Laughing City
<< prev | goto page
 | next >>

Can video games be art?
Yes
92%
 92%  [ 23 ]
No
8%
 8%  [ 2 ]
Total Votes : 25

Author Message
wilsmith
Vintage Newbie


rmlawrence wrote:
wilsmith wrote:
the only thing that can save this thread is Dr. Manhattan.


Darn you for making me have to go to Google so know what the heck you're talking about.


Don't feel bad, I never read the Watchmen, and when I heard the movie was coming out and all my DC loyal friends were getting geeked up about it, I chose to stick with my Alan Moore abstinence until after I saw it. I only read part of the graphic novel later.

_________________
yup, that's my name.

FOR YOUR RATING PLEASURE:
4 LIKE Buttons, 1 NEUTRAL, 1 VEXED, 5 DISLIKE buttons. LC > FB

Love Very Happy Smile Cool Neutral Confused Sad Embarassed Rolling Eyes Mad Evil or Very Mad
Wink = personal fave Mr. Green = Eisley fans should dig it
Joined: 09 Apr 2008 | Posts: 9637 | Location: Greater St. Louis Area
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
ync
Golly, Poster


do not be afraid. wrote:


okay, okay, okay, let me put it this way:

if you took any of these video-games that you consider art, and strip away all of the art contained within the game — the graphics, the sound, the story — and simply left nothing but the game itself, would you still consider them works of art? i'm going to guess “no.” would you still enjoy them just as much as a game? which is to say, as simply being presented with a problem to solve, and, then, well, solving it? similarly, i'm going to guess “yes.”

why?

because, there's two distinct concepts which make up a video-game — the video and the game — and while the “video” elements may be artistic, they're simply the means for interacting with “the game”, and any artistic expression contained within them has as little relevance to the game itself as the artistic expression contained within a chess set, or a poker deck, or a football. just because you're playing the game with artfully crafted implements, doesn't make the game any more a work of art. again. and again. and again.



i'm probably done with this topic for now — unless i think of something new to say…


why does a video game simply have to be about the objective and the strategy? Why can't a video game be seen for what it is comprised of - story wise and art wise? Why can't a video game be considered a new form of art? I'm sure during the renaissance era of art most installations now wouldn't considered art simply because people think "oh it's just a wad of tape on the ground" - Sure it's something you can touch and see sure you can smell installations, but i don't understand why THAT is what makes it art.

I thought art wasn't supposed to have rules, art is supposed to be fun and enjoyed by most. It brings up feelings in a person, they become involved in a game as much as one could become involved with dissecting a painting to understand what is going on. If anything i sort of consider figuring out what a painting is to be a game - at least with older "academic" paintings (as an example) You need to identify the characters, you need to identify other objects in a painting. If you don't have the knowledge you need to figure out what is happening in a painting then you need to overcome that obstacle to find out the meaning.
Take Rubens painting "Consequences of War"

my art history teacher turned this into a "game" of finding out what's happening in almost all of our classes.
You have your certain characters.
Venus - the naked woman with the red scarf
Mars - The man in the Armor
Cupid - Clinging to Venus's leg
The City - The woman with a town on top of her head
On the ground are several things "clues" if you will to solving what is happening in this piece.
-A book underneath Mar's foot representing the arts
-A group of people being crushed, including a woman with a baby

Venus only wants peace -Mars is a dick and just seems to love to cause trouble - in this case war. War causes the "city" to fall, trashes the arts and literature in the form of the book. People are consumed, crushed, and killed - the baby represents procreation which is ruined by war.

i have now made a beautiful work of art, into a game

This painting has characters, this painting has a story - however you need to work to solve it's meaning - it is, to the untrained person, a game to figure it out. You essentially run through the painting trying to figure out as much as possible, and then put all the clues together and "beat" it. It's a different way of thinking of a painting. So why is Ruben's painting considered art? I guess dissecting a painting is how you have dissected video games. You have a pretty graphic on one side, but then there's the other side of "solving" it.

I don't view ALL video games as art, not all of them deserve it. Wii sports games are a prime example. The collection of madden games i don't think deserve them - every year when they release them the only thing that changes is more polygons are added. There isn't creating, there isn't thinking of a story, there isn't a passion there - it's just a recreation. Hide and seek is not a art, laser tag is not art. An art battle however is both a game AND art.

Not all games have rules, not all games need strategies. Art battles for one, generally tend to have no rules - So what is it then? Something different?

A video game is a compilation of many things, forming something DIFFERENT than a basic game than say chess or a game of cards. Just as there are different forms of art - shouldn't there be different forms of games, and shouldn't they all be thought of differently? You can always bring it back to the fact that they all have the same basic idea - strategy, solve, win. But just as art can branch out, can't games?

if you want to dismiss something as being art or not then i suggest anyone who wants a good cheap read to take a gander at this book Believing is Seeing by Mary Anne Staniszewski and then open your mind to new types of art

_________________
Saellys wrote:

You misunderstood. I used that emoticon to show people what they'd look like after I stab them in the eye.

Wink
Joined: 06 Jul 2007 | Posts: 742 | Location: boston
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
jdstories
Vintage Newbie


do not be afraid. wrote:
you can't see, hear, taste, touch, or smell, a set of objectives, obstacles, rules, strategies, and all of other components which make up a game. sure, you can read them on a piece of paper, or hear them aloud, but that's not experiencing them as part of a game, that's simply learning about the game. similarly, you might be able to “perceive” them on other levels — intellectually, emotionally — through inference from what you do see, hear, taste, touch or smell while playing the game, due to how they shape those elements within the game, but you can't “perceive” them directly, through your senses, in a tangible way.

okay, okay, okay, let me put it this way:

if you took any of these video-games that you consider art, and strip away all of the art contained within the game — the graphics, the sound, the story — and simply left nothing but the game itself, would you still consider them works of art? i'm going to guess “no.” would you still enjoy them just as much as a game? which is to say, as simply being presented with a problem to solve, and, then, well, solving it? similarly, i'm going to guess “yes.”

why?

because, there's two distinct concepts which make up a video-game — the video and the game — and while the “video” elements may be artistic, they're simply the means for interacting with “the game”, and any artistic expression contained within them has as little relevance to the game itself as the artistic expression contained within a chess set, or a poker deck, or a football. just because you're playing the game with artfully crafted implements, doesn't make the game any more a work of art. again. and again. and again.



i'm probably done with this topic for now — unless i think of something new to say…


No one here is reasonably saying that video games are art because they sometimes have pretty graphics in them.

Again, you seem to be creating divisions that don't exist just to prove your point. Also, by doing so, you are inadvertenly invalidating other forms of art. It is easy to draw from your ideas that you do not believe that movies are art. Take away everything from movies that you wish to steal from video games and you are left with a story that can be told in a couple sentences with no pictures necessary.

For another example, take away the same from the Reubens ync inserted in that last post. You don't need the actual picture to get the bare bones idea behind it across. ync did that in 3 sentences, which could probably have been even more direct. Now, clearly the explanation is not necessarily considered art, of course it could be, but not in this case. According to you, that means the Reubens is not art, because you can strip it down and still get the point across.

EDIT: I'm actually not the first person to make this point in the thread. How is this point not persuasive?

JD

_________________
"Well, hopefully that's our job, to strap rockets onto everything." - Adam Savage, Mythbusters
Joined: 26 Jan 2005 | Posts: 3655 | Location: Waterloo, Tejas
Last edited by jdstories on Sun Jun 13, 2010 4:01 pm; edited 1 time in total
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website AIM Address
jdstories
Vintage Newbie


do not be afraid. wrote:
wrong — you very much do lose, you're just given another chance to win after losing. the heart of what you're talking about — facing challenges, trying to overcome them, and feeling a sense of accomplishment when you do — is the whole $#@! point i'm trying to make! that's what a “game” is! and, the fact that video games are games, makes it impossible for them to ever be “art”, any more than any other game — chess, football, whatever — could ever be art.


If the point was winning or losing, then unlimited lives would not exist in artful video games. Which leads to the conclusion that the experience is what really matters, and the experience was what the creators were trying to convey.

ync wrote:
Even Starcraft 2 has verged onto being ABBBBSOLUTLY gorgeous


I didn't know it was finally coming out! When I read that, I almost soiled myself. EEEK!

JD

_________________
"Well, hopefully that's our job, to strap rockets onto everything." - Adam Savage, Mythbusters
Joined: 26 Jan 2005 | Posts: 3655 | Location: Waterloo, Tejas
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website AIM Address
ync
Golly, Poster


jdstories wrote:

ync wrote:
Even Starcraft 2 has verged onto being ABBBBSOLUTLY gorgeous


I didn't know it was finally coming out! When I read that, I almost soiled myself. EEEK!

JD


i assume you missed out on the beta then? :/

_________________
Saellys wrote:

You misunderstood. I used that emoticon to show people what they'd look like after I stab them in the eye.

Wink
Joined: 06 Jul 2007 | Posts: 742 | Location: boston
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
do not be afraid.
Lost at Forum


jdstories wrote:
Again, you seem to be creating divisions that don't exist just to prove your point. Also, by doing so, you are inadvertenly invalidating other forms of art. It is easy to draw from your ideas that you do not believe that movies are art. Take away everything from movies that you wish to steal from video games and you are left with a story that can be told in a couple sentences with no pictures necessary.


while a “movie” might simply be a way of telling a story through images, sound, etc — although, there are plenty of examples of films which aren't (like, say, Mothlight, one of my favorites) — the story itself can still be a work of art, can it not? and if that story is told through a movie, how does that make it less of a work of art? it doesn't make sense! besides, in many films the images and sounds are absolutely essential to the experience of watching the film, while my whole point was that the images, sounds, and even stories, in video-games are not essential to the experience of playing the game.

jdstories wrote:
For another example, take away the same from the Reubens ync inserted in that last post. You don't need the actual picture to get the bare bones idea behind it across. ync did that in 3 sentences, which could probably have been even more direct. Now, clearly the explanation is not necessarily considered art, of course it could be, but not in this case. According to you, that means the Reubens is not art, because you can strip it down and still get the point across.

no, because the point of experiencing any work of art isn't “hey, try and figure out what's going on here”, the point is the raw, primal, experience — how it affects you on an aesthetic, emotional, and even intellectual level — and nothing else. you can't get that just from a three sentence description!
Joined: 23 Mar 2006 | Posts: 1126 | Location: Temple Terrace, Florida
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
wilsmith
Vintage Newbie


MAKE IT STOP Exclamation Exclamation Exclamation Exclamation Surprised Mad
_________________
yup, that's my name.

FOR YOUR RATING PLEASURE:
4 LIKE Buttons, 1 NEUTRAL, 1 VEXED, 5 DISLIKE buttons. LC > FB

Love Very Happy Smile Cool Neutral Confused Sad Embarassed Rolling Eyes Mad Evil or Very Mad
Wink = personal fave Mr. Green = Eisley fans should dig it
Joined: 09 Apr 2008 | Posts: 9637 | Location: Greater St. Louis Area
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
ync
Golly, Poster


do not be afraid you've yet to answer this

ync wrote:

Just as there are different forms of art - shouldn't there be different forms of games, and shouldn't they all be thought of differently? You can always bring it back to the fact that they all have the same basic idea - strategy, solve, win. But just as art can branch out, can't games?




i don't understand how you can rip the "video" out of a video game, it's no longer a video game then - it's just a game. If what's only left is the challenge aspect what are you supposed to finish it with? You don't have a character, you don't have the story, you have an impossible task you can't achieve because you have no knowledge of what you're supposed to do, you have no setting to run around in - it's just a big empty space and you're somehow saying i'm supposed to make something of it. A video game is something different than just a "game" it is something much bigger and shouldn't be lumped into the same pile.

You don't have to just consider the game portion of a video game because there is so much more that adds to the fact that it's a game. The graphics help push along your goal in the game. The characters help you connect to what you have to do - you become emotionally involved in what you are doing. It's not just about winning and losing, it's about the players experience along the way through the video game. So what if "you can't see, hear, taste, touch, or smell, a set of objectives, obstacles, rules, strategies" That's not the point of a video game. The point of a video game is to hopefully create something that people will enjoy and want the play the whole way through. If you want to rip out half of what a video game is, then you're no longer talking about one - you're only talking about a game which is not the same thing as a video game.

do not be afraid. wrote:
no, because the point of experiencing any work of art isn't “hey, try and figure out what's going on here”, the point is the raw, primal, experience — how it affects you on an aesthetic, emotional, and even intellectual level


Maybe the first thing i want to know about a painting is what the hell is going on - you can't assume that the first thing someone thinks about a piece of art is "ohh pretty" you can do that with some paintings like monet's water lilies but not with a caravaggio piece. caravaggio's pieces are made to tell a story, as with older paintings - when objects like dogs or certain plants are put in, they MEAN something - they're not just put there to invoke a feeling in you, you're supposed to relate the object to what's happening in the piece.

do not be afraid wrote:
besides, in many films the images and sounds are absolutely essential to the experience of watching the film, while my whole point was that the images, sounds, and even stories, in video-games are not essential to the experience of playing the game.


excuse me? you want to say that the cut scenes and sounds are not essential to VIDEO game. key word is video game - we're not talking about a game of chess here. Chess doesn't need sound or images. However a game like bioshock DOES need sound and images, or else how are we supposed to finish the game and how is it supposed to be considered a video game? If there are no images/cut scenes then how am i supposed to know what's going on, who the characters are, what kind of environment i'm in, what i'm fighting. If there's no sound then how am i supposed to know when someone is talking, when i'm being attacked, when there is something beyond where i can see?

Quit thinking a video game is just a GAME, because it's not. It is part of a video game, but not the whole thing. The WHOLE thing should be considered not just the aspect of your definition of a game. The video aspect is what sets it apart from just being a game.

also...this again
do not be afraid. wrote:
the point is the raw, primal, experience — how it affects you on an aesthetic, emotional, and even intellectual level

wait i'm sorry what? isn't that the point of a video game? holy crap, yes it is!

_________________
Saellys wrote:

You misunderstood. I used that emoticon to show people what they'd look like after I stab them in the eye.

Wink
Joined: 06 Jul 2007 | Posts: 742 | Location: boston
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
do not be afraid.
Lost at Forum


yes, you need images, sounds, etc, to play a video game, just as you need a chess board and chess set to play chess, and a football field and a football to play football. that wasn't the point i was making. i just simply feel that if you were to replace those images, sounds, etc, with ones which were totally different — but still served the same functional role in the gameplay — it wouldn't effect the experience of playing the game any more than replacing one chess set with another would effect the game of chess.
Joined: 23 Mar 2006 | Posts: 1126 | Location: Temple Terrace, Florida
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail
Saellys
Vintage Newbie


And how does that change the fact that the videogame is art?
_________________
INTELLECT AND ROMANCE
OVER BRUTE FORCE AND CYNICISM

Smokemonster
Joined: 24 Sep 2003 | Posts: 14510 | Location: Alone on an airplane, fallin' asleep against the windowpane...
View user's profile Send private message Send e-mail Visit poster's website AIM Address
wilsmith
Vintage Newbie



_________________
yup, that's my name.

FOR YOUR RATING PLEASURE:
4 LIKE Buttons, 1 NEUTRAL, 1 VEXED, 5 DISLIKE buttons. LC > FB

Love Very Happy Smile Cool Neutral Confused Sad Embarassed Rolling Eyes Mad Evil or Very Mad
Wink = personal fave Mr. Green = Eisley fans should dig it
Joined: 09 Apr 2008 | Posts: 9637 | Location: Greater St. Louis Area
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Nowhere Man
Vintage Newbie


do not be afraid. wrote:
yes, you need images, sounds, etc, to play a video game, just as you need a chess board and chess set to play chess, and a football field and a football to play football. that wasn't the point i was making. i just simply feel that if you were to replace those images, sounds, etc, with ones which were totally different — but still served the same functional role in the gameplay — it wouldn't effect the experience of playing the game any more than replacing one chess set with another would effect the game of chess.

I haven't decided if video games are art yet cause I don't care that much so don't take this as an aggressive argument. - Chess and football don't have scripted stories like most video games. Does the fact that the player can interact with the story and change it make it not an art form?
Also question to everyone: If someone recorded the screen of themselves playing through an entire game from beginning to end, would the video of that be art? It's a movie not a game anymore, with the player being an ad libbing actor. I don't think it would be a very good movie. Playing it is part of the art then?

_________________

we're really not alone, we have each other
Joined: 13 Jan 2007 | Posts: 2600 | Location: sitting in his nowhere land, TX
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
ync
Golly, Poster


Nowhere Man wrote:

Also question to everyone: If someone recorded the screen of themselves playing through an entire game from beginning to end, would the video of that be art? It's a movie not a game anymore, with the player being an ad libbing actor. I don't think it would be a very good movie. Playing it is part of the art then?


i don't think i would consider watching a recording of someone playing a game a form of art...some people might though and that's fine - i think i would be thinking to much of either how good or bad the player is at what they're playing. I would still consider it a game because i know it is a game rather than a movie - it's still something different than a movie to me. I asked my boyfriend if he considers watching recorded videos of starcraft more of a technical thing because he learns certain strategies and techniques from it HOWEVER something like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OHxyZaZlaOs) or something like final fantasy advent children i would consider art because it is a movie...or mini movie/series ...maybe not the best of art, but it's still extremely creative


i would say yes, playing is part of the art, because you're really thrown into it, you experience it more than you would if you were just watching it - you connect with it more when actually playing

_________________
Saellys wrote:

You misunderstood. I used that emoticon to show people what they'd look like after I stab them in the eye.

Wink
Joined: 06 Jul 2007 | Posts: 742 | Location: boston
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
cynlovescandy
Vintage Newbie


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_%28Duchamp%29
[img]
http://www.toutfait.com/issues/volume2/issue_4/music/betancourt/images  /08_Fountain_Stieglitz_big.jpg[/img]

Is this art?

Marcel DuChamp says yes. People in France during 1917 said "no".

If it is art to you, it is art.
If it is not art to you, it is not art.

If somebody (one person, or a group of people) makes a video game and calls it "art", then it is art. I can cut a hole in my sock, stick it on my wall, and say it is art. If I say it is art, it is art. You may not think it's noteworthy, but it is still art.

Is advertising art? Andy Warhol might have something to say on that subject.

What makes architecture art? I wish I could ask Frank Lloyd Wright.

Is a stapler art? According to the Bauhaus school, it most certainly is.

Is a video game art? I say yes. If it was created with design, music, story, a point of view...etc. I cannot see how it is not. If you take the aforementioned components out of the game, it is no longer the same video game. Therefore, the video game is art.

_________________
You can't find love; you have to create it.
Flickr
Joined: 31 May 2004 | Posts: 2018 | Location: Sacramento, CA
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
wilsmith
Vintage Newbie


cynlovescandy wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_%28Duchamp%29



Is this art?

Marcel DuChamp says yes. People in France during 1917 said "no".

If it is art to you, it is art.
If it is not art to you, it is not art.

If somebody (one person, or a group of people) makes a video game and calls it "art", then it is art. I can cut a hole in my sock, stick it on my wall, and say it is art. If I say it is art, it is art. You may not think it's noteworthy, but it is still art.

Is advertising art? Andy Warhol might have something to say on that subject.

What makes architecture art? I wish I could ask Frank Lloyd Wright.

Is a stapler art? According to the Bauhaus school, it most certainly is.

Is a video game art? I say yes. If it was created with design, music, story, a point of view...etc. I cannot see how it is not. If you take the aforementioned components out of the game, it is no longer the same video game. Therefore, the video game is art.


fixed the pic. IMG code always spaces it funny.

_________________
yup, that's my name.

FOR YOUR RATING PLEASURE:
4 LIKE Buttons, 1 NEUTRAL, 1 VEXED, 5 DISLIKE buttons. LC > FB

Love Very Happy Smile Cool Neutral Confused Sad Embarassed Rolling Eyes Mad Evil or Very Mad
Wink = personal fave Mr. Green = Eisley fans should dig it
Joined: 09 Apr 2008 | Posts: 9637 | Location: Greater St. Louis Area
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Post new topic   Reply to topic

Display posts from previous:   

<< prev | goto page
 | next >>


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
All times are GMT - 12 Hours
Jump to:  
Powered by phpBB, coffee, and Eisley fans worldwide.
phpBB is © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group