Why is it so imporant for video games to be considered art?
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The censorship would not be as drastic, plus games would gain more protection and possibly even more support.
Plus I think deserve the same level of respect that any other artistic medium has. For goodness sake they put so much effort into their jobs, yet by people who aren't gamers, they are seen as just "toy makers". I think a certain level of respect would be appreciated, just like with any other artistic medium.
Games are still seen as childish and a waste of time. This in turn is why I was so afraid to tell my parents that I wanted to become a Game Designer. I had told all my friends, yet I didn't have the guts to tell my parents, since I was so afraid that they would disapprove and see as some "childish" fantasy.
Plus I think deserve the same level of respect that any other artistic medium has. For goodness sake they put so much effort into their jobs, yet by people who aren't gamers, they are seen as just "toy makers". I think a certain level of respect would be appreciated, just like with any other artistic medium.
Games are still seen as childish and a waste of time. This in turn is why I was so afraid to tell my parents that I wanted to become a Game Designer. I had told all my friends, yet I didn't have the guts to tell my parents, since I was so afraid that they would disapprove and see as some "childish" fantasy.
But for some reason you get the childish stigma to games rather than books about fantasy like for example Lord of The Rings who technically ARE a waste of time for anyone else but the reader. What i mean is that, under the way i THINK outsiders of x medium THINK, LOTR should techinically, under their eyes, be a childish waste of time.Waffle_Man said:
But anyway, i am pretty sure that back then even movies where considered childish. In fact, when you think about movies of that age, specially black and white, what is the first thing that it comes to mind?? comedies, specially Charles Chaplin shorts. But a breakthrough came and all people started to take movies seriously (unless you are Michael Bay)
The real question is how long do games need to suffer this stigma even when i am absolutely sure that there is PLENTY of evidence and works in the gaming medium to show that they ARENT a waste of time?? And remember, when the movies had their "breakthrough" its was when there wasnt any mass communication but somehow managed to spread the word that movies are serious bussiness. But the wallbanger comes from the fact that even in this day and age where you can share you opinions almost instantly and WORLDWIDE, people are EVEN MORE lazy than before even with all the data right in their faces.
You make it sound like if games are the new gay or the new black of this generation (something that i SHOULDN'T be able to compare...but since people are this stupid then yeah, its the new black)TheFinalFantasyWolf said:
You should look for famous examples applied to people in other mediums if you really feel like comparing yourself with a movie director whose "childish" desire to change cinema was mocked.
Hmm, well, I guess you'd know better than I would about the art world's influence on what people think is art. Though, I'd say they could do a better job influencing people to respect contemporary art more, lol.Erana said:
What do normal gamers (who don't know much about art) need to do to help though? I can't imagine the average filmgoer back in the day did anything to uplift the medium, and yet films are considered art now. What should us regular gamers be doing?
Stories like Lord of The Rings attempt to say something about the human condition. While Tolkien once said that he disliked allegory, it's so prevalent in the way that the world was structured that it's hard not to see parallels between the way that Tolkien would have seen the world and the structure of middle earth. However, Lord of the Rings is the exception more than the rule. The same thing goes with Sci-fi in that most of the classics were created as a metaphor for what the authors thought were some truth important to the way the world is. They were a form of communication, which (in my opinion) is at the very heart of what art is. A large portion of modern sci-fi is a bunch of stuff that happens.DioWallachia said:
If people respect the Lord of the Rings or the works of Asimov, it's because they were things worth respecting. With this in mind, there are a large number of literary critics who will tell you that genre fiction can't be taken seriously. I don't think anything will make such critics change their minds, but it doesn't matter because genre fiction has a pedigree to back the arguments of apologists up.
For the most part, movies started out as being view as fairly childish and topical because they were childish and topical. It was a new technology and everyone was super excited about capturing a number of mundane aspects about life. However, it didn't take long for people to actually start trying to use it as an art medium, thus establishing a pedigree.
While I could certainly argue that point, think about it from the opposite perspective. How many video game that gamers often try to point to exist essentially just to answer the question "you know what would be cool?" We point to Bioshock. It's a game about shooting people in the face. We point to Fallout. It's a game about shooting people in the face. We point to Half-life. It's a game about shooting people in the face. Is anyone noticing a pattern here?
While I certain consider each of the above examples to be art, they aren't going to convince critics, especially when even game like those are the exception rather than the rule. Bioshock is a game about the ideals people fail to live up to and shooting people in the face. Most other games are just about shooting people in the face. Thus, it's not going to convince people who already have their minds made up.
Granted, there are a number of "artsy" games around that aren't about shooting people in the face, but they don't get nearly enough publicity to change the way that games are viewed.
Hardly. News, journals, and other forms of print were wide spread by the time that cinema became big.
Art critics aren't swayed by general whims.
"Data?" Art has nothing to do with data.
As I stated previously, most gamers don't really care if the medium is art. "Art" just happens to be a magic word that makes games suddenly exempt from censorship. However, people who do care about art and games usually don't care about public perception. Rather, it's important for games to become art is the same reason anything should become art: The avoidance of stagnant thought and action. Whether people consider it art has little consequence on whether or not it is art.
Or rather, whether art is in it.
How ironic it is that you talk about not really caring about what you reply to, because that's exactly what you did. It seems to me that you carelessly made assumptions that I have not researched this subject properly or that I don't care about the subject, without any true thought about my words, and that's quite sad. In short, it seems to me that your talking about laziness in this case, is almost comically hypocritical.DioWallachia said:
Do you disagree? Have games ever not shown their creators' biases about the subjects they explore, even if unintentionally? Have video games ever not tried to convey a message? Have games ever not taught you something, even if it's only "Wow, these developers are incredibly pathetic and disgusting." (See Custer's Revenge)?
Or are you only referring to when games have only been considered art in a legal sense? In that case, you're right. Games were only just recently recognized as art by the Supreme Court and National Endowment for the Arts. You are right, but I do believe that only approaching this issue from a legal standpoint isn't very productive.
I tolerate opinions, but I don't tolerate hypocrisy. I would prefer that you not reply to my posts in future, without actually putting deeper thought into it, in the way that you suggested I do. Thank you very much for your understanding in this matter. I hope you have a nice day.
Sorry, but I still had something to say.Forlong said:
Uhm....yeah but still doesn't answer my question, because everyone is super excited about the possibilities that video games have as an interactive medium (sort of like as back then but for movies) but movies got the spark that made people into pushing the boundaries of cinema that eventually broke the stigma, no such luck for video games even if they ALREADY did it. Part of the answer you already say it, the new tech made everyone exited but there is more into that.Waffle_Man said:
Think back of all those Sci-fi books around 1920 of how the future will be with all the technological advances, like a candy store of possibilities, but now everything regarding technological advances just became stagnant.....or so people think. As silly this may sound i think that people are just too depressed and apathetic to notice any tech advancement or even manage to get a clue of how something in this day and age has any cool thing for the future probably because they didnt get flying cars or jetpacks or HAL 9000 around 2001. Hell, i wont be surprised that you get marked as taking Sci-fi books too seriously when you mention something as Nanomachines even if they already exist in the real world.
I should have answered my own question by saying that even if there were newspapers to cover the news about movies not sucking anymore, you have to remember that back then there wasnt many movies......there wasnt any of anything except a few radio shows and that is it (remember 1920) Thanks to that fact, people used to remember the movies munch better than today thanks to repeated viewings of the only thing in town.
But today its a totally different story, there are movies up the ass,video games, series on tv, series on internet, social networks, games you can play online and the zoo. It should be more difficult for ANY medium to get attention at all........but things like Twilight got attention very fast even if there is a LEGION of books that are munch more know and could have captured the minds of the audience much better than Twilight. Games, once again, dont have that kind of luck.
This article mentioned that we are not mainstream even with all the millons going around to the game developers, mostly because gamers are just a bunch of people paying enormous an enourmous quantity of money ot sustain their hobbies rather than LOTS of people paying a small fee to rent or see a movie for example:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_266/7959-We-Are-Not-Mainstream
If we want to get people into gaming, we should aim to show games that are just like what i mentioned down there, even if its a risky gambit since most people will not care to anything that may look to difficult to comprehend for their monkey brains.
You are going to need to be more clear about "the shooting people in the face" games. Its the inability of developers of working around a pacifist route within the narrative of these games? Do mandatory kills makes them lose points?? How about the games that uses the violence to make a point, like if you go for this kind of attitude the main character becomes a mindless monsters or that your characters is a leader of a society and going ballistic will make everyone follow you to their doom?? Its the presence of violence in general that makes people into generalizing x game as "shooting people in the face"???
I can think of these games when it comes to non violent solutions or that are more about psychological exploration or even deconstructions of video games tropes
World of Goo
The Stanley Parable
IJI (the pacifist route is encouraged by the narrative and most of the character development comes from doing so)
Turgor/Tension/The Void
The "you know what would be cool? shooting people in the bollocks" will always be there fore video games as long there is a public for that. We just need to think how to diminish their presence even with all the marketing that those kind of games have, hoping for people like Stephen Colbert to play those isnt going to help that munch, and i dont think that any of the people here has a relevant career that they may use to promote games
The only way that a miracle could happen is if everyone just stop playing video games around the "shooting people in the face" stigma so other games can resurface and hopefully catch the attention of someone important
This topic again? Just enjoy gaming for what it is, entertainment. It was made to make money so it isn't art. Case closed.
Just like MLP and Transformers. It is what it is. Enjoy it. Just dont build it into more than it is.C2Ultima said:
You call it hypocrisy, i call it "There is no such thing as bad publicity" or you can also call it "I will not let this thread bite the dust like the Extra Punctuation: Games as Art thread that was abandoned before ANYTHING could be achieved in the discussion, specially thanks to people like you, yes you, the one to the right with the biscuit"C2Ultima said:
If you saw my previous post, you may notice that i tend to ask a lot to the people that seems to have a grasp in reality, and since you happened to bring a short response to this long debate i tough that you conveyed a simple point of view that everyone seems to not get it right because they are overthinking the issue.
Sort of like "Isnt it obvious?? Games are not art, why are we even talking about this?"
Does that include people like Tim Schafer or Ed McMillen in the "i want to make money only even if it is apparent that i may get more money by working on a Mc Donald at this point instead of making games"???SonOfVoorhees said:
It's a confidence issue. Gamers want to be taken seriously by the rest of the society, but that's not gonna happen as long as games aren't taken seriously. At least that's the conclusion I came up with. I don't really care.
Well, they should be doing the usual: appreciating both good little games and the big blockbuster ones, and talking about games. Gamers are a huge part of what gives video games its own historical context.dyre said:
Through analysis and deconstruction of the medium is good; in pinpointing the elements of what constitutes the experience, gamers could potentially pave the way for video games as fine art. One troubling matter of video games is the fact that money is involved, and a huge part of journalism is focused purely on trying to get people to buy it, or if a game is a good enough value for people to purchase it. It would be beneficial for people to perceive the value of games as much more independent of its price tag.
And I'm not saying that everyone has to go buy all the games with artistic elements, just that not dismissing an art game because more gameplay could be had with that same money in other titles.
And also, though its the most counter intuitive thing you could do with something that has "game" in its name, do not consider a game that isn't fun bad, if fun is not the sole priority of the game. If games are to be art, they can't always be enjoyable. If a game starts with, say, the unnerving tension of a survival horror game and hones every element of the game to the furthest extent one could push them while remaining within the realm of Survival Horror, placing this amplification of its gameplay elements above the actual gameplay experience itself....
Well, it would be a terrible game. Possibly unplayable. But everything video games can and does do will need to be pushed to its limits just to find where they are. This would include making games where the experience is not in any way pleasurable. You don't have to like them, no; this is just what artists doing their thing these days looks like. When this sort of thing starts happening, the role gamers can and hopefully will play is to make a case for the elements that they do like, the joys of compelling gameplay and the likes.
Gamers will be the existing institution with which artists respond and react to.
Again, I'm getting ahead of myself, but ultimately, gamers can contribute to defining games as a medium just by talking about what it is they like and why. Just love the medium for what it is now.
Oh, and to the people who insist that games are not art...
Even if you don't consider video games as art because you don't consider existing titles art, that doesn't invalidate the potential of the medium. I mean, would you consider clay to be an invalid medium if people used it first to make garden gnomes?
The point was that it was simply a matter of time. Time is what will make people accept video games as an art form. Time is what it will take for a generation of commentators and critics of art used to the idea of video games as an art form. Nothing we can do or say will make people who have already made up their minds about video games view them differently. That's why we should stop being concerned about how the public perceives it now because the critics of today will only be around for a bit longer. If we instead concern ourselves with what video games actually are, we'll create the interest needed for intelligent and communicative individuals to invest themselves in it, thus creating theoretical and critical foundations that most people think of when they think of "art." This won't necessarily mean an actual change in games, just the public perception of them. Design for function and form will follow.DioWallachia said:
The reason Sci-fi of today and Sci-fi of yesterday seems so different is because we've simply advance scientifically. We have a better grasp of what is and isn't possible (or at least we think we do). Aside from that, there is plenty of speculative fiction with regards to future technology. The reason that it's harder to notice is because it's bunched together with future fantasy. Just look at Cyberpunk or techno thrillers, they speculate on where technology might go, the also ask if we should go there. They ask very important questions long before they become relevant, which is what makes speculative fiction so valuable.
I would say that a similar phenomenon happened with the way people view a number of classic games, but that's not the point. Movies didn't become instantly accepted just because they started maturing. No, it took people gradually becoming accustom to them.
I think that you have the answer to your own question.
Quality doesn't determine popularity (directly). The reason video games that the "core audience" appreciates don't sell nearly as well as a modest book or movie is because the barrier of entry is higher. Members of the "gaming" community often take for granted just how much of an investment it is to get into gaming. Sure, since we know that we'll get a return, dropping a couple hundred dollars on a console is not a big deal. On the other hand, it isn't a sure bet for someone who hasn't played a game before. With a movie or a book, one can easily meet the price of admittance without any worry of being stuck with a game that they hate. This isn't because they have "monkey brains" as you want to claim, but because gaming isn't inherently engrossing.
Furthermore, because of the necessities for playing games, they are never going to become huge in a place that isn't economically stable enough to support them, limiting their relevance to the developed world.
That's missing the point. It isn't that games should or shouldn't be about shooting people in the face (the limited range of such activity not withstanding), it's that people who disregard games are going to take "shooting people in the face" as proof of it being juvenile. We all know that Fallout allows peaceful and nonviolent solutions to most problems, but look at all of the material available to people who haven't played the game.
As stated before, there are examples of games going beyond "ain't it cool," but try finding a single person who isn't really into games that even knows about the above examples, much less their importance.
It isn't important that we get more people in the gaming community able to speak eloquently about games. We have plenty who are ready and able. What we need is people respected in other art forms that see the inherent value of video games. We have a couple, such as Steven Spielberg or perhaps Guillermo Del Toro, but not enough to make it prevalent. This isn't something that's just going to spontaneously come about, but must simply be a product of video games being a major cultural force, which I would say they have become. Speaking to any person today, there is a good chance that they at least know someone who plays video games. This wasn't true more than a few years ago.
I believe that it will happen, but whether or not it does is a moot question as far as I'm concerned. A number of people have been concerned about games as art purely for the sake of appearances. I see it a way of introspection. Games can be made about practically anything. Should they be made about anything? It's questions of why games are what they are is going to be key to keeping the medium alive. Stagnation and pointlessness is the alternative.
I would actually quite like to see a video game that is purely art, just an empty sandbox of buildings and beautiful scenery that you could wander about and explore. Would anyone else be interested in that kind of game?
There are actually quite a few reasons from what I can see.
Obviously, there are the legal benefits and protections to begin with, which pretty much can constitute an entire argument on their own. A lot of people want games to be able to approach and deal with mature subject matter without being threatened with censorship or crusades against them "for the sake of the children."
Next, social perceptions. Firstly, the obvious one, wherein gamers aren't singled out and mocked by non-gamers. Now, a lot of people seem to consider this a petty or selfish one, but if we remove the stigma from being a gamer, and allow it to become something that anyone can indulge in, it could benefit gaming as a whole. If gaming were to be respected as a normal pursuit like reading or watching movies, more people would buy and become interested in games, and the industry could find vast, untapped reserves of customers, all with varying tastes and desires, and create a wider range of new products to cater to them. Secondly, working in the game industry would no longer be stigmatized either (well, no more than working in any artistic industry . . . so, still a lot, but an improvement nevertheless). Being a game developer would be a respectable career choice, and you wouldn't get talented individuals turned away from that path because of parents/friends etc. considering it to be childish and stupid, like wanting to be a rockstar or an astronaut. It's possible that more people would go into colleges and universities and take courses on game design and theory, and it's in such an environment that you'd get some true innovation, and maybe a few new concepts that could change the entire face of gaming if we're lucky.
Now, many gamers, myself included, are blinded by the passion of the fanatic. We believe that, if we just get people to play some of these games, suddenly everyone will realize they were wrong all along, and games are awesome, and everyone will want to play games forever and ever and it'll be rainbows and sunshine and all that. Obviously this won't be the case. If games aren't a person's thing, they just won't care. But some people are genuinely turned away by the stigma of playing games, even though they do enjoy them. That is a tragedy, and it saddens me that silly social concepts turn people away from enjoyable or enlightening experiences.
Lastly, why the hell not? Many people here would probably agree that games are art, so why shouldn't that be recognized? I genuinely can't see a decent downside to it. It's not like we'll suddenly end up knee deep in obscure arthouse games or anything like that.
Obviously, there are the legal benefits and protections to begin with, which pretty much can constitute an entire argument on their own. A lot of people want games to be able to approach and deal with mature subject matter without being threatened with censorship or crusades against them "for the sake of the children."
Next, social perceptions. Firstly, the obvious one, wherein gamers aren't singled out and mocked by non-gamers. Now, a lot of people seem to consider this a petty or selfish one, but if we remove the stigma from being a gamer, and allow it to become something that anyone can indulge in, it could benefit gaming as a whole. If gaming were to be respected as a normal pursuit like reading or watching movies, more people would buy and become interested in games, and the industry could find vast, untapped reserves of customers, all with varying tastes and desires, and create a wider range of new products to cater to them. Secondly, working in the game industry would no longer be stigmatized either (well, no more than working in any artistic industry . . . so, still a lot, but an improvement nevertheless). Being a game developer would be a respectable career choice, and you wouldn't get talented individuals turned away from that path because of parents/friends etc. considering it to be childish and stupid, like wanting to be a rockstar or an astronaut. It's possible that more people would go into colleges and universities and take courses on game design and theory, and it's in such an environment that you'd get some true innovation, and maybe a few new concepts that could change the entire face of gaming if we're lucky.
Now, many gamers, myself included, are blinded by the passion of the fanatic. We believe that, if we just get people to play some of these games, suddenly everyone will realize they were wrong all along, and games are awesome, and everyone will want to play games forever and ever and it'll be rainbows and sunshine and all that. Obviously this won't be the case. If games aren't a person's thing, they just won't care. But some people are genuinely turned away by the stigma of playing games, even though they do enjoy them. That is a tragedy, and it saddens me that silly social concepts turn people away from enjoyable or enlightening experiences.
Lastly, why the hell not? Many people here would probably agree that games are art, so why shouldn't that be recognized? I genuinely can't see a decent downside to it. It's not like we'll suddenly end up knee deep in obscure arthouse games or anything like that.
Minecraft meets The Void meets the Rayman stage that is all pencils and paints? with this musicNecroid_Neko said: