Poll: do you think games are an art form
- Thread starter camokkid
- Start date
Recommended Videos
It depend on the games. I was playing World of Goo last week and it reminded me how simple and minimalistic games can be to be beautiful. However, the crap being produced nowadays by large companies would be considered art in the basest of terms. Most of it have excellent production but the actual artistic elements of it has been muddle up in the process thus becoming fodder for Yahtzee.
I believe that games are art, and making a bad game is like drawing a stick figure: it just doesn't impress anyone.
Art is, contrary to popular belief, not just anything meant to conjure up an emotional response.
Art is, well, whatever we agree it is. But not necessarily "we," because, as I just delineated above, most of us have absolutely no clue what art is; mostly it's when curators or critics and other artists who have put a lot of study into the field pass their judgment, that's when something is art.
You're never going to walk down a street, see a urinal, piss in the urinal, and realize that it's art. When you walk into a museum and see a sculpture of a urinal (because that is what Duchamp's famous work really is) then you realize it is art.
Just because you bought a packet of Wrigley's, which was intended to invoke an emotional response of brand loyalty, and were moved by the interplay of flavors, and so declare performative art, means nothing and changes nothing.
They don't display games at the Louvre, and they aren't featured in biennials. There are no critics for video games based around their artistic merits, because most often they have none. Nobody pays to make a game simply so a game can be made; they pay to make a game so they can make money off of it as a game, not as a work of art.
Is it possible to make a game that is art? Why yes. Is it possible that the majority of games will never be art? Very much so. Have there been art games? One or two. But as of this moment no, most games are not art, and we can't extend that honor to the medium as a whole as of yet.
Art is, well, whatever we agree it is. But not necessarily "we," because, as I just delineated above, most of us have absolutely no clue what art is; mostly it's when curators or critics and other artists who have put a lot of study into the field pass their judgment, that's when something is art.
You're never going to walk down a street, see a urinal, piss in the urinal, and realize that it's art. When you walk into a museum and see a sculpture of a urinal (because that is what Duchamp's famous work really is) then you realize it is art.
Just because you bought a packet of Wrigley's, which was intended to invoke an emotional response of brand loyalty, and were moved by the interplay of flavors, and so declare performative art, means nothing and changes nothing.
They don't display games at the Louvre, and they aren't featured in biennials. There are no critics for video games based around their artistic merits, because most often they have none. Nobody pays to make a game simply so a game can be made; they pay to make a game so they can make money off of it as a game, not as a work of art.
Is it possible to make a game that is art? Why yes. Is it possible that the majority of games will never be art? Very much so. Have there been art games? One or two. But as of this moment no, most games are not art, and we can't extend that honor to the medium as a whole as of yet.
not all are I would say... but I think that they can be.
They tell stories, have compelling characters and can leave a lasting impression on people. So much so that there can be people that use them for a form of escapism just like with movies. Thus you have a site like this devoted to it
They tell stories, have compelling characters and can leave a lasting impression on people. So much so that there can be people that use them for a form of escapism just like with movies. Thus you have a site like this devoted to it
Art being such a subjective thing, I'm going to call it 'no', but only on the grounds that most games were not intended as art by their makers. Because while art is in the eye of the beholder, you find it in a museum because the artist intended it AS art. There are some games (Shadow of the Colossus, for one) that definitely hit the art quality, deliberately beautiful as part of the point, but they're not all like that. So, games are not an expression of artistic muse, but rather they are a mode which can exhibit art in that sense.
This is exactly the same way I feel about the topic. I'm glad some articulated it well so I didn't have to try.FalloutJack said:
I ended up voting "I don't care" because does it really matter.
I thought they could be (Shadow of Colossus, Braid, Flower etc). But I tried to do a paper on it at University and by the end of it, (although I defended games as art), I no longer believed it.
Can art be created in the playing of video games? That's a different question.
Can art be created in the playing of video games? That's a different question.
