why a beautiful image for a game cannot also be classified as art.
to me art is a design created by a human or animal with tools on a flat surface, it isnt classified by what it was created for...
Design is a object (virtual or physical) that has been created using distinct features.
Art is a objects that also has been created using distinct features but carries a deeper meaning or message.
So basically anything is design (I still distinguish good from bad design) but only a few design-pieces (expr?) are truely art.
It is really hard to define, because 2 people can look at the same object and one will see it as art, because he can see the message while another cant see the message thus thinking it is design.
It is also notable that the definition of an object might change over time. Lets take the sixteen chapel for an example. It's frescos have been created with a certain message in mind, BUT the artist did create them because of the money. So from my pov it started out as design, but became art over the course of time, cause the payment aspect beame more and irrelevant.
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Thus said: I would say that most computer games are pure design, mainly because the dont carry a deeper meaning and have been created with the porpuse of money making in the authors minds. The fact the overall experience differs not only from person to person but from playthrough to playthrough makes it hard to detect any message. This might change over time and maybe some games will be accepted as pieces of art instead of design.
I assume that if you ask the game gods like Richard Garriot, or Miyamoto, I seriously doubt they will view themselves as artists.
People paints. Once in a while, you get a Picasso. But usually, people paints because it's relaxing.
EDIT: Ok, may be not Miyamoto, since he was an art student.
Filmmakers like Hitchcock are praised for their story telling. What's a single player game like HL2 if not story telling?
Sculptors are praised for being able to carve stone into the human form. 3D modelers, sculpt virtually and it's not art?
Can a Pixar movie be art while a video game is not?
Certain painters are praised for their naturalistic representations of water. A game programmer codes the water shaders to look equally realistic and it's not art?
Filmmakers like Hitchcock are praised for their story telling. What's a single player game like HL2 if not story telling?
Sculptors are praised for being able to carve stone into the human form. 3D modelers, sculpt virtually and it's not art?
Can a Pixar movie be art while a video game is not?
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I don't know, I don't consider any Pixar movie art.
A game may be "art" but a game is never just "art". Maby your house has an exceptionally abstract design, and would be called by most onlookers a peice of art, like a sculpture. That doesn't necessarily mean it's a good functional house. Same thing for a game, a game can be very artistically weak and still be a good game, or a game can be very artistically strong and still be a good game. Because you can have a good game without there being really any art, I say overall games are not "art" they are games, although I won't say that all games are not pieces of art. Some are, and it's really impossible to argue otherwise.
It's not like paintings, where all paintings are art, and bad paintings are bad art. Or novels, all novels are art and bad novels are bad art. Some games are art, some games that are bad art are good games, some games that are good art are bad games. Games are always more then just art.
Th<!--coloro:#CC0000--><span style="color:#CC0000"><!--/coloro-->e<!--colorc--></span><!--/colorc-->n games are too. Why not? They have original scores, and music's an art. They have stories, literature's an art. They have awesome visuals, and that's definitely art.
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...and...
<!--quoteo(post=1622084:date=Apr 20 2007, 02:01 AM:name=SkulkBait)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SkulkBait @ Apr 20 2007, 02:01 AM) [snapback]1622084[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
I would have to disagree with Swiftspear and say that even multiplayer games can be art. Even putting aside the graphics and the sound, I see art in the gameplay itself. Hell, I'd go so far as to say that the way a game is played is art.
Art isn't a really well defined concept, and whether or not something can be considered art is really a matter of interpretation.
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...and...
<!--quoteo(post=1622186:date=Apr 20 2007, 03:51 PM:name=SmoodCroozn)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(SmoodCroozn @ Apr 20 2007, 03:51 PM) [snapback]1622186[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->
I think anything is art. Even NS.
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...I agree wih highly.
Lets decide on a definition for "art" first, then discuss weather games fit into that definition properly or not.
<i>Integritas</i>: wholeness, integrity. The work itself must be distinct from its surroundings, and it must exist and be seen as one object. The simplest example is a framed picture, which defines itself within those borders. Sculptures are defined by physical boundaries; films (and games?) occur between a beginning and an end.
<i>Consonantia</i>: rhythm, harmony. Now that it's defined, it must be seen as the sum of its parts. It's "complex, multiple, divisible, separable, made up of its parts, the result of its parts and their sum, harmonious." Music is forged from its elements of tempo, dynamics, style, and harmonies, and literature is born of symbols, events, places, and characters.
<i>Claritas</i>: radiance. Art must serve the purpose that only art can; the work must enrapture the audience and fill them with "aesthetic arrest." According to Stephen, "The instant wherein that supreme quality of beauty, the clear radiance of the esthetic image, is apprehended luminously by the mind which has been arrested by its wholeness and fascinated by its harmony is the luminous silent stasis of esthetic pleasure, a spiritual state very like to that cardiac condition which the Italian physiologist Luigi Galvani, using a phrase almost as beautiful as Shelley's, called the enchantment of the heart."
(Joyce conveyed this definition the best he ever could when he wrote <i>Portrait</i>, and it would be stupid to think that I could say it better than a great novelist. Also, I left out some important points that separated art from "improper art." For a more complete and effective definition, read <i>A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man</i>, or this <a href="http://www.ellopos.net/education/writersword_joyce_artist.htm" target="_blank">excerpt</a>, and maybe this <a href="http://www.rawpaint.com/library/jcampbell/jctwoa.html" target="_blank">this lecture</a> by Joseph Campbell.)
It's happened to everyone (for me, listening to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra play <i>The Rite of Spring</i>). You reach a point listening to the song, or watching the movie, or reading the book where suddenly, by some event or resolution, your mind is consumed with enlightenment, and the only thing you perceive is that supreme beauty and power of the work. You get goosebumps and stare wide-eyed at the orchestra, film, or page as its essence washes over your mind and body, numbed by bliss.
Working on that assumption, games can be art. The graphical and musical aspects of a game, as Faskalia said, are really "design" and are more of a craft than an art. But I have been blasted by moments of beautiful arrest while playing games. The first that comes to mind is The Wind Waker. At some point either right before or during the game's final moments, I was struck by something singularly lonely: Ganon was sullen and forsaken, and the King of Red Lions weary from the long ages. Both were isolated from the world by the decaying, watery prison of Hyrule. It was months of questing to throw down the tyrant, and then to find that my enemy was a tormented and despairing soul, and my closest ally wished to sink along with his regrets and his vanished kingdom? Wow.
It was the sum of the visual style (Ganon's black, subdued colors against the King's proud red, all against the current, vibrant blue waters), the sound (the music's personality leading up to the dead silence except for the rushing water during the beginning of the confrontation), and my long relationship with my foes and allies: only a game could deliver it.
Joyce implies that art is for an artistic purpose; anything produced with any functionality in mind (including and most especially fun) is either "improper" art or not art at all. But even though games will never truly be a proper art form, a skillful developer can weave beautiful moments into a game.
However, that being said, the original question was "are games art?". The answer is no. Are houses art? Are showers art? Are pools art? No. The generic functionality can exist without any artistic element whatsoever, and similarly, games can exist with no artistic bent at all. Chess is not art, it is chess.
That being said, the video game industry is in constant move with the integration of great functionality with great art. Video games are built and copied in a competitive environment. If everyone was buying beautifully designed sculptured kitchen tables then why would I try to design and sell simple functional tables at the same price in that market? Every video game developer is trying to raise the value of their titles by integrating great artistic beauty into them, and because of that, the gaming industry is VERY art heavy at this point in time. That doesn't mean that "games are art" it means that most games will be at least somewhat functional art pieces of their own weight. Maby not pure art, I mean ultimately the quality of a game isn't SIMPLY it's artistic quality. It needs to function and be fun as well. But games can definitely still be art pieces in their unpure form. Some will even rival pure art pieces in beauty and benevolence.