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

[KalosCast]

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

When we became a bunch of pretentious whiny douchebags.

Pretty much this.

I also, in part, blame Extra Credits for trying to turn the whole "games as art" thing into a movement, into something that makes you an extra special snowflake if you support it. So now we have people regurgitating the exact same points that preachy series made and pretending they're doing anything more than over-analyzing inconsequential parts of video games.

 

[Zannah]

snip

I can enjoy predator, because predators are awesome. But that's not the point. The point is, I want games (and films for that matter) to have that, and then be good. Basically, I'd like the movies around the predators, not to suck, because then I'd enjoy them more.
What you're telling me, is that wish is for some reason false, and I should take it as it is. Basically, your whole argument amounts to "bread tastes good, so let's not get all high brow and artsy, and try to enhance it with cheese", your only reason being, all the restaurants you frequented so far, sucked at making sandwiches.
That does NOT make it wrong to wish for sandwiches, rather then accepting dry bread

 

[GiantRaven]

So now we have people regurgitating the exact same points that preachy series made and pretending they're doing anything more than over-analyzing inconsequential parts of video games.

What are the inconsequential parts of video games?

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

[strong]It's like complaining that your game of Monopoly or Risk doesn't tell a good story.[/strong]

This is always the argument that really grinds my gears. I understand where you're coming from, but this is not a good example. Risk and monopoly are games designed to be played with friends, and as such, they don't need a story; they're just a framework for friendly get-together. Single-player games on the other hand are just that, games for a single player, and a great deal of games would be relatively boring without a narrative to string together the gunfights and vehicle sections, or whatever other gameplay elements are on offer. Playing poker with friends is fun; playing it alone against AI opponents is not.

You might have a point, if the Civilization series weren't so much fun, even against AI opponents. That series is nothing but an overgrown version of Risk, and yet the storyless singleplayer is infinitely more popular than the identical multiplayer. Let's face it, video games are games, not movies or books.

Storyless singleplayer? That's the reason I enjoy playing Medieval II: Total War, I'm rewriting history as I play. You don't necessarily need cutscenes or dialogue to have a story.

But that story isn't part of the game, it's all in your head. If everyone did what you're suggesting, no game would be storyless, because we could just make one up as we went along. If I write a Doom fan fiction that perfectly explains every event in the game, it doesn't meant that fan fiction was actually the story of the game. By the same token, Civilization has no story, just a bunch of game mechanics cleverly hidden behind some flavor text.

And if everyone did what you're doing, then no game would have a story. Every game is "just a bunch of game mechanics cleverly hidden behind some flavor text". The process of enjoying a game is letting those gameplay elements make an experience, though clearly, you and I differ wildly in our philosophies of enjoying games.

As for your first point, there's a huge difference between inferring a story from a tech tree, and having one explicitly given to you through cutscenes. As for the second one, you're absolutely right; we are from two different schools of game enjoyment. I'm one of those people who, at a D&D session, would much rather roll play than role play. But the beautiful thing is, there's enough room in the world for both types of gamers; the whole point of this thread is that people need to stop complaining when a market that hitherto catered exclusively to their interests suddenly opens up and, while still catering to those interests, offers some products that cater to another, equally large group of people who have been left with next to nothing for the last ten years. When you look at it that way, is it so terrible that we have games like Duke Nukem Forever on the horizon?

 

[KalosCast]

So now we have people regurgitating the exact same points that preachy series made and pretending they're doing anything more than over-analyzing inconsequential parts of video games.

What are the inconsequential parts of video games?

Pretty much all the parts that EC dedicates its soapbox episodes to.

 

[GiantRaven]

As for your first point, there's a huge difference between inferring a story from a tech tree, and having one explicitly given to you through cutscenes.

I wouldn't say the perceived story in, to use the example you gave, Civilization is told through a tech tree. Each civilization present in the game has their own leader with their own personality. The story arises from how these different personalities interact with one another and the player.

Pretty much all the parts that EC dedicates its soapbox episodes to.

Well thank you for clearly illustrating your point. There are a lot of Extra Credits episodes, after all. Are you suggesting, for example, that a story is completely inconsequential to games?

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

snip

I can enjoy predator, because predators are awesome. But that's not the point. The point is, I want games (and films for that matter) to have that, and then be good. Basically, I'd like the movies around the predators, not to suck, because then I'd enjoy them more.
What you're telling me, is that wish is for some reason false, and I should take it as it is. Basically, your whole argument amounts to "bread tastes good, so let's not get all high brow and artsy, and try to enhance it with cheese", your only reason being, all the restaurants you frequented so far, sucked at making sandwiches.
That does NOT make it wrong to wish for sandwiches, rather then accepting dry bread

No, but it does make it wrong for you to tell me that I can't have a piece of dry bread if I want to -- or even, let's get crazy here, some bread and butter, instead of some bread and cheese. My reasoning here isn't that all the restaurants I've been to have sucked at making sandwiches, it's that a sandwich is a fundamentally different item than a dinner roll.

 

[Savagezion]

It mainly stems from this forum, although I do see it in other places such as the kotaku comments for anything that does not remotely have a decent story.

Personally, I blame all of the videos we have that concerns video games, I'm looking at you Extra Credits.

This. I love the show Extra Credits but damn are they creating some pretentious douchebags on the Escapist. If Daniel Craig wants to see Missile Command as a game with a deep story or message, then far be it from me to stop him. Although, I make the counterpoint that sometimes people are just reading way too fucking much into the game. Missile command was about making a fun game to keep quarters being fed into a machine. Seriously, this game is so easy to understand what is the motivation behind it, and EC's suggestion was not it. As I said, you can certainly CHOOSE to look at it that way but that was not the intention of the creator.

All games are art. They just are. Programming code is an artform. Some people refer to it as a "second language" and that makes sense. Making a game is like telling a story in that second language. Doom, COD, even Pong are art. They just are. Mass Effect or Mirror's Edge aren't any more or less art than those titles. Games are art by default and I think that is what EC was getting at. But damned if people can't read between the lines sometimes.

 

[Zannah]

snip

All I'm doing, is asking you to explain yourself, since it is beyond my limited mental capacity to understand why someone would want dry bread instead of a juicy sandwich.

 

[jebussaves88]

I like to look at all games as an art form. Many games, like Serious Sam and Doom are considered bad ambassadors for the "games as art" argument. But no one is arguing they're bad games because of this. If anyone discusses them in such conversation, they merely wish to use examples of what they did or didn't do, and what another did or didn't do, in order to see what can be done to make deeper more meaningful games in the future. Whilst I'm all for this, I don't want to see my crazy shooters go away, I just want more options, and perhaps only through analysis of what the games industry is doing right and wrong in this advance, or not even trying to do, is where we can see what we want and need in the future to achieve this.

 

[Ace of Spades]

[strong]It's like complaining that your game of Monopoly or Risk doesn't tell a good story.[/strong]

This is always the argument that really grinds my gears. I understand where you're coming from, but this is not a good example. Risk and monopoly are games designed to be played with friends, and as such, they don't need a story; they're just a framework for friendly get-together. Single-player games on the other hand are just that, games for a single player, and a great deal of games would be relatively boring without a narrative to string together the gunfights and vehicle sections, or whatever other gameplay elements are on offer. Playing poker with friends is fun; playing it alone against AI opponents is not.

You might have a point, if the Civilization series weren't so much fun, even against AI opponents. That series is nothing but an overgrown version of Risk, and yet the storyless singleplayer is infinitely more popular than the identical multiplayer. Let's face it, video games are games, not movies or books.

Storyless singleplayer? That's the reason I enjoy playing Medieval II: Total War, I'm rewriting history as I play. You don't necessarily need cutscenes or dialogue to have a story.

But that story isn't part of the game, it's all in your head. If everyone did what you're suggesting, no game would be storyless, because we could just make one up as we went along. If I write a Doom fan fiction that perfectly explains every event in the game, it doesn't meant that fan fiction was actually the story of the game. By the same token, Civilization has no story, just a bunch of game mechanics cleverly hidden behind some flavor text.

And if everyone did what you're doing, then no game would have a story. Every game is "just a bunch of game mechanics cleverly hidden behind some flavor text". The process of enjoying a game is letting those gameplay elements make an experience, though clearly, you and I differ wildly in our philosophies of enjoying games.

As for your first point, there's a huge difference between inferring a story from a tech tree, and having one explicitly given to you through cutscenes. As for the second one, you're absolutely right; we are from two different schools of game enjoyment. I'm one of those people who, at a D&D session, would much rather roll play than role play. But the beautiful thing is, there's enough room in the world for both types of gamers; the whole point of this thread is that people need to stop complaining when a market that hitherto catered exclusively to their interests suddenly opens up and, while still catering to those interests, offers some products that cater to another, equally large group of people who have been left with next to nothing for the last ten years. When you look at it that way, is it so terrible that we have games like Duke Nukem Forever on the horizon?

No, it's actually quite refreshing that we have things like Duke Nukem Forever to look forward to; what I'm afraid of is that if that one does well, then the industry will follow the money trail and start doing that genre to death. Narrative-focused games and relentless-gameplay-focused games are both nice in moderation, but I will be in for a rough patch if the narrative-focused ones start to lose popularity.

 

[TerranReaper]

snip

All I'm doing, is asking you to explain yourself, since it is beyond my limited mental capacity to understand why someone would want dry bread instead of a juicy sandwich.

Maybe said person don't like the taste of the juicy sandwich and prefers the dry bread. I think your analogy with bread is not the best to use, considering it almost appears you are downplaying the "dry bread", the games without story to be inferior to games that do have a story, the juicy bread.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

When did this community decide they were too good for mindless fun?

Why can't mindless fun be art?

It is. My point was that people on this forum stick their noses in the air and deny it. There are games that are "high" art, but every game is art.

 

[Zing]

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

When we became a bunch of pretentious whiny douchebags.

This right here. Games aren't art, please get over it.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

snip

All I'm doing, is asking you to explain yourself, since it is beyond my limited mental capacity to understand why someone would want dry bread instead of a juicy sandwich.

Because there's different sorts of bread, some of which are delicious on their own, and would be wasted by covering up that flavor with meats, cheeses, and condiments?

 

[GiantRaven]

It is. My point was that people on this forum stick their noses in the air and deny it. There are games that are "high" art, but every game is art.

It seems we are on the same wavelength.

Because there's different sorts of bread, some of which are delicious on their own, and would be wasted by covering up that flavor with meats, cheeses, and condiments?

This bread analogy is getting so convoluted you could slip it into a Metal Gear game and I wouldn't bat an eyelid.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

It is. My point was that people on this forum stick their noses in the air and deny it. There are games that are "high" art, but every game is art.

It seems we are on the same wavelength.

Me too, actually. I'm not doing a good job of getting it across, because I'm talking about "high art" here, but if you're looking at it from a legalistic, avoiding the obscenity laws perspective, then yes, I agree that all games are art.

 

[Eumersian]

For the record, I do complain when a game has a bad or lame story. But, here's the kicker, only if it's the kind of game that needs a story to be good.

Take a Bioware RPG. If the stories that they came up with were abysmally boring and blech, I think I would have a problem. RPGs like that often revolve just as much around talking to people as they do attacking people. Then I hear people complaining about how the Halo canon took a turn for the worse and I couldn't care less. Now, after following the story of Marathon multiple time through, I expect Bungie games to have some decent story, but really, Halo is a first-person-shooter. Those are the kinds of games that are all about the action. Story is significantly less important to those games in my opinion.

 

[KalosCast]

Well thank you for clearly illustrating your point. There are a lot of Extra Credits episodes, after all. Are you suggesting, for example, that a story is completely inconsequential to games?

I should have explained that better. The story episodes (and a number of other ones) that detail the game-making process aren't what I meant. In fact, the ones about video game music and the story-writing process were informative and accurate.

However, the two on Diversity and the Geth Choice episodes were a little much. The one about the Supreme Court case was good, but the frequency with which people spammed "game-makers aren't toy-makers!" all over these forums managed to get my murder-frenzy up. Whenever they start talking about taking a stand on something, you know it's gonna be painful.