Some general thoughts on media, especially games, and the future

Anrypenguin: So you can or can't make an ad-hominem argument out of that? No. Irrelevant for the debate, even if every answer would be yes. What I did for games was making translations, 3d models, and 2d stuff. What I didn't do is "finish" a game because I didn't make one alone. I've played the BioShock demo.

Um OK. Differences: they're set in a different time, the enemies aren't always aliens, the storyline borrows from different movie genres. Done.

Now, tell me this:

 

Making one alone doesn't matter so much, being involved in one that actually gets completed from the beginning to the end or a significant portion thereof the important bit. And the reason I ask isn't as ammunition for some ad-hominem, it was because I'm pretty sure nobody who's been through that process for any but the most trivial games would ever say that (decent) games don't take copious amounts of both effort and talent.

I've no idea what you're pointing out differences between, there. But regardless, my point is that you can't hold up two similar things and claim it's proof that nothing else is different.

They're not always in the same simplistic cartoon style, and http://www.switched.com/2010/12/01/but-that-was-yesterday-is-a-sentimental-journey-told-through/ from less than 10 seconds on Google from the first game title (other than Bioshock) I saw as I scrolled up in this thread. If you were interested in finding such articles, you would have.

Put images of the latest Call of Duty, The Machinarium, Sam and Max, Gran Turismo, Antichamber, Batman: Arkham City, Frozen Synapse, Splice and Spore next to each other and tell me they're all the same. I'm really starting to think that by "simplistic cartoony style" and "alike" what you mean is "they're all rendered from a computer".

And then go play the rest of Bioshock.

 

That wasn't a real criterium, but it strikes me that past artists usually suffered a great deal before and after they produced a work of art. They practiced and practiced and practiced, destroyed their works, and tried again, against all the odds of their time. Now you let people test your game, analyze feedback and adjust. There's no real surprise or risk because you just follow the audience's taste (the same applies for the games you listed below, but I'll come to those later). The audiences get what they want, but who knows if they wouldn't also want something else if it was done properly? The result is just more of the same crap to be successful, effort and talent are subordinated.

What matters is that it's simplistic - period. Maybe they can draw like McCay or Topor, but why can't they show us that?

That's less than one page. I'm well aware that such articles are out there, but you're still hiding behind these 0,01% of games (which is why won't go buy BioShock) that still don't have anything new to say (or show, apart from technology). Why can't they? I dare say the difference between academic artists who produce abstract works is that they're nonetheless able to draw draw concrete shapes in a masterful way, which is what the self-proclaimed artists that are involved in game-developing don't, either because they don't have the necessary skills (lacking education and/or talent) or the driving force and inspiration of past artists.
In any case, all the tools to learn and produce are easier to access than ever and it's really shameful to see nobody making use of them.

Yeah your games have differences, but they're basically all the same dumb crap. Yeah, even crap can have different colors, or contain blood. And so I'll take the challenge:


Call of Duty: I don't want to copy and paste Charlie Brooker's article here (linked in my first post, but please, why did you include that? A game that tries to be an army recruitment film, the shallow plot is subordinated to the gameplay and it's just homoerotic machismo.

The Machinarium: Read my OP, and what I said about robots with heads bigger than the body, big eyes etc. I think this is another typical example.

Sam and Max: Seriously? I could draw those in less than two minutes, with my eyes close. Why can't you try to show me a game that is different from the others by being done in a better way?

Gran Turismo: Mechanically copying someone else's car designs and putting them on a racing track. Like BioShock and art deco; has nothing new to say.

Antichamber: OK, text in a black-and-white 3d box. Someone had to make this. Now what's so revolutional about that?

Batman: Arkham City: A superhero game with the typical Batman philosophy. It's a good game, but it's basically Assassin's Creed in dark and with caricatures. It's about "heroes" or what Western (and thus mostly American) pop culture makes out of that - there are few games where the beauty ideals are so obvious. Does it have anything new to say or show? Have you ever seen the Arkham Asylum comic book and its distorted images? I don't find Rocksteady's Joker impressing at all compared that.

Frozen Synapse: See Antichamber, but with labyrinths made of blue cubes. Uh...

Splice: Pills and circles with changing colors

Spore: for boys who always wanted to play with their sister's puppets' wardrobe.

 

This discussion is too open-ended to reach any conclusion whatsoever. Like a steam engine with hundreds of holes - just steam blowing in random directions. Simply because there has been so many games produced and many of them have one or two brilliant turns and twists, which probably were put there intentionally (hopefully!)

If atmosphere can be called art, then there is quite some art in many games. When one senses that this atmosphere seems nearly identical to some other, one has to go and look at the precedent, just like art critics do, and claim that A came before B, therefore B is derivative, and of lesser artistic merit, even if more technically advanced.

 

But that's the point. To make some of you think why I'm frustrated by the way games are currently made
Apart from a few prototypes it's safe to say that most games of this era will be forgotten in a few decades. I realize that their makers like to claim that they are, because that's the highest cultural achievement. But hey, if this discussion goes on it just shows that there's some room to improve.

 

Duke Nukem, will never be forgotten

He too, is a kind of art

Take a poll 50 years from now. More people will know who Duke Nukem is than Shakespeare or the Mona Lisa or Rembrandt. I suspect this is already the case now

 

This is an interesting point. Every time I visit the local art museums, I can't help but notice how many of the pieces look (at least to my untrained eye) very, very similar. In fact, I have a hard time telling the difference between many of the "master" painter's works. With the exception of eras, ( see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_periods ), I'd have a hard time telling you that any one painting *wasn't* done by the same artist who did another.

 

Remember, this is considered art. Art by one of the greatest artists in human history.

And there have been attempts at far more complicated story telling. Look at Advent Rising. Orson Scott Card wrote parts of it. It's visually beautiful, and has a complicated storyline with more plot twists than any other story I can remember. It had the player make a tough call at the beginning (save your girlfriend or your best friend), only to have the other one cruelly die right in front of you towards the end.

And despite all of this, it was kinda a flop. Still better than most NCFOM.

 

So what's new with the concept of "game"? One has to go by sheer logic, doesn't one? Okay, after writing all that comes below I realise I come to a pretty basic self-evident conclusion, but that's how all QEDs work, don't they?

Can one assume that art developed by developing technique of expression? It seems valid, it is accepted that there was a progress from cave painting with one pigment towards more processed pigments, then evolution of the understanding of anatomy, the space, depth, finally lighting. Same progress for sculpting. Book writing evolved conceptually from direct description of facts to today's tricky experiments. But book writing is perhaps as relevant here as higher order mathematics. Too meta.

Is essentially technique = technology? Seems valid too, there was a lot of technological breakthrough involved, also purely knowledge-wise.
What about emotion? Isn't art emotion too? Isn't art also about referring back to the human and teaching on the human state? Morals? That too, but it has always been doing that through ever-progressing form of expression. A teacher might educate you on morals, but nobody calls him an artist. A child expressing anguish is also not recognised as anything. So I'm left with the assumption that art is our self-reference through evolving technology of expression.

Then traditional art ofcourse stagnated around 16th century, neither sculpture nor painting could be improved any more. Art detached from technology, technology moved on into more abstraction, art re-invented itself, but produced nothing new - essentially. Picasso was just replicating the anatomic primitivism of Byzantine icon-painting (but uglier), Pointillists are simply using a different stroke technique, the cubists (even worse) more or less returned to the cave painting stage. Those that investigated their personal mental states are replicating the abstract tribal drawings of intoxicated shamen. Today's modern artists mostly play with ready-made objects of the technological world, they are essentially some sort of scavengers. Technology of today is on the other hand is much much more complex, and can no longer be encompassed by any artist in any way.

But film was an expressional breakthrough, the new dimension of time opened. Games are simply the immersion of ego into an unfolding film act. Despite the supposed "interaction", there is a start and an end, and you are goaded towards the end whatever you do. Because no company can afford to create hundreds of different ends, it's out of question. So even the "atmosphere" is not an artistic innovation for the game. The interactivity is the only singular art-technological edge a game has, and I suppose it makes Minecraft a good candidate, but Minecraft was hardly first. I can remember Boulder Dash Construction Kit personally.

I can only assume that this is the cusp of the problem, and the angle of attack - interactivity. But only from the perspective of art as a technological evolution.

 

Yeah, essentially from a technological POV the first guy that intentionally drew a correct perspective (knowing what it was and what he was doing) already lessens the artistic merit of every realist after him. If you want to be really harsh about things!

 

Sorry, but that part is absolutely ignorant in lots of different ways. The 16th century started the time when art didn't depend on the church anymore.
There are lots of names coming to my mind that would contradict your statement, who redefined what traditional painting and sculpture meant. Off the top of my head:

Messerschmidt, Friedrich, Watteau, Goya, Degas, Menzel, Freud, Mueck, Slinkachu, Hopper, Richter, Rauch, the Pre-Raphaelites, Turner, ...

 

Another thing I'd like to add to Marble's post (that there are no "author-games") and what I said about feedback and suffering 2 posts ago, because I think it's relevant.

This annoying "team"-culture. Today you can't find a job if you can't work in a team. For most jobs that's fine, but I've seen many situations where one person did all the work and the rest did nothing, only to get his stuff criticized by his lazy teammates afterwards. It would be interesting to see how many great ideas never came into being because the person who had it failed to convince a team full of morons. You can have better ideas than the rest without being anti-social or arrogant. I could easily imagine that some people simply hide their genius so they aren't shunned by all the levelers.

Maybe games need more mavericks, in a positive sense. I'm not even thinking of that guy from Team Bondi...

 

@Word - the problem is you don't seem to know enough about games (for example you hadn't heard of Limbo). I note in your interests and occupation nowhere do you mention games. You do seem to know about painting, movies, sculpture etc. So, this conversation is a bit like somebody who has only drunk Heineken and Corona beers having a discussion about beer with brewers and when somebody refers you to a good example of beer you complain that you don't like the font on the label.

You seem to be talking about top 10 console games aimed at 15-30 year old males. Complaining that those games aren't arty enough is like complaining that FHM doesn't have enough articles about existentialism. You are also comparing art from all time with contemporary games. If you widen your focus and look at games from all eras you'll see much greater diversity.

Will any games from now be remembered in 20 years? I guarantee it. I still remember the first time I played Battle Zone nearly 30 years ago. My 3 year old son plays Robotron 2084 with me (another 80s game) and I bet he'll be playing it in 2084 because it is a fantastic game. Contemporary games that I'll remember in 20 years include Journey (PS3), Patapon (PSP), Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet (XBox), Osmos (iOS), Eufloria (iOS), Super Hexagon (iOS), Geometry Wars, Pokemon (Gameboy Color), Super Smash Brothers (Nintendo 64, Wii) and many others for a variety of reasons including innovation in artwork and innovation in gameplay.

 

So you're saying I should be more self-referential? How would that help games?

You tell me that I don't know enough about games without having read my posts. Maybe I don't know every game there is, but I know as much as an average guy of my age who informs himself about these things. I'm not going to doubt that you know as much about games as I do about art, but can you or angrypenguin find examples for a less simplistic art style, comparable to anything I've cited? Probably not.

Okay, that was poorly worded on my part. Will they be remembered in 200 years? There will probably be a new science, but I'd like to think that such games will just rot in some archives.

 

@Word - I read everything you wrote. Why do we need to find games with art that you like? If you don't think the art in Journey or Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet is impressive or innovative that is fine. It doesn't stop it from being impressive and innovative. There has even been a book released about the art from the game Journey.

You wanted games with art like Neo Rauch. I wouldn't be surprised if they exist somewhere but I'm not prepared to trawl the millions of games in existence to find one for you. If you want to find games like this start looking off the beaten track, they aren't going to be on a shelf in Walmart.

 

It's funny how different this thread is than another one here, where the advice was not to make a game that is different than existing, successful games, lest the new game fail.

 

That sounds strikingly a lot like game development, to me. You can't even begin to make a competent game without years of practice and the ability to combine multiple fields of talent, once you get to the point where you can make something non-trivial that's good enough for general release chances are that the first several will flop, just like in any other field criticism is savage if you stray from the flavour of the month and even for the majority of large commercial studios releasing successful games is "against the odds".

Yes, you're right, some games (Call of Duty, for one) are the result of research and focus testing moreso than individual creativity, but it's not the case for all.

You say that when looking at that list, and yet call others ignorant?

The list wasn't there an an example of how excellent any of the given games were. It was there to show that not all games are the same. If I'd given you a list of FPSs and you said they were all the same, that'd be understandable. But you just called Sam and Max, Call of Duty and Arkham City the same. What if I'd added Tetris, Space Invaders and Zork (the first one) to the list?

I included Call of Duty there solely because it represents one extreme of the creative space so far explored with games. Each entry in that list represents exploration in a different direction. And I could add plenty more to the list. I'm not saying that any of those games are pinnacles of artistic talent (which is all you seem to be able to argue against - and, by the way, if you were truly interested in the discussion past telling people they're wrong you'd have looked further into those games than you obviously did, based on your comments), just giving examples of different things. And, by the way, you're going to have to do more than look at screenshots to understand why they're different.

 

Which is about as much as I know about music, but I sure as hell wouldn't jump into a debate of this level in relation to music. I don't know enough about, by a long shot.

You also don't seem to be able to get past the visuals. I'll rephrase that - all you seem to care about is the visuals. I'll be the first to admit that I have less knowledge about visual art than I do about music, which is the sole reason I haven't jumped in looking for better examples - I wouldn't actually have a clue what I'm looking for. I could find examples of games which I think are "less simplistic" (Uncharted, where every texture was manually hand painted, Max Payne 3, where the use of cameras and rendering and filters (I know, all "cheating") is far more creative than in most games) But also, I don't care. Visuals don't make the whole game and, and discussed earlier, they aren't what makes a game art (or not). You know, for a long while it was pretty common to have games that didn't even have visuals. Scenes were described in words or visualised as per a board game.

You also seem to be blissfully ignoring the fact that since the visuals aren't 100% of a game, they simply can't have the time devoted to them which you seem to expect. From your descriptions it seems that classic artists would potentially spend longer on one picture than we often have to build an entire game - of course our stuff will be simpler!

3D rendering tech also doesn't lend itself to a lot of the style or technique you're preaching as superior. You could mimic some of it using filters I guess, but that's cheating and therefore not art, am I right?

And something else - I'm pretty sure that outside of academia most people would prefer to look at the kind of stuff we use in games (and that's used in movies, contemporary graphic design, and so on) than the "classic" stuff you keep showing us pictures of. I won't make my games look like that stuff because, anything else aside, I don't want to.

That's because this thread isn't at all about the commercial success or failure of a game.

 

Commercial success has even less to do with the other thread.

 

Almost every 3d-animated Hollywood film has his own book with concept drawings. Doesn't mean it's good.

Um, I've said they're crap, or trivial, from an artistic point of view.

Space Invaders is perhaps the embodiement of a good "pioneer" video game, but I'm not sure if it could be considered art - it didn't try to be art anyway so that wouldn't hurt it. Same for Zork and Tetris.

blah, obviously I'm taking the time to reply and I'm doing a little more than saying that I'm just disagreeing. I did rarely tell someone that he was wrong, and then it was apt (like that comment about 16th century art). You just tend to comment things I didn't say, so I clarified my statements.

Well, it's great we finally get to this point. That's what I'm asking you in this topic. A company like EA can just let their modellers make a big room and add lots of requisites with textures so that it's nearly photorealistic. Most of you don't have enough people, so why not draw the whole thing as good as you can?

No, otherwise I wouldn't have asked you to find an interpretation of a game as extensive as "No Country for Old Men". Or Citizen Kane, or anything on the Sight and Sound lists.

You are right, but I'd actually need more time for a game than for a good picture because that game would contain more than one, plus the other stuff (music, text, gameplay, publishing/research/planning).

That depends how these filters are created, by the computer or by a person. And I've said this before, why not play a bit with the textures instead and model the 3d part after those?

Well, yeah. Cultural decay I suppose. And yet there are plenty of independent short film producers who do just that, like Alexander Petrov or Bill Plympton. I've already said that I don't think games aren't art yet because they just follow supply and demand. When "Tintin" came out, someone said it was a "Žižekian example of a dominant ideology's capacity to recuperate its own negation." That's a truism which applies here as well, I believe.

 

Which is a complete lie. I'm sure you don't know Kenta Cho but he is a relatively famous game developer that works without regard for commercialism. He is just one of hundreds of thousands of developers, if not millions of developers, that create the games they want to play just for the joy of it.

 

Did you follow the conversation?

Here's a summary:
Angrypenguin: We don't try to produce artisically more demanding games because we don't want to, and we think the audience doesn't want that. But we could if we wanted.
Word: Then you just follow supply and demand. Where's your proof for your ability to do more demanding art then?
You: That's a complete lie.

Please, READ.

Maybe your example has a different motive for making his games, but this was about the question why the art style can't be different.Now I've googled Kenta Choa and the screenshots only show some basic geometric shapes again - that kinda proves my point that current games are so onesided in this regard.

 

Word, maybe this is your "Be the change..." moment.

 

It didn't depend on the church, nor on the art of construction, nor on medicine, since all those (except the church) moved on beyond simple anatomical representation or elaborate masonry. Art nowadays doesn't depend on anything whatsoever. Total decoupling.

 

Um, I didn't refer to ideology or the fact that Da Vinci and his contemporaries couldn't publicly dissect dead bodies, but that the church was the only employer before that time. Even today, art depends on money.

 

He did read, and he gave you an example. Perhaps "lie" was the wrong word, but the fact that your point doesn't hold stands either way. Not all games are made out of supply and demand. Outside of my professional work (commissioned by clients) mine certainly aren't.

It'd be nice if you refrained from putting words in my mouth. I said that I don't want to make games that look like the images you've shown, I didn't speak for other developers.

As for complexity of art style or whether or not it's "crap", it's irrelevant. We only brought up differences in style because you claimed that all games were the same and that this was a part of why they couldn't be art. As far as that is concerned it doesn't matter if you think the styles are crap, the fact is that you've been shown a whole bunch of different ones, which disproves your point that they're all the same.

 

No it's not. If they're all different in some aspects you deliberately chose, but not the one that are important to me, that doesn't disprove anything. Some blue boxes, some cars, and some musclemen. OK, so what? They're still crap.

 

Bump.

Nothing really new here, I just realized how close Assassin's Creed 2's plot is to Goethe's bildungsroman - or the first draft thereof - "Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship"; the role of the other Assassins seems to be that of the 'Tower Society" - but still, there's not a lot of content and the only thing the protagonist is really 'taught' by them is playing the game, not leading his life. It's a fun game anyway.

 

First, I'm a programmer. I am the wrong person to argue about whether games are or are not a form of art; I look at a game the way an architect looks at a house. You see an engrossing 25-hour RPG epic; I see a non-standard level-up system, decision-tree dialogue system, lots of toon-shaders, a beautiful score with a controlling system that is incapable of fading between two tracks, thus necessitating a 'music whoosh'. Just that little bit of text should show you how I understand a game when I sit down with it.

The last bit of point #1 caught my attention:

...Because the comment falls so far from what I - and many game developers out there - are used to thinking about.

Yet, this is exactly what we need to think about. As game developers, we're at one level story-tellers; our creations should inspire the minds of our audience. Though I have proven myself a technologist, not an artist, I disagree with the author in that games are becoming art more and more frequently; the fact that you have entire wikis to each new installment of the Final Fantasy series, where users are looking past the trappings of the game and find details that aren't talked about very much, yet could be interesting or even unveil new meanings and context to the established plot.

One things I do agree with the author about, is that while the discourse seems to be about AAA games, so often we indies are making our creations reminiscent of AAA creations. Simply, we're creating in the image we see, which isn't necessarily a sin, at least to a technologist like me. Artistically? I'm the wrong person to ask, someone will have to fill in for me there. The fact remains, though, that those AAA titles serve as inspiration; I would never have attempted a JRPG without playing a Final Fantasy title first. But is Final Fantasy the masterwork we need to be imitating?

I would hold up this episode of ExtraCreditz as a fine example. You can do a lot by taking a different venue altogether for setting up the conflict between short-term goals (survival) and long-term goals (the one stated in the first five minutes of the game.) Instead of using Ultima magic, Summons, and killing 15 mooks to gain that next level...you instead engage in drawing-room politics to get closer to that cute artist, who in wooing you find success in the game. If you offend the curator of the museum, chances are good she'll hear about it, and will think less of you. So, you have to make some more interesting choices...even if said Curator's goals are diametrically opposed to your own.

Yet, at it's core it's an RPG. Strength is replaced with Wisdom, which improves your [Persuade] rolls; Intelligence is replac...wait, Intelligence is still there, it helps you detect [Lie] rolls, and resist [Flirt] rolls. There's still stats. There's still techniques (but slightly different, because you have to go find things to have the conversation-specific 'ability' to convince the Curator that those Da Vinci sketches in his current display are actually stolen and will get him arrested in one week's time) But, it's not that different. Yet it is...and through that seemingly paradoxical metagame, much more thought-producing.

Now this one, I just don't agree on. Because there is no formal language for discussing this in its current form (which isn't to say that there won't be), dosen't mean it lacks value to be interpreted as art; while I'm not an artist, you seem to be making an appeal to logic here, which is what I deal in daily. Just because a given technique cannot articulate ideas about this medium at present does not mean that ideas about this medium cannot be articulated; indeed, people do just that in standard conversation every day to great effect.

In communicating ideas, the true 'artistry' of a work can be best discerned as different perspectives are explored; even I see that! What is it about the Mona Lisa that makes it stand out? If you're talking about it from a 'literal' perspective, she's an ugly girl on a background. Yet, very few people refer to Mona Lisa that way; rather, as an unprecedented masterpiece in 16th century art; to some, its 'her' androgynous features...to some, there's known anomalies in the painting that Da Vinci was known to be too smart to have 'just missed' (for instance, the horizon line on both sides of the work do not match up.) There's a lot of meaning in that image that people still discuss, some five centuries later. And from finding that meaning, we appear to call it art.

I think you've got some interesting ideas. I don't agree with all, but, hey; we can't win 'em all. I bet you disagree with some of my assessments! Still, I think games are much closer to being an artform than the OP is giving them credit for being.

 

uh, just to be clear - I don't deny that, hence the whole topic. I just say there needs to be some kind of basis to discuss it reasonably and from then on, perhaps some games can be regarded as art in retrospective.

Maybe I'm going to edit this tomorrow, reaaaalllly tired now.

 

Wow, lots of text in this thread.

I'm a late-comer. Just to be contrary, I'll say everything is art and everyone is an artist, just some people express a higher level or mastery more than others. There aint no evil, only a lack of love.

 

Yes, lengthy posts.

I'd like to add a little something, taking from good ol Ralph Koster.

Video games are comparatively newer form of expression than painting, music, movies. They are here for a odd 50 years or so. And paintings are here for 40,000 years or so (first cave paintings). So, it has not reached the point of masterful layered subtlety at the level of Vinci, Monet, Picasso.

Not yet. But, like all of us, I hope it will reach that point in our lifetime. The point where the game surpasses our ability to interpret it. The more we get into, the more it gets deeper. That is the time when it will get into the realm of provocating intellect and emotions to it's extreme.

With the help of all forms of art, music and literature, it will become greatest of all art forms. I think it will create a new milestone even the traditional art would be incapable of achieving.

... robot floating in poetic clouds

 

Sure it will change, but not on its own. Hence the thread. But the greatest of all art forms? At best the one that gets away with the most kitsch and "more of the same".

 

Sorry, I must wholeheartedly disagree and disaproovingly say: whoever claims this, has not played enough games. There is a lot of story in some games, there is a lot of depth some games too.

Ico, Final Fantasy, Shadow of the Colossus. I could go on.

Some games are systems like folks have said, and some games are beautiful forms of art, be it visual, audible or literature art.

Saying games are not art is the same as saying painting is not art and we could all argue all day, in the end no one would be right. Art is on a subjective basis, there is no rule. Sure, there might be some regulating nincompoop identity who "decides" what art is and what it is not, in my eyes they are regulating squat, they are just being pompous and elitists.

 

The discussion should end here. Nothing more to say.

 

I can only hope that video games get as much prestige as movies do one day. I'm sure the first movie was crapped on too, but I think it'll just be treated like cartoons and anime are in America. No matter how adult it is, it's still just for kids. I blame dumb-ass parents.

 

FuzzyLuke: care to back up any of these claims? What depth are you talking about? How is it "elitist" to apply the same criteria to games that any critic would apply to a classic work of art (the old forms of art, if you will)? Even if art was purely subjective (it isn't), did it ever occur to you that games are lacking something as long as someone with a taste similar to mine thinks they are - and someone with a taste similar to yours thinks there doesn't need to be a discussion? That's kind of reinforcing my general argument although it follows your logic. I don't want to label anyone as "stubborn" or even "intolerant" in that regard, but you see where this is going - there's lots of simple stuff that hasn't been done yet albeit it's been technically possible for years - and it seems so painfully obvious to me that I couldn't help asking. I've played at least 50 games since I'm 10, and if I didn't happen to play the 'right ones" - the 'exceptions' you named - that does affirm the points raised in the OP (although it isn't very clear, yes) once more.

 

Have you ever experienced a game that is art? I have. Just once.

I had played a game, one time before. It was a good game, but I didn't consider it art. So then, a few weeks went by and I happened to read an article on Gamasutra. And, while I was reading it, I realized there was something deeper about this game. Something I had missed entirely the first time through!

So, I played it again, and this time, I played it differently. As soon as I could, I ran out, to find the nearest non-player character (NPC), and then ... I began to talk to it! And, surprisingly, it began to talk back! It wasn't a NON-player character at all! It was a real human being! And, I tried to prove that I was a human too! There were no words, so I communicated the only way I could - through chirps, and jumps, and twirls. I tried to convince it to follow me, and it tried the same. And, on and on, we went. I played the entire game, together, with a complete stranger using only the simplest methods of communication! I told him to wait, I asked him to hurry. I told him thanks, and we danced together in joy. He waited patiently for me to find him, and I moved quickly, to keep up.

After a few hours, I realized the end of the game was fast approaching. And a sadness overcame me. I had grown fond of this stranger. With neither words, nor language, he had become my friend. He had guided me through danger and we had danced for joy in celebration!

And soon, this person would be gone and I would never see them again. And, as we approached the end, we both began to hesitate. He slowed and I slowed. and we began to communicate furiously. We sang goodbye and danced and danced and danced. Until, at last, we both tired, and walked together, into the end.

I was sad and joyous, at the same time. And that, to me ... was art. The game, of course, is Journey.

Gigi

 

Yes, Journey!

And I can't fathom what this form of expression will be in another 50 years. The golden age of painting, music, literature, movies and animated movies are gone. But the golden age of video games didn't happened yet.

So is it around the corner? Are we seeing the beginning of a renaissance? Only time will tell.

Greatest form of all Arts. Yes, it is destined to be so.

 

Is it not true that different forms of art are not comparable to each other?

You can't compare a painting with a song. So you can't compare a game with a painting. They are different things at their very root. But they are creations that someone made, using their creativity. That alone makes it art for me. Is it enough for you to consider it art? That is your own discussion with yourself, once again because art is subjective, there are no rules.

Another point:

If someone farts really loudly and someone appreciates the sound, is it art?

If someone creates the sound of a fart digitally and someone appreciates the sound, is it art?

I'd like your answers to those two questions.

To me, the first answer is no, and the second answer is yes.

 

You're plain wrong again, that's what critics, authors and fine artists do all the time, think of "Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror", the commonly used term "battle painting" to describe a film based on a historical event, or that there are styles like expressionism or the new wave movement. All this only exists because the artists looked at different art forms in the first place. Many early directors were good painters and authors themselves, hell, even still in 1960s, think of Hitchcock himself. The claim that games can't be compared to other art styles although they use plenty of elements of the old media is ridiculous (3d sculptures, cutscenes, music...). I just compared Assassin's Creed to a book.

Concerning your farts, the second answer would be no as well, because there's not a high level of creativity, or a concept. It isn't anything new and it doesn't need a lot of talent to imitate a fart, and it doesn't make the listener reflect. It has no purpose, and just recording yourself farting would get the job done, too.

You're in the same boat as Damien Hirst who declares every piece of S*** to be art and successfully finds morons who believe his postmodernist gibberish and buy his works.

(BTW, you still haven't answered any of my questions)

 

Wow
Why do you want to take something as brilliant as interactive entertainment and compress it down to something like art? Why is something better if it gets that label?

Games don't have to be art, they are past that already.

 

those entities do not decide what i consider or not to be art

you compared not the art itself, but assets of pieces of different types of art.

like comparing the cut scenes of a game to a movie. they are both movies, and in their own regard they are the same type of art, that's why they're comparable.

tell me, how is Thunderstruck 'better' than Mona Lisa ?

says you, and your fine artists and critics.

who are you to say what a high level of creativity is? lol. who is anyone to say that? that's quite preposterous.

again immensely preposterous. Nothing new? we can say that about pretty much everything. " it doesn't make the listener reflect", it doesn't make YOU reflect, because you don't understand it.

"it doesn't need a lot of talent to imitate a fart"? Care to be put to the test? I got plenty of farts to be given in the future, mimic one of them perfectly if you can.


..

Regarding your questions, why do i need to "back up" my opinions? That is why your "questions" didn't get any answers.

You cannot put a label on my tastes and interpretations if i'm the one having them. You can categorize them all you want for yourself, but for me, a fart might sound lovely, who are you or anyone to tell me what I must or must not like?

Again, and to reinforce, you cannot compare two difference types of art. You MIGHT be able to compare parts of related different types of art, say, comparing LOTR's book to LOTR the film, and even then you will be wrong in most assumptions because both forms of art have its limitations.

To me its like saying "damn, this apple does not taste enough like an orange, its not a very good apple "

Also, I don't know who Damien Hirst is, but I'm pretty sure there's some dude out there right now saying the very same thing about an artist that they just plain don't like.

And adding even more, apparently someone, who knows... maybe even a critic wrote Damien's wikipedia article! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damien_Hirst

They call him "an artist". But you're saying they're not. Clearly not all you read on the internet/anywhereis true, even if written by critics, or fine artists!

 

Credible if coming from a guy whose signature links to a site called 'art-werx.com'.

No, I won't answer your absurd questions until you haven't replied to mine (and for what it's worth, AC-DC isn't my taste and the video isn't available here). That one can compare works of different art forms has to be based on the fact that they have certain things in common, sometimes more, sometimes less. That you take some examples that aren't related on the first glance doesn't disprove my point. Maybe in the future someone else could compare these works because they both appear in the same context of something bigger. I'm talking about meaningful parallels, not idiotic ones.

Uh, do you know what expressionism is? or, say, bauhaus. Since there have always been artists who followed the same rules or were concerned about the same problems, or grew up during the same period of time, it's quite appropriate to compare their works and look what they have to say to these things. The end.

No offense, you couldn't be more wrong, and my point wasn't simply that I don't like him, and I didn't say he isn't an artist. Damien Hirst is an artist, but few things he ever produced and sold and exhibited can be considered actual art, thanks to people living in a fantasy world like yours.
And one more thing, I knew who he was long before I had any internet access. It's basic common knowledge, actually. Turns out you're even too lazy to read the full Wikipedia article, and the paragraph about criticism/my post you replied to.

Oh, so you're saying critics don't have a real job and other artists can admire works but aren't allowed to criticize them negatively? I'll just be direct, how about communist/nazi-propaganda? Are you going to say that it's preposterous to criticize such works, too? Who are YOU not to allow someone to estimate something given all the knowledge he has about the subject and perhaps help someone learn from it?

Because you're entitled to your own facts. Your opinion isn't worth anything like that.

:roll: Postmodernist relativism. One has the right to say "that [game/movie/piece of music...] sucks". You're dismissive yourself if you say "you mustn't say that XYZ is crap". I haven't said, however, that you have to like what I like - that is what you are doing. You seem not to understand this. "Your opinion sucks, but don't judge me!". Grow up. I explained why I think games could be better, that's it.

 

Ha ha ha!
Hence the werx dude.

 

duplicate

 

"Your opinion isn't worth anything like that."

in that case, my good sir, it is pointless to have any further discussion on the matter

you will not agree with me based on knowledge you obtained through literature and very delicate observation of facts spoken by others

i will not agree with you based on my own views of things

i am sorry for my inferiority, you win this round :<

 

Art is futile.

Art is everything that a human being created by taking raw materials and shaping them. Food is art. Computer games are not art because they are virtual and therefore not based on raw materials.

 

You're right that this is pointless, but once more: You can also claim that the moon is made of cheese and you're still wrong. If you don't like facts and can't back up what you say, don't talk. This is not a matter of opinion or (dis)agreement. You're either just wrong, or you fail to think of good reasons to refute my own claims.

 

If you consider being "critic" is a job worthy of admiration, then you're obviously beyond salvage. A critic is character that didn't manage to accomplish one worthy thing in his/her life, thus paying back by clanking down on works of others. Critics are by definition parasites, nothing else. Any criticism should be addressed directly to the creator, and the creator has a right to tell the critic to stuff himself. Simple as that.