posted by ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
benlehman at 12:42pm on 21/04/2010
benlehman at 12:42pm on 21/04/2010So Roger Ebert said once more that video games aren't art. And there has been a big tizzy about this. This is silly. Clearly, for the trivial definition of art, video games are art. But Ebert, sometimes (he shifts his goalposts constantly) means "not art" in a different sense than formal definition: he sometimes means it in the critically dismissive sense, and in that case he's pretty close to right on target.
What do I mean by "critically dismissive?" Well, for instance, imagine a Hallmark card with a nice painting of some lilies on the cover. It's clearly art in the trivial sense: paintings are pretty much the only thing which are defined culturally as honestly %100 bona-fide art without asterisk. But in another sense it's "not art:" in that it has no redeeming social or aesthetic value. Indeed it pretty much exists to be inoffensive and non-noticeable.
In terms of the basic question: are video games art? clearly the answer is yes. But in terms of the question "is there any worthwhile art in video games?" the answer is much hazier. I think that the answer is yes, but there's still a surprising dearth.
When I think about video games that have personally affected me about as much as a pretty good movie or nearly any book, I can count them on one hand. If I remove the games where it was some non-game aspect of the work (I'm looking at you, FFTactics) that affected me, it drops even further.
When I think about video games that have caused me to dramatically re-examine and rethink my life, the number drops to zero. (compared to a handful of movies, a few role-playing games, a great many books.)
In terms of things which have actually honestly changed my life, it's really just books and may...be a tabletop role-playing game (although I bet if I was a movie buff it'd have some movies too: I've seen this amongst my friends.) Video games aren't anywhere close to this.
So, once we've dismissed the obvious, there's a pretty important question there: why the dearth of decent art in video games? I think that, as a generation of video game players and designers, we need to confront that question, not shun and avoid it.
What do I mean by "critically dismissive?" Well, for instance, imagine a Hallmark card with a nice painting of some lilies on the cover. It's clearly art in the trivial sense: paintings are pretty much the only thing which are defined culturally as honestly %100 bona-fide art without asterisk. But in another sense it's "not art:" in that it has no redeeming social or aesthetic value. Indeed it pretty much exists to be inoffensive and non-noticeable.
In terms of the basic question: are video games art? clearly the answer is yes. But in terms of the question "is there any worthwhile art in video games?" the answer is much hazier. I think that the answer is yes, but there's still a surprising dearth.
When I think about video games that have personally affected me about as much as a pretty good movie or nearly any book, I can count them on one hand. If I remove the games where it was some non-game aspect of the work (I'm looking at you, FFTactics) that affected me, it drops even further.
When I think about video games that have caused me to dramatically re-examine and rethink my life, the number drops to zero. (compared to a handful of movies, a few role-playing games, a great many books.)
In terms of things which have actually honestly changed my life, it's really just books and may...be a tabletop role-playing game (although I bet if I was a movie buff it'd have some movies too: I've seen this amongst my friends.) Video games aren't anywhere close to this.
So, once we've dismissed the obvious, there's a pretty important question there: why the dearth of decent art in video games? I think that, as a generation of video game players and designers, we need to confront that question, not shun and avoid it.
(no subject)
I'll probably be thinking hard about videogames I've played, what they have, or haven't meant for me.
(no subject)
(no subject)
yrs--
--Ben
(no subject)
I'm thinking about all the paintings and sculptures I've seen by Renaissance masters and the like. There were plenty that I liked or appreciated aesthetically, but I'm struggling to think of any that "affected" me in the way that I define that term. That makes me wonder where they play into this spectrum that you're talking about.
(no subject)
Graphic art can have a hard time with this. I find it easier face-to-face.
(no subject)
(1) Video games are a relatively young medium, too young to be taken seriously by a substantial portion of the population in the way that books and films are. Video game designers are starting to understand how to create art through their chosen medium, but the medium is decades or centuries younger than other media. Game designers do need to think hard about this kind of thing, but I worry that Ebert's pronouncement of its inability to do so could be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
(2) Video games have economic factors that work against their ability to be created for purely expressive purposes. Independent video games have been growing quite a bit in recent years, but the mainstream of video game development is more like Hollywood in terms of its willingness to take creative risks. I think this kind of economic disincentive to take risks is a major problem for video games, but then it's a problem for (the mass-market versions of) virtually every entertainment medium there is.
(no subject)
2) The same is true of film, novels, etc, although clearly to different degrees. I don't think commercialization is an insurmountable barrier, and I'm not sure it can explain the discrepancy I'm seeing.
(no subject)
Another important factor is that even today people regard video games as a kind of toy for kids. Gamers have grown up, but there's a sense that the likes of GTA are for "adult kids," with little need to aspire to be art. While there are plenty of people within the gaming industry who talk big about games as art, I think the vast majority of games released belie a "games as toys" attitude.
(no subject)
Here is a very vague statement: It seems to me that the economic circumstances of video games' 'youth' are substantially different from film in some way that helps explain this. I feel like video games got to the 'Hollywood' (modern, derogatory Hollywood) stage a lot faster, which means you now have to wait for the post-Hollywood stage instead of getting to enjoy all that pre-/parallel-Hollywood European development which existed in film but appears remarkably absent from video game design & production.
There's also some things about the medium itself, the interactivity maybe, and the focus on competition, that seems to make it less likely to be seen as art by both creators & consumers. And since 'we think it's art' is one of the better definitions of what makes something art... I don't think very many people have tried to make art with video games, compared to the amount that tried to make art with film or photography or painting in their respective historical eras.
(no subject)
The one thing I'd like to pick apart here is why you would try to make a distinction between game and non-game aspects that might be powerful to you. In the movies that you have mentioned, are the moving aspects something that is inherent to the medium? Aren't most powerful movies something where the powerful aspect could have been done in a play, but was well executed in a movie? Similarly, can't the same be said for books as opposed to spoken story? Ok, there is a real difference when you move something from one medium to another, but I don't think that a good piece of art in one medium is bound to it.
Some of the greatest art (well beyond the bounds necessary to call something art by Ebert's standards) out there fully exploits the medium and would not be as great if put in another, but I attribute the power of art (fine art) not to what is in the art itself, but in the lives (emotions, past experiences, etc.) of the people who experience the art. The art's job is to invoke that.
(no subject)
Let's see. I dunno. Imagine a movie which is just an open copy of Charles Dicken's "A Tale of Two Cities." Every minute or so, someone turns the page. Now, clearly, there is art here (I can read the book, and be moved by it as I am when I read a physical book in front of me) but it's not really the movie part where the art lies.
I feel the same way about FMV-driven plotlines in games. It's basically taking a break from the game to watch a movie.
I'd love to hear more about your talk.
(no subject)
Games are about making choices—this is what distinguishes them from other media. I've only ever found truly morally meaningful choices to be made in RPGs, rather than in video games.
Matt
(no subject)
Thought: the last level of Braid is horrifying, even though there's basically no choices to make. Indeed, it's horrifying because there are no choices to make.
(no subject)
Matt
(no subject)
Sorry.
(no subject)
(Jono here)
Thank you Ben for taking this useless argument and turning it around into a topic that's actually interesting. Thank you.
> "why the dearth of decent art in video games?"
What is it you're actually looking for? As an interactive activity, video games are a closer analogy to board games or sports than they are to non-interactive media like movies, novels, paintings, sculptures, music, etc. Every revered example "great art" from our cultural past is a non-interactive work, and therefore a really terrible analogy for a video game. Where would the art be in a video game? In the story and how it makes you feel? Even if the story has nothing to do with the gameplay and could have as easily been presented in some other medium? In aesthetic appreciation of the creator's skill in game design? Or is that more "craft" than "art"?
Or are you looking for games where the gameplay itself affected you emotionally? Even an unoriginal side-scroller can induce emotions like frustration, fear, boredom, laughter, anger, a sense of triumph, and a sense of discovery verging on wonder. Do these not count? What emotions would it have to evoke to count?
Can a decision made by the player himself/herself in trying to negotiate a challenge affect that player the same way as an aesthetic decision made by an artist can affect a viewer of a non-interactive work? Should we ask it to?
> "redeeming social or aesthetic value"... "things which have actually honestly changed my life"
Doesn't Starcraft have redeeming social value in the same way as, say, chess or organized soccer? It gives players a competitive framework within which to apply themselves, practice, excel, and aspire to glory, right? I bet Starcraft has changed the lives of a lot of Korean kids. And this has nothing to do with its storytelling or aesthetic qualities, and probably nothing to do with art, either.
"Oh gee, I'm falling behind at school because I'm playing this game so much. Am I addicted? Should I stop? What's wrong with me?" I've done that a few times. Does that count as re-examining my life?
> "When I think about video games that have caused me to dramatically
> re-examine and rethink my life, the number drops to zero. (compared to a
> handful of movies, a few role-playing games, a great many books.) "
I may be alone here, but when I think of "dramatically rethink my life" I can't come up with a single example of art or fiction in any medium or genre that's done that to me. I can name some nonfiction books that influenced my thinking, but mostly the things that made me who I am were all real-life experiences. I'm curious - if you've had that life-changing experience from art, what was it like?
Re: (Jono here)
yrs--
--Ben
Re: (Jono here)
You're not alone in this. I can think of examples of music or books that, in retrospect, set me on paths that have been radically influential in my life, but I can come up with almost nothing that had an immediate and discernable effect of life reevaluation on me.
(no subject)
The interactive expieriences of video games have a very strong potential to have meaningful social impact - I still remember playing SFII in the arcades when I was 10, and being like 'huh. I can be good at things. And People will like me if I'm better at them in symbolic dimensions.'. Which was a very valuable expierience considering I missed the whole school socialization thing.
On the other hand, creating a powerful discussion among participants in some ways more difficult than creating a powerful message expressed by an author to an audience. This is made more difficult by video game's commercialization and up until the last decade, increasing focus on lonely play.
In terms of a powerful author -> audience expierience... I don't think you can do that very well in a -game-, except by attachment of static elements like movies and in-game graphic art, which most people seem to think makes the video-game aspect of it irrelevant.
This is Lindsey
Art, to me, is in part about dealing with human emotion. human conditions. human impulses. As an artist, this is something i've always tried to bring into my own work, I want to make pieces that people can enjoy at the most base of human levels: touch. This is WHY I make video games. As a way to make a piece that people can play with. Because being in a gallery setting, people don't want to PLAY with your work. They can't, because the gallery world has instilled "DON'T TOUCH" so deeply into our mindsets that when we go into a space that is specifically designed to be interacted with, people just DON'T. They Freeze.
So, my mini rant aside, why a dearth of art in games? Well, it depends on where you're looking. Indie games are where the greatest 'art' pieces are going to be. This piece for example was poignant to me: http://www.ludomancy.com/games/today.php
The big budget games? not as much, considering how many people are involved, publishers, and the sheer amount of money involved. Bioshock was skirting on the edge of that, but not quite committing. And in all honesty, I don't blame bigger companies for being worried. They're not there to make art. they're there to make money. art means risks. and means risking someone getting on fox news who has no exposure to your product complaining that your game is a full on sex simulator (i'm looking at you Mass Effect).
I would argue that there were points in my life that at one time a book or a movie might have influenced, were replaced with a game. Xenogears being the one that stands out most in my mind, comparing it to Soylent Green, when realizing that all the food on the planet is actually recycled people. And the utter revulsion that followed, and /how could you do that to people/.
This weekend/week, I will be playing Heavy Rain, which is, from what I hear a piece of art. I'll let you know how it goes. but if this game is half as poignant as i've heard it is, it might be the harbinger of things to come.
ok, i hope that i'm not off topic here. but this sort of struck a cord, and since it's my industry felt i should chime in. yea. :)