The whole 'games as art' debate is getting very tired now, with people on both sides of the fence doing little more than scoring points for their own preferred medium of entertainment, but this is one of the funnier examples of the argument, if only for the fact that it typifies those who refuse to accept videogames as art perfectly -- they absolutely suck at games and can't understand them.
The Washington Post's 58-year-old book critic, Michael Dirda, spent a week with the widely praised BioShock without any help from mommy and daddy, and managed to get all the way to Neptune's Bounty, even though he hasn't worked out how to use First Aid kits in the game. He has one, he just doesn't know how to make it work. "I've got a first-aid kit, but I haven't figured out how to use it," he whines in what most gamers would call a cry for help.
Dirda admitted that what he managed to play of the game had artistic merit and was immersive, but that wasn't enough to qualify it as art for him. Apparently, something isn't art for Dirda unless it allows you to be depressed which ... is a new one. It seems that the only thing that qualifies as art then is anything by Nine Inch Nails. Or American Idol ... I know watching that show depresses the Hell out of me. Dirda rules that until games are depressing, they aren't allowed to be art. Seriously, how is it that people can decide what makes something art based on such random and arbitrary reasons? And who in their right mind has been depressed by a painting? I could claim paintings aren't art because paintings can be framed and anything that is in a frame isn't art. It's just as nonsensical and random as Dirda's argument, yet he believes what he says holds merit.
Hit the jump for more. You know how to do that, right?
Of course, many games have had sad moments, despite this book critic's statement. I'm sure I can get one or two of you to admit you wept when Sephiroth killed Aeris. Even I will admit that several games have gotten to my emotions before. Since the last game Dirda played before BioShock was Myst, he doesn't even have the authority to say that games can't be depressing. Play more games, then come back and try again, ignoramus. We've moved on from the days of Galaga.
Ken Levine, the outspoken man behind BioShock, probably has the right idea in his own rebuttal to Dirda's claims. "Is BioShock art? I don't know, and I guess I sort of don't care," he answered. "All I care about is, does it work -- does it have an impact on an audience?" Any of us without a stone heart was definitely affected by BioShock, and nobody can argue it wasn't an artistic triumph. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be enough for some people who often give off signs that they find the relatively new medium of videogames almost threatening.
Claiming that something isn't art is a purely pretentious practice, since art is boundless, unclassifiable and totally subjective. Videogames are art because I say videogames are art. You can't debate this with me because you can't debate the validity of things that are made valid only by one's own personal perception. Anybody who tries to resist such logic can do nought but fail.
Contest:
2:34 PM on 09.17.2007
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Also... cocks.
"The trouble is we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can't lick 'em, join 'em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy."
Lay off the guy. Also, rocks.
it should hang in the Smithsonian.
According to some artist here, Art is something that an elite of artists recognizes as such... (Don't get me started on the who's an artist issue)... There are a lot of artists in the gaming community, so it's art.
If dada did it, why not us?
now to say that they arent art simply because theyre interactive isnt right because you can go to any major city and find a statue mime(I have no idea what theyre actually called but statue mime will work for now)
they stand perfectly still until someone either puts a nickel in their bucket or touches them, then they interact silently like some kind of robot with the audience... its very interesting and is most definitly art...
you know what I could go on for hours about this, I'm going to write a cblog after I get back from class.
Most artistic game of all time?
Biohock is art because it beautifully blends all of the aspects together in a wonderfully moody package. The music tips off the graphics which tipoff the gameplay which tips off the sound which tips off the music. Bioshock is a great example of balance. If it had a pH level, It would be a 7.(Biology joke!)
What was the last movie you watched that allowed you to control the camera and ultimately the outcome of the story?
What was the last album you listened to that had 5.1 directional sound you could control in real-time? (Flaming Lips excluded!)
What was the last book you read that had bump mapped, vertex-shaded, volumetric EVERYTHING?
Traditional media is doomed.
I'm so lost as to how he could even think about considering critiquing something without seeing all of it.
"Oh yes the corner of this painting is too blue, I donl't like it"
"Sir that is just the sky"
"Well I don't want to look at the rest."
But there is a fundamental difference between what I would do and what this guy did. I would not say that a book on epic geology can't be art because it doesn't depress me, nor would I make ANY claims on its artistic merit, given my lack of experience in the field.
This guy had no expertise in the field of games, yet judged the medium anyway. I do not judge artistic mediums that I have no experience in. Even those people who throw their own feces at a canvas and call it art, I'm not going to say it isn't. I may find it personally appalling, it may not impress me, but if someone finds it art, if it has an affect on somebody, then I have no place to argue. I simply cannot debate someone's perception, if perception is what gives art life.
I don't buy into the risky business of categorising art, I try and avoid it as much as possible, because I think art is subjective. It relates to people, not to society as a whole. If he says it's not art, then it's not art to him. I mean, Madden might be art to some people, and that's up to them. I don't agree with them but I don't ridicule them for it; that's getting close to childishness, and makes you no better than the fanboys that we all spend our evenings ripping the wank out of.
Let's get literal for a minute. We can piss all over Jack Thompson (collectively) because he is an attention whoring, money making, smarmy, arrogant, idiotic, alarmist bastard on so, so many levels. He doesn't back his shit up with logic, he ignores facts in favour of his own lies and twisted truths, and he does it all under the guise of "protecting the chilluns". But this guy isn't Jack Thopmson. He's put the effort in. He's spent a week with it and gotten to Neptunes Bounty on Medium even though he has never played a console shooter in his life. Hell, I found Bioshock hard on medium, and I've been playing games my whole life. He's made a considered and thoughtful opinion on what he's played, and he's backed it up with logic, albeit a bit misguided.
Also, "I simply cannot debate someone's perception, if perception is what gives art life."
But that's what you're doing right now. This is his perception of art, his perception of what he played, and he's categorising the game accordingly. He's not saying "gamers are all idiots if they think this is art", he's saying "I wouldn't go so far as to call it art".
It's a fair comment to say that you shouldn't judge a medium if you have a limited perception of it, I agree. However, that's my opinion, and I'm not going to call someone out for judging it based on his experiences. We're never going to have a full, utter, universal, incomparable understanding of anything, anyway. Maybe it's more valid if you have more experience, but certainly not worth ridiculing people with less experience than you.
This is becoming somewhat ironic, seeing as I'm technically criticising the act of criticism, so maybe I should just shut my fat pretencious gob and watch my girlfriend play Viva Pinata.
QFT.
a miserable pile of shit.
enough now have at thee
seriously , if its a form of expression , it can be called art right? i mean if i shit on a bucket and shower myself with it , i could be trying to point the situation society finds itself today.
so when im shooting drug adicts with super powers and making a decision to either kill or let live a little child , it is my way of expressing myself. thus making the player an artist here.
as for the developers , they createad a world , a city , ideals , paranoias , a plot an enviroment that is almost a world of its own without you interacting with it , that is art for me.
but that just my opnion right? what do i know right? im just a vidya player.
Anyway OED defines art as "1: humab creative skill or its application" and I think Bioshock has this in spades
Level Design is art: Just as the director's job in a movie is to guide the audience so is the level designer who is repsonsible for everything visceral.
Concept art and level art...is art: Actual position in development of an employee is coined:"ART DIRECTOR, ARTIST" etc...So by definition they would be producing ART as it is created and creativity is art.
Creative director is art: The entire gaming experience and world is created by this man in this position.
Now gameplay, RPG mechanics is not art, it is the crutch of video games which seperates it from movies and pits you back into reality as when game mechanics fail thus yields frustration.
A picture can take you out of reality, so can a movie, so can a song. But video games have a harder time doing that when the gameplay mechanics fail.
Peace.
(when they don't fail, they succeed in escaping reality)
I have felt real emotions from video games. And not just the movies in the games. I mean actually playing them.
Spoilers.
I felt very depressed while playing Final Fantasy VI and trying to catch fish to keep my fake dad alive. I felt very sad, and grateful, when my horse died in Shadow of the Colossus. And tell me that you weren't sad when your Nintendog ran away after you didn't feed it for a week.
Tell me. Tell me this and I tell you you are a liar.
Really though, it should have made him somewhat depressed to harvest little girls and to think about what happened to Rapture as a whole.
It should be depressing enough to make hamburger out of someone's face with a pipe wrench. You'd think some of that stuff would have some kind of impact, emotionally or otherwise, for anybody.
Games are no different than books in the sense that the creators try to immerse us in a world they've created for us to enjoy (or fear).
Games take it that extra step though and allow us to choose the path to the characters' ultimate destination.
I do understand what this guy is trying to say, but why is he trying to say it?
What`s not so fine is the way he based his opinion on. I mean, Neptune`s Bounty... that`s like not even 1 hour into the game.
You wouldn`t watch the godfather movie, with the volume turned to muted on a black and white TV. And after 20 Minutes, in which you didn`t understand a single word since you can`t hear anything and are not able to read lips you turn of the TV and say "That movie is not art because I din`t get it." That`s one ridicolous wrong way of reviewing any media. I mean, he doesn`t review books he only read the introduction of, does he? So what makes him think he can do that with a videogame?
Retard.
"Dirda said the game showed him that video games 'obviously have artistic value' and will likely become more of a recognized art form."
"I didn't get the feeling that Dirda's going to run out and buy an Xbox. But, then again, he did ask to hold on to his review copy of BioShock."
Not only do they have the graphics (painting and drawing), there is also the storytelling (novels, poems, songs). Some games have both, some more than other. Some have one, or less in some degree, but even madden is art. And, even if you don't agree, modern art is still"art".
As long as someone (or a group in a video game's case) put themselves into what they are creating, be it they gameplay, the programing, the graphics, or the story; then it is art. I dare you to tell the people that worked on these games that they haven't put themselves into it...they have spent countless hours doing so.
Everything is Art,
To define, belittles it,
Made through perception.
And i cite "if you dont know what you are doing then it must be art".
Seriously, it's just past you at that point (and I don't mean to generalize; I think the jellyfish analogy was funny).
But sursly folks; is Bioshock art? Depends on what you wanted out of it. If you wanted to shoot some baddies and throw some lightnings, then it was a game. If you wanted to see how far technology has come in representing a virtual world, than it was an interesting distraction.
But... if you paused the first time you were presented with harvesting a little sister. If for just a second you felt a little unsure, and then worried because the decision was up to you and no one else...
well...
I'll leave that up to you.