Official Off-Topic Thread

[AdamAtomic]

The idea that video games are the only interactive art form is patently ridiculous.  If novels, paintings, film and theater were not interactive we would not enjoy them even a little bit.  The fact that you as the audience or reader are constantly reconstructing and reorganizing the narrative, judging the characters, wondering what will happen next...these are all the things that make these art forms what they are.  Video games merely extend this process into the literal.

by that logic, a bird in flight, completely beyond my power, is interactive.  I can wonder where it came from, where it's going, condemn it as unintelligent or worship its freedom from human "rationality."  This doesn't make the bird interactive, it only means that I am alive and that my perception of the world's output is subjective.

videogames, on the other hand, are one of few art forms (there is an excessive amount of interactive installation and performance art that was forgotten in the list) where the users input changes the output.  That is a dramatic and vital difference and it's both an expanding and a limiting factor depending on the context.

That's a pretty crazy stretch   Film of a bird in flight in the context of an entire film, or a painting of a bird in flight, is to me VERY different from simply seeing a bird outside, because there is a director or a photographer or a painter interpreting and changing it and showing it to us in their own way.  Viewing or consumption of artistic works IS interactive in a way that passive observation of natural phenomena is not.  And of course, video games are interactive in a way that other art forms are not, I wholeheartedly agree.

My point is simply that the idea that games can't be art because they are interactive just rings very false to me.  They are *more* interactive, that's all.  The idea of arbitrarily drawing a line in the interactive sand is just crazy, and I've never understood Ebert's reasoning behind it.

[Helm]

Conceit, I feel the same way sadly.

[Conceit]

I know man! everyone answers with a differently geared wall of text, so in the end you have to make more and more separate walls of text for each one..until it just becomes imposible  not bad for our first venue into this sort of stuff tho, it made me happy to see it spring up at all.

I'm gonna look up one of the 46984534 posssible comics I could chose from from the selection of artists you mentioned and see if it strikes me as much as Moore...doubt it tho. With Moore it's more than the art, it's his whole magician view of reality....I hope I can find someone where I live that can mentor me on this like I wish Moore did. Dont worry tho, I'm not about to chase gypsies asking them to teach me magic.....I know the closest thing to real magic is art...and Shamanism =)...fortunatedly I live in Colombia and we have a few indian tribes...so I have some hope of finding real shamans.

form the looks of this, for a discussion on this to go somewhere it'd have to be moderated 

[JJ Naas]

My point is simply that the idea that games can't be art because they are interactive just rings very false to me.  They are *more* interactive, that's all.  The idea of arbitrarily drawing a line in the interactive sand is just crazy, and I've never understood Ebert's reasoning behind it.

Museums of modern art have housed interactive multimedia-installations since the 70's at least (Videoplace), so at least somebody has considered them to be art. Hasn't Ebert ever seen those? Well, I've seen a few of those, and while they may be amusing for 30 seconds, they are hardly games. For example, they may consist of you trying to move a blue box inside a red box while screeching metallic sounds are played on the background. (Well, that's my experience anyway.)

The controller mechanism is never more complicated than a one button joystick or computer generating images and sounds based on in which part of the room you're standing on or whatever. The controller mechanism tries to be as transparent as possible, no need to learn combos on a pad or memorize a bunch of quick commands on keyboards in order to "enjoy" the art.

They don't try to be books, movies, musical compositions or representative art. In other words, they lack a story-like narrative. You don't do quests or develop your character. The don't have cut-scenes, coherent soundtracks and the visuals tend to be more or less abstract. They don't have a high-score board or a learning curve. So, they try to be as digital and computerized as possible, lending as little as possible from other arts, so there's some sort of a point in that aspect I guess. But also...

...these don't make you cry, they merely make you amused for 30 seconds, so it seems they have been considered to be art for the sake of their technological gimmicks and feats rather than for the sake of their content.

[Helm]

Yes in that a videogame managed to make someone cry places it squarely on top of all these 'interactive art installations'.

[MrMister]

The main reason videogames can't be art is because they're made to sell copies, not to express something. They're a consumer product.   You can glorify games like Shadow of the Colossus but in the end it was made to pander to a specific audience.

[Helm]

Hm however pretty much all the art that has been widely influential has been product-ed, asides from videogames. This doesn't mean to say it was designed to be a product, but at the end it was made into one to reach its audience. This might change in the future with digital forms of distribution and perhaps micro-donations and whatnot, but then we'd be talking about a different thing.

I will agree that 'will it sell?' becomes a huge concern when making a videogame and that if that concern overtakes the conceptual goal of the design team the game's artistic value is compromised. This is a pretty widespread notion I think.

[.TakaM]

The main reason videogames can't be art is because they're made to sell copies, not to express something. They're a consumer product.   You can glorify games like Shadow of the Colossus but in the end it was made to pander to a specific audience.

uh... movies, books, music, statues and paintings all get sold.
You might as well be arguing that they're not art because they're popular

[Ben2theEdge]

If architecture can be considered art then so can video games. (And it is, btw) The renaissance was big into interactive art, hence the sculptures which the viewer can walk around and view from any angle he likes, and the architecture in which you can actually be immersed inside a work of art, as well as multi-layered painting techniques that reflect light depending on where you're standing in relation to them. (Don't forget the reason that the Mona Lisa resonates with people is the way she appears to interact with the viewer) Creating art is an interactive experience and the creation itself can be considered an art form, that's what theater is - the art is created in front of an audience in real-time. A video game player is essentially an actor creating a performance in real-time according to a script written by a game designer on a set with props created by artists and engineers. Because the player is part of the art form does not negate the artistic merit any more than actors negate theater as art.

Commercial appeal or even marketability does not affect "art" status. Don't forget that most of the classic art that we adore so much was created (in part) to advertise the Catholic church in the days before billboards and newspaper ads, and that does absolutely nothing to diminish its beauty or credibility. Even commercial projects have expression in them, even if it's buried deep after hours of executive meetings and focus group testing. There's always someone (or multiple someones) on that project that was losing sleep to express their vision, even if the end result was tampered with. If you look hard enough you can find it, and sometimes you don't even have to look that hard.

[ndchristie]

there's also a truckload of art that is all about reproduction.  you can't throw out printmaking!

[Evan]

The biggest factor in determining whether or not something is art is intentionality. If the maker had something in mind when they made the piece that was beyond "I'm going to make a football game," then it has a good chance of being art. There are other factors, but none of them seemed as critical as that one. Selling games is a factor, but it clearly can't be that big of a factor, because thousands of awful games get made every year. Shoot, the other day at GameStop, they were throwing out a pile of PC games that weren't selling, one of which was an Italian wedding-planning game. If sales were the only thing that the creators had in mind, then they obviously wouldn't have put that game out there.

The main point is this: if the artist/creator had an intention in making the game that was beyond a desire to make the game itself, then it is art. If the intention is solely to evoke a response from the viewer, that's fine, and is the basis of most shock art. The art can not be created by someone who wouldn't understand intention, however. For example, the elephant who paints pictures is a novelty, but could not be considered in artist, because it has no concept of intention, and furthermore, would not paint outside of captivity. Similarly, pieces of art that are made by computers could not be considered art. I'm not talking about digital art, but rather computers that compose music or design art based on computer programs. While the programs themselves can be extremely complicated, they do not create "art" because there is no intention.

There is a world of difference between what is considered "art," and what is considered a "craft." That is not to say that something that is a "craft" is inferior to a work of art; a photo-realistic rendering of a face, a la Chuck Close, is much more appealing to me than a canvas painted a solid color. Not to say that Chuck Close has no intention, and that it is not art, but something can be aesthetically pleasing and still not be "art." Once again, however, Chuck Close was an example (and my favorite artist) and by no means do I intend to diminish his art in any way. What I'm saying is, the physical work of art itself is simply a means to express a message, yet can never be separated from the message. Similarly, the message attached to the art is what gives the art meaning; if separated, both lose meaning.

So to tie it back: if the creators of video games have intention in creating said video games, and they are able to evoke a response, than they should be considered art, without a doubt.

[JJ Naas]

So to tie it back: if the creators of video games have intention in creating said video games, and they are able to evoke a response, than they should be considered art, without a doubt.

I think I agree with many points here. But.. The product could also be horrendous crap in terms of execution or the creator, despite his grand intentions, might not be a very groundbreakingly imaginative person. And there's a lot of middle ground as well. Are all games by Peter Molyneux art? Jeff Minter speaks like he's a true auteur, but I'm not that convinced.. his blog is awesome though. http://stinkygoat.livejournal.com/  Miyamoto has at least never claimed to do art, but to entertain.
 
In the mainstream video game industry (like also in the movie industry) there are not that many creators with a full control over the project, the producers usually have their say as well.

[Rox]

Oh, come on, everything Yak (Minter) touches turns to art! Migraine-inducing hippie-style art, but still art.

I admire that dude so much.

[MrMister]

there's also a truckload of art that is all about reproduction.  you can't throw out printmaking!

the original meaning of its creation was to express something, though.

[Cure]

You can't say "this is about making money, so it's not art".  That's nonsense.  This isn't some fantasy world where artists don't care about money or need to make a living.
Even mass-produced things can be art.  Though it's not like art has these strict guidelines, we're dealing with a very subjective definition here.
And videogames can be extremely expressive, I fail to see how one can consider them not to be art.  Because they're interactive?  Which would help the case for art, rather than hurt it.
The original reason much art is produced is to make money, but that doesn't mean it can't be expressive in the process.

[The B.O.B.]

about the videogames topic:...meh.

I'm I the only one watching the Olympics? Don't know about you guys, but this is the first time I've actually been so into watching it. USA is DOMINATING the water sports. It's kinda' fun to see if Phelps in company will make the 8. Also, we gave China a small run for their money in the high bar. I swear, they make look as if they can do a 450 on request, and without a sweat. Amazing...

Also, Women's Volley ball: yum...

[MrMister]

I'm not talking about the game actually selling well or being mass-produced, I"m talking about the reason for it's existance. To sell. I think a video game could have componants to it that ARE art, but just not very good art. Like a 3D model, or the script.

also amnerika is farkin shredding everyone at the olympics. damn amelicans..

e: there are exceptions to  video game art being terrible,  like the character designs inPsychonauts or somethin.

[Cure]

The reason for the existence of much art, however, is TO SELL.
If nobody bought artwork, believe me, there'd be more than a slight drop in the number of people producing it.
I'm not saying all videogames are art, but I'm saying that they CAN be.  Art is more of a "why" than a "what" for me.

And I, for one, am not watching the Olympics (starring Michael Phelps as America's golden boy).  Never really interested me, despite the ads and hype.

[Rox]

If the reason for video games' existance would be to sell, why do we have crazy awesome experimental titles like Otogi, Jet Set Radio, and aforementioned Space Giraffe? Space Giraffe especially was made to be as non-casual as possible, I recall Jeff Minter stating. The whole game is working against you as a player. The graphics don't even help you understand what's going on, in fact, they make it even worse. The vast majority of everyone who's ever seen the game has been insanely turned off by it - because he wanted to make a new type of game, not caring that it wouldn't sell. That's why he managed to make it the minimum game price on XBL Arcade, too, even though half of the games go for twice as much.

And then there are free games. You know... free games. Games that people WOULD pay for, but the developer has no intention of making any money off. Related to the artsy thing, I'm reminded of The Endless Forest which is a flimsy online social game made in a program called Quest3D. Apparently, it's still going strong despite it having exactly no gameplay at all, still getting updates from the makers and still getting new players. And it's online, for free.

I want to believe most game designers really just want to make games that are cool to play. Or maybe just make games for the fun of creating them. Like how artists just want to make art. Sometimes, not even for people to look at, but just to get it done and feel good about it. Most musicians don't play to make money, either. Heck, even programmers like to work just for the fun of creating things, from what I've seen with the guys I've worked with.

Put those together and you have a development team. Of course money has to be an equation, because when people want to do something so big that takes so long, they can't just quit their normal jobs and live on the street while working on it. In such a case, the result would probable be one of them awesome indie games you can download for free off obscure websites. But that could lead to the development of a company, so these guys could create their dreams every day. And with a company comes the need for income to keep it running. With that need comes the desire for people to pay for their hard work so they can keep doing what they love. The more money they can get, the better, because then they could maybe even expand and hire people to make even grander creations.

And now, today, digital distribution is actually changing that. With things like PSN and XBL Arcade, indie guys get a chance to actually sell their tiny creations online and earn a little bit of money for it, and getting a larger audience to enjoy their work. So the trend is kinda reversing a little to where smaller teams need less money to actually get games published. And that's awesome.

But I strongly doubt that anyone would ever get into making games for the money. There are many safer bets to make if you're in it to get rich.

[ptoing]

I'm not talking about the game actually selling well or being mass-produced, I"m talking about the reason for it's existance. To sell.

You are simplifying here. Games are made because many people like to play games and thus it is a market. Just like people like to listen to music or read books or whatnot. If not most or many people would like doing something there would be less of it. It's all about demand and such. Also, of course big companys, many small ones as well do not give their stuff away for free, they SELL IT because they worked fucking hard on it in many cases and need to feed themselves and families. It's not that simple.

[Cure]

troll'd by advocatus diaboli

[Helm]

What do you mean, Cure?

[Willows]

Probably something along the lines of everyone's disagreeing with each other just for the sake of disagreeing with each other; Everyone's playing the devil's advocate.

To add my two cents to the MrMister rant!:

 if we're talking about games being made to make money, then yes, it's harder to consider them art.

Though you must remember that the artists themselves working on these games aren't necessarily making the game art to make money, they're making the game art to make the game art (though they do, of course, get paid). Does that not mean that the game art is art?

[MrMister]

Yeah I brought that up but game art is usually not very good.  You might look at a video game sprite or a background and think 'that looks pretty cool' but it's not very artistically viable.

i also think the olympics are terrible and are being held in a terrible country. i think the last time something cool happened in china was the 1400's.

[Helm]

What?!

[Xion]

I used to argue that games were art because they contained art. That was silly. Games are more than the sum of their parts, and it is that whole - the game itself, completed and in its entirety, which should be judged as a work of art, not divvied up into pretty graphics, terrible music, glitchy code. Is the game as a whole a beautiful thing? Not "are the graphics pretty?" but "do they serve well and mesh with the rest of the game?" Does the music invoke emotion and capture the atmosphere? Does the game play well?
I think games are art, flat out, no exceptions. However, like other artforms, there is good art, and there is bad art, and there is art that exists to look cool, and there is art that exists to piss people off, and there is art made by the pretentious and the humble. Art made by people who think they know how to make art but have no idea. Art made by people who just do what they feel and end up with awesomenesses*. So, then, do games fall into these categories. The games that alot of people say are not art, like Doom, or some generic FPS or something - to me that sort of stuff falls into the same category as, say, a poster of a ripped muscley guy shooting zombies with a .50 cal rifle at point blank range while clutching on the other side of him a hot chick in a skimpy outfit with giant boobs and flaming cherry crimson lipstick. It's still art. It may even be extremely well executed on a technical level. But it's still only there to look cool. To be as badass as possible with as little logic behind the situation as one can manage. But it's still art.

Er, note that, once again, I didn't read many of the posts in relation to this discussion. I think I'll do that now.

* I can't believe Firefox didn't underline that.

Yeah I brought that up but game art is usually not very good.  You might look at a video game sprite or a background and think 'that looks pretty cool' but it's not very artistically viable.

[Indigo]

I couldn't agree with you more on this one, helm .... wow

[Cure]

That's what I meant.
We're being trolled by a devil's advocate.  An argument for arguments' sake.  Allow me to present an example.

I don't think pixel art should really be considered art.  It's enjoyable to make and look at, but it really doesn't hold up as art.
I think every sport and every country represented at the olympic games sucks.
I think all forms of theism, deism, atheism, and agnosticism are as dead wrong as science is.

etc.

[MrMister]

what teh???  video game art ?? more like fart.

[Helm]

I find you really disagreeable mister mister. Seriously.

[Froli]

Are you really getting some kicks trolling in this forum?

[MrMister]

no i was hoping to stir up some arguments i hadn't seen before on the subject

[ptoing]

Stop trolling.

[Rox]

Heh. That's pretty much the definition of trolling, isn't it? And arguments on what subject, anyway? Game art looking good? I don't think anyone here would ever need to argue about that. Remember the roots, man.

[Evan]

On the topic of video games and art, I downloaded "Braid" today on the XBLA. Seriously, this game hurts my brain, but in a good way. I think that it's a perfect example of what we're talking about.

http://braid-game.com/

A perfect mesh of art and game. For once, it's not a nice-looking game with little to it.

And although it's not multiplayer, my gamertag for 360 is "TenFortyEZ." I suggest some of y'alls add me if you have 360, but don't send a blank invite, just include your name on here. Or give me your gamertag and I'll add you. Either way.

[huZba]

I tried the demo of Braid. It has so many things done right that it's not even funny. No tutorials, you learn as you go. No pushing the story to the player, but it's up for grabs if you want it. Transforming gameplay mechanic and great visuals too. It'll probably be the first purchase i'll do on XBL.

[Froli]

How about Bionic commando rearmed? was it a good remake as everyone says? I played the nes version and it was probably the first game I finished back in the old days
I read a lot about braid and it seems a lot of people were blown away by it.

[questseeker]

The idea that video games are the only interactive art form is patently ridiculous.  If novels, paintings, film and theater were not interactive we would not enjoy them even a little bit.  The fact that you as the audience or reader are constantly reconstructing and reorganizing the narrative, judging the characters, wondering what will happen next...these are all the things that make these art forms what they are.  Video games merely extend this process into the literal.

by that logic, a bird in flight, completely beyond my power, is interactive.  I can wonder where it came from, where it's going, condemn it as unintelligent or worship its freedom from human "rationality."  This doesn't make the bird interactive, it only means that I am alive and that my perception of the world's output is subjective.

videogames, on the other hand, are one of few art forms (there is an excessive amount of interactive installation and performance art that was forgotten in the list) where the users input changes the output.  That is a dramatic and vital difference and it's both an expanding and a limiting factor depending on the context.

That's a pretty crazy stretch   Film of a bird in flight in the context of an entire film, or a painting of a bird in flight, is to me VERY different from simply seeing a bird outside, because there is a director or a photographer or a painter interpreting and changing it and showing it to us in their own way.  Viewing or consumption of artistic works IS interactive in a way that passive observation of natural phenomena is not.  And of course, video games are interactive in a way that other art forms are not, I wholeheartedly agree.

My point is simply that the idea that games can't be art because they are interactive just rings very false to me.  They are *more* interactive, that's all.  The idea of arbitrarily drawing a line in the interactive sand is just crazy, and I've never understood Ebert's reasoning behind it.

About Ebert: don't care, he's an old film buff, he's not expected to like or understand or support a competing, different art form.

About videogames being art: of course they are, anything that is not (or is not considered) completely utilitarian and constrained by external forces has a spark of artistic expression from the person who decided to do it like that and not differently.
Being something that is produced from the ground up as a source of designed experiences for the public, videogames can be classified along with older art forms like painting, sculpture and music at the purest end of the spectrum of art forms.

About interactivity: I side with ndchristie, you are confusing interpretation, that takes place entirely in the observer's head, interactivity, which affects the artwork (or at least its temporary manifestations), and merely intentionally directing the observer's attention without causing changes.

About the bird example: an actual bird might be beautiful, but isn't art because we know it is not the work of someone (barring aberrant cases, like suspecting it's actually been put there for our entertainment); a bird film is art, albeit probably boring, unless we are convinced that it is utterly meaningless (for example, it's a byproduct of testing an automatic motion-activated camera system with birds on a sky background; but even that would have some art "margin" left, such as the choice of camera placement, time of day etc.).

[AdamAtomic]

Without getting too deep into semantics, I am really not picky about whether or not you consider interpretation to be interactive.  Ebert's point about video games is that they can't be art because they are interactive, therefore the author does not have full control over the effect the work has on the viewer.  However, obviously interpretation exists, and so obviously authors of even "non-interactive" art do not have "full control" over the effect the work has on people.

[crab2selout.png]

Just finished playing Chrono Trigger for the first time. Still an incredible game. I was looking through some of the game's art on a sprite site and realised that you never see the exteriors of any of the game's locations(except for overworld view). No outside shots of houses, castles or domes except for those overworld shots. The entire game is a series of rooms linked by the overworld.

[Evan]

Hey, all, I need your help.

A while back, probably 2 domain changes since this, someone posted a really cool game on here. It was posted along side "Cave Story," and the icon was a moon. The game was real simplistic; you just ran around, and I think collected something that didn't matter. It was mostly just an adventure game. The only concrete detail that I remember was the moon icon. Anyone remember what it is?

And I'm sorry it's a bit vague, but it's a shot in the dark.

[Dusty]

Speaking of games from around these parts, whatever happened to Nun 'n' Gun?

[Cure]

Whoa, you missed the intro scene of Magus's castle?  That was one the best pixelled parts of that game.

[Squiggly_P]

I just lurk here a lot, but this 'games as art' thing forces me to post.  Games are a commercial industry, it's true, but film, books and music are the same type of media.  There are plenty of artists in all of those other media who can genuinely say "this work is art" as they don't really give a crap about the money.  They do it to do it.  It doesn't matter how much money you make, so long as you're pushing yourself as an artist and the medium you're working with.

I think games have that same sort of potential, in the same way that comic books had that potential back in the 30's and 40's.  Comics were an industry, and most of the people working in them were not really doing anything more than just trying to sell the next book.  But diversity and the march of technology took that industry and turned it into something anyone could successfully do out of their home, and now there's a lot of diverse books out there of all types.  I defy you to tell me that Maus is not "art".

Games have that same sort of creative potential.  Anyone CAN make a game right now were they so inclined and driven to do so, and while most people focus on the 'fun' of a game, it's entirely possible to couple the interactive elements with a story and characters as compelling as anything in books or film.  There have not been many designers who have tried to tap into that paradigm, but the lack of attempts is less a flaw of the medium and more an example of the untapped potential waiting to be unearthed in gaming.

And with that said, I'll go away for a while again

[MrMister]

video games are art. peace - michael phelps, 2001

[JJ Naas]

I defy you to tell me that Maus is not "art".

Whether Maus is art or not (it certainly made good use of contemporary storytelling techniques that Art Spiegelmann had honed while drawing for Raw) I believe it's importance lies elsewhere, in it's social impact and historical value. It wasn't made to be just "art", it was made to convey a difficult story as effectively as possible.

When you think about many books that are now considered classics, there are more books that have made it to history not for the sake of their experimental values but for the sake of the things that are said in them. Are there games that actually manage to say something important about something and say it well?

[Feron]

Just found out i got into University 

[Evan]

Just found out i got into University 

Nice, where ya goin'?

UW-Platteville for me.

[Feron]

the university of exeter, (im from the UK)

i don't know if i will go though... could turn out to be a big waste of time and money.

[Ryumaru]

I wonder if we will ever truly define art. We know there's art, and we know there's bad art and even non art, so some line must exist somewhere!

I really need to get on a better sleeping schedule. it's 10:37 am here and I've been up since 5:30 pm yesterday -_-