Poll: Do You Really want Games to be art?

[Kahunaburger]

I picked no because once something is classed as art that seems to be an excuse to be as lazy as possible. Take the Fountain. You say "It's just a bloody water fountain" and they say "It's more than that. It's art." or "You just don't get it."

Although to be fair that was arguably the entire point of The Fountain.

 

[jklinders]

I'm not really fussed either way. It will be art or not whether I want it to be or not. That's actually kind of how this stuff works. It can't be forced either way, it will just happen or not as a side effect of culture.

 

[Seanfall]

As a gamer of around 30 years this is one of those subjects I really can't bring myself to care about.

For me, I buy a game to play and entertain myself. I care very little about what anyone else thinks of my pass time or if it is "art".

As long as i'm having fun they can call it whatever the feth they like it changes nothing for me.

Someone once said to me "but people would stop looking down on you as a gamer if they were art" to which I can only reply .... i'm in my 30's. I stopped giving a toss about what people thought about me oooooh around 30 years ago.

I'm not that old...but yeah I feel the same way. And if games being 'art' means we're not allowed to complain and ask for better? Then no I don't want them to be 'art' I want them to be games. I like games...I don't give a, as you put it, toss about art.

And I mean no disrespect with the 'i'm not that old' line.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Actually, it isn't. Many people don't consider novels as art.

People who don't understand the meaning of the word art, perhaps. Since that is more than 50% of the population in the USA, I can sort of understand your confusion, but it doesn't make what you say correct.

Again, you are confusing good art with art. A crappy novel is bad art. Just like a crying clown painting is bad art.

Art is made by ARTISTS. A writer is a type of artist.

You can't be serious... every video game I've ever played has the complexity of a carrot.

Your carrots have dialogue, 3D art, motion capture, and musical scores, do they?

I didn't say the plot or theme of all games were complex - I said that they combine most (almost all) artistic disciplines.

Those disciplines, as defined by any college of Liberal Arts. Writing, Drawing/Painting, Sculpture, Interactive Installation, and Music being the FINE Arts.

Note that Games are made up of digital versions of the five major Fine Arts.

Hence Games are a Fine art.

They might be a shitty fine art, but like I said, so are crying clown paintings (since painting is a fine art).

Bad art =/= not art.

Take it from someone who works in the Liberal Arts (me). There's a lot of crap out there. Being crap doesn't make it not art, though. Just crappy art.

Everything you described also applies to films, so I don't see how games are any more complex than films, which are considered art but no sane person would say all of them are art.

Actually, all films are art. Some are good, some are bad, but they are all art.

Art is a classification of media, not a rating of the quality of that media.

The issue here is that people (like you) typically only apply the word art to mean "a good example of a fine art" - which is incorrect from a purely grammatical viewpoint. It would be like saying that hamburgers aren't food because they aren't steaks.

Because it's not the good parts of that media. The fact is that nobody considers the worst of any of these media to be art. Nobody.

Except... artists. All artists. And people who study art. And the people who teach art. And the people who are involved with the arts. And that of course includes those involved with game design and programming.

So basically everyone who matters to this debate.

Saying that games aren't art is telling game designers that what they do doesn't matter. It's offensive to the people who make games. Just stop it.

Edited for spelling error and clarity.

 

[Lugbzurg]

Someone who says that videogames are not art, is probably not worth listening to.

Someone, somewhere, put a lot of time into building all those visuals, into composing all that music, into writing all of that story.

To say you don't like videogames is fine, but, to say they are not art is just foolish.

If something as trivial and simple as the Mona Lisa can be considered art, then, something like Portal 2, Red Dead Redemption, Shadow of the Colossus, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask and Metal Gear Solid completely rip it to shreds.

I can't vote if I "want" videogames to be art. They are art. There is no point in even debating this.

 

[ImperialSunlight]

I pay you to make me a sculpture of a finger, you sculpt the finger beautifully then add a wart. I ask you to take the wart off and you say "No I must defend my artistic integrity". If I have paid you good money to do me a service and I am unhappy with it, so you should put it right. Then if all my friends come round and say "great sculpture but I dont like the wart", isnt it obvious the art should be changed?
On the other hand if you sculpt a warty finger because you want to, and I come along and start harassing you to change it, then it is your right to not change it and to tell me to shut up.

If the person paying for the finger didn't like the end result, they fire the creator and don't buy art from him again.

It is the same with games. If a company makes a game terribly and makes the ending suck, then it is safe to assume that fewer people will buy their games afterward. Thus, even though an artist shouldn't give in to people who believe something should be changed after the product is completed, they have the responsibility to maintain quality and consider their audience, otherwise they will not be paid in the future.

In the case of Bioware, they shouldn't have made the ending so horrible that almost everyone unanimously agrees that it is awful in the first place. Bioware should accept the consequences of its mistake and people should look at it not as a problem that needs to be fixed, but a mistake by the developer that lowers the quality of the finished product (Mass Effect 3 is, at this point, considered a finished game), as people should do in all similar cases. A bad ending is not a bug or glitch. It is a completely intentional part of the game that is the result of bad game design.

In order for games to be a respectable artistic medium, we need to stop looking at problems as things in a game that need to be fixed, but as mistakes. People don't look at a bad part of a book and say "Hm, this part was not very good, I'll tell the author to change it!". The more logical thing to do would be to write a review of the book that tells people about how disappointing it is and that they shouldn't buy it.

 

[Erana]

All the "ME3 ending and artistic integrity" stuff is just silly. The argument really can't be about artistic vision when you've got EA breathing down your back.

Anyway, I really don't appreciate hearing about people going on about things like "artistic integrity" when they haven't taken any time to actually sit down and spent several hours (at the very least) researching the concept.
Just because the arts aren't like hard science doesn't mean that there haven't been billions of people who have come before you and someone's probably worked out some issues on the matter at some point.
No, an argument isn't inherently invalid when it comes from someone uneducated on a matter, so don't be obnoxious and try and invalidate this remark by making such a claim. I'm just saying that if you're going to stand up about an issue, you should put some genuine effort into what you're saying.

Also wouldn't it be so much better if Games were just made to be entertaining, and didn't come with any of the BS associated with art.

My point is games are a consumer item, and rules that go with consumer items, tend to clash with those that apply to "art".

OP, you clearly don't care enough about the arts to genuinely take the art world and its centuries of rhetoric into consideration. If you aren't willing to take the effort to learn about this culture, then why don't you stop invoking them, and just go and play and enjoy games in whatever way pleases you the most?

I mean, you're entitled to your opinion, but when you put them out there and start making assertions about a medium and the concept of artistic integrity as a whole like this... Well, its a bit insulting.
What are you trying to do, OP? You've clearly made up your mind on the matter, so what am I supposed to make of this? Is my mind supposed to be changed by this?

 

[BehattedWanderer]

Games can be art, but not all games need to be art. There is also the process of creating art, which does not necessarily yield art, but is artistic in it's own right.

And your analogy is tweaked. You didn't commission the art, had no authority on it's development, were a voice of suggestion during creation that might never have spoken up or been ignored since you didn't have the entirety of the work to deal with, and as you are only buying a copy of the work, your input beyond critique is negligible.

 

[Hipsy_Gypsy]

No.

While there is merit to both sides, there's too much about what's generally considered "art" that I don't particularly care for.

For once, the term "art" has been badly abused as an excuse for producing shit. "This is a work of art", the artist says, "and if you dislike it, that's because my art goes over your head, you filthy uneducated peasant!"

Further, trying to apply the term to video games often seems to have the purpose to make playing video games more acceptable, especially for adults. "Oh, but it's not just a game and thus a great waste of time. I'm appreciating fine art here!" I sure don't need other people's approval for a pastime that helps me relax and enjoy myself after a long day at work.

Also, art tends to attract people who pretend to like/appreciate/understand it to appear more educated; the game industry latches onto this and caters to that kind of people, we get countless attempts at reinventing the wheel and sticking features to games that might make them more "artistic" but less enjoyable. To be completely honest, I'm completely fine with games sticking stuff that's been seen to work in the past. Take ole Mass Effect here, they made an incredibly cliché space opera for 2.99 games and tried to be clever for .01 part of the third one. And that was not good.

That, of course I appreciate the creativity that goes into making a good video game, but I don't really care for the art label being slapped onto my fun hobby. It's the same with a good fantasy novel. I'd rather have something I can say about "Well, that was a mighty fine and entertaining tale you told there!" rather than "Now, what you did there.... with the words, you know... very unusual, but got me thinking about life a lot..."

This, for the most part.

OT: I am under the impression that many developers feel the need to have their games recognised art so much that they end up ruining it. Sort of like when you feel the need to add more and more to a painting but end up ruining it instead. Hm. Not sure if that was the best choice of similie but I hope you understand what I mean. So, no, for the most part; I think it's a rather grey area. That is to say, though art is certainly something that one can enjoy, part of a video game's sole purpose is to entertain the player. Nintendo, so I read, coined the term 'non-game' which describes games without a 'goal'; the majority of the games on the Wii and Nintendo DS fit the bill, apparently. I think, to be honest, that the term itself just sounds silly. Of course they're games!

However, there are certain games that would (and should) be considered an art form due to their tremendous amounts of symbolism. Just to say now, I'm all for artistic license, but I think people who would call this art, and those who produced it, are just taking the piss; it's a bit of a farce to me. And don't get me started on these women.

Anyroad, an example of an art game would be The Path, a psychological-horror independent computer game produced by Tale of Tales inspired by the Little Red Riding Hood fairy tale.

You get to play one of the six sisters, who live in an apartment in the city, to visit your sick, bedridden grand-mother. You are advised to stay on the path, lest you run into your associated wolf...

For me, I think the game heavily implies growing up. The youngest sister is only getting her head around death, the eldest was forced to abandon her musical passion in order to help bring up her sisters, one 'enjoys the attention of men', etc. If you stay on the path, you arrive at your grandmother's home safely... but you haven't experienced anything. We were told to stay on the path from the beginning, after all but in real life, how often have we done what we were told to do? Aren't we curious every now and again? Curiosity drives you to 'explore the woods'.

It's a very interesting game and has lovely graphics, albeit a wee bit boring at times. It's incredibly atmospheric with its sound effects, music, style, etc. I feel that this game should certainly be classified as a work of art due to its method of narrative. I think that's what 'artistic games' would really depend on, however; there is certainly a lot of art involved in the process of creating the video game (concept art, graphics, the writing if there's a story, etc.)

All in all, I think it's a bit grey, so I voted for the 'Other' option on the poll.

 

[StriderShinryu]

Seeing as how games are already an art form, yes, I want them to be art. In other wants, I want them to keep being interactive experiences shared between creator and user just like all art is.

 

[FFHAuthor]

I want games to be GOOD.

IF through their being an excellent form of storytelling and entertainment some games can be considered Art, then that's fine, but I won't demand something be strictly Art, because while art is relevant, a form of entertainment must be good and entertaining. If all forms of entertainment must be art, then they can't be entertainment, because in entertainment as art we find the issue that Art is something that conveys a message whose depth and substance is greater than mere topical entertainment. A TV show can be art, a Film can be art, but just because they're art doesn't mean theey're entertainment.

Since this stems from the Bioware/Artistic integrity issue...I won't re-hash what I've stated in other threads, but you can feel free to check them if you want...but I'm fine with some games being art so long as games don't forget just what they are, Entertainment, and that people remember what games are, Entertainment. They're free to grow beyond the boundaries of being Entertainment, but if they forget that root, then they simply become art for art's sake, a bland and disappointing transformation.

 

[Filiecs]

I view all games that were made with the intention of evoking an emotional response from the player are art.
Whether or not the succeed in evoking the intended emotional response, however, is what separates the good art from the bad.

Also, art can be revised. However, in order for it to maintain its integrity I believe that the artist must truly believe that change he is going to make will make the art better. ("Better" as I explained above)

 

[applesandoranges]

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