Would you consider video games more of an art form or a commercial product?

[indigoasis]

This was a question that I had thought of a couple weeks ago, but wasn't sure whether to ask. I figure that it can't hurt to ask, so as the title states: Would you consider videos games to more so be a form of art or a commercial product? Another way to ask this: When video games are being created, are they being made with the intent to share with the world what has been created or to make a tidy profit?

Concerning the poll, I fully understand that video games can be both options, and the goal in mind varies depending on the developers/studios/publishers/etc. However, what I'm asking is whether you think the industry leans more towards one side or the other, which is why there is not a "Both" option. (If anyone feels that there should be an option for both, then I will edit the poll to include it.)

Lastly, I hope everyone is staying safe and healthy. I don't know how much longer this period of time will last, but I'm positive we can all make it through this. (Stay strong, guys!)

EDIT: I have added a "Both" option.

Edited April 12, 2020 by indigoasis

[Rapier]

More toward commercial product, because the intent from the team developing [or working in different areas related to] the game is to add elements that make the game sell. They make a market analysis and apply their own craft's techniques to make the game appealing enough to the target audience they want to sell it to.

From the game project's conception, the intent is for it to become a product that will have a high enough commercial appeal. Anything else that comes during the making process of the game is subordinated to that premise.

Video games are art, in my opinion, and they obviously have artistic elements over it, and the developers/producers/whatever have their own personal insights and artistic visions poured into their works because you can't disassociate from those when making art (by definition), but there's that big question of "would that sell?" that whoever is working on a game must answer to constantly and it speaks higher than their artistic vision more times than it doesn't (people who make games without the intent to sell them are rarer than people who make games with the main intent to sell).

Edited April 11, 2020 by Rapier

[Eltosian Kadath]

I don't see much of a difference here. Artists have to eat, so their art inevitably becomes commercial. Books are made to be sold, painting are made to be sold, movies are made to be sold, sculptures are made to be sold, etc. and that doesn't change the fact that each of them is an artform. People don't think of videogames as similar to all the other artforms because these other mediums are more established, but I have always found that notion incredibly silly and shortsighted. Put simply Videogames are an artform.

[Jotari]

Where's the both option? Because almost all art is commercialized to some extent. The only form that isn't really commercialized is performance street art. And I guess graffiti.

Should have read the OP. Yes, I do think there should be a both option.

Edited April 11, 2020 by Jotari

[Perkilator]

Mainly an art form, but I’m neutral on this.

If a video game only exists to sell out to the kiddy winks regardless of quality, it’s corporate horse waste. It can’t truly be considered an art form without the right amount of care put into it (Kingdom Hearts 3, N. Sane Trilogy, Smash Ultimate, just to name a few).

[Benice]

Ehh, mostly a commercial product; I'm not saying that there's no artistic part, but at this point, especially for big studios, it's all about the money. As Kaga proved, creativity rarely sells, and when it does, it's generally lightning caught in a bottle. So I'm saying it can be art, but most of the time it's a product.

[eclipse]

The vast majority of games are sold, so I'm leaning towards commercial product.

[Ertrick36]

I'll say "neither/other".

If you want to get technical, sure, probably more leaned towards commercial products.  But what does that mean?  People want to actually make a career out of a creative craft?  That literally every other entertainment industry.  And honestly, that's every service that you can possibly conceive - anything that serves someone at the expense of someone else's time and effort is something that someone else will want to earn money from, otherwise it's slavery or indentured servitude.

I really don't get this notion of this being unique to the gaming industry.  Sure, there are a lot more aspects that could be monetized in a game than in, say, a movie or book, but at the end of the day it's just another thing people put effort into for our service, therefore it's something we pay them for.

Moreover, most successful or quality art is made as products.  Even if they're just individual people doing commissions, what they're doing is offering a service and providing a product as the end result.  They love what they do, but they also need to make money, and the notion that it can't be both is poisonous.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Perkilator said:

Mainly an art form, but I’m neutral on this.

If a video game only exists to sell out to the kiddy winks regardless of quality, it’s corporate horse waste. It can’t truly be considered an art form without the right amount of care put into it (Kingdom Hearts 3, N. Sane Trilogy, Smash Ultimate, just to name a few).

Wait are those examples of stuff you consider artsy or commercial? I'm guessing artsy, but honestly I could see very good arguments leaning towards commercial.

1 hour ago, Ertrick36 said:

And honestly, that's every service that you can possibly conceive - anything that serves someone at the expense of someone else's time and effort is something that someone else will want to earn money from, otherwise it's slavery or indentured servitude.

Or voluntary. I once again cite street performances and graffiti. 

1 hour ago, Ertrick36 said:

Moreover, most successful or quality art is made as products.  Even if they're just individual people doing commissions, what they're doing is offering a service and providing a product as the end result.  They love what they do, but they also need to make money, and the notion that it can't be both is poisonous.

On that note I'll append by pointing out that a very large amount of the famous Renaissance Art was made on commission, usually by the church. Hell even half of Shakespere's plays he was ordered to write as propaganda for the legitimacy of the reining monarch.

Edited April 11, 2020 by Jotari

[Interdimensional Observer]

12 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Hell even half of Shakespere's plays he was ordered to write as propaganda for the legitimacy of the reining monarch.

Ah yes Macbeth, Or, The Tudors Are Dead God Save the Scottish Stuarts Patronize Me Please Jammie Majesty!

 

I'd say high art vs. commercial product & possible "low art" vs. sport, is very much dependent on the game in question. But yes, games can be art, and high art to boot. To the Moon is higher art, the typical Western or Japanese blockbuster with a nice-for-a-game narrative is commercial/low art, Street Fighter and Overwatch are sports.

Usually, the higher end artsy stuff doesn't get the attention of mainstream gaming though- so I guess. But, neither do more artsy movies- see all the films nominated for Oscars that year after year that the masses and hosts joke that they never saw.

[Anacybele]

Video games are definitely a form of art. Even Shigeru Miyamoto once said this very same thing. Video games contain various creations, including characters, story, illustrations, music, etc., it's all just put together in a media that a person can interact with. How someone can say that something that uses those things and isn't art I have no idea.

So what if video games are meant to make money? So are other forms of art. Musicians do what they do make money because their albums sell. Authors make money because their books sell. Film developers do what they do to make money because their movies sell. Music, writing, and film are forms of art.

Anything you create is your art, even if you're making money doing that.

I'm looking for a college degree in graphics communications and a career in that field. Which means I'm looking to make money off art. Why else would such programs even exist?

Edited April 11, 2020 by Anacybele

[AnonymousSpeed]

Video games are more commercial product than artistic one. Obviously, most games and books and movies which are made today are produced (or at least funded) for a capital incentive, though I would actually say that's a bad a thing.

The key distinction is that books and movies are legitimate forms of high art, and video games are not. That is the reason I selected "other," because while it's all made for a market, I wanted to say what purpose video games are most suited for. Books can be art. Video games are, well, games. They're toys. They should not aspire to be art, because doing so is inherently conflicted, which will only hurt both games and art as a result.

That's not to speak ill of video games. Toys have their uses and I certainly get that use out of them. Just know what they are and what they should try to be. Video games are a bad place to try and get endearing, edifying stories. You don't go to video games to improve your character. You go to them to improve hand eye coordination.

Again, that has its place. Video games can keep your critical thinking skills in practice. No one would say chess is a work of art, but only an utter philistine would demean its place as a defining part of the culture of all humanity.

[Florete]

6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

I don't see much of a difference here. Artists have to eat, so their art inevitably becomes commercial. Books are made to be sold, painting are made to be sold, movies are made to be sold, sculptures are made to be sold, etc. and that doesn't change the fact that each of them is an artform. People don't think of videogames as similar to all the other artforms because these other mediums are more established, but I have always found that notion incredibly silly and shortsighted. Put simply Videogames are an artform.

Agreed with this.

Just because something is made to be sold doesn't mean the creator can't also put passion into it. Indie games are a prime example of this, but it definitely extends to many AAA games as well.

Video games are a medium. Books, movies, paintings, etc. are also mediums. None are superior to others, they are merely different avenues. If one is art, all are art. If one is not art, all are not art.

[Jotari]

Funnily enough this exact question came up just over a hundred years ago in regards to movies. People weren't quick to accept movies as legitimate art, but the movie makers of the time wanted respect for their fledgling craft. So France, which was the hip and happening place for early movies, decided to define art as the realization of vision of a singular person. Which, aside from being very dismissive towards duo creators, isn't that terrible a way of defining things. Basically movies are art because they have directors that (nominally) have passion for the project they're working on.

How this relates to Video Games? Well because, while video games do have head developers, they don't usually promote any one individual as the creative genius behind it (though fans will likely clamp on to a single individual like Sakurai or Nomura). I can think of only one game developer who is consistently contributed, on the box of the game itself, as the creative genius.

Spoiler

Actually now that I think some more there's also The Last Story

Spoiler

Who, if you know the history behind it, wanted to announce to everyone they were splitting from Square and Final Fantasy.

 

Anyway it's an interesting line of thinking. Should games promote their main creative overseer on their boxes? Should it be Super Smash Bros, a Masahiro Sakurai game? If we are determining these things as art then surely there is an artist behind them? Or is every single person in the credits equally to be considered the artist behind it? But then taking that logic, should publishing houses be considered artists for the printing and production of book alongside the author?

By the by I can't find any source for my the whole "art is something with a single creative vision", so maybe I hallucinated it. It's not something I can easily google search.

Edited April 11, 2020 by Jotari

[Yexin]

the way i see it, every object which people put effort and thought in to create is a form of art in its own way

yes, products are meant to be sold, so works of art can grant their artists income, if they so wish

of course, creating videogames takes a huge amount of money, so it's only natural that software houses want to earn money from them, but as others previously asserted, creating a product doesn't mean love, passion and care have no space in the process

[Fabulously Olivier]

As ever, it depends on the game in question. Even the same artist can make games/books/etc. designed to sell out and ones meant to be remembered.

 

My favorite author, Brandon Sanderson, writes some truly magnificent fantasy worlds. It's clear that he cares about Mistborn and The Stormlight Archive. But he also isn't above writing YA books because those apparently sell for reasons I will never understand. And I don't begrudge him that.

 

Similarly, we have Nintendo publishing games it puts genuine effort into, but then also turning around and making cheap, lazy mobile cash grabs.

Edited April 11, 2020 by Etheus

[Rapier]

I think we've deviated from the discussion for a bit.

It's not about whether games are art or not. It's about whether it leans more toward being art or a commercial product.

I argued that it's art while at the same time being a commercial product, and leaning more toward the latter than toward the former because it's main purpose is to sell.

[Interdimensional Observer]

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

I can think of only one game developer who is consistently contributed, on the box of the game itself, as the creative genius.

Too hard to read, but it's there on the VI image.

Why, he's even putting his name on this:

Spoiler

 

 

Commercial vs. noncommercial, modern art can sell for big 💵, even if the artist wasn't focused on profiting from it. It's art regardless of how much it sells for, and whether the monied buyer truly appreciate it as art or is simply conspicuously consuming it as a status symbol.

And, while I stand by "it very much depends on the game" and will force you to admit some games are art, sure, I'll admit gaming leans commercial.

[Jotari]

1 hour ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Too hard to read, but it's there on the VI image.

Why, he's even putting his name on this:

  Hide contents

 

 

Commercial vs. noncommercial, modern art can sell for big 💵, even if the artist wasn't focused on profiting from it. It's art regardless of how much it sells for, and whether the monied buyer truly appreciate it as art or is simply conspicuously consuming it as a status symbol.

And, while I stand by "it very much depends on the game" and will force you to admit some games are art, sure, I'll admit gaming leans commercial.

Ah, touche. Don't worry, I don't even need to see the image to know the name. It's basically the title of the series.

[Eltosian Kadath]

4 hours ago, Jotari said:

So France, which was the hip and happening place for early movies, decided to define art as the realization of vision of a singular person. Which, aside from being very dismissive towards duo creators, isn't that terrible a way of defining things. Basically movies are art because they have directors that (nominally) have passion for the project they're working on.

This definition falls incredibly flat, as it is steeped in that old french obsession with Authorial Intent that Roland Barthes rebelled against with his essay "The Death of the Author". That outdated definition flies in the face of numerous advances, and branches of Art theory. Plus it leads to ludicrous moments, like ET for the atari 2600 being classified as Art (which was the singular vision of Howard Scott Warshaw), while games made when technology has advanced beyond the singular program/developer phase aren't.

[Jotari]

12 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said:

This definition falls incredibly flat, as it is steeped in that old french obsession with Authorial Intent that Roland Barthes rebelled against with his essay "The Death of the Author". That outdated definition flies in the face of numerous advances, and branches of Art theory. Plus it leads to ludicrous moments, like ET for the atari 2600 being classified as Art (which was the singular vision of Howard Scott Warshaw), while games made when technology has advanced beyond the singular program/developer phase aren't.

I wouldn't say ET would count. As there's probably a difference between one person intentionally designing something and one person being forced to crap out a finished product in an unreasonably short time frame.

[Florete]

4 hours ago, Rapier said:

It's not about whether games are art or not. It's about whether it leans more toward being art or a commercial product.

I think that question itself is flawed.

[Rapier]

3 hours ago, Florete said:

I think that question itself is flawed.

I'd agree with you that this is a false dilemma (you can sell art and even make a living off selling art). The problem is when you have to consider your potential clients' tastes and preferences over your own artistic vision. Then it clashes with your personal expression, preferences and vision, thus going against the definition of art. This doesn't mean video games aren't art anymore, but that it's a commercial product more than an artistic one, and anytime when your preferences and your clients' match each other are simply coincidences.

[Tryhard]

My question is does it matter?

Roger Ebert was infamous for claiming that video games could never be art, and yet movies which is the main thing he critiqued, were not considered 'art' for a long time compared to books. Perhaps the same will be considered in the future by most for video games.

Frankly, discussions about what 'counts' as art by people are usually pretentious, so I'll wonder if the question is even worth merit.

[Ice Dragon]

1 hour ago, Rapier said:

I'd agree with you that this is a false dilemma (you can sell art and even make a living off selling art). The problem is when you have to consider your potential clients' tastes and preferences over your own artistic vision. Then it clashes with your personal expression, preferences and vision, thus going against the definition of art. This doesn't mean video games aren't art anymore, but that it's a commercial product more than an artistic one, and anytime when your preferences and your clients' match each other are simply coincidences.

You're trying to lump all video games together as if they were all of uniform intent. They aren't.

Video games span the entire spectrum from being made according to the creator's artistic vision to being made to satisfy the customer's expectations to being made for the purpose of selling a product. This is no different than any other artistic medium.