Can we call games art when we're still obsessed with popularity/sales/market shares/attach rates?

[LeonLethality]

Who cares? They're just games, you're supposed to play them and have fun. It doesn't matter if they are art or not.

You must not enjoy forums very much even though you have over 13,000 posts!

No one cares (at least I hope they don't), but I think it's an interesting discussion point that no one has made so far.

What makes you think I don't enjoy the forums?

And yes people do care, sadly. I guess they like to make a big deal out of nothing. And while it is interesting it usually leads to people at opposing sides of the argument to be at each others throats.

Coming into discussion threads to crap on them with things like "Who cares?" doesn't sound like something who enjoys discussion would do. Why post in a thread if you have no interest in it?

Sorry that wasn't what I was trying to say with my post. I was saying why should we care if they are art, they are just games and are made to have fun with, them being art or not shouldn't matter.

And yes for the most part I do dislike the forums, or at least what they have become as of late...

 

[SnowdensOfYesteryear]

Remember back in the 16 bit era when games as art crossed nobody's mind and games were really diverse? Notice how today when everyone wants them to be art and they are very samey. Yeah, your argument makes no sense to me, from what I am getting you are saying without them being art they will not be diverse? Care to make what you said a bit more understandable? (Maybe I am just dense for not understanding what you said)

I'm saying it would be horrifying if a medium was reduced to one particular thing, as games are now. Art provides the means to expand over just "killing things" and "pissing on people's brains," and what have you.

And games were diverse back then because people were still feeling out the industry, this was still a thing only for nerds who didn't know what was coming when they picked up the case and tried it. Which was, fundamentally, why it was so much more diverse. Now, in my opinion, artgames can be very different, compare Today I Die to Every Day The Same Dream.

 

[Contextualizer]

1)I stooped listening to American music 12 years ago.

John Coltrane and Maurice Ravel came out long before 12 years ago.

And Maurice Ravel isn't even America!

2)When antrhopologists start making art, they can tell me what art is.

What draws you to this conclusion?

Creators of art are usually the last people on Earth you want to try and explain overarching principles and dynamics of art.

But in any case, I'm versed in anthropology and create art. Does that automatically make my points valid for you?

Also, the expencive white canvas with a single red dot on it at the airport should not qualify as art.

Why not exactly?

 

[Mcupobob]

Mario, hell I just skip it and say almost every thing by nintendo is well know by alot of people. Video games are different and are juged different when it comes to the concept of art. By that I mean they are judged by the culture that surrounds them, how many movies, books, and music have a culture as big as ours that surrounds it(some do I'll admit)? It is up to the gaming community to jugde what game we think is art and isn't. As it up to the metal or indie music culture to decide what is consider art amoungest them, people out side of the culture won't truly understand till we get bigger and better artistic games out and its up to us to support these games and bring them out to the open.

/rant

You're only proving what I'm saying: Mario is very well known by the mainstream. But no one considers the games he's in to be art as Fur Elise, Mulholland Drive, or Julius Caesar are all considered.

Movie bob and Yahtzee does ^.^ good amount of people do just because its mainstream doesn't mean it can't be art. Should Mario be consider High art? Well that subjective its colorfull and cliche and gives a sort of power to the blue collar folks message by saying "yes you can save the world and get the princess too". So take that as you will.

 

[mr_hi]

the public will never look at games as art when the cant even consider cars being art. games cant be valued on sales... davinci only painted one mona lisa and if he sold it i could tell you how many he sold...1. but that painting is one of the most reconized pictures in the world.

 

[likalaruku]

1)I stooped listening to American music 12 years ago.

John Coltrane and Maurice Ravel came out long before 12 years ago.

And Maurice Ravel isn't even America!

2)When antrhopologists start making art, they can tell me what art is.

What draws you to this conclusion?

Creators of art are usually the last people on Earth you want to try and explain overarching principles and dynamics of art.

But in any case, I'm versed in anthropology and create art. Does that automatically make my points valid for you?

Also, the expencive white canvas with a single red dot on it at the airport should not qualify as art.

Why not exactly?

1)I pretty much keep to foreign music.

2)Why would we need to explain art to artists? They're the ones who are supposed to tell us.

3)You're starting to come off as some kind of eletist know-it-all troll here. Don't bother replying. I won;t reply if you do, because than I'd be trolling too.

 

[Lust]

The art debate is like cake.

Some are beautifully made and the taste is to die for. But, when you get down to it, it's just sweet bread. Then there are those who like pie. Supporters will say, it's handmade, made from the heart and not factory produced. Cookie lovers will swoop by and say "you're both nuts. Cookies are the best and you'll never understand." Candy freaks will come by, never add any input, and laugh at you because they're too hyper to know better. Chip people will say they don't care, then, leave. Then the Chocoholics will state that we need to stop all this bickering.

Naturally they will be ignored. Pretzel fans will suggest that we come up for way to decide what's considered genuine. Finally, the Hamburger lords will come down and proclaim they will help produce anything you got. Then you got those Cheese and Beef Jerky people. Those who say that the others have changed. That they've sold out.

I think the art debate has gotten as silly as this.

Literature, Drawing, Painting, Music, Films, Games, Comics, Sculptures, etc.

When it comes down to it. All of us have our preferences and opinions. We need to stop trying to being acknowledged. Like unsure children. We need to grow up. That way the industry grows up. We need to just enjoy it what we like.

Be a hedonist when it comes to art.

 

[Contextualizer]

1)I pretty much keep to foreign music.

I'm guessing by foreign you mean non-American music?

Maurice Ravel's French.

2)Why would we need to explain art to artists? They're the ones who are supposed to tell us.

Artists aren't supposed to explain art to us. They aren't supposed to do anything other than create art.

Some may explain how they feel about art, but that's a very different thing compared to anthropologists trying to understand and explain the general idea of art.

3)You're starting to come off as some kind of eletist know-it-all troll here. Don't bother replying.

How so? You tell me that anthropologists can only define art when they make it and I offer you an example of that very qualifier you made.

 

[SnowdensOfYesteryear]

3)You're starting to come off as some kind of eletist know-it-all troll here. Don't bother replying.

Wow, that's not escaping an argument with an ad hominem at all.

Also you spelled elitist wrong.

 

[ExileNZ]

Because a lot of the time films and books are just the same bullshit, only they get counted as art anyway.

 

[Contextualizer]

The art debate is like cake.

Some are beautifully made and the taste is to die for. But, when you get down to it, it's just sweet bread. Then there are those who like pie. Supporters will say, it's handmade, made from the heart and not factory produced. Cookie lovers will swoop by and say "you're both nuts. Cookies are the best and you'll never understand." Candy freaks will come by, never add any input, and laugh at you because they're too hyper to know better. Chip people will say they don't care, then, leave. Then the Chocoholics will state that we need to stop all this bickering.

Naturally they will be ignored. Pretzel fans will suggest that we come up for way to decide what's considered genuine. Finally, the Hamburger lords will come down and proclaim they will help produce anything you got. Then you got those Cheese and Beef Jerky people. Those who say that the others have changed. That they've sold out.

I think the art debate has gotten as silly as this.

Literature, Drawing, Painting, Music, Films, Games, Comics, Sculptures, etc.

When it comes down to it. All of us have our preferences and opinions. We need to stop trying to being acknowledged. Like unsure children. We need to grow up. That way the industry grows up. We need to just enjoy it what we like.

Be a hedonist when it comes to art.

You spent an awful lot of time trying to say art is subjective. And it's true, art is indeed subjective.

But art is also culturally defined. Each culture has subjectively different ideas of what art is, but they still have those ideas. And people within each culture have subjectively different ideas of whether or not that art is good (or if it is even art), but there is still a dominant cultural narrative of some things being considered art.

 

[likalaruku]

3)You're starting to come off as some kind of eletist know-it-all troll here. Don't bother replying.

Wow, that's not escaping an argument with an ad hominem at all.

Also you spelled elitist wrong.

I have Dyslexia, thanks. Should have known ahead of time this would be a post where one guy would adamantly deffend his point of view & thrust his opinion on others, refusing to yield with disagreers until he got the last word.

 

[BoogieManFL]

I think games can be be much like a work of art. Just like I can look at the masterful design of many of the world's skyscrapers, the layout of an entire city, to the M1 Abrams tank. I see these things and just about everything else and see beauty, cleverness, or elegance in the designs and then I am proud of how far we've come.

I think anything born from the creativity of the human spirit is art in some form.

 

[Lust]

The art debate is like cake.

Some are beautifully made and the taste is to die for. But, when you get down to it, it's just sweet bread. Then there are those who like pie. Supporters will say, it's handmade, made from the heart and not factory produced. Cookie lovers will swoop by and say "you're both nuts. Cookies are the best and you'll never understand." Candy freaks will come by, never add any input, and laugh at you because they're too hyper to know better. Chip people will say they don't care, then, leave. Then the Chocoholics will state that we need to stop all this bickering.

Naturally they will be ignored. Pretzel fans will suggest that we come up for way to decide what's considered genuine. Finally, the Hamburger lords will come down and proclaim they will help produce anything you got. Then you got those Cheese and Beef Jerky people. Those who say that the others have changed. That they've sold out.

I think the art debate has gotten as silly as this.

Literature, Drawing, Painting, Music, Films, Games, Comics, Sculptures, etc.

When it comes down to it. All of us have our preferences and opinions. We need to stop trying to being acknowledged. Like unsure children. We need to grow up. That way the industry grows up. We need to just enjoy it what we like.

Be a hedonist when it comes to art.

You spent an awful lot of time trying to say art is subjective. And it's true, art is indeed subjective.

But art is also culturally defined. Each culture has subjectively different ideas of what art is, but they still have those ideas. And people within each culture have subjectively different ideas of whether or not that art is good (or if it is even art), but there is still a dominant cultural narrative of some things being considered art.

Yes. It's the same argument all over again. A new medium of art comes in and needs to be accepted. Same thing happened with paintings and film. I wonder if we'll reach some sort of consensus soon. Hopefully we will.

 

[distilledfx]

I think an understanding of the concept of Kitsch would go a long way. I have a rather creepy affection for a lot of art forms and I believe that you either have to be creating something for the love of the form or because you are trying to find some sort of truth. 99.999999% of games I play (exaggeration: I haven't really played 1,000,000,000 games) don't seem to aim any higher than "to be a really good game." While that is commendable, far too many games fall short of this for there to be any real exploration or growth. If you're looking for art in the mainstream then you're setting yourself up for disapointment, or as a friend said to me recently "if you're looking for good dancers, don't go to the nightclub!"

 

[LightspeedJack]

Books, film, television, music and comics are all exactly the same. Regardless of whether the product has integrity or not it is still art. Some games are more worthy of the title art than others.

 

[gl1koz3]

yes.

why? cause that's all every artists wants, to be noticed. for the masses to aprpreciate their work. or to become rich it's all the same.

Yes, money is necessity. But the expression should come out by itself. No strings attached. That's a good artist. The latter part (and thus most of today's games and the rest of stuff) is thus not entirely art.

To be noticed... to get rich... it would rather change artists' mood, but not the desire to produce more art. Otherwise, this is no artist. A businessman rather.

 

[Whitethunder]

I believe that the vast majority of gamers see it as art...they just dont' call it that. I see alot of games as a true work of art. WoW in my opinion is a true work of art...not so much graphically even though there are some areas that look beautiful, but in the time and effort blizz puts into the game. They have found a way to keep players enveloped in the game through marketing, reliability and listening to the gamers. Now, blizzards see's those things as necessary to keep the money flowing and they are not artists in anyway shape or form becasue they are in it for the money and nothign more. However the game itself is a true work of art regardless of the artists.

 

[LegendaryMan]

I need to express my opinion here.

This doenst seem like the problem of ''Is it art'' but more of ''Are we threating it like art''

Personally i think we dont appriciate games that much as art and only look them as mildless escapism.With few expeptions few games have tried to express ideas,new stories and other types of art that videogames can do that films cannot do (for example since videogames are fundementually longer that means that there is more story to fit and more importnatnly ideas and characters that grow as the story progreces )

As for the question what is art:

I would classify art as anything that stimulates an emotional response from a human being.
With that in mind everything is art and yes, regardless of what certain outsiders say, videogames are too since they stimulate emotion.

Through in our minds we have this prejustice of good art and bad art.

I would describe good art as the stimulation of certain positive emotions and bad art the stimulation of the negative emotions.

The range of the emotions that are positive or negative throuhg is entirly subjective i.e.
there isnt a clear definition or opinion that dictates what those emotions are.As far as humans go each any everyone of us has a difference range of positive or negative emotions.

 

[Nwabudike Morgan]

Even though I don't think games are art there's no reason why something created for profit can't be art. Many artists have commercialized their art without diminishing the impact of the work. Andy Warhol is held in such high regard because of how he presented his art as product.