Censored Video Game Content Stifles Artistry 289
Posted
by
Soulskill
from the i-paint-with-virtual-bullets dept.
from the i-paint-with-virtual-bullets dept.
AnInkle writes "The question of whether modern video games represent art and the persistent attempts to censor controversial content in games have been discussed here at length. Now, a blogger at The Tech Report makes the case that censorship of violent and sexual images and themes in video games is precisely what inhibits video games from maturing artistically beyond a nascent form. He cites a historical comparison between video game and film production, as well as geo-cultural comparisons of film production in the US vs. Europe and of video game development in the US vs. Japan. Are these comparisons apt and the assertions valid, or might the embrace of video games as a legitimate art form be limited for entirely different reasons?"
I think the real problem is... (Score:5, Insightful)
that most people who make video games are technicians rather than artists. I think that the few people who overlap creativity in the story telling or avaunt guard space, rarely overlap with coders or the middle management corporate structure that herds them. So you get Doom->Quake->Wolfenstien->Doom->Quake games that are just excuses to kill shit with rocket launchers as a development platform.
There are games that tell stories, Halo, Half-life, Morrowind, & et al. and they're blockbusters. He's what we need to do, hire writers, pay them starvation wages and provide them with shitloads of high quality hallucinogens.
Or go educational, Immune Attack is really impressive and just needs a little bit of play polishing and graphics massage to be awesome.
Or just remake really good games, Ultima Underworld, Marathon, Starcontrol, and on and on on new engines to bring real games to the starving masses.
Re:8==U=N=C=E=NS=O=R=E=D==D ~~-_ (Score:3, Insightful)
art is for homos.
Says the guy displaying ASCII art :).
New medium (Score:4, Insightful)
Why is "art" always sex and violence? (Score:4, Insightful)
Nascence (Score:5, Insightful)
8-bit games are the cavemen drawings of what games will become. At the time of their inception they were probably revered above many other things by those who viewed them. Today they are crude and easily reproduced by a two year old. This will not be the case with games. And why not?
I can sit down with pen and paper and make a caveman drawing but I cannot sit down at my computer and make a Contra clone for an NES emulator? Why? Because the tools that represent pen and paper in this analogy are not open to me. They are closed and guarded by law and by obfuscation. I can look at a Picasso and begin to imitate the colors and angles and feel. I can play a Playstation One game but not imitate. I am not arguing that these methods should be open and available to all, I am just pointing out that this inhibits the everyone-can-do-what-they-want factor of most art mediums. It's difficult for me to acquire oils and pastels but it is near impossible for me to acquire a Neo Geo developer's license and kit.
In part this is due simply to complexity. Which brings me to my next point: games require a team.
Painting, drawing, photographing do not necessarily require a team. Films do but it is often to create a vision of a director or writer. I believe that games require much more teamwork and collaboration. Your texture folks have to be on board for the feel, your 3D engine has to be tuned to work with your feel, your dialogue has to match the feel, the coordination seems endless to me for modern games. This prevents the explosion of games and relegates us to a set number right now. I am not sure this will ever change.
In short, I feel that the difficulty in anyone picking up something to create a game inhibits the artistic expression. No one can arise by their own will in this field like you could in art or film. Furthermore, the idea of a lone genius revolutionizing or creating a movement is far more rare due to these inhibiting factors whereas that may more often happen in other arts.
I argue that games are art but they do hold different complexities and properties from other traditional arts. It may be a long time before they are recognized in the general public as such since the general public may always be removed from being able to create their own games with open tools.
All for censorship... (Score:1, Insightful)
in the home. The government however should stay out of it. I do appreciate them having little warnings on boxes to help me decide if the children I'm responsible for should have access to that material or not. What I don't understand is how does classifying something as art give it a special dispensation to show material that wouldn't be deemed appropriate in other media.
Re:I think the real problem is... (Score:3, Insightful)
that most people who make video games are technicians rather than artists. I think that the few people who overlap creativity in the story telling or avaunt guard space, rarely overlap with coders or the middle management corporate structure that herds them. So you get Doom->Quake->Wolfenstien->Doom->Quake games that are just excuses to kill shit with rocket launchers as a development platform.
Well said. Games most often contain things of high artistic value (tell any 3d modeler that what he's doing isn't art, and then duck!) but seldom is the game itself art. Think of the game as a gallery -- no artistic value, but it puts on display things of [subjective] beauty and wonder.
Re:artistic maturity ? (Score:5, Insightful)
Graphic Violence and exploitive sexual images represent artistic maturity?
They certainly can. Ever seen "Apocalypse Now?" "Eyes Wide Shut?" "Psycho?" Picasso's "Guernica?"
Dismissing something as an art form simply because it's violent or erotic is just silly. Do I think that Quake's a masterpiece because you can blow heads off? Of course not. Do I play through the Half-Life cycle once or twice a year because it has a compelling story and it's like revisiting a favorite book? Absolutely. And I'll defend that game as art to my last breath.
Really? You can't express yourself? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not advocating censorship, but really, can't you make games that represent any political or artistic notion that comes into your head? What viewpoints cannot be expressed because of this repressive censorship we now have?
And it's hard to swallow the idea that video games aren't allowed to be violent enough. You can already kill prostitutes for fun and torture people to death and make people explode in gore - what else do you want? Are there ANY rules right now, other than a rating system that gives people fair warning?
Re:Bunk (Score:4, Insightful)
Hollywood made a lot of great movies in the Hayes Code era, thus demonstrating that it is possible to create Great Art while refraining from constantly spewing foul language, women hanging out their breasts, constantly showing blood and gore, or hopping into someone else's bed every other moment.
Yeah, maybe art needs some guidelines. I'm not saying art should be controlled and stifled, but if it can't take the easy "tits n' blood" way out, maybe it forces the artists to be more creative.
Re:Why is "art" always sex and violence? (Score:3, Insightful)
As a side note, I don't think that the article is talking about sex and violence in the GTA sense; "Let's run over a hooker with our cars." It's in a much deeper sense - how can something be decent art while not dealing with the most central and passionate areas of our lives?
Tired of these stupid debates (Score:3, Insightful)
Does anyone remember(presuming you were born) when the big debate was not if video games were art but if anything that was done on a computer could be called art?
Let's stop having these debates and giving the morons who will never understand a voice.
They are the same people who claimed that expressionism wasn't art, surrealism wasn't art, pop art wasn't art. They are a pox on humanity.
"not being able to create art
they will not understand art
they will consider their failure as creators
only as a failure of the world"
http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-genius-of-the-crowd/ [poemhunter.com]
The Genius of the Crowd - Charles Bukowski
Re:I think the real problem is... (Score:4, Insightful)
Think of the game as a gallery -- no artistic value, but it puts on display things of [subjective] beauty and wonder.
Can't the Louvre or the Uffizi be thought of as works of art in themselves? I agree that games are mostly thought to be mere entertainment, but I think it's not unreasonable to say that sometimes (if seldom) games are art.
Yes, Citizen Kane needed those sex scenes... (Score:3, Insightful)
I admit I haven't read the article yet, and perhaps it's got a very nuanced discussion on this subject that will persuade me otherwise...
but I doubt it.
Look, it's a new thing, really. I don't know why we haven't had 'art' in VG yet, but the simple fact is that it isn't because we don't have explicit sex. (Explicit violence has been censored from VG? Uh...)
I just drew a simple classic off the top of my head. Citizen Kane has nothing approaching violence and sex, and yet it's well regarded. And although Shakespeare had violence (and bawdy puns) it's nothing that you couldn't do without being a MA game.
I could probably list a 100 movies that affected me greatly, that are well regarded, and at least half of them I'd put forth as art, and of those, at least half again would be lacking in violence and sex. Sometimes, lacking colors in your palette can ENHANCE the experience.
We're getting there. Things like Braid are a step forward. Quite honestly, though, the real problem is the lack of a broad audience. When the 40 year old gamers of today hit 60, they'll have different tastes and requirements.
Re:New medium (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't know about that. To me art is - or ought to be - something one or two steps up from routine artisanship, sonething that is somehow above and beyond the ordinary. In most cases a video game doesn't qualify as art any more than the latest album by any of the trivial boy-bands, however well-crafted it may be.
The problem I see with modern games is not that they are too radical, but that they are too trivial and that they trivialise subjects like war, violence and suffering. A lot of games are in that respect nothing more than a kind of "pornography" and utterly insignificant. The first version of Doom may have broken some boundaries and counted as "art", despite its clumsy graphics, but I think the Nth remake of the same theme in stunningly crisp detail and completely naturalistic movements is simply nothing more than cheap and trivial pornography; there is certainly nothing "art" about it any more.
People are a lot more openminded than you give them credit for - which is why there are so many people who are willing to go to Tate Modern in London. I'm not saying whether there should be censorship on video games or not, only that if we're talking art, there is some way to go still.
He's got a point! (Score:2, Insightful)
After all, we all know that it would not have been possible to have such mature artistic works like Lord of the Rings, Atlas Shrugged, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Brothers Karamazov, and Casablanca without the addition of explicit sexual imagery. And it's clear that such immature games as Half-Life, Zork, Monkey Island, System Shock and Civilization were kept from becoming true works of art by not containing pornographic content.
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Seriously, this article is a joke. You want a mature game? (And I use the word "mature" in its ordinary meaning, not as a synonym for "titillating"). Write good stories. I just finished Thief Gold (again), and was easily able to dismiss the clunky late-90's-style graphics and immerse myself in the fantastic story that unfolds for the player throughout its 13 missions. I'm starting Thief 2 now, where the storytelling got even better. Compare that with Crysis - while visually gorgeous, it told a very tired, worn-out story. (I get to play as a space-marine? With futuristic weapons? Wow! And I'm fighting aliens who are coming to earth? Amazing!)
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Gamemakers: I'm not looking for more violence. Really, I'm not. Shooting bad guys is fine, but I don't wistfully dream about a future game where I'll be able to murder housewives and their children. And I'm not looking for more sexual imagery in my games. I want a story, with a beginning, plot development, and an end. I don't want an open-ended game where I have to create my own story because you were too cheap to hire good writers - I want you to pay what it takes to get some writers to write a fantastic tale that I can immerse myself in. Don't make it pornographic. Don't make it a blood-fest. Just make it compelling. Then you'll have a mature game.
Re:artistic maturity ? (Score:3, Insightful)
You are wrong. Art is not simply spectacle. Art is a communicative effort. Art is about drawing the focus of the audience to consider a certain perspective that was preconcieved by the artist. That is where it's merit lies. Violence and sexuality are important parts of the human experience, and they have a place in art, but only in art that is actually trying to comment on those aspects of the human experience. Art is supposed to provoke thought and open the mind, not close thought and rouse the base instincts. Any thug or whore can do that.
Oh, and my spouse is a professional fine artist, and I move in artistic circles as a consequence. I know a lot more about the history of art and the mechanisms by which a modern artist makes a living than most non-professionals, thanks. Perhaps you ought to stick to arguing your point and refrain from accusing people of ignorance from a position of ignorance.
Re:8==U=N=C=E=NS=O=R=E=D==D ~~-_ (Score:5, Insightful)
What a coincidence, I just post a journal pointing out that some mods are idiots, [slashdot.org] and an anonymous troll gets modded "insightful". OK, troll, I'll bite (I have to). [kuro5hin.org]
Yes, art is for homos. It's for heteros, too. I pity anyone who is so culturally deprived that they can't appreciate art.
What's funny is about ten years ago, I was in an online discussion with Charles Broussard, who was of the opinion that videogames were NOT art. I think in the end we agreed to disagree, I wonder if he ever changed his mind? I certainly haven't changed mine, games ARE art. Some are good art and some are bad art, but all are art.
And I do think that censorship may be keeping the art from advancing, but what is a bigger factor is the fact that the folks who make games don't see them as art.
My daughter Leila, still an avid gamer, mentioned to me that in the last GTA she got, there's a dope dealer named "Osama". It seems to me that the designers are censoring themselves, and pushing politically correct themes (like dope dealers being terrorists) and their snideness is hurting both their art and the quality of the games themselves.
It's a long way from Duke Nukem 1, where shooting the Energizer Bunny resulted in points. I remeber when games were a lot more primitive, but a lot more fun. And a lot more artistic.
Re:artistic maturity ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Spectacle is often a communicative effort.
You know fuck all about art...you think it has a concrete definition.
Don't try throwing credentials at me, I'm a (successful) professional artist as well, as is my partner...it's what we do for a living...I am a working composer, performer, and dramatist, my partner is a working visual artist.
I would tell you immediately the one thing in life you're not going to see agreement on is the definition of "Art." The fact that you try to present one shows your complete ignorance in the subject. The one thing artists successfully do over and over again throughout the ages is destroy whatever definition and rules society tries to hold them to.
"...drawing the focus of the audience to consider a certain perspective that was preconcieved by the artist."?? What about furniture music?
You also completely missed my point..."drawing the focus of the audience to consider a certain perspective that was preconceived by the artist." is in fact considered SPECTACLE by just about anybody who didn't like that particular work.
You see deciding something as spectacle or not is a perspective...it's an opinion. Where you see violence or sex simply for their own sakes, others may not...it's not up to you to decide what is art for the rest of the world...now I'm not saying everything out there is good...most of it is crap...but that's the way it always is.
The Rite of Spring caused a riot within the first 3 minutes of it's first performance...people were throwing chairs. It was most certainly considered spectacle by the people who were infuriated by it...now it's considered one of the most important works of the 20th century by composers and dancers alike.
What's really funny, is that we in fact agree for the most part on art in general...I just don't think I'm qualified to judge what is art and isn't...you on the other hand seem to think you can recreate the world in your own fascist image of what should be acceptable and not.
Re:8==U=N=C=E=NS=O=R=E=D==D ~~-_ (Score:3, Insightful)
Welcome to Slashdot, the only place where a comment that focuses on "cockslap" gets modded Insightful.
Re:I think the real problem is... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I think the real problem is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I think the real problem is... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I think the real problem is... (Score:4, Insightful)