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Games Entertainment

Fun is Fine - Toward a Philosophy of Game Design 189

Posted by michael from the less-thinking-more-blowing-stuff-up dept.
David Kennerly writes "The Entertainment versus Art debate flares perennially. These participants may be having fun, but the dichotomy is uniquely inappropriate to games. By the end of this article, we may disentangle the faulty dichotomy. After reconsidering what we think we know about a game, fun, and art we may come to discover that Nomura and Costikyan are correct: 'If you were to write a Seven Lively Arts for the 21st century, the form you'd have to mention first is clearly games.' --Greg Costikyan"
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Fun is Fine - Toward a Philosophy of Game Design More

Fun is Fine - Toward a Philosophy of Game Design

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  • of course (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 20, 2003 @04:47PM (#6257542)
    and for most of us games are the only form of art we'll ever come accross.

    • Art is elsewhere (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      What about the nude cartoons you used to draw in junior high? that's art too!

    • Art? What the Fuck is Art?! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 20, 2003 @05:32PM (#6257921)
      Half the crap that passes for art nowadays isn't art. I know people are "pushing boundaries" and crap, but when you get stuff like this [miami.com] passing itself off as "art", then the whole fucking concept of art doesn't mean any more to me than a bunch of industrially sealed cans of someone's piss. (Which a British museum paid $35,000 for.)

      Art is a joke. People use the term to describe things they don't understand and think are cool for no apparent reason. True art, like sculpture, paintings you don't have to be high to come up with a meaning for, orchestrated music, good writing, poetry that rhymes, and isn't just someone pulling stream of consciousness shit out of their ass and wiping on a piece of paper for you to read...this...THIS is art.

      Unfortunately, art's been so diluted by utter crap that the public uses it to describe any and everything. "Look at that goal!" screams the unwashed mass, "That is art!"

      No, it isn't.

      Don't get started on that, "well, it's art to me" shit, either. If that's all that it needs, then Everything == Art, and the discussion is still equally useless because there isn't anything that can be claimed to not be art.

      The only Art is see anymore, if the guy who works across the hall from me. He isn't a game, and games aren't him.

      • Re:Art? What the Fuck is Art?! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by norton_I ( 64015 ) <hobbes@utrek.dhs.org> on Friday June 20, 2003 @10:58PM (#6259673)
        To define art in terms of what you consider traditional forms, such as painting and sculpture, is to cut its balls of. Art is the combination of skill, intuition, and creativity to show people something, usually about humans, or how the universe relates to humans. Nothing less will do, and nothing more is required. The medium you choose to express yourself must fit the meaning. The reason for much of the dreadful "modern art" hanging in galleries is due to people trying to use traditional artistic media (such as oil on canvas) to express things it is not really suited for. Usually, when I walk through those sections of a museum the message I get is merely the artists frustration at trying to express what is certainly a very real feeling to them onto a 2 dimentional canvas.

        On the other hand, non-traditional media are frequenly much better. For instance, the industrial sealed can of excrement is (at least to me) a statement about how we are frequently commercially driven to the point that we would buy almost anything if it were packaged in a nice way and well marketed, even a "turd in a can". The fact that a museum in fact paid a large sum of money for it only makes it more delightful.

        Another example of modern art I heard about recently was a goldfish swimming in a blender, the idea being to force the people seeing it to confront the power they have of life or death (ie, they could switch on the blender and kill the fish). The great thing about that is that it engages the observer much more directly than any painting can. In fact, without a person there, it is just a fish tank.

        To me, you sound like an old rich curmudgeon who was taught way back when you were a kid that certain things are art and certain things are not, and are unwilling to reconsider. Free your mind.
        • It isn't the unconventional medium that pisses people off. It's the fact that many of these so-called pieces of art don't require any creativity or skill to either conceive of or to implement. These are all examples of "art by reputation of the artist" or "art by being good friends with someone who works at the museum", not actual Art.

      • Re:Art? What the Fuck is Art?! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Steeltoe ( 98226 ) on Saturday June 21, 2003 @05:45AM (#6260658) Homepage
        Art
        is what stops
        your
        thoughts,
        makes you see
        the world
        in a different light
        and perspective.

        Nobody can own
        Art belongs to everybody.
        • no. not at all. art is creation through creativity of the mind.
          • no. not at all..

            Be careful what you say and how you say it! "no. not at all"?? Am I completely off?

            art is creation through creativity of the mind

            EVERYTHING can be said to be creation through creativity, if you don't believe in a bigger thought than man-mind, you might restrict this to "everything man-made".

            However, alot of creation is accidental, or not something done out of love and estetique. Lots of creativity can go into the creation of office-spaces, but that is the "Art of creating lots of offi

  • ha (Score:4, Funny)

    by freedommatters ( 664657 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @04:47PM (#6257544)
    having worked in the industry and having known many games designers and programmers, art does not come into it. pizza, sure, trash novels, sure, cheap sci-fi and pseudo philosophy, sure, but art? forget it. john

    • Re:ha (Score:3, Insightful)

      by LBArrettAnderson ( 655246 )
      art is one of the main parts of game design. i consider programming an art in of itself. the use of creativity to get to a certain point is art. just look at some of the games that have come out recently... FFX is covered in artistic creativity from the storyline to the environment.
      • specking as i programmer i am immensely proud that programming is a craft, not an art nor a science.
        • I agree. Any field that needs to put the word 'science' in it's name, probably isn't. We all know that writing code is about experience, and knowing the tricks of the trade, not research and brilliance. I think coding should be taught as a trade, with apprentiship programs and the like.

          • Re:ha (Score:2, Informative)

            by tomstdenis ( 446163 )
            This is just complete bullshit.

            Just because people are dumbing down CS doesn't mean CS isn't a science.

            It's as if everyone and their crack whore sister became a neurosurgeon. Would medicine then become a "crafty" house-wise art fancy-pants hobby?

            I'd really hate to be treated by a doctor who likes getting "creative" with standard practices for no better reason than "artistic license".

            The true nature of CS is more than most colleges teach. Learning some stupid run-of-mill language is all fine and dandy
            • Who said it was 'artsy fartsy'? Yes, we've learn't the math, and the data structures, and the algorithims, so what? I write code. I write code to solve specific problems.That does not make me a scientist. Why do CS folks get so defensive about this? I never meant to imply that science has no relation to computers, of course it does, just that people who code are much closer to carpenters or civil engineers than scientists.

              • Re:ha (Score:2)

                by woggo ( 11781 ) *
                Yes, but you're a programmer, not a computer scientist. Programming isn't an engineering discipline (if it were, many programmers would be in prison!). Rather, it's more of a weird amalgam of art, craft, and design, that may bear some resemblence to engineering, but without the licensure, best practices, or liability of engineering.

                Tony Hoare's 1980 Turing award lecture describes these phenomena pretty well: get it here [braithwaite-lee.com].

                Of course, the indictment is not merely on professional programmers. Computer sc

              • True...a programmer isn't a scientist. A systems architect however could be. Expecially when researching data structures, new, more efficient ways of doing things (like encryption, compression, the whole quantum computing thing). You can't deny that that's CS...and you can't deny that when you're working on that high a level in the field that you're a scientist...especially as you need to follow the scientific method.

                But a 'mere' programmer doesn't, and isn't, that's true.

            • Re:ha (Score:2)

              by plone ( 140417 )
              I agree with everything you said, but the poster above you said that programming is a craft, not comp sci. Programming is just the application of computer science, just in the same way as construction is the application of structural engineering.

              Ofcourse, the difference between a programmer and a computer scientist is less clearcut than my example, but I do believe that the industry is reaching a point where programming knowledge is not always intrisically tied with comp. sci. knowledge.
    • ... and stop calling me john.

    • published v. independants (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      That's completely understandable from a game developers perspective. I wish it were not true. I'm big on pushing games as an artistic medium, but I don't believe any publisher in the US considers the same route.
      Development in the US is geared towards pushing games as profit, and profit is generally in direct conflict with artistic creation. This is why independant publishers need more coverage. There are many out there who are not on the corporate bankroll and want to push further in the field of intere
      • Yup; I have to agree.

        But then again, the underlying reason is that games have to be fun first. If they're not, they don't make money. Just like movies. However, this doesn't mean that a game still can't be art if it's fun and makes money.

        Me, I'd posit that games like Homeworld approach art; it might be fun to play, it might have made money, but after playing the level 'Gardens of Kadesh' the story was elevated to art, imo, same as a good novel.

    • Re:ha (Score:2, Insightful)

      by CheeseMonkey ( 677515 )
      Funny, yes. True, no!

      Maybe for you, personally, there was no art involved, but you take out what you put into it. Sounds to me like you were treating it like a job treadmill, like anything else you might put your hands to that you consider having little value.

      Games are art just like movies are art- while they may seem, on the surface, to be churned out for nothing other than the big bucks, there are actually a lot of people who put there hands on these games who really feel like they're creating som
    • If you can't make it out of the artist's feces, it's not art. If common people can understand it and appreciate it, it's not art. Most importantly, if the artist can't get respect at cocktail parties because of it, it definitely ain't art.
    • We've been steeped in all these 19th century concepts of art that we don't realize that most art has been made by normal people that are just trying to get a job done. The idea that art is only created by tortured souls suffering and pondering the meaning of the universe is as silly as the comment a bit further down that if it isn't made from the artists feces it isn't art.

      Trash novels, cheap sci-fi and pseudo philosophy? Sounds like most of the world's religious books to me - and you know how much "art"
  • Geez has the link been slashdotted already? My browser times out when I try visiting it. Anyone have a google link?

  • please stop, think of the children! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sweeney37 ( 325921 ) * <mikesweeney.gmail@com> on Friday June 20, 2003 @04:50PM (#6257565) Homepage Journal
    "It is unproductive to think of games as âinteractive movies,â(TM) although many people tend to think of games in those terms. Let's be clear: games and films are different media. The techniques, processes, and skills involved in the creation of each are unique and not interchangeable. The metrics by which each is judged are also different, meaning that many of the properties that make for a good film would lead to a lousy game, and vice versa."

    How true this is, let's see a list:

    Popular/Good Games - Awful Movies
    • Super Mario Bros.
    • Street Fighter
    • Wing Commander
    • Tomb Rader
    • Mortal Kombat


    Good/Popular Movies - Awful Games
    • Enter the Matrix
    • ET
    • Many (but not all) Star Wars games
    • Many (but not all) Star Trek games
    • The Die Hard Series


    And yet, these trends will probably never stop. We keep hearing rumblings about a Duke Nukem Movie, a Doom movie, and we're already getting another Tomb Raider flick. But as long as people keep buying these games, and going to see the movies we'll keep being exposed to this dreck.

    Why can't we see more games like GTA that skirt the fine line between movie and game?

    Mike
    • I liked the tomb raider movie. what are you, gay?
    • I was a big fan of the Resident Evil movie. Mostly for the gratuitious Milla nude scenes.

    • In all fairness... when you first heard there was going to be a "tomb raider" movie, was it better or worse than expected. My first reaction was "cheap knockoff movie of a simple game. Some explosions, and boobs" - but really the movie did have more plot than that and wasn't so bad. Now the sequel, not sure if its worthy.

      Oh, and you forgot to add "Final Fantasy" in there... though again it wasn't too bad for anyone who wasn't an FF fan, and would have been less disappointing had it not born the expectatio
    • Motivation is a key point here, however - in each of these cases, the 2nd part of the movie/game combination was made to simply cash in on the popularity of the successful predescessor. They weren't developed to stand on their own. Another one I'd add to the list is "Fellowship of the Ring". A perfect example of a "game" which is simply trying to march you through a storyline. *yawn*

      That said, I didn't think the Tomb Raider movie was that bad. Good campy entertainment...
    • Re: star trek games.

      I agree here. While Star Trek: Armada (and the sequel, Armada II) were reasonable, it was more like C&C in space, but done poorly. It was very much a case of who could build the largest number of powerful ships and swarm the enemy. Very little in the way of tactics and so on.

      It was also far too easy to wall your base with torpedo turrets, turning it into a virtually impregnable fortress.

      Galaxy class starships were also reduced to little more than chubby turrets (I read that somewh

    • Re:please stop, think of the children! (LOTR) (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Geez... Don't forget LOTR.

      LOTR and the other Tolkien stuff that goes with it are great books... plus they were made into great movies (so far).

      I would have to say that D&D spawned largely from Tolkien fantasy.. and thats a game.

      And a great number of video game RPGs spawn from D&D. Nice lineage of Written Art -> Games -> Video Games -> Movies.

    • Re:please stop, think of the children! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by danila ( 69889 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @08:29PM (#6259056) Homepage
      It is strange that nobody mentioned Star Wars. I think it is a brilliant example of movies - games synergy and provides at least one recipe for success. Make a large, rich and consistant universe. Explore many different aspects of it using various mediums. Make an effort, because you should not diminish the value of the brand.

      Now that we see these important characteristic of the most successful movies-games symbiosis, we can explore other examples and their strengths and shortcomings. The best examples would be LOTR, HP and the Matrix. In all these cases we have some pretty decent products, which IMHO can be explained by this richness of the universes and correctly using different approaches to exploring them. We have some serious problems as well, which (again, IMHO) are because no attention was paid to the long-term value of the brand and games were rushed in to cash on the recent success of the movies.

      So to sum it up. How to make a good game based on the movies (can work vice versa and also with other mediums):

      1. Have a rich universe
      2. Care about the long-term value of the brand
      3. Realise that different mediums should explore the universe in different ways
      4. Make an effort
    • The quote at the top of your post is so unture, and is getting more untrue every generation of hardware we get.

      Look at topics covered at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) and many other conferences/ articles like it, where developers speak out. Games and movies are overlapping in many, many ways. Production values, voiceovers (==the cast), music, production values, storyboarding, art direction.
      These are but a few of the many disciplines which originate in movies and which techniques are being directly u

  • FIRST POST! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Snowspinner ( 627098 ) <{ude.lfu} {ta} {dnaslihp}> on Friday June 20, 2003 @04:50PM (#6257569) Homepage
    I find, as a graduate English student, that I can't really think of any generation or era where the intellectual art has really lasted well. The popular stuff tends to be what survives, largely because it was actually designed for people to enjoy, rather than praise.

    If, in 100 years, we look back at any games as great works of art (And we may not - games are so dependent on the technology they run on that they may fail one of the basic tests of art, which is survivability), I do not think it will be deep and contemplative games. I think it will be things like SimCity, Zelda, and other games that were designed, first and foremost, for their players.

    • Re:FIRST POST! (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Zork the Almighty ( 599344 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @05:19PM (#6257819) Journal
      Of all the games I've played, I think that Tetris bears the most similarity to a great work of art. It is first and formost a great intellectual puzzle, but it also mirrors the human condition. The game gets faster and faster, and everyone who plays KNOWS that they are going to "die" sooner or later. Yet we play anyway, if only for the challenge and the simple joys inherent to success.

      • Re:FIRST POST! (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Jagasian ( 129329 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @06:24PM (#6258305)
        Someone actually mathematically proved that all Tetris games eventually end. That is, no matter how well you play, you can't play forever.

        • Re:FIRST POST! (Score:3, Informative)

          by tomstdenis ( 446163 )
          Um, I don't think that was the conclusion. They proved that deciding the *best* position and orientation of the tetris pieces is NP-hard [or one of those] which basically means there is no sub-exponentiation method of figuring it out.

          They didn't prove that you can't randomly guess correctly, just that you're not likely todo so.

          Tom
          • That was a different proof. I remember a different one that proved that even if you chose optimal block placement (nondeterministically you guess the best answer each time), you will eventually have your blocks rise all the way to the top. It has to do with the block shapes, and the probability that you get the shapes needed to complete a row before you have to cover it up.

    • Re:FIRST POST! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by efflux ( 587195 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @05:42PM (#6257996)
      Is 100 year what you consider to be lasting? In that case how about James Joyce (Damn near makes the 100 yr mark Ulysses 1922).

      Or how about Seneca? It's argued that his plays weren't even meant to be performed.

      Greek society *hated* Euripides, but now is a favorite among modern scholars.

      How about Bernard Shaw? Can you *be* more didactic? For god's sake Nothing happens in his plays.

      Sammuel Becket hasn't had enough time yet...but I guarantee he will.

      Of course, you can't forget Checkov.

      do you really think Bertolt Brecht is not going to last, sure it's been more like 50+ for him....but he's still around and going strong and has shaken modern theatre to it's bones (look at Angel's in American--definately not-"intellectual art" for an example of Brecht's wide reaching influence).

      Or are these not "intellectual to you?"

      Is William Blake and Henry David Thoreaux intellectual?

      How about Ezra Pound and e. e. cummings?

      Joseph Conrad? Jesus crist he'll philosophize for half a damn novel about Lord Jim's intentions&judgment... but he's still around, isn't he?

      How can you, as a *English grad student* say this? Sure if you define "intellectual art" as that which merely purports to be intellectual, but without any merit... then yeah. It won't last. But there's a word for this, and it's not "intellectual art". It's called pretentious.

      • Re:FIRST POST! (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Snowspinner ( 627098 ) <{ude.lfu} {ta} {dnaslihp}> on Friday June 20, 2003 @06:21PM (#6258280) Homepage
        Well, let's see...

        Joyce, for all his being the greatest novelist of the 20th century, is hardly touched outside of classes looking at modernists. And generally, if you're reading Joyce, you're reading some short stories at this point.

        Seneca is not read outside of classics departments.

        Euripedes, while not necessarily popularly acclaimed, was writing for popular festivals all the same - I have trouble calling him intellectual. Also, of little interest outside Classics departments.

        Shaw, again, while didactic, was a tremendously popular writer in his time. Don't confuse your tastes with the tastes of the time. Checkov, likewise.

        Brecht is important in theatre, but his impact outside of that is minimal, and his impact in theatre is primarily as a theorist.

        Beckett will be reduced to Waiting for Godot - by far his most readable and popular play.

        As for your last set of examples... have you noticed how poetry as a whole is dying out in the academy? As is popular to dryly point out now, it's the only form with more practitioners than readers. Pound's star fell fast after his fascism. e.e. cummings doesn't show his face past high school much. Blake and Thoreau are probably your two best examples, but I wonder how anti-popular they were.

        The "canon" as it were is busting rather largely. "Classics" are hardly read in universities, especially not those considered to have the best English programs. The field is splitting largely between popular culture people and theory people, with those interested in historical periods increasingly focusing on "minor" texts of the period instead of the canon.

        • Re:FIRST POST! (Score:3, Interesting)

          by efflux ( 587195 )
          I maintain my disagreement with you, but I am happy to see more of an argument than what you first post afforded. Well, let's see... Joyce, for all his being the greatest novelist of the 20th century, is hardly touched outside of classes looking at modernists. Hmm.. I've never formally studied english beyond freshman comp, but I've read him and loved it. I know many others who are the same way. From many disciplines: Musicians, Mathematicians, Dramatists, Authors, and even the occasional unemployed hi
          • To repeat (since I might have gotten buried in the middle of my post), I would like to see your definition of "intellectual art".


            His definition of "intellectual art" seems to hinge on how much airtime it gets in English departments, and amongst the post-modern-trash literary theorist types. My tastes run somewhat similarly to yours, and I studied physics in college - go figure.

          • That should, of course, have been "A Portrait of the Artist As a Young Man" and not "Portrait of a Young Artist". It's not one that I myself have read, but it's one that's often quoted to me when I talk with someone about Joyce. As far as you're comment about short stories (I assume you mean Dubliner's)... I think this may typically classify as "intellectually art" as well (though it depend on your definition).

            when I normally talk about Joyce with people (whether brought up by me or the other person),
    • The popular stuff tends to be what survives, largely because it was actually designed for people to enjoy, rather than praise.

      I've got to disagree here; only stuff with real artistic merit tends to survive, while the popular stuff fades away. You occasionally have overlap (think Shakespeare, or Dickens, or Gilbert and Sullivan) but for the most part it's the great artists who last, while the real popular stuff vanishes.

      How many people listen to Vaudeville these days, for example?
    • What do you mean by the intellectual art? L'art pour l'art is a relatively new concept anyway. The idea was to entertain, enlighten and pay homage to the Almighty. Was Bach an intellectual composer? What about Plato? Was Tolstoy an intellectual writer? Kafka?

      Sure, they were popular during their lives, does it make them less intellectual?

      If you define intellectual as being unpopular, then, of course, very little will survive for 100 years.

    • I find, as a graduate English student, that I can't really think of any generation or era where the intellectual art has really lasted well.

      Well, you qualified yourself as an English student but made a claim about "art", so let me take a broad meaning of "art" and mention music.

      Up until early in the twentieth century, popular music and academic music were basically one and the same, and the music of the eighteenth and nineteenth century is doing fine. A lot of people (such as myself) listen to it daily,

      • Re:FIRST POST! (Score:4, Informative)

        by Simon Brooke ( 45012 ) * <stillyet@googlemail.com> on Saturday June 21, 2003 @04:47AM (#6260531) Homepage Journal
        Up until early in the twentieth century, popular music and academic music were basically one and the same, and the music of the eighteenth and nineteenth century is doing fine. A lot of people (such as myself) listen to it daily, many radio stations remain dedicated to it, and a lot of people still perform. Sure, it's not dominating the music industry, but with so much music, there really isn't any one thing that's dominating any more.

        Bollocks.

        'Classical' music (and its precursers in the church and court musics of the renaissance and medieval periods) was never popular music. It was music written for an elite and one of its primary purposes was precisely to distance the elite from hoi polloi who were listening to (and enjoying) ballads, jigs, reels and other 'folk music'.

        Elite music is all about snobbery, oneupmanship and ostentation. Among other values elite music has to meet at least several of these criteria. It must:

        • Be novel - 'I can afford to hire a composer to compose music for me'.
        • Be technically complex to perform - 'I can hire more skilled musicians than you can afford'.
        • Require large numbers of performers - 'I can hire more performers than you can afford'.
        • Require complex and expensive technology - 'I can afford the most modern harpsichord, or the largest and most complex organ'.

        While elite music of lasting aesthetic quality has been produced, the main reason people listened to elite music in the past (and, indeed, the main reason people listen to 'classical' music now) is a wish to identify themselves as elite - 'I listen to posh music so I am posher than you'.

        This has nothing whatever to do either with aesthetic quality or with popularity. Elite music has never been popular and most of it never deserved to be.

        By contrast, until the twentieth century (and, to a remarkable extent, through the twentieth century and into the present one) popular music is played by small groups of performers on relatively simple portable instruments using traditional musical forms which change little over generations.

    • RE: FIRST POST! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by websensei ( 84861 )
      I disagree with both the style and the substance of your argument.

      "I find, as a graduate English student,
      [As if this status had any bearing on your expertise in the subject at hand? Get off it! You're probably not even aware of how obnoxious and pompous this is, so I'm telling you here. If you were my little brother I'd smack you in the back of the head for trying to use this to manipulate others' perceptions of your credibility.]

      "...that I can't really think of any generation or era where the intell

  • text of story (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 20, 2003 @04:53PM (#6257594)
    What is the Sound of One Hand Designing?
    "[Do not] mistake yourself for an 'artist.' Our goal is to create newer and more fun games. Art is not our goal." Tetsuya Nomura, Final Fantasy character designer[1]

    The Entertainment versus Art debate flares perennially. These participants may be having fun, but the dichotomy is uniquely inappropriate to games. For example among MMORPGs, to Jessica Mulligan, fun subsumes art[2]; whereas, to Raph Koster, art subsumes entertainment.[3] I will challenge the dichotomy itself. Crafting fun is the art of the game.

    To paraphrase Stephen King: Put your game design desk in the corner to remind yourself every day that Art supports Life, not the other way around.[4] By the end of this article, we may disentangle the faulty dichotomy. After reconsidering what we think we know about a game, fun, and art we may come to discover that Nomura and Costikyan are correct:

    "If you were to write a Seven Lively Arts for the 21st century, the form you'd have to mention first is clearly games." Greg Costikyan[5]

    To begin disentangling, we need to come to terms with the game as a unique medium.

    A Unique Medium
    "Unfortunately, as similar as the two media are, the differences are real and compelling and the superficial similarities can actually make people LESS effective in new, game-oriented roles." Warren Spector[6]

    Games are not like other forms of art. To define a game: if it uses points, has players and rules, it's a game. Of course a game may be part of a service or a world or a community, too. To keep a game, as I use the term here, from being confused with all the disciplines that game theory has been applied to (economics, psychology, politics, empirical analysis), call it "a parlor game," if the reader must. But Joe and Jane at the checkout counter call it a game.

    As the sound designer for the Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers video game wrote:

    "It is unproductive to think of games as âinteractive movies,â(TM) although many people tend to think of games in those terms. Let's be clear: games and films are different media. The techniques, processes, and skills involved in the creation of each are unique and not interchangeable. The metrics by which each is judged are also different, meaning that many of the properties that make for a good film would lead to a lousy game, and vice versa."[7]

    Narratives, which includes most films, and games differ dramatically, because games donâ(TM)t tell stories, players tell stories. A narrative is a passive experience. One watches and feels but does not do. The audience is not the actor. In a game, the audience is at once the actor, also. Herein is a conflict of purpose. The author of a narrative must control the lives of the actors. Whereas, the designer of a game must abdicate control. To paraphrase Will Wright's first advice for a budding game designer: Games are about players having fun; not about writers solving the narrative problems they want to solve.[8]

    Part of the problem is that an intellectual property rarely links a fine narrative to a fine game. Dungeons & Dragons is not J.R.R. Tolkien-in-the-medium-of-a-game. American McGee's Alice is not an adaptation of Lewis Carroll-in-the-medium-of-a-game. Go or Eleusis, which are puzzling, logical, and playfully deep, offers better comparison to Lewis Carroll. Reiner Knizia came closer with his cooperative board game of "Lord of the Rings," which retains the spirit of the novel. But still "Lord of the Rings" is more of a novelty than a fine game.

    Many game-movie crossovers, such as Tomb Raider or Mario Brothers, failed and so did movie-games, such as Atariâ(TM)s E.T.[9] or Braveheart. Their lesson: satisfy an audience for a movie, a player for a game. A bleak road lies before one who seeks a movie experience in a game or vice versa~$?ugh the fine game invokes something powerful inside the willing player, don't look for J.R.R. Tolkien or Lewis Carroll in a game. He's not there. Equally, there

    • RPG's (Score:2)

      by phorm ( 591458 )
      And yet many RPG's could make good movies (FF movie was never an RPG first, just took the name and stepped on it). FFX was packed with cinimatics, it might have made a good flic.

      In the same idea, there was a german CGI movie shown on /. (forget name) that looked like it would have made a cool RPG. Wonder if that one is ever going to be subbed and available in english? Kazaa fansubs anyone?

  • Age of Decadence (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    We like music .... but the majority of us consume it rather than create it (bodily noises don't count!)

    We like sports ... same deal

    We like art ... more of the same

    The earth has never had so many people. So many of us are educated with so much knowledge that it would be unbelievable to people just a 100 years ago.

    Yet ... we still have world hunger. Children die of lack of clean water, polio, etc.
  • I wouldn't be so sure about that. If gaming is an art, I'd consider it at the bottom of the art ladder. I've bought and played many PC games over the years, and I even bought a PlayStation 2 after a friend bugged me enough to get one. I'll play a game on my computer for a day, if that, before uninstalling it. The graphics are fine, but I find the plot and gameplay severely lacking in every graphical game I've tried. Then it was suggested to me that I try Dark Age of Camelot and the Sims Online, that ma
    • As an aspiring game maker and current game theorist, i have to agree with you that currently, most games out there are total crap. Even the really popular ones that you and i loved as kids (or adults) are generally really lacking on any deep level.

      But that's not to say that games, as a medium, are not able to be meaningful. It's just that the barriers for entry have been too high, the system of production has been entirely profit-driven and ultimately very conservative (this whole "fun" requirement is ho
    • I think this is more of a statement on the current selection of games, not on the medium itself. The vast majority of MUDS are also crap hack and slash monstrosities with no plot or imagination. It's just easier to go that route in graphics. Try something with an involved plot like Planescape: Torment or Fallout. To me these easily outdo all but the best MUDs (including the one I admin to my chagrin.)
      • I second Planescape: Torment as an example of how close games have come to art so far. Too bad I never finished it, I probably should drag it out from somewhere and... aw, shit, there goes my weekend =)

    • You sound like one of the Infocom elitists of yore (Score:4, Insightful)

      by HarveyBirdman ( 627248 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @05:12PM (#6257762) Journal
      But I tease... there's nothing wrong with games that are graphically oriented rather than deeper sims/adventures. One form is not superior to the other.

      I love a deep and complex simulation, but I also love a good platformer. If you still have access to a PS2, try out Sly Cooper. It's possibly the best and most fluid platformer ever created. There's levels that I finished and went back to replay simply because they were that damn fun.

      Other platformers to consider are Ratchet & Clank, Jak & Daxter (both have upcoming sequels). It's just a different type of gaming rather than better or worse. To be honest, I have a job that is deep and intellectual, so I make no excuses if I generally seek out the lighter side of gaming.

      I also like FP shooters, third person shooters, turn based RPGs, non-turn based RPGs, action RPGs (Zelda, Kingdom Hearts-ish games), puzzle games, SimCity like stuff, and whatever the hell Monkey Ball was. Above all else, I want VARIETY more than anything.

      But, yeah, there are a lot of crappy games. There's a lot of bad movies and books and TV shows and whatevers. Nothing new there.

    • Since then, I realized that most, if not all, of the computer and video games made the past ten years or so are utter crap. I even sold my PS2 and all my games. I haven't played a graphical game in months. But yet, every day I come back to playing MUDs, which are text-based on-line games. Using a simple telnet client, I find more plot and imaginination in text lines than I do in stunningly beautiful graphical games. Plus, I find that they rely more on intelligence and ingenuity than graphical games, which s

    • Re:I Don't Know About That (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Freedom Bug ( 86180 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @05:24PM (#6257861) Homepage
      1. Read headline
      2. Make reasonable comments on the headline, saying "I disagree, here's why".
      3. (Score:5, Insightful)
      4. read posts pointing out that you actually probably agree with the article.

      If you had bothered to read the article, you would have realized that the author agrees with you that nice graphics or an involved, non-interactive plotline do not make a good game.

      thank you,
      Bryan
    • Do you want plot and depth? Look in a book. If you want fun, innovative gameplay, try a game! Games should be judged on their gameplay first, and on their ambience second - and you have to look at the whole picture to see the game's true value.

      As for your assertion that no good games have been developed in the last ten years, I advise you to consider the output of Shigeru Miyamoto. The man continues to create fun, engaging games. For example, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is widely considered to be
      • Funny you should mention Miyamoto...he always contends that his games are popular in great part due to their ambience (which is expressed in it's art direction, mostly).

        You can this in Zelda, but also in games by others, like Metal Gear Solid, Homeworld, etc...all games which are considered great are so as much due to gameplay as due to the fact that they have consistent, engaging and, for want of a better word, beautifull ambiance.

    • May I make a suggestion? :) (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Polyphemis ( 450226 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @05:29PM (#6257899)
      If you're jaded about most of the shallow games over the past decade, you might be interested in Planescape Torment [amazon.com] to provide something deeper. It's a role-playing game from Black Isle that came out a few years ago. It's not up to par graphically anymore, but the storyline more than makes up for it. There's a typical isometric top-down perspective of your characters and the world they're in, but nearly all of the game is conveyed to you through richly worded written descriptions of people, places and objects. Most of the game is dialogue, and there are scores of interesting branching dialogue options that develop your character in whatever way you choose, even so far as to be purely evil, which, surprisingly, doesn't impede your progress in the game at all! There are MANY, many different ways to play it that almost playing experience is different. All the dialogue in the game is enhanced by an extremely talented cast of voice actors that lend credibility to their characters. All of the main characters you'll meet in the game are very unique and well-written and there are scores of interaction options that you have with them.

      It's incredibly difficult to adequately summarize this game, but I have to say, the real thing is better than I've described. :P It's the closest I've ever come to actually reading a good book while still playing a game. It's currently my favorite game out of all that I've played. If you're frustrated with all the shallowness then I'd highly recommend giving this game a try. It's $10 and up on Amazon, and you can find this in practically any given Wal-Mart or Target for $9.99 in one of those little two-game bundles. For a game that good, that well-written and that interesting for so low a price, it's hard to go wrong.

      I'm going to go install it again. :)
    • There are few games that qualify as art, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. If you had a Playstation, you could try Ico; if that isn't art, then no game is.

  • Deep. (Score:5, Funny)

    by American AC in Paris ( 230456 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @04:55PM (#6257616) Homepage
    I can't tell if the server is slashdotted or if this is a brilliant piece of minimalist commentary.

    *boggle*

  • Homeworld (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Jad LaFields ( 607990 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @04:56PM (#6257627)
    Alright, did anybody else cry when then got to the third level of Homeworld by Relic? You know, the one where um... something bad happens.. (no spoilers wanted).

    Alright, I didn't actually cry, but for some reason it affected me alot more than most of those 'tearjerker' movies out there. Maybe I was just starting to really 'get into' what turned out to be a really awesome game.

    Umm... I hope this didn't sound *too* pathetic...
    • Did you just sit back and watch the battle unold on the 'Gardens of Kadesh' (eighth level, I believe) level, too? Bloody brilliant storytelling, that game...

  • Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @04:58PM (#6257641)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • I don't care (Score:3, Interesting)

    by IWantMoreSpamPlease ( 571972 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @05:00PM (#6257656) Homepage Journal
    if it's considered "art" or "fun" or even "monkey vomit", so long as it (the game) holds my interest.

  • Ive always thought most games were an art form, in their design aspect at the very least. I write areas and encounters for Homeland MUD [homelandmud.org] and the sheer volume of unique descriptions of rooms, areas, NPCs, and objects that have been written be me and our staff is astounding. Each one is like a short story in and of itself. This is no different from the guys that toil for hours in order to create the graphical artwork for graphical games instead of text-based ones.

    I also contend that the code used in these games, or any creative code for that matter, is a form of art. Especially if it's well formatted and commented!

    I'd also go as far as to say that certain players of games engage in an artform. Surely it is art the way a top Quake3 player frags their foes. And it is art to watch from above as some of the players on Homeland use their strategies and skills to accomplish what they and I never though possible.

  • way off (Score:5, Insightful)

    by scrotch ( 605605 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @05:02PM (#6257668)
    This guy makes the mistake of equating "art" and "good." This is a common mistake among people who don't know much about art history and the art world. "Art" is a type of thing, not a value judgement. So, at best, his essay makes a case for making Good Games by taking inspiration from Fine Art. This is a totally different thing from suggesting that Games have a place in Fine Art ie: that Games are a type of Art. I'm certainly not saying that games are not Art, I'm saying that that is a completely different subject.

    All in all, this guy's lack of understanding of the art world, and especially contemporary art, makes this essay just about worthless.

  • Challenges (Score:5, Insightful)

    by meta-monkey ( 321000 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @05:03PM (#6257674) Journal
    Art is something that should be thought provoking and challenging, right? Great art is that what makes you challenge your assumptions. It makes things interesting.

    I once read an interview with Sid Meyer of Civilization fame. He said the way to make a great game was the give the user interesting choices. Great art does the same thing.

  • Not art according to Miyamoto (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fredrikj ( 629833 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @05:05PM (#6257700) Homepage
    I read in a recent interview with Shigeru Miyamoto that he doesn't consider video games to be art. He considers them to be products, made to entertain people and - well - make money.

    He drew a comprison to opera - long ago, opera was not considered art, it was made to make money. The operas had to follow the fashion or people wouldn't pay. It's only recently that we've started considering opera to be an artform.

    • Re:Not art according to Miyamoto (Score:4, Interesting)

      by heli0 ( 659560 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @05:24PM (#6257865)
      Interview with C&VG Miyamoto Interview Part 1 [gamecubenetwork.com]

      "The opera for instance is very interesting and can be fun and a lot of people consider opera to be 'art' and very artistic but really if you get down to it, all the opera is is entertainment. And of course long ago when people were writing plays, when they were writing the script for their own play in their theatre, if the theatre next door suddenly started running a production that was a very similar idea then all of a sudden the scriptwriter would re-write his script completely.

      So that's probably one of the reasons that you used to see a lot of stories where things wouldn't line up at all and you'd have these crazy stories that didn't match together and people would say: "Oh, that's brilliant artistic expression" but (laughs) really it's probably more often because they were forced to change things at the last second because of other things in the market."

    • For those who haven't heard of him... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Omkar ( 618823 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @07:56PM (#6258899) Homepage Journal
      Sigeru Miyamoto is arguably the most influential game desginer alive today. He's responsible for the Mario and Zelda franchises and is renowned for his quality. Try miyamotoshrine.com for more info.
    • Case in point, Shakespeare. His plays where at the time nothing more than popular entertainment; read 'em, and you'll laugh at the soap-opera elements in there, as well as the shit/piss/fart jokes.

      What differentiates him though is that his use of language is used so masterfully as to make deep, insightfull comments on the nature of humanity. But the plays themselves where made for the 'plebs'.

  • less-thinking-more-blowing-stuff-up? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jad LaFields ( 607990 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @05:06PM (#6257708)
    Hey, I find a well-rendered explosion or the graceful arc of blood spraying from a flesh-eating zombie to be a very powerful statement of man's... um... insignificance in the face of the world's indifference... um

    Ah, hell, just give guns, cars, and innocent bystanders [rockstargames.com], I'll make my own art: six wanted stars with a chainsaw.

  • Game Domain Patterns (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CrashVector ( 568050 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @05:11PM (#6257750)

    And maybe after the Philosophers come up with a game philosophy SOMEBODY will define a common set of key controls so that I don't have different throttle and weapons key templates for all of my flight sims!!!!

    And speaking of flight sims whatever happened to the Jane's/EA gaming colaboration? Am I ever gonna see a flight simulator better than F-18???

    --Richard

    • "And speaking of flight sims whatever happened to the Jane's/EA gaming colaboration? Am I ever gonna see a flight simulator better than F-18???"

      The Jane's endorsement of EA products ended a while ago. Jane's Fighter Squadron was still under development at the time. Since then JFS has had its development transferred to Xicat Interactive, and was later released. It was a very bad game, very outdated and didn't hold a candle to Il-2.

      Better sim than Jane's F/A-18? That game had a lot of flaws in my opinio
  • I keep telling people and telling them that videogames are a form of art and they look at me and scoff...

  • According to Raph Koster (Score:3, Interesting)

    by macragge ( 413964 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @05:14PM (#6257776)
    According to Raph Koster the Art Vs. Entertainment arguement is inherently flawed. I could sumarise the essay for you but I am lazy.
    Go read "The Case for Art" before you start arguing about being a puppet in a game designers show.
    http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/casefo rart.ht ml

  • Art is creatively overcoming the limitations that the artist sets upon him or her self. It does not matter what the limitations are, but if the artist can successfully express more than what the limitations should logically allow, then I think it is successful art.

    For example, if I had to convey the mood in the park next door to my house I could bring you here. But that is not possible. So, I can decide to express the mood in the park to you only via words, no sight, no sounds, no smells. Then I am a writer.

    If on the other hand I choose the limitation of being only able to express in colors, then I am a painter if only through the medium of colors I can convey the mood in the park to you.

    Or if I accept the limitation to be just using sounds, no sights, no colors, no smell, then I am a musician.

    I can even choose to express the mood in the park by using only matchsticks, or some other arbitrary limitation. As long as I can overcome the "self" or "else" imposed limitations to convey more than what the limitations should logically allow, I think I am a successful artist.

    I think gaming is the same way. By accepting limitaions on the medium of the computer screen, keyboard, joystick, the game attempts to transport the gamer into another world, another reality. If it can do that, it is succesful art. It is almost like movies where you suspend disbelief and enter the world of the movie. If you thought about it, all it really is just colored light flickering on a screen in a darkened room, with a bunch of speakers around. If with just these things the flickering light and sound can transport you to antoher world, it is art.

    And so, Game Design is an art. Maybe coding by itself is not art, just like an artist can use artisans and craftsmen, but the game design aspect, I believe, is definitely art. It is art because it is able to creatively able to overcome limitations.

    And using my definition of art, we can apply it to life too. The limitation of our lives is that they will end. The limitation of life is death, and so if we can live our life in such a way that we can transcend our physical death, our lived life itself then becomes art. So, I guess, in some ways I am saying the way we live our lives is the art of our life.

    I understand that in a strange way I have come around to define just about anything as being possibly art, and so maybe I am taking away from the exclusivity of the art. But, not really. because for it to be successful art it has to transcend the limitation, whether the limitation is real or arbitary. Thus, though everything has the potential to be artistic, it becomes art only if it overcomes the limitation. And it requires creativity to achieve that, and not everything is creative. So, not everything is art. Whatever is left, is then definitely art.

    Anyway, let me get my fourth cup of coffee. My head is spinning, and maybe if I could do something by overcoming that limitation, I could be an ... artist (?) (!)

    • Very nice post. I'm glad you expressed yourself here.

      Beauty is very good Quality, so it is completely dependant on the viewer and the viewer's current state besides the object and it's state.

      If you (or other readers) haven't taken read it already, I suggest Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Pirsig.

      8-PP
  • I've long heald the belief that all forms of work could be made into play. Having fun should be part of the job, IMO.

  • Fuck art (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Shawn Baumgartner ( 632798 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @05:42PM (#6257990) Homepage
    This insistence on attempting to pigeonhole crap that someone throws onto celluloid, canvas, hard disk, etc. is such bullshit. There's no such thing as art as a separate entity from everything else that people create. Art is strictly a matter of opinion, and since everyone's opinion differs, there can be no definition. Video game renders are as good as anything that some sweaty old man smeared squished plant matter all over.

    This is just more of the same ignorant elitist shit that keeps that stupid art vs. pornography debate alive and kicking, frivolously pissing away time in our courts. If you create something and someone else likes it, then good on you. If they don't, throw that crap away and try again. Its bad enough that we've gotten so fucking stupid as to require the government to tell us what we find acceptable and what we don't; we sure as hell don't need these jackasses wasting anyone's time by trying to elevate their chicken scratches to a higher level of being through some arbitrary decision to promote it to the mystical realm of ART (cue angelic choir).

    • Re:Fuck art (Score:3, Informative)

      by mcpkaaos ( 449561 )
      Browsing this topic I see quite a few inflated +5 posts... yet the parent to my ramble is stuck at, oh, 1. Shawn, albeit grumpy and bitter, has made the most insightful point of all thus far. I'll add my own $.02 in and state that even beyond what Shawn is saying that *everything* is art, just as art is nothing, even if you don't see it as such through your eyes. If you ask me, the moment you try to define art is the same moment your objects of definition lose the very thing that made them art in the fir

  • Games are a form of expression (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Rolman ( 120909 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @06:56PM (#6258481)
    Games are a very complete form of expression, as such, they're able to convey or express complex messages or feelings to many of our senses simultaneously, but as I'm afraid happens with most other forms of expression, it just depends on who is trying to express something, how it is expressed and who is willing to receive it.

    Many games are really complete works of art, you need people working in the plot and gameplay, music and graphics, so you practically have writers, musicians, painter and sculptors all working in a project, plus the coders and engineers to create an environment where all these elements can be merged. And on top of it, it's interactive, no other medium can ever give you that level of immersion.

    Someone here mentioned having a bad experience playing PC games. Sure, I myself would say most FPS are just overrated pieces of crap, but I'd never underestimate the perception of those who are willing to appreciate a single element of the game that attracts them the most. Being the music or a single texture map.

    I dare anyone to ever play Xenogears, FFVI, Metal Gear Solid, Zelda, Metroid and many other beatifully crafted games to the end, and not come out compelled on the powerful experience they can provide you. Some of them even make you question your own beliefs, some others will make you reflect upon your behavior. When an author is able to make you truly feel something, that's definitely art.

    That said, I'm not pretending that ALL GAMES are art. Not all paintings, not all music, not all writings and certainly not all games are masterful pieces of art. But the subjective differences between those that can and those that can't be considered as art are what make our "art appreciation" skills meaningful.

  • Art is food for the imagination (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dubStylee ( 140860 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @06:59PM (#6258493)
    I think there is a distinction between entertainment and art that lies in the interaction of the person with the artwork, not in the artwork itself. Games are required to be entertainment and have the potential to be art.

    An entertaining movie/game/book/whatever stimulates the imagination as you consume it, pulling you in to a temporarily vivid world. But if it's only entertainment, an hour later you're hungry again. Art, OTOH, remains with you, changes you somehow, provides you a hook to hang future thoughts and emotions on.

    Sure, if you play a game for X hours, you'll dream about it and find a thousand ways in which it is a metaphor for the events of your daily life, but how rich is the metaphor? how flexible? Does the extension of the game into your psychic life narrow your field of view, or expand it? If the game is multi-player, does it encourage social interaction along the single dimension of the game's progress, or does it provide a jointly formed framework for exploring many dimensions of social interaction?

    I have a higher bar for the term "interactivity" - any shoot-em-up can absorb you and provide you with choices which impact the game, but a richly interactive game will also keep on interacting so that after the pixels have faded from the screen or the last stone has hit the Go board with a satisfying thunk, it will contnue to generatively engage you on multiple levels.

  • Games aren't fine art? You don't know fine art. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by jjlilj ( 634861 ) on Friday June 20, 2003 @07:03PM (#6258511)
    If you think games are not fine art, what do you think fine art is?

    Fine art is not only the ceiling of the sistine chapel, but also the gazillion portraits painted of the virgin and child, still life and scenic meadows. Fine art is not only Beethoven's ninth and Miles Davis' solos but also the minor works of Saliari and the Spice Girls. Fine art contains Gone with the Wind, Schlindler's List, and Freddy Got Fingered. Fine art is Shakespeare, Vonnegut, and silly romance novels. The creative use of media on a professional level to entertain is fine art.

    Fine art CAN have a philosophical point, be deep, meaningful, emotionally wrought, thematically interesting and all that, but it can be and often is quite shallow and trite. Every see Andy Warhol's Campbell Soup can? Ever listen to modern pop music? Have you been to a movie lately? Have you ever tried to delve into the meaning of Christopher Wren's St. Paul's Cathedral?

    Sure the history of painting and sculpture contains masterpieces, same with music, architecture, literature, movies, and even TV. I'll tell you this for nothing, the history of video games is going to contain masterpieces as well, and because the medium is interactive and popular, it has the potential to produce more of them in the future than the other media combined.

    • Where do you get this nonsense? The amendment to your entire post would be "Anything can be art".

      Fine is a grade, it varies with the eye of the beholder, but certainly most would agree that while all of your examples are Art, most certainly are not Fine.

      Where to start?

      "The creative use of media on a professional level to entertain is fine art."

      "The creative use of media" as good a definition of art as any I've heard. However, whether or not someone is getting paid to produce it IS NOT the defining fa
  • Cyan's [cyan.com]'s products are works of art. Myst and Riven are beautiful places to visit. Some gamers criticize them for this.

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