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Sci-Fi Writer Considers BioShock's Artistic Merit

Posted by Zonk on Tue Sep 18, 2007 06:54 AM
from the it's-art-get-over-it dept.
Sci-Fi Entertainment Games
The LevelUp blog considers an article on the Washington Post site, where their tech columnist did a little experiment. He set Science Fiction author Michael Dirda down in front of Irrational's BioShock, and asked him to consider the game's artistic merit. N'Gai has himself some interesting commentary about the article, which raises a flurry of question on its own: "Dirda, to use his word, doesn't know the 'rhetoric' of video games. Me: I've spent so much time playing video games over the years that I'd forgotten people aren't born instinctively knowing how to 'circlestrafe' a monster ... 'I could lose myself in this, in some ways, easier than in a book,' he said. Dirda said the game showed him that video games 'obviously have artistic value' and will likely become more of a recognized art form. So: Is BioShock art? 'I would hesitate to go that far,' he said after a short pause."
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  • I especially liked the author's comparison of people new to videogames to schoolchildren who have just learned to read. In fact I sometimes show a great videogame to someone who's not into gaming and they obviously "don't get it". I think this shows that videogames are progressing and becoming more and more sophisticated all the time, and maybe sometime soon they won't be dissed as some "inferior kind of art" anymore. Even though I, myself, still consider books and music to be somehow superior to games. Goo

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by JordanL (886154)
      I want to emphasize that I think the article is good, and that it's the kind of point that needs to be made...

      But lets not forget that the "artistic merit" of Bioshock is basicly the watered down artistic merit of System Shock 2, as Bioshock is a copy and paste of the game, sans cyberpunk theme.

      No one talked about that game back in the day when it came out, and I think it's important to remember that such artistic merit is not a new thing. Very old games had just as much, or more artistic merit that w
      • I am one of those gamers that firmly believes graphics do NOT necessarily make a game better (example: my ladyfriend and I likely play my Atari 2600 together more than any other console I own)

        However, in the case of BioShock, the graphics do have a lot to do with it....the fantastic lighting, the quite realistic water, the texture work...System Shock 2, in all honesty, wasn't even really all the nice looking when it was released. It was scary as hell, really fun, and a gaming experience that every gamer sh

      • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

        by DDLKermit007 (911046)
        Amen to that. Check out Zero Punctuation's review of Bioshock. He does make some damn spot on right remarks about the game.

        http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/zeropunctuation/1394-Zero-Punctuation-BioShock [escapistmagazine.com]
    • Why is Michael Dirda labelled as being a science fiction writer?
    • It seems to me that the whole shooter genre is quickly moving away from regular people and becoming focused solely on hardcore players of the shooter genre, who know how to "circlestrafe" a monster, whatever that means. As a result, all those hardcore strafers like the game, and the rest of us stand scratching our heads and wondering what could any sane person like about it.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Goaway (82658)
        Quickly moving away from? It's sitting exactly where it always was. Perhaps Doom was a bit more accessible, but most games since have pretty much just been Quake over and over again.
      • Circle strafing is just sidestepping around the monster while shooting at it. I don't tend to do that in single player games, or even multiplayer, because I prefer one shot kill games, but it's pretty much necessary for stupid unrealistic games where you have to shoot something a zillion times before it will die.
    • It's not that many games (like Bioshock) aren't art on the level of many quality films and novels, it's just that with things like literature, you can fall back and say "This author was the greatest there ever was!" Since "mainstream" culture is familiar with great books (or at least knows they exist even if they've never read any), no one thinks about all the terrible ones out there when they talk about the medium as a whole. I have no qualms in saying that most video games are better than, say, a Nora R

  • The Interesting Thing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Effugas (2378) * on Tuesday September 18 2007, @07:10AM (#20649929) Homepage
    The question is not whether video games are or aren't art.

    The question is why, oh why, are artists in other genres so utterly threatened by the concept that it might be.

    I mean, just look at the constituent properties of games.

    Games have music of all genres, and nobody denies that can be art.

    Screen shots from many games could probably be snuck into your local modern art gallery. Nobody denies imagery can be art.

    They went to a sci-fi author! Certainly a science fiction tale can be art.

    If you combine all three of the above -- well, you end up with a movie, and nobody denies that cinema is an art form.

    Even if you take away the controlled progression of experiences -- well, welcome to architecture. Was Frank Lloyd Wright not an artist?

    I think the bottom line is that a lot of people who don't play games, but do pay attention to art, don't want to imagine that they're not trained to appreciate a particular art form. Better to deny its potential as being art at all.

    The real question is -- why should gamers care?
    • I checked Wikipedia and the only writing that Dirda has done appears to be literary criticism. I think, while he likes SF, he's not an SF writer. I could be wrong though...

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by EtoilePB (1087031)
      I think the bottom line is that a lot of people who don't play games, but do pay attention to art, don't want to imagine that they're not trained to appreciate a particular art form. Better to deny its potential as being art at all. The real question is -- why should gamers care?

      Games are really paralleling film history right now. The answer to anyone invested in it (say, someone who went to film school and now writes about video games and spends spare time on Slashdot) is, "of course they're art, stup

    • Re:The Interesting Thing (Score:4, Insightful)

      by UbuntuDupe (970646) * on Tuesday September 18 2007, @08:15AM (#20650559) Journal
      I've long felt that art is "whatever the old boys club says is art", which is what makes art so disenchanting for me. It's like if, in science, you could determine whether observations would fit your theory *only* after making them, instead of having to put the theory to the test by making the prediction first. Supposedly, you have to have a refined taste to appreciate art, but in my experience, this in practice means, "you have to be told it's good before you notice its good". Also known as the Placebo effect.

      Recently, people have been putting the objectivity of art judgments to the test, and art's gatekeepers aren't looking so good:

      -When Joshua Bell played anonymously in L'Enfant Plaza, with the world's best violin and supposedly most beautiful music, virtually no one stopped to listen.
      -When wine critics have to do blind tests, the results look pretty random.
      -When an author submitted Jane Austen's work to a publisher, the publisher rejected it as no good. (Of course, it should have been rejected, but on grounds of plagiarism.)

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Gulthek (12570)
        What is art? [xyzzyb.com]

        Generally people have a vague notion that art is something that everyone agrees is art. That art is cultured, refined, high-brow, sophisticated. That art must be appreciated to be art. Art is that which is hung in museum galleries and fawned over by elite scholars who write detailed analyses describing their value and meaning. People believe these scholars and nod their knowing agreement, sure that they too see the same value that the experts have ascribed.

        At the other extreme there are those w

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by westlake (615356)
      The question is not whether video games are or aren't art.
      The question is why, oh why, are artists in other genres so utterly threatened by the concept that it might be.

      What makes you think they are threatened?

      You have as much as said that a video game is collaborative effort like a movie.

      You need people who think in terms of narrative, dramatic structure, pacing. People who can script dialog and action that is persuasive and entertaining.

      You need production designers, art designers, animators, co

    • The question is why, oh why, are artists in other genres so utterly threatened by the concept that it might be.

      Basic insecurity - and one really good question.

      With videogames as a recognized Art form what established Artists know and do becomes cloudy, just as the value of great scenery artists was questioned by the rise of great scenery photographers. Prior to photography it was simply understood that a great painter had value, because he could render an emotionally powerful image. With photographers on

  • Sci-fi author? (Score:5, Informative)

    by Negatyfus (602326) on Tuesday September 18 2007, @07:21AM (#20650027) Journal
    As far as I can tell, the man is a book critic [wikipedia.org]. The write-up makes it seem as he's actually written sci-fi books?
  • Gameplay and artistic depth are two very orthogonal goals. It's hard to engineer a game which is fun to play and tells a truly original story -- generally, the high ratio of (time spent killing people) to (time spent talking to people) precludes a lot of useful dialogue.

    Probably the last game which spoke to me in any meaningful literary way was Deus Ex -- and even that had long stretches of plot-thin killing.
    • I'd argue that "Bioshock" beats "Deus Ex" in being meaningful in a literary way by miles. "Deus Ex" was, in my humble opinion, a fairly stale regurgitation of standard cyberpunk, as seen in Neuromancer, Ghost in the Shell, and The Matrix. Bioshock is a far more novel and refreshing rebuttal of Objectivism. As well as being an interesting treatise on the issues of choice and free will, and their often illusory existence.

      "Deus Ex" was a better game than it was literature or philosophy, "Bioshock" excel

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Fallingcow (213461)
        Haven't played Bioshock yet, but I'm constantly reminded of Deus Ex as I read or take classes. As I read Bertrand Russell's A History of Western Philosophy recently, I was reminded of characters, lines, or episodes from that game at least half a dozen times. Several times, my experience with the game has helped me to more quickly grasp an idea, or to make connections between it and others which I might not otherwise have made.

        I don't know of any other game like that, not even among the other plot-heavy ga
    • If anything, art in games will probably come from the gameplay itself. For instance; games have the unique ability to let people experience paradoxal situations or vicious circles. I think games are getting ever closer to this, but it's still tied to the concept that games can somehow be "won". A game like the infamous Columbine RPG is a good example of how you can make a game where the concept of "winning" isn't clear anymore.

  • Definition... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pieaholicx (1148705) on Tuesday September 18 2007, @07:39AM (#20650187) Homepage
    I think it really comes down to how you define art. I personally will consider a lot of things as art that most people wouldn't, things like games, graffiti, and even source code. If you look at things like music, movies, and images you'll notice one thing in common. They all show or inspire emotions. I think that is how art should be defined. So why would a game, which quite often inspire emotions like fear and victory, and many games have quite elaborate and emotional stories, not be considered an art form?

    Just my opinion though.
    • Here's a workable definition [shii.org] for you:

      Art is the word we use when we refer to that creative activity or its result, when images and objects, sights and sounds, drawings and carvings, convey the beauty and splendor of the world, or realize the imagination of the artist, for the purpose of self-expression or the shared enjoyment of its creation. Art is that which elevates our interpretation of the world and of ourselves from mere description or narrative, to the sublime.

      By that definition, a few games do easily pass, while many others fail.

  • > The fact is that BioShock, at its best, is capable of evoking some complicated responses
    > from players--among them, shame, guilt, remorse, regret, and, yes, sadness--using not
    > only its story, but most interestingly, its gameplay.

    Isn't it sad that people spend so much time making games to make us scared, shameful, and depressed, instead of using the genre to make us self-confident, satisfied, and happy?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Aladrin (926209)
      It does that, too, but someone recently commented that it's not art if it can't make you depressed. While that's probably the most fucked up definition of art I've ever heard, games -are- capable of it and fit even that definition.

      Anyhow, just like everything else in life, something that only makes you happy gets boring pretty quickly. There needs to be some balance of other emotions to contrast the happiness, or it won't be appreciated fully. In the end, you should walk away happy, but the path to getti
    • Isn't it sad that people spend so much time making games to make us scared, shameful, and depressed, instead of using the genre to make us self-confident, satisfied, and happy?

      About 90% of all modern "artistic" ventures are based on the sensations of fear, shame, anger and regret. This certainly isn't limited to games.

      the question with a work that spans time is that does it end in fear, shame, anger and regret? Most games don't, many other forms of expression do.
    • Yep. Art should be an accurate realistic depiction of the real world, and a happy one at that. How can these so-called 'artists' only see and depict things that make us scared, shameful, and depressed?

      Either these 'artists' really do see things in this way and believe in what they represent. Then one has only to ask how the defect in vision arose, and if it is hereditary Homeland Security will have to see to it that so ghastly a defect of vision shall not be allowed to perpetuate itself. Or if they do not b

    • Isn't it sad that people spend so much time making games to make us scared, shameful, and depressed, instead of using the genre to make us self-confident, satisfied, and happy?
      it's cathartic.
    • Uhh, because there are plenty of games that do make us happy? I don't see how 1 game that elicits emotion like Bioshock is an example of every major game on the market.

  • Is it art? Sure? Is it good? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by edremy (36408) on Tuesday September 18 2007, @07:45AM (#20650233)
    Bioshock is art, as are many other video games. It may be a different kind of art than a painting, a novel, a piece of music or a movie (indeed, it combines all four) but it's still art.

    The real question: is it *good* art? Nobody will deny that a painting or a novel is art, but 99% of all of them are crap. Good art provokes a response- you think about it and remember it later, and not just because you managed to frag some noob thirteen times in a row. Video games for the most part have not reached this state. I can only think of a few that merit the title "Good art" that tell stories that are interesting enough to reach that goal.

  • I'd have to say games don't do things as well as other "real world" pursuits:
    I don't think that they tell stories as well as movies and books.
    I don't think that they do "challenge" as well as physical sports (from team sports all the way to darts and bowling")
    In some ways, I don't think do "gaming" as well as traditional board, card, and RPGs (though it depends on what you're looking for...)

    What I think games do really well, that no other genre can touch, is making new, creative, interactive systems and wor
  • Where did the submitter or editor get the idea that Michael Dirda is a "Sci-Fi Writer"?

    He's a journalist. He writes book reviews. His only other publication I can find is an autobiography.

    You can't blame the Washington Post, there is no description of Dirda as "sci-fi writer".

    The GAME is described as sci-fi. That's all.

    Get a fucking clue, "editors".

  • When there's a video game that makes the player depressed, that's when the medium might be onto something as an art form, Dirda said. It's easy to like something that makes you feel powerful in its fantasy world, as games generally do. But would anybody play a game that makes him sad?

    Would they indeed..? Games are generally meant to entertain. Perhaps one could focus on the delivery of of the story. Graphics matter, but not a lot. (FFVI? Chronotrigger? Illusion of Gaia?)

    Music entertains, TV and movies entertain as well. There are a lot of music and books out there that are depressing. A lot of it can make you feel depressed if you let yourself become drawn in. See the first few minutes of High Fidelity [wikipedia.org] for an interesting monologue (I'd link imdb if I weren't at work).

    I seriou

    • Aeris!!!! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!
    • Sadness and other filth should not be portrayed!

      Happiness is All!

      But seriously, what are you on? I *love* movies, games, and songs that evoke genuine emotion. Do you want to spend your life eating cotton candy entertainment? (All fun, no substance.)
      • What am I on indeed! Re-read my post and you will see that I wrote that invoking emotions is good, meanwhile invoking depression is bad. Big difference.
          • That's:
            Voldimort is Harry's dad!
            Sirius Black is People!
            Those Damned Dirty Muggles blew it all to hell!
            Harry rides the glass Hallow-svator up to where Mr. Dumbledore can show him the whole Horcrux-factory!
            Ron gets shot in slow motion to the music of Samuel Barber as the rest of them fly away on a giant broomstick!
            Harry-Six rips off Voldy-One's gorilla mask, to reveal his own face!

  • not a sci-fi author. (Score:3, Informative)

    by sammy baby (14909) on Tuesday September 18 2007, @08:30AM (#20650737) Journal
    Michael Dirda is not a science fiction author. He's a literary critic. Which the submitter probably should have known if he'd read, like, the very first sentence of the article: "On a recent Saturday morning, I headed over to the house of Pulitzer Prize-winning Post book columnist Michael Dirda with an Xbox 360 under my arm."

    From the third paragraph: "But [Dirda] is a sci-fi fan and an open-minded fellow, and I was curious whether BioShock's story would be compelling enough to draw him in."

    Did a quick Amazon search of his work [amazon.com], and the only things I noticed were essentially books about reading itself.

    Just sayin'.
  • It's an important discussion to be sure. Is Bioshock art?

    Definitely it has fantastic "art". But then books have beautiful covers... but we don't judge the books on that basis...usually.

    More importantly though, he didn't finish the game. Barely played a few hours.

    Is that the test of art? To sit somebody down in front of a quicktime trailer and make a judgement of a movie from the first 5 minutes?
  • I think that the final assessment, that they picked the wrong person to do this because of a lack of familiarity with games, is dead on.

    Why can't someone get a better reviewer to do this? Cory Doctorow? Orson Scott Card? Bruce Sterling? Dan Simmons?

    I'm a bit confused as to why, if Dirda's 16 year old son finished it, why didn't he ask for help? Seems to me this implies he really wasn't that into the experiment himself. Surely there's directions someplace on the basics? RTFM?

    I think the real challenge
  • I think the real problem here is that nobody really knows what art is. If you look back in time, art wasn't what it is today. Nowadays art is trying to define itself.

    Some of you think that no one denies that movies are art but you are wrong. Many believe that most movies are not art and that only some movies can be considered art. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art_film [wikipedia.org]

    This is important because if you consider that all movies are art, well if you film your vacations you have a storyline (your vacations), y

  • Forget all the rhetoric about whether the game itself is art. It's a shiny plastic disk with microsocopic dots. It becomes art when it comes to life, when the actors are "on stage" and I begin the performance. From the opening scenes where I guide my digital avatar, be it knight in shining armor or polygonal abstract, I am creating my own story based upon my interpretation of an outline of the rules that other mediums would call a script. How I interpret that script is completely at my whim; flexibility

  • Obviously new to games... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by LarsWestergren (9033) on Tuesday September 18 2007, @09:23AM (#20651783) Homepage Journal
    So: Is BioShock art? "I would hesitate to go that far," he said after a short pause.

    When there's a video game that makes the player depressed, that's when the medium might be onto something as an art form, Dirda said. It's easy to like something that makes you feel powerful in its fantasy world, as games generally do. But would anybody play a game that makes him sad?

    Yes, of course, Any game that has solid enough writing that you care about characters or the world has that ability. For me, Planescape: Torment, Sanitarium, Fallout 2, Baldur's Gate 2 (death of vampire villain Bohdi "No! It's mine! This life is mine!"), and FF7 are just a few examples that come to mind.

  • man... it's like impossible to do that in bioshock in many places, just no room to do so. i have to be creative on hiding, taking pot shots, making a run to another area and ready up the next weapon or plasmid :)

  • let's ask a different question (Score:3, Insightful)

    by brkello (642429) on Tuesday September 18 2007, @10:49AM (#20653495)
    Very few people are going to object if you call "Les Mis" art. But is Harry Potter art? Certainly, it has been read by more people then most all other literature. But it is a story written primarily for children (nothing wrong with adults loving it) that is more about entertaining than challenging the reader. Fantasy and sci fi has always struggled to be recognized as art. It takes a move like LOTR to show that fantasy can be as good as movies like the Godfather or The good, the bad, and the ugly.

    This is part of the problem with video games. Like Harry Potter, they are in a fantasy world and the art snobs perceive it as being geared towards children. But I have found few other things in art that moved me as much as Aeris's death in FF7. And I think I am not alone in that. Really, the old generation that didn't grow up with video games will have to die off before video games get the respect they deserve.
    • Also bioshock as a game felt unfinished toward the end, the story was interesting for the first part of the game, but by the time you got to Andrew ryan things just seemed to get really weird, and then on your journey to fountain the story loses all cohesiveness really.

      How would this distract from it being art, allbeit rushed/unfinished art?

      There are plenty of movies that start out good that finish horribly or rushed. Where they butcher the film in the editing room. Some books are like that, where you get
    • There is no real problem. Replace "having fun" with "being entertained" or "seeing something that challenges your mind" and you see that games have everything in common with art. Art is made for the enjoyment of others. No different from games.
    • Play it a bit more... the game really starts to pull on you more as you learn more about it and get farther into it. (Assuming you're playing with the goal of figuring out whats going on, not just shooting everything).

      I'd argue BioShock is one of the few games out there that does meet the criteria he mentioned -- does a game make you depressed? I found BioShock plenty engrossing enough to be sad about actions I'd taken as the game progressed. Weird, perhaps, maybe a bit fruity but whatever. Thats how I felt

      • When there's a video game that makes the player depressed, that's when the medium might be onto something as an art form, Dirda said. It's easy to like something that makes you feel powerful in its fantasy world, as games generally do. But would anybody play a game that makes him sad?
        Shadows of the Colossus.

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