5 ms·

Wolfire Games: Are games art?

10 points by zitterbewegung 18y ago

zitterbewegung 18y ago
Good response to roger ebert and his ranting about the topic.
- unalone 18y ago
  Yeah. Shame on Ebert. I love the guy and he's an incredible writer, but I think he's wrong on this one.
jerf 18y ago
Step one: Define art. Step two: Define game. Step three: Read off from your definition whether games are art. It is only people's insistence on running this algorithm backwards, or that there are universal definitions for either term, that keep this pointless debate alive. The answer is yes and no and maybe, for some good definition of either. It can be worth thinking about, but don't think you can actually answer the question once and for all. You'd think after the thirtieth or fortieth medium that we'd all understand this. "Well, I guess musique concrete is art and I guess interpretative dance is art and I guess these 'moving picture' things are art and I guess the crucifix in a jar of piss is art, but I DRAW THE LINE at video games! No!" Sheesh. What a crock.
- sutro 18y ago
  Step one: Cut a hole in the box. Step two: Put your junk in that box. Step three: Make her open the box. And that's the way you do it!
snprbob86 18y ago
Yes. Art is in the eye of the beholder. The end. Can we let this silly discussion die please? (I didn't read the article)
matthew-wegner 18y ago
I guess Ebert's definition meant to have another word: "Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires [EXCLUSIVE] authorial control." Games simply share this authorial control (some games share more than others, like Spore or Little Big Planet). If you take Ebert's definition literally then, indeed, games are art, and it kind of backfires on him.
- ja2ke 18y ago
  There's a strong misunderstanding going on here of what "authorial control" means, though. Anything you can do in a game, even a free-form game, is taking place within a system of rules set down by the game's designers and programmers. Games are interactive, and obviously accept input from the player, but they are as strongly, and really, as exclusively authored as any other medium. Ebert comes at it entirely from a film point of view -- video game players can (depending on the game) have control of the camera, of the movements and decisions and dialog choices of the protagonist, or even in some cases, control of the narrative! Every movement in a game, though, is restricted (or it might be better to say, "allowed for" or "enabled"), by the designers. Unless it is a poorly constructed game, you can't go walking off out of the game's predetermined accessible areas. Every line of dialog was written by a writer, or recorded by a voice actor (or, if it uses some sort of procedurally generated speech system, is operating under rules built by a programmer and game designer). Some games are more forgiving of "emergent" moments than others -- having gameplay systems which are built to intersect and collide in unexpected ways -- but all of those underlying systems were designed and built with the purpose and expectation of creating interesting collisions. The problem is that Ebert is framing games like he'd frame a piece of serious film or literature -- defining authorial control in terms of narrative, or at least in terms of character, which is ridiculous. If Ebert ventured into a gallery space and encountered an interactive art installation which created some sort of projection which responded to his body movement, voice, and an artist-chosen soundtrack, would he declare that it inherently wasn't "art" because it wasn't a painting? I think he's confusing the presence of a protagonist and the use of filmic storytelling tools and cinematography for a classic narrative work, and then sees players diverting that narrative and shaping that narrative and tearing it apart, and decides that there can't be anything valid there. Narrative can be a great tool, or even a framework, to build into a game, but the rules of conventional narrative not what games are inherently about, and that makes them a misguided criteria by which to judge them.
Dilpil 18y ago
Is sound art? Is a colored plane art? Is a rock art? It depends.
ken 18y ago
I really didn't get Shakespeare until I saw it performed. His plays are plays for a reason, after all. That's enough (for me) to blow away the "requires authorial control" theory: no two performances are the same. Or any book: everybody reads it and has a different mental image of what's going on. (How many people read Dune and saw it as Lynch did?) In a book, you're given fixed words and given free reign on the visual and auditory axes. In a game, you're given fixed audiovisuals and given free reign on plot. I don't see how one could be inherently artistic, and the other not. Only a movie reviewer (where virtually everything is fixed) could claim that lack of viewer participation is the defining attribute of art.
unalone 18y ago
There are two largely accepted definitions of art. The first is the view of art simply as the mastery of a certain action or craft. The second is the view of art as something that changes the person that sees it. By the first definition, video games are inherently piece of art so long as there is an objective standard behind games. There's an art form behind, say, the comprehensive control scheme from Super Mario 64, which is in my opinion the best platforming control scheme I've ever used. There's an art to creating responsive and beautiful worlds. By the second definition, games still qualify, but we're in a poor position in that thus far games are still parroting movies by-and-large. The large advancements that we've seen in gaming - I'll cite Shadow of the Colossus and Grand Theft Auto IV as the two pinnacles - are ones that, in terms of message, are still parroting movies. Shadow of the Colossus gives us the sense of loss, Grand Theft Auto IV gives us the sympathetic - and fully-fleshed - character. These things can be compared dismissively towards movies, since they're far more primitive in nature. That's not to say that video games will remain as such. People are entering the field with ambitious minds right now. Many games are starting to hint at an expansion towards the sorts of things that gaming and gaming alone has to offer. I think that the "are games high art" argument will be moot 20 years from now, if not sooner. The gap is closing. (I'll also say that if not the games themselves, music in video games is the least compromised that any forum of music has been for a century. I'm thinking of Nobuo Uematsu, whose soundtracks are regularly 4 discs+ long, who releases piano arrangements and orchestral and rock arrangements of all his pieces, and who - unlike, say John Williams - is given an incredibly wide scape of emotions to portray with every game he works on. His output is impressive, as is the output of Koji Kondo, though he isn't nearly as evocative in my opinion.)
sh1mmer 18y ago
I was disappointed the author flaked out of drawing his own conclusions. I felt that he raised some reasonable, if obvious, points about the dismissal of new mediums throughout the history of art.
sh1mmer 18y ago
Interestingly I think this article misses a fundamental point. I have a dear friend, a long time artist (who went to Goldsmiths and the Royal Academy) and who paints 8 paintings a week, rain, snow or shine. He has always talked about the need for art to emote, or at least provoke thought in (in the case of much modern art) the viewer. His art, he says, is trying to capture a moment in his life and display that in a way that others might glimpse his life even though they could never be him. By these criteria perhaps video games present the most formidable medium in order to achieve the lofty goal. While one cannot directly control the exact interaction a good video games can steer a player in the same way a good director or leads the audience or an author leads her readers. By setting up scenarios and situations which create the opportunity to feel or think an idea that is entirely novel to us because we have been guided to it. The power of interaction can bring this to a new level over traditional mediums because of the exploration of the player. In basic computer science we are taught about the difference between data, information and knowledge. The knowledge being that information which a person is not only able recollect but also directly apply. As an IT trainer I know from experience the way people gain knowledge is by taking an abstract piece of information, and discovering how it works. The phrase "let them work it out for themselves" is common, because it reflects the simple truth. If art is about experience, emotional or cognitive, interaction offers the most concrete vehicle of human learning to reach states of exerience as never before. I would contend that video games are indeed art of the highest order.

Good response to roger ebert and his ranting about the topic.

unalone 18y ago
Yeah. Shame on Ebert. I love the guy and he's an incredible writer, but I think he's wrong on this one.

jerf 18y ago

Step one: Define art. Step two: Define game. Step three: Read off from your definition whether games are art. It is only people's insistence on running this algorithm backwards, or that there are universal definitions for either term, that keep this pointless debate alive. The answer is yes and no and maybe, for some good definition of either. It can be worth thinking about, but don't think you can actually answer the question once and for all. You'd think after the thirtieth or fortieth medium that we'd all understand this. "Well, I guess musique concrete is art and I guess interpretative dance is art and I guess these 'moving picture' things are art and I guess the crucifix in a jar of piss is art, but I DRAW THE LINE at video games! No!" Sheesh. What a crock.

sutro 18y ago
Step one: Cut a hole in the box. Step two: Put your junk in that box. Step three: Make her open the box. And that's the way you do it!

snprbob86 18y ago

Yes. Art is in the eye of the beholder. The end. Can we let this silly discussion die please? (I didn't read the article)

matthew-wegner 18y ago

I guess Ebert's definition meant to have another word: "Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires [EXCLUSIVE] authorial control." Games simply share this authorial control (some games share more than others, like Spore or Little Big Planet). If you take Ebert's definition literally then, indeed, games are art, and it kind of backfires on him.

ja2ke 18y ago
There's a strong misunderstanding going on here of what "authorial control" means, though. Anything you can do in a game, even a free-form game, is taking place within a system of rules set down by the game's designers and programmers. Games are interactive, and obviously accept input from the player, but they are as strongly, and really, as exclusively authored as any other medium. Ebert comes at it entirely from a film point of view -- video game players can (depending on the game) have control of the camera, of the movements and decisions and dialog choices of the protagonist, or even in some cases, control of the narrative! Every movement in a game, though, is restricted (or it might be better to say, "allowed for" or "enabled"), by the designers. Unless it is a poorly constructed game, you can't go walking off out of the game's predetermined accessible areas. Every line of dialog was written by a writer, or recorded by a voice actor (or, if it uses some sort of procedurally generated speech system, is operating under rules built by a programmer and game designer). Some games are more forgiving of "emergent" moments than others -- having gameplay systems which are built to intersect and collide in unexpected ways -- but all of those underlying systems were designed and built with the purpose and expectation of creating interesting collisions. The problem is that Ebert is framing games like he'd frame a piece of serious film or literature -- defining authorial control in terms of narrative, or at least in terms of character, which is ridiculous. If Ebert ventured into a gallery space and encountered an interactive art installation which created some sort of projection which responded to his body movement, voice, and an artist-chosen soundtrack, would he declare that it inherently wasn't "art" because it wasn't a painting? I think he's confusing the presence of a protagonist and the use of filmic storytelling tools and cinematography for a classic narrative work, and then sees players diverting that narrative and shaping that narrative and tearing it apart, and decides that there can't be anything valid there. Narrative can be a great tool, or even a framework, to build into a game, but the rules of conventional narrative not what games are inherently about, and that makes them a misguided criteria by which to judge them.

Dilpil 18y ago

Is sound art? Is a colored plane art? Is a rock art? It depends.

ken 18y ago

I really didn't get Shakespeare until I saw it performed. His plays are plays for a reason, after all. That's enough (for me) to blow away the "requires authorial control" theory: no two performances are the same. Or any book: everybody reads it and has a different mental image of what's going on. (How many people read Dune and saw it as Lynch did?) In a book, you're given fixed words and given free reign on the visual and auditory axes. In a game, you're given fixed audiovisuals and given free reign on plot. I don't see how one could be inherently artistic, and the other not. Only a movie reviewer (where virtually everything is fixed) could claim that lack of viewer participation is the defining attribute of art.

unalone 18y ago

There are two largely accepted definitions of art. The first is the view of art simply as the mastery of a certain action or craft. The second is the view of art as something that changes the person that sees it. By the first definition, video games are inherently piece of art so long as there is an objective standard behind games. There's an art form behind, say, the comprehensive control scheme from Super Mario 64, which is in my opinion the best platforming control scheme I've ever used. There's an art to creating responsive and beautiful worlds. By the second definition, games still qualify, but we're in a poor position in that thus far games are still parroting movies by-and-large. The large advancements that we've seen in gaming - I'll cite Shadow of the Colossus and Grand Theft Auto IV as the two pinnacles - are ones that, in terms of message, are still parroting movies. Shadow of the Colossus gives us the sense of loss, Grand Theft Auto IV gives us the sympathetic - and fully-fleshed - character. These things can be compared dismissively towards movies, since they're far more primitive in nature. That's not to say that video games will remain as such. People are entering the field with ambitious minds right now. Many games are starting to hint at an expansion towards the sorts of things that gaming and gaming alone has to offer. I think that the "are games high art" argument will be moot 20 years from now, if not sooner. The gap is closing. (I'll also say that if not the games themselves, music in video games is the least compromised that any forum of music has been for a century. I'm thinking of Nobuo Uematsu, whose soundtracks are regularly 4 discs+ long, who releases piano arrangements and orchestral and rock arrangements of all his pieces, and who - unlike, say John Williams - is given an incredibly wide scape of emotions to portray with every game he works on. His output is impressive, as is the output of Koji Kondo, though he isn't nearly as evocative in my opinion.)

sh1mmer 18y ago

I was disappointed the author flaked out of drawing his own conclusions. I felt that he raised some reasonable, if obvious, points about the dismissal of new mediums throughout the history of art.

sh1mmer 18y ago

Interestingly I think this article misses a fundamental point. I have a dear friend, a long time artist (who went to Goldsmiths and the Royal Academy) and who paints 8 paintings a week, rain, snow or shine. He has always talked about the need for art to emote, or at least provoke thought in (in the case of much modern art) the viewer. His art, he says, is trying to capture a moment in his life and display that in a way that others might glimpse his life even though they could never be him. By these criteria perhaps video games present the most formidable medium in order to achieve the lofty goal. While one cannot directly control the exact interaction a good video games can steer a player in the same way a good director or leads the audience or an author leads her readers. By setting up scenarios and situations which create the opportunity to feel or think an idea that is entirely novel to us because we have been guided to it. The power of interaction can bring this to a new level over traditional mediums because of the exploration of the player. In basic computer science we are taught about the difference between data, information and knowledge. The knowledge being that information which a person is not only able recollect but also directly apply. As an IT trainer I know from experience the way people gain knowledge is by taking an abstract piece of information, and discovering how it works. The phrase "let them work it out for themselves" is common, because it reflects the simple truth. If art is about experience, emotional or cognitive, interaction offers the most concrete vehicle of human learning to reach states of exerience as never before. I would contend that video games are indeed art of the highest order.