True art work is moving, so can games truely be considered art?

[lord canti]

Isn't art supposed to be takne differently from different people? I mean as far as I'm concerened art has no real definition that defines it since everyone will view id differently.

 

[moretimethansense]

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.

I'm sorry, I wasn't going to bother posting in this thread but...
You actually believed, even for a second, that Goofy, THAT Goofy could be permanantly hurt by taking a rock to the head?
He gets worse than that trying to listen to music for gods sake!

 

[Snotnarok]

Okay OP I just wanted to run this by you, so to make a game these things must happen

Story is written, characters are designed, landscapes are painted, characters are sculpted, music is made and sometimes videos for the game are made.

All of these are artforms, drawing, painting, sculpting, music making, writing, but according to you when they're applied to a video game it's instantly not art because you don't cry over it?

I'm not much of one to cry but I've seen others cry in games. No strike that, I cried in portal 2 from laughter from the brilliantly written comedy lines. You know that other artform, comedy.

 

[badgersprite]

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.

I can answer that: protection against censorship.

Just about anything that can be qualified as art is protected as a medium of free personal expression (at least in the US), which consequently makes it very hard to ban or be interfered with by government agencies or be the subject of lawsuits to change things you didn't like. This is why people don't go around suing a TV show for doing something they don't like - it's free speech. Independent ratings agencies can still administer certain ratings or request that certain words or acts not be portrayed, and private people can make decisions about what they want to see, like there's no obligation for a radio to play every single song or for a TV station to air a show they don't want to. But, unless something is ruled by law to have no artistic merit whatsoever, or to be so harmful/offensive/pornographic that the artistic merit is moot, we don't get people in government interfering and making arbitrary judgements about what you as a free thinking individual are allowed to play.

If games were thought by people in the supreme court to have no artistic merit whatsoever, then, well, Michael Atkinson would be the least of our worries because people like his crowd and Jack Thompson would have won.

 

[Zyxx]

There was a bit at the end of Baten Kaitos Origins that really moved me, where the music, dialogue, and visuals all wove together and made me really feel like I was there, that something was at stake and that this was a damn good example of storytelling in games. I don't remember if I actually shed a tear or not, but it did evoke some strong emotions.

And for all its faults, the second Tales of Symphonia game really made me feel like I was seeing old friends again. I wanted to talk to them more: "Lloyd, there you are! What's this stuff I hear about you going bonkers? Sheena, how've you been? Genis! Buddy! Gotten anywhere with Presea since I left?"

Most recent example for me: true final boss fight of Persona 4. Say what you like about the boss fight itself, but it was a moving and empowering scene.

Three examples that moved me, at least. Maybe not the "Average Person", but most of the "Average Persons" I've met go catatonic if asked to deal with any emotion deeper than rage over the loss of their favorite America Idol candidate.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

I can tell you, Majora's Mask has had a bigger impact on my life, emotional, mentally, and in plenty of other ways then any poem, book, film, or play.

I have [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/jump/9.226212.7718808] already discussed [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.257801-Majoras-mask-one-of-the-best-and-creepiest-games-of-the-decade#9693835] this subject [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.247343-Majoras-Mask?page=3#9087568] extensively before. [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/9.240120-Creepiest-Scariest-Video-Game-Character-Ever#8655918]


[sub]Mods, I realize that this may count as a short post or self advertising, but please understand that I have discussed this topic so many times with such long and thought out posts that I feel at this point it'd be better for me to link to my orginal posts on the matter instead of typing another whole half a page thesis on Majora's mask.[/sub]


Besides, art is entirely subjective.

 

[SageRuffin]

Why does art always need to evoke the emotion of sadness? I didn't cry when I first saw the Mona Lisa.

Indeed. Some times, the only thing emotional about a piece of art is that it isn't. Maybe it just looks nice, or has a great soundtrack or acting.

And fuck Shadow of the Colossus, Fallout 3 is one of the best looking games I've ever played. Given that I live in DC, seeing all those iconic monuments in shambles... man. I'll never be able to look at the Jefferson Memorial or the Capitol Building the same again.

 

[LitleWaffle]

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.

I'm sorry, I wasn't going to bother posting in this thread but...
You actually believed, even for a second, that Goofy, THAT Goofy could be permanantly hurt by taking a rock to the head?
He gets worse than that trying to listen to music for gods sake!

Tee hee, well first time through when I was 12, yes I did. I was pretty overly imaginative back then. I had a whole plot idea planned out because of Goofy's death XD.

 

[RyQ_TMC]

*snip*

It used to annoy me to no end in high school that my literature teacher would automatically dismiss all science fiction as unworthy of literary analysis or of being an example of a motif. And I mean all science fiction, even Kiryl Bulychev, Daniel Keyes or Stanislaw Lem.

That being said, you don't need a literary theorist. Tolstoy's and Dostoevsky's works are the pinnacle of literature, period. Nobody has written anything better than The Brothers Karamazov so far.

My opinion, of course.

And I completely agree with you saying that the art world is screwed up beyond all sense, that there is a group of people who decree what's art and what's not based on nothing but fancy (and usually their political views)... I hold an opinion that if someone needs to explain to you what a piece represents and what feelings it's supposed to evoke, then the creator has done a shabby job.

 

[OldAccount]

I've been driven to think about the world around me and my own philosophies on life by certain games. If that isn't art then I don't know what art is.

 

[Ace of Spades]

Short answer, yes. Long answer, yes, because it is not necessary to make someone cry to be considered art, but provoking an emotional response from the person experiencing it, and by that definition, games have more artistic potential than any other medium. I've felt fear, unease, pride, and anger while playing games, and that's just to name a few emotions. That's enough to make them a form of art.

 

[Togs]

Meh always been left cold by art and by the this drive for all forms of creativity to get that title- isnt enough that a games good fun and evokes catharsis without it needing to cause epiphanies?

 

[Ampersand]

I teared up when I was playing " the end of us" and that was just a flash game. If you don't consider games art then I can only assume you've either played almost no games or you have an extremely narrow understanding of what art is?

 

[Megacherv]

Red Dead Redemption was very emotional, didn't make me cry but if I let it I would of cried.

Portal 2 made me feel all types of emotions, especially the ending.

Oh god, the Cara Mia song almost moves me to tears every time I hear it...

 

[deathbydeath]

Eli's death did it for a lot of people.

amen, brother. the weird thing was, i knew it would happen, i knew how he would die, i knew what he would say, but i was still so depressed.
hug me, please.

 

[Jack and Calumon]

Heavy Rain. My god that game was near traumatic. Sure the controls were naff and it wasn't as game changing as it claimed, and some of the actors sounded french (The kids mostly) but my god, failing any of the challenges or even failing the last stretch of solving the mystery with Norman was enough to make me shed a tear.

Calumon: When Digimon die in Digimon World, you lose a friend. :'(

 

[Ericb]

There is no such thing as "true art". There is just art, and art is whatever you define it to be.

Anything that can inspire an emotion is art.

As long as something makes you feel, and you consider it art, its art. Others may not see it as art, but thats them.

Art is subjective, and if it's art to you, then it's fuckin art.

Isn't art supposed to be takne differently from different people? I mean as far as I'm concerened art has no real definition that defines it since everyone will view id differently.

Absolutely not. This kind of thinking put forward by lazy post-modernists is what made it being a painter in the 20th and 21st Centuries a little bit crappier.

A word becomes useless when you can apply it to anything and that's precisely what they wanted with the word "art" just so they could go ahead an do whatever they pleased.

As a painter who has being studying this for years and will for as long as I live, this "art is anything" deal just boils my blood.

Absolutely not. This kind of thing put forward by lazy post-modernists is what made it being a painter in the 20th and 21st Centuries a little bit crappier.

A word becomes useless when you can apply it to anything and that's precisely what they wanted with the word "art" just so they could go ahead an do whatever they pleased.

Post-modernists took a joke Duchamp created and ran with it.

As a painter who has being studying this for years and will for as long as I live, this "art is anything" deal just boils my blood.

I find Wikipedia's primary definition to be a good introduction to a proper understanding of the term:

Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items (often with symbolic significance) in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect.

Artwork for me is one that displays the creators/subjects emotions or oppinions but GOOD artwork is one that makes others feel their own. It also needs effort, you know blood, sweat and tears.

Art isn't meant to make you feel happy or sad, art is just meant to make you feel.

These are not bad starting definitions either.

(...)to be completely honest, the art world is full of elitist assholes and pretentious academia that decides what can be considered art. The fact is, it's not how people perceive art, but what the 'elite' decides that art is.

The whole field of what is art and what is not art is decided by a few wankers who did nothing in their lives, but dedicated their life to analyzing art.

e.g. Marcel Duchamps Fountain is considered art.
e.g.2. There was once a feminist performer, that pulled out a scroll from her vagina, and read it out loud (it was some sort of feminist manifesto thing, don't quote me though), it was considered art.

The art world is SO fucked up and pretentious, do we really want to be considered a part of it?

That is one and only reason I sometimes question if this whole debate shouldn't just have stopped. Having lived very close to this community for years while at college, more and more I desired to be oh so far away from those wastes of space who would rather trash-talk the artworks of the past while embelishing their own lazy and poorly thought-out attempts at art instead of trying to understand how those works how they came to be in the first place.

I still belive this debate needs to be around though, because of a lot of people who view videogamea as little more than toys. Shockingly, a lot of gamers share this feeling. Geez.

As soon as people begin to realize art can be crappy, pointless piles of shit soaked in monkey vomit and the title of 'art' does not confer any sophistication or inherit superiority people will stop debating over whether something is 'art' or not.

I've know many people who were so threatened by this simple statement...

There's plenty of artwork that doesn't make me emotional.
Hell, I almost never get emotional looking at paintings. I just don't find anything stirring about them, in terms of emotions.
I still appreciate them as art.

No offense, but the whole premise of the OP seems pretty pretentious. The whole concept of "true" art, and the idea that art should always be one particular thing... these aren't helpful to the artistic community.
Art is something a person creates out of a desire to create rather than working towards a pragmatic purpose. That's all the definition one really needs.
[Yes, I'm aware that art often *does* serve a pragmatic purpose, but that's rarely the original intention, and even when it IS an intended result, there's generally a good deal of aesthetic or extraneous work done.]

We shouldn't limit art to one specific purpose, like evoking emotion. Yes, it's nice when something can be emotionally evocative, but sometimes I just like to be entertained, and sometimes I just like to appreciate the technical aspects of a piece.

I cannot truly add anything to this, so I'll just pass it forward.

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.

Hear hear! \o/

If art is subjective, then why do gamers seek the approval of the term from non-gamers?

I can answer that: protection against censorship.

Yup.

 

[Saviordd1]

I believe that games cant be considered art until a video game is made that can move the average person to tears. True art work is able to move someone emotionaly, and after all the years i've been playing games the only thing thats ever really moved me was when Donkey Kong went into his banana horde and saw it empty. If anyone has a good example of a moving game let me know, I'd be interested to hear if anyone has ever shead a tear over pixels.

You sir won my "wow wise up" medal of the day, congrats.

A: There are games that can bring the full range of emotions, does all art make you cry?
B: If your expecting an emotional impact from donkey kong then just leave
C: So is "moving" the official idea of art? im pretty sure not

 

[rokkolpo]

Dude newsflash, the average person does not get moved by modern art.
Yet it's art.

And Kingdom Hearts moved me like music can.

You should do more homework, aka Game away!