Are Games Art?

[Crabbo]

I think they CAN be art, but simply existing doesn't mean they are.
'Ben 10 Hentai Bubble Blaster 69' wont have the same quality or impact on people as the 'I have no mouth and I must scream' Game.
(at least it didn't for me, I wont judge if it was life changing for you.)

 

[Lemmingwise]

'Ben 10 Hentai Bubble Blaster 69' wont have the same quality or impact on people as the 'I have no mouth and I must scream' Game.

Yeah, the first of the two is actually playable.

It doesn't lead to failstates without communicating it, nor with an ending level where often things give opposite feedback compared to what you should be doing, making it the greatest exercise in trial and error.

 

[V0dka]

This is a very old argument which goes back all the way to when videogames began. How exactly do you measure a videogame as art if at all? If you look at most widely acclaimed games, a lot of them don't get praised for their gameplay but rather their story, which is especially common in acclaimed RPG's where the story is supposed to be the focus. This is not a "cinematic games" problem as a lot of people like to say because games like VTMB, Silent Hill, Planescape: Torment etc. are all old and are more akin to watching a movie/reading a book than most new games. So are "art" games a sum of it's parts? Are they only judged for story and graphics? Most importantly, ARE games art at all, or maybe only certain games?

First you have to define what Art is and fuck that discussion in the ass.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

1.) Video games are art.

2.) Video games have the potential to be the best/most meaningful art.

3.) However, in reality, games are the lowest form of art.







More specifically, video games are a form of fiction (usually; I assume you're not talking about Tetris/Candy Crush style video games), fiction generally being accepted as art, and the individual components of video games are art, such as the visuals (graphic art), music, plot and dialogue. You could argue that video games are interactive movies, in one sense, so they are art by default since movies are art.

No matter how you look at it, there's no honest way to say they aren't art, whether you look at it as a sum of pieces or as a single unit. The more interesting question is if abstract games (like Tetris) can be art on the basis of their mechanics (I'd argue that they can).

Also, the poll is dumb as Hell. There's no option for "there's art, but it doesn't matter." Something doesn't have to be good to be art. All books, movies, TV shows, paintings, statues, comic books, musical compositions, etcetera are art. Being art doesn't mean that it needs to be good or that people need to hold it to any sort of "standard." Different art has different purposes. Grand Theft Auto is dumb schlock. So is the Death Merchant series of books and the Transformers movies. That doesn't disqualify them as artwork nor does it make them valueless.

 

[Emperor Julian]

Contextually it's actually easier to provide games which don't qualify as art than ones that do if anything the emergance of games that fail to qualify as art is a newer issue, A couple of points


1)it's also important to distinguish that qualifying as art does not automatically ensure quality.

2) when someone says they don't see games as an art form it is more a critique on their limited perceptions of what qualifies as 'art' rather than a valid attack on gaming as a medium. it's like saying with a straight face that film doesnt qualify.

3)Most 'art' games ironically fail to exploit the medium enough to justify them being a game in the first place. There are some exceptions but comparing games like Gone home or telltale games to Legacy of Kain, silent hill or Shadow of the colosus in terms of artistic merit is like comparing a 13 years old quasi weeb shit to the mona lisa.

 

[Megaroad]

I don't find many games to be art, just like I don't find any artistic value in most movies, books and music beyond just entertainment. I believe if everything is art, then nothing is art.

There are exceptions of course, Silent Hill keeps being brought up and I definitely agree. For all it's faults, SH4 is definitely a surrealist nightmare painting come to life. Metal Gear Solid 2 is up there as well with how meta and paranoia inducing it gets, especially at the time when it came out.

Honestly, people should stop giving a shit if games are art or not since its all too subjective and the games people tend to champion as art are boring as fuck and transparent with how little depth there is beyond their presentation.

Plus people who keep banging the art drum (mostly journalist) do that because they have low self esteem for essentially reviewing electronic toys.

 

[PL 001]

Just like any other medium, it's really in the eye of the beholder. Play games like Planescape Torment or Shadow of the Colossus and tell me they're not art.

You've got your franchises like Call of Duty which might look nice visually, but they're as dead as dogshit with no real substance or depth to make you think or reflect. That's not art to me.

Just like how some people might see Andy Warhol as a genius, and others might see him as a pretentious hack, it really depends on each individual's interpretation of art.

 

[Secret Asshole]

Well, that depends on how we're coming at the game, doesn't it?

The primary focus of art, of any medium, is to evoke emotion. That's really it. I mean that's your most basic, go-to definition. I mean, as many have said in this thread, the art world has face-fucked this definition into the fucking dirt with rubes and a tool for millionaires to move their assets around like poker chips. But essentially, art's purpose is to evoke emotion. Simple or complex. That's really it, when you boil it down. That's all art ever really is, something that evokes emotion. We can then judge it on how well it evokes emotion, if it actually is, or if its a bunch of fucking idiots fawning over nothing. A lot of times, lets be honest, its the latter. Especially in today's art world.

Basically, everyone is Ongo Gablogian:

Can games be emotive? Certainly. Can they capture the human condition in a narrative way, comparable to literature, movies or comics? Ehh, that's a much deeper question. And it really depends on you. That's really the whole thing with games, isn't it? Art is subjective. Gaming is EXTREMELY subjective, because by its very nature, we all play it differently. Therefore we're each going to get a different experience. Hence, some of us will never experience a game as art. We'll never find a game as evocative as a movie, a book, art, or anything else. Alternatively, many of us will experience things that are MORE emotive, even if the stories and narratives are simpler, less complex or worse because we control it. Its an extremely active form of art.

So sure, games can be art. But they're highly subjective because we all play differently. Which is why the question is contested, but at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. Enjoy what you enjoy. If you find them artistic and love dissecting them, go ahead. If you just want to be Geralt and fuck a hot redhead and dissect monsters, do that. At the end of the day, enjoy yourself. Too many people these days try to suck the enjoyment out of everything. And don't justify these things to yourself. Enjoy what you enjoy.

 

[John Titor]

There's a quote from Game Informer, of all places, that stuck with me: "don't ask if it's art, ask if it's art to me."

 

[c-no]

To apply something I heard over films in that there's entertainment and art, I apply it to games as well. Some games are no doubt artistic and all but even then, not all games are really art unless you wanna be the guy that thinks everything is art at varying levels. Really though, as far as art goes in games, I personally would only find it artistic if it were to elicit a reaction. Otherwise, I'm just playing the games for entertainment. Even then, one may as well say "define art" since the term may as well be vague as fuck. If one is playing video games, one should expect the main purpose is for entertainment.

If one has to consider games are art, it's all varying levels from the story that can touch a person in a way to just not really being artistic in any way beyond something nominal such as how shiny the graphics look.

 

[Fools Idol]

Why dose it matter? Do people think that by adding the "art" tag to video games will make them more respected as a medium?

But to answer the question, some games are, some aren't.

 

[Wraith]

You can make a bowl that is nothing but a hunk of cheap plastic and you can make a priceless piece of art.
Video games are no different.
You don't see me playing Star Goose or FFXIII anytime soon.
I will play Dark Souls, Phantasy Star 4, Robotron and others I like again when I feel like it.
The difference is that people want to archive the totality of video games, even poor ones as a museum of history. Very few people like CWC can have their abominations of art coveted for the ages for historical or aesthetical reasons. Even garbage like Mass Effect 3 will probably remain on someone's server or a disc somewhere until the end of the age as much of trash that stuff like that is.

 

[Recoil]

I think this question comes up because there's an inherent level of satisfying absurdity in using the most advanced organic computer in the known universe to do shit like make these threads.

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