Classic Literature as Insipiration for Video Games

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

That doesn't prove anything. The mere fact that there are exhibitions does not prove the truth of the claim their making.

How does this not prove anything? We say games can be art, he says he's been to exhibitions where games are displayed as art . . . I must be missing something.

The whole 'games as art' discussion is pretentious and tired. Frankly, people who rush to label games as art aren't really gamers.

There are no games where art is the main goal in its creation. Plenty of indie games like Flower and Braid are unique, and they do have artistic qualities, but even those games are, above all, forms of entertainment.

In a similar vein, you don't play chess to observe the handiwork of the pieces.

How is it pretentious? And if you think it's tired, don't participate.

And I guess I can't argue with you about Flower and Braid being mainly entertainment, since you state this as if you were one of the creators.

[Drkshadow03]

If I were to take a screen shot of a still of a video-game, that screen shot would cease to be a game, and instead be a still image, i.e. a digitally created artwork. I'm not debating that beautiful graphics are not artistic; it's irrelevant whether visual art is created using paint or graphic design.

But a still image of beautiful graphics is not a game, and that's exactly why I said games have artistic qualities but are not art. A game requires gameplay, and gameplay is not art. If a game lacked gameplay it would not be a game, but a film.

This borders on a No True Scotsman fallacy. You're preemptively defining what does and does not count as art (without actually offering any definition by the way) in order to exclude video games as potential art.

A game requires an interaction of gameplay, artistically rendered computer graphics, text, and sound. In other words, it is merely a different medium. Film requires a combination of sound by which I mean specifically music, visuals, and spoken text. The only specific difference you can point to is the lack of user-controlled interaction.

So if you consider films art, and films are merely the equivalent of games without user-controlled gameplay (your own definitions as you set it up in the post), then there is no reason to conclude that games lose their artistic quality once control shifts to a user.

I would agree. If your opinion of the actual Inferno were to change because of the b*stard Dante's Inferno videogame, then you are an idiot. The main thing at issue here is the misrepresentation of the poem to a mass audience, who simply doesn't know any better.

As far as a video game misrepresenting Dante. How exactly does that affect you again?

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

This borders on a No True Scotsman fallacy. You're preemptively defining what does and does not count as art (without actually offering any definition by the way) in order to exclude video games as potential art.

A game requires an interaction of gameplay, artistically rendered computer graphics, text, and sound. In other words, it is merely a different medium. Film requires a combination of sound by which I mean specifically music, visuals, and spoken text. The only specific difference you can point to is the lack of user-controlled interaction.

So if you consider films art, and films are merely the equivalent of games without user-controlled gameplay (your own definitions as you set it up in the post), then there is no reason to conclude that games lose their artistic quality once control shifts to a user.

Wow. I eagerly await the rebuttal.

[mayneverhave]

How does this not prove anything? We say games can be art, he says he's been to exhibitions where games are displayed as art . . . I must be missing something.

Because gathering a group of people that all agree on something does not prove the truth of what they're saying. I can gather a ton of people that all believe Elvis is still alive and throw a big convention, but that would not alter the facts.

This borders on a No True Scotsman fallacy. You're preemptively defining what does and does not count as art (without actually offering any definition by the way) in order to exclude video games as potential art.

A game requires an interaction of gameplay, artistically rendered computer graphics, text, and sound. In other words, it is merely a different medium. Film requires a combination of sound by which I mean specifically music, visuals, and spoken text. The only specific difference you can point to is the lack of user-controlled interaction.

So if you consider films art, and films are merely the equivalent of games without user-controlled gameplay (your own definitions as you set it up in the post), then there is no reason to conclude that games lose their artistic quality once control shifts to a user.

What is the contradiction here? I've stated that videogames have artistic qualities - i.e. plots, music, dialogue, imagery - yes, like a film, but it is the user-interaction, i.e. the gameplay that is not art. Since gameplay is the vital component of a videogame, and artistic qualities like plot, music, and imagery are secondary, videogames are not art.

I think you can agree that gameplay is not art?

As far as a video game misrepresenting Dante. How exactly does that affect you again?

Who said anything about affecting me? I merely said that a Dante's Inferno game would misrepresent the actual Dante's Inferno. It has nothing to do with my personal likes or dislikes.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Because gathering a group of people that all agree on something does not prove the truth of what they're saying. I can gather a ton of people that all believe Elvis is still alive and throw a big convention, but that would not alter the facts.



What is the contradiction here? I've stated that videogames have artistic qualities - i.e. plots, music, dialogue, imagery - yes, like a film, but it is the user-interaction, i.e. the gameplay that is not art. Since gameplay is the vital component of a videogame, and artistic qualities like plot, music, and imagery are secondary, videogames are not art.

I think you can agree that gameplay is not art?




Who said anything about affecting me? I merely said that a Dante's Inferno game would misrepresent the actual Dante's Inferno. It has nothing to do with my personal likes or dislikes.

First, I would not agree that that act of playing a game is not art. 99% of the time, sure, but blanket statements like that are ridiculous.

And as to your Elvis comparison, a convention of people who believe Elvis is alive is not very similar to a video game exhibition. In one, you have a group of people basing beliefs on what they percieve as fact, and in another you have people basing what they believe on opinion. You could say the same thing for any convention ever created, since there will always be a group of people there who agree on whatever the convention covers.

[Dr. Hill]

The ever-expanding definition of art is too much already, I don't think that video games have to be included too. They have artistic qualities, but "art" as most people define it is not meant to entertain; instead it is meant to stimulate the mind in some way or another. The beautiful environments of a game are artistic, but the video game itself uses this "art" as a mere backdrop to its intention: entertainment.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

It all really comes down to a matter of opinion though. No one can give a strict definition of art that will (or should be) accepted by everyone. I can explain why a Jackson Pollock painting is art to my grandpa until I'm blue in the face, but he will remain convinced it is just paint thrown at a canvas and nothing more.

[Dr. Hill]

Very well. I'm humbly backing away from this discussion. I maintain that I've never considered a video game art.

[Drkshadow03]

What is the contradiction here? I've stated that videogames have artistic qualities - i.e. plots, music, dialogue, imagery - yes, like a film, but it is the user-interaction, i.e. the gameplay that is not art. Since gameplay is the vital component of a videogame, and artistic qualities like plot, music, and imagery are secondary, videogames are not art.

I think you can agree that gameplay is not art?

You pre-defining what constitutes art based off already accepted art forms. Gameplay in a component of the artistry of video games. Now I would also be committing a fallacy if I tried to make the definition of art fit video games because I think it should be included.

Nevertheless, I think video games should be taken as art on their own terms. It isn't merely that they possess artistic qualities such as music, plots, dialogue, imagery, but the new interactions provided by this medium. Even though it is user-centered doesn't disqualify it from art because literary arts in previous history have been user-centered (think Oral Myth, which we might call the literary equivalent of user-centered art). The fact that its primary purpose is entertainment doesn't disqualify it as art because I have argued time and again that the reason we tell stories (literature) first and foremost is for entertainment rather than enlightenment or some sort of nebulous aesthetic pleasure. There would be no real reason to present it as a story otherwise rather than a philosophical treatise or an essay.

Now it's true a certain tedium exists with gameplay, but the originality within the medium can also be found within the gameplay. Think some of the FF games (FFVII with the materia system for example). The gameplay was just as impressive and interesting as the award-winning visuals.

When we think of the gaming industry and history, we also come to realize it has all the features and cultural apparatuses that surround every other art form. There are clear-cut masterpieces that span the time period of video games (games mentioned as ground-breaking within the field that people still talk about to this day), it has popular magazine critics who review upon initial release, it has scholarly analysis in peer-reviewed journals, it has fan cultures, fan art being produced from it, etc.

I think looking at all these elements, it is clear that video games count as art. Saying a video game has "artistic qualities" rather than just admitting that it is a kind of art in its own right seems to be splitting-hairs. However, I think the real debate is whether it fits into a notion of High Art or Low Art, or High Art versus Popular Culture. Just like I would never deny that beaded wallet-making is technically art, I also could never picture myself saying beaded wallet-making possesses anywhere near the transcendence of a life-sized sculpted marble statue or an emotionally charged painting of David.

[virginiawang]

The impressions made by any sort of video games simply do not match those made by works of art, through which people engage in capturing beauty as one of their most important goals. I am sure any artist, no matter a painter, a writer or a musician will not feel flattered to have their works transformed into those funny games.

[JBI]

Wow. I eagerly await the rebuttal.

Let me oblige - my favorite video games have very little of that - I'm a fan of the old super-nintendo, as I find it has the right amount of complexity - no real thinking required, just jump and in the odd case, shoot - no plot, no fancy graphics, no fancy sounds (I usually play with the crappy music turned off), and no special writing either - the text generally consists of "new game" and "game over". All this talk of artistry is all find and dandy, but you are building on the same No True Scotsman - you define it, but miss completely, especially when considered that the history of games says differently - sound especially as seen now, is a new invention.

In that sense, I think the game ridiculous - I think most video games ridiculous, as even if you win, you get nothing out of it. In the 90s they had a great slew of educational computer games come out, which had perhaps a point (I would know, I was family friends with the owner of the largest company, and so had all of them) and functioned, but there really is no artistry in butchering some monsters in a reworked rendition of Dante's hell (without any of the Dante, though perhaps built in rings).

I don't know - I've coded for these sorts of things, and I'll tell you, the actual game itself is very unartistic looking behind scenes, and the actual visual and sound components are merely intense numbers calculating faster than you can see - the real expression behind that is merely superimposed images and sounds on a plain, waiting for user input - not a real painting or anything - perhaps there is artistry in the actual drawing of the sprites, and the building of the game layout, but the game itself doesn't, and isn't meant to function as a work of art -

But then again, I seem, in my head, biassedly of course, to regard playing these games as a sort of masturbation, so perhaps I'm not the one to judge.

[mortalterror]

Video games are definitely art, in my opinion. They just haven't been around long enough to produce millenium defining masterpieces. Fallout 2 has an amazing story. It's like The Road Warrior, if the movie lasted another 12 hours. I also dig the choose your own adventure aspect of the story. You can play through the whole game in about half an hour if you skip all of the tangential quests and encounters; so in a sense you could say that the game has a primary plot with several subplots. It has characters, setting, dialogue, escalating conflict, and dénouement.

I know some people take issue with the way that the audience becomes a collaborator and changes the artistic experience and no two playings are the same; but isn't that what people like about the theater? Each venture is a unique experience, similar but personal, ephemeral and transient.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

The impressions made by any sort of video games simply do not match those made by works of art, through which people engage in capturing beauty as one of their most important goals. I am sure any artist, no matter a painter, a writer or a musician will not feel flattered to have their works transformed into those funny games.

I think you mean they don't match works of art to you. I'm sure you aren't trying to dictate what leaves an impression on me.

And, JBI, since you don't even enjoy modern video games (as you have done nothing but bash modern gaming as a whole) I frankly don't see how your participation in this discussion is even relevant. And as to the whole numbers and calculations behind the pictures, please explain how this in any way detracts from the final product? Someone has to envision these environments, someone has to hear the music in their head before they make a video game. You talk as if the games are made by robots.

[virginiawang]

I think you mean they don't match works of art to you. I'm sure you aren't trying to dictate what leaves an impression on me.

When people reuse art in a way to have funny effects, they degrade it.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Um, okay...I'm not sure I entirely get what point you're trying to make.