I actually agree with you on modern art and things that go out of their way to be "artsy".I had not thought about the tendency for snobbery before you had pointed that out. I see your point about people taking the idea to the negative of and taking the your "bringing down gaming as a whole argument" to things like DoA. I really have no problem games like DoA or films like Piranha they are both perfect examples of of there genres. In there own way they are much closer to perfection then many films and games that try hard to have some deeper meaning but fail to be good games or films, because the aforementioned game and film set small simple goals and achieve them to the fullest extent.NiPah said:I don't like the idea of "holding games to a higher standard", I like the idea of "holding artsy games to a higher standard". This kindof thinking leads to attacks on certain games not deemed art, "look at that new DoA game, boobs, it's bringing down gaming as a whole!", well look at any other genre, Piranha 3D didn't bring down movies as a whole, crap romantic books don't bring down people's opinion of The Raven, ect ect.antipope said:I fully agree with Reven. Except I am not really worried about the culture as a hole if we can change our internal conversations the culture will change eventually. Nor I am not jumping down and saying take my hobby seriously because its art. What I am saying is that if developers and gamers want this to be considered art they have to hold games to a higher standard. I think we should all want that regardless of are personal opinions on games as art since it should make for better games.
The true issue is most games labeled as "artsy" these days are either shit or just not fun, this does much more damage then the gaming culture or boob physics will ever do. If my friend passed me a game and said "dude this is a great art game" I'd already think "oh this will be about as much fun has hanging out in Starbucks debating the merits of the new apple product", not "oh wow I'm going to have an afternoon full of fun playing this!".
I don't play games for art, modern art is boring, camp, useless little turds of the worthless surrealist movement. Maybe I'm jaded from from working in an art museum for a few years, but the only art I want in my games is pretty buildings, interesting sky boxes, and a nice beat.
My real problem is when people say thing like the story sucked and getting the reply of what do you expect its just a video game or the developers throwing out that its art as an excuse for poor choices on their part. These should not be excuses and I think we need to acknowledge more when a game provides a trite predictable story that has gigantic plot holes in it.