Max Payne is to Art as Salvador Dali is to Games?

[Dirty Harry]

Matthew Wasteland (http://www.magicalwasteland.com/) has written a opinion piece for GameSetWatch (www.gamesetwatch.com) detailing how interactivity is one of the biggest things holding back games from being considered traditional art.

"Most people in the video game industry, and many people who write about them for a living, hope for games to be taken seriously as art or literature. It’s just around the corner, we believe— the day the establishment flings open the door to us and lets us in, apologetic tears streaming from their eyes. “We misjudged you,” they’ll cry, “Just like we initially misjudged movies, jazz, and prose poetry.” Games are a brand new medium, we console ourselves, and these hidebound fogeys just need time to understand it."


Catch the full article here (http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2008/09/opinion_tell_me_what_art_is_an.php)

[Anthony W]

Man, why are the "games are art" crew so needy? We shouldn't spend so much time trying to earn the respect of other mediums. If the industry keeps making money hand over fist they will have no choice but to respect us.

[Hellstorm]

Man, why are the "games are art" crew so needy?

Seriously, those people need to stop.

[Furious Wang]

The whole discussion is incredibly stupid. Music is art. Music is in games. Graphics are art. Graphics are in games. Stories are art. Stories are in games. Interactivity doesn't undefine these aspects as art. Nor does interactivity undefine the combination of those aspects as art. Open interpretation of a work is a trait of many art categories which one could consider to be interactive yet it doesn't invalidate the artistic nature of the piece.

[ResistanceAddict]

The whole discussion is incredibly stupid. Music is art. Music is in games. Graphics are art. Graphics are in games. Stories are art. Stories are in games. Interactivity doesn't undefine these aspects as art. Nor does interactivity undefine the combination of those aspects as art. Open interpretation of a work is a trait of many art categories which one could consider to be interactive yet it doesn't invalidate the artistic nature of the piece.

100% agreed.

[Paranoia]

Great. The last thing gaming needs are art critics.

[Heretic Machine]

I'm so fucking sick of this discussion. It's such utter bullshit, on every god-damn level. On the one side, you have gamers saying, "But it is art! Look at these textures, and these models, and these stories... It's totally art!" Then on the other side, you have more assholes saying, "It's not art because the story sucks, your art is commercial, blah, blah, blah..."

Game design is not about fucking 3D modeling, texture work, 2D art, animation, music composition, or screen writing. Those are all separate disciplines, and they're all considered art. Game design is something entirely different, and it is something that gamers (except for myself, as demonstrated from previous discussion on the subject) don't even consider to be art. Why are we still talking about this shit, if gamers just want the art crowd to appreciate shit that is already considered art?

I won't even touch on the "too interactive" line, it's below me.

[JazGalaxy]

Great. The last thing gaming needs are art critics.

We've had this argument before, but what I think is holding games back from being art is a complete and utter disregard for any of the standards of what is and is not art.

Videogames are, right now, trapped in a phase of appealing to pathetic man-children who never wallow in jr high mentalities of what is "bad ass".

Modern games don't strive to be art, they strive to make players feel like tough guys.

Braid is the first modern game I've seen, as poorly written as it is, that actually tries to be something more than what it is.

[MosBen]

The importance of the debate is twofold. First, from a practical perspective, art is more socially protected than other forms of expression. Keep in mind, I'm not talking about legal protections. What I'm saying is that people are willing to give art a pretty wide berth with regards to objectionable material because they think that even a piece of art that they don't particularly like should be taken seriously. If someone tries to ban a work from a medium which is considered intrinsically artistic the majority of people will instinctively be skeptical. If someone wants to ban something most people view as non-artistic they'll be much more likely to dismiss the work as not worth protecting. People will fight against censoring art, but not porn.

Second, having games accepted as art gives rise to a formalized and serious method of critical study. As art games would be deemed worthy of being disected and discussed by serious critics and academics. While many scoff at academic discussions, this feeds back into the industry and gives rise to new forms of creation. The birth of film schools where people really looked at movies seriously for the first time led to the golden age of American cinema from the late 60s through the early 80s.

As a hardcore niche audience, it's not sufficient to simply assert that games are art and leave it at that, public be damned. At least, it's not sufficient if we want it to be less acceptable to censor games or if we want high quality in games to be truly appreciated by more than our incestuous little circles.

[Darkmatter]

Braid is all the argument anyone should ever need.

[TheFlyingOrc]

What pissed me off is the comment under the article where someone says Miyamoto games are made "just for profit".

That guy can die. Miyamoto games are made for fun, drat it. That is the happiest man on the face of the planet, and he wants to share his joy.

As to games as art:
I think games are a lousy medium to produce high art due to the interactivity. The only neat artistic trick we've figured out is making you do something you don't want to do in Shadow of The Colossus, Portal, and Bioshock. I'm not saying high art is impossible in the medium, but I doubt we'll really see it anytime soon.

[menage]

Who really cares for high art anyway? The rich and snobby? The so called elite? That's just old farts calling the shots. They will die, new art will emerge, process repeats.

Saw some so called great art pieces, they pretty much did nothing for me. Couple of ancient people being portrait ed, abstract sculptures, etc. Left me cold. Sure they're well made, but I got no emotion whatsoever. All I saw was old people wooing over how beautiful it was. Didn't get it.

Interactivity holding back art is stupid, cause I saw some pretty stellar installations, which were defined as art, where interactivity played a big role.

I think interactivity is the future of art, cause art is about experiencing emotion, a story, an idea, and experiencing something is best established by being "in" it, not standing in front of a fucking piece of paper.

I really don't care what anyone else thinks. I do think Braid, Colossus, Okami are art. They are more than the sums of their parts. I experienced emotion during those session that exceeded fun or being bad ass. In 100 years no one will know better imo.

[AlwaysOn222]

I dunno I always thought that it was up to the observer to judge what is art and what is not. I mean some of this modern shit I have seen in museums like some cans thrown in a pattern of something is not exactly art to me. Same thing can be said about some of the more odd paintings that has some lines and dots on them, how hard can that be.... A game however like Max Payne or even more so Bioshock is full of art that people should be able to appreciate imo.

[AlwaysOn222]

What pissed me off is the comment under the article where someone says Miyamoto games are made "just for profit".

That guy can die. Miyamoto games are made for fun, drat it. That is the happiest man on the face of the planet, and he wants to share his joy.

As to games as art:
I think games are a lousy medium to produce high art due to the interactivity. The only neat artistic trick we've figured out is making you do something you don't want to do in Shadow of The Colossus, Portal, and Bioshock. I'm not saying high art is impossible in the medium, but I doubt we'll really see it anytime soon.


lol dude are you employed by the Miyamoto defense force or sth? Ofcourse he makes games for profits. Does anyone in the game industry NOT make games for profit? No... becuase if they did they would be out of buisness pretty damn fast. However, how you get to reach that profit is an entire different story. Here I agree with you that Miyamotos are fun, addicting and really enjoyable. But don't for a second think that he does not want to make a profit...

[menage]

lol dude are you employed by the Miyamoto defense force or sth? Ofcourse he makes games for profits. Does anyone in the game industry NOT make games for profit? No... becuase if they did they would be out of buisness pretty damn fast. However, how you get to reach that profit is an entire different story. Here I agree with you that Miyamotos are fun, addicting and really enjoyable. But don't for a second think that he does not want to make a profit...

Rembrandt, van Gogh, and tons of others did their art for a living. They sold their product so to say.

Selling something doesn't make something less artful.

[Bad_Buddha]

Ofcourse he makes games for profits. Does anyone in the game industry NOT make games for profit? No... becuase if they did they would be out of buisness pretty damn fast.
I always thought that being able to do what you love for a career is the best position to be in; the perfect life that everyone desires. So what if he makes money... sounds like he's got the best of all possible worlds.