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.
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.