Well, in your analogy you compare actual literature with technical information in print form. To you, it might seem like splitting hairs, but my point is that there is some sort of difference there. To me, it's not a question of whether or not there is a line, but where to draw it. I think a large part of that is effort and intention. What was the creator trying to do, and how hard did they work to make that happen?
And honestly, something like Pong is a little difficult to place. Another thing you have to consider is the evolution of the medium. Something like Pong is extremely difficult to compare against something like Morrowind. Pong, being one of the earliest games, is almost less about the game as it is just trying to see if something like a video game was even possible at the time.
The programming used to make a game is no different than the editing used to put the pieces of a film together into one whole.
Film:
Script
Recorded footage
Editing
Animated Film:
Script
Animation, background and concept art, voices, music, and camera placement
Editing
Game:
Script
Animation, background and concept art, voices, music, and camera placement
Programming
Both are used to tie the elements together into a full visual experience and story. Programming is in the same vein as editing or musical notation in its purpose. In fact the only main difference between a video game and an animated movie is that an animated movie is put together in the editing studio or with computer editing and a video game can be controlled by a player and is put together by computer programming.
Oh, and if I get a reply to this, I'll try to tone down my harsh attitude this time and be much more civil than before.
Also, it's possible to watch standard DVDs on the Wii using the Homebrew Channel. I do have the Homebrew Channel installed, but I've had the disc drive on my Wii wear out once and have a perfectly good DVD player, so I've never attempted this.
But I've derailed this thread enough.
Yes, I know you can with Homebrew (though it's not recommended as your drive can die). I meant officially.
Oh, and if I get a reply to this, I'll try to tone down my harsh attitude this time and be much more civil than before.
That would be nice. I do like these discussions, this is what I do in my leisure time. I like debating and thinking about these things because it's how I have fun. I can get impassioned about it, but I don't generally mean to be an ass when I do.
Both are used to tie the elements together into a full visual experience and story. Programming is in the same vein as editing or musical notation in its purpose. In fact the only main difference between a video game and an animated movie is that an animated movie is put together in the editing studio or with computer editing and a video game can be controlled by a player and is put together by computer programming.
I think comparing programming to editing, while sounding nice in theory, just doesn't quite work in practice. Editing itself is an art, spawning movements like the Soviet Montage period, which has had a lasting effect on film as a whole. A person can say that programming is akin to editing, in that it stitches together how all of the elements come together, but has programming ever been the centerpiece of artistic discussion? Is there a programming equivalent to THe Kuleshov Effect? Is there any programming technique that creates a psychological, emotional response and connection in any similar vein?
Film had been around 19 years when this experiment was performed. Considering the rapid and widespread exchange of information in the modern age, you'd think that such experiments and such discoveries that legitimize this thing as an artistic medium would occur more quickly. Unless such an example exists, and my question itself is foolish.
An attempt to provoke and exchange thoughts on art, video games, and video games as works of art. A back-and-forth exchange is best done when people of different viewpoints decide that it's a good idea to exchange and compare ideas, and question each others'(and, hopefully, their own) reasoning.
I think comparing programming to editing, while sounding nice in theory, just doesn't quite work in practice. Editing itself is an art, spawning movements like the Soviet Montage period, which has had a lasting effect on film as a whole. A person can say that programming is akin to editing, in that it stitches together how all of the elements come together, but has programming ever been the centerpiece of artistic discussion? Is there a programming equivalent to THe Kuleshov Effect? Is there any programming technique that creates a psychological, emotional response and connection in any similar vein?
Film had been around 19 years when this experiment was performed. Considering the rapid and widespread exchange of information in the modern age, you'd think that such experiments and such discoveries that legitimize this thing as an artistic medium would occur more quickly. Unless such an example exists, and my question itself is foolish.
I would say that that's a cultural issue actually. Video games nor programming have been studied or taken seriously as an artistic medium because since they've come out, they've been seen as "those things for kiddies or people with no lives". It's only recently has the issue of video games as art has come up, as well as programming or anything else related. Generally the ones saying video games are not art are those who are stuck on "paintings and sculptures and great novels from the past" as the only works with legitimate claims as art, who don't want to accept that something new "that nerds generally only use" could qualify as anything remotely artistic, without trying to look at it from another point of view. People who act as if they crap marble. Not referring to you, but I think Ebert could qualify.
If editing could ever qualify as an art then programming certainly could.
I feel that Pong could certainly be considered art; Visionary art at that, given that it spawned an entire medium. It's like the first paintings on cave walls; It's not the best art ever invented, but it's important in its own way, and it made people see something in a way they hadn't before. I could even consider a technical manual or a textbook to be a work of art.
But then, I don't feel the classification of something as an art is so sacred as people are making it out to be. Who cares if some nebulous definition of "art" excludes video games? Who cares if the general public says, "Well these aren't CLASSICAL art" or something. They're still what I'll spend the rest of my life playing and building. I just find it interesting that the meaning of a single word can cause this much debate on so many different forums.
But then, I don't feel the classification of something as an art is so sacred as people are making it out to be. Who cares if some nebulous definition of "art" excludes video games? Who cares if the general public says, "Well these aren't CLASSICAL art" or something. They're still what I'll spend the rest of my life playing and building. I just find it interesting that the meaning of a single word can cause this much debate on so many different forums.
I think it's more that it generates the feeling of being attacked. That something that many of us hold very dear has been declared inadequate somehow, by someone generally considered to be in a position of authority concerning entertainment. Which brings me to my opinion of critics. Ratatouille did a pretty decent job of summing it up for me:
In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talents, new creations. The new needs friends.
If we later decide to amend the consensus definition of art to include video games, we will. There was a time when the status of "photographs" as art was debated.
If a novel can be art, drawings can be art, cinematography can be art, video can be art, music can be art, how does it make any sense to say that something with all of those things present in it is not art?
Saying it's not art because you may have some degree of control over how things happen is nonsense, as every possible result that can happen has to have been written by someone in the event that you make such a choice in the game.
Would a film or book that was a "choose your own adventure" be incapable of being art, simply because the audience is given a choice of what they think the characters should do next? It's just like writing a story, but with tons of different paths and conclusions. I haven't read one of them since I was a kid, but I don't see how they could be excluded from being "art" just on the basis of user choice.
To me, art is just a way for one or more people to communicate images/messages/stories in order to make you reflect on things a little bit, if something moves you or makes you think deeply about something, I consider it art.
Just because you can control certain aspects of a game does not mean that the game itself is not art. You can argue that the gameplay is not art, but not that the game is not art. That's silly.
Actually I've managed to get enough research under this subject to discover that games are both an art and a science. Which is a pretty big heel turn, but it's mostly because if something contains art then creating it is an art.
However, if we are to go by Ebert's definition of art not counting if you interact with it, or have any degree of control then cinema can never be art. Not only can you stop a projector at any time and skip ahead to another part of any movie, but you can also cut scenes out of a movie and have those once static images change.
Also, if any amount of photo effects are used it isn't art, so photography is not art because it can be manipulated and therefore controlled by anyone (since MS Paint and Gimp are free). If you can interact with anything (and you can) then it doesn't count as art.
So according to Roger Ebert, nothing can ever be art. I expect him to stop writing his opinion on the art of cinema any day now, since few reviewers are good at fiction.
If anyone else would like to let him know this fact, here is Roger Ebert's email address. 76711.271@compuserve.com
Also, there is a lot of sculpted interactive art by supposedly real artists. There is even a rapeget-happy-slapped-punch-you-in-the-face tunnel, as a comment to I actually forgot what it was, all for the sake of art.
Also, there is a lot of sculpted interactive art by supposedly real artists. There is even a rapeget-happy-slapped-punch-you-in-the-face tunnel, as a comment to I actually forgot what it was, all for the sake of art.
But then, I don't feel the classification of something as an art is so sacred as people are making it out to be. Who cares if some nebulous definition of "art" excludes video games? Who cares if the general public says, "Well these aren't CLASSICAL art" or something. They're still what I'll spend the rest of my life playing and building. I just find it interesting that the meaning of a single word can cause this much debate on so many different forums.
I think the question isn't as entirely pointless as some make it out to be. For one thing, asking it allows us to reflect on art, which is always a great thing. For another matter, note the history of early film. In America, film was an attraction. "Look at this! I can capture movement! See right there, that picture MOVES!" The United States' contributions to editing were cheap tricks to allow more scenic thrills. In other parts of the world, like France and Germany, it was very quickly seen as an art form and used for artistic purposes. Comparing the early films of Germany and France to those of the US puts our movies to shame. In many ways, our entire movie industry has been marred by the attitude. A difference in attitude is a difference in what is created.
If a novel can be art, drawings can be art, cinematography can be art, video can be art, music can be art, how does it make any sense to say that something with all of those things present in it is not art?
Drawing can be art, but it can also simply be a means of charting a map. I can have a technical manual that contains diagrams and instructions, writing and drawing, and this this isn't art due to the intention of the thing. Now, this is of course by no means the same thing as video games. But what I mean to say is that you can't just take something that isn't art, and then say that it is by putting art in or around it. A box can happen to also be containing beautiful works of art of a variety of different disciplines, but the box itself isn't art. It still has a primary purpose of "holding things". Someone can develop a chess set with a painted board with hand-sculpted pieces, each inscribed with a tiny poem. And these things would not retroactively make the game of chess a work of art. That particular chess board would have a lot of art in it, but the game itself wouldn't have changed and the mechanics themselves aren't artistic.
Saying it's not art because you may have some degree of control over how things happen is nonsense, as every possible result that can happen has to have been written by someone in the event that you make such a choice in the game.
Would a film or book that was a "choose your own adventure" be incapable of being art, simply because the audience is given a choice of what they think the characters should do next? It's just like writing a story, but with tons of different paths and conclusions. I haven't read one of them since I was a kid, but I don't see how they could be excluded from being "art" just on the basis of user choice.
I don't think so. Can you really say something when you are giving authorial control to the viewer? Can you really deliver a meaningful message, without compromising the integrity of your own meaning or player choice? There are a few exceptions of course, especially if you want to convey inevitability, but I can certainly see how all existing video games are not particularly artistic.
Actually I've managed to get enough research under this subject to discover that games are both an art and a science. Which is a pretty big heel turn, but it's mostly because if something contains art then creating it is an art.
However, if we are to go by Ebert's definition of art not counting if you interact with it, or have any degree of control then cinema can never be art. Not only can you stop a projector at any time and skip ahead to another part of any movie, but you can also cut scenes out of a movie and have those once static images change.
Also, if any amount of photo effects are used it isn't art, so photography is not art because it can be manipulated and therefore controlled by anyone (since MS Paint and Gimp are free). If you can interact with anything (and you can) then it doesn't count as art.
So according to Roger Ebert, nothing can ever be art. I expect him to stop writing his opinion on the art of cinema any day now, since few reviewers are good at fiction.
If anyone else would like to let him know this fact, here is Roger Ebert's email address. 76711.271@compuserve.com
SURELY you can see the difference between something INTENDED to be interacted with, and thus inherently different by DESIGN, and someone simply being able to affect an existing work. There's something of a distinction between "something made with an interactive purpose" and "a work of art that you can toss into a waste bin and piss on".
Whether you disagree with his assurance that interactivity kills art, the idea that "I can mess with this, it's not art now by Ebert's Definition" rings hollow.
I don't think so. Can you really say something when you are giving authorial control to the viewer? Can you really deliver a meaningful message, without compromising the integrity of your own meaning or player choice? There are a few exceptions of course, especially if you want to convey inevitability, but I can certainly see how all existing video games are not particularly artistic.
That's the thing, though. Inevitability. For the most part, choice is an illusion in video games. Sure, you have the choice of sidequesting or stopping to just screw around, and maybe it's possible or even intended for you to be able to sequence break, but if you ever want to see that game's credits, there are certain things you will do and there's certain scenes that you will see.
Certainly, we all feel like we have control in the games we play, but when you take a step back, we all still manage to have nearly the exact same experience as each other, the experience the designers wanted us to have. Sure, some of us will stumble upon certain things that others didn't, and some of us will have a more difficult time than others, but the core experience remains the same. And yes, some will love it and some will hate it, but that's true of film or literature or any other form of art, and that's just different tastes.
I think that's what bugs me about your argument so much. You seem to be hanging up on the underlying mechanics of video games and using that as your reason that they can't be art, but that's not what this argument should be about at all. What matters is the experience.
Why does interactivity negate something being art, if interactvity is the artists' intent?
I don't understand that.
Because that's not how it works. In games, the art and the game stand on opposite sides of a 100 mile-high wall. Adventures are somewhat better in this regard than other genres, but on the whole video games really seem to be mechanics supported by art assets, not a complete and cohesive art piece.
That's the thing, though. Inevitability. For the most part, choice is an illusion in video games. Sure, you have the choice of sidequesting or stopping to just screw around, and maybe it's possible or even intended for you to be able to sequence break, but if you ever want to see that game's credits, there are certain things you will do and there's certain scenes that you will see.
Certainly, we all feel like we have control in the games we play, but when you take a step back, we all still manage to have nearly the exact same experience as each other, the experience the designers wanted us to have. Sure, some of us will stumble upon certain things that others didn't, and some of us will have a more difficult time than others, but the core experience remains the same. And yes, some will love it and some will hate it, but that's true of film or literature or any other form of art, and that's just different tastes.
I think that's what bugs me about your argument so much. You seem to be hanging up on the underlying mechanics of video games and using that as your reason that they can't be art, but that's not what this argument should be about at all. What matters is the experience.
But that's the thing: If this is the case, then art gains nothing by including games, and games gain nothing by being art. If the interactivity does nothing artistically, then the core intended experience of a game(the gameplay) is not art, and it's just supplemented by story and art elements which are overblown in their importance in comparison to simply making a compelling and fun to play game. If anything, games lose something if they're seen as art pieces.
But that's the thing: If this is the case, then art gains nothing by including games, and games gain nothing by being art. If the interactivity does nothing artistically, then the core intended experience of a game(the gameplay) is not art, and it's just supplemented by story and art elements which are overblown in their importance in comparison to simply making a compelling and fun to play game. If anything, games lose something if they're seen as art pieces.
I've been more thoroughly entertained and moved by most story-driven games than the vast majority of films I've seen.
You can't look at a game as a collection of individual elements, which is pretty much all you've been doing. The elements make up the whole. Just because the act of playing a game isn't art, that doesn't mean the game itself can't be art. Every game that has ever had a storyline more complicated than "aliens are bad, shoot them" was intricately written and designed in order to evoke certain responses from the player. The way you make it sound is like the writers and environment artists and concept artists are all separate entities making their own art, that some non-artist just haphazardly pastes together over Pong. Games are designed as games, not as individual art assets that someone decided to link together via gameplay.
It's literally like saying a painting isn't art, just the globules of paint themselves are art, or an album isn't art, just the songs on it, or a film isn't art, just the scenes in it. It's a nonsensical and completely arbitrary attempt to classify them as non-art.
But that's the thing: If this is the case, then art gains nothing by including games, and games gain nothing by being art. If the interactivity does nothing artistically, then the core intended experience of a game(the gameplay) is not art, and it's just supplemented by story and art elements which are overblown in their importance in comparison to simply making a compelling and fun to play game. If anything, games lose something if they're seen as art pieces.
See, this is something else that bothers me about several of the arguments going on here. Art is a word. That's all it is, a word. How does anything gain or lose anything by the act of attaching a word to it? Video games, paintings, sculptures, films, books, all of them are what they are, regardless of what definitions we hang on them. Attaching words to them does nothing to alter their state of being. Of course, this basically renders the outcome of this discussion meaningless, but that's my point. Video games don't gain or lose anything by attaching or not attaching the label "art" to them, so all we're arguing about is whether or not the label applies to them.
^"...so all we're arguing about is whether or not the label applies to them."
Hence the importance of definition, and the reason why there will never be a single definitive answer to the question, "Are video games art?"
Edit: I would also like to add that I don't agree with Rather Dashing's response to Chyron. I believe his own definition has constructed a wall between games and art, whereas by the definition I wrote earlier, art can be anything that requires skill to do or make. Making or using the mechanics of interactivity require such skill.
Discussions about what art is and what art is not are always rather pointless. When it all boils down to it we cannot judge what art is or is not. If the creator says that his work is art, then it is art. If other people find something to be art then it's also art. There is no objective definition of art and trying to create one is silly.
One of the good examples of this is andy warhols art, nowadays I doubt there are many who would argue that he was infact an artist and did art. Enjoy the first six minutes of the movie "Empire State Building": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7idi_5IaMrk it conintues for an other 8 or was it 11 hours with the most exciting thing being a bird.
I tend to disagree, but I can understand where he comes from. Whatever art is defined as is subject to the eye of the beholder. I think that an art is something that can be created, but not mastered. Admired, but never fully understood except by the creator, and not even then sometimes. Has a game with a truley great storyline come along? No. The industry is currently under a stronger pressure than that of other artforms: industry and monopoly. Once we can get over the coporate needs of gaming and the and the complete desire to appeal to the majority. Art can't be defined as certain sections of media and not others, it depends greatly on example. Some games I know of are completly deserving of the title of "Art," while others are not.
By the way, since when does art need a story? Paintings, pieces of music, and foods never have stories and are still consittered art. Film isn't an art, it is the combination of the arts of storytelling, visuals, communication, rhetoric, and music to name a few. If films meets the qualifications for being an art, then gaming certainly does as well.
If gaming trully isn't an art, then film isn't, and neither is the theater. Combining arts to make a truley magnificent product has been considered arts for a long time.
The only difference gaming makes that may break he pattern is the introduction of the art of immersion, but isn't that what all other art continually tries to acomplish anyway? To see another's point of veiw is the act that directers and authors have been tring to make people do for years, now that it is done so simply, it creates the illusion that the art of immersion no longer matters. This is what people are picking up on from traditionalists who do not fully appreciate what gaming has done for the artisan community.
By the way, since when does art need a story? Paintings, pieces of music, and foods never have stories and are still consittered art. Film isn't an art, it is the combination of the arts of storytelling, visuals, communication, rhetoric, and music to name a few. If films meets the qualifications for being an art, then gaming certainly does as well.
If gaming trully isn't an art, then film isn't, and neither is the theater. Combining arts to make a truley magnificent product has been considered arts for a long time.
I've tried a few times to make that very point and failed miserably at expressing it in a slightly coherent way.
So thank you for bringin it up
Comments
And honestly, something like Pong is a little difficult to place. Another thing you have to consider is the evolution of the medium. Something like Pong is extremely difficult to compare against something like Morrowind. Pong, being one of the earliest games, is almost less about the game as it is just trying to see if something like a video game was even possible at the time.
Film:
Script
Recorded footage
Editing
Animated Film:
Script
Animation, background and concept art, voices, music, and camera placement
Editing
Game:
Script
Animation, background and concept art, voices, music, and camera placement
Programming
Both are used to tie the elements together into a full visual experience and story. Programming is in the same vein as editing or musical notation in its purpose. In fact the only main difference between a video game and an animated movie is that an animated movie is put together in the editing studio or with computer editing and a video game can be controlled by a player and is put together by computer programming.
Oh, and if I get a reply to this, I'll try to tone down my harsh attitude this time and be much more civil than before.
That's a first. Never heard of it. But we don't ahve Netflix in Canada anyway, so...
Yes, I know you can with Homebrew (though it's not recommended as your drive can die). I meant officially.
Anyway, I'm outta here...
What is this thread if not splitting hairs?
I think comparing programming to editing, while sounding nice in theory, just doesn't quite work in practice. Editing itself is an art, spawning movements like the Soviet Montage period, which has had a lasting effect on film as a whole. A person can say that programming is akin to editing, in that it stitches together how all of the elements come together, but has programming ever been the centerpiece of artistic discussion? Is there a programming equivalent to THe Kuleshov Effect? Is there any programming technique that creates a psychological, emotional response and connection in any similar vein?
Film had been around 19 years when this experiment was performed. Considering the rapid and widespread exchange of information in the modern age, you'd think that such experiments and such discoveries that legitimize this thing as an artistic medium would occur more quickly. Unless such an example exists, and my question itself is foolish.
An attempt to provoke and exchange thoughts on art, video games, and video games as works of art. A back-and-forth exchange is best done when people of different viewpoints decide that it's a good idea to exchange and compare ideas, and question each others'(and, hopefully, their own) reasoning.
I would say that that's a cultural issue actually. Video games nor programming have been studied or taken seriously as an artistic medium because since they've come out, they've been seen as "those things for kiddies or people with no lives". It's only recently has the issue of video games as art has come up, as well as programming or anything else related. Generally the ones saying video games are not art are those who are stuck on "paintings and sculptures and great novels from the past" as the only works with legitimate claims as art, who don't want to accept that something new "that nerds generally only use" could qualify as anything remotely artistic, without trying to look at it from another point of view. People who act as if they crap marble. Not referring to you, but I think Ebert could qualify.
If editing could ever qualify as an art then programming certainly could.
But then, I don't feel the classification of something as an art is so sacred as people are making it out to be. Who cares if some nebulous definition of "art" excludes video games? Who cares if the general public says, "Well these aren't CLASSICAL art" or something. They're still what I'll spend the rest of my life playing and building. I just find it interesting that the meaning of a single word can cause this much debate on so many different forums.
I think it's more that it generates the feeling of being attacked. That something that many of us hold very dear has been declared inadequate somehow, by someone generally considered to be in a position of authority concerning entertainment. Which brings me to my opinion of critics. Ratatouille did a pretty decent job of summing it up for me:
Yes yes! This a thousand times over!
You sir, have attained a significant level of awesome with this.
If we later decide to amend the consensus definition of art to include video games, we will. There was a time when the status of "photographs" as art was debated.
Saying it's not art because you may have some degree of control over how things happen is nonsense, as every possible result that can happen has to have been written by someone in the event that you make such a choice in the game.
Would a film or book that was a "choose your own adventure" be incapable of being art, simply because the audience is given a choice of what they think the characters should do next? It's just like writing a story, but with tons of different paths and conclusions. I haven't read one of them since I was a kid, but I don't see how they could be excluded from being "art" just on the basis of user choice.
To me, art is just a way for one or more people to communicate images/messages/stories in order to make you reflect on things a little bit, if something moves you or makes you think deeply about something, I consider it art.
Just because you can control certain aspects of a game does not mean that the game itself is not art. You can argue that the gameplay is not art, but not that the game is not art. That's silly.
However, if we are to go by Ebert's definition of art not counting if you interact with it, or have any degree of control then cinema can never be art. Not only can you stop a projector at any time and skip ahead to another part of any movie, but you can also cut scenes out of a movie and have those once static images change.
Also, if any amount of photo effects are used it isn't art, so photography is not art because it can be manipulated and therefore controlled by anyone (since MS Paint and Gimp are free). If you can interact with anything (and you can) then it doesn't count as art.
So according to Roger Ebert, nothing can ever be art. I expect him to stop writing his opinion on the art of cinema any day now, since few reviewers are good at fiction.
If anyone else would like to let him know this fact, here is Roger Ebert's email address.
76711.271@compuserve.com
LOL.
What in the HELL?
Drawing can be art, but it can also simply be a means of charting a map. I can have a technical manual that contains diagrams and instructions, writing and drawing, and this this isn't art due to the intention of the thing. Now, this is of course by no means the same thing as video games. But what I mean to say is that you can't just take something that isn't art, and then say that it is by putting art in or around it. A box can happen to also be containing beautiful works of art of a variety of different disciplines, but the box itself isn't art. It still has a primary purpose of "holding things". Someone can develop a chess set with a painted board with hand-sculpted pieces, each inscribed with a tiny poem. And these things would not retroactively make the game of chess a work of art. That particular chess board would have a lot of art in it, but the game itself wouldn't have changed and the mechanics themselves aren't artistic.
I don't think so. Can you really say something when you are giving authorial control to the viewer? Can you really deliver a meaningful message, without compromising the integrity of your own meaning or player choice? There are a few exceptions of course, especially if you want to convey inevitability, but I can certainly see how all existing video games are not particularly artistic.
SURELY you can see the difference between something INTENDED to be interacted with, and thus inherently different by DESIGN, and someone simply being able to affect an existing work. There's something of a distinction between "something made with an interactive purpose" and "a work of art that you can toss into a waste bin and piss on".
Whether you disagree with his assurance that interactivity kills art, the idea that "I can mess with this, it's not art now by Ebert's Definition" rings hollow.
I don't understand that.
That's the thing, though. Inevitability. For the most part, choice is an illusion in video games. Sure, you have the choice of sidequesting or stopping to just screw around, and maybe it's possible or even intended for you to be able to sequence break, but if you ever want to see that game's credits, there are certain things you will do and there's certain scenes that you will see.
Certainly, we all feel like we have control in the games we play, but when you take a step back, we all still manage to have nearly the exact same experience as each other, the experience the designers wanted us to have. Sure, some of us will stumble upon certain things that others didn't, and some of us will have a more difficult time than others, but the core experience remains the same. And yes, some will love it and some will hate it, but that's true of film or literature or any other form of art, and that's just different tastes.
I think that's what bugs me about your argument so much. You seem to be hanging up on the underlying mechanics of video games and using that as your reason that they can't be art, but that's not what this argument should be about at all. What matters is the experience.
But that's the thing: If this is the case, then art gains nothing by including games, and games gain nothing by being art. If the interactivity does nothing artistically, then the core intended experience of a game(the gameplay) is not art, and it's just supplemented by story and art elements which are overblown in their importance in comparison to simply making a compelling and fun to play game. If anything, games lose something if they're seen as art pieces.
I've been more thoroughly entertained and moved by most story-driven games than the vast majority of films I've seen.
You can't look at a game as a collection of individual elements, which is pretty much all you've been doing. The elements make up the whole. Just because the act of playing a game isn't art, that doesn't mean the game itself can't be art. Every game that has ever had a storyline more complicated than "aliens are bad, shoot them" was intricately written and designed in order to evoke certain responses from the player. The way you make it sound is like the writers and environment artists and concept artists are all separate entities making their own art, that some non-artist just haphazardly pastes together over Pong. Games are designed as games, not as individual art assets that someone decided to link together via gameplay.
It's literally like saying a painting isn't art, just the globules of paint themselves are art, or an album isn't art, just the songs on it, or a film isn't art, just the scenes in it. It's a nonsensical and completely arbitrary attempt to classify them as non-art.
See, this is something else that bothers me about several of the arguments going on here. Art is a word. That's all it is, a word. How does anything gain or lose anything by the act of attaching a word to it? Video games, paintings, sculptures, films, books, all of them are what they are, regardless of what definitions we hang on them. Attaching words to them does nothing to alter their state of being. Of course, this basically renders the outcome of this discussion meaningless, but that's my point. Video games don't gain or lose anything by attaching or not attaching the label "art" to them, so all we're arguing about is whether or not the label applies to them.
Hence the importance of definition, and the reason why there will never be a single definitive answer to the question, "Are video games art?"
Edit: I would also like to add that I don't agree with Rather Dashing's response to Chyron. I believe his own definition has constructed a wall between games and art, whereas by the definition I wrote earlier, art can be anything that requires skill to do or make. Making or using the mechanics of interactivity require such skill.
That's bullshit. Mona Lisa taken out of the display case is still considered art.
2. It didn't have a red dot.
Haha. You missed the joke. Look up "Fountain" and "Readymades".
I sense someone going back to check the second punchline of many strips
Say, did you also never notice XKCD had alt-text?
Damn. For being a traditional artist I know too little about traditional art.
One of the good examples of this is andy warhols art, nowadays I doubt there are many who would argue that he was infact an artist and did art. Enjoy the first six minutes of the movie "Empire State Building":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7idi_5IaMrk it conintues for an other 8 or was it 11 hours with the most exciting thing being a bird.
that kind of art is called "found art" using things not normally considered art in art.... the Mona Lisa is a portrait... and is different.
By the way, since when does art need a story? Paintings, pieces of music, and foods never have stories and are still consittered art. Film isn't an art, it is the combination of the arts of storytelling, visuals, communication, rhetoric, and music to name a few. If films meets the qualifications for being an art, then gaming certainly does as well.
If gaming trully isn't an art, then film isn't, and neither is the theater. Combining arts to make a truley magnificent product has been considered arts for a long time.
The only difference gaming makes that may break he pattern is the introduction of the art of immersion, but isn't that what all other art continually tries to acomplish anyway? To see another's point of veiw is the act that directers and authors have been tring to make people do for years, now that it is done so simply, it creates the illusion that the art of immersion no longer matters. This is what people are picking up on from traditionalists who do not fully appreciate what gaming has done for the artisan community.
I've tried a few times to make that very point and failed miserably at expressing it in a slightly coherent way.
So thank you for bringin it up