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

[Rapier]

42 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

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.

Not all, but most, and in a number big enough for a generalization.

There are more games made to satisfy the customer's expectations first and foremost than games where the creator's artistic vision takes priority. The latter tends to be subordinated to the former in most cases.

And again, this isn't always a dilemma, because a creator can make a game mainly around their vision that also fulfills the customers' tastes and expectations. But when they clash, there are more cases where the market analysis and expectations come above the author's personal tastes and artistic vision than cases where the reverse happens.

tl;dr Because video game projects take their commercialization as a priority when there is a clash, I think they're more of commercial products than artistic ones.

[indigoasis]

I wasn't quite expecting as big a response as this to my question. I was kind of scared to ask, but I suppose that I'm glad that I did since I feel that I've gained some more insight about the topic, so thank you to everyone who contributed to the discussion. I really like reading all the responses that are posted and seeing the different points of view.

Also, I would like to mention that I have updated the poll to include a "Both" option (if anyone would like to change their vote).

- - -

As for my own opinion, I believe that most video games are made as being considered a form of art (interactive art, I like to think). While the final intent is to sell it as a product, there is still passion put into these projects and creative decisions being made to make it into a solid game, as well as an enjoyable experience for the player. An argument that could work for either side is that different games are often made to stand out from their contemporaries and appeal to as many people as possible, whether it be to make a profit or to share what's been made. 

One last thing I would like to mention is the experiences that people can share with a game or series. For example, most of us on here have played at least one Fire Emblem game, so that's something that we can all connect with. Another example would be with Pokemon, and being able to trade and battle with other people. What I'm trying to get at is that people can connect with each other through art, whether it be through the process of making it or sharing in the experience.

Edited April 12, 2020 by indigoasis
typo

[Jotari]

5 hours 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.

By that logic some of the most widely praised art in the world isn't art. As I've pointed out before, a massive amount of famous Renaissance art was made on commission to the specification of the commissioners, usually the church. That's why you here about all these Da Vinci style codes and secrets in Renaissance art as supposedly the artists wanted to do more classical Greek and Roman stuff but the Church was making them stick to the Jesus stuff. Their preferences literally weren't being manifested. I also mentioned Shakespeare who had made quite a number of his plays as basically royalist propaganda to gain favor with the monarch of the time. Such examples are probably without end because art and artists need to be funded, and if someone is funding them they're going to impact and influence what is created.

22 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

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.

I don't really see any difference here. Most games aren't being played for the sake of exercise. There is a thrill and an emotional response involved, which is something that can also be garnered from a book.

Edited April 12, 2020 by Jotari

[AnonymousSpeed]

1 hour ago, Jotari said:

I don't really see any difference here. Most games aren't being played for the sake of exercise. There is a thrill and an emotional response involved, which is something that can also be garnered from a book.

The ability to generate emotional reactions is a poor qualifier for art. People have emotional reactions to very nearly everything.

Sports create thrills. They can induce rather severe emotional reactions. They still aren't art. Sports are games.

[Jotari]

22 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

The ability to generate emotional reactions is a poor qualifier for art. People have emotional reactions to very nearly everything.

Sports create thrills. They can induce rather severe emotional reactions. They still aren't art. Sports are games.

What is the qualifier then, because you just said games don't fulfill it while books and movies do without actually establishing a definition.

[Ice Dragon]

5 hours ago, Rapier said:

There are more games made to satisfy the customer's expectations first and foremost than games where the creator's artistic vision takes priority. The latter tends to be subordinated to the former in most cases.

I think you are seriously underestimating the sheer volume of indie and doujin games out there that have the liberty of putting artistic vision first.

 

On 4/11/2020 at 12:44 AM, AnonymousSpeed said:

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.

How exactly are you justifying that toys and art are "inherently" mutually exclusive of each other? What inherent quality of art makes it unsuitable to being a toy, and what inherent quality of a toy makes it unsuitable to being art?

I would argue that video games are simply the fusion of a movie and a choose-your-own-adventure book taken to the logical extreme of the technology we have available to us today. (And every visual novel is literally just a choose-your-own-adventure book with moving pictures and sounds.)

Edited April 12, 2020 by Ice Dragon

[Jotari]

2 minutes ago, Ice Dragon said:

I think you are seriously underestimating the sheer volume of indie and doujin games out there that have the liberty of putting artistic vision first.

 

How exactly are you justifying that toys and art are "inherently" mutually exclusive of each other? What inherent quality of art makes it unsuitable to being a toy, and what inherent quality of a toy makes it unsuitable to being art?

I would argue that video games are simply the fusion of a movie and a choose-your-own-adventure book taken to the logical extreme of the technology we have available to us today.

On this aspect, I'd also posit the question, are puppet shows art? I'm sure the likes of Jim Henson would argue very much that they are, but at the same time a puppet can easily still be considered a toy.

[Ice Dragon]

On 4/11/2020 at 12:44 AM, AnonymousSpeed said:

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.

So my visual novel example in my previous post just made me think of this.

There is a pretty clear spectrum starting from books and ending in video games:

• Books in general. These very clearly are art.
• Books on e-readers, like Amazon's Kindle. These are books in electronic form. Rather than flipping pages, the user scrolls through the text.
• Key's Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet. This is a "kinetic novel", a visual novel with zero branching paths or user choices. It is effectively no different than a book with animated visuals and sound, like an audio book, and requiring user input simply to move to the next line.
• Traditional visual novels, like Key's Clannad and Type-Moon's Fate/stay night. If kinetic novels are the audio-visual analogue of a book, then the traditional visual novel is the audio-visual analogue of a choose-your-own-adventure book. Like a in a choose-your-own-adventure book, at various points in the story, the user can choose one of several options that can change the outcome of the story. in general, the most common objective of a visual novel is to find the combination of options that result in a specific story outcome.
• Capcom's Ace Attorney series. These are visual novels with point-and-click adventure game elements interspersed, increasing the amount of interaction the user has to influence the story, but still largely follow the visual novel format.
• Leaf's Utawarerumono. This is a visual novel with sections of turn-based strategy gameplay interspersed, but it is still a visual novel first and foremost because they clearly didn't put enough thought into the turn-based strategy sections.
• The PS2 version of Utawarerumono. Still a visual novel with sections of turn-based strategy gameplay interspersed, but the turn-based strategy sections no longer suck because now we actually get enough information to formulate strategies without pulling guesses out of our asses.
• Fire Emblem. Let's reverse the above combination. These are turn-based strategy games with visual novel elements interspersed. We are definitely more game than book at this point.
• Any video game representation of chess. A turn-based strategy game with no narrative elements remaining.

If games are toys and toys are not art, then at what point in this spectrum do these things stop being art, and what qualities of that point separate it so distinctly from the points immediately above or below it so that we have such a conveniently hard line instead of a soft gradient?

I'm sure someone with more knowledge of table-top games than me can probably make a similar spectrum going from books to any number of analog games and end at something that is all game and no book (chess, poker, mahjong, etc.).

Edited April 12, 2020 by Ice Dragon

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

So my visual novel example in my previous post just made me think of this.

There is a pretty clear spectrum starting from books and ending in video games:

• Books in general. These very clearly are art.
• Books on e-readers, like Amazon's Kindle. These are books in electronic form. Rather than flipping pages, the user scrolls through the text.
• Key's Planetarian: The Reverie of a Little Planet. This is a "kinetic novel", a visual novel with zero branching paths or user choices. It is effectively no different than a book with animated visuals and sound, like an audio book, and requiring user input simply to move to the next line.
• Traditional visual novels, like Key's Clannad and Type-Moon's Fate/stay night. If kinetic novels are the audio-visual analogue of a book, then the traditional visual novel is the audio-visual analogue of a choose-your-own-adventure book. Like a in a choose-your-own-adventure book, at various points in the story, the user can choose one of several options that can change the outcome of the story. in general, the most common objective of a visual novel is to find the combination of options that result in a specific story outcome.
• Capcom's Ace Attorney series. These are visual novels with point-and-click adventure game elements interspersed, increasing the amount of interaction the user has to influence the story, but still largely follow the visual novel format.
• Leaf's Utawarerumono. This is a visual novel with sections of turn-based strategy gameplay interspersed, but it is still a visual novel first and foremost because they clearly didn't put enough thought into the turn-based strategy sections.
• The PS2 version of Utawarerumono. Still a visual novel with sections of turn-based strategy gameplay interspersed, but the turn-based strategy sections no longer suck because now we actually get enough information to formulate strategies without pulling guesses out of our asses.
• Fire Emblem. Let's reverse the above combination. These are turn-based strategy games with visual novel elements interspersed. We are definitely more game than book at this point.
• Any video game representation of chess. A turn-based strategy game with no narrative elements remaining.

If games are toys and toys are not art, then at what point in this spectrum do these things stop being art, and what qualities of that point separate it so distinctly from the points immediately above or below it so that we have such a conveniently hard line instead of a soft gradient?

I'm sure someone with more knowledge of table-top games than me can probably make a similar spectrum going from books to any number of analog games and end at something that is all game and no book (chess, poker, mahjong, etc.).

Perhaps the answer there is to say neither books not video games are art, it's the stories that are art, with both being mediums to express the art. Other arts being visual beauty (paintings, also utilized in games via graphics) and evocative sounds (music, which video games also have).

[Ice Dragon]

7 hours ago, Jotari said:

Perhaps the answer there is to say neither books not video games are art, it's the stories that are art, with both being mediums to express the art. Other arts being visual beauty (paintings, also utilized in games via graphics) and evocative sounds (music, which video games also have).

What of art that has no story, then? Architecture, sculpture, painting, and animation can easily have no story, but still be considered art. There exist sculptures that are designed to be interacted with by an audience, so how does that differ from an animation that is designed to be interacted with by an audience?

What if the story is being told by the gameplay mechanics rather than a narrative? Take the arcade game Missile Command, which Extra Credits did a video about some 8 years ago, which has no explicit narrative, but still tells a story.

How does one separate the narrative from the medium it is told through? One can argue that the physical book a novel is printed on is not part of the "art" itself since it can be replaced with a different medium, such as an e-reader or audio book, and still provide a comparable experience to the novel printed on a physical book, but if you remove the interactive medium of a video game from its narrative, and distill it down to just its story, the experience is completely different. In fact, simply watching another person play a game is a completely different experience than playing the game yourself, even if you are told the exact same story, and in the case of a movie or video game, the visuals of the medium are often just as essential to the experience as the story being told. Reading the novelization of a movie and watching the movie itself are two wholly different experiences.

 

Wikipedia defines art as "a diverse range of human activities in creating visual, auditory or performing artifacts, expressing the author's imaginative, conceptual ideas, or technical skill, intended to be appreciated for their beauty or emotional power," based on definitions from the Oxford and Merriam-Websters Dictionaries. I believe video games fit this bill entirely.

[Jotari]

Just now, Ice Dragon said:

What of art that has no story, then? Architecture, sculpture, painting, and animation can easily have no story, but still be considered art. 

I do specificy "visual beauty" (for want of a better term) as an art that covers these things. Regarding the experience, would you use the same logic to say Chess is an art? And is it a separate art to watch others play. Likewise physical sports like football or even golf, can they too fit in the same category? I'm not necessarily arguing against you here because hell if I know.

[Ice Dragon]

4 minutes ago, Jotari said:

I do specificy "visual beauty" (for want of a better term) as an art that covers these things. Regarding the experience, would you use the same logic to say Chess is an art? And is it a separate art to watch others play. Likewise physical sports like football or even golf, can they too fit in the same category? I'm not necessarily arguing against you here because hell if I know.

Yeah, I know you're not arguing against me. I just want to bring up factors that can cause trouble for the more limited definitions of art out there to catch as many of them as I can.

 

As for my own opinions on competitive games, it's complicated. The game or the sport can potentially be an art, but it'd be a case by case judgment.

A sport itself (as in the actual concept of a sport) I don't think counts as an art, at least for the "normal" physical sports, like football or golf. We are not, after all, intended to appreciate the design of the sport itself for its aesthetic or emotional appeal. However, that cannot be so quickly said of a specific "performance" of the sport, which is definitely a performance artifact expressing the players' technical skill and can potentially be argued as intended to be appreciated for its emotional appeal (fans can get worked up rooting for their favorite players and teams, after all), though that may be a stretch.

As you start moving towards what are more commonly called "games" rather than "sports", though, you'll begin to encounter games that do have an inherent visual and/or auditory element to them and can even have a performance element inherent to the game (whether it's a person, like a dungeon master, doing the performance or a computer as a proxy for the programmers) where these elements are intended for aesthetic or emotional appeal.

I do not think I can consider chess to be art (it's very similar to a sport, having a design in the form of rules, "players" of fixed function but not of fixed design, and a "field" designed for function rather than form), but a chess set can be art as can an implementation of chess as a video game (as both can have inherent visuals that are intended for aesthetic appeal). But I'm open to being convinced otherwise since this isn't as cut and dry of a topic.

[AnonymousSpeed]

22 hours ago, Jotari said:

What is the qualifier then, because you just said games don't fulfill it while books and movies do without actually establishing a definition.

On 4/11/2020 at 1:44 AM, AnonymousSpeed said:

Video games are a bad place to try and get endearing, edifying stories. You don't go to video games to improve your character.

Art, properly understood, should be educational in nature. The two primary criteria which I think are most worthy are that the work in question conveys a valid lesson (either a good moral or some correct sense about the world) and that it does so effectively. I don't know if a lot of people agree with this definition, but I think it's the most valid and compelling one.

I should have been a little more clear about that, I'm sorry.

22 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

How exactly are you justifying that toys and art are "inherently" mutually exclusive of each other? What inherent quality of art makes it unsuitable to being a toy, and what inherent quality of a toy makes it unsuitable to being art?

I would argue that video games are simply the fusion of a movie and a choose-your-own-adventure book taken to the logical extreme of the technology we have available to us today. (And every visual novel is literally just a choose-your-own-adventure book with moving pictures and sounds.)

Visual novels are an extremely poor choice of counterexample.

You play with toys and you observe art. Further thoughts are in the spoilers:

Spoiler

A toy is for fun, you create your own experience with it, and all its value is derived from what you can do with it. When a game tries to teach you a lesson, that usually means it stops you from actually playing it so it can make a shallow, empty attempt to capture the essence of an actual art form.

If art is ultimately educational, then we must accept that it metaphorically has to sit you down and tell you how it is. Not to say it should be preachy- that would be obvious and ineffective, while art should be subtle and effective. Even though it's not a classroom, the ability to derail the lesson will lead to it failing.

People have argued that video games have a narrative strength in their ability to make a player "feel" like they've done something, but I disagree. A movie has the ability, through its camera work and lighting and emotive acting and innumerable other techniques, to more accurately recreate and convey what it "feels like" to do something than the abstraction in a video game can. It's simply more precise, and allows more of the visceral reality of something to be captured.

It's already massively difficult to construct a single competent, linear narrative thread. A video game has no chance of properly executing a branching story, which brings into question why one should bother in the first place. If a video game has a linear story, then it could be much better done in another medium. If a video game has some finite number of branching stories, each of those would itself be better executed in another medium.

Games should stick to presenting interesting decisions and scenarios in the gameplay, their natural forte, rather than muddle the valuable part of the experience to chase artistic clout. They can have artistic elements if they want, but a colorful dreidel is still a dreidel, and if the paint stops it from spinning properly, it is a failure for its actual purpose.

Video games are thus most functional as art when they are actually just games, because you can at least learn to keep trying when you fail from that. Of course, consequence in video games doesn't really align with consequence in reality, so even that doesn't really work.

***

Now, I'll go ahead and say that some very, very talented designer with unnatural insight or an inordinate amount of supernatural guidance might make something which would more than sufficiently suit my definition of art, which is of course the proper definition. It has perhaps been done. I have a very reasonable friend with common sense wisdom who would say that it has.

Four times.

Video games are very rarely good art, no matter how many times people try to do otherwise, and its basically guaranteed that they will never be good art as often as more direct narrative forms. It's a "medium" that's ill suited to artistic purposes.

There's more to say on the matter- about paintings and architecture and the level of plot appropriate for video games and, despite all my rambling about art teaching people lessons, the fact that people partake in it for fun. But, that's probably the best description of the big picture for now.

On 4/11/2020 at 7:26 PM, Tryhard said:

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.

It matters to game designers, mostly. The question is important to what they should set out to do and how they should do it.

Roger Ebert was also well known for being much more acclaimed than the quality of his criticism actually merited oh snap.

Edited April 13, 2020 by AnonymousSpeed

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Art, properly understood, should be educational in nature. The two primary criteria which I think are most worthy are that the work in question conveys a valid lesson (either a good moral or some correct sense about the world) and that it does so effectively. I don't know if a lot of people agree with this definition, but I think it's the most valid and compelling one.

I should have been a little more clear about that, I'm sorry.

Visual novels are an extremely choice of counterexample.

You play with toys and you observe art. Further thoughts are in the spoilers:

  Hide contents

A toy is for fun, you create your own experience with it, and all its value is derived from what you can do with it. When a game tries to teach you a lesson, that usually means it stops you from actually playing it so it can make a shallow, empty attempt to capture the essence of an actual art form.

If art is ultimately educational, then we must accept that it metaphorically has to sit you down and tell you how it is. Not to say it should be preachy- that would be obvious and ineffective, while art should be subtle and effective. Even though it's not a classroom, the ability to derail the lesson will lead to it failing.

People have argued that video games have a narrative strength in their ability to make a player "feel" like they've done something, but I disagree. A movie has the ability, through its camera work and lighting and emotive acting and innumerable other techniques, to more accurately recreate and convey what it "feels like" to do something than the abstraction in a video game can. It's simply more precise, and allows more of the visceral reality of something to be captured.

It's already massively difficult to construct a single competent, linear narrative thread. A video game has no chance of properly executing a branching story, which brings into question why one should bother in the first place. If a video game has a linear story, then it could be much better done in another medium. If a video game has some finite number of branching stories, each of those would itself be better executed in another medium.

Games should stick to presenting interesting decisions and scenarios in the gameplay, their natural forte, rather than muddle the valuable part of the experience to chase artistic clout. They can have artistic elements if they want, but a colorful dreidel is still a dreidel, and if the paint stops it from spinning properly, it is a failure for its actual purpose.

Video games are thus most functional as art when they are actually just games, because you can at least learn to keep trying when you fail from that. Of course, consequence in video games doesn't really align with consequence in reality, so even that doesn't really work.

***

Now, I'll go ahead and say that some very, very talented designer with unnatural insight or an inordinate amount of supernatural guidance might make something which would more than sufficiently suit my definition of art, which is of course the proper definition. It has perhaps been done. I have a very reasonable friend with common sense wisdom who would say that it has.

Four times.

Video games are very rarely good art, no matter how many times people try to do otherwise, and its basically guaranteed that they will never be good art as often as more direct narrative forms. It's a "medium" that's ill suited to artistic purposes.

There's more to say on the matter- about paintings and architecture and the level of plot appropriate for video games and, despite all my rambling about art teaching people lessons, the fact that people partake in it for fun. But, that's probably the best description of the big picture for now.

It matters to game designers, mostly. The question is important to what they should set out to do and how they should do it.

Roger Ebert was also well known for being much more acclaimed than the quality of his criticism actually merited oh snap.

Hmm. I don't find that definition all that great. It basically makes text books the highest form of art.

6 hours ago, Ice Dragon said:

Yeah, I know you're not arguing against me. I just want to bring up factors that can cause trouble for the more limited definitions of art out there to catch as many of them as I can.

 

As for my own opinions on competitive games, it's complicated. The game or the sport can potentially be an art, but it'd be a case by case judgment.

A sport itself (as in the actual concept of a sport) I don't think counts as an art, at least for the "normal" physical sports, like football or golf. We are not, after all, intended to appreciate the design of the sport itself for its aesthetic or emotional appeal. However, that cannot be so quickly said of a specific "performance" of the sport, which is definitely a performance artifact expressing the players' technical skill and can potentially be argued as intended to be appreciated for its emotional appeal (fans can get worked up rooting for their favorite players and teams, after all), though that may be a stretch.

As you start moving towards what are more commonly called "games" rather than "sports", though, you'll begin to encounter games that do have an inherent visual and/or auditory element to them and can even have a performance element inherent to the game (whether it's a person, like a dungeon master, doing the performance or a computer as a proxy for the programmers) where these elements are intended for aesthetic or emotional appeal.

I do not think I can consider chess to be art (it's very similar to a sport, having a design in the form of rules, "players" of fixed function but not of fixed design, and a "field" designed for function rather than form), but a chess set can be art as can an implementation of chess as a video game (as both can have inherent visuals that are intended for aesthetic appeal). But I'm open to being convinced otherwise since this isn't as cut and dry of a topic.

And what of ice skating or acrobatics, which is a sport that manages to be 100% about performance.

[Interdimensional Observer]

2 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Art, properly understood, should be educational in nature. The two primary criteria which I think are most worthy are that the work in question conveys a valid lesson (either a good moral or some correct sense about the world) and that it does so effectively. I don't know if a lot of people agree with this definition, but I think it's the most valid and compelling one.

And what of art that isn't filthy propaganda, art that intends to defy or doesn't intend to be educational? How much education is Manet's Olympia besides France has prostitutes? What education does Monet's water lilies provide other than beauty exists in nature?

If that is sufficient for you, then why doesn't Tales magical-not-so-subtle-allegory environmentalism message or Tellius's "racism is complicated, difficult to overcome, and bad" enough? Not all art is a Hogarth political cartoon. You're sounding like a STOP sign might be art. Heck, the Stop sign is better art it sounds than actual high art, since that is often laden with intricate subtleties and education is better when it's direct.

 

2 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Visual novels are an extremely choice of counterexample.

You play with toys and you observe art.

Visual novels of the good non-dating sim kind might be an extreme case, but so are very high artsy movies. Woody Allen spits at the Marvel Cinematic Universe not without a reason.

Furthermore, how much play is one really doing with visual novel? If the game is merely reading text with a light and easy puzzle tossed in every 30 minutes, does the one drop of egg yolk kill the meringue-to-be?

 

2 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

It's already massively difficult to construct a single competent, linear narrative thread. A video game has no chance of properly executing a branching story, which brings into question why one should bother in the first place. If a video game has a linear story, then it could be much better done in another medium. If a video game has some finite number of branching stories, each of those would itself be better executed in another medium.

Not necessarily. From what I'm aware, a central twist of Nine Persons Nine Hour Nine Doors requires the touchscreen exist. Bravely Default could be done in certain movie theatres maybe, but not at home. Unless you can tell me how you make work elsewhere, go ahead, I sincerely mean it.

 

2 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I was also well known for being much more acclaimed than the quality of my criticism actually merited oh snap.

Saying someone is overrated doesn't inherently prove your point.

 

 

Now, is there anyone in this forum that knows the technical definition of "design"? Do video games fall into that and not art? If so, why?

Edited April 13, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

Imma cop right out and say "both".

Anything that went through a design process can be considered "art". Comic books, magazines, and soup cans... hell, a major point of the "pop art" movement was elevating mundane everyday objects into the sphere of artistic discussion. If a company's logo can be considered art (and I think it can), then more complex cases of human design (such as video games) must be as well.

Anything that is produced with a profit motive (not necessarily anything that is sold, because... well, anything can be sold if you try hard enough) is a commercial product. Most video games known to more than a few people are commercial products, as they're made to be sold. Even "free-to-play" games are produced to generate an income. A caveat, though - fanmade games that don't make any money for anyone, I don't think could be considered commercial products.

So, which one are video games, moreso? I think it depends on the game. A game that is created to promote a brand, or an event, could be considered moreso commercial than artistic (stuff like "Mario & Sonic at the Olympics", or that one Shrek racing game). Whereas, games that have more emphasis on creating characters, telling a story, and grappling with ethics, I'd say lean heavier on the "art" side. My prime example are the Kotaro Uchikoshi games (999, Zero Escape, The Somnium Files) - hardly big money-makers, but each one tells a strong story. It's silly to think that a hypothetical "999: The Movie" would be considered a work of art, but not the game upon which it's based (and from which its script is derived).

Bottom-line, all video games are art, and most video games are commercial products. Which is more "one" or "the other" varies from game to game.

[AnonymousSpeed]

2 hours ago, Jotari said:

Hmm. I don't find that definition all that great. It basically makes text books the highest form of art.

Textbooks are not ethical in nature. One that attempts to be is on philosophy, and such are ineffective.
The best art makes you a better person without you realizing it. Art has a brilliant power to circumvent reason, to penetrate and imbue the audience member. This is why art, though commonly entertainment, is something that should be approached with great discernment.

I spent entirely too long on all these replies, proving that I am a very smart man with very good time management skills. Anybody want cornbread?

Spoiler

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

And what of art that isn't filthy propaganda

>Imagine assuming that having a point to make is propaganda

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

 art that intends to defy

Shallow contrarianism, it has become disgustingly overrated as a somehow valid objective.

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

doesn't intend to be educational?

Empty, unless edifying, which in itself contributes to moral education, in a sense.

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

What education does Monet's water lilies provide other than beauty exists in nature?

Is that not itself a useful insight?

Paintings are not a narrative medium, so while ethical utility is still the ultimate criteria, it is accomplished in a different way. A good painting instills the user with a sensation which will make them a more ethical actor in their life.

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

If that is sufficient for you, then why doesn't Tales magical-not-so-subtle-allegory environmentalism message or Tellius's "racism is complicated, difficult to overcome, and bad" enough?

Well, with all do respect, I have to see a JRPG plot that was actually good. I don't think that the Tellius games have anything novel to say about the issue of racism, and it's actually quite sloppily handled, falling into the unsettling fantasy trope of using separate species as a metaphor for the separate races with predictably poor results. To count as good art, the message must be good and also presented in an effective manner. I don't the Tellius games stand a serious chance of convincing someone of something they didn't already believe, nor do I think they present challenging food for thought.

Environmentalism, while important in its own right, is a tired and sanctimonious trash heap which artists fall back on because they are divorced from the real world of working a job that produces pollution or which would be immediately impacted by the EPA. I've yet to see something where "pollution is complicated" was really a driving theme.

I proud to announce that this is the first time anyone on this forum has used the word sanctimonious.

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Not all art is a Hogarth political cartoon. You're sounding like a STOP sign might be art. Heck, the Stop sign is better art it sounds than actual high art, since that is often laden with intricate subtleties and education is better when it's direct.

You have misread me completely. Education is more than a textbook lesson, and you have ignored this part of my definition. Perhaps I was unclear, so I will refer you to my comment with Jotari at the top. Furthermore, there are many lessons which are true, but not able to be rationalized. For them, the sensation and feeling which art can produce are necessary.

Preachiness rarely helps a work of art be more compelling or informing. Usually, it indicates the creator lacks the skill to craft something which enough subtlety to actually utilize the powers and advantages of art. When a video game tries to play itself off as art, the result is usually something preachy.

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Visual novels of the good non-dating sim kind might be an extreme case, but so are very high artsy movies. Woody Allen spits at the Marvel Cinematic Universe not without a reason.

Indeed, because they are bad movies. That doesn't necessarily make Woody Allen good though. Two fighting beasts are still beasts.

More earnestly I meant to say "extremely poor choice," my bad. Thank you for catching that.

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Furthermore, how much play is one really doing with visual novel? If the game is merely reading text with a light and easy puzzle tossed in every 30 minutes, does the one drop of egg yolk kill the meringue-to-be?

"Is stopping your forward motion- stopping everything- to find an eyeball to wack to solve a trivial puzzle fun?"

Again, it'd be better as a book, unless the pictures really carry the experience. On that note, visual novels also suffer a problem of presentation. You have a gigantic PNG of an anime character and then a quarter of the screen for actual text. The picture, which typically just sits there for entirely too long even after it is no longer relevant to the words on screen, is a distraction in something which is already handicapping your reading speed, and whatever minor benefits in pacing can be conceived from controlling the text rate are easily matched and exceeded by competent prose. You can create the sensation of a pause with nothing but words, you don't need to literally withhold words.

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Not necessarily. From what I'm aware, a central twist of Nine Persons Nine Hour Nine Doors requires the touchscreen exist. Bravely Default could be done in certain movie theatres maybe, but not at home. Unless you can tell me how you make work elsewhere, go ahead, I sincerely mean it.

I'll be honest and say that I haven't play 999. I have heard of it, though, and it sounded terribly obnoxious. A sort of pretentious anime adaptation of Saw, which is like fifteen bad things in one despite only being two things. Avante-garde artiness is a form of gimmickry which usually detracts from actual artistic merit and in fact indicates its absence.

So I looked up the twist, and...well, maybe it counts as a puzzle. As a serious narrative device, though? Not at all. All because something is only possible on a DS doesn't mean that the DS suddenly counts as art, you have to have a worthwhile artistic use for it to count.

What even is the point? What do these games teach you about how we should act? How others act and why? Not just fictional characters acting out anime tropes and introduction to psychology waxing, is there some legitimate human experience being conveyed? Some higher ethical or religious purpose? Again, even if something can "only be done" using a certain handheld, does that make it an art for doing it? Is there really something there worth making work?

While we're here, I'll talk mad smack about JRPGs. They're like the worst thing ever made. They fail as games because they are aggressively boring. They fail as stories because they just aren't good stories, and also take like 40 hours, only a fraction of which is actual narrative content while the rest is suffering through dull gameplay. There are dozens of excellent films in the world, literally hundreds which are at least competent, and they take under two hours to watch. Even a slow reader like me can finish a book before a JRPG plot.

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Saying someone is overrated doesn't inherently prove your point.

Roger Ebert: "Video games aren't art"
Me: "Roger Ebert sucks, but video games aren't art."

Proving my point wasn't the point of that.

 

3 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Now, is there anyone in this forum that knows the technical definition of "design"? Do video games fall into that and not art? If so, why?

You say that like a joke, but what if someone asked whether procedurally generated games are truly designed?

[The Roger The Paladin]

11 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I don't think that the Tellius games have anything novel to say about the issue of racism, and it's actually quite sloppily handled, falling into the unsettling fantasy trope of using separate species as a metaphor for the separate races with predictably poor results. To count as good art, the message must be good and also presented in an effective manner

I can point out a story with a better metaphor. Back in 1953, the long defunct EC comics did a tale of a planet of sentient robots that humanity had left to form a society, and their meeting with a man who would choose whether or not their society was ready to deal with humanity. While the society was quite advanced from a technological standpoint, it became clear that the orange robots had a supremacy issue, and treated blue robots as inferiors, giving them lower class jobs, ghetto homes, and having them sit on the back of shuttlebuses. All in spite of the difference being the color of the coat of paint the factory producing them. At the end, the man rejected their society, and returned to his shuttle and removed his helmet, revealing himself as a black man (in defiance of the expectations of a 1953 reader's expectations, as one would most likely assume him to be white at the time). The story kind of lost a bit of it's meaning as time went on, and society changed, as his ethnicity is likely not as big a shock to a reader today. But the message still stands.

Regardless, the reason I saw this as a better metaphor than Laguz is simple. There's not physiological differences that make the robots different. They're the same apart from a damn coat of paint. On the other hand, Laguz and Beorc, both from a story and a gameplay perspective, are kind of not. I mean that in the fact the entire transformation mechanic has both it's advantages and drawbacks (not needing weapons, needing a gauge to fill to transform, not being able to get better weapons, being virtually helpless untransformed, vulnerability to certain weapons/magic). Though the fact the drawbacks often can outweigh the benefits already helps to defeat the message.

31 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

The best art makes you a better person without you realizing it

Wait a second... does that make natural disasters art to someone? Because they sure result in a lot of people doing stuff they usually wouldn't to help others. Often without thinking too much on it. After all, hardship brings out the best, and worst, in humanity.

[Jotari]

39 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Textbooks are not ethical in nature. One that attempts to be is on philosophy, and such are ineffective.
The best art makes you a better person without you realizing it. Art has a brilliant power to circumvent reason, to penetrate and imbue the audience member. This is why art, though commonly entertainment, is something that should be approached with great discernment.

I spent entirely too long on all these replies, proving that I am a very smart man with very good time management skills. Anybody want cornbread?

  Reveal hidden contents

>Imagine assuming that having a point to make is propaganda

Shallow contrarianism, it has become disgustingly overrated as a somehow valid objective.

Empty, unless edifying, which in itself contributes to moral education, in a sense.

Is that not itself a useful insight?

Paintings are not a narrative medium, so while ethical utility is still the ultimate criteria, it is accomplished in a different way. A good painting instills the user with a sensation which will make them a more ethical actor in their life.

Well, with all do respect, I have to see a JRPG plot that was actually good. I don't think that the Tellius games have anything novel to say about the issue of racism, and it's actually quite sloppily handled, falling into the unsettling fantasy trope of using separate species as a metaphor for the separate races with predictably poor results. To count as good art, the message must be good and also presented in an effective manner. I don't the Tellius games stand a serious chance of convincing someone of something they didn't already believe, nor do I think they present challenging food for thought.

Environmentalism, while important in its own right, is a tired and sanctimonious trash heap which artists fall back on because they are divorced from the real world of working a job that produces pollution or which would be immediately impacted by the EPA. I've yet to see something where "pollution is complicated" was really a driving theme.

I proud to announce that this is the first time anyone on this forum has used the word sanctimonious.

You have misread me completely. Education is more than a textbook lesson, and you have ignored this part of my definition. Perhaps I was unclear, so I will refer you to my comment with Jotari at the top. Furthermore, there are many lessons which are true, but not able to be rationalized. For them, the sensation and feeling which art can produce are necessary.

Preachiness rarely helps a work of art be more compelling or informing. Usually, it indicates the creator lacks the skill to craft something which enough subtlety to actually utilize the powers and advantages of art. When a video game tries to play itself off as art, the result is usually something preachy.

Indeed, because they are bad movies. That doesn't necessarily make Woody Allen good though. Two fighting beasts are still beasts.

More earnestly I meant to say "extremely poor choice," my bad. Thank you for catching that.

"Is stopping your forward motion- stopping everything- to find an eyeball to wack to solve a trivial puzzle fun?"

Again, it'd be better as a book, unless the pictures really carry the experience. On that note, visual novels also suffer a problem of presentation. You have a gigantic PNG of an anime character and then a quarter of the screen for actual text. The picture, which typically just sits there for entirely too long even after it is no longer relevant to the words on screen, is a distraction in something which is already handicapping your reading speed, and whatever minor benefits in pacing can be conceived from controlling the text rate are easily matched and exceeded by competent prose. You can create the sensation of a pause with nothing but words, you don't need to literally withhold words.

I'll be honest and say that I haven't play 999. I have heard of it, though, and it sounded terribly obnoxious. A sort of pretentious anime adaptation of Saw, which is like fifteen bad things in one despite only being two things. Avante-garde artiness is a form of gimmickry which usually detracts from actual artistic merit and in fact indicates its absence.

So I looked up the twist, and...well, maybe it counts as a puzzle. As a serious narrative device, though? Not at all. All because something is only possible on a DS doesn't mean that the DS suddenly counts as art, you have to have a worthwhile artistic use for it to count.

What even is the point? What do these games teach you about how we should act? How others act and why? Not just fictional characters acting out anime tropes and introduction to psychology waxing, is there some legitimate human experience being conveyed? Some higher ethical or religious purpose? Again, even if something can "only be done" using a certain handheld, does that make it an art for doing it? Is there really something there worth making work?

While we're here, I'll talk mad smack about JRPGs. They're like the worst thing ever made. They fail as games because they are aggressively boring. They fail as stories because they just aren't good stories, and also take like 40 hours, only a fraction of which is actual narrative content while the rest is suffering through dull gameplay. There are dozens of excellent films in the world, literally hundreds which are at least competent, and they take under two hours to watch. Even a slow reader like me can finish a book before a JRPG plot.

Roger Ebert: "Video games aren't art"
Me: "Roger Ebert sucks, but video games aren't art."

Proving my point wasn't the point of that.

 

You say that like a joke, but what if someone asked whether procedurally generated games are truly designed?

A text book on ethics would be.

38 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

 

  Hide contents

Well, with all do respect, I have to see a JRPG plot that was actually good. I don't think that the Tellius games have anything novel to say about the issue of racism, and it's actually quite sloppily handled, falling into the unsettling fantasy trope of using separate species as a metaphor for the separate races with predictably poor results. To count as good art, the message must be good and also presented in an effective manner. I don't the Tellius games stand a serious chance of convincing someone of something they didn't already believe, nor do I think they present challenging food for thought.

 

The goal posts are shifted there. There's a very big difference between asking whether something is "art" or "good art". Just because you think Tellius had nothing of value to say on the subject of racism doesn't mean the medium in which it's in can't say anything good on the matter. That just means it needs a better writer, unless there is some inherent manner in which the gameplay is making the exploration of that theme impossible. Being of the opinion that there are no games that are "good art" and that there are no games that are art at all are two entirely difference stances. Because bad art exists, and bad art is still art, because art isn't a synonym with something good.

Edited April 13, 2020 by Jotari

[Anathaco]

In regards to whether video games are counted as art to begin with, I believe they do. 

If I were actually to define art, I'd lean towards the Google definition: 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 also like this quote by Edgar Degas: “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”

So I believe that art is a human creation (or application of human creative thought, which draws in those artistic pieces that are literally just a urinal or something), that can convey beauty, emotion and/or meaning. I believe video games fit this definition. 

That said, I also agree that most video games are made to be sold, even if there is an artistic vision intended to be conveyed. So I chose both, as I believe that commercialising a product doesn't make it any less of an art.

 

20 hours ago, Jotari said:

Perhaps the answer there is to say neither books not video games are art, it's the stories that are art, with both being mediums to express the art. Other arts being visual beauty (paintings, also utilized in games via graphics) and evocative sounds (music, which video games also have).

This sums up my stance pretty well.

7 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

People have argued that video games have a narrative strength in their ability to make a player "feel" like they've done something, but I disagree. A movie has the ability, through its camera work and lighting and emotive acting and innumerable other techniques, to more accurately recreate and convey what it "feels like" to do something than the abstraction in a video game can. It's simply more precise, and allows more of the visceral reality of something to be captured.

Can a video game not do the same thing though? Camera work and lighting can be simulated in cutscenes, and voice acting replaces physical acting (as is the case with animated movies/TV shows).

7 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

A toy is for fun, you create your own experience with it, and all its value is derived from what you can do with it.

One could say the same about art. You create your own experience with that too, and derive value from your aesthetic appreciation of it or the meaning/emotion that it conveys to you. 

[GodSejeong97]

Could be either. I mean, take a look at FEH (which is DEFINITELY a commercial product) and Judgral or Tellius games (which are arts to me).

[Interdimensional Observer]

8 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

There are dozens of excellent films in the world, literally hundreds which are at least competent, and they take under two hours to watch. Even a slow reader like me can finish a book before a JRPG plot.

Except movies are too boring. I can't muster the effort to sit and focus on one for the 1 & 1/2 to 2 & 1/2 hours required. On the other hand, I was on an extreme end willing to suffer through Persona 2's far too frequent encounters to see its narrative through.

What I may not be able to tolerate in a movie, I may be able to tolerate or more in a video game. It's my personal double standard of aesthetics, and so as long as I do not assert this as a universal standard all should obey, I am sticking to it.

(BTW, I have no problem disliking a genre, particularly for this one that though I love it, tends to be overly vocal amongst them all.)

 

I'll terminate this argument here and keep to my inclusive beliefs as to what art is. You and your snobbishly exclusive ones can stay in its clubhouse for five million in a world of seven billion. It seems in this matter and others we are destined to disagree, which is but saddening, yet so be it. I hope to be right, but if there is an afterlife wherein a purgatory exists to expel my erroneous beliefs before ascension to the paradise, I wish to be there to remove this one of art if it be wrong. I would hope you wish the same of yourself, and of me as I would of you on the grounds of the inherent value of all human life.

Good day sir! Let us meet again elsewhere as thought we had drank from the River Lethe.

Edited April 13, 2020 by Interdimensional Observer

[indigoasis]

On 4/12/2020 at 2:30 AM, Jotari said:

On this aspect, I'd also posit the question, are puppet shows art? I'm sure the likes of Jim Henson would argue very much that they are, but at the same time a puppet can easily still be considered a toy.

The puppets are being used to put on/aid a performance. I'm of the opinion that theatre is art, and while it may not be entirely akin to theatre, they are both performances with actors. It's just that the actors are using puppets (not necessarily as stand-ins) to perform their show.

11 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

You say that like a joke, but what if someone asked whether procedurally generated games are truly designed?

The coding for the game is designed.

2 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Good day sir! Let us meet again elsewhere as thought we had drank from the River Lethe.

(Side thought: I haven't read The Outsiders or watched the movie since Eighth Grade, I wonder if they hold up?)

[Ice Dragon]

16 hours ago, Jotari said:

And what of ice skating or acrobatics, which is a sport that manages to be 100% about performance.

The actual performance of the sport is art, but the sport itself isn't.

I consider "the sport itself" to be the design of how the sport is played (the rules, props, and interactions).

 

18 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Visual novels are an extremely poor choice of counterexample.

You play with toys and you observe art.

By your definition that "you play with toys and you observe art", Planetarian is art and not a toy because it can only be "observed" and cannot be "played" with. That makes it an extremely good choice of counterexample because it's definitely a video game and it's definitely no more interactive than a book.

Unless, of course, you're saying a book isn't art.

Your definition itself is pretty awful, but I'll let everyone else handle the rebuttal unless I think of something someone else hasn't already said.

Edited April 13, 2020 by Ice Dragon

[Florete]

14 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I proud to announce that this is the first time anyone on this forum has used the word sanctimonious.

Yeah, not quite.

14 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Paintings are not a narrative medium, so while ethical utility is still the ultimate criteria, it is accomplished in a different way. A good painting instills the user with a sensation which will make them a more ethical actor in their life.

You must be joking. If "instills the user with a sensation which will make them a more ethical actor in their life" is all a painting requires to be art, how do you figure video games are unable to achieve the same thing?