But you don't control the game - you're free to explore it however you want, but the actual media itself never changes. My experience reading a book might differ from yours - I might read the chapters in the wrong order, or I might not understand some reference, I might imagine my own face on the protagonist, or read in some subtext that you missed. A Video Game, and a book and a movie and a piece of music, are all something that you can explore, not just a single static experience.
Video games as an art form, my doubts over the great debate...
- Thread starter Thomas Talbot
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"Marketing" is a key component to most film and music, too.Thomas Talbot said:
You could argue not all films rely on marketing, but then you're getting into indie films, and that's paralleled by indie games.
The majority of the industry relies on marketing. Just like most artistic industries. Funny how again, your example is pretty much just like every other example.
Ebert scrambled to defend his own hypocritical viewpoints, and your premise is to agree with his hypocrisy. You were kind of doomed to failure to begin with, as was Stall's sentiment.
You guys are trying to make up artificial differences between games and other media by propping up commonalities as distinctions. It would be like argument men and women are different because men have arms.
The idea of attributing the whole of a film to one person is still asinine, but it continues to fail when you consider the exact same parallel can very much apply to games, as long as you don't switch standards mid-argument. Especially in the days of Tim Shaffer, Hideo Kojima, and even freakin' American McGee. Weak example for comedic purposes.
Harping on the lack of an identifiable artist is harping on a falsehood. Harping on someone mentioning marketing is grasping at straws. I mean, unless you can actually establish it as a major portion of games in a way above and beyond the call of other media, and NOT just some token comment from an individual that doesn't hold any more water than if applied to film.
The argument is dishonest and hypocritical.
Especially from someone who parroted Roger's comments about why gamers need their medium to be art. Why are you willing to resort to dishonesty to assert it isn't? Why are you so invested in making it "not" an art form that you're willing to cleave to lies and double standards to make it so? Why did Roger spend so much time, for that matter? And why, in the time between your op-ed piece and your posting, did Ebert concede the argument?
I think it's not "video games are art" but more "video games have the capicity to be art"
And trying to lay down prerequisites for "X Y and Z makes something art" is pointless since all art is subjective
Someone could say "y'know i think the Street Cleaning Simulator is the best piece of art i've every seen" and shazam it's art, in that person's eyes anyway
The long and short of it is if you think it's art then it is art
And trying to lay down prerequisites for "X Y and Z makes something art" is pointless since all art is subjective
Someone could say "y'know i think the Street Cleaning Simulator is the best piece of art i've every seen" and shazam it's art, in that person's eyes anyway
The long and short of it is if you think it's art then it is art
@Zachary You seem to think that I am somehow opposed to video games becoming art. The fact that I have quoted Ebert seems to have made you believe that I have somehow become him. All I have shared is opinion, the "dishonesty" you seem to have branded me with is a fabrication. I'll say it again. I believe that as of now video games are a collection of art forms. To capture someones moving image on film is a stand alone medium. To inscribe on a page what one feels or says out loud, that is a stand alone medium. I think you misunderstand me when you think that I would, for some reason, be desperately trying to ban video games as art. I want them to be considered art, there just needs to be more valid reasons. Not that we won't find them.
In case people forgot, the title of this post was "...my doubts over the great debate" not "my aggravated slandering". There has been some really good points made by people in the argument for video games being viewed as art. Some completely new to me. As I said in my initial post, I had always considered it art before I read Ebert's journal. The interactivity of games seems to be where the strongest argument "for" is and so more needs to be looked into that, not least by myself. The strongest thing to do for the argument as @Heartcafe said, would be to abandon that prefiguring word of "games".
In case people forgot, the title of this post was "...my doubts over the great debate" not "my aggravated slandering". There has been some really good points made by people in the argument for video games being viewed as art. Some completely new to me. As I said in my initial post, I had always considered it art before I read Ebert's journal. The interactivity of games seems to be where the strongest argument "for" is and so more needs to be looked into that, not least by myself. The strongest thing to do for the argument as @Heartcafe said, would be to abandon that prefiguring word of "games".
There is no more "considering", no more "debate". Videogames are art [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/109835-Games-Now-Legally-Considered-an-Art-Form-in-the-USA], legally [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/111300-Supreme-Court-Rules-in-Favor-of-Videogames]. Case closed, discussion over. heh.
A major source of confusion is the involvement of the player, and its role in the creative process [http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/the-role-of-the-player].
Video games are more involved and complex (or compound as the argument goes) than a book, or movie, or piece of music, but have a very close kinship with the stage, and nobody considers stagecraft and performance pieces "not art".
A major source of confusion is the involvement of the player, and its role in the creative process [http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/the-role-of-the-player].
I take exception to that. A play is not complete until it is performed in front of an audience, actors and audience together reliving a story. So, too, is a game not complete until experienced by the player.Thomas Talbot said:
Video games are more involved and complex (or compound as the argument goes) than a book, or movie, or piece of music, but have a very close kinship with the stage, and nobody considers stagecraft and performance pieces "not art".
Actually, comparing them to stagecraft as you say, is really really interesting. I don't know what you mean exactly by "more complex"
I would call monopoly art. It's a reflexion of it's times and society with a political message IF you want it to. The idea obviously being that one company gets everything and the rest of are screwed over. Economies with monopolies are wrong.
For me these are important aspects of art... necessary ones.. I'll have to go and think these through myself a bit.
Whether you agree with communism, capitalism etc. or not, this is the message of the game as it plays out as set out by the rules. I'm sure there are other interpretations and the same could be said of most competetitve games in some way. To my mind, it's more overt in Monopoly.
I see that as art.
For me these are important aspects of art... necessary ones.. I'll have to go and think these through myself a bit.
Whether you agree with communism, capitalism etc. or not, this is the message of the game as it plays out as set out by the rules. I'm sure there are other interpretations and the same could be said of most competetitve games in some way. To my mind, it's more overt in Monopoly.
I see that as art.
As a practical argument I agree but I see this as a fallacy. Specifically, appeal to authority. "Because they say so" isn't good reasoning though by looking at the grounds on which the courts based their decision we can validate it too. The important thing is to understand what makes art art and see if videogames fulfill that.2xDouble said:
"What does it matter what if it's called a game!!" Is what I want to say but you are right. People will never take Games seriously because of their name. But the thing is, there's nothing we can do about it. Call video games ANYTHING else, to try to make it sound like they have potential artistic merit......and you just sound like a pretentious douchbag. Just try calling them...I dunno....Interactive art or something. Doesn't work.Thomas Talbot said:
Well, for anyone who doesn't think video games are an art form, fork up $11.00 and play Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. Well, actually just play the entire series. It's not only fun as a game, but it's fun as a book, or movie. Then play Mother 3, and you will be convinced that they are a form of art.