Hmm, a lot of games make me cry, but funny enough these are exactly the games I don't consider art.
True art work is moving, so can games truely be considered art?
- Thread starter DBlack
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The only crying people would do when they saw the Mona Lisa is crying that they blew so much money to see a boring and, by the way, pretty small portrait. Let me put it this way: If Leonardo had a deviantART, the Mona Lisa would be filed away in his folder called "commissions" and not included in the featured gallery.Nfritzappa said:
(But it would have more favorites than all his other pieces combined because some dumb mod gave it a Daily Deviation.)
There's a difference between crying over Justin Bieber, and Justin Bieber making you cry. Hell, I'd cry if I were three and I had to listen to him. That shit's traumatic.nukethetuna said:
But she's crying because she loves HIM. His mere EXISTENCE is so sublime, so ARTISTIC, that she can not help but be moved to tears.KaosuHamoni said:
Well then, they have been art since 2004's E3.GiantRaven said:
"Grown Men Cry For Zelda"
"Nintendo's 2004 E3 press conference was a dark day for gaming. This was the day that Miyamoto took the stage and showed off The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for the first time. Whats embarrassing about that? Nothing. What still makes us cringe were the grown men and supposed journalists who transformed into blubbering 12-year-old girls at a Justin Bieber show. Thats right, you guys cried. It's not an urban legend; we were there. We saw you. If this didn't require a good slapping, we don't know what does. This makes us wish those memory-erasing pens in Men In Black were real."
-Game Informer Magazine
Art is sooooo subjective! The art world still can't agree on exactly what is and isn't art. I doubt we're going to figure it out here. 
Well, there are several problems with this. First, by your definition a lot of games are art. Shadow of the Colossus, a lot of RPGs, hell, I was moved my the nuke scene in Modern Warfare. Second, that's a pretty crappy criteria for art. What you need to recognize is that art is not inherently good or bad. It's just personal expression. Frankly, I find it kind of silly that people are even having this argument. Games are a medium of personal expression, and that makes them art in my book. Whether they are good art is another question entirely, and one that can actually be debated.DBlack said:
If art is subjective, then why do gamers seek the approval of the term from non-gamers? Interesting as the entire Ebert debate has been, I always thought that the only intelligent outcome was his admittance that he doesn't play games, and doesn't want to. Society as a whole will only accept games as an art form when enough people within it do.
If a game can make me ponder how I would act in a hostage rescue situation including whether or not I'd be able to take one life to save another, I would be a fool not to recognize the medium's ability to provoke thoughts and emotions.
For anyone wondering, the game was Deus Ex.
For anyone wondering, the game was Deus Ex.
You are so right. I believe that is the best summation of the topic in question I've ever heard.kane.malakos said:
I have cried while playing games, but that's not the point of art. It never has been, and never will be.DBlack said:
Art is simply a work of creation that has intent and meaning behind it. Good art can adequately convey its meaning to a person.
It's not all about visceral emotions.
The fact that it's debatable at all shows that the term 'art' is next to useless. A word only has a purpose as long as it has a definition, and at this point, each person's definition of 'art' is different. It's not a debate that can ever really come to a conclusion because we are trying to decide whether something falls into a category that has no longer has defining factors.
Art is stuff humans do when they arn't making a baby or staving off death. That's probably the best definition possible. We see things as more and more art-like the less practical they become, and the more rewarding it becomes while not becoming more practical. But if we are just talking about Art, then yes. All video games are art. So is Jazz and Rebecca Black, Casablanca and Gigli. If we want a decent definition of art, one which is bound to be tinged with subjectivity anyways, then we should avoid adding in the overwhelming subjectivity of the quality of a given piece.
Of course, quality is a concern. Most video games don't have a whole lot of...ill call it artistic merit. I hate to say it, but most video games are a thousand slight variations on how awesome it is to shoot stuff good. Games are capable of much, much more. This is where the pretentious and annoying art people come along and make a nuisance of themselves: We can barely convince parents that a game with guns and blood on the cover may not be appropriate for a child until they try to scapegoat the game for there own shitty parenting, how difficult is it to convince an art-person that games are about more then killing people in awesome ways when...well, so much of it is that and only that?
I think art NEEDS to include video games. Yes, art has pretentious jackasses. Video game fandom doesn't? If more people thought about games as art, then we would get an unprecedented burst of innovation, as people from countless walks of life started to try to put game mechanics to there unique skills. We would be up to our ears in Heavy Rains, Mirrors Edges, Minecrafts and Portals. I want to see that happen.
Also, I rarely cry, but I have been brought to a state of misty-eyed reverence countless times. Sure, I was sad when Aeris died, and been frightened and scared for the Red girls in The Path, but I have also been brought to that state playing games like, most recently, Portal 2. Not so much because of the story or the characters, however compelling they are. But because the underlying mechanics were arranged so beautifully, so skillfully, that it is like a musician listening to a perfectly composed masterpiece, or a mathematician dissecting an elegant formula. A kind of reverence that comes from realizing that these simple mechanics are almost divine in there execution.
Of course, quality is a concern. Most video games don't have a whole lot of...ill call it artistic merit. I hate to say it, but most video games are a thousand slight variations on how awesome it is to shoot stuff good. Games are capable of much, much more. This is where the pretentious and annoying art people come along and make a nuisance of themselves: We can barely convince parents that a game with guns and blood on the cover may not be appropriate for a child until they try to scapegoat the game for there own shitty parenting, how difficult is it to convince an art-person that games are about more then killing people in awesome ways when...well, so much of it is that and only that?
I think art NEEDS to include video games. Yes, art has pretentious jackasses. Video game fandom doesn't? If more people thought about games as art, then we would get an unprecedented burst of innovation, as people from countless walks of life started to try to put game mechanics to there unique skills. We would be up to our ears in Heavy Rains, Mirrors Edges, Minecrafts and Portals. I want to see that happen.
Also, I rarely cry, but I have been brought to a state of misty-eyed reverence countless times. Sure, I was sad when Aeris died, and been frightened and scared for the Red girls in The Path, but I have also been brought to that state playing games like, most recently, Portal 2. Not so much because of the story or the characters, however compelling they are. But because the underlying mechanics were arranged so beautifully, so skillfully, that it is like a musician listening to a perfectly composed masterpiece, or a mathematician dissecting an elegant formula. A kind of reverence that comes from realizing that these simple mechanics are almost divine in there execution.
Mona Lisa isn't a painting that would evoke sadness in most people though. It is actually there to invoke intrigue. Leonardo Divinci made that painting because she was an average commoner. (Popular theory) Back in those days having a portrait painted of you was a luxury only the wealthy could afford. As such, no commoner would ever truly be visually recorded in history. Why Leonardo chose her is what a lot of the fuss is about. Surely, he didn't just point to the first commoner he saw and then painted her. Or did he? What was the expression he was trying to make with this? Was there a reason he specifically chose her? There is symbolism in it as well. Additionally, it is one of the few works Leonardo ever completed and only did so after he got on in years and realized he hadn't ever completed many of his works. There is a lot to this painting, all of which is based on intrigue - not sadness or emotion of any kind.Nfritzappa said:
Besides the fact that I completely disagree with your argument, I have some examples.
Kingdom Hearts 2(Spoilers i guess?), when it was believed that goofy had died. I actually cried a bit, than felt the need for vengence.
Bioshock 1, the first bathroom, saw a shadow running by and I peed my pants(Wasn't funny at the time =P)
It doesn't have to send you to tears though, because not all art is depressing. Art can be exciting, happy, sad, or any emotion really.
If you can't tell me that you have never been excited during a games story line, than you obviously have been playing the wrong games for this whole art argument.
Kingdom Hearts 2(Spoilers i guess?), when it was believed that goofy had died. I actually cried a bit, than felt the need for vengence.
Bioshock 1, the first bathroom, saw a shadow running by and I peed my pants(Wasn't funny at the time =P)
It doesn't have to send you to tears though, because not all art is depressing. Art can be exciting, happy, sad, or any emotion really.
If you can't tell me that you have never been excited during a games story line, than you obviously have been playing the wrong games for this whole art argument.
Well, if it is considered art, it won't be considered as childish and meaningless to non-gamers(hopefully) so that way gamers might get a little more respect.ataxkt said: