But Is It Art? 56
Once again the ever popular topic of 'Games as Art' rears its head in a Gamespot editorial. Matthew Rorie talks the artistic and social value of games, and touches on comics and film to boot. From the article: "As of now, innovation in games is driven more by commerce than by any kind of noble artistic ideal. For that to change, and for games to be taken more seriously by people who don't play them, games need to become cheaper to make, they need to be made by more- diverse groups of people, and they need to be more accessible to nongamers. You could argue about the accessibility point, but the other two factors aren't improving, and they probably won't improve anytime soon. Most game companies seem to be preaching to the choir by developing games that will mostly appeal to people who are already interested in them."
Is It Art (Score:5, Insightful)
Games can be artistic in style.
Art is art for the sake of art. Games are games for the sake of entertainment.
Next rehashed question please.
Re:Is It Art (Score:5, Insightful)
And a lot of conventional art is created to feed the artist.
Who Cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Is It Art (Score:4, Insightful)
Try playing Shadow of the Collossus. That game is art of art's sake, at the expense of gameplay in some ways. (Freaking camera.)
In the exact same way that TV shows are art and movies are art and plays are art, games are art. I think most people would agree that board games are a form of art, so it would follow that video games are art as well.
Besides, I'd have to question your statement that "art is for the sake of art." I'd say all art is for the sake of entertainment, at the core. The entire point of art is some form of entertainment, even if it is a more intellectual form of entertainment.
Under these requirements, what is art? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, because movie studios and art galleries don't want to make money. Painters and directors have absolutely no commercial hopes for their creations. I know all the professional painters I know aren't trying to sell their paintings.
Like movies are cheap to make? Yeah, I mean, I can scrounge up a couple hundred million in a weekend. Paint, canvas, they cost money too. More than you'd think.
...and paintings need to be made to be more accessible to people who don't look at paintings, movies to people who don't watch movies....
Look, I'm not saying that it isn't possible to improve the game creating/playing community or something, but are they art? Yes. That it can be expensive, commercial, and that it has a limited audience has nothing to do with the question whatsoever. Art can be all of those things. Good art can be all of those things.
Different view on the article's main 'points' (Score:2, Insightful)
First off (not counting the comic books), video games or rather interactive multimedia computer simulations are just a content medium, a channel for presenting information to a viewer. This channel includes anything that passes through it just like any other medium. How people categorize this content varies but I think its safe to say anything intended specifically to entertain the viewer can safely be called art. Again, the same goes for entertainment on any other content medium, like movies, music, and yes, even comic books.
Anyone who argues otherwise siting specific titles as being "NOT ART" is expressing a personal preference generally based on whether or not they are entertained by a particular title. Those same people then usually try to force this personal preference on everyone else as some form of fact. From there is gets complicated and increasingly more annoying. For example an extreme but sadly common example is pornography, some may say a picture of a simple nude statue is art while at the same time a PlayBoy centerfold poster is not art (personally I would even argue the human body is a work of art and should freely be displayed as such, and indeed I would include everything from flashing breasts to modeling). Same is true of violence, if a character in a movie kills in the heat of passion (and its moves the viewer) its art while some would say a movie that depicts people killing for fun to be "NOT ART".
So yes, it is art.
Second, cost is a minor factor. The movie theater analogy was extremely poor. People seeking to pay per play in a theater type arrangement go to an arcade, they don't run out an dump $500 on a gaming system and a few games. Games are reasonably priced for the volume of content you pay for (that says nothing of quality) and at least for consoles you can get more functionality out of the few $100 you had to drop on equipment to watch movies at home.
Third, play time in context to introducing people to video games is a problem for most titles. This says nothing of game demos, independent games (including "interactive fiction"), and the huge range of non-3D games (most of which are short). Web based games on portal sites are also becoming more popular.
Finally (before I get replies just telling me to shutup), the game industry is broken but I think 'natural' industry changes and market pressure will slowly resolve most of the problems. This will also result in an ever widening range of game content becoming available. The main problem with content today is only small independent developers and hobbyists are willing to risk their time and resources on anything but a sure bet product. A large part of the solution will be advances in development technologies such as new versions of 3D Game Studio for small developers, open sources development resources for hobbyists, and procedurally created content generation for the big developers. It goes well beyond just engines, development tools, and the range of content but thats a subject for another article (by someone who can describe it far better than I can).
I'd also like to note that I'm back, I have posted a comment on here in years but now I'll be contributing my two cents a little more often, at least for a while.
Note: Sorry if this is redundent with any other replies, took me a while to write this.
-MegaBurn
Easy answer (Score:3, Insightful)
Nine times out of ten, if you find yourself asking that question, the answer is "yes." There is often doubt about what is art, but there is rarely any doubt about what is not art.
It's up there with questions like "Is this a dumb idea?"