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For this, “The Void” ends up being a good example of video-games not being art; there’s a lot of art in it, surely – in the ethereal soundtrack by Vasiliy Kashnikov or the moody 3D landscapes by Peter Potapov – but it plays just like a game, barring any possibility of pure aesthetic appreciation and that vital sense of transcendent beauty which defines art.
If you're going to talk about a game being "art", the only place you should be looking for "artwork" is your interaction as a player. If you think the way to appreciate a game's "art" is when you're not actively playing, it's not the game itself you are trying to appreciate.
If you're going to talk about a game being "art", the only place you should be looking for "artwork" is your interaction as a player. If you think the way to appreciate a game's "art" is when you're not actively playing, it's not the game itself you are trying to appreciate.
Holy dandelions, "complexify" is a word. I solemnly vow to further complexify my sentences in the future.
Much as I'd love to say otherwise, I don't think I'll ever play this game. The difficulty seems too steep and the invisible logic too overbearing for me to get anything out of it but frustration. Thanks for the writeup though, even if it only reminds me what I'm missing.
Much as I'd love to say otherwise, I don't think I'll ever play this game. The difficulty seems too steep and the invisible logic too overbearing for me to get anything out of it but frustration. Thanks for the writeup though, even if it only reminds me what I'm missing.
It seems like you're asserting that to be appreciated as art, a game must not be a game, as PvPPY is implying. But that also doesn't sound unlike you, from what I've read! :D
Are we reading this right, or is it just that The Void, per its demanding/difficult play, defies appreciation (which doesn't sound wrong, from what I've heard of this game before)
Are we reading this right, or is it just that The Void, per its demanding/difficult play, defies appreciation (which doesn't sound wrong, from what I've heard of this game before)
Dang, I really have to play more of The Void to decide how much I agree with this (I haven't touched it since I mentioned it a few weeks ago). I will say that so far, the management aspect HAS contributed to my aesthetic appreciation of the game, though I don't know how long that enjoyment might hold up.
As sympathetic as I am to your views (as well as Tale of Tales' work, which you seem to respect also), I leave this a little confused as to what, in your opinion, a video game should leave out (or include) in order to be identified as valuable art. Is the purely cognitive activity of "play" such an impediment to artistic expression? The little "definition war" following your other post might not be so irrelevant.
Also: "attempting to complexify game design and imbue it with meaning – a western game design axiom, if we ever saw one". I would like you to elaborate, if you don't mind.
As sympathetic as I am to your views (as well as Tale of Tales' work, which you seem to respect also), I leave this a little confused as to what, in your opinion, a video game should leave out (or include) in order to be identified as valuable art. Is the purely cognitive activity of "play" such an impediment to artistic expression? The little "definition war" following your other post might not be so irrelevant.
Also: "attempting to complexify game design and imbue it with meaning – a western game design axiom, if we ever saw one". I would like you to elaborate, if you don't mind.
I'd love to check The Void out, based on this blog. I'd heard about it one other time and that article didn't make it sound nearly as interesting.
Actually I clicked here expecting to read about that jetpack game Dark Void :\
This is a really good article BTW, but I think you're making a mistake in judging the game on traditional multimedia art rather than looking for its merits as an artistic game.
Actually I clicked here expecting to read about that jetpack game Dark Void :\
This is a really good article BTW, but I think you're making a mistake in judging the game on traditional multimedia art rather than looking for its merits as an artistic game.
OK, you guys all have decent points. I was going to address some of these issues in a post about our dear friends Ebert & Kellee (now that'd be a show!). But, time is short, so I'll be straight to the punch.
Interaction is not the same as gameplay. To me, gameplay is a particular aesthetic of interaction. Interaction is a sensory dimension of media, just in the same way as visuals or audio. It is clean slated, a neutral ground, an abstraction with no form, which may be molded by different perceptions or aesthetics. Obviously, video games greatest asset (but not its only!) lies in interaction.
Art is art. Game is game. Different concepts, different definitions, different histories, different cultural value. We can discuss merits and tastes, but they are, nonetheless different. This matter, of course, leaves the question: video games, what are they? Are they art, are they games, are they both, are they none? It's a complex issue, and one that has been handled by everyone (me included) with the subtlety of an ox.
Video games are, indeed, brothers of both digital multimedia and games - there's no denying it. But distinguishing between a video game that is a game and one that isn't, may actually be rather simple, because, unlike the elusive definition of art, games are easily defined. You don't play games as you enjoy art. The subjective process of appreciation is so different, that it can't even be compared. You play games. Art usually plays you. Art is enjoyed by a process of reflection and pure aesthetic appreciation. Games present challenges, offer you rewards and punishments, force you to develop skills and pleasure derives from that process - none of this is present in any art form, not even the post-modern kind that occasionally involves interaction. Which means that in the space of video games/digital media we may see a continuum of games and art, with many different meshes of these two concepts.
So, where does one draw the line? To me, it's a matter of how I feel during the game. And "The Void" plays like "Monopoly". Does it matter, to the player, that there's a huge amount of artistry and narrative in between the game if it still plays like a strategy game? It matters, but the end result isn't that different. It's just a huge amount of shiny paint on top of a game. And I guess that's fine. The authors are making a point with their rules, passing a message through metaphors, and that has its value and makes it a great game on my book. But, personally, I am not a big fan of games. Never was, probably never will be.
And so, I think the game inside "the Void" kills its art. Because, to me, the interaction I developed with the game did not serve its ideas and story and art, as much as they pushed me away, into a cognitive and emotional state which I associate with games or sports, not art. I felt frustrated and punished, but also content and rewarded, by elements that have aught to do with the semantics of "The Void". I did not feel emotions because of its art, but because of its game: I never felt bad because I killed a character or happy because I saved one, instead I felt bad because the game presented challenges which were hard to conquer and good when I finally conquered them. And that's a crucial difference between art and game.
Sometimes, I just think you can't have it all. That's what I mean with "gluttonous virtuosity". You just can't address every video game element as a meter which you maximize. There are powerful interactions between audio-visual, narrative and interaction aesthetics of a game, and these should feed one another into making a better experience for the audience. "The Void" misses that entirely by letting everything become engulfed and dominated by its game-play. Other video games (or digital art, whatever we want to call it), like ToT's games show understanding of this matter, and refuse game-play in favor of interactions that provoke an aesthetic appreciation stance on part of the audience, thereby being closer to the concept of art than that of game.
All this is subjective, of course. But as some Americans like to say: "It's Art Stupid" ;)
Cheers guys, thanks for the comments!!! Keep commenting!
Interaction is not the same as gameplay. To me, gameplay is a particular aesthetic of interaction. Interaction is a sensory dimension of media, just in the same way as visuals or audio. It is clean slated, a neutral ground, an abstraction with no form, which may be molded by different perceptions or aesthetics. Obviously, video games greatest asset (but not its only!) lies in interaction.
Art is art. Game is game. Different concepts, different definitions, different histories, different cultural value. We can discuss merits and tastes, but they are, nonetheless different. This matter, of course, leaves the question: video games, what are they? Are they art, are they games, are they both, are they none? It's a complex issue, and one that has been handled by everyone (me included) with the subtlety of an ox.
Video games are, indeed, brothers of both digital multimedia and games - there's no denying it. But distinguishing between a video game that is a game and one that isn't, may actually be rather simple, because, unlike the elusive definition of art, games are easily defined. You don't play games as you enjoy art. The subjective process of appreciation is so different, that it can't even be compared. You play games. Art usually plays you. Art is enjoyed by a process of reflection and pure aesthetic appreciation. Games present challenges, offer you rewards and punishments, force you to develop skills and pleasure derives from that process - none of this is present in any art form, not even the post-modern kind that occasionally involves interaction. Which means that in the space of video games/digital media we may see a continuum of games and art, with many different meshes of these two concepts.
So, where does one draw the line? To me, it's a matter of how I feel during the game. And "The Void" plays like "Monopoly". Does it matter, to the player, that there's a huge amount of artistry and narrative in between the game if it still plays like a strategy game? It matters, but the end result isn't that different. It's just a huge amount of shiny paint on top of a game. And I guess that's fine. The authors are making a point with their rules, passing a message through metaphors, and that has its value and makes it a great game on my book. But, personally, I am not a big fan of games. Never was, probably never will be.
And so, I think the game inside "the Void" kills its art. Because, to me, the interaction I developed with the game did not serve its ideas and story and art, as much as they pushed me away, into a cognitive and emotional state which I associate with games or sports, not art. I felt frustrated and punished, but also content and rewarded, by elements that have aught to do with the semantics of "The Void". I did not feel emotions because of its art, but because of its game: I never felt bad because I killed a character or happy because I saved one, instead I felt bad because the game presented challenges which were hard to conquer and good when I finally conquered them. And that's a crucial difference between art and game.
Sometimes, I just think you can't have it all. That's what I mean with "gluttonous virtuosity". You just can't address every video game element as a meter which you maximize. There are powerful interactions between audio-visual, narrative and interaction aesthetics of a game, and these should feed one another into making a better experience for the audience. "The Void" misses that entirely by letting everything become engulfed and dominated by its game-play. Other video games (or digital art, whatever we want to call it), like ToT's games show understanding of this matter, and refuse game-play in favor of interactions that provoke an aesthetic appreciation stance on part of the audience, thereby being closer to the concept of art than that of game.
All this is subjective, of course. But as some Americans like to say: "It's Art Stupid" ;)
Cheers guys, thanks for the comments!!! Keep commenting!
But distinguishing between a video game that is a game and one that isn't, may actually be rather simple, because, unlike the elusive definition of art, games are easily defined. You don't play games as you enjoy art.
Anything done for the purpose of artistic expression is art. End of line.
There are pictures and paintings and books that aren't art and it's because they're not intended to be. Even pre-schoolers can do it... "draw a butterfly" and "draw how happy you are today".
The subjective process of appreciation is so different, that it can't even be compared. You play games. Art usually plays you. Art is enjoyed by a process of reflection and pure aesthetic appreciation. Games present challenges, offer you rewards and punishments, force you to develop skills and pleasure derives from that process - none of this is present in any art form
Hey there... of course games are going to present something that's not present in any other form of art that's why we're not calling them "movies". It's a different medium, but not that different.
[i]The authors are making a point with their rules, passing a message through metaphors, and that has its value and makes it a great game on my book. But, personally, I am not a big fan of games. Never was, probably never will be.
And so, I think the game inside "the Void" kills its art.[/i]
It's fine (well, sort of a shame, but not the player's fault) if the game elements in The Void aren't an artistic expression. That doesn't mean it's categorically impossible however. I might not even be able to say this without having played Greed Corporation, though. If you don't already have it, download it ASAP. It's also a board game... it's "thing" is that you set up resource harvesters that produce money each turn, but do so by crushing and eventually destroy the ground they're on and all around them. As you play the game you experiment with this mental construction, approach it from all sides, taking in all of the complexities it creates.
It's empowering to get all the resulting gold, frightening as you realize you've very nearly doomed your army with a badly-placed harvester, sad as you come to the end of a game with all the surviving players battling over the few isolated spires left of what was once some recognizable piece of terrain... a forest, a desert, a mountain top. The mechanic never gets old either, I'm just as eager and/or intimidated (maybe even more) about deploying a harvester that's going to smash a big chunk out of my territory now as I was in the tutorial.
It's also a really clever metaphor for our real-world environmental situation, not a one-sided statement, but a model that the player can approach from many points of view.
Anything done for the purpose of artistic expression is art. End of line.
There are pictures and paintings and books that aren't art and it's because they're not intended to be. Even pre-schoolers can do it... "draw a butterfly" and "draw how happy you are today".
The subjective process of appreciation is so different, that it can't even be compared. You play games. Art usually plays you. Art is enjoyed by a process of reflection and pure aesthetic appreciation. Games present challenges, offer you rewards and punishments, force you to develop skills and pleasure derives from that process - none of this is present in any art form
Hey there... of course games are going to present something that's not present in any other form of art that's why we're not calling them "movies". It's a different medium, but not that different.
[i]The authors are making a point with their rules, passing a message through metaphors, and that has its value and makes it a great game on my book. But, personally, I am not a big fan of games. Never was, probably never will be.
And so, I think the game inside "the Void" kills its art.[/i]
It's fine (well, sort of a shame, but not the player's fault) if the game elements in The Void aren't an artistic expression. That doesn't mean it's categorically impossible however. I might not even be able to say this without having played Greed Corporation, though. If you don't already have it, download it ASAP. It's also a board game... it's "thing" is that you set up resource harvesters that produce money each turn, but do so by crushing and eventually destroy the ground they're on and all around them. As you play the game you experiment with this mental construction, approach it from all sides, taking in all of the complexities it creates.
It's empowering to get all the resulting gold, frightening as you realize you've very nearly doomed your army with a badly-placed harvester, sad as you come to the end of a game with all the surviving players battling over the few isolated spires left of what was once some recognizable piece of terrain... a forest, a desert, a mountain top. The mechanic never gets old either, I'm just as eager and/or intimidated (maybe even more) about deploying a harvester that's going to smash a big chunk out of my territory now as I was in the tutorial.
It's also a really clever metaphor for our real-world environmental situation, not a one-sided statement, but a model that the player can approach from many points of view.
"Anything done for the purpose of artistic expression is art. End of line."
Is a car with a cool design, which its author said was his "artistic expression" art? Come on, don't be so willing to simplify the matter. Do you really think scholars would have spent centuries reflecting upon the very concept of art if something as simple as that phrase were true. It's not. Art is not easily defined, I'm sorry. The very idea of what is art and what isn't changes with times, its appreciation and cultural perception as well. We can debate wikipedia style what is true or not, or we can just accept that this is something which even experts, which we are not, struggle to clearly define. There are no easy answers.
"Hey there... of course games are going to present something that's not present in any other form of art that's why we're not calling them "movies". It's a different medium, but not that different. "
No, it's not new, that's the point right there. Games have existed for as long as art has, and as a completely separate identity. A conceptual purist would be quick to point that, as the name so implies, video-games are just a branch of games. Whether it is a painting or a music or an art-film, the relationship it establishes with its audience is, on some levels, similar. Just in the same way as most video-games establish a relationship with players that is identical to that of a game. Play enough games, watch enough films and paintings and whatever, and you'll see it's hard to compare these experiences on an even plane.
In art, pleasure derives solely from decoding the semiotics, interpreting the semantic and appraising the aesthetic value of a piece. While this level of involvement may be present in games, it rarely has the front-seat of the experience. A game can be pleasurable without meaning or aesthetic, as long as it proposes a challenge which is fun to conquer. Games do not aspire to beauty or aesthetic appreciation, not does their greatest value lie in those dimensions.
Ebert had a great point on this matter: is chess art? Is go! art? Basketball or football art? Do video games not play in similar ways? Do we not take similar forms of pleasure? Isn't the relationship similar? In football, players play to win. Winning means pleasure and rewards, losing the opposite. There are scores in these games, as well as skills we must develop. In "God of War 3" and "Final Fantasy XIII" too. The same for abstract games like "Tetris" or "Lumines", or competitive titles such as "Madden" or "PES" or MMORPG's. There's a conceptual relationship that hooks all these objects together - the concept of game. Now, you can't play "Mona Lisa", you can't win it or lose it, you do not need to develop skills to take pleasure from it, nor are there rules for how to approach it, nor rewards, nor punishments. The same for "The Iliad" or "Richard III" or Beethoven's 9th.
I'm not arguing that video-games equal games in a TV set. No. But I am saying that a vast majority of videogames are indeed descendant from traditional games and shape similar relationship with their audiences. And that my friends, is not art, but a game.
"It's fine (well, sort of a shame, but not the player's fault) if the game elements in The Void aren't an artistic expression. "
Not to me, but perhaps to you that may be true. Play it, and find out for yourself.
Cheers!
Is a car with a cool design, which its author said was his "artistic expression" art? Come on, don't be so willing to simplify the matter. Do you really think scholars would have spent centuries reflecting upon the very concept of art if something as simple as that phrase were true. It's not. Art is not easily defined, I'm sorry. The very idea of what is art and what isn't changes with times, its appreciation and cultural perception as well. We can debate wikipedia style what is true or not, or we can just accept that this is something which even experts, which we are not, struggle to clearly define. There are no easy answers.
"Hey there... of course games are going to present something that's not present in any other form of art that's why we're not calling them "movies". It's a different medium, but not that different. "
No, it's not new, that's the point right there. Games have existed for as long as art has, and as a completely separate identity. A conceptual purist would be quick to point that, as the name so implies, video-games are just a branch of games. Whether it is a painting or a music or an art-film, the relationship it establishes with its audience is, on some levels, similar. Just in the same way as most video-games establish a relationship with players that is identical to that of a game. Play enough games, watch enough films and paintings and whatever, and you'll see it's hard to compare these experiences on an even plane.
In art, pleasure derives solely from decoding the semiotics, interpreting the semantic and appraising the aesthetic value of a piece. While this level of involvement may be present in games, it rarely has the front-seat of the experience. A game can be pleasurable without meaning or aesthetic, as long as it proposes a challenge which is fun to conquer. Games do not aspire to beauty or aesthetic appreciation, not does their greatest value lie in those dimensions.
Ebert had a great point on this matter: is chess art? Is go! art? Basketball or football art? Do video games not play in similar ways? Do we not take similar forms of pleasure? Isn't the relationship similar? In football, players play to win. Winning means pleasure and rewards, losing the opposite. There are scores in these games, as well as skills we must develop. In "God of War 3" and "Final Fantasy XIII" too. The same for abstract games like "Tetris" or "Lumines", or competitive titles such as "Madden" or "PES" or MMORPG's. There's a conceptual relationship that hooks all these objects together - the concept of game. Now, you can't play "Mona Lisa", you can't win it or lose it, you do not need to develop skills to take pleasure from it, nor are there rules for how to approach it, nor rewards, nor punishments. The same for "The Iliad" or "Richard III" or Beethoven's 9th.
I'm not arguing that video-games equal games in a TV set. No. But I am saying that a vast majority of videogames are indeed descendant from traditional games and shape similar relationship with their audiences. And that my friends, is not art, but a game.
"It's fine (well, sort of a shame, but not the player's fault) if the game elements in The Void aren't an artistic expression. "
Not to me, but perhaps to you that may be true. Play it, and find out for yourself.
Cheers!
It's too bad that you don't seem so enthusiastic about "the game" in general, because I think the artistic future of video games lies in raising awareness of this defining possibility space. Heck, you say it yourself ("The authors are making a point with their rules, passing a message through metaphors"). Why not just go with it?
Let me illustrate my stance with The Beggar (http://www.brodiegames.com/beggar/). Try it if you haven't, it only takes a few minutes. Would you say that in this case, the gameplay (and I realize it IS gameplay, not mere interaction) "kills" the art? I would say that it makes it, and that just might be where we differ. In my view, any game featuring constant shifting odds (be it Rohrer's Gravitation, Demon's Souls, or even the under-appreciated Dead Rising) deserves consideration for the reactions it inspires in the player and the abstract notions it communicates about a certain state of being. Games of the "fooling around" variety and linear narrative games are mostly another bag, but even games like Metal Gear and Heavy Rain allow for a certain space of expression which I believe to be completely worthy of examination.
The ideal video game would take interaction beyond mere sensation. It would require the player to invest in a possibility space, explore it, and arrive to logical conclusions which may or may not have been fully envisioned by the designer. Few have fully realized that potential, but many have touched upon it, and you seem aware of that. And The Void may not do a particularly good job of balancing its "game" with its "art", as you reasonably argue, but the conflict of emotional states to which you refer might not become such a hindrance once we figure out how to mesh them with less of a clash.
Let me illustrate my stance with The Beggar (http://www.brodiegames.com/beggar/). Try it if you haven't, it only takes a few minutes. Would you say that in this case, the gameplay (and I realize it IS gameplay, not mere interaction) "kills" the art? I would say that it makes it, and that just might be where we differ. In my view, any game featuring constant shifting odds (be it Rohrer's Gravitation, Demon's Souls, or even the under-appreciated Dead Rising) deserves consideration for the reactions it inspires in the player and the abstract notions it communicates about a certain state of being. Games of the "fooling around" variety and linear narrative games are mostly another bag, but even games like Metal Gear and Heavy Rain allow for a certain space of expression which I believe to be completely worthy of examination.
The ideal video game would take interaction beyond mere sensation. It would require the player to invest in a possibility space, explore it, and arrive to logical conclusions which may or may not have been fully envisioned by the designer. Few have fully realized that potential, but many have touched upon it, and you seem aware of that. And The Void may not do a particularly good job of balancing its "game" with its "art", as you reasonably argue, but the conflict of emotional states to which you refer might not become such a hindrance once we figure out how to mesh them with less of a clash.
@DoctorTabarnac
Gameplay can serve an emotional point, and can make you feel or think in certain ways. That's great and I applaud that. But consider this difference: is the point of the game to understand such issues and feel those emotions, or to get better at it, in order to win it? The former is art, the latter a game. Chess or go! are not insipid or meaningless, they represent elegant metaphors for war and conflict, and they make you feel emotion, just look at a chess player's face when it lights up after a check mate. Debate all we can, these are still games.
"The ideal video game would take interaction beyond mere sensation. It would require the player to invest in a possibility space, explore it, and arrive to logical conclusions which may or may not have been fully envisioned by the designer.
But you are not talking "game", you're talking exploration, deduction and cognitive appraisal. Interaction can give you that.
"Few have fully realized that potential, but many have touched upon it, and you seem aware of that. And The Void may not do a particularly good job of balancing its "game" with its "art", as you reasonably argue, but the conflict of emotional states to which you refer might not become such a hindrance once we figure out how to mesh them with less of a clash."
Theoretically, I guess art could take form of a game and still be art, though that would probably kill the game in the first place. The moment there's no clash may result in something of an interesting hybrid - "Shadow of the Colossus" is a great example of such a feat. But, to me, it all depends on the relationship of the player/audience with the object. Do we play it? Do we try to win it?
Gameplay can serve an emotional point, and can make you feel or think in certain ways. That's great and I applaud that. But consider this difference: is the point of the game to understand such issues and feel those emotions, or to get better at it, in order to win it? The former is art, the latter a game. Chess or go! are not insipid or meaningless, they represent elegant metaphors for war and conflict, and they make you feel emotion, just look at a chess player's face when it lights up after a check mate. Debate all we can, these are still games.
"The ideal video game would take interaction beyond mere sensation. It would require the player to invest in a possibility space, explore it, and arrive to logical conclusions which may or may not have been fully envisioned by the designer.
But you are not talking "game", you're talking exploration, deduction and cognitive appraisal. Interaction can give you that.
"Few have fully realized that potential, but many have touched upon it, and you seem aware of that. And The Void may not do a particularly good job of balancing its "game" with its "art", as you reasonably argue, but the conflict of emotional states to which you refer might not become such a hindrance once we figure out how to mesh them with less of a clash."
Theoretically, I guess art could take form of a game and still be art, though that would probably kill the game in the first place. The moment there's no clash may result in something of an interesting hybrid - "Shadow of the Colossus" is a great example of such a feat. But, to me, it all depends on the relationship of the player/audience with the object. Do we play it? Do we try to win it?
I think that discussing the "point" of any given game can get very touchy. I mainly play GTA or Assassin's Creed to take in the scenery, behaving as calmly as possible ; many people play these same games to cause mayhem, collect the trinkets or move the story along. Can any of these attitudes be considered "wrong"? If anything, you could fault the designers for loosening the barriers and diluting the content so much that the "point" of their game is inevitably muddled, whereas a typical board game has the merit of clearly stating its rules and direction. But I still don't believe there is a "right" way to approach it.
I also realize that my use of the word "game" is largely a placeholder for lack of a better term. My French education has trained me to define game as any kind of "wiggle room", which has been prone to misunderstandings. I suppose the "ideal game" I hypothesize about would be devoid of winning conditions ; nothing more than a consequential set of variables.
In this regard, it is interesting that you mention Shadow of the Colossus, which I have just completed for the... fourth time, I think. Interesting because, as straightforward as it seems, it remains largely player-driven, and relies on a personal compulsion and determination to be seen through to the end. And as such, I think there is a flaw in Ebert's argument (and perhaps yours), in that this single-player narrative game is not so much "won" as "completed". To win the game would be to imply that there is an "optimal" way for it to conclude, whereas I don't personally value winning or losing in such a binary, live-or-die scenario. Losing a battle does not make the struggle and desperation of the hero any less palpable, as it is incarnated in the aesthetics of the game (Joseph Leray has elaborated nicely on the controls). Indeed, I believe the only reason that a player should "finish" a game, especially this one, is out of some morbid curiosity to see it brought to its logical end, bring some closure to it all, and move on to other things. The entirety of the play, even the unconventional and "improper" behavior of the player, should be seen as integral to its meaning.
I also realize that my use of the word "game" is largely a placeholder for lack of a better term. My French education has trained me to define game as any kind of "wiggle room", which has been prone to misunderstandings. I suppose the "ideal game" I hypothesize about would be devoid of winning conditions ; nothing more than a consequential set of variables.
In this regard, it is interesting that you mention Shadow of the Colossus, which I have just completed for the... fourth time, I think. Interesting because, as straightforward as it seems, it remains largely player-driven, and relies on a personal compulsion and determination to be seen through to the end. And as such, I think there is a flaw in Ebert's argument (and perhaps yours), in that this single-player narrative game is not so much "won" as "completed". To win the game would be to imply that there is an "optimal" way for it to conclude, whereas I don't personally value winning or losing in such a binary, live-or-die scenario. Losing a battle does not make the struggle and desperation of the hero any less palpable, as it is incarnated in the aesthetics of the game (Joseph Leray has elaborated nicely on the controls). Indeed, I believe the only reason that a player should "finish" a game, especially this one, is out of some morbid curiosity to see it brought to its logical end, bring some closure to it all, and move on to other things. The entirety of the play, even the unconventional and "improper" behavior of the player, should be seen as integral to its meaning.
Is a car with a cool design, which its author said was his "artistic expression" art? Come on, don't be so willing to simplify the matter.
How is the car different from a sculpture? There's a lot of art in auto design, all through the history of the automobile... fins and pointed tail-lights were popular in the 50's not because they were somehow functional or somehow tricked people into thinking so. It expressed the optimism of the atomic age and consumers had an enormous response to the sentiment.
The Dodge Viper I saw driving around town a while ago definitely counts as rolling art. Put next to any normal passenger car, the thing looks entirely alien and predatory... it gives a very clear impression that you're not looking at a "car" or even a "sports car" so much as some kind of animal that eats distance markers on highways.
Do you really think scholars would have spent centuries reflecting upon the very concept of art if something as simple as that phrase were true. It's not. Art is not easily defined, I'm sorry. The very idea of what is art and what isn't changes with times, its appreciation and cultural perception as well. We can debate wikipedia style what is true or not, or we can just accept that this is something which even experts, which we are not, struggle to clearly define. There are no easy answers.
My wife's the fine art major, not me, but according to her anything produced with artistic intent "is art". The creator's intention outwieghs any external judgement of the piece. Sure there's a constant churning of what's considered "good" art, but that's a very different discussion.
[i]Games have existed for as long as art has, and as a completely separate identity. A conceptual purist would be quick to point that, as the name so implies, video-games are just a branch of games[i]... in the same way that movies are "theater", or that renaissance paintings are "cave drawings".
The differences in technology gives the artist so much more expressive freedom that it's fair game to treat these things as categorically different from their primitive ancestors. Even with that said, presenting additional layers of meaning in the rules and pieces of a game is hardly new. Look at Chess and tell me it's not the most elegant burn of all time that the most mobile piece on the board is the Queen (she "gets around", giggity) or the piece with "crooked" moves is the Bishop.
In art, pleasure derives solely from decoding the semiotics, interpreting the semantic and appraising the aesthetic value of a piece.
This applies to games when you look at the rule system or possibilities for interaction as a whole, it's no different from exploring a piece of sculpture by examinging it from all possible angles. That's not to say most games are art. Few game designers try to produce artwork and fewer succeed (sorry Flower) but the potential is entirely there and seeing it realized every now and then is an amazing thing.
How is the car different from a sculpture? There's a lot of art in auto design, all through the history of the automobile... fins and pointed tail-lights were popular in the 50's not because they were somehow functional or somehow tricked people into thinking so. It expressed the optimism of the atomic age and consumers had an enormous response to the sentiment.
The Dodge Viper I saw driving around town a while ago definitely counts as rolling art. Put next to any normal passenger car, the thing looks entirely alien and predatory... it gives a very clear impression that you're not looking at a "car" or even a "sports car" so much as some kind of animal that eats distance markers on highways.
Do you really think scholars would have spent centuries reflecting upon the very concept of art if something as simple as that phrase were true. It's not. Art is not easily defined, I'm sorry. The very idea of what is art and what isn't changes with times, its appreciation and cultural perception as well. We can debate wikipedia style what is true or not, or we can just accept that this is something which even experts, which we are not, struggle to clearly define. There are no easy answers.
My wife's the fine art major, not me, but according to her anything produced with artistic intent "is art". The creator's intention outwieghs any external judgement of the piece. Sure there's a constant churning of what's considered "good" art, but that's a very different discussion.
[i]Games have existed for as long as art has, and as a completely separate identity. A conceptual purist would be quick to point that, as the name so implies, video-games are just a branch of games[i]... in the same way that movies are "theater", or that renaissance paintings are "cave drawings".
The differences in technology gives the artist so much more expressive freedom that it's fair game to treat these things as categorically different from their primitive ancestors. Even with that said, presenting additional layers of meaning in the rules and pieces of a game is hardly new. Look at Chess and tell me it's not the most elegant burn of all time that the most mobile piece on the board is the Queen (she "gets around", giggity) or the piece with "crooked" moves is the Bishop.
In art, pleasure derives solely from decoding the semiotics, interpreting the semantic and appraising the aesthetic value of a piece.
This applies to games when you look at the rule system or possibilities for interaction as a whole, it's no different from exploring a piece of sculpture by examinging it from all possible angles. That's not to say most games are art. Few game designers try to produce artwork and fewer succeed (sorry Flower) but the potential is entirely there and seeing it realized every now and then is an amazing thing.
"This applies to games when you look at the rule system or possibilities for interaction as a whole, it's no different from exploring a piece of sculpture by examining it from all possible angles."
Totally agreed.
Totally agreed.
"How is the car different from a sculpture?"
It has function. It serves a purpose. It does not exist for aesthetic appreciation. A designer made it, not an artist (look up the difference between design and art!). Surely, a car can be part of a sculpture if placed in a museum by an artist (what your wife sees as 'artistic intent'), but then it would no longer be a car, just in the same way as a car in a painting isn't a car. Because its function dies, and it can only be the subject of aesthetic appreciation in a specific physical medium. If a moving car could be art, then so could a chair be, or my PS3, or my bed, or any object crafted by man that involved creativity. But they are not art in any book I know of.
[/i]"... in the same way that movies are "theater", or that renaissance paintings are "cave drawings". "[/i]
Theater and Cave Paintings are art. Games are not. So film being similar to theater doesn't bother me. Video games being similar to games speaks tons of what they are, i.e. not art. This is not a case of what is better or more elegant. It is a case of definition. Chess is great but isn't art.
[/i]"This applies to games when you look at the rule system or possibilities for interaction as a whole, it's no different from exploring a piece of sculpture by examinging it from all possible angles. That's not to say most games are art. Few game designers try to produce artwork and fewer succeed (sorry Flower) but the potential is entirely there and seeing it realized every now and then is an amazing thing."[/i]
You can appreciate anything on that basis, but these objects do not invite such a reflection. I can appreciate cars and engines and factories and gadgets, and admire their complexities and what not, but none were created for such a purpose. They have a function. Games (and by extension, video games) are not created for aesthetic appreciation, but for the emerging of a play activity where players are invited to compete and win. Effectively, we can choose to look at games as more than they are, just as we can choose to do so with practically anything, but that doesn't change their nature and intent.
It has function. It serves a purpose. It does not exist for aesthetic appreciation. A designer made it, not an artist (look up the difference between design and art!). Surely, a car can be part of a sculpture if placed in a museum by an artist (what your wife sees as 'artistic intent'), but then it would no longer be a car, just in the same way as a car in a painting isn't a car. Because its function dies, and it can only be the subject of aesthetic appreciation in a specific physical medium. If a moving car could be art, then so could a chair be, or my PS3, or my bed, or any object crafted by man that involved creativity. But they are not art in any book I know of.
[/i]"... in the same way that movies are "theater", or that renaissance paintings are "cave drawings". "[/i]
Theater and Cave Paintings are art. Games are not. So film being similar to theater doesn't bother me. Video games being similar to games speaks tons of what they are, i.e. not art. This is not a case of what is better or more elegant. It is a case of definition. Chess is great but isn't art.
[/i]"This applies to games when you look at the rule system or possibilities for interaction as a whole, it's no different from exploring a piece of sculpture by examinging it from all possible angles. That's not to say most games are art. Few game designers try to produce artwork and fewer succeed (sorry Flower) but the potential is entirely there and seeing it realized every now and then is an amazing thing."[/i]
You can appreciate anything on that basis, but these objects do not invite such a reflection. I can appreciate cars and engines and factories and gadgets, and admire their complexities and what not, but none were created for such a purpose. They have a function. Games (and by extension, video games) are not created for aesthetic appreciation, but for the emerging of a play activity where players are invited to compete and win. Effectively, we can choose to look at games as more than they are, just as we can choose to do so with practically anything, but that doesn't change their nature and intent.
It has function. It serves a purpose. It does not exist for aesthetic appreciation. A designer made it, not an artist (look up the difference between design and art!).
We're not living in D&D. There's nothing to stop someone filling in both "designer" and "artist" in the box for character class... or to stop them from creating a functional object with aesthetic intent. Concept cars are created and presented at shows for aesthetic appreciation, and fashion is another example. Designers similarly make a distinction between clothes "as art" and practical wear, but they're all clothes.
I can appreciate cars and engines and factories and gadgets, and admire their complexities and what not, but none were created for such a purpose.
... unless they were. That's the game creator's choice. I could create a game where the rules expose my feelings about relationships or women or bipolar disorders or anger the same as I could write or paint about it. The game Rez was created as an expression of the creator's experience synesthaesia, the idea for that being based on another artist's paintings about the same thing.
We're not living in D&D. There's nothing to stop someone filling in both "designer" and "artist" in the box for character class... or to stop them from creating a functional object with aesthetic intent. Concept cars are created and presented at shows for aesthetic appreciation, and fashion is another example. Designers similarly make a distinction between clothes "as art" and practical wear, but they're all clothes.
I can appreciate cars and engines and factories and gadgets, and admire their complexities and what not, but none were created for such a purpose.
... unless they were. That's the game creator's choice. I could create a game where the rules expose my feelings about relationships or women or bipolar disorders or anger the same as I could write or paint about it. The game Rez was created as an expression of the creator's experience synesthaesia, the idea for that being based on another artist's paintings about the same thing.
Design isn't art. You're muddling concepts for the sake of argument, when there are proper definitions for these concepts. These nouns: 'art', 'design', 'game' have meaning. It may not be concise enough for borderline cases, of course, but it can be upheld for a majority of cases. Once you remove these concepts from their definition, you open floodgates: everything has artistic merit and aesthetic value thus everything is art. There's a reason for there only being 7 "accepted" art-forms. While these may be arguable, they're based on definitions of art and their acceptance from art scholars. If you want, you can discuss what you feel should be art or not based on your own preconceptions, but that seems pointless to me. Not everything is art.
"... unless they were. That's the game creator's choice. I could create a game where the rules expose my feelings about relationships or women or bipolar disorders or anger the same as I could write or paint about it. The game Rez was created as an expression of the creator's experience synesthaesia, the idea for that being based on another artist's paintings about the same thing."
I never said games can't get across a message about certain themes. Chess is a great metaphor for war, monopoly for the rules of economy and capitalist greed. While these are great games, they are not art, because art is not defined solely by some substrata of meaning. TV Shows get messages across as well, are they art?
You can create a game that is not meant to be played as a game, and whose rules serve only the point of getting a specific message across, but then it would no longer be game, and perhaps it could be art. However, once you make a point about these issues in the context of a game, it becomes more than just that 'message', it becomes a game, and games are competitive activities that are meant to be won by players. They serve a function outside the realm of aesthetic appreciation and they have a form which is widely known and studied, and has never been related to art. This is not a 'problem' for games, it's one of their defining features.
We don't need games to stop being games. Ebert knows and respects that and so do I. Why try and elevate games to art, something they are not, never have been and probably never will be? Do you even like art? Playing a game for 10 hours is a hell of a lot more fun than watching Mona Lisa in the Louvre. Isn't that the very reason you love games for? The minute they would truly become art, they would be like the Mona Lisa painting. Is that what you want?
Personally, I would like digital media to be a wider, more encompassing medium, that could foster both pure entertainment, i.e. videogames, and more profound experiences which I could call 'art'. But that's me. But I do not think that is what is going to happen, nor do I believe that is what you want.
The idea I get is that gamers (in general, not you in specific) keep arguing that video games are art, as that could be somehow validating of their hobby. They want them to be art, so as to pretend that what they are playing is something more or something more profound than it is. Game journalism has fed this trend by elevating pure games such as Halo or World of Warcraft or Half Life to a pedestal. But these aren't art... and that's fine. We don't need this 'art' validation. Games are, at least, as important as both cultural vehicles and forms of entertainment, as art itself. Some games have lasted far more time as part of human culture than any piece of art.
What you earn for are better, more meaningful and profound games, and I do to. I am sure they will exist in the future. But that has nothing to do with the art debate.
"... unless they were. That's the game creator's choice. I could create a game where the rules expose my feelings about relationships or women or bipolar disorders or anger the same as I could write or paint about it. The game Rez was created as an expression of the creator's experience synesthaesia, the idea for that being based on another artist's paintings about the same thing."
I never said games can't get across a message about certain themes. Chess is a great metaphor for war, monopoly for the rules of economy and capitalist greed. While these are great games, they are not art, because art is not defined solely by some substrata of meaning. TV Shows get messages across as well, are they art?
You can create a game that is not meant to be played as a game, and whose rules serve only the point of getting a specific message across, but then it would no longer be game, and perhaps it could be art. However, once you make a point about these issues in the context of a game, it becomes more than just that 'message', it becomes a game, and games are competitive activities that are meant to be won by players. They serve a function outside the realm of aesthetic appreciation and they have a form which is widely known and studied, and has never been related to art. This is not a 'problem' for games, it's one of their defining features.
We don't need games to stop being games. Ebert knows and respects that and so do I. Why try and elevate games to art, something they are not, never have been and probably never will be? Do you even like art? Playing a game for 10 hours is a hell of a lot more fun than watching Mona Lisa in the Louvre. Isn't that the very reason you love games for? The minute they would truly become art, they would be like the Mona Lisa painting. Is that what you want?
Personally, I would like digital media to be a wider, more encompassing medium, that could foster both pure entertainment, i.e. videogames, and more profound experiences which I could call 'art'. But that's me. But I do not think that is what is going to happen, nor do I believe that is what you want.
The idea I get is that gamers (in general, not you in specific) keep arguing that video games are art, as that could be somehow validating of their hobby. They want them to be art, so as to pretend that what they are playing is something more or something more profound than it is. Game journalism has fed this trend by elevating pure games such as Halo or World of Warcraft or Half Life to a pedestal. But these aren't art... and that's fine. We don't need this 'art' validation. Games are, at least, as important as both cultural vehicles and forms of entertainment, as art itself. Some games have lasted far more time as part of human culture than any piece of art.
What you earn for are better, more meaningful and profound games, and I do to. I am sure they will exist in the future. But that has nothing to do with the art debate.
@rui - you're going to have to go and fix Wikipedia's entry on art, the first two sentences of which go a little something like:
Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way to affect the senses or emotions. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression.
I hadn't read that until I decided to do some research for my reply here, but it's basically what Kat said. If you're talking about fine art, I won't argue because that's strictly in the hands of academia... the Modern Art movement was a response to that and said everything I would want to about the subject.
Back to art - if you tell me to draw a tiger and I draw a tiger, that's a drawing / sketch / rendering or whatever technical term. I'm just doing what you asked and there's no inherent meaning to the work. If you ask me how I'm feeling and I draw a tiger for you, that's artistic expression. I'm not opening the definition of 'art' to everything under the sun, just things that are deliberately given some meaning or aesthetic value and presented as such. A car that's shaped to look nice to prospective car buyers isn't art, there's no deeper meaning than "this is a car"... a car that's shaped to express the power of its engine or inspire a lust for speed is.
The games media promotes games as art because games are exactly like this. There are a growing number that offer much more meaningful experiences than just amusement or an entertaining challenge for the player to beat. Playing through Shadow of the Colossus was a more aesthetically meaningful experience for me than any movie I could name or anything I saw on my last trip through the art gallery in Toronto. For the record I've never ever seen Halo or WoW celebrated as "art". As good game design, yeah, art never. Journalists aren't as stupid as you're making them out to be.
Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way to affect the senses or emotions. It encompasses a diverse range of human activities, creations, and modes of expression.
I hadn't read that until I decided to do some research for my reply here, but it's basically what Kat said. If you're talking about fine art, I won't argue because that's strictly in the hands of academia... the Modern Art movement was a response to that and said everything I would want to about the subject.
Back to art - if you tell me to draw a tiger and I draw a tiger, that's a drawing / sketch / rendering or whatever technical term. I'm just doing what you asked and there's no inherent meaning to the work. If you ask me how I'm feeling and I draw a tiger for you, that's artistic expression. I'm not opening the definition of 'art' to everything under the sun, just things that are deliberately given some meaning or aesthetic value and presented as such. A car that's shaped to look nice to prospective car buyers isn't art, there's no deeper meaning than "this is a car"... a car that's shaped to express the power of its engine or inspire a lust for speed is.
The games media promotes games as art because games are exactly like this. There are a growing number that offer much more meaningful experiences than just amusement or an entertaining challenge for the player to beat. Playing through Shadow of the Colossus was a more aesthetically meaningful experience for me than any movie I could name or anything I saw on my last trip through the art gallery in Toronto. For the record I've never ever seen Halo or WoW celebrated as "art". As good game design, yeah, art never. Journalists aren't as stupid as you're making them out to be.
It's impossible to discuss this seriously if your reference resumes itself to a couple of lines taken from wikipedia. I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but that's the way it is.
"For the record I've never ever seen Halo or WoW celebrated as "art"."
I never said they were celebrated as art. I said they were placed on pedestals, in the sense they are renown as some of the finest examples of the medium. But wait a minute: if video games are art, and journalists aren't as dumb as I paint them, then the finest examples of an artistic medium should probably be art, no?
If everything that is meant to express something would be art, then almost everything would be art, because practically all processes of creative thinking express something (an emotion or idea). Even something as simple as a red blob can have an emotional point. For example, WoW and Halo. They express something, do they not? Their authors created worlds with living creatures, with character and emotion, nations in war, moral conflicts, epic narratives... These games are expressing something about their authors through their narratives, aesthetics and gameplay, so... they must be art. Maybe not good art, but art nonetheless.
This is why the concept of art can't be jumbled into two very general lines. By the same reasoning, everything could be art. Cars, chairs, TV shows, blockbuster films, comic-books, publicity, etc. So, if everything is art, why shouldn't games already be art? They're great, meaningful and artistic. Why are we discussing anything in the first place?
This ends here on my part. Cheers!
"For the record I've never ever seen Halo or WoW celebrated as "art"."
I never said they were celebrated as art. I said they were placed on pedestals, in the sense they are renown as some of the finest examples of the medium. But wait a minute: if video games are art, and journalists aren't as dumb as I paint them, then the finest examples of an artistic medium should probably be art, no?
If everything that is meant to express something would be art, then almost everything would be art, because practically all processes of creative thinking express something (an emotion or idea). Even something as simple as a red blob can have an emotional point. For example, WoW and Halo. They express something, do they not? Their authors created worlds with living creatures, with character and emotion, nations in war, moral conflicts, epic narratives... These games are expressing something about their authors through their narratives, aesthetics and gameplay, so... they must be art. Maybe not good art, but art nonetheless.
This is why the concept of art can't be jumbled into two very general lines. By the same reasoning, everything could be art. Cars, chairs, TV shows, blockbuster films, comic-books, publicity, etc. So, if everything is art, why shouldn't games already be art? They're great, meaningful and artistic. Why are we discussing anything in the first place?
This ends here on my part. Cheers!
@rui
I figured wikipedia might carry some wieght since a real-life reference with a bachelors' in fine art apparently doesn't count for anything.
You're trying to put a straw-man argument together around Halo and WoW. I've already said how most games *aren't* intended as artwork, they're no different from other "art" forms like writing, film, or photography in that regard. Usually pictures just mean to show what a thing place looks like. Art photography is different.
You think chairs as art is funny? I got a laugh out of Google. Results 1 - 10 of about 3,780,000 for chair sculpture... apparently people love themselves some chair-art. I'll co-sign if you want to start a cease-and-desist letter campaign to all these sculpters who are doing it wrong lol
I figured wikipedia might carry some wieght since a real-life reference with a bachelors' in fine art apparently doesn't count for anything.
You're trying to put a straw-man argument together around Halo and WoW. I've already said how most games *aren't* intended as artwork, they're no different from other "art" forms like writing, film, or photography in that regard. Usually pictures just mean to show what a thing place looks like. Art photography is different.
You think chairs as art is funny? I got a laugh out of Google. Results 1 - 10 of about 3,780,000 for chair sculpture... apparently people love themselves some chair-art. I'll co-sign if you want to start a cease-and-desist letter campaign to all these sculpters who are doing it wrong lol
Haha, the same :D. It's a good attempt at a definition, even though I don't think it works (but, then again, probably no definition of art could ever work). I disagree with his rebuttal of Ebert's (and my own's) most valid point, which he dismisses lightly in the least thought-out part of his article. Mostly, he commits a fatal mistake - to assume that gameplay is a novelty of video-games and that conceptually they sit far beyond games (which he admits, cannot be art). Anyways, nothing new. I dropped by a comment that sums up what I think, but after 5000 of my comments you're probably tired of reading my worn out speech by now! :D
Cheers!
Cheers!
I am glad to see such great discussion going on here. Each of you has brought on very strong points.
While I do not believe that games as a whole, or for the most part, are art, I feel there is still a chance for them to evolve. Videogames can involve players in ways that others cannot and when it is fully taken advantage of I feel that it can transcend the idea of a "game".
I have already experienced great emotions from in games, whether it is from playing something like Passage, or the narrative of the Max Payne games. They show me something that is not possible in another medium.
While I do not believe that games as a whole, or for the most part, are art, I feel there is still a chance for them to evolve. Videogames can involve players in ways that others cannot and when it is fully taken advantage of I feel that it can transcend the idea of a "game".
I have already experienced great emotions from in games, whether it is from playing something like Passage, or the narrative of the Max Payne games. They show me something that is not possible in another medium.
