Games will never be accepted as an art form

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Robert Ewing

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I don't really care if it's considered art or not by any authority. I think it's art, and I'm sure many people on this forum think its art.

But I think it will be considered art all over the world soon. The USA have ruled that it's art already. Not long before a movement grows in other countries to get the same thing put through. As the US is quite passionate about gaming, of course they got the bill first.

Other countries just need a little longer. Gaming is art, everything about it is art. Including the hacky slashy maimathons.
 

Warforger

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retyopy said:
Now, I'm not just here to get beaten up and have my lunch money stolen, and you're not just here to beat me up and steal my lunch money! Your job, escapists, is to engineer a likely scenario in which games will be accepted. LIKELY! REALISTIC! KEY WORDS, PEOPLE! Or, failing that, just comment on what I've written. I'm just as depressed as you aren't, and I want you to pull me out of my funk. I apologize for the wall of textiness.
The problem though is that there's no clear definition of art because it's just something we make up, something that exists because we say it exists. The dictionary definition of art is "Something that effects the emotions" which is very broad, because with this defintion Genocide is art, I mean I'm sure anyone who even reads about a genocide is effected emotionally.

Even then it's still a matter of perspective, I can see the Mona Lisa and I don't give a shit, it's just a picture nothing that special to me yet to countless other people it's something beautiful.
 

Gustavo S. Buschle

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Being art does not equal being a movie. I really cannot see why fighting off a horde of zombies is not artful, sure it's not what snob people want you to believe art is but if it speaks to you in a conscious or subconscious level then it's good enough to be art. For example, I consider almost any survival (survival-horror more specifically) art because it makes me feel alone and helpless, a game like Dungeons of Dredmor is art in my opinion because I know I will never win it, just like life.
 

FaceFaceFace

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You explicitly ignored pretty much everything that can make games art. No, games with extended sequences of enemy killing between cutscenes are not and will not be art. Yes, super linear games that are basically movies that you "control" by moving from point A to point B to point C are barely games. You're ignoring the advantage of games, interactivity, exploration. Take, as a micro example and not necessarily as an example of a game that is art, Half-Life 2.

Other than the events that happen to you immediately in the game, most of the plot is entirely optional because it is in the form of things sitting around the game world. An abandoned house full of zombies of resistance members. Newspaper clippings that mention some war you think you heard mentioned by a random npc earlier. Casual mentions of things in conversations that become meaningful if you walk into a random room and read something on a desk.

A film that showed everyone of these little things would be long and seem kind of boring. A novel that interrupts the story to print out these documents every chapter or so would be disjointed. But most of all, in either of these cases these things would be obvious. They are obviously important. That's where games shine. In giving you the freedom to move where you want and how you want, you can discover things that may be pointless, they may be trivial, or they may be part of the narrative. You can unravel things for yourself, unlike the guided tours of the story you get in film or writing.

Now I guess I've been talking about games as a narrative form rather than as art, but in my personal opinion (since art is basically what any individual thinks it is) narratives are the best kind of art.
 

SuperDitz

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Wait, waitwaitwaitwait. Maybe we need to get our definition of "art" straight, here. Games have potential. Are you trying to say that making them artistic would require taking out the interactive aspect? Because that's...that's idiotic. Games as an artistic medium need that interaction. It's what makes them what they are.

Case in point: Portal. Widely considered one of the best games out there. I would call it art, and there's almost no cutscenes or story at all. Would you be able to "watch" the game and get the same experience?
 

Raykuza

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All games are already art. That's right. Halo is just as much "art" as Shadow of the Colossus which is just as much "art" as the Mona freaking Lisa. Whether or not they are good art is where the real discussion lies, and whether or not you enjoy them is another discussion entirely.

This is the same stupid discussion as "Herpaderp is rap real music?". Yes it is. Even Soulja Boy is making music, and he is indeed a musician. He's just really bad at it.
 

Hectix777

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Cheshire the Cat said:
art
noun /ärt
arts, plural

1: The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power
- the art of the Renaissance
- great art is concerned with moral imperfections
- she studied art in Paris

2: Works produced by such skill and imagination
- his collection of modern art
- an exhibition of Mexican art
- an art critic

3: Creative activity resulting in the production of paintings, drawings, or sculpture
- she's good at art

4: The various branches of creative activity, such as painting, music, literature, and dance
- the visual arts
- the art of photography

5: Subjects of study primarily concerned with the processes and products of human creativity and social life, such as languages, literature, and history (as contrasted with scientific or technical subjects)
- the belief that the arts and sciences were incompatible
- the Faculty of Arts

6: A skill at doing a specified thing, typically one acquired through practice
- the art of conversation


Videogames definitely fall under a couple of those categories so yes, videogames are obviously art. And not just the stupid pansy ass "Artsy" games either. ALL video games are art. No exceptions.
Whether or not Joe Average accepts it or not is not my problem.
Gamers really need to get over this idiotic idea that we have to fight for social acceptance.
If people do not like games or view them as a legitimate art form then, to put it simply, fuck them. Fuck them in their stupid fucking ass.
I wont lose any sleep over it since no one elses opinion matters to me.
Aww sh**, son! 'ou just got told!

OT: This thing came out like 40 years ago, it's still growing so quit being an emo buzz kill. you show serious potential as a troll baiter, y'know that?
 

MegaManOfNumbers

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*Cracks fist*

I bet you also think Mega Man Legends 3 won't be a good game too.

Joking, buddy. It's not that it won't be accepted; the elders of our society won't accept it; us, the youth of developed society will accept it (you'll be surprised by how many people like video games these days, I was 0.0). Us, the new future, will allow games as an art. just as drawing started it, just as books became so, just as movies did; Gaming is the next evolution of art.
 

MegaManOfNumbers

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Crash 9000 said:
Many people on these forums try very hard to act like Yahtzee, which doesn't make you look witty/funny/intelligent, because many people who come here, come here mainly for Yahtzee, and OP is no exception. It just makes you look desperate to appear awesome, so you try to steal someone else's content.

OT: Anything can be art I suppose, why does a consensus be required for something to be art? I've found many games to be what I would consider "art". And I've found that 90% of what the consensus defines as "art" is boring and doesn't appeal to me at all. I suppose "art" is just a fancy way of saying, "something I like, that affects my emotions".
*slow clap*

You are wonderful, sir/ma'am. Welcome to the Escapist, and judging from your argument, you are VERY welcome here! :)
 

orangeban

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But a lot of art isn't deep, or spiritual or though-provoking. That's why we have Michael Bay movies and Twilight. Gaming happens to have more of these titles because A) it's a young medium that still sorta sees itself as a toy, and B) gaming has other things going for it than though-provocation.

Think about it, paintings and poems that aren't thought-provoking won't have much merit.
Less so with books, they could be well written I guess, but they still kinda need to provoke thoughts.
Movies, they can look nice, have good effects, so you get some that aren't thought-provoking.
Games, they can be mindless fun, where you just mash buttons and shit happens and you laugh. So you get quite a bit of non-thought-provoking stuff.

However, you can get deep videogames, for example, I think Half-Life 2 has very good writing, and one of my favourite villains of all time. And not just out of videogames, out of media, full stop.
 

StorytellingIsAMust

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Jun 24, 2011
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This whole argument is just a game of semantics. Every person posting here has a different idea of what the words "art," "games," and "fun" mean. Nobody here could ever be completely right or wrong because you're each assuming that these words mean something differently before you continue. In the end, this is just an exercise in pointlessness...

...and what kind of nerd would I be not to join in the pointlessness?

To those that think art will ruin the sense of fun, let me ask you? Is it really impossible to believe that their are "artistic" drawings and "fun" drawings, or "artistic" music and "fun" music? In both of these media, both art and fun exist, so why can't the same be true in gaming?

To those that think that art is simply graphics, would you say that literature and music aren't art? If not, then why can't the narrative of a game be art? Why can't the gameplay? Have you honestly never felt triumph when you succeeded in a game? Or dread when you near death or failure? Or shock when something unexpected happens?

To those that don't see the point of getting games legitimized, ask yourself: Are you willing to put up with censorship? With certain games getting banned for content? With titles getting dropped for the sake of political correctness? With stagnation? With gaming making you more suspicious in the eyes of authority, like how teenagers and blacks are often viewed? With gaming becoming illegal? All of these things could possibly happen if games aren't viewed as legitimate in the eyes of both the public and the governments of the world.

To those that think that art and entertainment or profit (or both) cannot coexist, do you not find Shakespeare entertaining? Do you not find Beethoven entertaining? Do you not find the Mona Lisa entertaining? Perhaps you don't, but each of these things was originally made for one of two goals: profit and/or entertainment. Yet these things are all viewed as art.

To those that think that art and fun can and already are present in the same titles, that all aspects of games contribute to the artistic experience of it, and that games should be recognized, not just by a governing body, but by the general public as such, then I have one thing to say to you: I'm on your team.

I don't know who will take the time to read this wall of text, but to all those that do, regardless of what your opinion is: thank you for being respectful enough to read this rather than ignore it. Just remember: all of our opinions are pointless.
 

ServebotFrank

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Oh god not this shit again. I'll just say that the same thing was said about comics. Now stop making these kinds of threads.
 

AperioContra

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Oy, I don't know if I can really disagree more, but in order to illustrate this, I have a to dip into other fields commonly dismissed in their time.

You see, back before the 1940s, movies, like videogames, were facing a similar controversy. High brow at experts had engaged in a battle of whether movies had the same artistic value as say, painting or literature. This was a tenuous debate based on singular authorship, and anybody here who has watched Bob Chipman's "Game OverThinker" knows exactly where I'm going with this. Long story short, a movement called "Nouvelle Vauge" presented the argument that, while a movie does not have singular authorship, it does have a primary influence in the form of a director. This movement lead an entire social movement that allowed movies to be considered of artistic value on par with literature, sculpting and painting.

But, not content with ripping off MovieBob's arguments, I can also think of a couple other mediums who faced this particular controversy. Science Fiction Literature is probably my first example, as it was not too long ago. You see, in the 1950s, like film, Science Fiction literature was under scrutiny of whether or not we can consider it art. Though it did have hilarious implication (in the form of Sturgeon's Revelation), it had the benefit of being able to live discover exactly how wrong it was. Instead of going through the history of this, I'm going to just point out that Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell is considered the crowning achievement of contemporary literature despite having an essentially Science Fiction Premise (set in then future, having Televisions that could monitor people, etc.). Even in other mediums, Stanley Kubrick's re-visioning of Arthur C. Clarke's Science Fiction Classic: 2001: A Space Odyssey, is considered amongst the most artistic movies to date.

Though, I'm not going to say your argument has no merit. I mean, after all Comic Books have been under the same controversy for years and they are to date nearly 90 years old. Though a strong argument can be made for, with the rise of popular comic book movies, such as The Dark Knight and the Spiderman movies, that there is a large shift social perspective regarding this medium. I would not be at all surprised if Comics, with their rise in popularity, begin to engage in this debate themselves.

But the most compelling argument to this case is one in which retyopy actually dismisses in his thesis. And that is the Dada movement. In the 1910s a small movement of "found art" and "anti-art" had began to sweep several nations. The best example of this is of course Fountain. If you do not know what Fountain is, let me give a small history lesson. A studio called the Society of Independent Artists had began scrutinizing pieces of art, considering the Dada movements (amongst others) to be inherently unartistic. Marcel Duchamp, a member of the board had decided to submit Mens Public Urinal signed under the pseudonym R. Mutt. This was accepted into the SIA, until shortly after it was revealed to be a farce. So what was point of this? Some say that Marcel Duchamp was trying to illustrate to his colleagues that art is not something that can be readily defined, nor scrutinized. As a result Fountain is still under display in several museums (including the Nelson in my home town of Kansas City) and is championed as one of the great contemporary artistic achievements.

I guess the point of this exercise is to illustrate a long history of other controversial mediums that have been since canonized as art. In this, I can conclude, through reason of history, that considering video games to "never be accepted as art" is not only inherently shortsighted, but ignorant of even recent history. And for those of you who say that you don't care whether or not society considers our favorite medium art. I'm going to say something very controversial here: You have either not reached your mid to late 20s yet, or you are lying. You see, as you begin to approach this humble age you will realize that the world judges you based on not only what you do, but what you do on your off time. Any gamer of this age wishes our medium to be considered an artform, if not only to not feel like people aren't thinking of you as a child when you say you play video games on your off time.

In conclusion, I do not believe this it altruistic to think that video games can be considered art, especially in 20 or so years when the generation that grew up appreciating video games begin to reach the majority. History repeats itself, and we must remain aware that this is not the first or last time this battle will be fought, and it may simply take the rise of another generation and the shift of the social Zeitgeist in order to realize artistic potential of video games. But saying "never gonna happen" is just as shortsighted as when IBM said that the personal computer will never catch on.
 

Dchao

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Apr 10, 2011
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I honestly don't care if games were to be classed as art or not, it's a silly argument. I have to say though, some "arty" games such as Enslaved and Knytt have to be some of the best games I've played, hell Ico is the token art game and it's my favourite game of all time.
 

Filiecs

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May 24, 2011
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At its base, the purpose of art is to extract strong emotions from the beholder and/or have a deeper meaning. Games do both these things and thus they are art.
 

Cain_Zeros

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retyopy said:
oh, sure, some games will be art, but they won't be games. They'll be linear corridors where your character is savaged by monsters that represent the artists inner demons a few times and then falls down a pit, and your only purpose for playing is to "make you feel his pain."
So a watered-down, shitty Silent Hill game that could accomplish the same thing, and be a good game, while being a real Silent Hill game?
 

Moeez

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retyopy said:
Even if your story is the best in the world, even if your dialogue would put Shakespeare to shame, even if your game world is beautiful and mystical, your game isn't going to be called art outside of the gaming community. You want to know why? It's the "GAME" part of a GAME. You know, the part where you spend hours fighting off hordes of zombie and play phiysics puzzles and take part in random violence. Why is this a dooming quality? Because it could effectively be replaced by cutscenes, and it has no point. "But, you filthy, dirt encrusted dog whose name I don't dare speak lest it soil my soul," I hear you spit from the corner of your mouth as you try to comprehend ralking to someone so utterly disgusting and morally bankrupt, "A lot of art is pointless! Some great works of art don't send us a window into the artists soul. Think of the Dada movement. They just took fucking toilets and turned them into art!" And so you sit back on your throne of moral superioty, having won the day.
Or so you think. But first off, the dada movement was a load of shit between to shits on a shit sandwich, (so I basically included them just to get a dig in,) and all those other pointless bits of art are pointless because that's what they are supposed to be. Their meaning is to be meaningless, so to speak. Whereas all of gaming in games could be replaced by cutscenes. oh, sure, some games will be art, but they won't be games. They'll be linear corridors where your character is savaged by monsters that represent the artists inner demons a few times and then falls down a pit, and your only purpose for playing is to "make you feel his pain." But they won't be called games, oh no. They'll be called "immersive representations" or some such crap. So don't delude yourself. No meta-game is going to come along and redefine art and gaming as we know it. Games will never be accepted.

Now, I'm not just here to get beaten up and have my lunch money stolen, and you're not just here to beat me up and steal my lunch money! Your job, escapists, is to engineer a likely scenario in which games will be accepted. LIKELY! REALISTIC! KEY WORDS, PEOPLE! Or, failing that, just comment on what I've written. I'm just as depressed as you aren't, and I want you to pull me out of my funk. I apologize for the wall of textiness.
First, you're playing the wrong games if you think the game part only consists of violence and puzzles. Your ignorance is deafening, and I won't bother giving many effective artistic games as examples.

Second, you're not saying anything new, we get a "are games art?" thread every week for years now.

You do realise that cutscenes in videogames (already an outdated form of storytelling) is an incredibly limited way of looking at the creative expression found in a videogame?

Art is only art when judged by the audience. Videogames are accepted as art already as most people have already pointed it out, sorry if that upsets you.

http://img571.imageshack.us/img571/7960/artofvideogames.jpg
The art of videogames is now going to be shown at the Smithsonian from March - September 2012 [http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2012/games/#games].