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

[SL33TBL1ND]

Graphic novel is such a pseudy marketing term. If I learned that anyone involved in comic books that I like loved the term then I would lose respect for them. Don't feel the need to say any more.

I've always used the term "Graphic Novel" to differentiate based on size.

OT: I've noticed this as well, and to prevent being called a bit of a hypocrite, I maintain my position of "Who gives a flying fuck?"

Your opinion is offensive. Not anything you've actually done.

Well....why? I'd honestly like to know, because if I'm offending anyone with what I'm saying I'd prefer not to.

You're arguing with someone called Halo Fanboy. You know you're wasting your time right?

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I mainly read manga but comics and graphic novels differ in a simple factor from my experience. Anything with a drawn art is a comic book, it can be in the end of a newspaper. A graphic novel is just one series and you're into it for just that one series, not for multiple factors....so graphic novel is like a more focused comic book fan's type of thing...but basically the same thing.

It's like reading shonen jump for your manga versus getting the volumes with just one series. Some series only do volumes but they're all just manga in the end.

Games are just like any medium; they're ALL art. Fun ones, arty ones, short ones, long ones, good ones, crappy ones, all of them. Art isn't talking about grittiness or realism or even a good story (although I am a proponent of "more story!" when it comes to games; but I digress). It's about value, something that the reader/viewer/player can walk away from and become inherently changed for better or worse, because of coming into contact with the medium. It's not always about Mass Effect offering situations that make your morals come into question. It's not always about Modern Warfare's grim simulation of a man crawling and dying from a nuclear blast. It can also be that feeling you get after playing any FPS games, that "FUCK YEAH I JUST SHOT A MAN IN THE HEAD FROM 50 YARDS AWAY!". It's just that feeling is fleeting and shallow. What people really ask for when they want games to be "art" is a less ethereal, deeper experience.

But then, I'm a pretentious asshole. What do I know?

I don't think it's pretentious to demand of art to be moving or touching in some way. The best kind of art is the one that touches your soul and leaves you different than before. The fact that people would look at you like a weirdo if you demanded to be moved by a videogame while they'd see nothing wrong with expecting that from a book is show enough that games are quite a bit behind being viewed as art or at least equally as much as other media.


Those experiences in gaming that are ethereal and passing have a term, "entertainment", all games are entertainment, not all games are art yet.

 

[ultrachicken]

I don't understand how it's decided whether or not something is art. There aren't any clear rules or guidelines for what is considered art, which makes any discussion on the subject pointless. Art is purely subjective, so if someone considers all games art, then that's their opinion.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

I don't understand how it's decided whether or not something is art. There aren't any clear rules or guidelines for what is considered art, which makes any discussion on the subject pointless. Art is purely subjective, so if someone considers all games art, then that's their opinion.

If that was the position everyone took about every medium nothing would be art.


You need passionate individuals to push the medium forward for it to truly meet it's potential, if you're being nihilistic about it just because subjective factors are involved then obviously nothing will happen.


It is important to have outspoken people demanding recognition as art since eventually there'll be enough of them to mold people's minds into accepting it as art. Not everyone will agree, as I'm sure there's people out there who don't think classical music is artistic or that books are worth the time of day...but so what? Wouldn't you call someone who was dismissive of music or paintings an ignorant person? Is it right to stop calling these things art just because of ignorant people not getting it?

 

[ultrachicken]

I don't understand how it's decided whether or not something is art. There aren't any clear rules or guidelines for what is considered art, which makes any discussion on the subject pointless. Art is purely subjective, so if someone considers all games art, then that's their opinion.

If that was the position everyone took about every medium nothing would be art.


You need passionate individuals to push the medium forward for it to truly meet it's potential, if you're being nihilistic about it just because subjective factors are involved then obviously nothing will happen.


It is important to have outspoken people demanding recognition as art since eventually there'll be enough of them to mold people's minds into accepting it as art. Not everyone will agree, as I'm sure there's people out there who don't think classical music is artistic or that books are worth the time of day...but so what? Wouldn't you call someone who was dismissive of music or paintings an ignorant person?

What one person considers art is undoubtedly not considered art by another person, and in my mind, those are both equally valid points.

I don't need to be lectured on how it's important that my opinion on the matter be what you want it to be so that the medium will supposedly push forward. Video-games are doing that on their own. They're gradually becoming more and more accepted by society through sheer popularity without massive groups of people pushing for them to be seen as art.

Is it right to stop calling these things art just because of ignorant people not getting it?

No, I wouldn't necessarily call someone who was dismissive of music or paintings an ignorant person. What you don't seem to understand is that I believe that what constitutes as art is entirely an opinion. I don't believe that you can really label anything as "art" or "not art." So, no, I don't think that it's right to label music and/or paintings "not art" whenever any single person claims that they're not in the same way that I don't think any video game can be labeled good or bad based on a single opinion.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Graphic novel is such a pseudy marketing term. If I learned that anyone involved in comic books that I like loved the term then I would lose respect for them. Don't feel the need to say any more.

I've always used the term "Graphic Novel" to differentiate based on size.

I think what you are talking about is just called the trade paperback.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Graphic novel is such a pseudy marketing term. If I learned that anyone involved in comic books that I like loved the term then I would lose respect for them. Don't feel the need to say any more.

I've always used the term "Graphic Novel" to differentiate based on size.

I think what you are talking about is just called the trade paperback.

Trade Paperback describes the binding, but Graphic Novel describes the format. When it first showed up in the 80's, the term Graphic Novel was intended to be a new, more mature name for comic books. As it stands now, it describes a comic book in trade paperback form, usually a self contained story composed of a certain run of comics, but also occasionally a Manga like serialized collection of a long running series, or something composed for the format, like Bone or Grease Monkey which I'm drawing a blank on examples of, because a quick wikipedia search shows me that the two series I thought had been exclusively published in the format both started out with a standard comic book run.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

Games are not art. Never have been and I don't see how they could ever be.

If a hundred artists sit down and draw art for a hundred days. How could the result not be art.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

Graphic novel is such a pseudy marketing term. If I learned that anyone involved in comic books that I like loved the term then I would lose respect for them. Don't feel the need to say any more.

I've always used the term "Graphic Novel" to differentiate based on size.

I think what you are talking about is just called the trade paperback.

Trade Paperback describes the binding, but Graphic Novel describes the format. When it first showed up in the 80's, the term Graphic Novel was intended to be a new, more mature name for comic books. As it stands now, it describes a comic book in trade paperback form, usually a self contained story composed of a certain run of comics, but also occasionally a Manga like serialized collection of a long running series, or something composed for the format, like Bone or Grease Monkey which I'm drawing a blank on examples of, because a quick wikipedia search shows me that the two series I thought had been exclusively published in the format both started out with a standard comic book run.

Trade paperback describes the binding which is what he was talking about. Other than that they are still comics really, unless someone really insists on having them called Graphic Novels for some reason.

 

[BiscuitTrouser]

Games are not art. Never have been and I don't see how they could ever be.

If a hundred artists sit down and draw art for a hundred days. How could the result not be art.

Having made art in the past does not mean anything you do in the future is so.

Interacting with a machine is not art. At all. Video games are a series of rules and rewards for actions. That is not art. The visual design may well be artistic, but the game (the aforementioned interaction with rules and outcomes) is not artistic.

So the gameplay element in the game is NOT artistic in the way the visual design is. If elements are art, and other elements are not, is there really a definate answer?

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

Graphic novel is such a pseudy marketing term. If I learned that anyone involved in comic books that I like loved the term then I would lose respect for them. Don't feel the need to say any more.

I've always used the term "Graphic Novel" to differentiate based on size.

I think what you are talking about is just called the trade paperback.

Trade Paperback describes the binding, but Graphic Novel describes the format. When it first showed up in the 80's, the term Graphic Novel was intended to be a new, more mature name for comic books. As it stands now, it describes a comic book in trade paperback form, usually a self contained story composed of a certain run of comics, but also occasionally a Manga like serialized collection of a long running series, or something composed for the format, like Bone or Grease Monkey which I'm drawing a blank on examples of, because a quick wikipedia search shows me that the two series I thought had been exclusively published in the format both started out with a standard comic book run.

Trade paperback describes the binding which is what he was talking about. Other than that they are still comics really, unless someone really insists on having them called Graphic Novels for some reason.

It could be a cultural thing; I've never heard a graphic novel referred to as a trade paperback, except maybe to distinguish it from a hardback version, but I'm from the US, while your profile says you're from the UK. If that is the case, it's yet another interesting example of how the language evolves differently on either side of the Atlantic.

 

[jailbreaker]

Yes: the video game is not art. Just as a board game isn't, and just as a game of bull rush isn't. Rules and rewards for actions are not art.

The moving images, the music, or the story may well be art. The video game is not.

The mechanics are simply an attempt to make someone feel an emotion. Typically reward (ever heard about the Skinner box?), exhilaration, competition, fear, and... the emotion where you're trying to balance on something and begin to fall off.

As I said before, in my opinion that makes it art.

I also think the medium is young enough that we don't really know how to use the mechanics well.

 

[Cynicalgamer]

As far as I can tell, art usually conveys something, whether its a story, an emotion, or something along those lines. A game without a story doesn't really convey anything outside of *potentially, and hopefully* fun.

I guess that kind of makes sense with why some wouldn't consider story-less games as art.

Granted, this is also assuming that this situation is a black and white scenario, which it really isn't.

That'd be my best guess.

 

[Fappy]

I wasn't aware of the argument that story = art. Games can be considered "artistic" for any number of reasons, story of course being one of them, but not a necessity.

 

[AdumbroDeus]

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.

But what you don't understand is not every type of game requires a complex story and/or high levels of abstraction in order to have considerable artistic merit. Just like the scenes, characterization, and camera use that worked in Lord of the Rings wouldn't work in Dr. Strangelove nor in Citizen Kane. Yet they're all art. Yes I know this goes against the Hipster definition of "artistic", but that is a very sophomoric view of art.

This is especially true of gaming which has many more techniques to develop a central message and transmit said message to the player.


Missle command is art, transmitting the hopelessness and horror of nuclear warfare through gameplay alone. Probably more effectively then any other game I've played.


Can Call of Duty be artistically effective? Modern Warfare, easy example. It's completely following with the genre and the genre themes of the game, yet "it" (and if you've played you know what "it" is, no spoilers here though) makes the game much more effective at showing the horror of war.


Attention to detail, reinforcing message through mechanics, and not being afraid to throw a curveball when it reinforces the game. That's what makes a good game in genre and makes it valuable as art.

 

[bricklayerofd00m]

Lol, Rise of the Triad! From the Masters of the Universe! I played the hell out of it, yes, games can be good even without a story (not going into the art debate, bah), that game is (was? where can I get it these days?) living proof of it, while Doom was fooling around with silly torn apart bodies, RotT had FLYING EYEBALLS, lol, I love them both, early days FPS's ftw.