Are games art? What DO gamers want? Discuss here where I won't fucking see it.

[Timber]

BTW I posted this before in another thread where the subject came up, but it's so good it bears reposting:

http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/state-of-play-pt-1-20100512
http://www.movingimagesource.us/articles/state-of-play-pt-2-20100519

[Robo]

and it used to be that color photography couldn't be considered art until one of the highest institutions in the art world displayed Eggleston's first portfolio, which literally changed everything overnight.

the arguments used against video games being art seem silly to me, especially given art's long history of rejecting the new and radical.

I wrote up a big post to this effect a few days ago, but it was very nasty to a few individuals in this thread, so I decided against it.  But I agree; glad someone else was able to get to that point without being an asshole about it.

[Himu]

You should post it, Robo. Feelings won't be hurt.

[Himu]

and it used to be that color photography couldn't be considered art until one of the highest institutions in the art world displayed Eggleston's first portfolio, which literally changed everything overnight.

(Image removed from quote.)

the arguments used against video games being art seem silly to me, especially given art's long history of rejecting the new and radical. 

I wouldn't say that games are necessarily a new thing. But comparing games to the color photo seems a bit reaching to me. The color photo allows people to see photos in a completely different view or manner. Video games, in their present form at least, are a very specific niche. It's not like an old woman who has never played video games before just pick up a 360 controller and start playing Bioshock. She will be confused out of her wits. But anyone who isn't blind can look at a color photo and weigh an opinion in. Reflexes won't matter, muscle memory won't matter. The biggest obstacle of video games as a medium are the controls in which we control them which makes it very hard for the average person to actually experience them. Games could very well be an artistic medium in 10-30 years because I sure as hell can't tell the future, but from what I've been taught about art, what I described goes against the very core of an artistic medium: something hands on that can be experienced just to be experienced, without anything in between.

[Great Rumbler]

The artist merit of video games is in their ability to allow players to become immersed in a fiction world and experience events within that world, as well as to influence events to some degree within that world.

[Himu]

What I said in my last post is yet another reason why I think point and click pc adventure games are the purest form of game art. You point, you click, it's a very simple idea that anyone who can use a mouse can participate in. You guys think that I require games to be "fun" but that's not really the case, I'm mostly repeating the mainstream idea of games. Some of my most favorite video games are adventure games like Shenmue. But people say Shenmue is boring, even though I really get a kick out of it. I didn't really warm up to it when I first played it, like the first session. But like anything I like to critique, I kept going back to see what it was about, and the more I played it more, the more I understood about it. Even though the script is bad, the voice acting is atrocious, I still had a very real, and emotional response from that game and its sequel.

Don't get things confused: I don't think games will NEVER be art. I think they have the potential. But in its current form, a game like Shenmue is considered a bad game and by extension, bad art, even though the last disc of Shenmue II is an amazingly cinematic and immersive experience.

I wish that wasn't the case, but it is.

The artist merit of video games is in their ability to allow players to become immersed in a fiction world and experience events within that world, as well as to influence events to some degree within that world.

No one is arguing that. The problem is that only so few individuals can experience it. Meanwhile, anyone can look at the Sistine Chapel and have an opinion. This is what I mean when I say games are a limited medium.

[Great Rumbler]

The problem is that only so few individuals can experience it.

Most people can't hope to fully appreciate a great movie, either. I just don't see how that's truly different from what you're talking about here. I mean, I can put a controller in my grandma's hands and she can probably flail around through a few minutes of a video game [i.e. she can, to some degree, experience the game, but lacks the ability to fully appreciate it]. Plop down The Tree of Life in front of the average American and they're asleep before the end of the first act. Same thing, in my opinion.

[Himu]

Appreciate? Who said anything about appreciate? I specifically recall using the word experience. People can experience Tree of Life just as easily as they can The Avengers or TDKR. Show people Pi, and they'll have an opinion on it. But with a video game, they'd all have to be playing to even weigh in an opinion, because a giant part of video games are the controls, the gameplay, the player actually having weight in the world. I disagree with your Tree of Life observation and it sounds really snooty, which I'm trying to stay away from. Not to mention, not everyone has the same movie tastes. Why does it have to be something like Tree of Life and not...fucking Forrest Gump?

[Great Rumbler]

Everyone and their grandma watched Forest Gump, just like everyone and their grandma played Angry Birds.

Not a whole lot of people watched The Tree of Life.

[Great Rumbler]

And, yes, I did just imply that Angry Birds is the Forest Gump of videogames.

[Himu]

Ahahahahaha niceeeeeeeee

[Great Rumbler]

Also, more people played Bioshock than watched The Tree of Life.

[Great Rumbler]

You can properly thank me for killing this thread the next time a Steam sale comes around. Just a suggestion, though; I've also got an extensive Amazon wishlist.

[Himu]

Avengers made over 1 billion. What is your point?

Why is Tree of Life so important here?

It still doesn't take away from the fact that video games are a lot harder to experience than a film, a book, a painting, or someone doing something funny with their tool box unless you are willing to concede that something like Angry Birds is art. In which case, at that point, you might as well label Hungry Hungry Hippos, Solitary, and Monopoly art.

[naff]

This is stupid, but I gotta weigh in. What does accessibility have do do with ART? Or have you gone off on some other tangent Himu?

[chronovore]

I wouldn't say that games are necessarily a new thing. But comparing games to the color photo seems a bit reaching to me. The color photo allows people to see photos in a completely different view or manner. Video games, in their present form at least, are a very specific niche. It's not like an old woman who has never played video games before just pick up a 360 controller and start playing Bioshock. She will be confused out of her wits. But anyone who isn't blind can look at a color photo and weigh an opinion in. Reflexes won't matter, muscle memory won't matter. The biggest obstacle of video games as a medium are the controls in which we control them which makes it very hard for the average person to actually experience them. Games could very well be an artistic medium in 10-30 years because I sure as hell can't tell the future, but from what I've been taught about art, what I described goes against the very core of an artistic medium: something hands on that can be experienced just to be experienced, without anything in between.

This is stupid, but I gotta weigh in. What does accessibility have do do with ART? Or have you gone off on some other tangent Himu?

[Himu]

This is stupid, but I gotta weigh in. What does accessibility have do do with ART? Or have you gone off on some other tangent Himu?

Who said anything about accessibility?

Like Chrono posted, Marcel Duchamp made art objects out of ordinary, average things like shovels, hence why I brought up tools in that post above.

The point isn't accessibility ie. people can get this, the point is being hands on and observed. Anyone can go into an art museum and check out a Duchamp urinel, but far less can actually play a game and come out it being an artistic experience due to 1. controls, 2. difficulty, 3. mechanics, 4. gameplay. It's not so much about accessibility as much as it's about the fact that video games are not something just about anyone can merely observe and still fairly critique it.

What happens if you get stuck in a game? You may have to start over. When observing a painting, a piece of architecture, a film, a book, you don't need to do that because the middle man has already been cut off. Because once again, the point of games is to win. What happens if the code is bad and prone to deleting save files? Welp. Art is also a very human expression, it is something you share with others because once again - observation. You guys arguing that games are an art medium, do you tell your family and friends to go check out such and such game because it features such a great story and blah blah? If not, why not? How often do you do this with music and movies?

Then brew on my point and think about what art means as a human collective, then go play a video game, and try to understand what I'm talking about. For good measure, go to a photo gallery or art museum afterwards. Take a notepad, critique it, examine it, make every note of what it's trying to say. Then do the same thing with a video game.

[Howard Alan Treesong]

http://killscreendaily.com/articles/essays/ico-feature/

[Sho Nuff]

NO.

[Human Snorenado]

Jesus, this thread is still going on?

Let me settle everything once and for all.  If you enjoyed ICO or think the "story" in the MGS games is something to be celebrated, you are a pox on the hobby and should go the fuck away.

[Great Rumbler]

If video games aren't art, then why did they put video games in the Smithsonian American ART Museum?

[Trent Dole]

Yeah they are, but the people who go on about them being so are kind of annoying. Stop trying to justify how you choose to spend your time to everyone else, why should other people give a shit unless you're doing something harmful to them?

[Howard Alan Treesong]

If video games aren't art, then why did they put video games in the Smithsonian American ART Museum?

Because video games that are ART ... aren't video games.

[Great Rumbler]

If video games aren't art, then why did they put video games in the Smithsonian American ART Museum?

Because video games that are ART ... aren't video games.

So, Super Mario Bros. and Pac-Man aren't video games anymore?

[brawndolicious]

What I said in my last post is yet another reason why I think point and click pc adventure games are the purest form of game art. You point, you click, it's a very simple idea that anyone who can use a mouse can participate in. You guys think that I require games to be "fun" but that's not really the case, I'm mostly repeating the mainstream idea of games. Some of my most favorite video games are adventure games like Shenmue. But people say Shenmue is boring, even though I really get a kick out of it. I didn't really warm up to it when I first played it, like the first session. But like anything I like to critique, I kept going back to see what it was about, and the more I played it more, the more I understood about it. Even though the script is bad, the voice acting is atrocious, I still had a very real, and emotional response from that game and its sequel.

You can't quantify the purity of art. Art is subjective.

Personally, I would say that Metroid Prime, a game with no dialogue and very little story, definitely feels like art. You feel like you are doing what that character is doing. You think about how you as a character in that world will move forward. Add to that the amazing aesthetic design and music to keep you even more invested. It's really not that complicated to see something as art.

No one is arguing that. The problem is that only so few individuals can experience it. Meanwhile, anyone can look at the Sistine Chapel and have an opinion. This is what I mean when I say games are a limited medium.

I've physically been to the Sistine Chapel, and I didn't get shit out of just seeing it. It wasn't until later when I read about the history of it and why things were drawn the way they were that made me understand the artistic importance of it. And even then, I couldn't give a shit about the moral messages it had in it.

[chronovore]

If video games aren't art, then why did they put video games in the Smithsonian American ART Museum?

Because video games that are ART ... aren't video games.

You bastard.

[Smooth Groove]

Tree of Life isn't hard to watch because Jessica Chastain is such a great actress and is easy on the eyes too. 

[Human Snorenado]

can anyone think of a more useless word in the english language than 'art'?  seriously.

SEGA

[DCharlieJP]

Art: indeed - even Art Garfunkel is plain old Garfunkel out of Simon and Garfunkel. He knew the score, no need for Art.

[Trent Dole]

http://www.siliconera.com/2012/07/30/katamari-damacy-rolls-into-new-yorks-museum-of-modern-art/
Katamari officially art 

[Timber]

http://www.siliconera.com/2012/07/30/katamari-damacy-rolls-into-new-yorks-museum-of-modern-art/
Katamari officially art 

Looks like MOMA's been checking out my links.

[TEEEPO]

I wouldn't say that games are necessarily a new thing. But comparing games to the color photo seems a bit reaching to me. The color photo allows people to see photos in a completely different view or manner. Video games, in their present form at least, are a very specific niche. It's not like an old woman who has never played video games before just pick up a 360 controller and start playing Bioshock. She will be confused out of her wits. But anyone who isn't blind can look at a color photo and weigh an opinion in. Reflexes won't matter, muscle memory won't matter. The biggest obstacle of video games as a medium are the controls in which we control them which makes it very hard for the average person to actually experience them. Games could very well be an artistic medium in 10-30 years because I sure as hell can't tell the future, but from what I've been taught about art, what I described goes against the very core of an artistic medium: something hands on that can be experienced just to be experienced, without anything in between.

you've entirely missed the point, and for someone who is claiming to be so renowned in the arts, i shouldn't have to educate you about the struggles the medium had to go through before becoming the dominate and most influential art form in today's society. while i wasn't directly comparing the two, alot of the same arguments used against photography becoming an accepted art form, which you can happily google yourself, from its earliest beginnings and even till this very day, are eerily similar to ones used by the harshest critics of video games becoming a legitimate art form which usually revolved around the simple fact that it was radically different from everything else which had came before it.

either way, it might not matter to those who hold a rudimentary view on art, but MOMA's inclusion of Katamari is monumental and will cause a shift in the art world just as it did when it set precedence by showing Eggleston's astounding portfolio in 1974, which allowed specifically colored photography to be something more than what you'd see in a LIFE Magazine spread or an advertisement. I do find the timing to be quite comical though as it only further proves my point, which you entirely missed.

and fyi, this isn't the first time the MOMA instutute has featured a vidogame or an interactive art piece into their gallery, though it was in one of their "lesser" but more "cutting-edge" galleries

http://momaps1.org/exhibitions/view/320/

but then again, you've already shown that you have a very confining view of video games, since you know, games can only be played on a 360 controller.