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Are Video Games an Art Form? - Page 5

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chongu
Profile Blog Joined February 2009
Malaysia2608 Posts
April 26 2010 05:13 GMT
#81
I highly doubt any of these so called critics/experts have ever completed a game/touched Starcraft. Its easy to see how adults view video games as just being mere puzzles, button smashing and just entertainment. That being said, games like flight simulators, soccer games, mindless violence and playboy mansion XXX should be excluded when actually viewing games as an art form.
I dunno, but to me as long as games are able to evoke strong emotions/feelings in the player that was intended by the designers through story telling or etc - that itself is art.
SC2 is to BW, what coke is to wine.
RageOverdose
Profile Blog Joined December 2009
United States690 Posts
April 26 2010 05:38 GMT
#82
I basically look as art as any sort of expression made through a medium that stimulates our senses and can illicit emotional responses. Something can be art or artistic, and really, I think it depends more on the intention of the creator, but a person can consider something like a video game to be artistic, regardless of if it was intended to be so.

I consider one of the bigger artistic developers to be Shigeru Miyamoto, only because of how he expressed his life through gameplay themes in the games he made, for example, with Zelda being about his love for adventuring as a kid and Pikmin coming about from his love of gardening. Also, he intends to give players an experience he wants to give (which is fun really), not necessarily one that market research tells him he should do (although I doubt that Nintendo ignores market research, because that's kind of dumb). That's really more artistic to me than a lot of games that take on a very strange visual theme or off-norm story, such as Braid or Okami (although I would never criticize a person's view of those games as artistic and I'm presuming that the creators didn't do similar things). That being said, I would consider Shadow of the Colossus art not because of it's visual style (which was just realism), but because of how the game's story and setting were established. It gives a very strong apocalyptic feel, and further emphasizes a great task entrusted on the protagonist, which is to save his beloved by demolishing massive monsters that caused civilization's demise (I think that was the premise, it's been awhile) to presumably rebuild humanity. This entire epic sense of responsibility is only magnified by the fact a deity is watching over you and giving you words to use as guidance to your next task.

But see, that's just how I view these things. Ebert is obviously just not open-minded to games as art. Which is fine, but I don't particularly like how people try to objectively define art. While I did give a definition, it really doesn't matter, because if you feel something is art, it can be art to you, and that's all that matters. I don't see why people get so upset when someone doesn't think of games as art (or anything else as art); that is no sole reason to be playing games. If you are just playing games because they are/could be art, then you really aren't even treating them as art, and doing a disservice to the argument you're making. I can understand if you feel insulted, but someone's opinion isn't something to be insulted over, especially when he gets paid to tell his opinion.
LastWish
Profile Blog Joined September 2004
2015 Posts
April 26 2010 06:55 GMT
#83
That person who wrote that article is clearly sub-educated in video gaming, therefore for this atrocity against gaming he should be sentenced to play video games for at least 2 years.

If we take a game as a whole - game rules, graphics, music everything joined with a storyline form a homogenic harmonic picture. This is indeed an art.

If we take game rules alone, then it's not that easy to make statements, whether it's art or not. Basketball rules were clearly never considered an art as well as we could say about a lot of video games.
However if you make something extraordinary it could be considered an art. For example I could consider an art game to be when the rules are complex enough but simple at the same time while also balanced. But for every rule you may find an exception. And everyone can make his own personal judgements about something as vaguely defined as art.

One thing is for sure - where there is beauty, there is also art present.
- It's all just treason - They bring me down with their lies - Don't know the reason - My life is fire and ice -
Grim(Reaper)
Profile Joined March 2010
Canada58 Posts
April 26 2010 07:06 GMT
#84
dead space = art
you call down the thunder?
Robinsa
Profile Joined May 2009
Japan1333 Posts
April 26 2010 07:09 GMT
#85
What about gams like wow? There is surely no point in it and you cant win it either! ^^
4649!!
Draconizard
Profile Joined October 2008
628 Posts
April 26 2010 07:43 GMT
#86
The word "art" is highly ambiguous at best and meaningless at worst (much like the word "music"). Not everyone's definition of these words coincide, and neither is there a clear majority view. So Ebert considers games to fall outside his definition of art, and many here disagree because they hold a different definition. There's really nothing to discuss.
ShaperofDreams
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
Canada2492 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-26 07:50:10
April 26 2010 07:49 GMT
#87
On April 23 2010 15:52 ShaperofDreams wrote:
Despite the fact that this guy might be smart, he doesn't have a really good idea of what art is.

Art is anything that claims to be. Literally I could take a shit in a gallery and call it art, whether it is good art is up to the viewer to decide.

That brings up a new question, what does good art consist of?

Let's make a video game analogy:

It good be could art because of successful formalism: (sick graphics, a beautiful environment).

It could be good art because of fun interaction like an interactive art piece or an installation: (puzzle games or good fun game play in the game.)

It could be good art because of successful narrative: (games with good stories or immersion.)

etc. etc. etc.

There is no way to rate a piece of art, art doesn't need to explain itself and it always lets the perceiver decide.

Bitches don't know about my overlord. FUCK OFF ALDARIS I HAVE ENOUGH PYLONS. My Balls are as smooth as Eggs.
ShaperofDreams
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
Canada2492 Posts
April 26 2010 07:57 GMT
#88
Yeah this guy doesn't know what video games are or what Art is.

Has he ever heard of an interactive piece or an installation?

EXAMPLE: Fumito Ueda, the lead game designer of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, was a Fine art major and specialized in installations.

In fact, he has gotten many of his game ideas from his pieces. Example: one of his installations was literally a sandbox (bigger though!) with an air pump in it, interaction with this pump made it seem like a creature was burrowing through the sand.

Remember that level in SotC?
Bitches don't know about my overlord. FUCK OFF ALDARIS I HAVE ENOUGH PYLONS. My Balls are as smooth as Eggs.
Matoo-
Profile Blog Joined June 2007
Canada1397 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-26 17:06:30
April 26 2010 16:36 GMT
#89
I'm looking at a picture.
Someone comes and tells me: "This isn't art".
He's probably right. This isn't art.
The picture doesn't seem to mind though. It's still here. It didn't change.
I continue staring. The guy leaves.
LaSt)ChAnCe
Profile Blog Joined June 2005
United States2179 Posts
April 26 2010 19:46 GMT
#90
the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.

i fail to see how that can't apply to video games, "artists" in general want to have their own cliche and don't like the idea of us impeding upon it
AtTheFuneral
Profile Joined December 2009
United States137 Posts
April 26 2010 19:49 GMT
#91
On April 25 2010 00:22 pyrogenetix wrote:
sounds like he never played any good games.


He must be stuck on Hello Kitty Island Adventures
LunarC
Profile Blog Joined October 2009
United States1186 Posts
April 26 2010 20:08 GMT
#92
The discussion of whether something qualifies as being art has come up numerous times across centuries of discussion and thought. Art is traditionally associated with the act of creation or recreation of reality, which put it at a fundamentally, and culturally, high level, akin to philosophy.

Around the 1900s art saw a great shift, losing its association with pure principle. Instead it became a representation of ideas and/or social political statements. Rather than existing as a pursuit of an aesthetic principle, it became a means for dissemination of ideology. From then on, art has been applied and fused with many practical applications and its meaning has become more and more of an interpretive definition.

One recurring attribute of art is that it is always closely linked to the presentation or process through which the artist's intent is transmitted. Of course this is not the ONLY concern of the artist, but it is always prominent and is pursued to the fullest without compromising other concerns.

So can video games become art? Well that depends on whether you consider true "art" to be of the pursuit of a principle, or whether you consider "art" to be of a more diluted definition. In any case, I believe that video games can achieve the status of art through a balance of principle, that is, once a video game can fulfill its concerns as a video game (entertainment, marketability, profit) and as art (transmission of artistic intent through presentation), it will have become a work of art.
REEBUH!!!
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