Are Video Games Art?


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As I see it, a game is not art, but a game can include art in it. For example, each piece of music in a game is a piece of art, but does not make the game itself art.

This is mostly how I see it. There are games that I would consider art by them self like Heavy Rain but most games just contain art.

Its the same when you consider moving pictures, it may be a cinematic movie of it may be a documentary. Many cinematic movies are in them self art and contain art, but what about a documentary about art? Is that art in it self? It will contain a lot of art but I would in most cases not consider it art by itself. The same goes for any medium. My walls have paint on them but are not art, my paintings also have paint on them but are art. Books? I only have one book that I would consider art by itself and that is an old science book from the 19th century, the content of it is however not art. Then I have many books that contain art and many that don't, they are however not art to me, I don't put them on display to show them off.

For me there are two ways something can be art. One is if it was made to be art, then it will automatically qualify as art no mather how "bad" it is. Most paintings, sculptures, poems and things like that fall into this category. The second way is it is appreciated as art. My old book falls into this category, as do some games, maybe a beautiful car or even a piece of code.

Writing about it I think, that at least for me art is something that I want to show of and display for people.

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The Penny Arcade guys weighed in on this, and Jerry "Tycho" Holkins said everything I wanted to say, much better than I could ever say it:

Because I can't for the life of me figure out why we give a **** what that creature says. He doesn't operate under some divine shroud that lets him determine what is or is not valid culture. He cannot rob you, retroactively, of wholly valid experiences; he cannot transform them into worthless things.

He's simply a man determined to be on the wrong side of history, the wrong side of the human drive to create, and dreadfully so; a monument to the same generational bull**** that says because something has not been, it must not and could never be.

Link: http://www.penny-arcade.com/2010/4/21/

Art is completely subjective at the end of the day. In my opinion, even game development itself is an art form. And for what it's worth, Trent Reznor agrees with me :) (scroll to 27:50).

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I agree. It's just that Elliott seems to think that Ebert's opinion carries more weight because who he is.

Not at all. I just agree with Ebert's definition, so I'll defend it.

As for expanding art, that's great, but "art" is such a loose term that this will be a debate for a very long time. What's art to you is not art to somebody else. I personally think most of the stuff in NYC MoMA is much less deserving of being called "art" than most video games.

Art is completely subjective at the end of the day. In my opinion, even game development itself is an art form. And for what it's worth, Trent Reznor agrees with me :) (scroll to 27:50).

I agree that game development is an art. I think programming is an art. However, I don't think what I create in the end is necessarily art. Weird, I know, but just how I feel. :p

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As much as I love art within games, such as great soundtracks, graphics and narrative, a game itself can never be considered art. That's because the game experience is as much the individual, on-the-spot creation of each player as what the game statically contains. When we talk about art, be it music, photography, etc., we designate the creation of one or a group of individuals, offered to others to be enjoyed as-is; art is the product, not the creation.

In other words, a game is nothing unless someone plays it and creates a gameplay experience out of it. This experience will be different each time and for each person: the game itself is merely a set of boundaries and assets in which everyone creates its own experience.

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As much as I love art within games, such as great soundtracks, graphics and narrative, a game itself can never be considered art. That's because the game experience is as much the individual, on-the-spot creation of each player as what the game statically contains. When we talk about art, be it music, photography, etc., we designate the creation of one or a group of individuals, offered to others to be enjoyed as-is; art is the product, not the creation.

In other words, a game is nothing unless someone plays it and creates a gameplay experience out of it. This experience will be different each time and for each person: the game itself is merely a set of boundaries and assets in which everyone creates its own experience.

Sol Lewitt would like to have a few words with you :)

In these times, you cant encapsulate art's definition in such way.

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Sol Lewitt would like to have a few words with you :)
I'm not saying you can't define art as creation; but in the context of this discussion, if we want to argue on the same ground as Ebert, when we talk about "art" we talk about "works of art", productions. Music, photographs, paintings, architectures, movies, etc. Are games art in the same sense? That's what Ebert is arguing, and that's what I'm arguing. While Ebert dismisses games on the basis their artistic inferiority, I dismiss games on the basis that despite their great artistic value, they simply do not correspond to the same concept of art.
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I'm not saying you can't define art as creation; but in the context of this discussion, if we want to argue on the same ground as Ebert, when we talk about "art" we talk about "works of art", productions. Music, photographs, paintings, architectures, movies, etc. Are games art in the same sense? That's what Ebert is arguing, and that's what I'm arguing. While Ebert dismisses games on the basis their artistic inferiority, I dismiss games on the basis that despite their great artistic value, they simply do not correspond to the same concept of art.

But why not? There are interactive art pieces for decades now. How is this different to a videogame?

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But why not? There are interactive art pieces for decades now. How is this different to a videogame?
It's completely different. Interactive art is art in where the viewer's engagement goes beyond mental activity, but it's still mainly "something to be shown to people". Games are not to be shown, they are to be played. You seem to miss the dimension of intent behind art. The same product can be considered art or not depending on whether there's an artistic intent behind it. The fundamental motive behind games is not artistic but recreational. The intent is not for the user to try to understand the message behind the medium (and usually there is no message), or even just enjoy the medium for itself, it's for the user to carry out a set of tasks within a set of rules and have fun doing it.

The only way a game could be art is if the author's intent was truly to express some aesthetic values through it. Frankly I've yet to see a game like that. It would probably not be very fun to play, although it might appeal to some. What I see is that games use art as a mean to enhance the gameplay experience.

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As much as I love art within games, such as great soundtracks, graphics and narrative, a game itself can never be considered art. That's because the game experience is as much the individual, on-the-spot creation of each player as what the game statically contains. When we talk about art, be it music, photography, etc., we designate the creation of one or a group of individuals, offered to others to be enjoyed as-is; art is the product, not the creation.

In other words, a game is nothing unless someone plays it and creates a gameplay experience out of it. This experience will be different each time and for each person: the game itself is merely a set of boundaries and assets in which everyone creates its own experience.

What about a movie that needs to be interpreted (open-ended)? You do create a movie experience out if it that's specific for you.

Not all art is defined or set. Many are open to interpretation and personal analysis.

The fundamental motive behind games is not artistic but recreational.

The fundamental motive behind movies is not artistic but recreational. Do you agree? If you don't, then you have contradicting opinions.

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Anything that is used to entertain the brain can be called art imo. So, Video Games, are a form of art like painting, music or cinema and because of that, I think that Ebert made a pretty stupid statement.

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A recent journal post by famed movie critic Roger Ebert has caused a ruckus. He claims that video games can never be art. What do you think?

http://blogs.suntime...ver_be_art.html

I came upon this last week from reading a blog entry on Penny Arcade. Those two, of course, also think games are art. From their site, I watched the original presentation by Kellee Santiago (it was interesting), and then I read Ebert's piece. I found him to be patronizing (which I've heard from others is just "his style"), and he seemed to be purposefully missing some of the points she was trying to make. I agree with one of the commenters there who said that he "just doesn't get it." I encourage people to read some of the comments there. They're interesting, and some of them offer very specific responses to his statements.

It was clear to me that he has absolutely zero interest in video games for his own person entertainment, sees no social value in them, and even if he were presented with some of the games we might consider beautiful, emotional, or thought provoking, he would look on them with disdain as the trash of the entertainment world. Tycho of PA was right to refer to him as a "dinosaur". The fact that he thinks of films as "art" perfectly contradicts with the last slide shown by Santiago in her presentation (an irony that either escaped him, or he avoided), with a negative quote about films, as they were considered evil and corrupting toward their introduction.

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You seem to miss the dimension of intent behind art.

The only way a game could be art is if the author's intent was truly to express some aesthetic values through it.?

Believe me, I dont.

Hideo Kojima.

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Wow, I would far from consider Hideo Kojima an artist.

But as far as a game that is truly Art, there is one game, which is Linger In Shadows on PSN. The objective of this game is purely to display art, and it has no objectives or goals. It is just interactive art. (and pretty dull if you ask me)

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Wow, I would far from consider Hideo Kojima an artist.

I dont see why. His games are among the few studied by art theorists.

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The only way a game could be art is if the author's intent was truly to express some aesthetic values through it.

Look at these definitions of art.

http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+art&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Does it say in there, anywhere, that it is restricted to aesthetic qualities? Art is not only visual. Music, food (if you tell a Chef they aren't an artist they won't like it), video, modelling, etc. They are all meant to convey something to the viewer/consumer. The common misconception of art being a canvas in someones basement who does nothing but violently smacks art across that canvas is entirely wrong. That is a "fine" artist. One who works with physical mediums. An artist these days can be a fine artist, a digital artist, a music artist, a designer (these are just artists who make what other people want rather than what they want), an architect, etc.

Art is no longer something so niche as a painting. As long as it does what the person created it to do and causes the emotional/psychological reaction intended then it is art. And even then, some art is even arbitrary. An exploration in just that, the unintentional. Art is merely the end result of a process utilizing a medium in order to convey the artist's goal. The process, medium and goals are all variables and the fact it is art is always constant.

The only thing debatable about art is its quality and effectiveness and that is entirely subjective.

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What about a movie that needs to be interpreted (open-ended)? You do create a movie experience out if it that's specific for you.

Not all art is defined or set. Many are open to interpretation and personal analysis.

Of course art is all about your personal experience of it. We don't see the same things in it and we all appreciate it differently. But at least we're all watching (or listening to or whatever) the same thing.

You can't watch or listen to a game. It's entirely up to you to decide what's going to happen at any moment. You define what you're looking at and listening to at any point in time. You're not trying to understand someone else's vision, you are defining what's happening. Of course this takes place in a more or less restrictive universe composed of different kinds of artwork, but these are there to support a fundamental objective of providing you with gameplay, not artistic meaning.

Of course there are some games where you are little more than a spectator and which are not that different from interactive movies, but these are usually not regarded as good examples of games and are highly criticized.

Look at these definitions of art.

http://www.google.co...lient=firefox-a

Does it say in there, anywhere, that it is restricted to aesthetic qualities? Art is not only visual.

Look at the definition of aesthetics. There's nothing there that implies aesthetics is only visual. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics . I never meant to say that.
Art is merely the end result of a process utilizing a medium in order to convey the artist's goal.
I think that's a very good definition. Games do not fit it precisly because they are not an "end result", being nothing without the player creating action within it; and secondly because their purpose is not to convey any artist's goal, but to provide the player with opportunities for expressing his own creativity and having fun doing so.
Hideo Kojima.
I must say I felt Metal Gear Solid 4 was like watching a movie with short bursts of very linear gameplay, but as such it is a very bad example of a game and maybe (I don't know, I got bored of sitting there doing nothing after 20 minutes) a good example of an interactive movie, which would then qualify as art. But again this goes to show how art and games pursue different, conflicting objectives, and don't mix that well.
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