Winning and losing are story-based outcomes. It's not a what a game's made of. You can win or lose a game but does it change the value within the game? It's the same as looking at a painting and not understanding anything about it. Whether you understand it or not, it doesn't change the fact that it's an artwork.
An artwork consists of technical information of its creation, time that's spent on it and most importantly, thoughts and feelings of its creator. A videogame does have all of those. One aspect that I may have a hard time explaining is that videogames are done to be sold, therefore there ARE games made for money, not for art itself. But since music industry also suffers from this fate, yeah, I'm pretty sure videogames can be considered as artworks. Sorry Dash.
Could you explain something for me Rather Dashing? When you quoted this:
Originally Posted by "Oxford Dictionary
art1
• noun 1 the expression of creative skill through a visual medium such as painting or sculpture. 2 the product of such a process; paintings, drawings, and sculpture collectively. 3 (the arts) the various branches of creative activity, such as painting, music, and drama. 4 (arts) subjects of study primarily concerned with human culture (as contrasted with scientific or technical subjects). 5 a skill: the art of conversation.
Was that what you think defines art? Or was it the meaning you thought Secret Fawful was using to define art?
In either case, I find it interesting, especially the first part, where it says "the expression of creative skill through a medium". Isn't this what a game is? At least in part. Yes there are rules and objectives, but everything about the game is an expression of creative skill. That you have to play the game to see everything is irrelevant. You have to look at a painting to see it's art, and in the end you might never fully understand the painters feelings or emotions when he/she created that specific piece. Films have to be watched and in my eye the only difference between playing a game and putting on a DVD is the amount of buttons you have to press.
I'm also interested about how games can't be art because they have rules. Films also have rules. They have events that have to happen, constraints that have to be kept to. Once a hero is defined he cannot do something he is not supposed to. Would The Sound of Music been more arty if the Von Trap family found lazers to shoot the Nazis?
I am aware of the fallicy in what I have been writing though. You cannot compare video games to films, they are two very different mediums that just don't mix, no matter how many times people try. For Video Games to truely be considered art, they would have to have their own subtext of art, something which is not outside the realms of possibility. After all, a hundred years ago films didn't exist, now you have films considered to be the greatest masterpieces of our times, but they do so in their own catagory.
tl:dr: Games can only ever be art in their own category. You cannot compare them to any other form of art, and you shouldn't even be comparing different forms of art to begin with.
In Ron's post he says "Why is Monkey Island not art, yet, the Pirates of the Caribbean movie is art?" Later, in his update to this, he says "Roger replied that he did not think Pirates of the Caribbean was art."
Now, WHY THE HELL NOT?
I dont care if you like the movie or not. Explain to me why it is not art.
Personally, I just think Roger Ebert's definition of art is flawed.
I happen to be in art school and we had this discussion many times in art history class. Anyway, what it always came down to is that when someone creates something, and says it's art, it's art. Art doesn't mean that everyone has to think it's beautiful, like Taumel said, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
So if I crap on the sidewalk, stick a flag in it and call it art, it´s art. Doesn´t mean you have to like it.
Well, I still think this both makes sense and is extremely funny.
£2000-£3000 for a piece of poo wrapped in plastic...
What.
The.
Fudge.
Frankly it's pretentious stuff like that that really makes me lose interest in art. Do we really want to have video games literally compared to poo? Really?
Frankly it's pretentious stuff like that that really makes me lose interest in art. Do we really want to have video games literally compared to poo? Really?
I'm not sure if it's meant to be pretentious. I mean, look at the font for "Cloaca", they're obviously trying to reference Coca-Cola. I think it's some kind of social commentary.
Now, I still wonder about the people who buy it though. This being said, this one is produced by a machine. Does it still count?
yeah, there's that crap (hihi whatapun), but i also vaguely remember some guy actually selling boxes full of turds to some museum or something... I'm too lazy to look up the details but that's what i was thinking about.
What's "interesting" is to see just how far you can stretch the definition of Art. In some circles, it's really more about the 50 pages explanation of the work's "deep and philosophical meaning" (which often doesn't make any kind of sense itself) than about what the guy's actually made.
I'm not sure if it's meant to be pretentious. I mean, look at the font for "Cloaca", they're obviously trying to reference Coca-Cola. I think it's some kind of social commentary.
Well, i'm not sure if "coca cola = poop" is really such an interesting point to make these days, especially if there's nothing more to it... I mean, okay, there's stuff i don't get, but sometimes it's just too easy to claim that you do mean something and people who don't understand it are just dumb. If Art must say something, then the work should be able to speak for itself.
That's like the whole thing about provocation. If you're gonna use poop and urine to express something, why not, but that something better be actually interesting.
yeah, there's that crap (hihi whatapun), but i also vaguely remember some guy actually selling boxes full of turds to some museum or something... I'm too lazy to look up the details but that's what i was thinking about.
Hmm, actually, produced by a machine makes a good point. When people were talking earlier about painting by numbers and jigsaws being art, it reminded me of Banksy.
Anyway, the thing about Banksy is that he stencils a lot of his work. Obviously he has to create the stencils to use them, but this brings up the questions: Is what he draws art? Or is it the stencil he used that's really the art?
Anyway, the thing about Banksy is that he stencils a lot of his work. Obviously he has to create the stencils to use them, but this brings up the questions: Is what he draws art? Or is it the stencil he used that's really the art?
What about digital art, then? Is the print art, or the file?
Okay, so basically your point is "since some games aren't art, no games can be art?"
"Games" is a broad category. Kinda like "books", which includes textbooks, biographies, sucky novels, etc, many of which would not be considered art. So because some books are definitely not art, and because nothing in a book requires it to share a message or story (you can very well have a blank book, or a notebook, or a book with nonsensical text. Or a completely pointless and uninteresting diary. I could go on.), no books can be art?
What defines a book? It used to be that it was made of paper and either contained words or was meant to contain them. But wait, there are picture books, too. So, it can contain pictures rather than words. Or nothing at all and be meant to contain them later.
But wait, now we have electronic books, which have the content but no paper.
It seems like it's such a broad category that we can't really put t all in the same basket, right? There are books that are physical but without contents, and books that have content but no physical form.
Either way, the art is never the book. Okay, almost never, some books are crafter in a beautiful way, but most of the time, when a book is art (and a lot of them aren't) what matters is the story, and in most cases, that story doesn't even need to be written. It can be read to you by a friend or a famous person (audio book). It can also be translated, so in a way the individual words don't matter that much, either, although I'll agree that any translation is a new work and not 100% like the original.
So what part of the book is art? The story, or rather, the way it's told. That's the artsy part. That what makes literature one type of art.
Books are art, but nothing that is specific to books is art in itself. Nothing. Not the pages, not the cover, not the words, not the ink, not the data or the sound of the voice who reads them. It's the whole that's art.
So no, I don't think you can take games and say "what makes them games isn't art so games aren't art". What makes a book isn't art either and yet books can be art.
I agree with this mostly.
A video game isn't art simply by being a video game, but the same can be said for a book or a movie. It's just the medium. A video game can be just a set of rules and objectives in the same way that a book can just be text printed on paper. I think the difference comes when the developer/writer/film director decides to make a conscious effort to invoke some kind of emotional response in their audience. It's the end result that can be considered art, and the medium is largely irrelevant. Of course, even taking all of that into consideration, nearly everyone has a different idea of what art is, so it ends up being largely subjective in the end.
I agree that not every video game is art, but I also agree that not every book or movie is art, either, but at the same time there are books, movies, video games, or whatever out there that are artistic or have the potential to be artistic. I don't agree that something cannot be art just because of the medium its presented through.
It looks like the king of stirring shit up strikes again. Just try not to insult to many people when they disagree with you this time ('cause you have a rather well known habit of doing that y'know....)
*EDIT*
Just read some of your posts & it appears that the asshattery has already begun.
I think the main difference between "games as art" for me rather than "games containing art" is what you get when you remove the art.
Yes, if you make something without marble, it ceases to be a marble statue. However, remove the artistic intent and it also reverts to the base form of just being rock.
Now, you remove the game part, and it ceases to be a game. But, and this is the important part to the way I'm viewing this thing, if you remove the art parts(writing, replace art design with placeholders, et cetera), then the game is still a game. A boring game, but you still have that set of rules floating around in the aether.
Kind of like how a recording of a play isn't really a different "art form" or "medium" than the play or . There is art there, but it's just another form contained within the science of the way light reacts to film(I wish we had different words for film the medium and film the physical thing that is recorded onto in cameras). Yes, the play is art.
Making a recording of it doesn't make the play retroactively not art, which seems to be what you're saying here about the way I'm approaching it. It just means that we're not talking about "film as an art form", but rather "film used to contain a play". It is a different way to show the art we already have, but until you do something special with the camera or the film artistically, film itself is not an art. The earliest Edison films were not really "art", for example. These things were rudimentary recordings of motion, created and intended to showcase the fact that "Hey, we can take pictures that MOVE now!" It wasn't until The Lumière brothers started moving the thing and capturing things with artistic intent(and even fabricating things, a la that one with the workers leaving the factory) that the result was art in its own right.
Essentially, can games be considered an art form when the mechanics themselves cannot be called art? It seems like calling stone an art form, or a canvas an art form. It is a thing that is built onto or into or even built with and alongside(you can't have a marble statue without marble), but that doesn't make it art anymore than a board game featuring a beautiful oil painting as the playing surface could be called art. I don't think people call board games an "artistic medium".
In either case, I find it interesting, especially the first part, where it says "the expression of creative skill through a medium". Isn't this what a game is? At least in part. Yes there are rules and objectives, but everything about the game is an expression of creative skill. That you have to play the game to see everything is irrelevant. You have to look at a painting to see it's art, and in the end you might never fully understand the painters feelings or emotions when he/she created that specific piece. Films have to be watched and in my eye the only difference between playing a game and putting on a DVD is the amount of buttons you have to press.
That's the thing, though. You are playing a game to get to the art, rather than the game being art. That's all that I'm saying, the game itself is not a piece of art. "Looking" isn't considered an artistic medium, nor is "watching", "listening", or "walking to the museum".
I'm also interested about how games can't be art because they have rules. Films also have rules. They have events that have to happen, constraints that have to be kept to. Once a hero is defined he cannot do something he is not supposed to. Would The Sound of Music been more arty if the Von Trap family found lazers to shoot the Nazis?
I am aware of the fallicy in what I have been writing though.
Okay then, I'll ignore this bit and move on to the next one.
You cannot compare video games to films, they are two very different mediums that just don't mix, no matter how many times people try. For Video Games to truely be considered art, they would have to have their own subtext of art, something which is not outside the realms of possibility. After all, a hundred years ago films didn't exist, now you have films considered to be the greatest masterpieces of our times, but they do so in their own category.
The thing is that what makes a film a separate art form, rather than a means of recording art, is the fact that film itself is an art. Cinematography is an art, you cannot replicate in any other medium. Editing is an art. Setting up rules for a player has yet to yield art, though. You can dress up these things with all sorts of art, from all sorts of mediums, but the mechanical workings of the thing is not art.
Now, I know the response to that is "painting requires technical skill", or "rules need to be followed to make a film", and whatnot. Well, the thing is that they don't. You can call a fingerpainting by a child a work of art. Bereft of any technical prowess, a painting is still art. Any technical skill or learning on the part of an artist is a tool used to express themselves more skillfully. The techniques are just tools, and they effect the final piece, but they do not affect its status as "art". Just the status as "good art".
tl:dr: Games can only ever be art in their own category. You cannot compare them to any other form of art, and you shouldn't even be comparing different forms of art to begin with.
But "is gaming even a form of art, separate and different from everything else?" is the question.
It looks like the king of stirring shit up strikes again. Just try not to insult to many people when they disagree with you this time ('cause you have a rather well known habit of doing that y'know....)
Just read some of your posts & it appears that the asshattery has already begun.
Glad to be worthy of the crown I guess.
I'm actually not sure why people's feathers are getting ruffled at all, but OK. Sorry to be a bother?
Wait!
Is the question if GAMING is a form of art, or if GAMES are a form of art?
In my eyes gaming is something different than a game.
Sorry, I meant games. I don't think anyone is going to say that the act of playing a game is art. Semantic slip-ups happen when your posts are that long.
You know... what I find interesting here is that though the original post was about Roger Ebert's blog post, I feel like because Rather Dashing is trying to shoot down the arguements of people posting here, we're having to argue why Dash is wrong to defend Roger Ebert, instead of us arguing about why Ebert himself is wrong.
Sorry, I meant games. I don't think anyone is going to say that the act of playing a game is art. Semantic slip-ups happen when your posts are that long.
I think this is actually a very interesting one. And just because for the sake of putting out my thoughts I'll be the one today who says that playing a game can be art.
Even in every known artform, the artist has a certain amount of rules. If you paint on a canvas for example you are somewhat bound to that area. You can't just, because you feel like it, create a stroke into the canvas or from the canvas away (very basic example, hope you get the picture). But within those limitations the artist can show of his skill in.
If I take that example to a game, then there are rules as well. You are kind of bound to those rules. And especially in games you actually need skill for, the "artist" can show off his skill within those limitations.
Granted, I would never say that playing 1 hour of Final Fantasy can be considered art, but I wouldn't really neglect the possibilities of games that can be a virtual canvas for your skill. Mario Paint, Little Big Planet, Shadow of the Colossus, Tony Hawks (you may laugh) or even Street Fighter are all games that are only get enjoyable (for the player AND for the spectator) if you have a certain amount of skill.
This applies to common art as well. It only gets enjoyable for people if you have a certain amount of skill.
But on the other side again, everybody has a different opinion about that thing called art (which makes it even more interesting).
Yes, and I think it humorous to point out that Ebert is probably much easier to convince.
I'm not so sure. The man is kind of stubborn. Also, I think he's grown a bit senile or just soft sometime in the past decade, though that may just be because my evaluation of films doesn't match his as often anymore. =P
Anyway, as long as we stay on the "Games as Art" topic, I think we're on a pretty good track record when it comes to staying on-topic, especially in the general forum.
Video Games can be a form of art. Monkey Island is a style in that form of art.
You're wrong. I'm right. I win. Yay. The End.
Joking aside, I don't understand why being made to follow a set of rules into order to "view" or "experience" the art within a video game negates the possiblity for the game itself to be considered art.
EDIT: Many of us in this thread have said that the different parts of a video game that go into it's development can be considered art, even though several people here can be made to concede that perhaps the video game which contains said art may not itself be considered art.
Wouldn't that though make a video game a collection of art? I would argue that if a video game itself is not art, then it would still be the "canvas" on which the art within is shown.
Joking aside, I don't understand why being made to follow a set of rules into order to "view" or "experience" the art within a video game negates the possiblity for the game itself to be considered art.
Mainly because the game itself isn't the art. The game is the process, the challenge, and the art is the reward. If you walk through an art gallery, walking is not the art, nor is(generally) the ground you're walking on or the wall that art might be hanging from.
EDIT: Many of us in this thread have said that the different parts of a video game that go into it's development can be considered art, even though several people here can be made to concede that perhaps the video game which contains said art may not itself be considered art.
Wouldn't that though make a video game a collection of art? I would argue that if a video game itself is not art, then it would still be the "canvas" on which the art within is shown.
Wait so are people not actually reading my posts and just arguing with what they think my ideas are?
I know. It's amazing how many things are art when you really think about it. Suicide is an art form, if not the ULTIMATE art form. Well, other than suicidal homocide, after all. To really get to the purest form of art, though, you probably have to find a way to kill yourself along with every other living thing on the planet. Because that art has BALLS. It's not only not going along with survival, but actively working against it. Starting a thermonuclear war is probably the best way to go when it comes to making art.
I know. It's amazing how many things are art when you really think about it. Suicide is an art form, if not the ULTIMATE art form. Well, other than suicidal homocide, after all. To really get to the purest form of art, though, you probably have to find a way to kill yourself along with every other living thing on the planet. Because that art has BALLS. It's not only not going along with survival, but actively working against it. Starting a thermonuclear war is probably the best way to go when it comes to making art.
Haha, a quip. Sure that'd be art as well. I don't like it, but it'd be art.
Art doesn't have to be something we like or anything beneficial either. That said, Art can most certainly be beneficial as well. There seems to be some silly cultural idea that art is a god tier of which only certain good pretty things can be put on.
Art is honestly not that special of a rank. Whether we like it or not is pretty subjective. (Though there are certain things that have been proven be better in the mind of a person.)
Sure that'd be art as well. I don't like it, but it'd be art.
Alright. So now we've got consensus. Video games are art in the same sense that installing drywall is art and whenever you can consider thermonuclear warfare and masturbation to also be art.
Still, I think that the majority of people would assume that art requires creative input as its core component.
Art is what we make that isn't influenced by our instincts of survival. Instinct of survival includes ways to feed yourself and your family, ways to defend yourself and your family, and ways to reproduce.
That means sex, which comes from instinct of reproduction, isn't art even if this specific sex isn't going to result in an offspring (because you're sterile, using birth-control, with a same-sex partner or having non-reproductive sex for instance).
Violence, which come from either the hunter or the defender instinct, isn't art either.
Humour, on the other hand, is art because it's not related to survival or survival instincts.
That's the thesis. Of course not everyone agrees with it, but I'm just saying that the examples you gave DO fit in the "survival instincts" as defined by that description or art.
That's the thesis. Of course not everyone agrees with it, but I'm just saying that the examples you gave DO fit in the "survival instincts" as defined by that description or art.
Sex and murder, maybe. It's at the very least arguable. But what about suicide?
Comments
An artwork consists of technical information of its creation, time that's spent on it and most importantly, thoughts and feelings of its creator. A videogame does have all of those. One aspect that I may have a hard time explaining is that videogames are done to be sold, therefore there ARE games made for money, not for art itself. But since music industry also suffers from this fate, yeah, I'm pretty sure videogames can be considered as artworks. Sorry Dash.
Was that what you think defines art? Or was it the meaning you thought Secret Fawful was using to define art?
In either case, I find it interesting, especially the first part, where it says "the expression of creative skill through a medium". Isn't this what a game is? At least in part. Yes there are rules and objectives, but everything about the game is an expression of creative skill. That you have to play the game to see everything is irrelevant. You have to look at a painting to see it's art, and in the end you might never fully understand the painters feelings or emotions when he/she created that specific piece. Films have to be watched and in my eye the only difference between playing a game and putting on a DVD is the amount of buttons you have to press.
I'm also interested about how games can't be art because they have rules. Films also have rules. They have events that have to happen, constraints that have to be kept to. Once a hero is defined he cannot do something he is not supposed to. Would The Sound of Music been more arty if the Von Trap family found lazers to shoot the Nazis?
I am aware of the fallicy in what I have been writing though. You cannot compare video games to films, they are two very different mediums that just don't mix, no matter how many times people try. For Video Games to truely be considered art, they would have to have their own subtext of art, something which is not outside the realms of possibility. After all, a hundred years ago films didn't exist, now you have films considered to be the greatest masterpieces of our times, but they do so in their own catagory.
tl:dr: Games can only ever be art in their own category. You cannot compare them to any other form of art, and you shouldn't even be comparing different forms of art to begin with.
I like this.
One thing though about Ebert's opinion...
In Ron's post he says "Why is Monkey Island not art, yet, the Pirates of the Caribbean movie is art?" Later, in his update to this, he says "Roger replied that he did not think Pirates of the Caribbean was art."
Now, WHY THE HELL NOT?
I dont care if you like the movie or not. Explain to me why it is not art.
Personally, I just think Roger Ebert's definition of art is flawed.
I don't know about Ebert, but I know some people think like that.
Well, I still think this both makes sense and is extremely funny.
Heck, some guys DO sell their poo and call it Art.
What.
The.
Fudge.
Frankly it's pretentious stuff like that that really makes me lose interest in art. Do we really want to have video games literally compared to poo? Really?
I'm not sure if it's meant to be pretentious. I mean, look at the font for "Cloaca", they're obviously trying to reference Coca-Cola. I think it's some kind of social commentary.
Now, I still wonder about the people who buy it though. This being said, this one is produced by a machine. Does it still count?
What's "interesting" is to see just how far you can stretch the definition of Art. In some circles, it's really more about the 50 pages explanation of the work's "deep and philosophical meaning" (which often doesn't make any kind of sense itself) than about what the guy's actually made.
Well, i'm not sure if "coca cola = poop" is really such an interesting point to make these days, especially if there's nothing more to it... I mean, okay, there's stuff i don't get, but sometimes it's just too easy to claim that you do mean something and people who don't understand it are just dumb. If Art must say something, then the work should be able to speak for itself.
That's like the whole thing about provocation. If you're gonna use poop and urine to express something, why not, but that something better be actually interesting.
Piero Manzoni. MoMA has one.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banksy - Obligatory wiki for those who don't know him.
Anyway, the thing about Banksy is that he stencils a lot of his work. Obviously he has to create the stencils to use them, but this brings up the questions: Is what he draws art? Or is it the stencil he used that's really the art?
What about digital art, then? Is the print art, or the file?
"MoMA" ?
Your mom bought turds ?
(oh, and thanks for the guy's name)
I agree with this mostly.
A video game isn't art simply by being a video game, but the same can be said for a book or a movie. It's just the medium. A video game can be just a set of rules and objectives in the same way that a book can just be text printed on paper. I think the difference comes when the developer/writer/film director decides to make a conscious effort to invoke some kind of emotional response in their audience. It's the end result that can be considered art, and the medium is largely irrelevant. Of course, even taking all of that into consideration, nearly everyone has a different idea of what art is, so it ends up being largely subjective in the end.
I agree that not every video game is art, but I also agree that not every book or movie is art, either, but at the same time there are books, movies, video games, or whatever out there that are artistic or have the potential to be artistic. I don't agree that something cannot be art just because of the medium its presented through.
*EDIT*
Just read some of your posts & it appears that the asshattery has already begun.
I think the main difference between "games as art" for me rather than "games containing art" is what you get when you remove the art.
Yes, if you make something without marble, it ceases to be a marble statue. However, remove the artistic intent and it also reverts to the base form of just being rock.
Now, you remove the game part, and it ceases to be a game. But, and this is the important part to the way I'm viewing this thing, if you remove the art parts(writing, replace art design with placeholders, et cetera), then the game is still a game. A boring game, but you still have that set of rules floating around in the aether.
Kind of like how a recording of a play isn't really a different "art form" or "medium" than the play or . There is art there, but it's just another form contained within the science of the way light reacts to film(I wish we had different words for film the medium and film the physical thing that is recorded onto in cameras). Yes, the play is art.
Making a recording of it doesn't make the play retroactively not art, which seems to be what you're saying here about the way I'm approaching it. It just means that we're not talking about "film as an art form", but rather "film used to contain a play". It is a different way to show the art we already have, but until you do something special with the camera or the film artistically, film itself is not an art. The earliest Edison films were not really "art", for example. These things were rudimentary recordings of motion, created and intended to showcase the fact that "Hey, we can take pictures that MOVE now!" It wasn't until The Lumière brothers started moving the thing and capturing things with artistic intent(and even fabricating things, a la that one with the workers leaving the factory) that the result was art in its own right.
Essentially, can games be considered an art form when the mechanics themselves cannot be called art? It seems like calling stone an art form, or a canvas an art form. It is a thing that is built onto or into or even built with and alongside(you can't have a marble statue without marble), but that doesn't make it art anymore than a board game featuring a beautiful oil painting as the playing surface could be called art. I don't think people call board games an "artistic medium".
I hope I've explained myself better this time.
Okay then, I'll ignore this bit and move on to the next one.
The thing is that what makes a film a separate art form, rather than a means of recording art, is the fact that film itself is an art. Cinematography is an art, you cannot replicate in any other medium. Editing is an art. Setting up rules for a player has yet to yield art, though. You can dress up these things with all sorts of art, from all sorts of mediums, but the mechanical workings of the thing is not art.
Now, I know the response to that is "painting requires technical skill", or "rules need to be followed to make a film", and whatnot. Well, the thing is that they don't. You can call a fingerpainting by a child a work of art. Bereft of any technical prowess, a painting is still art. Any technical skill or learning on the part of an artist is a tool used to express themselves more skillfully. The techniques are just tools, and they effect the final piece, but they do not affect its status as "art". Just the status as "good art".
But "is gaming even a form of art, separate and different from everything else?" is the question.
Glad to be worthy of the crown I guess.
I'm actually not sure why people's feathers are getting ruffled at all, but OK. Sorry to be a bother?
Wait!
Is the question if GAMING is a form of art, or if GAMES are a form of art?
In my eyes gaming is something different than a game.
brb, writing post about this
No offense intended, Dash.
I think this is actually a very interesting one. And just because for the sake of putting out my thoughts I'll be the one today who says that playing a game can be art.
Even in every known artform, the artist has a certain amount of rules. If you paint on a canvas for example you are somewhat bound to that area. You can't just, because you feel like it, create a stroke into the canvas or from the canvas away (very basic example, hope you get the picture). But within those limitations the artist can show of his skill in.
If I take that example to a game, then there are rules as well. You are kind of bound to those rules. And especially in games you actually need skill for, the "artist" can show off his skill within those limitations.
Granted, I would never say that playing 1 hour of Final Fantasy can be considered art, but I wouldn't really neglect the possibilities of games that can be a virtual canvas for your skill. Mario Paint, Little Big Planet, Shadow of the Colossus, Tony Hawks (you may laugh) or even Street Fighter are all games that are only get enjoyable (for the player AND for the spectator) if you have a certain amount of skill.
This applies to common art as well. It only gets enjoyable for people if you have a certain amount of skill.
But on the other side again, everybody has a different opinion about that thing called art (which makes it even more interesting).
He's saying that maybe we're not trying to argue against that guy's point, but against you because you're the one defending that point.
Anyway, as long as we stay on the "Games as Art" topic, I think we're on a pretty good track record when it comes to staying on-topic, especially in the general forum.
Video Games can be a form of art. Monkey Island is a style in that form of art.
You're wrong. I'm right. I win. Yay. The End.
Joking aside, I don't understand why being made to follow a set of rules into order to "view" or "experience" the art within a video game negates the possiblity for the game itself to be considered art.
EDIT: Many of us in this thread have said that the different parts of a video game that go into it's development can be considered art, even though several people here can be made to concede that perhaps the video game which contains said art may not itself be considered art.
Wouldn't that though make a video game a collection of art? I would argue that if a video game itself is not art, then it would still be the "canvas" on which the art within is shown.
Whether its good or bad is subjective.
Playing a game = viewing a painting = reading a book = watching a movie ect. ect. ect.
why are we still talking about this
Because sometimes Art = wanking
Wait so are people not actually reading my posts and just arguing with what they think my ideas are?
Because that would explain a lot.
Because I was saying this.
I had no idea masturbation and oral sex were art forms.
You learn something everyday.
Is that a question that can be answered? Art is, by it's very nature, subjective.
Haha, a quip. Sure that'd be art as well. I don't like it, but it'd be art.
Art doesn't have to be something we like or anything beneficial either. That said, Art can most certainly be beneficial as well. There seems to be some silly cultural idea that art is a god tier of which only certain good pretty things can be put on.
Art is honestly not that special of a rank. Whether we like it or not is pretty subjective. (Though there are certain things that have been proven be better in the mind of a person.)
Alright. So now we've got consensus. Video games are art in the same sense that installing drywall is art and whenever you can consider thermonuclear warfare and masturbation to also be art.
Still, I think that the majority of people would assume that art requires creative input as its core component.
Art is what we make that isn't influenced by our instincts of survival. Instinct of survival includes ways to feed yourself and your family, ways to defend yourself and your family, and ways to reproduce.
That means sex, which comes from instinct of reproduction, isn't art even if this specific sex isn't going to result in an offspring (because you're sterile, using birth-control, with a same-sex partner or having non-reproductive sex for instance).
Violence, which come from either the hunter or the defender instinct, isn't art either.
Humour, on the other hand, is art because it's not related to survival or survival instincts.
That's the thesis. Of course not everyone agrees with it, but I'm just saying that the examples you gave DO fit in the "survival instincts" as defined by that description or art.