Are Video Games Art, or Entertainment?

[Turner]

I don't think I've ever felt 'hollow' after playing a videogame. Only disappointed if it was particularly bad (In which case it's rare I would go on to complete it) or sad that there isn't more because I was enjoying it so much.

Some games may just be fairly pointless wastes of time (To be honest, I get this vibe from a lot of indie games) but most, if not all videogames give me a great sense of satisfaction. Pokemon as just one example has changed so much in my life, from the people I know to my perspective on the world and life. I don't consider Pokemon to be an 'artistic' game in the same way that people would consider Journey to be artistic, but I think that the Game Boy was a vessel for sharing Satoshi Tajiri's imagination in the same way a good book or movie does for their respective writers.

There's definitely a line between understanding a videogame as having artistic value and 'playing videogames all day', they are not mutually exclusive. Of course I have other goals and dreams in life, but that doesn't mean that videogames are simply a distraction away from them. I play them because they are fun and I enjoy the act of playing videogames, there's no guilt or feeling of procrastination attached to them, you make time for them just as you do anything else. If you feel guilty for playing videogames then maybe it's time to find another hobby.

[Kerou 犠牲]

remind me did you go to uni for philosophy or did you drop out or w/e

idk about you (i mean on here people would probably disagree with me) but i'd like to think we've all got higher ideas of Personal Successes than "play the vibbeogabe all day"

you lot are worth more than that surely

Nah I didn't do philosophy, I did drop out in the third year though, but then again I'd argue the majority of my life so far has been wasted. I was just throwing that point out there, that's all.

[lets all go out for some frosty chocolate milkshakes]

old lady argues with cloud

[winterbane]

I'm all for indie games, but I agree with YOG for the most part. A lot of indie games are either not-indie (IE; Bastion, which was funded by Warner Brothers and stamped INDIE on itself for some reason) or clones of other, more successful games in some form (OH LOOK! ANOTHER ZOMBIE SURVIVAL GAME! OH LOOK! ITS TETRIS WITH DIFFERENT COLORS! OH LOOK! ITS MINEBLOCKER! Oh wait, it's basically MINECRAFT with less features!) But occasionally indie developers come up with something entirely new and creative, which is what keeps me looking at them. For the most part though, they're shovelware I'd expect to find in a $5.99 CD rack in a convenience store in the early 2000s.

As an artistic medium, I think some games succeed on that level but fail as a game - as far as I'm concerned the purpose of a game is to provide a challenge to occupy the mind without being simply a puzzle, but having some other feature - a story, an objective, other than completing a puzzle with the given parameters. It's why I rarely play standalone puzzle games but enjoy a game like Legend of Zelda, that tells a story while also offering a challenge.

I think the best personal example I have of this 'clash' between artistic vision and the will of the gaming community is Mass Effect. I love the franchise, but I absolutely despised the ending of ME3 and even their "fixed ending" didn't appease me. But would anything have appeased me? Probably not. The end to my favorite game series ever was always going to be the end, and no matter what that end was, I'd still have been upset. I guess what I'm really asking is if you guys think game devs should bend to a fanbase in a situation like that, or if it's right to stand their ground and say "this is what we intended from the beginning, if you don't like it, tough." Where should that line in the sand be drawn?

[Lord Raven]

I'm not fond of indie games myself either (probably the one thing we agree on, because for instance Binding of Isaac is an annoying ass game that isn't even fun).  I don't believe I've ever felt any bit hollow at all finishing the majority of video games I've beaten, though.  I think your argument is based entirely upon personal experience and really doesn't say much about the medium except for the fact that you don't seem to like it as an art form, even though it is.  I always thought the artistic element came from the creators' ability to create an experience, at any rate, and not from the players' ability to play it.

I guess what I'm really asking is if you guys think game devs should bend to a fanbase in a situation like that, or if it's right to stand their ground and say "this is what we intended from the beginning, if you don't like it, tough." Where should that line in the sand be drawn?

Something in between like I said earlier, while devs shouldn't give up on their vision, some of the bigger AAA games with a larger budget probably do need to make it more marketable just because of the amount of money put into it.

[Turner]

you used to be able to antagonise me way better than this. //shakes head sadly// r.i.p turner

I'm not trying to antagonise you, this is the Debate forum after all, I'd be thrown out pretty quickly if I was trolling.

But my point stands and I don't think I know anybody who feels that way either. If I started feeling guilty or negative after playing videogames, I'd stop doing it. It would be nonsensical and a waste of time.

With regards to indie games, I think a lot of it comes down to the fact that the internet and mass consumption of media has left people creatively parched. If you're the sort of person that has an endless library of unplayed games on Steam, the chances are that your perception of videogames quickly changes from something you cherish to something you consume.

The explosion of indie game developers should be a good thing, but I think what happens more realistically is that we get flooded with so many games that gamers become less discriminating in their tastes and will quickly spend some money on a cheap indie game that promises a fairly shallow gimmick. This in turn lowers the standards of gamers and indie developers alike (many of which were these mass-consumer gamers) as they know they don't have to work hard or do anything particularly amazing to get some fame/money, while at the same time they can pride themselves on being part of a movement generally seen as being cutting edge.

The same thing happens in music and there's always the misconception that the more videogames/music there is, the higher the chance of finding something good is. It works on a skewed 'signal to noise ratio' model that in fact, doesn't actually scale well at all and saturates the market, but people will always tell you you're not digging deep enough because it's just assumed that there must be something good in all the crap.

I think this is why early video games were so good and made such an impact on people. Back in the (S)NES days you had to hijack the TV for a very limited time to play the games you liked. On the one hand this meant that you were so much more focused on the game (rather than juggling it between other distractions) and it also meant that the games had to deliver on providing a memorable experience. I think this is also why Pokemon was so great too (and why I go on about this in Pokemon main series threads), the local multiplayer experience is amazing because just like the games, it has you traveling around meeting like minded people who love and have their own Pokemon.

Getting back to the point, as Raven says - I think this is where the real artistic merit comes from in videogames. I'm sure any indie developer with a talented artist can make a visually stunning 'narrative adventure' game with landscapes worthy of wallpapers, but the videogames that I would personally consider to be 'art' are equal part experience. I can go anywhere and have a vision of the Pokemon world superimposed over where I am, not just in a comparative sense, but in the sense that it makes me see landscape and nature from a completely different perspective, it gives me a sense of exploration and adventure and appreciation for the world.

I think that's the real art, providing such an interactive experience with a simulated game that it changes your outlook in the real world and the subjectivity of which games make people experience this is something that all other art forms have - That's why I think videogames are art.

[lets all go out for some frosty chocolate milkshakes]

it took beth 20-30 times to complete final rush in SA2

[Lord Raven]

Before I say anything else, since sometimes I find your style of posting hard to follow (not meant to be a knock against you), are you saying the quality of the medium has decreased over time or you just don't see it as art?

[lets all go out for some frosty chocolate milkshakes]

beths first games console was the amiga 500 and her dad threw it out cos her dad is an arse

[Lord Raven]

I'd like to clarify, I'm not saying you're crazy or something, I just have a hard time reading what you (and for that matter) sylar type sometimes.  It's not incoherent, just a bunch of long sentences with some quirks here and there.  It's just not too similar to anything else I've really read, it's not a slight against you or anything, I think it's just late and I'm too tired/focused on other things to really put 100% of my focus into things.

I'm not sure if I should be making this assumption but you just don't like Indie games and that's okay.

There's a lot of AAA titles that could be considered more on the artistic spectrum, depending on how you define art.  The Drakengard series (well just Drakengard 1 and Nier) isn't too pleasing to look at, but Drakengard conveys a very surreal, bleak, and actually somewhat nuanced atmosphere that does elicit and emotional response from people.  Nier has the most beautiful music, great atmosphere, and even though the graphics are a step below the norm for the console it was released on it is truly a beautiful game.

Spec Ops:  The Line is edgy, but not like "teen on the internet that just discovered tumblr and reddit" edgy.  It's different from the norm.

Things like that.  I see what you mean with rehashes, but even in the 90s there were a bunch of duds in gaming (I would venture it's about the same ratio as right now, probably even more), and it was even worse in the 80s when there was a market crash for games.

It's also stuff like that which makes me appreciate the FF series, because each FF game is very different in terms of core mechanics and atmosphere.

[The Macintosh Ninja: SOH CAH TOA]

re: quality - its more a kind of way that i feel a lot of the games these days just try and Emulate Previous Successes but not going into why previous successes worked? they just copy the game itself w/o lookin into what made the game good in the first place
i mean i get there's the odd AAA success lately like Bayonetta and Saints Row (imo) but even action games these days are either "look! its like GTA but not!" or "hmm yes another quicktime event, this was Good when it was in Shenmue when it was New and Not Done To Death like a decade ago".

Reasonable arguments to me: you want a game that doesn't feel like you're playing a mod of another game. Something with a more unique gameplay that isn't "run and shoot those things" or "run and jump over those things and mash X". Are there certain games you enjoy a lot or gameplay mechanics you want to see? Maybe we can recommend you some games that offer new experiences and aren't another "One Person Army" or "Press X to Not Die" game.

re: the art thing i'm loathe to call videogames art in any serious sense cos its just such a "competitive League of Legends should be an olympic sport" levels of weird nerd crap which i can't brook, its like calling tumblr a "safe space" or wearing a pokemon shirt irl 100% unironically

Among all groups you will find those who shout loudest. I'd think a majority of those who play League of Legends don't care either way if it should be "olympic" level or not.
As for the Pokémon shirt part, I'll generalize this to video game related shirts and argue that lots of people who wear the shirts do so because they're fans of the game. You're show your appreciation/love for the series or the shirt was sold at a good price.

In video games, as with all media, there are those who take it too far. I know some people who will vehemently argue that "The Great Gatsby" is the greatest novel of all time and will call you every name under the sun (primitive, an imbicile, etc.) for disagreeing. I know some people who think "Stairway to Heaven" is the pinnicle of all music and that every other song can't compare in the slightest. These are all extreme views though: most fans of Fitzgerald will say they love other novels and most Led Zeppelin fans will say they like other songs more. Just ignore the crazies.

[lets all go out for some frosty chocolate milkshakes]

beth flew into the sun

[Turner]

you took my "dont u ever feel disappointed after playin a game and completing it" and concluded on "if u feel guilty after playin a game u need a new hobby" and its just a little Sass flavoured, idk. we had a couple antagonistic clashes in the past and given how spiky and humourless people on here are i didn't know whether u took that as "puk user xhanatos, u slagged off videogames!!!!!! prepare to DIE //unsheathes sword//"

No it's nothing like that. I've clashed with nearly everyone here at somepoint, I'd be holding grudges left right and centre if I was unable to move on from them. But I am challenging the guilt thing, it just seems logical to me that you should probably move on from videogames if they only make you feel guilty. You don't have to, obviously, but it would seem you're missing some inherent enjoyment from it that most people experience.

im what gamers call A Filthy Casual and tbf im glad cos ive never seen good results when people decide to increase the amount of videogames in their life

I think it's possible to be both. I know people who play videogames constantly, it's their main hobby and they're still absolutely nice people, they don't feel they've ruined their life or anything like that.

see idk about you but the stuff that made old videogames good was that it was A New Niche. (this was a lot of rambling about pokemon game mechanics which i typed here but i got Ashamed about my huge carepost. however i am in awe into the clever programming tricks that went into that game ngl, and the sentiment i wrote about NES games being written in Assembly of all goddamn languages still stands too. its stuff i wish current games would do more of)

Yeah I'm familiar with assembly language, back then in Japan developers would have had to have been experienced with embedded chips to be programming SNES/NES games and IIRC 6502 and 65816 were much easier to use than 8086 ASM (Early form of intel x86 architecture used in the NEC PC-9801, a popular home computer in Japan). Thankfully the Game Boy's assembly language was a cross between intel's 8080 ASM and Zilog Z80 chip, both of which had been established for over 10 years prior and was familiar to videogame developers. The Zilog Z80 was used in the NEC PC-8801 which had a host of games from various well-established developers. There were quite a few Nintendo games on the 8801 were ported over to the SNES by Hudson Soft (Of Bomberman fame etc).

I don't think using strictly assembly language will make games any better though. Some of the best game designers are not the best developers and vice versa. Game design is an art all of itself, Satoshi Tajiri wrote a book on it not too long ago and mentioned how Pacman influenced him and Game Freak along with why Pacman was so well designed, it's pretty interesting and gives you a new perspective on how games are designed and what constitutes good design, most is completely outside of the realm of the actual coding. Assembly is still used today with C in Game development, but for performance reasons. It wouldn't necessarily make games any better, it would just squeeze more out of the hardware (which in many consoles, isn't actually completely utilized anyway).

i only reckon games are """""""""""""""""art""""""""""""""""" if they challenge preconceived notions of the field and do something that makes you go "whoa" a bit, much as "good art" and "good artists" do. or if it treads the same ground as others it does it a LOT better than everyone else. but not in dreadful bored white rich dude YBA way, like proper "uh is the person who painted this ok???? its good but i am Concerned" way

I don't think you have to necessarily break the mold to make a game worthy of art. TWEWY is a game which really doesn't massively break the mold. It's an RPG with its own unique elements and gimmicks (though this isn't unique to RPGs in of itself) and I would consider it art. The vision and artistic direction was really executed. It did urban fantasy in a unique way. I would say this is art even though it didn't break the mold in a way that is unusual for RPGs as even some of the worst RPGs are required to have a unique art style and gameplay elements, it's practically a USP for the RPG market.

re: the art thing i'm loathe to call videogames art in any serious sense cos its just such a "competitive League of Legends should be an olympic sport" levels of weird nerd crap which i can't brook, its like calling tumblr a "safe space" or wearing a pokemon shirt irl 100% unironically

This is something that seems a bit childish to me. I think perhaps you're more against the idea of calling videogames art because you don't want to be associated with certain people you don't like who do the same. I don't think today you can really call much in the videogame world to be 'weird nerd crap' anyway as it's such a huge market. Even E-Sports is pretty huge and in my experience, the types of people who play games like Counter Strike or League of Legends at tournament level are often not the same people who enjoyed videogames when they weren't accepted by the mainstream.

Without trying to sound like an armchair psychologist (as I'll be the first to admit I have zero experience in the field) it sounds to me like you're choosing not to call videogames art as an attempt to avoid appearing as a 'nerd' because you don't like the connotations that those people carry. Maybe this will offend you - and I don't mean to, but by posting on a Pokemon forum and playing Yume Nikki you're probably much more of a 'nerd' than the typical LoL competitor.

As for the Pokemon shirt thing, I think it's a similar issue. I wouldn't wear a Pokemon shirt unless it was a design I particularly liked and fitted with the rest of my clothes, but I don't think there's anything wrong in doing so unironically, it just a way of showing that you're a fan, even if you don't want to be associated with fans you don't like. I'm certain this isn't specific to you, as I think many Sonic fans feel similarly, but once again, this seems like an issue of being perhaps too self-conscious. Maybe fine in small doses, but not to the extent where it's causing a knee-jerk reaction of personal beliefs. 

[lets all go out for some frosty chocolate milkshakes]

what are birds? we jsut dont know

[Lord Raven]

I can see where Turner's coming from, because there's a certain stigma attached to gamers that people like me just really want to avoid (cause I rarely bring up that I play a bunch of video games for fun to people unless I know for certain they do the same), and it sounds like you want to avoid that.  It just sounds like you're bringing a lot of personal stuff into this argument is I think what John is getting at, and using that to argue against games as art, rather than listing a bunch of reasons why games are or are not art.

I don't really understand what you're getting at with this quote:

re: the art thing i'm loathe to call videogames art in any serious sense cos its just such a "competitive League of Legends should be an olympic sport" levels of weird nerd crap which i can't brook, its like calling tumblr a "safe space" or wearing a pokemon shirt irl 100% unironically

I kind of took it as you assuming that we believe esports are what we consider art.  I don't quite understand what the rest of that point is quite getting at; again, I'm not saying you're crazy or anything, but sometimes you just lose me.  It also doesn't help I'm not really big with debates anymore like I used to be.

I don't consider two people playing video games competitively artistic so much as I believe the actual experience of immersion itself is the art.

xhanatos, what do you define as art?