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Games are sadly just on the cusp of developing a true arts culture - but we have yet to move out of the consumer mentality, where the only value of a game is if

Games are sadly just on the cusp of developing a true arts culture - but we have yet to move out of the consumer mentality, where the only value of a game is if you were entertained by it at your most base level. It also doesn't help that a lot of internet commentators can't distinguish between someone criticizing something they like and personal attacks.

librvf 11y ago
> but we have yet to move out of the consumer mentality, where the only value of a game is if you were entertained by it at your most base level. Neither did Mozart.
Karunamon 11y ago
It also doesn't help that a lot of internet commentators can't distinguish between someone criticizing something they like and personal attacks. It also doesn't help that a lot of critics can't make a criticism along the lines of "I don't like this because X" without injecting an overt or covert "People who like this are X". The former is criticism, the latter is always a personal attack.
Kalium 11y ago
Games are frequently something that most instances of arts culture struggle with - commercial. This means that trying to treat games as artistic artifacts, made of beauty and aesthetics, free of the drudgery of economics, is a misguided thing at best. Games are not generally produced as solely artistic works. The economic aspect is significant. Attempting to discuss and critique games as solely artistic artifacts means missing one of largest influences on any such artifact. It's like discussing architecture without admitting that materials and physics and humans impose limits.
- comrh 11y ago
  I think there is a massive shift in this though. The rise of indie games, niche crowdfunded games, easier tools to create means people are making games for art and not the AAA paycheck.
  - Kalium 11y ago
    Indie games and crowdfunded games are still generally done with an eye towards the economics. Even today, with all the tools available, you still don't generally get a team of a dozen people working full-time on a game for three years solely as an art piece.
    - the_af 11y ago
      This isn't it. Mainstream movies are often analyzed and reviewed as art -- whole books written about them! -- even though they are primarily done "with an eye towards the economics". Modern tools can help make (admittedly small) games even by people who aren't programmers and who don't necessarily want to make money. It's been a while, but I remember the early days of the Adventure Game Studio; there were people trying to make something to sell, but also plenty of people writing pretty decent games solely because they wanted to. Also see the awesome Interactive Fiction community.
      - Kalium 11y ago
        And I think that such analysis has similar flaws for similar reasons. You cannot hope to understand a thing meaningfully if you choose to ignore huge influences on its creation and creative choices.
        the_af 11y ago
        That's a non-standard view of art. I don't know of anyone who uses the term like that; of course an analysis of art must take into consideration its "huge influences". For example, when people review classic movies, they take into consideration what studios were willing to fund; executive meddling; whether the movie bombed at the box office; the political situation at the time; the moral codes of the time; budget limitations that forced directors to be extremely creative; problems between the lead actors; etc.
        Kalium 11y ago
        I say this because of the people I know who attempt to treat video games as art. They examine social aspects, political aspects, and so on. There's a tendency to either ignore or gloss over economic aspects. That said, it's probably easier to do that with classic movies about which there is a sizable body of knowledge. You don't have the same production information about a video game released last month.
- Chathamization 11y ago
  Not just the economic aspect, but the game aspect. Board games and role-playing games have been around much longer, and aren't considered art (and there doesn't seem to be any push for them to be considered as such).
  - Kalium 11y ago
    This is an excellent point, and one I didn't think of. Do you have any thoughts on why this might be?
    - Chathamization 11y ago
      I think some of it goes back to the art vs. design conversation and games, in so much as they are games, tend to fall on the design side (there tends to be a clarity regarding the rules, rules are designed to create good gameplay rather than an expression of artistic vision, etc.). A lot of the things that can be considered art can work just as well outside of the game (take a cutscene, for example, which has no gameplay and is basically a movie inserted into a game). Of course, there are some games that tie the narrative and the gameplay together in such a way that it's hard to separate the two, such as The Colonel's Bequest (1989), The Last Express (1997), and a favorite of Roger Ebert's, Cosmology of Kyoto (1994). There are also "ungames" that eschewed gameplay in order to create more of an art experience, such as Puppet Motel (1995) and The Manhole (1988). But mainstream gaming has largely forgotten these games (as well as many others).
      - the_af 11y ago
        Good examples! I regret that mainstream gaming has forgotten these games. Non-mainstream gaming hasn't, fortunately. There is the Interactive Fiction community, which has produced some of the best games I've ever enjoyed; there are some indie designers doing experimental games about personal issues -- I'll avoid mentioning them, because that's a can of worms I don't want to open here -- there is the "agitprop" of Molleindustria's Paolo Pedercini, etc.
  - Vaskivo 11y ago
- the_af 11y ago
  I don't think this addresses the parent post, though. For one, no-one I know of wants to consider games as solely artistic artifacts. What some in the game development community are asking for is the recognition of games as a valid art form; this is orthogonal to their (admittedly dominant) commercial aspects. In my opinion, more misguided is to consider them as simply mindless entertainment whose content and message is too shallow to be discussed. Criticism and analysis of games as cultural artifacts is both valuable and needed. Games are like mainstream movies in this regard, where we accept that even mainstream Hollywood movies have a message that can be dissected and analyzed.
  - Kalium 11y ago
    My problem is that games-as-commercial-artifacts and games-as-art both miss the point. Games are both, as well as entertainment and cultural artifacts. Criticism and analysis needs to consider all these things or miss important aspects required for understanding. For instance, the question is not just what message a movie conveys. The question also includes why. Similarly, there are entire game mechanisms that exist solely for economic reasons (IAPs, gating, etc.) that cannot be understood through artistic lenses.
    - the_af 11y ago
      > My problem is that games-as-commercial-artifacts and games-as-art both miss the point. Games are both, as well as entertainment and cultural artifacts. Criticism and analysis needs to consider all these things or miss important aspects required for understanding. That's why reviewers can attempt to do both. Just like they do with movies :) The problem is that videogames are relatively new and people are not yet convinced they can be reviewed as art. It's safer to stick to them being just entertainment whose content is pointless to analyze.

librvf 11y ago

> but we have yet to move out of the consumer mentality, where the only value of a game is if you were entertained by it at your most base level. Neither did Mozart.

Karunamon 11y ago

It also doesn't help that a lot of internet commentators can't distinguish between someone criticizing something they like and personal attacks. It also doesn't help that a lot of critics can't make a criticism along the lines of "I don't like this because X" without injecting an overt or covert "People who like this are X". The former is criticism, the latter is always a personal attack.

Kalium 11y ago

Games are frequently something that most instances of arts culture struggle with - commercial. This means that trying to treat games as artistic artifacts, made of beauty and aesthetics, free of the drudgery of economics, is a misguided thing at best. Games are not generally produced as solely artistic works. The economic aspect is significant. Attempting to discuss and critique games as solely artistic artifacts means missing one of largest influences on any such artifact. It's like discussing architecture without admitting that materials and physics and humans impose limits.

comrh 11y ago
I think there is a massive shift in this though. The rise of indie games, niche crowdfunded games, easier tools to create means people are making games for art and not the AAA paycheck.
- Kalium 11y ago
  Indie games and crowdfunded games are still generally done with an eye towards the economics. Even today, with all the tools available, you still don't generally get a team of a dozen people working full-time on a game for three years solely as an art piece.
  - the_af 11y ago
    This isn't it. Mainstream movies are often analyzed and reviewed as art -- whole books written about them! -- even though they are primarily done "with an eye towards the economics". Modern tools can help make (admittedly small) games even by people who aren't programmers and who don't necessarily want to make money. It's been a while, but I remember the early days of the Adventure Game Studio; there were people trying to make something to sell, but also plenty of people writing pretty decent games solely because they wanted to. Also see the awesome Interactive Fiction community.
    - Kalium 11y ago
      And I think that such analysis has similar flaws for similar reasons. You cannot hope to understand a thing meaningfully if you choose to ignore huge influences on its creation and creative choices.
      - the_af 11y ago
        That's a non-standard view of art. I don't know of anyone who uses the term like that; of course an analysis of art must take into consideration its "huge influences". For example, when people review classic movies, they take into consideration what studios were willing to fund; executive meddling; whether the movie bombed at the box office; the political situation at the time; the moral codes of the time; budget limitations that forced directors to be extremely creative; problems between the lead actors; etc.
        Kalium 11y ago
        I say this because of the people I know who attempt to treat video games as art. They examine social aspects, political aspects, and so on. There's a tendency to either ignore or gloss over economic aspects. That said, it's probably easier to do that with classic movies about which there is a sizable body of knowledge. You don't have the same production information about a video game released last month.
Chathamization 11y ago
Not just the economic aspect, but the game aspect. Board games and role-playing games have been around much longer, and aren't considered art (and there doesn't seem to be any push for them to be considered as such).
- Kalium 11y ago
  This is an excellent point, and one I didn't think of. Do you have any thoughts on why this might be?
  - Chathamization 11y ago
    I think some of it goes back to the art vs. design conversation and games, in so much as they are games, tend to fall on the design side (there tends to be a clarity regarding the rules, rules are designed to create good gameplay rather than an expression of artistic vision, etc.). A lot of the things that can be considered art can work just as well outside of the game (take a cutscene, for example, which has no gameplay and is basically a movie inserted into a game). Of course, there are some games that tie the narrative and the gameplay together in such a way that it's hard to separate the two, such as The Colonel's Bequest (1989), The Last Express (1997), and a favorite of Roger Ebert's, Cosmology of Kyoto (1994). There are also "ungames" that eschewed gameplay in order to create more of an art experience, such as Puppet Motel (1995) and The Manhole (1988). But mainstream gaming has largely forgotten these games (as well as many others).
    - the_af 11y ago
      Good examples! I regret that mainstream gaming has forgotten these games. Non-mainstream gaming hasn't, fortunately. There is the Interactive Fiction community, which has produced some of the best games I've ever enjoyed; there are some indie designers doing experimental games about personal issues -- I'll avoid mentioning them, because that's a can of worms I don't want to open here -- there is the "agitprop" of Molleindustria's Paolo Pedercini, etc.
- Vaskivo 11y ago
the_af 11y ago
I don't think this addresses the parent post, though. For one, no-one I know of wants to consider games as solely artistic artifacts. What some in the game development community are asking for is the recognition of games as a valid art form; this is orthogonal to their (admittedly dominant) commercial aspects. In my opinion, more misguided is to consider them as simply mindless entertainment whose content and message is too shallow to be discussed. Criticism and analysis of games as cultural artifacts is both valuable and needed. Games are like mainstream movies in this regard, where we accept that even mainstream Hollywood movies have a message that can be dissected and analyzed.
- Kalium 11y ago
  My problem is that games-as-commercial-artifacts and games-as-art both miss the point. Games are both, as well as entertainment and cultural artifacts. Criticism and analysis needs to consider all these things or miss important aspects required for understanding. For instance, the question is not just what message a movie conveys. The question also includes why. Similarly, there are entire game mechanisms that exist solely for economic reasons (IAPs, gating, etc.) that cannot be understood through artistic lenses.
  - the_af 11y ago
    > My problem is that games-as-commercial-artifacts and games-as-art both miss the point. Games are both, as well as entertainment and cultural artifacts. Criticism and analysis needs to consider all these things or miss important aspects required for understanding. That's why reviewers can attempt to do both. Just like they do with movies :) The problem is that videogames are relatively new and people are not yet convinced they can be reviewed as art. It's safer to stick to them being just entertainment whose content is pointless to analyze.