icemann on 3/9/2008 at 11:59
Second every word of that.
Jashin on 3/9/2008 at 16:09
And what you don't seem to get is that "experienced" means very little - every time you watch a movie, like it or not, you experienced it. Which is exactly what I'm getting at.
Having said that, plenty of terrible games are beloved by people, moved them on some levels even. Doesn't mean they're art. It's been said over and over, but the games rating system is based the majority mindset, when in fact the only real qualifiable difference between any games is the difference in the number of people who enjoy them. Yeah, it's that subjective.
Basically your definition of art is everything, cus everything will move somebody in some way or another given the context. Good for you. To me you can't make that argument for VG when you look at it as a whole. For something to be an artistic medium, its inherent value has to be recognized and undeniable, even if unappreciated. A person doesn't have to like Picaso or van Gogh, but there's no denying the art in their work. Simply put, VG's not there yet, it's not even in the same ballpark yet.
Maybe someday.
Shakey-Lo on 3/9/2008 at 16:27
Too many people think 'art' is synonymous with 'good'.
You can have crap art.
Jashin on 3/9/2008 at 16:43
Sure, for functional art. But you don't think of an artistic medium as just being functional. You need some kind of inherent recognizable value, a "lightening of the heart" so to speak.
demagogue on 3/9/2008 at 17:21
I think you're missing something basic here...
Making a product has commercial motivations, fine.
But artistic/cultural criticism doesn't. Neither, for the same reason, does it care where its subject matter comes from.
And we are doing the latter, not the former here.
And on that, just because something has commercial motivations doesn't make it immune to being held to artistic or cultural standards. We could say the commercial motivations really undermine a game's artistic or cultural value, okay fair argument. But you can't seriously say artistic standards can't even apply.
People go to art school and liberal arts programs to make games. So gaming is far from hermetically sealed from what artists or people interested in culture think and care about.
Jashin on 3/9/2008 at 17:33
Quote Posted by demagogue
And on that, just because something has commercial motivations doesn't make it immune to being held to artistic or cultural standards. We could say the commercial motivations really undermine a game's artistic or cultural value, okay fair argument. But you can't seriously say artistic standards can't even apply.
Yeah, that's basically what I'm saying.
Only it's the exception in the VG industry, not the rule. Hence "art on a corporate level is accidental". There's too many factors involved and water rolls downhill. For art to come from a group of not necessarily like-minded individuals, you need people like Levine to fight it all the way uphill and burn a few bridges a long the way aka "2K Marin".
-ps
Movie industry is what, centennial now? (
http://blogs.amctv.com/scifi-scanner/2008/08/babylon-ad-mathieu-kassovitz.php) It still happens all the time. (
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0473709/) Television too (Thank GOD for HBO, artist-friendly!) Part of the struggle with art/substance on the corporate level is the battle with politics. It's expected.
The difference is that in the VG industry there's no leverage to negotiate as independent sources of funding are nonexistent. It's come down to studios that made their fortune in the previous era who still have control over their creative destiny, and occasionally those who have the stomach to fight for it.
ZymeAddict on 4/9/2008 at 07:14
It seems to me that a pretty safe rule is if a humanly created thing is a medium, ipso facto a sub-segment of that medium must be art. Video games are a medium, therefore a sub-segment of video games must be art.
Now, if video games can be "proven" to be the one human medium in which it is impossible to produce art, I think that that is still a pretty interesting phenomena in of itself.
icemann on 4/9/2008 at 10:10
Jashin: I`m starting to see the point your getting at, though your totally off base with it, as your looking at the definition of what "art" is the wrong way. Art whether it is good or not, is still art as it is part of that overall medium. It doesn`t have to be great or even good to be art, it just is if its within that medium.
Yes we all tend to refer to the better games or paintings or whatever as art, rather than the worser efforts. But that doesn`t make them any less art than the better equivalents.
Jashin on 4/9/2008 at 15:34
The whole thing about trying to qualify VG as an artistic medium is to try to lend it some romantic credence behind its monetary success. But I don't think the industry as a whole deserves it yet.
It all comes down to how you and I use the word. Personally I feel that label needs to be reserved for quality as a form of reveal of the state of the industry, cus god forbid if it's all art then whole thing is moot.
Vivian on 4/9/2008 at 15:47
Every product of human industry is art to some degree, its just that a large amount of it is either overwhelmed by function or just not that intellectually stimulating. As far as I can see thats the only workable definition (I mean, art literally means 'made' unless I'm enterpreting the word-root wrong) unless you want to fart yourself into a corner trying to pry apart 'high art' and 'entertainment' in any reliable sense. Is design art? By that extension, is the ford focus art? Is cave art art? In which case, are the instructions for a
hunting rifle art? Is engineering art? It requires creativity and the results are frequently awe-inspiring. Similarly, sculpture requires a level of technical sophistication in common with many types of more functional fabrication.
Are videogames an art? Yes. I mean, what else are they? It's just that a lot of them are shit.
