like it seems fucking obvious, right? any medium that can contain degrees of symbolism, has the potential to provoke viewer interpretation, has the potential to contain specific or vague messaging from the creator, and just generally can be used for self-expression has the potential to be an art form.
Why the fuck is/was this a point of discussion? to the point of heated discourse, even! Was it just the most geriatric people they could find on the street? Weird snobs?
like, the second games started having narratives this should have been a moot topic. why the fuck did Kojima parrot it?
reading his statement, i feel there's two different discourses happening, the already solved (:lt-dbyf-dubois:) point of "can video games be art" and the more interesting question of "does the video game industry currently have a culture that promotes artistic endeavor over mass appeal"
to which my personal answer is 'no, but we're slowly getting there with the rise of auteurism (despite some of the problems inherent to it) in acclaimed development teams (:praise-it:) and the indie scene's entirety, and we'll see if it starts to push against the corporate board schlock in the future.'
but still, god damn, half of this debate comes from the same place as the video games cause violence bit and the other half is just people being annoyed with call of duty schlock, which, fair. but why is the former even a debate that happened/is happening. i'm genuinely curious.
Gamers want all the glory art gets (museum, fancy gallery with wine and cheese, being honored by the state, etc), but zero of the criticism.
It's probably now like "now my girlfriend can't complain that I play video games all day and not pay attention to her, I'm consuming art! But also, I don't want to feel bad about what I consume."
Good summation.
TV is like a painter's canvass, its the medium, its not art itself but art can be done through it.
I think there is truth to this. I dont think I've seen anyone analyze sports or try to conclude that the rules of American Football is inherently fascist (though I would love to see it), people have been playing games since they've been alive, which is why it's called "video games". I think one would have to take serious the virtual aspect of video games , Deleuze I know has theorized about it. Much like Miyazaki calls his films "manga-films", I think developers who want to make more 'artistic' games should market themselves as "virtual interative media" since video games are different from the traditionally art form as every person will experience the art differently due to freedom the player is given and the limits the player will eventually find on what they can and cannot do.
I wish speedrunning had been analyzed more thoroughly after the Petersonian twitter dramaa. I would love to see the theories of Paul Virrilo and Fredric Jameson used to describe it since both talk about the philosopher of speed and the virality that is given within the internet space. At least the person was trying to understand speedrunning as a phenomenon even if their own framework was nonsense, it's easy to laugh at some big Other while being content with your own probably equally nonsensical explanation for it that remains unstated. Of course who cares about speedrunning, but it should have been a moment to produce at least an interesting explanation for it.
or try to conclude that the rules of American Football is inherently fascist (though I would love to see it
i've seen some america dunking that does this in a comparison to regular football but it was mostly not serious.
Actually you can do an analysis on the economy of scale in American football and other sports since it's all for the purpose of generating profit. American Football is probably the worst since it only exists as a way to make profit since the equipment needed for it is way to expensive and way too damaging for your own body. Its quite easy to see the exploitation that high schoolers and college players are subjugated to. Flag Football would probably replace it in socialism. Athletes are commodified and emasculated under current American Football play.
From the side of the Gamers themselves, I think the main driver of this discourse was commonly-held anxieties about being an adult while culture tells you that the things you like are for children. The Discourse on this as far as I remember it really focused on trying to get people from other more socially accepted mediums to agree that video games could be art - think Roger Ebert saying that they weren't and then kind of retracting the statement in an article punctuated by screenshots from Shadow of the Colossus after getting a huge backlash.
Now I think we've all mostly come to the understanding that the things the boomers decided were for "kids only" is a silly and arbitrary list and that it's cool to like what you like, and people who still cling to outdated signifiers of maturity are roundly mocked for doing so (like when Ben Shapiro lights a cigar and slowly lets it burn out without actually smoking it). Of course the toxic extreme of this is the reflexive response of "let people like things" whenever a "thing" is criticized, but that's a different discussion.
The shapiro big boy masculine incense stick.
There was also a red pill masculinity dude on youtube who would pour himself a glass of whiskey then never drink it or take mouse sips over the course of an awful 1.5 hour long video.
Let me play Christman’s advocate
Art isn’t just symbols and narratives. After all there are symbols in a standard deck of playing cards, or on a corporate resume. There are narratives contained within a series of stool samples or medical records. Obviously nobody would consider playing cards, resumes or medical records art.
There must be more to it, a cultural or social significance is present. A collective shared audience and interpretative body. A weight of importance placed is placed on certain media and their ability to portray and reflect our lives.
Could video games become art? Of course. Are video games art currently? I would argue the vast majority are not because society at large doesn’t see it that way.
You have outliers that a small minority of individuals might recognize as art, but the vast majority of the medium are just games. Games are systems of rules with a winner - such as soccer, boxing, chess, or Yahtzee. I wouldn’t consider these art, they are games. Even if they contain art, such as artwork on a board game. The more “art-like” video games, not coincidentally, are the ones that are basically a fixed narrative on rails and a glorified cinematic experience. The more “game-like” video games are sandbox or competitive or puzzle/task based. It seems there is a tension here where the more game-like a video game becomes, the less artistic it is.
I mean, I think that once again falls into that second category of debate. I'm more so astounded at the people who unironically argue it has no potential as an art form. Especially since I'm of the opinion that if it can be used to express the self, it can be art.
The more “art-like” video games, not coincidentally, are the ones that are basically a fixed narrative on rails and a glorified cinematic experience.
Not necessarily. Though they are certainly linear, I guess :lt-dbyf-dubois: and :trans-undertale: come to mind here in use of microreactivety in narrative choice and consequence/compounding branches of narrative that form a greater whole (I don't really know how to describe Undertale's linear-but-not-linear experience)?
Of course, they are indie, which allows them greater levels of creative control and risk-taking when it comes to narrative structure due to no checks from up high and less emphasis on the necessity of mass appeal, but they're prime examples of art-like games that don't necessarily railroad you into a singular experience.
I think Yahtzee had a good take on this intrinsically immersive narrative potential that games have to express themselves in an artistic form unlike all other mediums. Video games have this inherent advantage over other artistic mediums when it comes to being directly immersive and dynamic experiences. We're really only scratching the surface of the stories games can tell, and somewhat like Yahtzee I kinda believe we're in this weird transition period where we've discovered games can tell stories but are only understanding the surface level of what stories/means of expression only work within the medium of video games, and therefore we end up with the cinematic linear adventure game that is half of the AAA games in the modern age.
I'd even mention :praise-it: as a work that could only be properly told within the medium of a video game due to its emphasis on disconnected and environmental storytelling, as well as slowly piecing together discovered bits of the narrative puzzle as you discover them on path or out of the way, allowing it to flourish as this intimidating yet immersive setting.
But yeah, I think the latter is a more interesting medium of discussion. I definitely agree that there's a lot of 'just games' that complicate this discussion. Current industry culture isn't suited to the production of 'artistic' games, leading to a mass of 'just games' and for counterculture to pick up the artistic piece. On the other hand, would we say movies aren't art due to the existence and prevalence of the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Pretty sure that's the film equivalent of those 'just games', lmfao.
I'm utterly baffled by the former discourse though, which is truly the pinnacle of snobbery meeting boomer brain.
After all there are symbols in a standard deck of playing cards
The evolution of playing card art is actually like low-key fascinating though. Like before printing really took off playing cards were hand painted on to various materials up to and including Ivory. They incorporated all kinds of interesting themes from critiques of political and religious figures to pornography to natural scenes to whatever else artists could think of. Even today modern evolutions like Magic the Gathering churn out a vast catalogue of fantasy art.
It's kind of funny to see playing cards held up as a, "Obviously no one would call this art" example, especially considering Tarot decks and the many artistic variants people make of them. I don't think there's a meaningful difference between those artistic variants and the more standard art, or between a Tarot deck and standard playing cards. We're just more used to seeing the art on standard playing cards to the point that we often don't really notice it and see the cards more for their function. And the same is often true with Magic: the Gathering, but I also know of people who don't even know how to play MTG and collect the cards solely for the art, and obviously art does not stop being art when you print it on a card.
i'm too tired for this shit but it might be useful to differentiate the .psd or original painting. there's even less soul or whatever going into a printing of a magic card than in Warhol's soup cans and tcg "for the art" collectors are no better than funko pop dorks.
thousands of shitty tourist photos of the mona lisa probably aren't art
What a shit take. I'm sorry, but it's absurd and nonsensical to suggest that there's "more soul" in the original file of digital artwork than in a copy of the file when it's literally the same thing, pixel for pixel. If I see a picture of Starry Night in a textbook, am I not looking at art?
Most people engage with any piece of art primarily through reproductions. A very small percentage of people who have seen Starry Night have seen the original painting. This is just hipster shit of hating things because they popular and accessible, and doing arbitrary gatekeeping.
What a shit take. I’m sorry, but it’s absurd and nonsensical to suggest that there’s “more soul” in the original file of digital artwork than in a copy of the file when it’s literally the same thing, pixel for pixel. If I see a picture of Starry Night in a textbook, am I not looking at art?
i was saying that the 2 inch print loses something in the process and context, not that identical digital copies are different. (although the exported png literally doesn't have the layers anymore)
if you make a copy of a copy of a copy... of starry night and look at a tiny and lossy printing of a painting that's larger than your book (73.7 cm × 92.1 cm) then you have lost a shitload of detail and it's not gatekeeping to say that looking at some trash tier low dpi cheap printing of something isn't good enough.
i was saying that the 2 inch print loses something in the process and context, not that identical digital copies are different.
The art is literally designed for the purpose of creating the 2 inch print. The layers and original file are just part of the process of creating the finished product, which is the card. Cookie dough might taste better than the finished cookie, but that doesn't mean that the finished cookie isn't food.
if you make a copy of a copy of a copy… of starry night and look at a tiny and lossy printing of a painting that’s larger than your book (73.7 cm × 92.1 cm) then you have lost a shitload of detail and it’s not gatekeeping to say that looking at some trash tier low dpi cheap printing of something isn’t good enough.
Good enough to be considered art, you mean? Do you think that images have to be of a certain baseline quality to be considered art, or is it the loss of fidelity to an original image that disqualifies something from being art? If, hypothetically, the original Starry Night had been created at the same size and quality as it appears in my textbook, then would you consider that original work to be art, or not?
i think reproductions of art aren't automatically art. like a picture of me isn't me so why is a picture of some art that art?
i'm not quite finished yet but the kid saying "i think it's a woman because she's got curls" while the host is right there with his curly hair is hilarious https://youtu.be/0pDE4VX_9Kk?t=1627
i was not expecting the anticapitalism in part 4. that went pretty hard, especially for the beeb.
Hence why I said a deck of standard playing cards. As in, the mass produced corporate decks that are now fully commoditized games and not at all art (even if they contain art on them - containing art is not the same as being art, otherwise a crate holding a painting would be art).
I gotta disagree with like all of this. Just the developmental artwork, the concept artwork that goes in to just conceptualizing what a game will look like, could fill a thousand galleries. Games aren't just systems of rules, they're elegant systems of rules. You can't just throw some algorithms together, everything has to nest in massive complexity. Everything from the color of objects in the world to the movement speed of the characters has to be carefully calculated and tweaked and revised. Any game with cinematic pretenses has moments that are intended to inspire emotion, whether it's the moment where you come out of a dark tunnel to witness breathtaking scenery, or a poignant character moment. A landscape artist paints a single slice of the world. A world designer creates landscapes that can be viewed from any point within them. The landscape has to incorporate aesthetics alongside game design goals to create a space that is immersive and compelling, all within the limitations of the game engine and the system it's designed to run one. A game isn't just art, it's a nexus of many different kinds of art, all (ideally) working in harmony to produce a coherent experience for the viewer. All with a degree of interactivity that no other medium can hope to achieve.
Also, the heyday of text heavy RPGs has passed, but there have been RPGs with text running in to the hundreds of thousands of words, presenting multiple threads of plot and character narratives that interact with the other gameplay systems to provide unpredictable and surprising results for the viewer. Planescape: Torment, to name just one, is popularly regarded by fans as one of the best novels of the 1990s.
is art-ness transitive? does my computer monitor become art if I look at art on it? do the parts of my eye become art by the mechanical process of seeing art?
does my computer monitor become art if I look at art on it?
Does a movie screen become art when a movie is playing on it? Does a painting carry merit as an artwork because it is paint on a canvas, or because it conveys an expression of something beyond its literal constituent parts?
i find maximalist interpretations tiresome and am much more interested in the working definition of these terms, so the latter, probably, but if you can defend maximalism go for it.
part of the concern is that people consider being 'game-like' to be of less value then art when that makes very little sense. they are both forms of cultural expression.
People do this dance with every new media form that comes out. Novels went through this, movies went through this, many music genres were derided as unworthy of hte term "art".
Yes all forms of art must initially struggle to be recognized as art, but they don’t become art until they are socially accepted as such. Novels, films and music were not art previous to their broad acceptance as art. It was this very struggle for acceptance that eventually led to them being accepted. We shall see if the same happens with video games.
I think the disconnect is you all seem to have a platonic idea of what art is, some unchanging perfect ideal. It seems weird to you that something could be not art one day, and then art the next. But that’s how it is, art is subjective and descriptive - not a perfect platonic idea floating in the ether
People don’t just consider it, it seems to be universally understood that the more puzzle/task/competitive a game becomes the less it fits into “art” and the more it fits into game, which seem to be mutually distinct categories that oppose each other
There must be more to it, a cultural or social significance is present. A collective shared audience and interpretative body. A weight of importance placed is placed on certain media and their ability to portray and reflect our lives.
Could video games become art? Of course. Are video games art currently? I would argue the vast majority are not because society at large doesn’t see it that way.
Actually, y'know what, if we go by the standards of what you're proposing here as necessarily definitional for what constitutes "True Art", then I can in fact name a specific game/game-series that I think would qualify despite the distaste we might have for it.
You might already have an idea of what that is, but the answer is the Call of Duty franchise, especially as it exists post-CoD4. It is an extremely important focal point of contemporary American culture (don't laugh), that absolutely does have a massive, collective shared audience & interpretive body; and it's cultural importance is significant enough that the US Government takes a direct interest in it's development.
Now, that doesn't make it good art. It is bad art in the same way that most Fascist art is, in that it isn't really interested in any way with personal introspection, or the enlightenment of man; it interested only in exalting the ostensible virtues of competition & of dominance over one's enemies. But it is still art, in the ways which you are talking about art, even if it is ugly & antisocial art.
I’m of the opinion that any form of creative output is art by default, though I do recognise that there’s a whole industry and capital interest in gatekeeping what is and isn’t “art”.
The same discussion happened around “talkies” when silent films were the main form of cinema, and look where we are now.
Having said that, art is fair game for criticism and a lot of capital g gamers took issue with even the mildest criticism to their favourite games. Not “this level sucks” kind of criticism but “this game merely uses women as a vehicle for the male protagonist and by extension the player’s fantasy of conquest”.
Claiming that Movies can't be art because most movies circa 1920 were Bathing Beauties comedies.
Duh video games are art. Just because most suck doesn't mean it's not art. Most movies suck ass and people aren't going around saying movies aren't art.
NO! YOU HAVE TO MAKE ART THAT APPEALS TO ME! YOU CAN'T MAKE IT POLITICAL! :rage-cry:
:lt-dbyf-dubois: Say one of these fascist or communist things or fuck off.
I don't think the "No politics in muh games" Chuds have had as much influence as they're given credit for. Annual release games fit the bill, but they're just one part of the vast gaming ecosystem, and there are plenty of games that deal with political and cultural questions.
The discourse of the Last of Us 2 shows that gamers lean towards conservatism and are angry at what they see as their own ecosphere being invaded by SJWs and other such people (because a trans kid was in their video game as a secondary character). This game, and others that include things such as non-sexualized female characters or plotlines that have LGBTQ+ stuff or villifies fascism can lead to quite a lot of backlash. Hell Wolfenstien 2 got flak for having the main characters as "too sensitive" when recounting how his father was a piece of shit abuser and racist (or that the KKK were in the game and were rightfully painted as villains).
The discourse of the Last of Us 2 shows that gamers
aren't gamers predominately middle aged women on their phones who don't know what a sony nintendo is?
Yup, except capital G gamers would have a aneurysm over that, like wine snobs reacting to boxed wine or some stupid shit like that.
Basically just boomers not understanding the new thing, same as always. The "gamers want the prestige but not the complexity" line of argument is almost entirely unrelated, despite what you may think from this thread, and only became a thing during gamergate. Might also add that chuds act the exact same way towards other media, so t is hardly a video game specific thing.
Video games not being art has been there as long as the medium has existed, with video games being seen as toys for children.
I'm reminded of Wittgenstein's argument that all philosophical arguments are linguistic arguments. This debate is, at heart, an argument about what art is, one that has been going on at great and tedious length before video games ever existed.
If I draw a stick figure, is it art? Well, obviously, yes, but is it Art? That is to say, is it essentially the same thing as a painting by a master or are they fundamentally different in some way? Do we embrace a wider definition of art where all human creative endeavor is art or do we single out some forms of expression as distinguishing itself in some way that makes it Art? And if so, are there video games that are distinguished in this way?
I remember there's an argument that Versailles, the Sistine chapel, many works of music etc aren't art because they were made on commission and often to spec and are therefore mere "design" and it wasn't until the 19th century that anything but amateur art existed (I think this is a dumb argument.)
I wonder if this person thinks that art simply does not exist since it's all made for profit.
The discourse primarily hinges on the fact old people felt like they were just toys for small children.
I do think there is a split between games that are art and games that are not art though. Fortnite is not art for example, it solely exists as a toy. Some games are both a toy and contain art while some games are just art and have no "toy" component.
games be art” and the more interesting question of “does the video game industry currently have a culture that promotes artistic endeavor over mass appeal”
to which my personal answer is ‘no
Ah, but you see: to the same crowd that's triggered because Marvel Movies don't win oscars that's essentially the same question!
Obviously there's many nuances in any discourse but I firmly believe that the largest discourse around "are videogames art" has been an argument above all about legitimacy and/or being valid. The majority of people want videogames to be considered 'art' for the same reason they want their capeshit to be considered 'art'. Because if its 'art' then it validates their consumption of it as being something worthwhile they don't have to justify anymore!
The proof to me that this is the case is that when videogames are subjected to the kind of artistic analysis they claim to want through various outlets and youtube discourse and people talk about what their "art" actually represents and stands for: that same vociferous group will immediately become defensive and start screaming "ITS JUST A GAME! STOP GETTING TRIGGERED! ITS JUST FOR FUN!!!!"
Weird snobs, it's the ghost of that old fart Roger Ebert. In a fit of arrogance, he declared games to not be art, while understanding virtually nothing of the media's history and having no actual interest in engaging with any of it, be it because he was an uncurious asshole or (more charitably) because he was already an old codger and games have too high a barrier to entry if you never picked up a controller before. So instead of trying he dropped a hot take about win states or something.
IIRC he pulled back on that statement after getting a big backlash for it. I think he either played or watched a video of someone playing Shadow of the Colossus and went "sure fine whatever".
Yeah saying an entire medium has no artistic value because some of it is bad makes no sense. Does the mcu remove art status from film? Does Chuck Tingle's book "pounded in the butt by my own butt" mean books aren't art? Does someone's sonic oc fanart mean drawing isn't art? Some games are definitely not of artistic value, but some definitely are. Games that are designed for story as the main goal very much have artistic merit. Even some that are designed around gameplay first can be evaluated artistically, like the many, many dark souls video essays on youtube. Only pure gameplay games like fifa or counter strike are not really art at all.
Does Chuck Tingle’s book “pounded in the butt by my own butt” mean books aren’t art?
Actually, that's the book that definitively proves that books are art.
Only pure gameplay games like fifa or counter strike are not really art at all.
I think competitive games and sports are actually ripe constructs for critical analysis in similar ways to literature or art. Differentiating 'art' from 'ritual' is such a weird thing we do with contemporary cultures. The cordoning off of these significant cultural practices from this type of critique is quite unfortunate.
Yeah fair point. Look at gymnastics vs ballet for example. Both are things consisting of highly coordinated movement and requiring much practice, but one is considered significantly more "art" despite being not that different. I'm sure there's more examples, but the is where I can think of a distinction being most arbitrary. My initial comment was not really concerned with why that perception exists, only that it does exist.
I dismiss anyone who even tries to debate that games aren’t art as a complete clown. Purely an ill thought out and reactionary take from some crusty fuck who can’t handle the emergence of new mediums.
Good art is another question entirely. But either it’s all art, or none of it is.
mediums
ahem
«brushes the crust off his ancient fucking body»
"I think you mean, "media.""
:galaxy-brain:
any medium that can contain degrees of symbolism, has the potential to provoke viewer interpretation, has the potential to contain specific or vague messaging from the creator, and just generally can be used for self-expression has the potential to be an art form.
I mean, I think the Ebert perspective is that Video Games don't do those things. Or, at least, they don't do those things well enough to be considered worth critiquing.
He was ultimately forced to issue a mea culpa because - duh, obviously wrong, its a highly mutable visual/audible medium that's going to have plenty of content capable of clearing the bar.
But also, as mainstream games strive to become more artistic (heavy reliance on cinematics and forced narratives), they become less game-like. The sweet spot between Game and Art tends to be relatively simple exploration or puzzle games.
But also, as mainstream games strive to become more artistic (heavy reliance on cinematics and forced narratives), they become less game-like.
More cinema-like =/= more artistic though, games borrow from film because it is an already well establishedl language, not necessarily because you can't communicate through gameplay
But also, as mainstream games strive to become more artistic (heavy reliance on cinematics and forced narratives), they become less game-like.
true in mainstream def (except for :praise-it: maybe?), but i've found indie goes in a different direction a lot of times due to their ability to explore more unconventional storytelling mechanisms.
Plugging :lt-dbyf-dubois: and :trans-undertale: again here in terms of artistic expression that is very responsive to player exploration, as well as OMORI, OFF, and OneShot as games that I'd consider artistic and not very cinematic even though those three are much more linear and railroaded
i’ve found indie goes in a different direction a lot of times due to their ability to explore more unconventional storytelling mechanisms
There's definitely some exceptions to the rule. Although, I'd argue that the isometric style with wall of text (Disco Elysium, Fallout 1&2, Baldur's Gate) are bordering on digital books given the amount of tiny-font text I'm expected to wade through in order to get to the end.
But I'd also argue that the Artistic angle is fundamentally distinct from the gameplay. And you get that in so far as you're not really supposed to die in these games. Failure is just a reset button, not an element of the storytelling itself. If I were to defend the "games aren't art" argument, I think the real place I'd aim for is how the puzzle-system of combat/conflict resolution - the fundamental "game" part of the video game - is distinct from the meaning and expression the game is intended to convey.
A game in which you really aren't supposed to fail at gameplay in order to get the complete unvarnished story only conveys meaning to an individual that can complete the game flawlessly. And a game that prohibits you from advancing until you solve the next puzzle-box / combat simulator / RNG engine in the story sequence is functionally obscuring the author's intent. Putting an oil painting behind a big door with a combination lock and claiming you've created an "art game" - particularly when the combination lock guarding the door isn't intended to convey meaning - really just amounts to a kind of artistic gatekeeping rather than artistic expression.
:trans-undertale: , I think, is the real exception that produces a fluid game/art hybrid. The gameplay puzzles tie back to the narrative. Failure is routinely an option and can often open up meaningful story paths. I'd also point to games like Journey or Shadow of the Colossus or The Stanley Parable as true fully realized "Art Games", rather than mash-ups in which the art and the gameplay are incidental to one another.
But these are more often exceptions than the rule. A random selection of released games - even top rated games - is unlikely to yield anything of this caliber.
