Video games are the only art you can be bad at enjoying

[bdcjacko]

sorry, I forgot about those magic eye pictures. You can be bad at looking at those and not get all the content.

 

[The Naked Emperor]

Im a gamer and an artist and I dont think video games are ART

This again?

Some games are, some games aren't. A game that's more about the experience than the skill required to see it through leans more on the artistic side whereas something like Super Mario Bros. may have its backers but really isn't art so much as it is an exercise in timing and skill. (Though I think you can make a solid argument in its favor by saying it stimulates imagination.)

Referencing the original post, I hold to the idea that it's entirely possible to be bad at enjoying other forms of media. If you don't listen to a lot of metal you won't understand a word of what the vocalist is saying. If you lack an ear for classical music you'll hear the entirety of a song without a clue what the big deal is. If you don't have an eye for paintings you may find things which resonate with you but you'll lack a depth of understanding that others have.

And that's okay. Both the creation and consumption of art can happen at various levels of discipline and not everybody is going to take the same things away from it. It's similar to how some people don't care if they see the whole movie and will be satisfied if they catch the last 45 minutes on USA while channel surfing without ever desiring to see the rest. A lot of games bar their content based on skill, but that's the point with games like that-you can't tell me Mega Man would be as engaging if you could warp straight to Wily. More artistic games, like Shadow of the Colossus, still follow that trope but they aren't particularly difficult and are meant to be enjoyed on other levels, but even so you don't have to see it all the way through to get the core experience.

 

[Rayne870]

Video games are the only art form that you can actually be bad at trying to enjoy them. You can't be bad at listening to music or looking at a painting which will prevent you from enjoying all the content available from those art forms. But you can be bad at playing video games.

I mean have you ever had to prove your skill in watching a movie or play to keep watching? Have you had to dance good just to keep listening to a song? Nope. But you have to constantly prove yourself in games to get the rest of the content.

How does this make you feel?

*you don't need to quote me to reply*

I disagree, people can be very very bad at reading and understanding literature, as well as art.

However i see your point that people can suck terribly at games and it does affect their view on a game.

 

[teebeeohh]

really?
i today's market?
this is not battle toads we are talking about, just put the game on easy and you are good to go.
Besides, the whole point of games is the interactive element, we if you can't read properly you may never finish a book and if you don't get a movie you may leave it before it gets interesting.

point is: you are wrong, you can fail at consuming all media it's just easier with games.

 

[Alexnader]

Developing a taste that allows you to enjoy a large portion of fine art takes way more time than getting good enough at games for them to be fun. Have you ever seen a child attending a classical music concert? Or plebeians in an art gallery?

So yeah, your argument is invalid.

(BTW I love the looks I get when I use the word "plebs" in non-humorous fashion)

I have seen both children at classical music concerts and artistically ignorant people in art galleries, whether they're enjoying it in the "proper" way or not is a different matter. I have not however ever seen free land-owning Romans in an art gallery.

Anyway what I got from the OP was that games are one of the few mediums that have a tangible skill-based barrier to entry before you can even start to appreciate them as art or not. Maybe music connoisseurs have ears that would pick up finer nuances in a composition than mine could however overall you do not need to train to be able to hear music. Whether or not you have the knowledge to appreciate music or games as an art form has nothing to do with your ability to actually listen to music.

So imagine a lone inexperienced critic of some kind who wants to evaluate the artistic merit of both a song and a game, he could well pick up a lot of the meaning behind the song just by analysing it subjectively without any need to refer to particularly deep structural/cultural elements of the song (because to do so would require actual knowledge of musical composition and history). However give him a video game and in addition to not understanding any structural/cultural characteristics of the piece he also would not actually be able to progress through the game. Any subjective experience of the game our hypothetical critic would relate would be largely invalid as criticism or analysis. The only true thing he could really say would be "this game pissed me off because I couldn't do the jumping thing right".

Think I'm exaggerating? My Dad, Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess, he couldn't get past the village stage because he couldn't steer the horse OR jump between platforms. This is in a game where you don't even have to push a button to jump, you just run at the edge. Also look up the video of someone's dad playing Portal.

(tldr)
Anyway to sum up, in my opinion you need knowledge and experience to properly appreciate any artwork or creative output. However for video games you also need hand-eye/hand-screen coordination and the ability to comprehend 3D/2D virtual space. Whereas with music for example the need for skills like especially sensitive aural perception is far less explicit.

 

[Koroviev]

Are you paraphrasing Dara O'Briain by chance?

 

[Twilight_guy]

Developing a taste that allows you to enjoy a large portion of fine art takes way more time than getting good enough at games for them to be fun. Have you ever seen a child attending a classical music concert? Or plebeians in an art gallery?

So yeah, your argument is invalid.

(BTW I love the looks I get when I use the word "plebs" in non-humorous fashion)

i disagree. Just because you don't get classical music doesn't mean you only get to hear the first 3 notes of an opera before having to prove you get to listen to the rest of the opera.

But if you are completely unable to comprehend what you're experiencing you might as well miss out on the whole experience. Ok, maybe it's possible to just sit trough a concert or a film without missing out on the content in the most technical sense, but trying to read philosophy when you have a vocabulary of an avarage ghetto dweller is just as impossible as playing Starcraft online by banging your head on the keyboard, so games are not unique in that field.

There's a difference between having the complex cultural knowledge to decode the value of art (i.e. appreciation) and the ability to experience or take in the art. You can play through a game and experience all the content and not "get" what it is saying. If I play "you have to burn the rope" and start complaining that it was too easy, clearly I have missed the point. I can experience all the content without being able to interpret or understand the message. In the same way being a bumpkin and not getting classical music or philosophy is an issue of lacking a cultural set of tools. The ability to access the content of the art on the other hand is another matter entirely. I can play a song and listen to the whole thing without doing anything whether I get it or not. For games on the other hand, I have to actively do something to experience and I may be unable to see the whole thing if I lack skill. These skills are not interpretive skills, whether or not I get the message is isolated from my ability to use hand-eye coordination to play the game. Games are special in that one ability not related to the ability to interpret the medium is required to experience the content and thus be able to interpret the medium. Their is a barrier that is not present in other classical forms of media and art.

 

[Tzekelkan]

You don't have to be awesome at playing to be able to enjoy video games. And hesides, all tué other art forms have this equivalent, video games are juse the easiest example to fixate on.

Illiterate people cannot enjoy books, blind people cannot see paintings, etc. But you don't have to be disabled to be bad at enjoying art. You can look at à painting and not see all the subtleties, therefore you are not enjoying all the content. Sure, you are allowed entrance at the classical music concert, but if you don't catch all the elements and the tones and the etc, it's like missing all the side quests in Oblivion.

Just like you can be "bad" at video games, you cab be "bad" at enjoying other media as well.

 

[Amondren]

Illiteracy gentlemen that is all.

Thats not really all. Like reading at first you suck at video-games and then you learn. Some people never learn to play games especially well some people never learn to read that well.

 

[Biosophilogical]

The difference is that nobody is denied entry to a concert of an art gallery whereas in games you are not allowed to experience all of the content.

That's the thing though, you are being too simplistic. You are assuming that experiencing art is about being able to see it. It isn't. Experiencing a painting or a piece of music is about the ability of the individual to understand the art piece, and being able to utilise that understanding to fully appreciate the piece. The experiential component of gaming is about the ability of the individual to understand the game mechanics and the world it is set in, as well as being able to properly utilise this understanding to fully experience the artistic value. So the game itself is like the painting, the understanding of the game mechanics is like understanding the artistic concepts within a painting, and being able to successfully play the game is the equivalent of using the understanding of the artistic concepts to fully experience the painting.

If you just mean being able to appreciate the plot and graphical artistry then you are essentially saying that games are flawed because there is a secondary layer of artistic merit that can only be accessed through the first. In which case I'd direct your attention to lyrical music. You appreciate it through its mechanic (auditory stimulation, basically enjoying the flow and composition of sounds), and can further appreciate it through its story/meaning/lyrics. However, you can't appreciate the secondary level of artistic merit if you are unable to hear the song at all. The only difference is that the ratio of deaf:non-deaf people is much lower than the ratio of non-gamers:gamers.

 

[Nieroshai]

I can find a song irritating, or I might be colorblind in an Andy Warhol museum. Or I can simly not "get" the point of a work of art. Also, there are tons of people who don't know about or appreciate the philosophical nuances in The Matrix. So yes, you can fail to appreciate a standing work of art.

 

[Alexnader]

snip

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Well, ok. You are right that games require skill from consumers to be physically able to access them, but if you approach them like you would want to properly get into any other medium i.e. start with entry-level titles and then devote time and effort to get into the more sophisticated stuff, it basically boils down to the same thing.
Besides, gaming is not that hard. If you've seen a computer in your life and can't get trough the tutorial of an avarage modern game, despite trying hard then you are a gaming equivalent of a blind or a deaf person. I was 5 when I managed to get trough half of the Warcraft campaign, then watched my dad finish the other half. I had no previous experience in games at all. Clearly that's saying something about games' accessibility.

I think that's more a testament to the malleability of the young mind rather than the accessibility of the games themselves. Also Warcraft is an RTS which doesn't really require abstract spatial reasoning.

Literature is the only other medium I can think of that requires the progression from entry-level to advanced that you outline.

To qualify that I wouldn't say you had to start at basic stuff in order to consume the visual arts or music. You don't need to look at each colour on a colour wheel individually before you're able to look at a picture and you don't need to listen to single chords before you can listen to a whole song. Perhaps nursery rhymes and lullabys would count as early aural education and finger painting as early visual learning however those skills are so basic and so essential to human life that I daresay we'd pick those up in daily life anyway.

Overall gaming and literature are in my opinion the only things that have to be introduced with incremental levels of complexity. So that's a compromise of sorts then.
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snip.

That's the thing though, you are being too simplistic. You are assuming that experiencing art is about being able to see it. It isn't. Experiencing a painting or a piece of music is about the ability of the individual to understand the art piece, and being able to utilise that understanding to fully appreciate the piece. The experiential component of gaming is about the ability of the individual to understand the game mechanics and the world it is set in, as well as being able to properly utilise this understanding to fully experience the artistic value. So the game itself is like the painting, the understanding of the game mechanics is like understanding the artistic concepts within a painting, and being able to successfully play the game is the equivalent of using the understanding of the artistic concepts to fully experience the painting.

snip

I think you'll find that most people's experiences of the visual arts are subjective and as such there are no real "qualifications" necessary to consume it beyond being able to see. You don't need a certain level of life experience or knowledge to experience an artwork, to understand the artist's intent yes but to simply consume an artwork you could be a complete simpleton and still be affected by it.

I'd also disagree with your idea that understanding gameplay elements is akin to understanding the structural elements of a painting. I can subjectively enjoy Manet's Luncheon on the Grass just fine without knowing the symbolism inherent in the bird or the frog, however good luck doing the same with Portal when you can't move without running into a wall every 10 seconds. I'd be more comfortable relating the act of looking at a painting to the act of moving and shooting in Portal. Perhaps the "thinking with portals" element of Portal could be better related to the structural elements of a painting however the barebones coordination required to even begin to use portals is definitely not akin to the structural elements of a painting.

 

[Biosophilogical]

That's the thing though, you are being too simplistic. You are assuming that experiencing art is about being able to see it. It isn't. Experiencing a painting or a piece of music is about the ability of the individual to understand the art piece, and being able to utilise that understanding to fully appreciate the piece. The experiential component of gaming is about the ability of the individual to understand the game mechanics and the world it is set in, as well as being able to properly utilise this understanding to fully experience the artistic value. So the game itself is like the painting, the understanding of the game mechanics is like understanding the artistic concepts within a painting, and being able to successfully play the game is the equivalent of using the understanding of the artistic concepts to fully experience the painting.

snip

I think you'll find that most people's experiences of the visual arts are subjective and as such there are no real "qualifications" necessary to consume it beyond being able to see. You don't need a certain level of life experience or knowledge to experience an artwork, to understand the artist's intent yes but to simply consume an artwork you could be a complete simpleton and still be affected by it.

I'd also disagree with your idea that understanding gameplay elements is akin to understanding the structural elements of a painting. I can subjectively enjoy Manet's Luncheon on the Grass just fine without knowing the symbolism inherent in the bird or the frog, however good luck doing the same with Portal when you can't move without running into a wall every 10 seconds. I'd be more comfortable relating the act of looking at a painting to the act of moving and shooting in Portal. Perhaps the "thinking with portals" element of Portal could be better related to the structural elements of a painting however the barebones coordination required to even begin to use portals is definitely not akin to the structural elements of a painting.

Well ti seems I haven't been as clear as I would like. When I said 'understanding the game mechanics', i didn't mean just sitting there and turning the game on, I actually meant grasping the mechanics of the game. So looking at a painting is like picking up Portal (part way through just so we can deal with the portal gun) and pressing buttons. You don't know what the blue thing is, or the orange thing, you may notice that the environment seems to move in relation to you (or you to it) when you press some buttons, you know, very basic stuff, you can interact with the game like looking at a painting. Actually understanding the elements is knowing how the portals work, and how to jump and move. It is where you can not only interact, but do it with an understanding of your actions. The full appreciation of the art piece (Portal) would be thinking with Portals in a productive and creative way. Basically bringing more to the table than the basic "I want to be there, so I need to shoot a portal there".

That's what I meant. Seeing a picture is like pressing buttons and stuff happens, you can interact but it doesn't really mean anything. Understanding the concepts is comprehending what your interactions with the game mean (understanding portal mechanics), and being able to utilise your understanding of all the different mechanics allows you to do more creative and fun things, much like being able to derive an emotionally moving effect from a painting. Sure, you can look at a painting, not really get what it is trying to portray, but still appreciate it from your limited perspective, but that's like playing portal and just shooting everywhere to see what works, you may get something great from it, but more than likely you'll just finish a level 'eventually'.

 

[Zoe Castillo]

--

 

[Alexnader]

snip

snip.

Well ti seems I haven't been as clear as I would like. When I said 'understanding the game mechanics', i didn't mean just sitting there and turning the game on, I actually meant grasping the mechanics of the game. So looking at a painting is like picking up Portal (part way through just so we can deal with the portal gun) and pressing buttons. You don't know what the blue thing is, or the orange thing, you may notice that the environment seems to move in relation to you (or you to it) when you press some buttons, you know, very basic stuff, you can interact with the game like looking at a painting. Actually understanding the elements is knowing how the portals work, and how to jump and move. It is where you can not only interact, but do it with an understanding of your actions. The full appreciation of the art piece (Portal) would be thinking with Portals in a productive and creative way. Basically bringing more to the table than the basic "I want to be there, so I need to shoot a portal there".

That's what I meant. Seeing a picture is like pressing buttons and stuff happens, you can interact but it doesn't really mean anything. Understanding the concepts is comprehending what your interactions with the game mean (understanding portal mechanics), and being able to utilise your understanding of all the different mechanics allows you to do more creative and fun things, much like being able to derive an emotionally moving effect from a painting. Sure, you can look at a painting, not really get what it is trying to portray, but still appreciate it from your limited perspective, but that's like playing portal and just shooting everywhere to see what works, you may get something great from it, but more than likely you'll just finish a level 'eventually'.

Well my point was that pressing buttons in order to walk around competently and shoot portals requires spatial reasoning and whatnot whereas looking at a picture is merely looking at a picture. Ergo there is a barrier stopping the uninitiated from experiencing the game that is not present in any other medium with the possible exception of literature. Furthermore the act of understanding the games mechanics is not akin to a complete or even a significant appreciation of the game as a whole. In my mind the full appreciation of portal would be not only to merely "think with portals" but to explore and consider the bizarre environment you have been placed in and the strange characters within it. Basically I disagree with your idea that the game mechanics are the major focus of the artistic merit of a game. Sure they're what make games unique from movies but in my mind they exist to amplify the effects of the visuals and sound of the game. I.e. They make the worlds you inhabit more affecting and more real because you are a part of what's going on.

I also wanted to emphasise that to experience an artwork you do not necessarily need to fully understand it and that the perspective of those who are experienced enough to be able to "interact" with the artwork but not enough to fully understand it is not limited in such a strong way as to be analogous to randomly firing portals and seeing what happens.

 

[Biosophilogical]

snip

snip.

Well ti seems I haven't been as clear as I would like. When I said 'understanding the game mechanics', i didn't mean just sitting there and turning the game on, I actually meant grasping the mechanics of the game. So looking at a painting is like picking up Portal (part way through just so we can deal with the portal gun) and pressing buttons. You don't know what the blue thing is, or the orange thing, you may notice that the environment seems to move in relation to you (or you to it) when you press some buttons, you know, very basic stuff, you can interact with the game like looking at a painting. Actually understanding the elements is knowing how the portals work, and how to jump and move. It is where you can not only interact, but do it with an understanding of your actions. The full appreciation of the art piece (Portal) would be thinking with Portals in a productive and creative way. Basically bringing more to the table than the basic "I want to be there, so I need to shoot a portal there".

That's what I meant. Seeing a picture is like pressing buttons and stuff happens, you can interact but it doesn't really mean anything. Understanding the concepts is comprehending what your interactions with the game mean (understanding portal mechanics), and being able to utilise your understanding of all the different mechanics allows you to do more creative and fun things, much like being able to derive an emotionally moving effect from a painting. Sure, you can look at a painting, not really get what it is trying to portray, but still appreciate it from your limited perspective, but that's like playing portal and just shooting everywhere to see what works, you may get something great from it, but more than likely you'll just finish a level 'eventually'.

Well my point was that pressing buttons in order to walk around competently and shoot portals requires spatial reasoning and whatnot whereas looking at a picture is merely looking at a picture. Ergo there is a barrier stopping the uninitiated from experiencing the game that is not present in any other medium with the possible exception of literature. Furthermore the act of understanding the games mechanics is not akin to a complete or even a significant appreciation of the game as a whole. In my mind the full appreciation of portal would be not only to merely "think with portals" but to explore and consider the bizarre environment you have been placed in and the strange characters within it. Basically I disagree with your idea that the game mechanics are the major focus of the artistic merit of a game. Sure they're what make games unique from movies but in my mind they exist to amplify the effects of the visuals and sound of the game. I.e. They make the worlds you inhabit more affecting and more real because you are a part of what's going on.

I also wanted to emphasise that to experience an artwork you do not necessarily need to fully understand it and that the perspective of those who are experienced enough to be able to "interact" with the artwork but not enough to fully understand it is not limited in such a strong way as to be analogous to randomly firing portals and seeing what happens.

Ah, now I see what you mean. You are viewing the entire game, both the mechanics and the story, as a singular piece of art, wheraes I was viewing the graphical styles and story as a contextualiser of the mechanics. So I think we both see a game as a single piece of art, but you view it more as an accumaltion of both, whereby the mechanics allow for interaction, which then allows for the appreciation of the visual and narrative components, and I view the visual and narrative components as a part of the mechanical experience.

So I guess it comes down to what you think makes the games an artistic medium, whether it be by the merits of other mediums through the use of an added concept (interaction), or whether the quality of the interaction is a unique artistic quality to games, which is further enhanced, and brought to a presentable level by the additional components of other mediums.

 

[Alexnader]

snip

snip.

Well ti seems I haven't been as clear as I would like. When I said 'understanding the game mechanics', i didn't mean just sitting there and turning the game on, I actually meant grasping the mechanics of the game. So looking at a painting is like picking up Portal (part way through just so we can deal with the portal gun) and pressing buttons. You don't know what the blue thing is, or the orange thing, you may notice that the environment seems to move in relation to you (or you to it) when you press some buttons, you know, very basic stuff, you can interact with the game like looking at a painting. Actually understanding the elements is knowing how the portals work, and how to jump and move. It is where you can not only interact, but do it with an understanding of your actions. The full appreciation of the art piece (Portal) would be thinking with Portals in a productive and creative way. Basically bringing more to the table than the basic "I want to be there, so I need to shoot a portal there".

That's what I meant. Seeing a picture is like pressing buttons and stuff happens, you can interact but it doesn't really mean anything. Understanding the concepts is comprehending what your interactions with the game mean (understanding portal mechanics), and being able to utilise your understanding of all the different mechanics allows you to do more creative and fun things, much like being able to derive an emotionally moving effect from a painting. Sure, you can look at a painting, not really get what it is trying to portray, but still appreciate it from your limited perspective, but that's like playing portal and just shooting everywhere to see what works, you may get something great from it, but more than likely you'll just finish a level 'eventually'.

Well my point was that pressing buttons in order to walk around competently and shoot portals requires spatial reasoning and whatnot whereas looking at a picture is merely looking at a picture. Ergo there is a barrier stopping the uninitiated from experiencing the game that is not present in any other medium with the possible exception of literature. Furthermore the act of understanding the games mechanics is not akin to a complete or even a significant appreciation of the game as a whole. In my mind the full appreciation of portal would be not only to merely "think with portals" but to explore and consider the bizarre environment you have been placed in and the strange characters within it. Basically I disagree with your idea that the game mechanics are the major focus of the artistic merit of a game. Sure they're what make games unique from movies but in my mind they exist to amplify the effects of the visuals and sound of the game. I.e. They make the worlds you inhabit more affecting and more real because you are a part of what's going on.

I also wanted to emphasise that to experience an artwork you do not necessarily need to fully understand it and that the perspective of those who are experienced enough to be able to "interact" with the artwork but not enough to fully understand it is not limited in such a strong way as to be analogous to randomly firing portals and seeing what happens.

Ah, now I see what you mean. You are viewing the entire game, both the mechanics and the story, as a singular piece of art, wheraes I was viewing the graphical styles and story as a contextualiser of the mechanics. So I think we both see a game as a single piece of art, but you view it more as an accumaltion of both, whereby the mechanics allow for interaction, which then allows for the appreciation of the visual and narrative components, and I view the visual and narrative components as a part of the mechanical experience.

So I guess it comes down to what you think makes the games an artistic medium, whether it be by the merits of other mediums through the use of an added concept (interaction), or whether the quality of the interaction is a unique artistic quality to games, which is further enhanced, and brought to a presentable level by the additional components of other mediums.

Close enough and for the record I think games can be both. I mean things like Minecraft or World of Goo are focused almost solely on their mechanics with little extraneous story and whatnot (although minecraft has a great sound track).

 

[Inithra]

There are a lot of people in this thread saying things that really annoy me.
Who are you to say that somebody cannot enjoy music well simply because they prefer, say, Lite-Rock to Thrash, or Teen-Pop to Opera?
Why can somebody not enjoy movies in the right way for wanting to watch Fast Five rather than One Flew Over The Cuckoo's nest?

Enjoyment is SUBJECTIVE, not OBJECTIVE. You cannot say that you get more enjoyment out of Dostoevsky than I do out of Stephanie Meyer. Or even that you get more enjoyment out of Meyer than I do.

Edit: Understanding != Enjoyment