I've always found the whole argument that games aren't art rather silly and semantics-dependent, TBH. I've yet to see a good definition of art that includes stuff like architecture, books, and performance art but excludes games.Stall said:
Would you play an art game?
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I did read your entire post and I'll re word my reply. If I find the game well made and enjoyable I would play it.Stall said:
Other thought.
I think if you want to see what an Art game is, you really should play The Endless Forest.
It certainly expands what we consider to be a game, It even explores human interaction through lack of communication. Its one of the best examples of what an art game is or can be. It is made by the same company that made The path, and it has the advantage of being essentially free.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Endless_Forest
http://www.tale-of-tales.com/TheEndlessForest/
I think if you want to see what an Art game is, you really should play The Endless Forest.
It certainly expands what we consider to be a game, It even explores human interaction through lack of communication. Its one of the best examples of what an art game is or can be. It is made by the same company that made The path, and it has the advantage of being essentially free.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Endless_Forest
http://www.tale-of-tales.com/TheEndlessForest/
I have an issue with the whole idea of art films, or at least explicitly calling them "art films." It seems to say that, somehow, just because a person created a film expressly with the intent of having some higher ideal doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to present the audience with a higher challenge. I'd be lying if I said that you can find high ideas anywhere you look, but I've seen plenty of Art films with laughable observations concerning the human condition. Like wise, it assumes that a truly good artist is incapable of both entertaining the audience while still engaging those willing to think about it critically.
As far as video games go, developers have been playing with the fundamental concepts for years in order to ask the audience questions. Fallout 1 is art. Silent Hill 2 is art. Portal is art. Hell, even Bioshock, as much as I like to criticize parts of it, is art. I don't mean art in that they, as you say, contain art, I mean that they take a bonafide introspective look at how we interact with the systems they present us with, or the way that they look at the human condition. If you want, I could spend hours critically analyzing any of them and explaining the dozens of ways that they go beyond simply being entertaining and start to ask challenging questions.
Really, I think only considering small niche film that try their hardest to be "artsy" in every way possible to be "true art" has become an intellectually lazy position to take. Likewise, a game doesn't have to go out of it's way to challenge the audience as long as the developers truely understand what they're trying to say.
With all that said, I would be willing to play a game intends to challenge me with out concern for imediate entertainment, because I find intellectual challenge and discourse to be it's own reward.
As far as video games go, developers have been playing with the fundamental concepts for years in order to ask the audience questions. Fallout 1 is art. Silent Hill 2 is art. Portal is art. Hell, even Bioshock, as much as I like to criticize parts of it, is art. I don't mean art in that they, as you say, contain art, I mean that they take a bonafide introspective look at how we interact with the systems they present us with, or the way that they look at the human condition. If you want, I could spend hours critically analyzing any of them and explaining the dozens of ways that they go beyond simply being entertaining and start to ask challenging questions.
Really, I think only considering small niche film that try their hardest to be "artsy" in every way possible to be "true art" has become an intellectually lazy position to take. Likewise, a game doesn't have to go out of it's way to challenge the audience as long as the developers truely understand what they're trying to say.
With all that said, I would be willing to play a game intends to challenge me with out concern for imediate entertainment, because I find intellectual challenge and discourse to be it's own reward.
I would try it out, your description is a bit vague though so I can't exactly picture this game...
That's the first thing that came to mind for me, too, along with some other obvious ones like Passage. I wouldn't say it's one of my favorites, and I'm not sure it goes quite as far as arthouse film is generally (sterotypically?) considered to, but it's certainly very interesting and is a lot closer to that end of the spectrum than the vast majority of games out there.Fenix7 said:
For anyone who hasn't played it, the point is almost entirely not the gameplay, and while the story it does have is superficially a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, it never really resolves anything concretely at all and is roughly about 14 layers of ambiguous metaphors that you're left to think about for yourself. There have been plenty of debates over what each sub-plot actually means and even over whether it means anything at all in the first place or is just stupid. Heh.
We disagree on definitions of art.
However, to go with your limited definition. Yes I would, and yes I already have. The Path fits your definition without a doubt...it is even an indie game so you get that cred as well.
Now onto definitions...first off I disagree with the narrowness of your definition, but I'm not going to argue for things outside of the narrow confines you've set up at this juncture. Rather, I'm going to disagree with your characterization of art films. Art films don't have to be like pulling teeth and unenjoyable. Art films cover a range of experiences. Kurosawa's Roshomon is an art film and is enjoyable, as is Reggio/Glass's Koyaanisqatsi, Percy Adlon's Salmonberries, or Fellini's Satyricon. There are many other that may not be pure joy and laughter, but are also wonderfully thrilling like Lynch's work or The Informer by John Ford or Greenaway's Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and her Lover. Fellini's La Strada gives the powerful catharsis of tragedy, which is also a form of enjoyment. When I walked out of Mulholland Drive was I confused and hating it? No, I loved it and I was entertained by it. Now there are some films that are really hard to take, "Requiem for a Dream" and "Last Exist to Brooklyn" were great, but like a kick in the stomach. Lynch's Inland Empire was gorgeous but very surreal and that takes a whole other level of processing....but it was enjoyable--I wouldn't recommend that one to most people...but I'd recommend the wonderful Italian art film Seven Beauties to lots and lots of people. That is profound, funny, tragic, absurd...great film. Arthouse all the way, and entertaining--Lina Wertmüller did a great job.
And mainstream films and games can do that too. Also the line between arthouse and Hollywood has been blurred more and more ever since you have directors like Scorcese and Hitchcock and Lynch and Aronofsky, et al.
You do a disservice to art films and their audiences by describing them the way you do.
And lastly, you don't have to be arthouse to be art. Mainstream art is still art. Entertaining art is still art. Bad art is still art.
However, to go with your limited definition. Yes I would, and yes I already have. The Path fits your definition without a doubt...it is even an indie game so you get that cred as well.
Now onto definitions...first off I disagree with the narrowness of your definition, but I'm not going to argue for things outside of the narrow confines you've set up at this juncture. Rather, I'm going to disagree with your characterization of art films. Art films don't have to be like pulling teeth and unenjoyable. Art films cover a range of experiences. Kurosawa's Roshomon is an art film and is enjoyable, as is Reggio/Glass's Koyaanisqatsi, Percy Adlon's Salmonberries, or Fellini's Satyricon. There are many other that may not be pure joy and laughter, but are also wonderfully thrilling like Lynch's work or The Informer by John Ford or Greenaway's Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and her Lover. Fellini's La Strada gives the powerful catharsis of tragedy, which is also a form of enjoyment. When I walked out of Mulholland Drive was I confused and hating it? No, I loved it and I was entertained by it. Now there are some films that are really hard to take, "Requiem for a Dream" and "Last Exist to Brooklyn" were great, but like a kick in the stomach. Lynch's Inland Empire was gorgeous but very surreal and that takes a whole other level of processing....but it was enjoyable--I wouldn't recommend that one to most people...but I'd recommend the wonderful Italian art film Seven Beauties to lots and lots of people. That is profound, funny, tragic, absurd...great film. Arthouse all the way, and entertaining--Lina Wertmüller did a great job.
And mainstream films and games can do that too. Also the line between arthouse and Hollywood has been blurred more and more ever since you have directors like Scorcese and Hitchcock and Lynch and Aronofsky, et al.
You do a disservice to art films and their audiences by describing them the way you do.
And lastly, you don't have to be arthouse to be art. Mainstream art is still art. Entertaining art is still art. Bad art is still art.
A film that's slow and difficult to understand without deep thought and careful attention still has entertainment value. Frankly, the entire distinction of arthouse films seems more than a little bit pretentious. It's a lot like people arguing that x game is hardcore and y game is casual, and you're not really a gamer if you're playing games that aren't hardcore.Stall said:
Anyway, if a game is designed well with interesting mechanics used to tell an interesting narrative I'd gladly play it. I however won't play a game that uses uninteresting or broken mechanics to tell a mundane narrative under the guise of being art.
I played The Path too, like Fenix7, and definitely consider it an art-game. Not because the gameplay is less important than the way it looks, but because it's really about the way you experience it as the player.
There's no real storyline or structure, like there is in more common games and even though everything you do effects the ending of the game, there doesn't seem to be a purpose to doing one thing rather than the other.
I wouldn't say that is what makes it art, but it adds up to the whole experience of the game.
All in all, it's hard to pin-point when something contains art, or is art itself.
I'm not sure it even matters to be honest.
(A Google-search concludes that art is: The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.)
I suppose that definatly applies to The Path. It's also full of symbolism, yet is experienced differently by everyone. It's hard to explain, but, well. . .
It stays with you.
I guess that answers your question with: Yes, I would play an art game.
There's no real storyline or structure, like there is in more common games and even though everything you do effects the ending of the game, there doesn't seem to be a purpose to doing one thing rather than the other.
I wouldn't say that is what makes it art, but it adds up to the whole experience of the game.
All in all, it's hard to pin-point when something contains art, or is art itself.
I'm not sure it even matters to be honest.
(A Google-search concludes that art is: The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.)
I suppose that definatly applies to The Path. It's also full of symbolism, yet is experienced differently by everyone. It's hard to explain, but, well. . .
It stays with you.
I guess that answers your question with: Yes, I would play an art game.
Well, I loved "The Seventh Seal" the first time I watched it, as was the case with many so-called "Art House" films I've seen - Potempkin, Breathless, Rashomon, Dr.Caligari, etc.... I see no reason why I wouldn't enjoy a game designed in a similar way.
Bullshit. Truly great art is both thought provoking AND entertaining. What you are talking about is pretentious crap. Bad art. So to answer your question No, I would not like to play a bad art game when there's so many good ones out there.Stall said:
Also, the Seventh Seal kicks ass.
To start with, I don't think I would play an "arthouse" game in the same way I probably wouldn't watch an "arthouse" movie. The term arthouse itself brings to me thoughts of pretentiousness and more of an attempt at art rather than art itself.
Well, the problem is games intended to be art that I'm aware of tend to focus most heavily on everything but the interface. The controls aren't fine-tuned enough. They stick or are too loose. They leave something to be desired. They launch you right out of the world that's been created. It destroys immersion, and for art that's the worst thing you can do.
You must be immersed in the experience or it's just a chore in the worst possible way. And if you take out interactivity, it isn't a video game. It's just an interactive movie, basically only allowing you to change the camera angle here and there.
Do we want what we call games to stand on their own, or be ever compared to movies? Are movies still just dumbed down theater or opera? Or those dumbed down books? Lest we forget, theater and opera were once terribly frightening new concepts deemed immature, even harmful to the common man, inferior to the written (in Latin) word. Time and revision to the respective media has seen those sentiments virtually disappear.
I will play an art game when they make it an immersive, intuitively controlled experience. Not because it's just an artsy movie where you make a character or two move every once in a while. I will finish it for the same reason I finish a movie or book: because it is engaging and thought-provoking, and above all entertaining on some level. Something that's a chore to watch or read is not something I finish. It's unpleasant in that it's absolutely boring. They can make me feel sick, or make me afraid, or cry, but they can NEVER bore me or by definition any interest I had is lost.
And to the original poster, I say this. Many of those books and short stories and poems they call art that I read in middle and high school were things I enjoyed. Not because I got some incredibly deep truth out of them, though some I did, but because they were good stories that stood on their own. If it can't stand on the legs of entertainment, it is not good art in my mind. I can't think of a single artistic painting or sculpture that has stood the test of time that couldn't also make a good decorative piece, all meaning forgotten. If an art game can't stand as a regular video game, it has failed miserably.
But of course, with anything art related, there's no accounting for taste. One may call something art while the other calls it trash. The biggest problem is that neither can ever be proven right or wrong.
Well, the problem is games intended to be art that I'm aware of tend to focus most heavily on everything but the interface. The controls aren't fine-tuned enough. They stick or are too loose. They leave something to be desired. They launch you right out of the world that's been created. It destroys immersion, and for art that's the worst thing you can do.
You must be immersed in the experience or it's just a chore in the worst possible way. And if you take out interactivity, it isn't a video game. It's just an interactive movie, basically only allowing you to change the camera angle here and there.
Do we want what we call games to stand on their own, or be ever compared to movies? Are movies still just dumbed down theater or opera? Or those dumbed down books? Lest we forget, theater and opera were once terribly frightening new concepts deemed immature, even harmful to the common man, inferior to the written (in Latin) word. Time and revision to the respective media has seen those sentiments virtually disappear.
I will play an art game when they make it an immersive, intuitively controlled experience. Not because it's just an artsy movie where you make a character or two move every once in a while. I will finish it for the same reason I finish a movie or book: because it is engaging and thought-provoking, and above all entertaining on some level. Something that's a chore to watch or read is not something I finish. It's unpleasant in that it's absolutely boring. They can make me feel sick, or make me afraid, or cry, but they can NEVER bore me or by definition any interest I had is lost.
And to the original poster, I say this. Many of those books and short stories and poems they call art that I read in middle and high school were things I enjoyed. Not because I got some incredibly deep truth out of them, though some I did, but because they were good stories that stood on their own. If it can't stand on the legs of entertainment, it is not good art in my mind. I can't think of a single artistic painting or sculpture that has stood the test of time that couldn't also make a good decorative piece, all meaning forgotten. If an art game can't stand as a regular video game, it has failed miserably.
But of course, with anything art related, there's no accounting for taste. One may call something art while the other calls it trash. The biggest problem is that neither can ever be proven right or wrong.
I was thinking that, too. Thanks for saying it better and with more good references than I would've.trooper6 said:
believe it or not, some indie games on armor games and various game sites have what your describing.
I remember playing a few games that i just "Didn't GET". The whole time i was thinking when something exciting would happen, but nothing did. (i was much younger back then.)
Problem is, these games are hard to find since people rate them down. You really gotta search.
I remember playing a few games that i just "Didn't GET". The whole time i was thinking when something exciting would happen, but nothing did. (i was much younger back then.)
Problem is, these games are hard to find since people rate them down. You really gotta search.
+1varulfic said:
While I accept that there may be some artistic films, books, games, etc that I may not be entertained by because I don't have the relevant cultural knowledge, an "art film" (or other piece of media) that is objectively unentertaining is just a shitty film.
I have a feeling that OP just personally thought that x piece of art had no entertainment value, which led to his (incorrect) assumption that art shouldn't have entertainment value.
I'm glad that I wasn't the only person who felt something profound when playing Shadow of the Colossus. That game is what really made me start to see video games as an art form.goodchild said:
The emotion it evokes happens because it utilizes its medium rather than trying to imitate books or film. The interactivity of the medium allows for the immersion that makes the evoked emotions so personal and profound. The soundtrack is absolutely perfect with the game, capturing the emotion of each scenario perfectly. Listening to the soundtrack can actually make me relive many of the emotions I experienced when I played this game thanks to this.
There's also a fair amount of symbolism that really adds to the interpretation of the game's story. I'll list one or two as spoilers just to be safe
With every colossus that Wander kills, an additional shadow looms over him before he awakens in the temple while an additional white dove surrounds Mono. I always saw this as Wander slowly becoming corrupted and gradually forsaking his humanity while the white doves represents Mono's purity that she maintains while she is slowly restored to life.
However, the symbolism that really had an impact on my experience was my interpretation of the final colossus. The colossus is, by far, the most humanlike in the game. The setting is distinctly man-made, taking place in a massive graveyard. The music is absolutely unnerving, with the somber choral music lasting through the entire fight. This entire scene struck me as Wander inevitably killing the last of his humanity. The colossus even had a few moments that distinctly reminded me of a human being, such as the moment that it watches Wander crawl around its hand in the same way that a person might watch an ant doing the same thing.
I sometimes wonder if the colossus symbolized Wander himself. The colossus' feet are planted to the ground, which could show Wander's stubbornness and how it ultimately leads to his demise, in one way or another.
However, the symbolism that really had an impact on my experience was my interpretation of the final colossus. The colossus is, by far, the most humanlike in the game. The setting is distinctly man-made, taking place in a massive graveyard. The music is absolutely unnerving, with the somber choral music lasting through the entire fight. This entire scene struck me as Wander inevitably killing the last of his humanity. The colossus even had a few moments that distinctly reminded me of a human being, such as the moment that it watches Wander crawl around its hand in the same way that a person might watch an ant doing the same thing.
I sometimes wonder if the colossus symbolized Wander himself. The colossus' feet are planted to the ground, which could show Wander's stubbornness and how it ultimately leads to his demise, in one way or another.
Very few other games come close when I try to think about games that are art. I find that the experience in this game is unique to the player, in the same way that no two people will interpret a painting or a poem and get the same exact experience.