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[Opa-Pa]

Fantastic thread, OP, bravo.

I have to admit I expected your average 'games as art' discussion that doesn't go anywhere, but this actually cleared up a couple of things that have confused me about games conversation for a long while.

Pretty often I find myself finishing a game and being impressed by what it offered, leaving a pretty powerful impression and making me see it as a work of art, but I always wondered why it is that as soon as I look up stuff about it online, including conversations on it, I slowly stop seeing it as such. Now I get it, it's because online conversations or lack of thereof tend to reduce them to mere toys.

It feels like the only cases where you can truly discuss them as art is when the game is already 'artsy' (think Team Ico's output), so the intended audience perceives it as such before even playing it and obviously considers it art after finishing it too. Anything else is hard to discuss without the "keep politics out of my games!" crowd showing up... Which is troubling, because one could argue that mainstream games have a way wider audience, and thus their messages can affect the perception of a lot of people, so they definitely shouldn't be left out of these conversations.

I honestly don't really care if people perceive games as art or not, it doesn't affect my enjoyment of them, but it's definitely a pity when the potential for meaningful conversation is there and its actual fans that sabotage the whole thing.

Also, I think a lot more people would agree with the premise if they noticed the title is about games FEELING as art and not about whether they are it or not.

Great OP and solid thread, with surprisingly few people missing the point.

I think in some ways, video games now could be compared to renaissance art. The form and technique are there, but the amount of work is such that significant amounts of money need to be involved. So, work either needs to appeal to the masses or appeal to its benefactors.

And that isn't specifically to say the latest COD is comparable to a work by Michelangelo, but I'm saying the reason we repeatedly get the same types of experiences is the same reason so much renaissance art was religious (and not just religious, but using the same established motifs repeatedly).

This is a very interesting way of seeing the medium.

 

[Schopenhauerian]

...The gaming community has literally the most self defeating mentality out of any artistic medium in terms of how it handles critique, political ideas, equality, racism, fascism, and anything that requires legitimate critical thinking about basic human decency. So so many games are about opposing basic ideals like fascism, racism, sexism, etc., (every fucking empire in your goddamn JRPGs are an allegory for fascism)...

Politics were almost always seeped into this medium as soon as narratives started to crop up. Politics are less creeping into games and more devs are asking their audience to think more often... That's more because something like Call of Duty, like a typical action movie, portray incredibly shallow depictions of politics and require less thinking on the part of the viewer, which breeds less discussion...

Incidentally, I was pretty upset when I encountered the sheer shallowness of the ”weird deities" remark, from the Creative Director of Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, but I tried to follow my own advice (one / two / three / four) and offer something resembling calm, measured, constructive criticism.

But as was the case with earlier posts that focused on the shallowness inherent to the Call of Duty series (one / two / three), this criticism of The Lost Legacy didn't seem to have anything close to the resonance of (for example) the criticism of Kojima's shallowness, with respect to his (undoubtedly vulgar, tasteless, & offensive) depictions of women. Perhaps for reasons similar to those mentioned by Coffee Dog:

Nobody cares about sexuality in God of War because God of War is purile trash. It's like pointing out the misogyny in Transformers 5, it's old hat and expected...

But still, it was nice to see folks on twitter push back:

https://twitter.com/ruprtpumpkn/status/822696949400731651
”Weird deities" ...There goes any hope of accurate representation of India in a video game, seeing how the demo played out in the first place...

https://twitter.com/MarkyMarg2/status/822320553276997632
Creative Director for Uncharted: The Lost Legacy: "India's got really nice iconography: hidden temples and weird deities we can play off of, so it's a perfect setting for Uncharted." I'm constantly amazed that Uncharted has somehow avoided the wrath of people concerned with appropriation, colonialism, etc. I guess they don't want to go after a popular, high-quality series? How do you write essay after essay on how a game like Witcher 3... ...handles "exotic" people, locales, beliefs, etc, then not write one about Uncharted?

 

[petran79]

This is part of why I don't like using McLuhan's hot and cool media for modern media. Too many lines are blurred. While he may have considered it a spectrum of sorts, now it's more like a slimey, blobby mass of hot and cool.

This should be taken and analyzed with a dynamic and interchangeable approach, varying according to the society and time frame it is being applied.

Human's extensions of themselves through technology have reached unprecedented levels extending to the whole world. But the danger of autoamputation is greater.

If games as art are a hard pill to swallow, communications theory and social sciences are even harder.

 

[HueyFreeman]

And the day I can say something as simple and perhaps observant as Sonic Unleashed's eating mechanic thematically ties into its themes of positive cultural representation and camaraderie, or something more pressing and socially challenging such as Resident Evil 5's use of generic African settings uncomfortably recalls highly negative stereotypes of Africans and black people as disposable savages, without the risk of dismissal or outright hostility, is the day games will finally start feeling like art.

This is a tremendous post, OP - the only point I would disagree with on is the notion that based on the behaviour of other people, games are not art. They obviously do "feel like art" to you, and thus - they are. You, and many many others including myself, can engage with this medium at that level, so there really is no argument anymore - games are art. Whether or not this is recognized by the NY Times or the Guardian at this point is really besides the point. We're long past the point of no return on this, so don't let a minority of neanderthals - who in all likelihood are rooting for regressive change in many avenues of life - hold you back from doing what you do: enjoying this artform on multiple levels.

 

[Stealth_Cobra]

I think it's mostly because games lack meaning or message, for the most part.

Technically, games are perhaps one of the richest art form, as it combines sculpture (3D modeling), architecture (level design), music ( sound and music design), litterary aspirations (storytelling, dialogue)... It's perhaps one of the purest art form, in the sense where everything in a game is created by man... Unlike a movie that uses existing locations, existing actors and so on... A game is 100% a creation of artists, so it deserves it's qualification as "art". Creating worlds from scratch is definitively "art"... Although it might not always be quality, relevant art...

Thus, the main reason why people don't see games as "art" is because, in many regards, games are still stuck being made as commercial products, lacking purpose, intention, message and impact. Games are too often designed to appeal to a target audience, designed by committee and produced solely to generate income... In the end, most games are akin to michael bay movies, big budget megaproductions that are skillfully crafted, but don't go beyond basic entertainment. Nobody claims michael bay movies are "art", and rightfully so, most people consider the huge majority of games as "not art". Generic world war 2 cover based shooter isn't really art , so is generic racing game or generic sports game. For the most part, games are defined by their mechanics and gameplay features after all, not the richness of their world, their backgrounds and the complexities of the feelings they create on the player. In a sense, a game isn't art because the people that make them don't want to make art, they want to create "fun". Art is rarely fun.

That said, I feel we're still getting more and more games which I would consider "art"... Although one could argue that art and the typical game flow don't necessarily mixes that well. Often , game that stands out as "art" are games that break the basics of classic game strucures, either games focused mostly on narrative progression or games that break the mold in terms of immersion and player identification. In a sense, often, the less "game-like" a game is, the more it feels like art... Hence why "walking simulators" are often considered as works of art while by default, more action oriented "shoot the bad guy" games end up feeling like products... And for every Silent Hill 2 , we get a gazillion games that barely evoke anything other than basic "adrenaline" responses to stimuli. It's really rare to find a game that mananges to both nail gameplay and the "art" aspect... As if both are mutually exclusive.

Also, one could argue that games have such big developpement team that they lose that "personal" touch that permeates other arts. It's hard to create art when you have thousands of people collaborating and altering one's vision to create something. Art is something that's personal, for the most part, with the artist expressing something that's deeply rooted in the artist. Nowdays, the area of "super designers" that decide over everything is pretty much done for, so we rarely get "deeply personal" games, asides from smaller indie games and the occasional oddball like Kojima, who manages to create projects which are personal while still being carried by a large team.