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Are video games disposable culture?
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The real question is why can't gamers get over the fact that 1 out of touch old man said games somehow weren't art?
Anyways, I'm not entirely sure what your trying to say with your OP anyways. There actually are celebrity game designers. Elvis would be more fairly compared to say... Tomonobu Itagaki or Shigeru Miyamoto. The Beatles to development studios like Retro or Harmonix or 2k. And while I wouldn't make examples of specific games, there definitely are games that are classics.
So are games held back by the common consumer? Yes, if you're pickier than they are. Are videogames some sort of evolution of art and culture? Evolution, no. Part of their timeline is more like it.
I didn't say it was the first to do it, nor did I imply that, so I don't know why you're grilling me. It was an example... did you not notice how it wasn't even the first example of such in-game story telling I listed?
Why wouldn't I? The technical skills of art are the tools of expression and nothing more. Don't conflate the tools with the expression itself.
Kane was an amazing use of a bunch of cutting-edge techniques in telling a story through the medium of film. To compare it to the games industry, we've spent our time improving the film stock, frame rate, Technicolor, and nonlinear editing tools and compositing, without as much concern on the techniques to convey story through the actual content the audience came to see. To be fair, Citizen Kane had some really nice glass-shots, but it was the overall use of the different visual techniques that made it a landmark.
Games need to develop ways to connect with the story through the actions available to the player. MGS has developed a set of these (some of which may not be reusable by anything other than more MGS games, sadly) SOTC has exactly three, but even that small a number was enough to solidify itself in the discussion of games as art. And as hurt as I was by the way Indigo Prophecy/Farenheit ruined itself, I have a strong feeling that Heavy Rain is going to come close to what we need to move forward.
Game/story melding should be approached as a magic trick. Misdirection, and surprise. Manipulation of player agency is the most powerful tool in a game designer's box, and yet it is the least often used...
And now to play Devil's Advocate, I think Sean Malstrom's articles would be an interesting addition to this conversation:
http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/email-the-sick-obsession-of-culture-in-the-game-industry/
TLDR: Sean sees the "quest for high art" goal of creating games as stupid self-importance and financially unviable. Games will sucessfully become historical cultural milestones by being fun and approachable, not by having deep meaning or speaking to the human condition.
edit: that might not be the article I was thinking of...
http://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2008/07/06/secret-to-the-casual/
seems closer, but I can't seem to find the exact one I remember reading.
But you cannot have one without the other. I can have an easel, canvas, some brushes, and some paint and anything I'd produce with it would unlikely be art. How you use such tools, including the skill involved, can determine the final result.
But hey, if you're willing to live your life thinking art exists within a vacuum, you're welcome to it. I'm sure you'll have great luck in convincing everybody that art as an absolute value independent of the skill used to create it.
Do not engage the Watermelons.
- "What is art?" I get distressed whenever this question is raised and someone says, essentially, "well, it can't be proved with numbers, so there's no point talking about it." What a horrible attitude. Most of the most interesting questions in life don't boil down to math or statistics. Art can't be defined quantitatively, but I think we can certainly put qualitative boundaries around it (while acknowledging that there will always be weird edge cases and exceptions). For my part, I would say the two fundamental qualities of art are that it is either beautiful, in the sense of being able to evoke an aesthetic or emotional response in the viewer, or that it is illuminating - that it says something about the world, or about ourselves, or about the point of view of the person who made it. And we can judge art based on how well it does one or both of those things.
- Are videogames art? Of course. But the more interesting question is, what kind of art are they? I think largely they tend to fall into the first category. aesthetics. There are lots and lots of games that are beautiful visually or aurally, or that evoke emotions like fear or excitement, or that compel people to play them through clever gameplay or psychological trickery. There are a lot fewer games that have something to teach us about life or the world; or when they do, it's something kind of matter-of-fact and vocational, like games that let you experience what it might be like to coach a sports team, or to be a medieval king, or to pilot a Soviet Mi-24 Hind helicopter in excruciating detail. Those are great educational tools - certainly I think a few rounds of Medieval Total War would do wonders to put students in the right frame of mind to study that time in history - but they rarely have something to say on the personal or the psychological level. Maybe that's something inherent to the medium, or to being made by many many hands rather than a single auteur.
- This is all a bit irrelevant to the OP, though. The woman who was quoted in the OP wasn't disputing that games are art; she's saying that they're largely bad art, and that this is because they are produced and consumed by people who live in the warm womb of gamer culture. A piece of art can only as insightful as the person who made it, and what she is protesting is that games seem largely to be made by people who are still preoccupied with adolescent stories and storytelling, using games to reenact their favorite action movies or heavy metal album covers instead of bringing something new to the table. The pop-culture snake eats its own tail - there was even a band once called "Pop Will Eat Itself" - but it stays fresh when people inject new approaches and ideas. Twenty years of gaming later we still have stuff that basically feels like someone saw Aliens and thought "oh man that would totally make a great game".
I do think that one thing that's holding videogames back from the "permanence" associated with other recent art forms is that gaming is still locked into technological progress. Just as many classic B&W television programs (not to mention silent movies, or radio dramas) that were enormously popular and influential in their era lack mainstream appeal and recognition nowadays, the older a videogame is, the fewer modern players will be interested in spending time with it. Of course, there are always exceptions, such as Tetris and other games that can be translated through multiple generations of technology, but games as culturally significant as Everquest now seem far too dated technically to have the level of permanence other art forms have.
While I think the auteur theory should die in a fire, as it's an attempt to downplay the contributions of writers, actors, editors and cinematogaphers to the inherently collaborative art of filmmaking, I do think that plenty of games qualify as a guided narrative despite being interactive. Portal's one prime example, as are many adventure games.
Sure, many video games involve playing out relatively puerile fantasies, but that is sort of what is sold. There is not a great untapped market for the first game to combine team fortress two with Finnegan's Wake or something.
People like to get into a debate about whether or not games are art. I guess this is large part because you can say that something that is art merits protection from censorship. If you ignore that aspect of the question and ask instead, Should games be art?
I realize that on the face of it this seems like a dumb question, but what I am getting at is the sense that the games industry (or someone) ought to be producing the next (insert apparently noteworthy movie here) in terms of video games.
It is interesting that the reporter chose to go after producers. My impression, based on a relatively limited knowledge of economics, suggests that the games were produced for the market and not the other way around.
I suppose that publishers could generate games that are high art, but is there actually a market out there for them? There are plenty of people reading this particular message board who might have an interest in them, but in the general population? Really? I am far too cynical to look at a world where people find themselves remiss to brand a science fiction network as a science fiction network and say that such interest exists in the quantity necessary to produce a major release.
You would think that someone who works for National Pretentious Radio would put two and two together during a fundraiser or something.
However, the ring will never leave your finger, and you will be unable to ever describe to another living person what you see.
Right, because it can't be that she has a legitimate interest in the question. Certainly the only people who feel the way she does must stand to profit from it somehow, mirite?
If you're going to start by assuming bad faith, there's really no point in having a discussion.
Do you know that? I would argue that The Sims has a lot more in common with Finnegan's Wake than Killzone 2 does. If we're going by what actually sells, all but the most overwhelmingly popular adolescent power fantasies apparently pale in comparison to, say, Wii Sports.
In business terms, every other mass medium in existence has learned the value of counterprogramming. In movie terms, if Lord of the Saw V Begins Royale is opening this weekend, you can make a lot of money by putting out Panda Bear's Fun Adventure and Sandra Bullock Loves A Guy Who's Way Too Hot For Her to snag everyone else. But in games, we see the cannibalization of the audience - there are like thirty overly-muscled testosteronal gunmen competing for your attention every Christmas season, and twenty-eight of those won't even make their money back. The idea that "it must be good business or else they wouldn't do it" is absurd beyond belief, as recent economic history will show us.
The way to find out if there's an audience for smart, arty games is first to make one, one that's as graphically attractive and strong on the technical merits as the things it's competing with, and then to market it as aggressively as everything else. In the absence of this, all we have is supposition.
What exactly do you think someone from NPR is "pretending" to be? And there is demand for NPR, or else they wouldn't, y'know, exist.
We should be talking about the way that Mario moves and how that makes you feel. Talk about how the rules and game mechanics get your brain working in a certain way. In order for games to be considered "high-art", they will need to make an interactive bond with the player that's evocative (and not just of frustration or panic).
Can interaction alone carry complex themes like self-reliance, love, revenge, betrayal? I think it can, but I cannot think of any examples. Maybe it hasn't happened yet.
Are videogames sport? (Not "sports," mind you; more general than that - I'd include brain teasers in this category)
Can art and sport coexist? If they can't coexist, if the mind can't be attuned to both at once, can videogames be divided into those which are primarily art and those which are primarily sport? If they can coexist, are videogames the only experience which blends them?
Is this the source of the game/art confusion?
But does the gymnast or the martial artist experience their performance as both? Like, at the same time? I know I don't think "art" when I watch people fight - and I don't really think "sport" when I see a gymnast or figure skater perform. In fact, I wouldn't consider any vicarious experience as "sport." Sports yes.
I should really have defined "sport" better but, as I said, these thoughts aren't complete and my tone isn't declarative. In my mind, it's synonymous with "play."
Edit: applies to post below too. I shouldn't have been so vague.
All the Greek tragedies were entries in a contest so I'd say sport and art go together just fine. Much like art and money.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
Video games have done this plenty of times, especially in the first part. How many people, do to friends, have an emotional attachment to Mario Kart, Time Splitters, Guitar Hero, Rock Band, Goldeneye, etc. How many gamers cried when Aeris died, and you couldn't bring her back? When you played Ico, did the interactions between the two main characters remind anyone else of adolescence and puppy love? People were in awe of the worlds of Majora's Mask and the complexities of the people. Did anyone else feel really alone and isolated when they first entered the wasteland of Fallout 3? Nintendogs is giggled at a lot at a silly game, but it strikes at emotions people have about pets, and if, for example, it allows a child that normally can't have a pet experience in some form what it's like to have one, then isn't that expressing a joy that is felt in life at times?
How about Harvest Moon, which is all about interacting with the people around you, and in some, even raising a family. During this, you try to influence your child into what you think would be best for them, while at the same time, they have their own inbred interests of what they like. A Wonderful Life is a good example of parenthood and, on a very simplified form, the differences between the parent and child. The Metal Gear Solid is a good example of illicting emotions from a person and trying to expand your way of thinking. Two big themes of the first two games are that your parents and your childhood, hell, your past in general, do not have to define you as a person. You can change. The series also deals with war and the affect it has on people. I know it isn't as sophisticated as some other forms that have already done it, but it still tries. Through cutscenes and interaction, even deliberately cruel at times, such as the last real interactive thing you do in the third game. All of these help explore the narrative, and have shown to get alot of reaction from people. Portal is another oft-mentioned example, which explores the whole mechanics of a video game in a unique and interesting way. Shadow of the Colossus does so as well.
Then there are games such as Super Mario World, which while having no deep story, but are marked by personal emotions by people who have played it, and is a beautiful game. From a technical stand-point it is a breakthrough as well, weaving together expertise in programming and art direction the same as a skilled sculptor or painter.
Heck, some of the murder simulators that people freak out about, such as Grand Theft Auto, are parodies of our world and what is considered the pop culture of the time.
Game is definitely art I think, just in a different way than before. Which as a new medium, isn't that a given?
Nah. It's very easy. Expression via aesthetic media. Expression doesn't have to be a sentence or a Aesop-moral or some crap like that, it can be an experience or a sensation. People don't like this definition though because people like to be able to say things like "rap isn't music" to justify not liking it when really all they have to do is say "I don't like it". Because people are stuck-up idiots.
A game like "Generic Space Marine Shooter 4356" is disposable. A game like Half Life 2 isn't.
A film like Paul Blart: Mall Cop is disposable. A film like The Godfather isn't.
An album like "Generic Emo Band Album" is disposable. An album like Dark Side of the Moon isn't.
As long as you're resorting to straw men, I'll put this bluntly: your position is elitist bullshit. Simple art can be good. Elaborate art can be garbage. Why is that so hard for you to grasp?
https://medium.com/@alascii
From what I remember of art history, proportion was a big signifier for Medeival religious art stretching back a long ways. Jesus as a baby was often times huge, and characters were given more space in a picture based on their significance to Christianity. It basically was their way of dodging the whole 'perspective' thing.
Now, I don't know if the same applies to renaissance-era sculpture, but I like to give them the benefit of the doubt. I failed art history, anyways.
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