>are videogames art?
Wrong question.
The correct question should be either: "Can a (specific) videogame be considered art?"
or more generally:
"Are videogames an artform?"
Because the label of art can be only bestowed on a concrete object / act / technique, not to an entire medium. A medium can be considered an artform (artform is a medium capable of producing art - that does not necessarily mean that any of it's current products achieved such merrit, merely that they have the potential to do that one day).
The answer to these adjusted questions is obvious "Yes." Games have the potential to be considered art. In fact, in the vast majority of modern art-related academia, they have been considered as such for a long while, down to major game-dedicated exibitions in prominent art galleries, and many art supporting funds and programs now offering financial support to game projects that apply.
Not to mention legally, games have earned the same protection against censorship other art-forms have held since like 1994, at least in the US.
As for identifying which (if any) games trully achieved that status, that is for a much more complicated debate.
Personally, I can think of only handful of titles that I'm convinced deserve that honor. IPL games - Pathologic 1/2 and The Void in particular would be my most obvious choices. Some may reasonably argue for some other titles too, such as Shadow Of Colossus, Bastion, Journey or Disappearance of Obra Dinn... I think there is merrit to those suggestions, but I'm still not entirely convinced.
>Why do people honestly care about this discussion
Two reasons.
1) people like to talk about games, and this is part of the ongoing gaming debate.
2) Art is a label of prestige. Whenever we see games as potential art form or not affects both how we interpret them, and what kind of projects are or aren't encouraged in the medium. There is nothing wrong with such interest.
Because saying that video games aren't art to someone who enjoys playing video games is like saying that the hobby of that person is garbage.
It gets even worse when people who haven't played a single decent video game in their life makes the statement.
I have done both and still think that vidya are the better art medium even though their potential for interactive storytelling is still underutilized. Even discounting the interactivity, everything movies can, games can do too to a greater extent. Books don't map to games as well I think, but there is no reason not to enjoy both.
If you only play American corpo slop I can see why you feel that way, but I am sure that games which can emotionally resonate with you exist, you just need to find them.
I don't play US corposlop. I like games without story or less story the most (Deus Ex being the exception to this).
As for storytelling potential, you can be certain it will never be reached because the talent for it will never be there. There was hope 15-20 years ago, but not anymore. Not even with indies.
I think capitalism whether this board likes to admit it or not is the deeper issue at play. As long as releasing minimum effort rehashes is more profitable than actually putting effort in games, you will never get quality games.
Even if the creatives are talented, the executives will always rush them and not let them realize their vision or to maintain their fast release cycles. That also applies to devs, releasing a bug-free and optimized game isn't profitable, so why let them do it instead of rushing them to work on a new one.
Indies are better on this front for sure, but they too are commercialised (how are the devs going to survive if they don't get money?), with devs adhering to the current trends like metroidvanias, roguelikes etc, so innovation is stifled there as well.
The system itself is the issue. Not women, nor blacks, nor gays, nor trans people, nor talentless devs. Not even the consumer, placing the blame on the individual is an insidious scapegoat tactic .
If all companies are the same shit, voting with your wallet is meaningless. Even if a company is good initially, it will be forced to do bad shit eventually in order to turn a profit, lest it ends up bankrupt and consumed by a more successful company that did the shady shit.
The commies were unironically right all along, you can read Lenin for example and the state of monopoly capitalism he analyses is more or less the same as that of today only less worse
Chess and sports are not art.
Neither are storyless/more gameplay-focused games. It doesn't get much more basic than that.
The only reason why you want games to be considered art is because you're insecure about your interests and hobbies.
>Anyone who says otherwise hasn't read a single book in their lives
And how exactly does reading a book change your view about a completely different medium?
I'm convinced anyone who tells others they haven't read books is projecting because they think reading books will somehow completely change your perception of video games >or even watched a good film.
same thing with books above
Kinda agree, you will never find anything like War and Peace by Tolstoy or the Seventh Seal by Bergman in a videogame. The most that games can bring you is a nice emotional story, but it almost never goes deeper than that, they dont reflect enough on the human spirit and phylosophy aspects of life. The interactive part is like the childish aspect that ruins everything for me, it is not something that aims to enrich your spirit but more to keep you entertained with jumping around and slashing enemies.
You're wrong, game design is much like performance art in that it can demonstrate a deeper artistic message purely with actions and how the game guides the player. Of course you have no experience with this when all you play are Sony exclusives.
Not that anon that you replied to, but design and art is two different things. To keep it short, design is about functionality, output, and problem solving, while art is about expression, taste, and emotion. There's a broader definition of both art and design, but the things that is relevant to this topic are those three.
Game design is not a performance art, game design is literally about how the game is supposed to be played by the player, everything about UI, gameplay, how this character moves, what kind of enemy that your character will face, etc, its all part of game design.
There's no artistic deeper message demonstration, hence why this thing called GDD exist, to break down and tell the concept of the game in a rational language that is understandable to executives and the entire developer for that game project.
>design is about functionality, output, and problem solving, while art is about expression, taste, and emotion.
The artistic expression is the end goal of game design, that is literally the "problem" that's being "solved". >Game design is not a performance art, game design is literally about how the game is supposed to be played by the player
Why are those mutually exclusive? >There's no artistic deeper message demonstration
Why not?
In short you basically typed a whole lot of text to say absolutely nothing.
Pic is the only game praised by roger ebert. Some videogames can be art, but most arent as they are by design not art. If there is 1 game that makes use of the videogame format in an artistic direction that cant be replicated easily it would be what remains of edith finch.
>garbage tumblr art >writing so horrible not even the troon fans defend it >gameplay is 90% fighting out of place bunnys
It is the equivalent of modern art
Ebert's opinion is just as invalid as Hitchwiener's though, because they refused to consider certain aspects artistic simply because those aspects are not present in the media they consumed or produced. If they were cavemen, they would have rejected written stories as art because they use text instead of just cave painting. If they were renaissance men, they would have rejected music recordings as art because those use machinery and not just live performances and writing. If they were radio hosts, they would have rejected movies as art because those use moving pictures instead of just recorded sound. And because they were movie guys, they rejected videogames as art because those use interactivity instead of just moving pictures and sound. These are not people of authority. Failure to consider new avenues of conveying meaning and emotions is a failure at being an art critic. Even if that new medium is used in a shitty way to produce art, rejecting it as a form of art makes your opinion less valid than it would be to be mistaken about its quality.
Also, in order to have a game where all of its content can be easily replicated in a different medium, the game needs to not be a game. It can't be interactive, because interactivity is what separates it from the other media. And that's also the thing that critics like Ebert rejected out of hand, and invalidated their own opinions as a result.
is the architect the artist or is the builder?
what about those who created the tools that the artist uses? did they contribute?
if you're being paid are you truly an artist?
if da vinci had painted mona lisa with blood and shit instead of paint is it still art?
People who think video games are le art belongs in the same moron cage with druckmann and other snoy games director.
With that mindset, you'll make le ebin moobie games and le cool presentashun level desing, instead of a good video games
Lmao
pirating is literally the reason why games back then make gorrillion of profits and put these studio in their comfortable place right now. Without pirate and pirating culture, none of those studio will survive the unforgiving video game market in 2000-2010.
Studio and gamedev OWE their lives to pirates
Yes but I want to stay far the frick away from people who share my opinion, because usually they only give a shit that games are art so that they can rigidly define the distinction between a game that is a "toy, that needs to grow up" and "My grimdark oscarbait game that makes the player put the controller down every 5 minutes so the main character can brood and introspect about how much he hates [the main way the player interfaces with the game]"
Like, there are other kinds of art than ones that invoke negativity, but apparently some AAA devs and gaming journalists didn't get the fricking memo.
Isnt it funny how sodomites draw twinks that look like 15yo boys? Woah what a fricking coincidence. How fricking surprising that all homosexuals are pedophiles!
Not even 18yos look like this. No male above the age of 16 looks like this unless you groom them into HRT, and even then they do not keep the obviously young teen body proportions.
Femboy/yaoi shit is pedophilia. All homosexuals are pedophiles. You would frick a male teen minor if you could because in your porn rotten brain, thats just what a "twink femboy" looks like. You are just a pederast homosexual.
No, and people need to stop treating them as art. Video games are supposed to be a fun activity to play with, but now we have homosexuals like you who desperately want to feel mature and paint video games as some "interactive and diverse" experience. This is honestly the reason why modern gaming is shit. why well known movie actors are plastered in face scan slop while there is no gameplay and just walking around in glorified cutscenes with super duper realistic graphics. Which is why we have nuGOW, last of us, and indie shit about depression.
Pong is not art. It has no graphics, no writing and no music. Therefore, 0% of the production used any artistic medium. Tetris is partially art. It has no graphics, no writing, but it does have music. Then you have something like Rockstar games, which are vapid shit, but technically they are mostly art because the vast majority of effort in the production was put into graphics, writing and music.
The real question is... are some things even videogames? Metal Gear Solid 2 consists 75% of cutscenes and conversations, so the majority of the product is things that are characteristic of other entertainment media than vidya.
>Some< video games are art.
Most of them are dumb media. But when a developer pours their unaltered vision into their game, art can come out in video game form.
What makes a good video game doesn’t necessarily make good art, but the parts that make up a video game (such as its script or its graphics) can qualify as literature or art.
Video games are just toys that need to be interesting enough for people to buy them. It’s like comparing TV commercials to independent films where the director is the producer. Main problem with games is that an independent artist will never get the budget to create a game that expresses his artistic vision at a quality standard that is competitive with half billion dollar corporate products
>Main problem with games is that an independent artist will never get the budget to create a game that expresses his artistic vision at a quality standard that is competitive with half billion dollar corporate products
But literally every big production has a director which express his artistic vision into the project.
there is artistry in the design and construction of a comfortable chair
of course there is artistry in the design and construction of a fun video game.
Why do people honestly care about this discussion
Because people feel insecure about playing games at a certain age. They want it desperately to be seen as art
Because it can increase its public legitimacy.
>are videogames art?
Wrong question.
The correct question should be either: "Can a (specific) videogame be considered art?"
or more generally:
"Are videogames an artform?"
Because the label of art can be only bestowed on a concrete object / act / technique, not to an entire medium. A medium can be considered an artform (artform is a medium capable of producing art - that does not necessarily mean that any of it's current products achieved such merrit, merely that they have the potential to do that one day).
The answer to these adjusted questions is obvious "Yes." Games have the potential to be considered art. In fact, in the vast majority of modern art-related academia, they have been considered as such for a long while, down to major game-dedicated exibitions in prominent art galleries, and many art supporting funds and programs now offering financial support to game projects that apply.
Not to mention legally, games have earned the same protection against censorship other art-forms have held since like 1994, at least in the US.
As for identifying which (if any) games trully achieved that status, that is for a much more complicated debate.
Personally, I can think of only handful of titles that I'm convinced deserve that honor. IPL games - Pathologic 1/2 and The Void in particular would be my most obvious choices. Some may reasonably argue for some other titles too, such as Shadow Of Colossus, Bastion, Journey or Disappearance of Obra Dinn... I think there is merrit to those suggestions, but I'm still not entirely convinced.
>Why do people honestly care about this discussion
Two reasons.
1) people like to talk about games, and this is part of the ongoing gaming debate.
2) Art is a label of prestige. Whenever we see games as potential art form or not affects both how we interpret them, and what kind of projects are or aren't encouraged in the medium. There is nothing wrong with such interest.
Because saying that video games aren't art to someone who enjoys playing video games is like saying that the hobby of that person is garbage.
It gets even worse when people who haven't played a single decent video game in their life makes the statement.
those made by Kojima, yes
Yes.
they're SHART
Yeah, it kind of feels like they shouldn't be, but they are.
reminds me of omori except that the left dude isnt that gay looking and the right dude still has his eyes.
me on the right
They're not. Anyone who says otherwise hasn't read a single book in their lives or even watched a good film.
Go play Final Fantasy 8 and say that again
I have done both and still think that vidya are the better art medium even though their potential for interactive storytelling is still underutilized. Even discounting the interactivity, everything movies can, games can do too to a greater extent. Books don't map to games as well I think, but there is no reason not to enjoy both.
If you only play American corpo slop I can see why you feel that way, but I am sure that games which can emotionally resonate with you exist, you just need to find them.
I don't play US corposlop. I like games without story or less story the most (Deus Ex being the exception to this).
As for storytelling potential, you can be certain it will never be reached because the talent for it will never be there. There was hope 15-20 years ago, but not anymore. Not even with indies.
I think capitalism whether this board likes to admit it or not is the deeper issue at play. As long as releasing minimum effort rehashes is more profitable than actually putting effort in games, you will never get quality games.
Even if the creatives are talented, the executives will always rush them and not let them realize their vision or to maintain their fast release cycles. That also applies to devs, releasing a bug-free and optimized game isn't profitable, so why let them do it instead of rushing them to work on a new one.
Indies are better on this front for sure, but they too are commercialised (how are the devs going to survive if they don't get money?), with devs adhering to the current trends like metroidvanias, roguelikes etc, so innovation is stifled there as well.
The system itself is the issue. Not women, nor blacks, nor gays, nor trans people, nor talentless devs. Not even the consumer, placing the blame on the individual is an insidious scapegoat tactic .
If all companies are the same shit, voting with your wallet is meaningless. Even if a company is good initially, it will be forced to do bad shit eventually in order to turn a profit, lest it ends up bankrupt and consumed by a more successful company that did the shady shit.
The commies were unironically right all along, you can read Lenin for example and the state of monopoly capitalism he analyses is more or less the same as that of today only less worse
Good story is not needed for something to be art.
Chess and sports are not art.
Neither are storyless/more gameplay-focused games. It doesn't get much more basic than that.
The only reason why you want games to be considered art is because you're insecure about your interests and hobbies.
>Storyless
Guess no "art" is art then.
>he thinks art has to be "good"
>Anyone who says otherwise hasn't read a single book in their lives
And how exactly does reading a book change your view about a completely different medium?
I'm convinced anyone who tells others they haven't read books is projecting because they think reading books will somehow completely change your perception of video games
>or even watched a good film.
same thing with books above
Kinda agree, you will never find anything like War and Peace by Tolstoy or the Seventh Seal by Bergman in a videogame. The most that games can bring you is a nice emotional story, but it almost never goes deeper than that, they dont reflect enough on the human spirit and phylosophy aspects of life. The interactive part is like the childish aspect that ruins everything for me, it is not something that aims to enrich your spirit but more to keep you entertained with jumping around and slashing enemies.
You're wrong, game design is much like performance art in that it can demonstrate a deeper artistic message purely with actions and how the game guides the player. Of course you have no experience with this when all you play are Sony exclusives.
Not that anon that you replied to, but design and art is two different things. To keep it short, design is about functionality, output, and problem solving, while art is about expression, taste, and emotion. There's a broader definition of both art and design, but the things that is relevant to this topic are those three.
Game design is not a performance art, game design is literally about how the game is supposed to be played by the player, everything about UI, gameplay, how this character moves, what kind of enemy that your character will face, etc, its all part of game design.
There's no artistic deeper message demonstration, hence why this thing called GDD exist, to break down and tell the concept of the game in a rational language that is understandable to executives and the entire developer for that game project.
>design is about functionality, output, and problem solving, while art is about expression, taste, and emotion.
The artistic expression is the end goal of game design, that is literally the "problem" that's being "solved".
>Game design is not a performance art, game design is literally about how the game is supposed to be played by the player
Why are those mutually exclusive?
>There's no artistic deeper message demonstration
Why not?
In short you basically typed a whole lot of text to say absolutely nothing.
Dark souls 1
Movies are not art either
>muh israeli slop le watching video is le art
Frick off homosexual
I have done all of that and videogames are art.
It doesn't matter if it is or it isn't. It just matters what it means to you personally.
personally i hate videogames
art today is spelled with an f
>something contains art
>is it art
are you by chance moronic
An art gallery is a work of art because it is a piece of architecture. The building itself is not art by merit that it contains paintings.
Likewise video games are art because game design is an artistic medium, not because they also contain other mediums.
you do realise architecture is considered art too right?
your analogy is only supporting my point
Is your point that you're an illiterate moron?
Yes.
They are, but art doesn't imply merit or value.
Omori?
Pic is the only game praised by roger ebert. Some videogames can be art, but most arent as they are by design not art. If there is 1 game that makes use of the videogame format in an artistic direction that cant be replicated easily it would be what remains of edith finch.
>garbage tumblr art
>writing so horrible not even the troon fans defend it
>gameplay is 90% fighting out of place bunnys
It is the equivalent of modern art
Ebert's opinion is just as invalid as Hitchwiener's though, because they refused to consider certain aspects artistic simply because those aspects are not present in the media they consumed or produced. If they were cavemen, they would have rejected written stories as art because they use text instead of just cave painting. If they were renaissance men, they would have rejected music recordings as art because those use machinery and not just live performances and writing. If they were radio hosts, they would have rejected movies as art because those use moving pictures instead of just recorded sound. And because they were movie guys, they rejected videogames as art because those use interactivity instead of just moving pictures and sound. These are not people of authority. Failure to consider new avenues of conveying meaning and emotions is a failure at being an art critic. Even if that new medium is used in a shitty way to produce art, rejecting it as a form of art makes your opinion less valid than it would be to be mistaken about its quality.
Also, in order to have a game where all of its content can be easily replicated in a different medium, the game needs to not be a game. It can't be interactive, because interactivity is what separates it from the other media. And that's also the thing that critics like Ebert rejected out of hand, and invalidated their own opinions as a result.
The games I like are art
is the architect the artist or is the builder?
what about those who created the tools that the artist uses? did they contribute?
if you're being paid are you truly an artist?
if da vinci had painted mona lisa with blood and shit instead of paint is it still art?
People who think video games are le art belongs in the same moron cage with druckmann and other snoy games director.
With that mindset, you'll make le ebin moobie games and le cool presentashun level desing, instead of a good video games
>instead of a good video games
I don't care what turd worlders have to say about video games when they create none of them.
Consoomer is the kangz.
Without consoomer, all your pleb and self entitled devs will become mcd drive thru wagies
You mean pirating? Thanks for proving his point I guess.
Lmao
pirating is literally the reason why games back then make gorrillion of profits and put these studio in their comfortable place right now. Without pirate and pirating culture, none of those studio will survive the unforgiving video game market in 2000-2010.
Studio and gamedev OWE their lives to pirates
Yes but I want to stay far the frick away from people who share my opinion, because usually they only give a shit that games are art so that they can rigidly define the distinction between a game that is a "toy, that needs to grow up" and "My grimdark oscarbait game that makes the player put the controller down every 5 minutes so the main character can brood and introspect about how much he hates [the main way the player interfaces with the game]"
Like, there are other kinds of art than ones that invoke negativity, but apparently some AAA devs and gaming journalists didn't get the fricking memo.
"Art" is a buzzword. Therefore the question is irrelevant.
No
Blonde twink sit on my wiener!!
No because they are games first and foremost and there is nothing wrong with that despite what insecure people tell you
It's funny how low-IQ Gankertards inadvertently agree with moviegame journos. They both think that video games NEED to be movies to be art.
No, you fricking imbeciles, games are art BECAUSE of the gameplay and interactive aspects, not IN SPITE of it.
Isnt it funny how sodomites draw twinks that look like 15yo boys? Woah what a fricking coincidence. How fricking surprising that all homosexuals are pedophiles!
Not even 18yos look like this. No male above the age of 16 looks like this unless you groom them into HRT, and even then they do not keep the obviously young teen body proportions.
Femboy/yaoi shit is pedophilia. All homosexuals are pedophiles. You would frick a male teen minor if you could because in your porn rotten brain, thats just what a "twink femboy" looks like. You are just a pederast homosexual.
No, and people need to stop treating them as art. Video games are supposed to be a fun activity to play with, but now we have homosexuals like you who desperately want to feel mature and paint video games as some "interactive and diverse" experience. This is honestly the reason why modern gaming is shit. why well known movie actors are plastered in face scan slop while there is no gameplay and just walking around in glorified cutscenes with super duper realistic graphics. Which is why we have nuGOW, last of us, and indie shit about depression.
your mums blowjobs are art
Yes, but art can be bad. Like just straight up shit.
If you're trying to prove games aren't shit by proving they're art, then you're wrong.
Pong is not art. It has no graphics, no writing and no music. Therefore, 0% of the production used any artistic medium. Tetris is partially art. It has no graphics, no writing, but it does have music. Then you have something like Rockstar games, which are vapid shit, but technically they are mostly art because the vast majority of effort in the production was put into graphics, writing and music.
The real question is... are some things even videogames? Metal Gear Solid 2 consists 75% of cutscenes and conversations, so the majority of the product is things that are characteristic of other entertainment media than vidya.
alan wake 2 is art
No
yes. end of story.
God I wish I had a bf
you gays keep saying this, but what kind of dude are you even looking for?
"real art"
>Some< video games are art.
Most of them are dumb media. But when a developer pours their unaltered vision into their game, art can come out in video game form.
Yes, but not in the same way as other mediums.
cute picture. got more and or source?
>are videogames art?
yes
They can be, the vast majority is not, same as with books and film.
Art was just people trying to come up with videogames. We have ape escape now. It's like still keeping the tuning up on the record.
What video game comes to mind when you think of "art"?
Would it be seen as such by the main audience or just yourself?
>not a single reply
Guess that answers the question of this thread.
Yiik is the only artistic game
>b-b-but
You should have a nice day if you disagree
What makes a good video game doesn’t necessarily make good art, but the parts that make up a video game (such as its script or its graphics) can qualify as literature or art.
Not only videogames aren't art but they cannot be art.
Name 1 (one) story telling medium that is not art, other than video games
Video games are just toys that need to be interesting enough for people to buy them. It’s like comparing TV commercials to independent films where the director is the producer. Main problem with games is that an independent artist will never get the budget to create a game that expresses his artistic vision at a quality standard that is competitive with half billion dollar corporate products
>Main problem with games is that an independent artist will never get the budget to create a game that expresses his artistic vision at a quality standard that is competitive with half billion dollar corporate products
But literally every big production has a director which express his artistic vision into the project.
Videogames are not art, videogames are sports. Normalhomosexual filth will seethe at this post.
there is artistry in the design and construction of a comfortable chair
of course there is artistry in the design and construction of a fun video game.
Yeah, pretty great art as well.
Is it true there's a wave of illness going around lately? I got insanely lightheaded and tender all over my body.
I would argue ocarina of time made more young people feel something than any painting that ever existed
Yes.
post more cute boys now
No they're toys
Is hentai art?
Why wouldn't it be?
Art doesn't exist
Gay sex with cute boys