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The Janus Complex - Or, Gamers Can't Have It Both Ways (now with algebra!)
Flippy_D
Digital ConquistadorLondonRegistered User regular
Digital ConquistadorLondonRegistered User regular
Yes, I know it's a pretentious title. I wanted to catch people's eye.
OKAY
Everyone knows games are art, right? Both conceptually and literally, and I don't need to cite further examples, we all know the score.
But we call games art because we believe that the interactivity of our shining medium is its unique strength. And this is perfectly acceptable artistic rhetoric. There is interactive art everywhere.
But interactivity is all about bringing the art to the person. So what happens when the interaction gets a bit messy?
There have been a few threads recently about in-game sensation, and I think this presents a bit of a problem.
The thing is, we repeatedly insist games are not influential - or at least, no more than film is. But that's just not true. Film can move you, make you joyous, bitter, introspective, sad, romantic, or simply confused.
But it's not shaped by you.
The very same logic that makes the game an art form - interactivity - implicates the user in the action. You might watch Clockwork Orange and think he's a psychopath, but play a game and you are the psychopath.
I posit that we cannot say that gaming is a exactly comparable medium to film, or literature - certainly not whilst we maintain that gaming is an artform qualified by its interactivity. What you see is different from what you do. And when what you do is shoot up a bunch of guys and kerb-stomp someone's head in more or less for fun, then one cannot elide the fact that those are actions you are performing - perhaps indirectly, but nonetheless the spark that lights the cordite is yourself. What I see a lot of gamers saying or implying is that a 15 game is psychologically the same as a 15 film, and I disagree with this, due to interactivity - the very thing that makes games so special.
Perhaps a better perspective is that a game allows a virtual space for inconsequential violent or sadistic recreation, and that that's a healthy thing.
But what do you think?
Can we look one direction, to games as art, yet wilfully ignore the very ramifcations of that, off to the opposite side?
Edit: What to expect from this thread!:
OKAY
Everyone knows games are art, right? Both conceptually and literally, and I don't need to cite further examples, we all know the score.
But we call games art because we believe that the interactivity of our shining medium is its unique strength. And this is perfectly acceptable artistic rhetoric. There is interactive art everywhere.
But interactivity is all about bringing the art to the person. So what happens when the interaction gets a bit messy?
There have been a few threads recently about in-game sensation, and I think this presents a bit of a problem.
The thing is, we repeatedly insist games are not influential - or at least, no more than film is. But that's just not true. Film can move you, make you joyous, bitter, introspective, sad, romantic, or simply confused.
But it's not shaped by you.
The very same logic that makes the game an art form - interactivity - implicates the user in the action. You might watch Clockwork Orange and think he's a psychopath, but play a game and you are the psychopath.
I posit that we cannot say that gaming is a exactly comparable medium to film, or literature - certainly not whilst we maintain that gaming is an artform qualified by its interactivity. What you see is different from what you do. And when what you do is shoot up a bunch of guys and kerb-stomp someone's head in more or less for fun, then one cannot elide the fact that those are actions you are performing - perhaps indirectly, but nonetheless the spark that lights the cordite is yourself. What I see a lot of gamers saying or implying is that a 15 game is psychologically the same as a 15 film, and I disagree with this, due to interactivity - the very thing that makes games so special.
Perhaps a better perspective is that a game allows a virtual space for inconsequential violent or sadistic recreation, and that that's a healthy thing.
But what do you think?
Can we look one direction, to games as art, yet wilfully ignore the very ramifcations of that, off to the opposite side?
Edit: What to expect from this thread!:
Flippy_D on
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Also, probably worth bringing up No More Heroes, since it makes a point to criticize you for mindlessly killing people for fun.
http://www.audioentropy.com/
What I'm trying to bring to discussion here is just what exactly occurs when one plays a violent game - and to provoke debate on the nature of violent interaction in gaming.
That doesn't make any sense. The interactivity isn't what makes it artistic, the artistry is what makes it artistic. The interactivity is what makes it distinctive from other forms of media.
Also, I don't think I've ever seen anyone claim that video games have absolutely no effect on the player, but that they have no long-term negative impact.
You play a game and you'll feel a certain way, yes. That doesn't mean that games make people killers. It's assuming that the two are the same is the problem with the logic. Similar to how testing more aggressive on a test whereby a sound being pressed a half second longer while phrased as a contest indicates aggression leading to assumptions that the aggression is long term and will continue in a way that's not phrased as a contest.
Games are interactive art. Not art because they're interactive. Also games are influential, but they don't cause severe psychological changes by having impact, similar to how any other art form has an impact, but doesn't cause severe psychological changes.
This kind of strikes me as a severe and basic misunderstanding of all the arguments involved.
And I think that the idea that Video Games are no more influential than movies is bullshit, and the problem with talking about it is that anyone that wants to defend the medium just replys that it doesn't matter if your "mature enough" and if you think that VGs are more influential you obviously arn't "mature enough"...
Ad Hominem or someshit.
Anyways, on the same train of thought, it probably should be weird to talk to you have, on some level, practiced shooting me in the head, thousands of times...
I've thought more and more about video games since my girlfriend started ragging on her friends for playing hundreds of hours of WoW. Now I don't play WoW, but I definitly have some level of shame about my level of TF2 playing, and thus havn't mentioned it. I've literally flat out denied playing VGs in conversations with people...
I dono if thats a path to a healthy personality...
You can't say "the artistry makes it artistic" because that doesn't mean anything. It's like saying A makes A A. But what the fuck is A?
I do think the implementation of interactivity can, in fact, be artistic.
The problem I see with this is that if you are in fact, from a young age, and for years and years of play, rewarded for your skills at killing and destroying in an audiovisual format, how does that not affect people in the long-term?
While in high school (about 4-5 years ago) I wrote research papers on the influences of games on human behavior. Point of fact, the interaction that defines a game also drives emotion in the game. We are sad/frustrated/angry when we die, happy when we win, etc. This is true of all games, not just video games. The emotional core of the game that makes people play influences the player mentally.
Now, the downside here is that younger players are more susceptible to negative emotions from gaming. Kids naturally want to act out things they witness on television and the urge to act out is fed by gaming. Adults have better control and so while there is emotional influence teens/adults typically do not act it out. Children, especially young children, will because they don't know better (to state it simply).
Does this mean games should be kept from children? In my opinion, letting a child under the age of 14-16 play Grand Theft Auto 4 is the same as having that child watch something like Hostel over and over again. Children lack the reasoning faculties necessary to properly parse the game's information and they will learn bad behavior from it.
Does this need to be legislated? Again in my opinion, no. The government must not act as parent in this manner. It is the duty of child-rearing people to know the media that their children like and to regulate it or not. If the child learns bad behavior because the parents let the video game do the baby sitting, then it is the parents who are culpable for creating a maladjusted human being.
But when people compare them to films and literature they are comparing them to storyline.
Because, let's face it, most of them are as linear as an escalator.
Using the clockwork orange analogy, yes, playing a game based on that would make you out to be the psycopath, but that's only because the game sets you out to be a psycopath, so you don't actually have a say in that.
To me, the only way when we can finally claim that the interactivity truly art is when the world is entirely interactive, when our actions truly dictate what happens in the world, which very few games have managed to achieve.
Then again, if it can be proven that allowing a child to play super-realistic, super-violent video games creates in them a passion for violence, how can the law not legislate on the matter? I think realism is heading to new heights, and we havn't seen anything yet. I would say as the tech improves, so will the realism, and thus, so will the emotional part that we play out in the games.
Just the still frames, or even in motion without player input - a video as such. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a receptive audience. I think interactivity is the absolute core of gaming and it quickly gets very very hard to seperate the two.
Edit: this is excellent discussion; just what I was hoping for.
the picture?
Because you're rewarded for your skill at winning a contest that's presented as killing and destroying.
The parts of the brain that manage real-world violence, aggression, all of that, they aren't activated in a contest. It's similar to, say, target shooting. Yes, you're firing a gun at a target, and even there you're learning the skills necessary to use the gun in real life, but you're not engaged in the same way. If there was a real feeling of fight-or-flight, a real feeling of violence, then there'd be more of an argument, but it's not actually related to the same parts of the brain.
What is art? Not to go all philosophy 101 on the thread, but art is art because of many things, one of which is the intent and the presentation. Yeah, games being interactive are part of them being art, because the interaction is the chosen way to present the art, but, say, a painter doesn't paint because painting in and of itself is artistic, but because they choose to express their art in the form of painting.
Games aren't art because they're interactive. They're games because they're interactive. They're art because they're conveying an artistic message, in an artistic form.
But then that's just a screenshot (hypothetically :P), not a game......
People often mention Ebert. He doesn't believe games are (or will be) art mostly because, according to him, they are more akin to sports or board games.
I can see his point. Looking at games like Quake 3 or Unreal Tournament or most Fighting games, stuff designed purely around competition and winning players or teams, I can see that. Especially with gamers coming up with stuff like Major League Gaming or National Gaming Leagues and stuff like that. Tournaments and competitions and stuff.
What I also find funny about topics that come up like this, usually in other threads, is when someone mentions a game that they feel "furthers gaming as an art form," and then cite some game that is literally a straightforward standard action game chopped up periodically by non-interactive engine-generated cutscenes. As if having beautifully rendered in-engine movies injected between chunks of gameplay somehow advances the medium. If you ask me, that is just gaming doing its best to try to be a movie.
In my opinion, for a game to advance art, it has to do something that utilizes its greatest asset in a way that other mediums can't; and that asset is interactivity. Chopping up a game to insert non-interactivity does very little for gaming in this regard.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
This goes into censorship. Sit an 8 year old in front of a season of 24 and they'll learn awful social lessons, too. Bad input is bad input is bad input. The government really can't institute limits on this without a Constitutional amendment (I'm discussing US, here), and there's no way in fuck an alteration to the First Amendment will fly. Nor should it.
Put simply, this is parental responsibility. Bringing a person into this world is an enormous burden and it's the solemn duty of every parent to raise their child in a manner that will produce someone who, at the least, doesn't harm society. Most parents wouldn't let their children watch Hostel or Pulp Fiction and with good reason. Why should it be okay for them to let their kid play GTA4 or MK: Armageddon? Children don't have the mental faculties to properly distinguish reality and fantasy. In this, there's effectively no difference between violent video games and violent cinema because the ultimate outcome, bad lessons, is the same.
It is not the job of the government to raise children who have parents. That is, effectively, what this sort of censorship is.
Case in point, my ex could not play Silent Hill 2. Couldn't do it. Had nightmares. I used to scare her with the Pyramid Head noise.
Not wholly contradicting you, but I think games can transport you pretty thoroughly in some cases.
Yes, that's the point!
I would agree with you up to a point. When playing a game, say, of Resident Evil 4, loud, on a big screen, I know there was times when the violence felt very subconcious. I didn't have to think about anything else than, SHIT THAT SHIT JUMPED AT ME, SHOOT IT SHOOT IT DIE STOP
I can't see a screenshot at all?
And a piece of music that was simply presented as a score would also be a horrible work of art if it was even able to be called art.
Yeah, games necessarily have to be interactive, but games aren't artistic because they're interactive, similar to how music isn't artistic because it involves sound. It's an artistic medium that necessarily depends on sound, but that doesn't mean it's artistic because it involves sound.
The picture is of Zool. Hotlink.
JustinSane07: Seriously, why would you post that comment?
Ok, I didn't know why I didn't get that before. Thought you were referring to something else entirely.
Still though, if you want to know why games are still being with movies and literature, look at slah's post and my post.
Umm, slash, not slah. :P
http://www.audioentropy.com/
That's exactly why you cannot make the statement you made, because "what is art?" is not a question are are qualified to answer in an objective framework and so you cannot make objective statements about what is an element of the art and what is not.
I disagree with your conclusion and your premise because it is a completely false dichotomy. Games aren't art simply because they are interactive but the type of interactivity lends itself to the artistic message - in how it is delivered and how it is experienced - and experiencing art is a part of the art, in my opinion. So in my opinion, one cannot simply throw away the interactivity when discussing the artistic aspects of gaming.
I guess the analogy fits, but board games are full of art. Children's games are normally graphic intensive, there are many finely crafted chess boards. Video games are a conglomeration of many different art forms that creates a unique experience. We can agree that the story, writing, voice acting, modeling, textures, &c are all art in their own right. Why would this be lost when it is all put together?
Any game that uses cutscenes.
Yes, but you see, OP is trying to argue that the interactivity is what makes games art and differentiate it from films and books.
Anyway, I think that games are the same as films - you're being lead around and told a story and how the designers choose to tell that story, how they make your character act, and whether they decide to make the character you play sympathetic or not, is more important than the interactivity
So you could watch a movie about a crazy sadistic killer and think he's a psychopath, then play the game based on the movie and still think he's a psychopath. It's the tone, how he is portrayed, and what he does that decide how I feel about him, not whether or not I am playing as him. I look at my character in a game and go "that motherfucker is messed up", not "I am messed up"
Not to mention that if the game makes you uncomfortable, then you can just stop playing, much like you can stop watching a movie
So I don't know what the big deal here is. Games can make you uncomfortable, movies can make you uncomfortable, even books (you know, those things before movies) can make you uncomfortable
I don't really understand what the point you are trying to make is
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
"Press Button to Jump" Miyamoto - 1981
Truly, that was his opus
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
This one line of text would prove significant in the wars to come, between man and machine.
The favorite one that many people point to as "advancing" gaming as art is Heavenly Sword, because of how well the in-game cutscenes are rendered, and how expressionate the characters are while you're sitting and watching them. Also because of the story, how it's written.
Another one people often point to is the MGS games, for similar reasons. But also because the story itself touches on subjects not often covered by videogames, at least not to the same depth. I believe that the MGS games do help advance games as art, but not because of the cutscenes, and not because the way the story is told or its themes. The MGS gave provide an abnormally wide degree of tactical freedom to taken on every in-game situation the way the player wants to do so, and the games provide a tremendous amount of detail in how things interact together. All of the in-game stuff.
Beautiful cutscenes are not advancing videogames as a videogame medium. They are advancing videogames as a way to present movies in a 3D engine.
* as a disclaimer I do believe that videogames are a form of art, and there are many good examples. But in a strange way, it seems to me that some games really are more akin to sports, like many competitive games..
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
I'm saying that the interactivity isn't the source of the art. Similar to how sound isn't the reason music is art, or that vision is the reason that visual art is art, or that mutlimedia is the reason that movies are art.
I've multiple times said that interactivity is a core component of games. You're misinterpreting my point if you're thinking that I'm saying that interactivity isn't "An element of the art". It's a necessary part of the art, not the source of the art. was said in the OP.
There's a huge difference between saying that interactivity is what makes games artistic and saying that games are artistic and are necessarily interactive.
Games are art and are interactive.
Not because
But it's bullshit that something like "First Sunday" can be considered art, but not Silent Hill 2.
But eh do you really want games clumped with the medium where simply changing the color of a canvas orange nets millions of dollars and the "artist" is the "most creative artist since Picasso"?
I personally consider music to be the best art form.
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What games aren't interactive?
Interactivity can indeed become art, but only when it can create consequences that aren't part of the storyline.
At least, that's what I believe.
Just because there are pieces of art that are bad doesn't mean the medium is bad.
Also what the fuck is that "Music is the best art form" shit.
Thank you.