Games as Art

[irani_che]

Extra Credits this week mentioned Games becoming art.
I am admittedly not very artistic, and think most things today considered art are utter crap.
However, they defined art in a good way, A game that made you think, even after you finished playing it be it to sus out the subtleties of the plot or rethink the deeper meaning of it or just the game and its mechanics.
Obvious examples of this
Bioshock, the whole idea of a characters background and free will, not to mention the warning agaisnt Ayn Rand style society.
Portal, what it means to be a shooter, the black humour alone

any games that keep you thinking?

 

[zfactor]

I think art is anything that gives you an emotional response. Making you think is not a defining quality of art, but it is nice if it does. Many games do invoke an emotional response from me (not crying or anything, but I become attached to the characters and the world). Examples: Any game made by Bioware or Valve.

 

[migo]

Rhythm Spirit for iOS immediately comes to mind. It's a story that really can't be told through any other medium. That's when games really become art. Where they're not art is when it's essentially a movie plot that pretends to be a game.

 

[CheckD3]

Honestly, Metroid Prime (1) stands out to me as a game that really doesn't get a lot of looks see as art because the story is "absent" like

One thing that I loved about the games are the atmosphere, the empty landscape, filled only with creatures that only move when they feel threatened. Each zone's music has this musical feel, and the best comes with the space pirates.

When you come across the space pirates, the music feels full, dangerous, fast paced. When waiting for them to appear, the ominous music gives you the feeling that something's lurking around, but right now it's quiet and empty

Whenever I hear music that even resembles the music in Metroid Prime, I instantly feel myself reliving the moments of the game. To the calming (ironic since it's icy) music that plays when you enter Phenundra Drifts (too lazy to look up exact names, using best memory from years ago), to the climatic boss fight w/ Meta Ridley, the giant Mecha Dragon being a moment where your heart pounds as you dodge his fireballs and the music captures this thus

An artistic game doesn't just change you through story, but the mood it left on you, even something subconscious, truly makes the game lasting.

 

[Vonnis]

Some games keep me thinking, but is that what makes them art? If so, the bar for something being art is incredibly low, and pretty much everything is or can be art, rendering the term meaningless.
I don't really understand the whole "games are art!" thing anyway. I don't think of any game as art, frankly, they're entertainment. Sure they can be deeper than just something to mindlessly pass time with, but entertainment is the #1 goal here. Why do people want games to be considered art anyway? Just so the image of gamers might become a bit more mature? Why care?
I realise I'm straying off topic here, so to get back on track: I consider games like the path, s.t.a.l.k.e.r., bioshock, silent hill 2 (among others) to be a deeper experience than most. I don't consider any of them art, however.

 

[Cavan]

Vonnis, in response do you think people don't find looking at art entertaining?

Do you think there's any logic in saying that a film can be a work of art but a game can't be?
I assume people want games for a huge variety of reasons, I personally would like it because it encourages a different way of thinking. One that unlike your "mindlessly time passing" approach actually encourages progression and growth in aspects other than jiggle physics and explosions..although there's plenty of room for those too.

If games were to truly embrace how they could be art I think it would encourage depth and variety and an individual passion to make something, more than we see at the moment.

Long story short, you say "why care?" so I say "why not?", what is there to lose?

Look at the other mediums, sure there are artsy films and pictures but there are also hollywood action films for fun or people using photoshop for a giggle or drawing because they like drawing and think it's pretty, all they've done is gained variety.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

I'm going to copy my response from the comments on the Extra Credits video, because it's really long and I don't feel like re-writing essentially the same thing.

Can you post a link to that Fun Is Not Enough video you guys mentioned?

Amazing piece.

His failure is the assumption that games are an artistic medium. They can be used that way, but they're ultimately digital versions of sports and traditional games. I don't care if my games speak to the human condition, in fact I don't want games that speak to the human condition, at least not on a large scale. The occasional artistic game is nice, but I'd much rather have a well balanced system of rules than something that feels the need to tell me something. The difference between games and other forms of media is that games are a hybrid between a communications medium and, well, a game. The fact that games are games are what separates them from everything else, and the only category of gamer that ever cares about the artistic meaning behind their games are the video-gamers. I mean, roleplayers occasionally like to do art through role-play, but they generally go do theater to scratch that itch, and do their tabletop roleplaying in a very different fashion. Wargamers, card players, and boardgamers only care about playing their game.

Both Extra Credits and the guy in this video talk like fun games aren't going to disappear because everything gets artistic, but in their arguments they say that not all artistic games have to be like Braid or Limbo, and champion an idea of a game that, in addition to carrying out the mechanics of a AAA game, manages to make you think about or feel something. Well, that means that we're going to be more focused on singleplayer than multiplayer, and the singleplayer modes we have will be heavily bogged down in story. Unless it's completely optional, a story will get in the way of the action of many game types. Think Serious Sam, which works not because it's a power fantasy (and it is), but because it is an amazing symphony of finely tuned game-mechanics, but also think Sonic the Hedgehog, which has largely been ruined by attempts at making the game more than it is or should be. And I know, there's this idea that you don't need a story to make an artistic game, but the reality is the only way you're going to get the emotions these people keep talking about is through a story, whether it's fully voice acted or simply told by the progression of the levels.

What I'm basically getting at here is that you can't claim that you don't want all games to be arty, but you do want them to be art, and then give a definition of art that means everything is going to have to be arty as well. And even if the guys at Extra Credits are being sincere that they don't want games in the Serious Sam mode to disappear, the kind of gamer who really ascribes to games as art does. It's expressed every time they complain that the campaign is too short in a multiplayer game -- every time, for that matter, that they admit to not liking multiplayer. To them, a game that exists as nothing but a game is not worth playing. For my part, I'll read a book if I want a story. I'll play a game if I want a game.

Edit: upon re-reading the topic, I can't say I've ever played a game that worked as art in a way that was unique to videogames. I've played plenty of games that classified as art by aping movies or books -- Final Fantasy VII, Half Life, Portal, the list goes on -- but I have yet to play anything that really made me think "man, this game is doing things artistically that wouldn't work in any other medium." Which is a shame, because I know games do have that potential; think about Blade Runner. When you watch that movie, every time Deckard pulls the trigger on his gun, it's like you're the one doing it, you're the one committing legally sanctioned murder. A game that treated it properly could make it so you actually were the one performing the act, but I have yet to find one that really has that punch; they tend to make killing too fun for it to work that way, even when a game like Metal Gear Solid tries to tack on a guilt trip about killing people.

 

[Cavan]

I really don't understand the thought that because something is arty it must have no violence or entertainment value.

It probably wouldn't change the games industry at all anyway, just how certain titles are seen and deconstructed by the community.

I like that video actually, although it confuses me because it feels like he starts out against the idea, his beard is sexy too.

I disagree with what he says about comic books potentially being where games will end up at, comic books are an outgrowth of just regular books and so they havn't had to change at all because they already have plenty of books to add the variety that they by themselves lack, something that games can't do with films .

 

[King Of The Bears]

Honestly, Flower stands out in recent memory as a game that could be considered 'art.'

 

[TerranReaper]

The problem I see with "games being art" argument is that people view it as the ONLY way that video games can progress as a whole. "Arty" games are not the "be-all, end-all" solution for gaming and I would hate to see them become a dominate force of gaming. I'd also hate to see gaming being more focused on single-player because while I do enjoy single-player games, I enjoy multiplayer games more, and let's face it, variety is the spice of life, there is plenty of room for every kind of game to coexist with each other. Just because a game doesn't have a story or has a lackluster one, doesn't make it an automatic crap game, we've seen this in games such as Serious Sam or Demon's Souls or Team Fortress 2 that focus on gameplay aspects or multiplayer that make them great games. I would hate to see the day that games that don't focus on story disappear just because people demanded games to become art, in fact, if people actually want this, I would say the entire push for gaming to be art is detrimental to gaming as a whole.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Wasn't Limbo kinda considered arty? And that was the funnest platformer/puzzler i've played for a while... See devs, s'not that hard to mix artyness and fun.

See also Bioware.

 

[Vonnis]

Vonnis, in response do you think people don't find looking at art entertaining?

Do you think there's any logic in saying that a film can be a work of art but a game can't be?
I assume people want games for a huge variety of reasons, I personally would like it because it encourages a different way of thinking. One that unlike your "mindlessly time passing" approach actually encourages progression and growth in aspects other than jiggle physics and explosions..although there's plenty of room for those too.

If games were to truly embrace how they could be art I think it would encourage depth and variety and an individual passion to make something, more than we see at the moment.

Long story short, you say "why care?" so I say "why not?", what is there to lose?

Look at the other mediums, sure there are artsy films and pictures but there are also hollywood action films for fun or people using photoshop for a giggle or drawing because they like drawing and think it's pretty, all they've done is gained variety.

I'm sure people who look at sculptures or paintings for instance are entertained, I doubt they'd be looking at these things if they weren't. I consider that kind of entertainment to be different from the entertainment one gets from playing games though. They're still doing something they enjoy, but are they having fun?
I'm not entirely sure how to explain this and it probably boils down to semantics and personal opinion, but the way I see it traditional art is made to reflect or represent something, and making people think about that is the main goal. Games can do the same thing, but it'll be a secondary goal. If the player isn't having fun, he's not going to play for long, so he won't experience the things that are supposed to be thought-provoking, hence fun will always be in first place on the priority list. The same thing applies to any kind of art (if you don't like a painting in a gallery, just move over to the next) but with a painting, you can get a pretty good idea of what's going on from just a glance as it doesn't change, whereas a game is in constant motion and typically requires at least a good portion of it to have been played before it can make an emotional or intellectual impact.
Do I think there's logic in saying films can be art and games can't? Well, not really no. I have to admit there are only very, very few films I might consider calling art though, and those tend to have the same problem as most traditional art: they're boring as hell to the general public. That's not to say games can't be boring, but at least they require input so you're doing something. That might actually be a factor in my opinion on this matter: the interactivity. Games would be the only artform that demands active participation, rather than passive viewing. The fact you can't just sit back and take it all in at your own pace until after you've beaten the game to me means that whilst an underlying theme with artistic merit may well be present, it's more of an afterthought, a dessert of thinking after a main course of gaming. One could say the same thing about films, but the films generally considered to be artistic tend to have a very slow pace (which is part of why so many find them boring). The only game I can think of that would fit with those films is the path.
I'm not saying games should be all about mindless entertainment; I love a good story, especially when it raises philosophical questions. I do think this will always walk in the shadow of fun gameplay in terms of game design however.
Perhaps the problem I have with the idea of games as art is simply due to those in favour generally saying "games are art" rather than "games are capable of having artistic merit". Each game is different after all, and whilst there are some that provoke deeper thought, the majority does not, because it was never set as the main goal. I play games to be entertained; if that involves deeper thought that's great, if my brain is idling but I'm still having fun, that's just as well.
As for why I don't care whether my image as a gamer is that of a technologically advanced philosopher or an immature manchild: I don't really care what other people think of me and my hobbies, that's simply my personality. If someone thinks s/he can reach conclusions about me based solely on the fact I play video games, that person is too shallow to be worth talking or listening to anyway.
Finally, I have a (hopefully irrational fear) that if games are ever widely considered to be art, a whole lot of hipster losers is going to build an entire subculture around it, making games less fun and claiming it's because they're art pieces, never meant to be entertaining. That's probably just me being paranoid though.

I hope this post makes some sense, I'm having some trouble concentrating due to me not being entirely sober. Apologies for the wall of text.

 

[BreakfastMan]

One of the games I keep coming back to is killer7. I know, I go on and on about this game quite often, but it really does have one the of the best plots of any game I have yet to play. Most of the beginning involves encountering what seems like completely random crap happening all around you, but when you get every close to the end of the game, everything starts making a perverted, terrible sort of sense. The game has so many layers in its plot, it is just ridiculous. There are others (Persona 4, Silent 2+3, Metal Gear Solid 2+3, Mass Effect 2, TES III: Morrowind, The Darkness, just to name a few), but that is the example that most readily springs to mind

 

[Steve B]

Games as a whole (Video, card, table-top, etc.) are in their simplest terms, interactions. Be it player-and-player, player-and-system, or system-and-system, the defining characteristic of a game is the fact that you interact with it; you play it. Players have the ability to offer "input" that manipulates the system via its established rule-sets. Like how clicking a box in Minesweeper reveals the number of mines surrounding it.

Art, in a general sense, is expression. Through use of color, characterization, atmosphere, texture, literally ANYTHING, art is trying to convey a meaning. It could be anything from an emotion, to philosophical thought, to a simple sensory reaction (A smell that recalls a memory from your past). For example, Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" conveys that a person's fear of being discovered (as a murderer, in this case) can often be what leads them to being discovered in the end.

Okay, I know that's heady as fuck, but here's the take away:

A game is an interaction.

Art is an expression.

What this means in terms of "video games being art" is that essentially, they can be art--but they don't have to be.

A video game like Microsoft's Solitaire is a great example of a "game" that isn't "art" in it's own sense. Solitaire, as I'm sure everyone who has used a computer knows, is a virtual card game. It is in reality, a recreation of a game called Klondike, where the player attempts to take a deck of playing cards that has been split into seven scrambled stacks and re-organize it into four stacks, each containing one of the decks four suits (clubs, hearts, spades, diamonds) in descending order (King down to Ace).

Solitaire, no matter how you look at it, is in no way, shape, or form, trying to tell you something. It doesn't have a story, atmosphere, or theme. It isn't a commentary on any aspect of humanity. The only lesson you could extract from Solitaire is that, maybe, it's trying to teach you patience. But the only way you could say that is in the case where a teacher or parent is having a kid play it specifically for that reason.

And that's an applied theme, which is pointless to talk about.

Solitaire isn't art. It's a game, and that is it.

On the other hand you've got things like Dalí's The Persistence of Memory (the painting of all the melting clocks) which portrays the ambiguity of time and space in both dreams and reality. This theme ('expression'), along with the fact that it is a painting (no 'interaction') , makes it an easy example of "art" that is not a "game".


Vonnis made a good point when he said,

I play games to be entertained; if that involves deeper thought that's great, if my brain is idling but I'm still having fun, that's just as well.

All of my long-winded writing and examples come down to this.

Entertainment.

The entire debate behind "video games as art" stems from this word and how we apply it to games.

I'm going to say something that the majority of you are probably going to disagree with:

Games are not entertainment.

Yes, we play games for entertainment, but games themselves are not entertainment incarnate.

Game designers want to make fun gameplay, and gamers want to play fun gameplay, so that's what we do. As a medium, video games are geared toward being entertaining, but I'm sure you all have played ones that aren't. Think about genres that you do and do not enjoy. I personally HATE racing games. I get absolutely nothing out of them. Conversely, my brother ONLY plays RTS's. He doesn't enjoy himself UNLESS he's playing them. To him, everything else is a waste of time.

Do you see what I'm getting at here? Games ARE fun, but only if the specific person playing them finds them fun.

Games are for entertainment, but they are not entertainment in and of themselves.

In a similar vein of thought, a lot of gamers feel that "art" in video games is an expression of something at the expense of entertainment. As if to say, the more "artsy" a game is, the less fun it can possibly be.

Which, when you lay it bare like that, isn't necessarily true. Sure, some people will claim that it still is, but that's just personal preference.

Wasn't Limbo kinda considered arty? And that was the funnest platformer/puzzler i've played for a while... See devs, s'not that hard to mix artyness and fun.

Art is an expression. A theme. An atmosphere. It's can take many forms in video games, and yet, at the same time, "art" can be completely absent from a game. In the end, what matters is your preference for or against it.

For as many people as there are that enjoy Dragon Age for its story, there are an equal amount who play Halo and skip every single cutscene.

I hope this post makes some sense, I'm having some trouble concentrating due to me not being entirely sober. Apologies for the wall of text.

Uh, I'd also like to apologize for how awkwardly this is written... for no particular reason.

 

[lacktheknack]

I've heard a lot of "VIDEO GAMES ARE NOT ART" ranting recently.

Of course, how does "The Path" exist then?

 

[Lazier Than Thou]

I've always considered art to be something that tells a story. This covers everything from paintings, music, poetry, movies, to games. Anything that tells a story is, in my opinion, artistic.

In my opinion, this makes video games almost the perfect form of art. They not only provide a story, but allow you to be a part of it. While every other form of art is passive(watching a movie, listening to music, reading a book) you're actively engaged with the story of a game. You, for better or worse, determine the outcome of the game based upon your skill or desire to push forward.

Not only that, but the pre-written story is not the only story told with a game. Most games will give different means of playing the same game. In an FPS are you going to charge in with a shot gun, shoot from mid-range with machine guns or stay at a distance with rifles? You chart your own coarse through the mechanics of the game in a way that you cannot do with any other art form. You very literally create your own art by choosing how you will over-come the obstacles before you. This is not true for all games, obviously, but for the vast majority of them it is.

How many times have you engaged in telling a friend or family member about something you achieved or did in a game? Is not that a story?

Video games are the culmination of all other art forms, but with the unique attraction that sets them apart from all others. The ability to decide the outcome, to control the fate, to chart the course.

Or perhaps I've just gone mad from all the video game violence. Either way.

 

[MisterShine]

but I have yet to play anything that really made me think "man, this game is doing things artistically that wouldn't work in any other medium."

To respond to this quote and to answer the OP's question of "Has a game kept you thinking after it ended?"

Yes. Planescape: Torment. First piece of media that ever made me consider who I was as a human being and what kind of person I should become. And without the audio-visual-interactive elements present only in video games it wouldn't have had anywhere near as deep an affect on me as it did.

What can change the nature of a man, indeed.

 

[Thaius]

I just finished Beyond Good and Evil in HD. I already loved te game before I re-bought it on Xbox Live, but playing it in HD was an awesome experience, and I noticed things I hadn't before. The main one is spoileriffic, so here... don't read if you haven't played it. I mean seriously, this game is amazing; go drop the $10 for it on Xbox Live and play it now.

During the last boss fight, two things occur that really stood out to me. The first is when the DomZ High Priest and he sends those DomZ minion things at Jade, but they're disguised as Pey'J. Fighting the very likeness of the beloved character you'd played through the game to save was kind of distressing, but nothing too bad. Then it did the same thing with Double-H. As his copied fought you, you would hear his voice: "It's your fault we're suffering, Miss Jade. Just give it up." Hearing these words from the very person who had just recently pulled Jade herself up from dispair was really difficult and disheartening. Then the High Priest says he can feel Jade's spirit failing, and everything goes blurry and movement is reversed. Everything Jade knows and understands is being turned on its head, and rather than seeing or reading her thoughts on the matter, that confusion and backwardness is given to not only the character, but the player as well. Brilliant.

Games are art. Not "arty" games, or anything like that; video games are an artistic medium of expression that involves creativity and skillful presentation of it, and thus is art. Games like Beyond Good and Evil are the pinnacle that display the viability of the art form, but all games, as examples of the art form, are works of art.

Other games that made me really think include Mass Effect 2, Final Fantasy VI, VII, and X, Shadow of the Colossus, and Bioshock. And more, but those are some of the main examples.

 

[fdbluth]

Jesus, are we going to have this exact post every single week? I thought the Extra Credits episode would quiet everyone down. But then again, I am posting on it, so maybe I should shut up.

Anyway, I'll just write down what I've put down before. Video game, as a medium, is art. Therefore, all games are art. Not "just" Bioshock. Not "just" Planescape. Not "just" Shadow of the Colossus. Every. Single. Game. That includes Halo, Gears of War, Bulletstorm, Duke Nukem, you name it.

Now, I believe that the definition of art, vaguely and generally speaking, is any kind of a created work that illicit emotion and meaning to a person after contact with said work. But art refers to a certain medium, not specific work. There's no way you can simply say one thing's art and the other isn't. It's too subjective, and can be construed differently by different people.

What people refer to when they look at games and say, "This one's art and this one's entertainment", they're really saying "This one's good art and this one's shitty, piss-poor example of a burgeoning art form and should be rotting in a landfill somewhere out on the dark side of the moon."

/angry rant