Video games as an art form

[cucumberboy]

Continued from the Critics thread.

May 5, 2010 19:39:36 GMT -5 Tyler Smith said:

I used to agree with him about video games not being art up until he changed his argument to something much more simplistic and condescending.
My opinion in general is starting to change, though.
As David and I have discussed on the show, or view is that art is about an artist (or artists) expressing their interpretation of the world. The audience shouldn't have a say in the matter, otherwise it's just as much about the audience's interpretation as the artist's. As such, the interactivity of video games dilutes the purity of the artist's vision and message. My view was that the only way a video game could approach the traditional definition of art was if the game forced the audience to make a choice within the game that they didn't want to make. Of course, the ability to save, go back, and try it another way is a sort of cheat.
A lot of recent games seem committed to doing this. "Batman: Arkham Asylum," for instance, does such a thorough job of creating an atmosphere and forcing the audience into Batman's shoes- using the interactivity to create in us a paranoia and dread that is almost suffocating- that it is more emotionally and intellectually engaging than the majority of movies released. Truly, it is an artist's vision, in which he allows us to come in and look around, while always reminding us that we aren't really welcome.
Ebert is getting old; that goes without saying. He's had some experiences in the last few years that, in some ways, have given him a more sunny outlook on life and, in others, much dimmer. His poorly-written outright rejection of Kick-Ass (a film I haven't seen as hasn't gotten universally good reviews elsewhere) and his trumpeting of every single thing about Avatar speaks to his rapidly-disappearing literary nuances.
It is sad and a little frustrating. But, lest we get too condescending about him, we should try to take the time to realize that we're not where he is yet. Perhaps in about forty years, I'll be exactly the same way.

This is going to be a long post, but if the subject still interests you, I'd really appreciate it if you take to consideration this post. And hopefully more people will join the discussion!

It's very encouraging to see that you might be changing your mind, because (and I don't mean this to belittle your arguments in any way) it seems very much like your previous unwillingness to see video games as an art form was a result of your lack of experience with them since many of them meet your requirements for art (which I by the way agree with to a large extent). The fact that you bring up Arkham Asylum points to this as well since, while it is a very entertaining and interesting game, its artistic ambitions and/or accomplishments are not as great as many other games. The game is more of an action game, and not a very story-driven one (although I'd agree with the points you make about it). It's a very run-of-the-mill game when it comes to story actually, and definitely not one I'd think of when thinking of video games as art.

It's also important to understand to which extent the makers of a video game have control over their game. There is no way you can do anything that the makers of the game doesn't want you be able to in the game. Everything down to (literally) the laws of physics in the world is in the hands of those who are directing your experience. The best example of freedom in games would be the so-called "open-world-games" where you are allowed to roam free in the world and find your own sollution to things, usually while still following a very linear storyline. These are admittedly probably not the best examples of video games as art. Games like these include the GTA series, the Mafia and Red Dead Redemption.



In the old forum I brought up the game Mass Effect and the Sophie's Choice-esque descision you have to make at one point in the game. The sequel is now out and might very well be the best game of all time in my opinion. A quick playthrough takes about 20 hours and most of that is dialogue. You constantly have to make quick and difficult decisions and (spoilers) by the end of the game some, many, or all of your friends may be dead. The game might even end with your own character dying. All the decisions you made in the first game will impact your experience with the second game in a huge way.

Of course, you don't have to watch the whole thing, but this is a video of the first minutes of the game. Recognize the voice of the man in the beginning? (proboards creates an ad next to the video for some reason)

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hia_m36pEpA (I recommend you watch it in 720)


Often times you will have to choose between your friends' loyalty or your own concience. In the mission (part of the mission) in this video you're helping your friend Garrus, who since the first game has become more and more disillusioned by the growing bureaucracy in the galaxy and has decided to take the law into his own hands. When you meet him in Mass Effect 2, you haven't seen him in two years and his character has changed a lot, but depending on how you play the game you can reinstill hope into him. Depending on how you play the game you will also gain different conversation options. In this video for example, you can save the character of Sidonis, and convince Garrus it was the right thing to do.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezih2ausUA4&feature=related (again, HD)


The conversation system works in a way that you choose a short version of what you want to say and your character says it in a more interesting way. At the three-minute-mark, Shepard (the main character) pulls Sidonis back and tells him not to move. That's an example of when you have to react fast. If you don't react quickly enough, Garrus will take the shot.

I just want to end this post by quoting an article from cracked.com:

But why even bother with all of this? Ebert himself wonders: “Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art? Bobby Fischer, Michael Jordan and Dick Butkus never said they thought their games were an art form….Why aren’t gamers content to play their games and simply enjoy themselves?” And he’s already answered his own question: “do we as their consumers become more or less complex, thoughtful, insightful, witty, empathetic, intelligent, philosophical (and so on) by experiencing them?” Anybody who’s ever felt even an inkling of something like that from a game is going to be understandably “concerned” when you insist that they’re lying.

(http://www.cracked.com/blog/why-ebert-is-wrong-in-defense-of-games-as-art)

PS. Playing a great video games can put you into an altered state of mind that I have simply never experienced from a film. I played through this game at a friends house on an HD projector in a completely dark room with surround sound. It was one of the most relaxing things I've ever done. For anyone who's interested, I suggest you switch to HD and fullscreen: www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfrW3dtaRmo The demo is available here: www.bigdownload.com/games/braid/pc/braid-demo/ DS.

[bouncingbrick]

I, as a video gamer since 1988, stand firmly on the side that counts video games as an art. I think it's nonsense to think that art has to be directed solely by the creator and I think it's nonsense to assume that video games aren't directing the player. Even though the game makers put decisions in the game for the player to make, they still had utter control of creating those situations, those emotions, the set-up and the aftermath of those decisions. By creating a narrative for the player they are expressing their storytelling talent. This isn't lessened by the fact that the player gets to take control of some of those actions.

Of course, some of the most artistic games also don't have to involve narrative at all. Take the game Flower, for example. This game is available for download on the PS3 and you take control of flower petals floating in the wind (I haven't played it but I watched a video about it and now i wish I had downloaded it). It does have some of the most beautiful visuals I've ever seen in a video game and it even rivals the visuals I've seen in some of the most impressive movies.

I also want to list off a couple of titles that stand on their own both artisticly and as video games.

Bioshock-From the story to the visuals to the decisions the player has to make, this game is amazing. It does have a moment where the player has to do something s/he would probably not want to do, so it fits in nicely with what Tyler wants out of the decision making process.

Final Fantasy 7 and 10-FF7 is the only game that really shocked me with the death of a character. I was completely invested in it as a story and I wasn't expecting one of the main characters to die, and stay dead! FF10 was one of the first games to really show where we would and could go in terms of visuals. The jump in graphics from the PS1 to the PS2 was mind blowing and FF10 was an amazing game to look at while still being emotionally engaging.

Metal Gear Solid-Any of them. Metal Gear Solid, especially 2 and 4, are amazing examples of what you can do with just very solid story telling in a game. If you're not invested in Solid Snake as a character at the end of these games, you're not alive.

There's plenty more, but my fingers are tired!

[cucumberboy]

Very well said. Your first paragraph is a better way of saying what I tried to communicate, which is that games are in fact an experience completely controlled by the makers of the game. And to reiterate: the experiences you had playing games are belittled by the argument that gamers should be content with just labelling video games as "entertainment".

[cucumberboy]

Don't want to beat a dead horse or anything, but what did you think of Arkham Asylum, Tyler? Did you play the whole thing? And what about the Riddler? Did you find him, and was the character true to what the Riddler should be?

[Tyler Smith]

Oct 24, 2010 6:42:00 GMT -5 cucumberboy said:

Don't want to beat a dead horse or anything, but what did you think of Arkham Asylum, Tyler? Did you play the whole thing? And what about the Riddler? Did you find him, and was the character true to what the Riddler should be?

I haven't played the game myself, but have sat and watched others pay it for long periods of time, throwing in a suggestion where I could. Based on what my friends have said and what I've read about the game, the Riddler's clues don't serve a lot of purpose in the actual plot of the game. They're more of a diversion; a very risky way to score points.
In that sense, this version of the Riddler is spot on. Much like the character in the comics and the animated series, he uses the riddles as a way of getting Batman focused on entirely the wrong thing, while the Riddler himself is elsewhere, doing what he wants to do.
The riddles are funny, yet sometimes vaguely disturbing. Though the character doesn't show up, I like what they chose to do with him.

[maarow]

I don't understand the "art is not interactive" definition. If that were true, then the only valuable novel would be a novel that is never read. All arthouse cinemas would run the projectors constantly but never sell tickets. "You see that last Bergman film?" "Nobody has, that's how we know it's so great!"

All you are doing when you watch a movie or read a book or study a painting is interacting with it. What does the color red signify here? Why does this character make this choice? What's the larger metaphor at play? Since we cinema snobs frown at being "spoonfed" all the answers, we must like figuring things out for ourselves. And that means we are engaging with it, emotionally, psychologically, maybe even physically (sitting on the edge of your seat, for example).

Art is a conversation between the artist and the viewer. I think video games have the power to do this as well or as poorly as any other medium.

[Tyler Smith]

The interactivity that you're speaking of is figurative and, in that sense, I agree that art is meant to be interactive. Video games, however, provide a very literal interactivity, in which the artist allows the audience to shape the art itself, rather than merely interpret what he meant. If a game were ever purely interactive, then it would actually cease to be figuratively interactive, because there would be no more asking "What did the artist mean by this," because the audience themselves would be guiding the story and characters. One wouldn't have to try to determine a character's hidden motivations when they are merely an extension of what the audience wants. One doesn't have to try to figure out why something happened when one is solely responsible for that thing.

[johnnyunusual]

I'm going to take a page out of one of my favourite comics called Understanding Comics (an essay about comics in the form of a comic)

On the question of "Are comics art?" he response by saying it's a very stupid question.

"Art, as I see it, is any human activity which doesn't grow out of our species two basic instincts: survival and reproduction."

He also points out that art isn't an either/or. So granted, that does make it hard to say what is art and what isn't (the fork? someone had to come up with a design for it. I mean a more specific design beyond fork shaped).

I also think that it is misleading when you say a game has to have a story to be art. I disagree: I think that Tetris is as much art as any other games. The art is in the creating of the graphics and, perhaps most importantly, the creation of the rules of the game. In a sense, that also means that sports (someone had to create the rules of a sport and such) and board games are an art. Games are art and to imply that interactivity removes something from art is a fallacy.

I also don't think it's fair to say that what the audience wants and what the character wants are necessarily the same. The game "Bioshock" turns this on it's ear halfway through in a very clever way in which it makes you rethink the idea of a game character's freewill. Or "Silent Hill 2", where the world is an extension of the main characters feelings of guilt and even when you get to the end, there's not so much a feeling of winning as it is an ending. Conversely, there are characters in movies whom you can project yourself onto (particularly in minimalist pieces). Also, why must characters or story be a necessity for art. Unless, you think that paintings without people in them, or instrumental pieces are not art.

Thoughts?

[Dr Handsome]

I thought I responded to this thread months ago (like I said, I save these sorts of things in a text file, edit them into oblivion, and forget they ever existed) but I do think it's an interesting argument and that Roger Ebert came across as a massive jerk and then ungracefully bowed out of the conversation.

The easy answer is to say that interactivity is only part of the video game and that of course 3D design and orchestrated music and written dialogue are all a part of established artistic mediums. So in some way video games are art.

Still I think that interactivity is no different than creating one or two or several stories. Your interactions aren't dictated by any real world laws, they're created by a writer or a designer who's interested in sharing his or her experience or emotion or even a message. I'm not arguing that every video game is quality art but it's still an artistic medium.

I'm also interested in talking about the enormous sigh I make whenever I think back to the way Roger Ebert's conducted himself-- the way he ended the whole thing with the dismissive statement 'I was a fool for mentioning video games in the first place.' I guess I'll save that one for the "Is Roger Ebert Art" thread.

[dunc]

When done right, video games almost become a gathering point of all the strands of art--music, storytelling, visuals, mood--and in this case, the viewer is able to experience these strands in a much more immersive setting. Then of course, there are games like Metal Gear Solid 4 and Shadow of the Colossus, which may as well be films, because their gameplay is so incidental. Advances in technology and heightened ambition/competition in game development has started to open up more artistic avenues. It's a strange case where I think CGI has been more of a benefit to gaming than maybe to most movies. The visual convergence of video games and movies is already here. For example, apart from the 3D mechanics (which is apparently on its way), does a cutscene from Avatar the game, really look that different from Avatar the film? Some have argued that because games are focused more on gameplay and visuals, rather than story, they are inherently inferior to movies. But the best films rely much more on mood and imagery, and seek to express ideas, rather than a simple narrative. In fact the same contention could be said of paintings, the original artform.

Art is entirely subjective, and will change as a person and their culture evolves. All we can express, is how something makes us feel; our reaction. In which case, video games have the upper hand, because we can sometimes spend 50+ hours living in a virtual world and interacting with its people. Rather than following some linear plot set out by an author or director, gaming worlds must be these huge, free-flowing experiences. Roger Ebert is obviously an excellent writer and a respected critic, but he seems somehow trapped in the past. Was not film itself once a new field of art? Did it not also take decades for its academic respectability to be recognized? I don't know... he just seems like the last person to take seriously, as to whether video games can rise to the level of art. I'm almost certain he's never played when, given how he describes them. His experience of them seems to be entierly derived from a conference he attended.