AWKWARD ZOMBIE

This certainly always has been a significant question in the gaming community, which games such as Bastion and Portal 2 have recalled to my mind. It's always being compared with movies and other forms of media, yet while all of these forms are recognized as art, video games are singled out as being "toys" or "mindless entertainment." Really, the industry hits both sides of the spectrum. For example, compare these two videos, and then the games as a whole. Would you consider both games art? Would you just scrutinize one for being too action-y, or another for being too cartoon-y?



Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Launch Trailer (embedding this video isn't working.)

Now, what do you guys think? (I'll probably chip in again after a few more people reply.)

Well if choose-your-own-adventure stories are art, why not games?

Wait, what? Choose-your-own-adventure stories are art now?

Anyone who objects by flinging blockbuster splosionfests or casual crap games, I point you in the direction of Micheal Bay and, uh, kid's movies.

But then we have the tie-in games to the Micheal Bay and kiddy movies. And that's the kind of problem other media just don't have.

Still, yes. I consider them art.

Using the Michael Bay/Call of Duty example, when they start to call themselves art, then we have to worry. But right now if a game like Bastion or Limbo want to call themselves art then by all means.

As Penny Arcade put it: "How can you have 200 artists working on something for 2 years or more and have the result not be art?" (quoted from memory) Edit: found the comic
Silly discussion regardless, art has no definition, as affirmed in the last century by movements such as dadaism.

Well, I feel like playing the Devil's Advocate... to myself.

As has been stated countless times before, for every Limbo or Bastion, there are one hundred CAWADOODY, BATTUHFEELD, or GEERZ UHF WUHR games. These games really are moving the art movement back exponentially; for every step an original game takes forward, blockbuster gmaes sprint backwards for one mile. There's no creativity, no originality, no true artistic value. The majority of games these days are simply run and shoot.

Certain choice game I would consider art yeah. Grim Fandango, Half Life(as a series), Planescape: Torment etc. The list could go on for a while if I sat down and counted up all the fantastic games I can think of.

You can't just look at the gameplay when apprising games as an artform. You have to look at every aspect. The design of the game, the ways in which to play it, and the varied experiences one can have while enjoying it all fall into place when discussing any art form, let alone games.

If we want to use Modern Warfare as an example, there are PLENTY of interesting mechanics and design choices used that make it quite artful. I remember a level in the first MW where you have a flashback level. In that level you have to traverse the area in a ghillie suit and not be spotted by enemy soldiers and then you have to take out a terrorist leader via a complex and somewhat suspenseful sniper shot. All the elements of that level came together to create a really tense, interesting experience for me and it sticks with me in the same way that looking at "Starry Night" sticks with me. You can't just look at a game and say "It's ugly and brown and the same old shit how could this be seen as art" because you're really not giving it a chance. I don't even like the MW games that much, or the Gears of War games for that matter, but you can't deny that artistic inspiration has gone into these games despite some repetitive themes that go into the bulk of what is considered a blockbuster game.

Despite ones apprehension at calling more mainstream games art, you can't really deny the way they push technology forward for other games that will ultimately come after them. A game like Heavy Rain, for example, could easily be seen as art to most people because it is very innovative in the way of story telling, and it pushed the graphical capabilities of games as we know them (and then the developers went on to create "Kara" but that an entirely different story.)

In the same way I talk about games, I could talk about movies. My favorite movie is "The Prestige" and I find that to be an INCREDIBLY artful experience. Despite that, I can still look at something like the Transformers movies and consider them artful because of how they push visual limits and because of the thematic and aesthetic choices made. You have to really go deep into these things and consider what is "something that takes art backwards" and "art you just don't like" because if you don't, you're being ignorant to the detriment of yourself and those around you; especially artists. In the same way one should value the artists who worked on the Star Wars prequels (as an example of something people dislike,) one should value the artists who work on Gears of War (as an example of something people actually like but is usually seen as brown ugly derivative garbage.)

There are games we consider good art, and games we consider bad art just like everything else, but it must be remembered that all games are a piece of art, which is a neutral label. Just because something is art, doesn't make it good.

The first Modern Warfare was pretty nice but every game since then as been awful. Probably didn't help that activision ripped infinity ward to pieces and sewed it back up, trying to pretend that nobody would notice.

The moment when one of your player characters gets nuked and walking through Pripyat were really goddamn great.

Art is just expression through a medium, books are art, movies are art, paintings and drawings are art, games combine all these things, how can they not be called art?

I know it's a cheap answer but I've always thought art was what you made of it. Games can be art, I guess, just as anything else can be.

My main question though is why people care so much. I mean, after I played shadow of the colossus I didn't sit down and think about how well done it was, or what all the story meant, or how that was a piece of art. I mostly thought "fighting that colossi was fun, but the sheer amount of time it took to get to the daisies thing wasn't really worth it." Then again my favorite things about New Vegas and Red Dead Redemption are just getting lost in the game's worlds so I don't know.

Art is something you work to make. Buildings are art, books are art, video games are art. Pissing on a cross in a toilet is not art. Throwing paint at a wall with no real intent is not art. A robot crafted from tin cans glued/wired together is art.

I think the fear that the "old school" art critics like Roger Ebert have is that if videogames are art, more traditional games, like chess or poker can be art as well and then maybe sports are art as well. I know, slippery slope argument, but it's still a valid inquiry. I have two more things to say on this:

1. Let's look at the individual components of a video-game: the story, the visuals, the sound and the gameplay. No one is ever going to argue that the first three individually aren't art. Whether gameplay is art I'll address in my second point, but regardless I think that a game where the gameplay ties together the first three elements seamlessly to create a unique experience is the most artful. For example: Amnesia: The Dark Decent. The intent of this piece is to instil a feeling of dread and helplessness through the medium art. This is done through a mysterious and horrific storyline, dark and gruesome visuals and unnerving sounds. The most brilliant thing however is how the gameplay works together with all of that: instead of letting you fight the monsters head on and face your fear, you are forced to run and hide from them. The way these 4 elements work perfectly together to create a memorable experience is a perfect example for me how a videogame can be art.

2. The artistical value of gameplay: this is what I feel is the true essence of the debate. Essentially, gameplay is nothing more than a set of rules wherein the player has to act (*). Can a set of rules be considered art? Personally, if I look at the way a relatively simple set of rules can spring forth a near infinite amount of possible strategies and results (eg. chess, or even better, Go), I feel there is truly beauty and inspiration in creating gameplay.


(*): I hope this simplification is clear: a physics engine and what input yields which results for the player (move forward, left, attack) are all just a very complicated set of rules.

I find games like Limbo, Bastion, Braid, Flower and others like it art. The narrative and the story (or even the art of the game as in Flower) itself can be considered art, and the game itself is like an interactive book, being the medium from which it tells the story. I honestly don't find games like MW3, Battlefield or other games similar art, but that's just my opinion, as those are also interactive mediums from which you gain a story from, but I just don't find it the same as others.

Art doesn't necessarily have to tell story, else music wouldn't be art (although music can in some cases still tell a story). Imo, good art simply has to invoke feeling, or make me think.