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

[Slumber]

The cynical side of me says commercial product.

The romantic side of me says art form.

I'm feeling far more cynical these days, but I'll be fair and say "both".

Edited April 13, 2020 by Slumber

[Jotari]

7 hours ago, Florete said:

Yeah, not quite.

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?

And while we're at it, might as well open up the floor to what branch of ethics? Because there's a very big difference between some of the schools of thought.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Commercial product, though I certainly don't think that's a bad reputation. The only way that video games recovered from the Crash of the early 1980s was a major rebranding as toys. I also don't think video games are alone in that distinction, since art is produced for profit in our capitalist world. It's not a question of intent, it's the reality of time = money. Even the most famous artists innovated and worked out of their comfort zones for the purposes of getting their work noticed and upping those profits.

There are things that I like about how we associate video games compared to other art forms. For instance, our genres are all describing gameplay, not themes or plot elements like movies and literature do. I also like that our game critiques focus much more on the gameplay experience, and to me always felt more scientific or "objective" than other art critiques. Nobody critiques the "viewing experience" of a movie, because it's a passive medium with no variation between viewings. But two players can have wildly different playthroughs of a game and yet reviewers must task themselves to test and prod everything they can for a complete-seeming review. And even then they'll still miss or misinterpret things if you compare critique of a game at launch to critique several years or decades later. It feels like games never really "die" when our perceptions of them keep changing. And now that we're in an era of constant updates, some games really do stay in the public consciousness for years after release.

[Jotari]

21 minutes ago, Glennstavos said:

Commercial product, though I certainly don't think that's a bad reputation. The only way that video games recovered from the Crash of the early 1980s was a major rebranding as toys. I also don't think video games are alone in that distinction, since art is produced for profit in our capitalist world. It's not a question of intent, it's the reality of time = money. Even the most famous artists innovated and worked out of their comfort zones for the purposes of getting their work noticed and upping those profits.

There are things that I like about how we associate video games compared to other art forms. For instance, our genres are all describing gameplay, not themes or plot elements like movies and literature do. I also like that our game critiques focus much more on the gameplay experience, and to me always felt more scientific or "objective" than other art critiques. Nobody critiques the "viewing experience" of a movie, because it's a passive medium with no variation between viewings. But two players can have wildly different playthroughs of a game and yet reviewers must task themselves to test and prod everything they can for a complete-seeming review. And even then they'll still miss or misinterpret things if you compare critique of a game at launch to critique several years or decades later. It feels like games never really "die" when our perceptions of them keep changing. And now that we're in an era of constant updates, some games really do stay in the public consciousness for years after release.

One interesting thing I noticed a long time ago in this regard is that it makes games far more suited for franchise exploitation. People regularly complain about Hollywood only ever churning out sequels to movies that are deemed unnecessary and usually aren't critically considered as good as the initial movie of the franchise (though commercially they usually end up doing better due to the popularity of the first movie). Games don't get this issue because they can much more easily build upon what game before by utilizing the same game engine or utilizing the same gameplay concepts but in a different way. Movie sequel potential is stifled by only having narrative as a direction to develop, while games having something else means a more diverse experience is readily available by diving into a familiar setting. While this can be a good thing, it also does limit future potential somewhat as once large successful franchises have been established, it's harder for newer IPs to firmly make a foothold leading to a sort of creative monopoly.

[Rapier]

On 4/12/2020 at 1:13 AM, Jotari said:

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.

I didn't say having the authors' preferences not being manifested as they wanted isn't art. The discussion is about whether games are more art than commercial product, and I haven't argued against it being art in any part of my defense of it being more of a commercial product.

So, I've been thinking a bit more about this and I think games actually tend more toward art than commercial product. Of course, they're made with the intent to sell, but that isn't exclusive with being art.

I don't see much difference between the artistic parts of games being tailored toward the customers' preferences and other commissioned arts having it the same way. If you pay an artist to do something that isn't in their preferences, they will still put their style and inclinations into what they do. If a musician prefers making soundtracks for terror games, nothing stops them from being hired to compose a soundtrack for an adventure game, or a slice of life visual novel. It wouldn't be in their area of expertise and preference, but the songs will carry their own expression that is intrinsic to any art they produce, even if tailored toward their customer's tastes and preferences.

So, since art is still art regardless of being tailored to a customer's tastes and preferences, I think modern games are more artistic manifestations than commercial products.

[Jotari]

2 hours ago, Rapier said:

I didn't say having the authors' preferences not being manifested as they wanted isn't art. The discussion is about whether games are more art than commercial product, and I haven't argued against it being art in any part of my defense of it being more of a commercial product.

Oh, well I've been playing a bit of a mutually exclusive devil's advocate here. If you were just trying to say they are a commercial product with no weigh in on the art before then, yeah, I think that's pretty self evident. They are pretty undeniably a commercial product at least to some degree.

[null]

I would say both, depending on the game. Some games are more of one than of the other. For example, to me, COD is a commercial product, cranked out every couple years to satisfy the shooter fandom, with relatively little innovation or creativity put into it. But Zelda games are works of art, special creations that the gaming society as a whole only receives roughly every 5-7 years.

[Sir Gerwald of Vallora]

Depends on the game. A Zelda game feels a lot more like an art form, Call of Duty has always been a commercial product, and Halo is somewhere in the middle.