41 replies to this topic

[starstutter]

I'm sure all of you have heard Rodger Ebert's statement a while back that "games are not, and can never be, art". Needless to say this made a lot of people angry untill he clarified why he said it.

The argument is that a piece of art must be created in the origional artists vision. Movies, books, music, ect are considered art because they provide the experience that the origional artist intended. Games on the other hand are able to be tampered with and the experience is ultimatley unpredictable. Especially if you consider open world games where there really is no set presentation. In this way, he argues, the player becomes the artist.

Now, I don't completley agree, but he does have a valid point that there is no sure fire way to communicate the emotions and experience that the creator or designer wanted. Gamers play in ways that the creators could have never seen coming and therefore the whole medium as a peice of art becomes very fragile and can ruin easily.

As a counter-argument, you could say that the uncertainly is part of the experience and adds to the sheer awesomeness when the game is played well.

So what's your side?

[Sol_HSA]

#define art

[imerso]

starstutter said:

he does have a valid point that there is no sure fire way to communicate the emotions and experience that the creator or designer wanted.

What??? I disagree completely. There is a lot of emotion|experience transmitted by games, and it comes not only from the graphics done by the illustrator, but from the way the programmer exposes it as well. Even the framerate will interfere in the feeling of a game.

Download some demos from www.scene.org to refresh your mind -- ok, demos != games, but incredibly related.

My opinion is that both demos and games are a new form of art.

[fireside]

I personally think art has to convey a message, so I guess I agree with Ebert. Games, at least most games, are more like a sandbox with toys in it. In reality, though, there is some art involved with games because artists made the models and artists wrote a lot of the dialog, etc. So really, the part that the player can't manipulate is art, but it doesn't make a cohesive work of art like a movie or a book. Also, the main focus of a game is game play, it has to be, and it's really hard to call that art. It's more like a sport.

[Sol_HSA]

fireside said:

Also, the main focus of a game is game play, it has to be, and it's really hard to call that art. It's more like a sport.

And why wouldn't sport be art? Not a single football match, but if someone went and designed new sports all the time, why wouldn't they be considered art?

[Wernaeh]

Quote

Movies, books, music, ect are considered art because they provide the experience that the origional artist intended.

They do ? Now, if I watch a movie on some topic that's completely unrelevant to me, I don't get any experience at all - except maybe, from the experience of a completely boring movie - which is, most probably, not what the original artist intended.
On the other hand, who said games do not intend to provide the gamer with some unique experience ? If they didn't, why are there that many games to begin with ?

Quote

Games on the other hand are able to be tampered with and the experience is ultimatley unpredictable. Especially if you consider open world games where there really is no set presentation. In this way, he argues, the player becomes the artist.

Still, the basic, distinct "feeling" of the game has already been created by someone else, and still is more important than anything the user may do inside the game world... Especially considering that there are very few games out there that allow for "artistic" interpretation by the player - second life maybe, but I'd hardly count that one as a game... On the other hand, I think it's kinda hard to consider a HL2 player constantly toying with the grav gun as an "artist"...

So, I guess it essentially boils down to the usual "what is art ?" question in the end...

Cheers,
- Wernaeh

[Reedbeta]

All forms of art - film, paintings, music, literature, etc. - involve the viewer/reader/listener. The audience member always brings something to the table that colors their own experience of the artwork. The bit you mentioned about the player being able to have a very different experience than what the designer intended is also very true for other forms of art.

So it seems to me that games exist on a spectrum with traditional forms of art. In traditional art perhaps the artist is more active and the audience more passive, while in games perhaps the designers/artists and players are on a more equal footing in terms who creates the player's experience of the game.

Anyway, I personally don't think art is contingent on the experience of the audience. Most great artists have created primarily for themselves, anyway, not for others. A definition of art that I like is, to paraphrase Robert Pirsig, an interaction between a person and a material in which the person's state of mind and the material evolve in tandem with each other until both come to rest with the person's mind at peace. It puts the emphasis on the creative act rather than on the later consumption of the artwork as a product. This definition can also be extended to collaborative art.

With this definition, *some* games could qualify as high art, but many professionally produced games have little art in them and are more focused on commercial motives - appealing to a market, turning a profit. But then, the same is true of films, books, and music.

[alphadog]

starstutter said:

Movies, books, music, ect are considered art because they provide the experience that the origional artist intended.

What about art that is interactive in nature? What about movies where the audience can influence the plot? What about sculptures where the audience is invited to alter it? What about those wacky installations of lights and music, where waving your arm changes the song? Is that Art, art or not-art?

What if the emotion I want to engender is fear? I just started playing Fallout 3. Although the idea of nuclear holocaust isn't as immediate as it was during the Cold War, not only did the vast wastelands in the game make me wonder about what it would be like to live in such a world (isolation, disgust, anger at mankind's folly, etc.) but it also reminded me of a not so distant past when building a bomb shelter wasn't as crazy an idea.

Methinks Ebert's view of Art is very limited... He's probably got that bumpkin-in-elitist-clothing mindset that thinks unless the portrait's eyes follow you across the musuem, and unless it doesn't sell at Sotheby's for six-figures+, it's not Art.

Art is about stimulating emotions, hopefully those you intended, but not necessarily. And, to disagree with Reedbeta and Mr. Pirsig, Art can be used to calm the mind, but that's called "therapy", not Art. Else, Art becomes solely a masturbatory effort. (Of course, judging from some of the stuff on DeviantArt, this is exactly what happens... )

[starstutter]

0_0 woah, lotta responses
I started the great debate lol.

I guess what the question ultimatley comes down to then is "what is art"?

To be honest though the true reason I asked this question is because I've been trying to concieve of ways that games could try to communicate emotions in a very powerful way. So far I think I have in mind two main methods:

1. getting the player immersed in the world and part of it so that dramatic events relating to that world will have emotional effects.

2. relating the drama to something personal in the players life (as mentioned with the cold war fallount scenario)

What I want to do is very hard to describe and ismost definitley a talent of the most skilled writers: having the main emotional impact be deliverred in such a way that it is never said directly. The logical story could be presented directly (as it needs to be to make sense), but the emotional story would be delivered in such a way that the player may never even realize it.

Like I said, maybe there is an existing source on this technique, but I'm doing a very bad job of describing it, so I'll give my fingers a rest :P

[Sol_HSA]

starstutter said:

To be honest though the true reason I asked this question is because I've been trying to concieve of ways that games could try to communicate emotions in a very powerful way.

Music can cause emotions.
Pictures can cause emotions.
Story can cause emotions.

Games are (at best, IMO) beautiful moving images with strong music background and great story, in which you play a part. How on earth does this last bit make it less art?

I dare you to play Photopia by Adam Cadre; it can be found on his if page: http://adamcadre.ac/if.html
It's a text adventure (or interactive fiction if you must), relatively short, "easy", and simply brilliant. The story could have been written as a novel, but it's much more effective when you play a part.

edit: direct windows download: http://adamcadre.ac/...nt/photo201.zip

[starstutter]

Thanks for the link I'll give it a shot :)

Unfortunatley though I don't quite think you got my point, but I can't blame you because I didn't communicate it very well... can't think of a way to. *~*

[karligula]

Why not do what mathematicians do when they encounter a problem they can't solve... just redefine it?

In such spirit I propose a new medium: interactive art...

[dannthr]

starstutter said:

Now, I don't completley agree, but he does have a valid point that there is no sure fire way to communicate the emotions and experience that the creator or designer wanted.

Actually, there's no sure-fire way of communicating the emotions and experience that the creator of ANY artist wants. Period.

We have theories on what can create certain experiences, and good theorists can create pragmatic conclusions--but ultimately, there is no formula for manipulating the emotions of a viewer because it's just not going to work on everyone.

Eberts problem is that games don't work on him and as someone with limited academic insight into art, he really can't wrap his brain around it.

[Sol_HSA]

karligula said:

Why not do what mathematicians do when they encounter a problem they can't solve... just redefine it?

In such spirit I propose a new medium: interactive art...

Okay, is dancing an art form, or sport? =)

[.oisyn]

vrnunes said:

Download some demos from www.scene.org to refresh your mind -- ok, demos != games, but incredibly related.

No, they are not. Rodger Ebert's whole point is based on the fact that games are interactive. So your comparison is completely moot, as demos are not interactive and therefore their experience is predictable, as Ebert puts it.

Not that I'm saying I necessarily agree with Ebert, I'm simply stating your argument isn't a valid one in this discussion.

[dannthr]

Ebert is uninformed about art. Period. I have attended many of his discussions as he regularly visits my campus for the Conference on World Affairs. He's out of touch and "old fashioned" and proudly so. He's ill-equipped to deal with interactive art.

What many here seem to forget is that while games are interactive, they are in actuallity precisely made and the designers, while allowing for an interactive element, have complete control over the players ability to explore and interact and so the design itself is in fact wholly controlled. The art is in how you design the interactivity. The fact that Ebert can't see that means he doesn't UNDERSTAND how games are made, which is fairly obvious.

Ebert is NOT an academic authority on art. He is a popular critic whose insights into the game industry are limited and misinformed and whose insights into film are hit-or-miss.

[Zoulz]

To me, games are entertainment. I think you need to look at games from a players point of view. If you look at it like art, the game might end up really boring.

[Sol_HSA]

Zoulz said:

To me, games are entertainment. I think you need to look at games from a players point of view. If you look at it like art, the game might end up really boring.

And why wouldn't art be entertaining, or entertainment be art?

[alphadog]

The problem people are having is making art seem like so many things.

KISS.

Art is generally accepted as an action whereby a medium is used to create something that "wasn't there before" and that conveys or evokes an emotional response. So, this means Art exists in any creative or design activity, there has to be an audience, and there has to be an "experience".

Also, just because some thing or event said to be Art is also something else, like say gymnastics which is artful sport, doesn't mean it isn't Art.

Lots of people define Art from their (limited and exclusionary) experiences behind the red velvet rope at the museum.

The modernist expansion of the ability (and the mindset) to get the audience involved in art so as to better experience the art, is relatively new and many don't make the leap, living in a traditional world. It's not just games, -- stories, dance and other art forms have become much more interactive.

As to how to make an "artful" game, if I knew a) I'd be more successful, and it'd probably be a way too lengthy forum post.

BTW, they used to say that film isn't Art because it puts a wall between the audience and the actor. In theater plays, at the time considered more "artful", the actor can adapt to the audience dynamically. It was said that film limited this and "reduced" the art to a mechanical tool.

Oh, the more things change, the more they stay the same...

[dannthr]

Exactly.

I define Art as "communicative expression." What separates Art and Craft, in my opinion, is the deliberately expressive quality of Art. What separates Art and masturbation, of course, is the communicative quality.