When did we go from "games can be art" to "all games must be art?"

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Oh, I'm sorry, let me elaborate.

IN MY NOT FUCKING HUMBLE AT ALL OPINION

Better?

Why the hostility? Is it really worth getting that worked up over?

Dude, that was pretty well uncalled for. Here we are having a friendly debate, and you come in, drop your opinion down with no backing, and then swear at the first person to call you out on it. Chill out, there's no need to be so hostile.

Swearing =/= hostility. Was my post pretty hostile? Yes. I figured that something posted in a thread like this wouldn't need a damn "this is my opinion, you herpaderp" tag, but apparently I was wrong. Good day to both of you.

The problem isn't that you posted your opinion. The problem is that you didn't back it up, and then you got all defensive when people called you out on it. If you read the rest of the thread, you'll see very little "IMHO"ing, but a whole heck of a lot of, "well, I think (X) because (Y)" and "Well I think (X) and (Y) are wrong because (Z)" You left out the Y/Z, and came off looking like a jerk -- breaking rule number one of the TOS in the process.

 

[Jumplion]

Nobody has ever, ever, ever, EVER said that "all games must be art" and I am god damn sick of this argument that somehow people are saying that popping up everywhere.

Nobody is saying that "all games must be art", but what people do say is that if it's trying to be "high art" or whatever, then it has to try. People don't want more "artistic" games, people want more "diverse" games, they games other than the same FPS, shooter, action game that, while on their own might be very good, are still just the same thing.

We want a breath of fresh air.

The mentality that I am sick of is "Not every game needs a story/has to be deep/whateverthefuck the argument is for 'anti-art' afficionadoes". But it's such a defeatist statement, I mean, fine, not every game needs a deep story, or "artistic" qualities, but aren't they better when they do? Games are all the more better when you're playing with things you care about [/MovieBob_quote]. And the second we get over that hurdle, we'll be in for a great generation in games, where some games are both deep and complex, and other games offer the right amount of fun without worrying about stories or "high concept art"-y-ness.

Does anyone want every single game to be "high art"? Of course not, and I am goddamn sick of people claiming like somehow we do. Does every game have to have some sort of "meaning" or "depth" to it? Of course not, and I am goddamn sick of it when people keep saying that other people are saying it!

You want to play your Duke Nukems, your Call of Duty's, your Battlefields? Fine, go right ahead, they're great games, nothing wrong with that. But we're never going to get our goddamn Citizen Kane, or even Orson Wells, of gaming if we stick with the mentality that "Games are supposed to be fun, brah!" No, they're supposed to entertain, and there is a clear distinction between them. You think Schindler's List was "fun"? Not in the slightest, but it entertained the audience while sending it's message.

OKAY, okay, okay, I need to calm down, I'm pretty sure I'm not addressing the actual point in the topic, but whatever. I enjoy my "arty" games like Braid, Heavy Rain, ICO/Shadow of the Collosus, Limbo, and whatnot, but I also enjoy my wholesum, no-holds-bar action games like Killzone, Uncharted, and Battlefield. Doesn't mean those games couldn't have been improved with a little more attention to story, or whatever.

 

[Treblaine]

am loving the bread and sandwich analogy. long may they continue.
one dude wants just bread, one dude wants bread with cheese. im sure someone else could go a ham sandwich.

i believe the point that was attempted to get across, before you all tried to make me hungry, was that different people like different things and the people that like "pc shooters" (doom, duke, cs, unreal, team fortress, etc) have not had much new to go on for a long time and are happy at their resurgence with games like DNF, bulletstorm, etc.

PC gamers have cottoned on to "fun of unrealism" for a while now with:

-Team Fortress 2
-Left 4 Dead
-Necrovision
-Shattered Horizon
-Plain sight
-Killing Floor
-Borderlands (did much better on PC than console)
-Minecraft (not a shooter, but also discards realism and seriousness for sheer fun)

PC at the moment doesn't play anything by halves, either ultra-real sim-shooters like ARMA or STALKER, then towards the quite abstract and unreal like Painkiller and Serious Sam..

CoD series especially since MW2 has become what media studies types might call the "hyper realistic" it is "realistic" in it's approach and superficial details such as photo-realistic reapons yet people are running around with akimbo shotguns. It's like a trash hollywood movie without any witty dialogue like you'd hope to see as you'd get with Die Hard.

Cod want's to have it's cake and eat it, it wants to be "oooh, so real" yet also appeal to how people want ridiculously overpowered weapons. I think that's why the PC crowd doesn't look too highly on it, it is a muddled mess. But is IS popular, it has such critical mass behind it and the level-up structure is so addictive I'll admit once I got stuck into it.

 

[Savagezion]

/sigh

For fuck's sake, games are not art, movies are not art, books aren't art, nothing with any entertainment value is art. Pretentious fucktards...

lol. That is severely pretentious in and of itself. Welcome to the club. On Sundays we talk about how games are art. See you there, sunshine.

 

[GiantRaven]

PC at the moment doesn't play anything by halves, either ultra-real sim-shooters like ARMA or STALKER, then towards the quite abstract and unreal like Painkiller and Serious Sam..

I understand completely what you mean by 'ultra-real', but it's really humorous thinking of STALKER as ultra-realistic with it's reality-warping anomalies and radiated mutants. =P

 

[Woodsey]

When people decided the only other option was "it has no value if it is not art".

Games aren't art, films aren't art, and books are something completely different. They can all be artistic, but they're not art. That's what I figure, anyway.

 

[Treblaine]

PC at the moment doesn't play anything by halves, either ultra-real sim-shooters like ARMA or STALKER, then towards the quite abstract and unreal like Painkiller and Serious Sam..

I understand completely what you mean by 'ultra-real', but it's really humorous thinking of STALKER as ultra-realistic with it's reality-warping anomalies and radiated mutants. =P

Well I mean in terms of the mechanics.

In MW2 when you get shot 3 times in the chest all you have to do is rest for 10 seconds.

When you get shot just once in STALKER you start bleeding, you will likely die from just that wound unless you stop the bleeding. Healing from that takes a long time and impacts on your mobility for a while.

Stalker's weapons are also highly stat proportional with appropriate bullet drop and so on.

you could call STALKER "Hard Sci Fi" in that it only takes a few small liberties but beyond that stays very close to realism and sim-like controls. It's a gambit used often in fictions, it's not a case where "anything can happen" but that just this one factor is thrown in.

 

[reddfawks]

...Those yearly sports games are art?

Movie tie-ins?

Most pony/princess/makeup games for little girls?

Wut.

 

[GiantRaven]

...Those yearly sports games are art?

Movie tie-ins?

Most pony/princess/makeup games for little girls?

Wut.

Bad, horrific, vomit worthy art is still art.

(Not that I think said games are bad, horrific or vomit worthy)

 

[Thaius]

I think the "all games must be art" seems to be a phase we're going through on our way to the understanding that all games are art. Even if they're not good art.

Video games are an art form. Thus, every example of video games, as an art form, is an example of art. To look at one and say it's not art because it sucks is to essentially say there is no such thing as bad art. But video games are a much more versatile art medium than any other yet conceived, and even film and literature have their classics that are nothing more than pure fun regardless of artistic merit. VIdeo games can too. But we are overcorrecting; we've spent so long not seeing games' artistic merit that we are now trying to impose it on every game we see. It's an understandable mistake to be made in this process. It will pass.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

Nobody has ever, ever, ever, EVER said that "all games must be art"

Micheal Samyn and his crew.

Jumpilion I'm curious about why you think that games can be held back by not aspiring to be art but they can never be degenerated by certain trends of becoming art? What you view as art I see as a degenerative movement that has produced nothing but trash. Under these circumstances isn't fair to dislike such a movement?

 

[bushwhacker2k]

As an aside, I bought Serious Sam and tried to play it. Got bored within the first few levels. Mindlessly shooting hundreds of evil minions is exactly that: mindless.

This statement alone can make you sound like some elitist that thinks themselves as superior because they play games that aren't "mindless" and anyone else who don't play games that don't have a good storyline are idiots and mindless sheep. Maybe you yourself don't have this mindset, but other people do.

That's the major problem I have with this community and certain other communities as well, they act like huge snobs and condescend on people who enjoy games that don't have what they enjoy. To these people, playing CoD or even enjoying multiplayer games makes you some sort of idiot that can't appreciate a good story. The way I see it, the push for making all video games art is just an attempt for certain gamers to try to separate themselves from the mainstream so they can make themselves feel superior above other gamers. It's also a problem I personally have with Extra Credits as well.

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but your vast statement labeling people as elitist snobs makes you sound somewhat snobby yourself. I've never played Serious Sam but I DO feel that sometimes I need to see a solid goal or point to be able to play a game. I'm not making some grandiose statement about how EVERYONE who does one thing or ALL GAMES that are one thing are immediately correct or incorrect, but that's how I feel.

 

[Blue_vision]

Not all games have to be "a work of art" in the same thread that not all movies have to make you cry at the end/middle/all the way through. But that doesn't excuse for a tired, done to death trope of a game, or a soulless one. The phrase "work of art" should be taken with a grain of salt; we're not expecting every piece of media to be some amazingly moving piece, but it should all be good appreciable fun with some form of originality and true heart put into it.

 

[kek13]

...Those yearly sports games are art?

Movie tie-ins?

Most pony/princess/makeup games for little girls?

Wut.

Bad, horrific, vomit worthy art is still art.

(Not that I think said games are bad, horrific or vomit worthy)

Exactly, in most other mediums even what can be generally be regarded as repulsive or silly is still art to a certain degree even if at first glance it seems to be something of a bizarre and blatantly unintelligent nature.
A good example of this would be Bulletstorm or even TF2 (at least in some of the "meet the team videos") yet they are both entertaining and bring something somewhat new to the table (kicking a guy in the face and then shooting a rocket propelled bullet in his ass for example.. Good times)
And I believe that even though neither of them are trying to introduce any new sort of revelation in gaming they are still art in the sense that they're enjoyable and they allow to do something previously unexplored by games of the past and present.

However this is my own opinion so take it with a grain of salt as I cannot prove any of what I just typed.

 

[trooper6]

All games are art. Duke Nukem is art. Doom is art. Heavy Rain is art.
There are different kinds of art. Not all of that art may be to your taste. But it is all art.

B movies are art. Oscar bait movies are art.

There is diversity in the universe.

 

[Grimsinger]

Really, its all in a person perception of art.In my mind, game are art, imply because of the amount of work that goes into modeling everything from characters, to the shell casings coming from your gun. But then again, I'm kind of weird, i find art in an exquisitely laid out add because of its graceful use of space. The problem, at least in my mind, is that games are a fusion of many different kinds of art. Really though, as i said before, its all in personal perception. I would tell you comics are art, but I'm sure a few of you would disagree.

 

[Jumplion]

Nobody has ever, ever, ever, EVER said that "all games must be art"

Micheal Samyn and his crew.

...and? I give a shit about what they say...why? Within the context of this forum, anyway, does what they say matter? And are they not entitled to their opinions?

Jumpilion I'm curious about why you think that games can be held back by not aspiring to be art but they can never be degenerated by certain trends of becoming art? What you view as art I see as a degenerative movement that has produced nothing but trash. Under these circumstances isn't fair to dislike such a movement?

I don't think said that games are being held back by not "aspiring" to be art or whatever. Just that games need to overcome certain hurdles, like the whole "Games are supposed to be fun, man!" close-minded thinking, so that better, more grandiose games can be made.

It's not "art" I want. It's complexity, it's depth that I, and I'm sure many people, want. This can be in gameplay, in story, in interaction, in whatever the game sees fit. Whether it achieves it by providing a selection of customization online ala Black Ops, or in a dark, damp, silent world with big headed children in Limbo is all fine in my book.

You think of them as degenerative trash. Fine, go ahead, that's your opinion and whatnot. But I, for one, appreciate that games like, say, ICO or Heavy Rain are being made by risk-taking developers who have the balls to go do something unique in a time now when it's easier to go the safe route and pump out a military FPS with tacked-on multiplayer. Whether or not the games are good is up for personal debate, but I'm just glad that they exist.

 

[Zarus]

Hmmm.... Well I would say that it happened when Ebert said games can never be art. So many people took it personally that it became a shared mindset that if a game is not art that its not a game.

 

[Zhukov]

We did?

Huh. I didn't notice.

I suppose it depends on who you mean by "we". Because last I checked the more brainless varieties of game are doing just fine. Killzone, CoD, Dead Space etc. There will always be a place for their ilk and rightly so. (And that's coming from someone who hates braindead games and enjoys artsy ones.)