Owyn_Merrilin said:
Roger Ebert was right -- basketball players don't care that their game is not an art form, why do gamers? I'm not saying that it's impossible for games to do artistic things, just that it's the wrong medium for it 90% of the time.
[sup]It's back from the dead! AHHH, undead thread![/sup]
Can a basketball express the innate and complex psycological, sociological, emotional, sexual, or any other "-al" aspects of the human condition?
Fuck if I know, I just bounce the damn thing and pray it makes it in the hoop.
Frozen Donkey Wheel2 said:
I mean, he's right almost all the way through, but then he talks about Bioshock, and it all falls apart.
He says that the game is "primarily about killing people in inventive ways", and he's implying that this brings the game down. By doing that, he's also implying that the game would be improved without the mindless fun, despite it's artistic aspects already present. Thus, he's saying that mindless fun and actual depth can NOT coexist, which is odd, because he spends most the rest of the video saying they CAN. But if Bioshock is a better game with the mindless fun removed, isn't he basically saying that the games industry is better off with the mindless fun removed?
I don't think he meant it that way. What he said is that if the primary argument for "games are art" still centers around violent conflict, killing whatever's in your way, and shooting things in the face, something that Ebert and other game critics claim that's what all games are about, then we're not in a good position. Whether or not Bioshock has depth and meaning doesn't really matter when that could all be ignored over electrifying splicers. Still an excellent game by all means, I loved it, but critics won't be able to see past the violence, unlike with violent movies like Pulp Fiction or Scarface which are "deep" as they can see past the violence.
Films started out as nothing but cutesy musicals and whatnot. I'm sure people laughed at the idea that movies could be used to express "artistic" visions. If the best example someone at the time could come up with for "movies are art" was, I dunno, "Singin' in the Rain" with it's deep, complex social commentary (bear with me here, I have no idea if it does this, it's an example) then it still doesn't really help the image of "all movies are just stupid musicals or comedies!" See where I'm going here?
"Art" and "fun" (I prefer to use "entertaining", there's a difference) are not two distinct ideas, they
can coexist. The problem I think is that we haven't been able to do that on a consistent basis. Most developers are not skilled enough to balance entertaining qualities and purposefully employ artistic visions with few exceptions. Keep in mind, "art" doesn't have to mean "pretentious" it's just what the developers are trying to convey with their game.
Gaming is evolving every day, every week, every month, and every year. New ideas come up, some fail, and others succeed. We gain nothing if we hold it back, so just let it go and see what happens.
Cause and Effect is fun, no?