Smithsonian And National Endowment For The Arts Ends Argument: Video Games ARE Art

[Tallise]

It's about time I say. If you think about it A story is concidered a type of art, a picture is concidered a type of art, a movie is even concidered art. if you put every peice of a video game into a different jar you would see a story, pictures, audio, and many other things, individually they are art, together they are interactive art :3

[Bojay1997]

Yes. And I call bullshit on that. It's not mine or anybody else's responsibility to tend to bruised egos based on arbitrary nonsense. I know I didn't declare "art" some sort of social badge of honor. Nor do I know who did. Why should I let that interfere with my hobby? If somebody out there thinks lesser of video games because they aren't "art" then that's on them. It has no influence whatsoever on any of our lives. I don't see the problem as being on people who deem X art or not art. I see the problem being on people who care about whether that person deems X art or not art.

Imagine this in any other scenario. Imagine if I were an astronaut training to go to Mars for the first time. Now imagine if a certain sect of people started saying how pointless that trip is because it's just a dead chunk of rock. What do I care what those people say? I want to go to Mars and those people aren't going to stop me. If I freak out about it then I'm the one with the problem.

It's the ultimate inferiority complex to care whether or not something is "accepted," socially or otherwise.



That's a waste of time and energy though because regardless of whether something is deemed "art" it's just a matter of time before it's just "what it is." If I sit down to write something, which I do quite often, I'm not thinking that I'm trying to be artistic or "making art." I'm just doing what I want to do. I don't really give a shit what the guy next door calls what I'm doing. He can call it art if he wants. He can just as easily call it interdimensional travel if that's what floats his boat. It has no bearing on what I'm doing or whether or not I can make a buck or two on it.

You'd think that video games being a multi-billion dollar a year industry is far more important to the whole "acceptance" thing than whether or not Roger Ebert thinks Sonic Spinball is a work of art. And, again, "acceptance" means jack shit.

I just get tired of this constituency playing the martyr card, "Woe are we, games and gamers get shit upon once again," or the inferiority complex card, "We just want to be accepted by the whole world." It's a culture of butthurt.

I think the first step to any kind of acceptance is being secure enough to not care what this guy is saying or that guy is doing.



Considering that I find Dumb and Dumber to be the superior movie...and incredibly entertaining in it's own right...

But, to address what you're getting at, I do find the whole idea of "high art" and "low art" to be some of the most pompous, elitist, and pretentious nonsense I've ever heard.



Why? Why is his view regrettable but yours is not? Weren't you just saying it's a very personal thing? Not to point any fingers, but this is the kind of butthurt I'm talking about.

This isn't junior high and the acceptance you're talking about has nothing to do with the kind of cultural acceptance I am talking about. In the astronaut example you cited, it's not about being "butthurt" (as an aside, when you use phrases like that it leads me to believe that contrary to your claims, you're not trying to encourage discussion, but rather just trying to stir stuff up and that you really are just a troll). If the general public doesn't get behind the mission, it means there will be less funding and generally less progress in the field.

I personally would love for gaming to become an even larger global phenomenon solely because I want many, many more companies to produce more innovative and "artistic" games. Cultural acceptance means more people looking to produce product and hopefully more niche and well designed titles. I think of gaming today as film was in the mid-60s when the studio system was breaking down and storytelling was returning to the fore as European film makers and American independent film makers began to create more niche films. That type of cultural and commercial acceptance is what can really take games to the next level which will be good for all of us.

[Rob2600]

the mona lisa is a piece of shit... to me its just some stupid bitch in a room

Wow. To quote Flack from April 18, 2005:

When I hear people say, "the Beatles suck", to me that's the same as saying "look at me, I’m an idiot." It's like walking up to the Mona Lisa and saying, "what's up with this bitch?"

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/show...813#post641813

[TonyTheTiger]

This isn't junior high and the acceptance you're talking about has nothing to do with the kind of cultural acceptance I am talking about.

I don't see much of a difference whenever this topic ends up in the media.

In the astronaut example you cited, it's not about being "butthurt" (as an aside, when you use phrases like that it leads me to believe that contrary to your claims, you're not trying to encourage discussion, but rather just trying to stir stuff up and that you really are just a troll). If the general public doesn't get behind the mission, it means there will be less funding and generally less progress in the field.

Well that clearly hasn't been a problem for video games so it's really a moot point. And forgive me for calling it as I see it. When Roger Ebert made his statements, and presented them perfectly cordially, the gaming public called for his head on a platter. I call that butthurt.

I personally would love for gaming to become an even larger global phenomenon solely because I want many, many more companies to produce more innovative and "artistic" games. Cultural acceptance means more people looking to produce product and hopefully more niche and well designed titles. I think of gaming today as film was in the mid-60s when the studio system was breaking down and storytelling was returning to the fore as European film makers and American independent film makers began to create more niche films. That type of cultural and commercial acceptance is what can really take games to the next level which will be good for all of us.

Again, this industry is thriving. A random "art" moniker is not going to change anything. If expanding the industry is the goal then arguing for acceptance as art is one hell of a roundabout way to go about it.

[Ed Oscuro]

My only concern is that gameplay gets lost with all this talk of Art. Yeah, sure, art, hoorah. But games were pushing the boundaries, in ways that "Art" tries to, twenty years ago (see: every bad ending for an arcade game you spent too many credits on). There need to be innovations from all angles. Unfortunately, "art" sells better than demos right now because the technology isn't there to show people how fun something is - screenshots are still the cheapest way to advertise and that pushes the selling game along visual aesthetic lines instead of how satisfying the gameplay is.

I realize that this all depends on misrepresenting what art (and Art) actually is - I would be more comfortable calling the process of balancing, say, the gameplay of ultimate late '90s arcade shooters an art than a science. When I see folks pushing games that look visually splashy (like Flower, not to say there's something wrong with that one) I am concerned that fragments the attention of the game-buying public further (it's already split between "realism" and "omg, graphics" along with a dose of gameplay), with good projects become hard to sell if the package isn't completed with splashy stuff.

I hope that quicker access to better online gameplay demos will help level the playing field so games can escape categorization. I realize that along with the new aesthetics are often bundled inventive new concepts in gameplay, but it seems to me that the best games are systematic in defining a robust and deep gameplay system and extending that quality to any sort of campaign, something that a lot of the "amazing" arty games have lacked for lack of resources. I guess part of what's going on is that a lot of people are out on the fringes - a problem of apportionment of resources, a problem of today's big studio system and the need to categorize games for customers.

But I also don't often really enjoy or feel like engaged for a long period with lots of the "indie" efforts, solely because of that missing spit and shine, or a story or something else that makes me feel drawn into a world. Looking at my very short "top games of the decade" list, few of them have any sort of engaging gameplay mechanics (something I lament) that would draw me in for repeat plays, but almost all of them have top-shelf production and, in their defense, are often better about providing a compelling campaign or set of puzzles.

Too many "indie" games, in my shortsighted view, have relied on gimmicks (not so different from retail games, but thinner; I think there's still a lot more to be done with even single-button games within better computing environments; Canabalt is an example of this) or the sandbox method, i.e. the George Lucas method of giving fans ice cream ("Well, here's a bag of rock salt. You mix that with a little water and some sugar and some cream and you've got ice cream!" - Patton Oswalt)

I make this distinction because there's an awful lot of AWESOME simple games, like Canabalt, that people go "sniff this is commercial rot" at, simply because they're Not Indie and made for a website or something. Stuff on Newgrounds used to be like this (except with a lot more blundering around and too many animated fart jokes or worse). I don't have it out for Indie, but if anybody remembers a panel discussion some years back about indie developers and filling the disc (i.e. the then-new or around-the-corner Blu-Ray) there's not a lot of hope to turn out polished competitive product with a very lean budget.

So yeah whateva'.

[SplashChick]

you're doing your best to live up to the film buff stereotype i laid forward and i for one applaud you for that.

but you're mistaken in your inference.

where in my post did you get the impression that i dont care about cultural history of foreign countries? ARE all things FOREIGN automatically art then to you?


listen, my perception of art may not coincide with YOUR definition of art, let me clarify something for you...THERE ARE NO STANDARDS FOR ART TO LIVE UP TO. PERIOD. THE END.

i feel the rapper nas is the greatest contemporary artist of our time, you may not feel the same way, and i might even take a little offense if u tried to discredit hip hop as a viable artform to begin with. but if u dont feel its art, i cant stop you nor would i want to. you draw from it what you will, it doesnt mean that you arent qualified enough to gauge what art is, it just means that we have a different outlook on the subject, we're both right.


i probably could have saved us both a little time by pointing out that your arguement was self defeating in that you answered your own post with your 2nd sentence, but i got alot of time to kill and nip tuck doesnt start for another 3 hours



P.S. I love foreign and indie films, chan wook park is one of my favorite directors and im an avid fan of anime. i DO watch IFC and the sundance channel when i have down time, so i wasnt taking shots at people who do, only the people who do so and automatically think it makes their opinion worth more than mine.

the fact that i even know who da hell jean luc godard is should have hinted at me being at least a LITTLE knowledgeable about film. still doesnt make an art critic words any less hollow to me though, sowwy


p.p.s. seven samurai is still 3 hours of black and white garbage.



woops....guess it really is art then

im gonna go eat an entire block of cheese now, wish me luck

You really REALLY don't understand art, this is painfully obvious. Art is not art because some random idiot thinks it's good, nor is it not art because some moron says its 3 hours of black and white garbage. If there were no standards that art had to live up to, art exhibits around the world would be filled with random, meaningless garbage; your saying this is really just laughable.

[SplashChick]

My only concern is that gameplay gets lost with all this talk of Art. Yeah, sure, art, hoorah. But games were pushing the boundaries, in ways that "Art" tries to, twenty years ago (see: every bad ending for an arcade game you spent too many credits on). There need to be innovations from all angles. Unfortunately, "art" sells better than demos right now because the technology isn't there to show people how fun something is - screenshots are still the cheapest way to advertise and that pushes the selling game along visual aesthetic lines instead of how satisfying the gameplay is.

I realize that this all depends on misrepresenting what art (and Art) actually is - I would be more comfortable calling the process of balancing, say, the gameplay of ultimate late '90s arcade shooters an art than a science. When I see folks pushing games that look visually splashy (like Flower, not to say there's something wrong with that one) I am concerned that fragments the attention of the game-buying public further (it's already split between "realism" and "omg, graphics" along with a dose of gameplay), with good projects become hard to sell if the package isn't completed with splashy stuff.

I hope that quicker access to better online gameplay demos will help level the playing field so games can escape categorization. I realize that along with the new aesthetics are often bundled inventive new concepts in gameplay, but it seems to me that the best games are systematic in defining a robust and deep gameplay system and extending that quality to any sort of campaign, something that a lot of the "amazing" arty games have lacked for lack of resources. I guess part of what's going on is that a lot of people are out on the fringes - a problem of apportionment of resources, a problem of today's big studio system and the need to categorize games for customers.

But I also don't often really enjoy or feel like engaged for a long period with lots of the "indie" efforts, solely because of that missing spit and shine, or a story or something else that makes me feel drawn into a world. Looking at my very short "top games of the decade" list, few of them have any sort of engaging gameplay mechanics (something I lament) that would draw me in for repeat plays, but almost all of them have top-shelf production and, in their defense, are often better about providing a compelling campaign or set of puzzles.

Too many "indie" games, in my shortsighted view, have relied on gimmicks (not so different from retail games, but thinner; I think there's still a lot more to be done with even single-button games within better computing environments; Canabalt is an example of this) or the sandbox method, i.e. the George Lucas method of giving fans ice cream ("Well, here's a bag of rock salt. You mix that with a little water and some sugar and some cream and you've got ice cream!" - Patton Oswalt)

I make this distinction because there's an awful lot of AWESOME simple games, like Canabalt, that people go "sniff this is commercial rot" at, simply because they're Not Indie and made for a website or something. Stuff on Newgrounds used to be like this (except with a lot more blundering around and too many animated fart jokes or worse). I don't have it out for Indie, but if anybody remembers a panel discussion some years back about indie developers and filling the disc (i.e. the then-new or around-the-corner Blu-Ray) there's not a lot of hope to turn out polished competitive product with a very lean budget.

So yeah whateva'.

In my opinion, true artistry in video games is shown THROUGH the gameplay, not around it. I know what you're talking about and it annoys me as well; these games that try to pass themselves off as art using pretty looking backgrounds and sprites while the player basically gets to do nothing interesting. That isn't art. If those pretty graphics don't envelop the gameplay experience and/or help it convey the emotions the game is trying to give, then it isn't art at all, it's just cool looking graphics.

It's also infuriating to me when games like Layoff force politics into themselves somehow and call it art. That's not fucking art, you just shamelessly stole Bejeweled's gameplay and shoved political bullshit into it. You don't instantly get art status just by being political.

[Icarus Moonsight]

My only concern is that gameplay gets lost with all this talk of Art.

QFT. Some of my favorite games are near completely lacking any art type characteristics. But they have rock solid gameplay.

I honestly feel that the push for all video games being viewed as art is all for external verification and justification. It comes from a false-self or at least, extreme insecurity.

Law of Identity: A is A
Games are Games
Art is Art
Games =/= Art
Architecture =/= Art
Cinema =/= Art
Literature =/= Art

You can have games with various degrees of artistic qualities, and even appreciate and display them as such, even in the manner you would with art. But, to create an integrated concept where games and art merge insofar as all games are considered part of the concept "Art"... That's an error in cognition and categorically speaking, tragic for both existing concepts.. Instead of a new concept, or reforming the concept of games or art, just use a description: Art Game. Look at VG art books. That's a descriptor with three parts, each pertaining to a concept; Video Game, Art and Book.

That is also why you have descriptors such as; Architectural Art, Literary Art, Cinematic Art etc.

There, hopefully that clarifies things from my side.

[SplashChick]

QFT. Some of my favorite games are near completely lacking any art type characteristics. But they have rock solid gameplay.

I honestly feel that the push for all video games being viewed as art is all for external verification and justification. It comes from a false-self or at least, extreme insecurity.

Law of Identity: A is A
Games are Games
Art is Art
Games =/= Art
Architecture =/= Art
Cinema =/= Art
Literature =/= Art

You can have games with various degrees of artistic qualities, and even appreciate and display them as such, even in the manner you would with art. But, to create an integrated concept where games and art merge insofar as all games are considered part of the concept "Art"... That's an error in cognition and categorically speaking, tragic for both existing concepts.. Instead of a new concept, or reforming the concept of games or art, just use a description: Art Game. Look at VG art books. That's a descriptor with three parts, each pertaining to a concept; Video Game, Art and Book.

That is also why you have descriptors such as; Architectural Art, Literary Art, Cinematic Art etc.

There, hopefully that clarifies things from my side.

It doesn't, because art is a concept, while games, architecture, literature, and cinema are actual objects. Of course you can't equate an object to be the same as a concept, it doesn't make sense. Games are not inherently art, just like any of the other mediums you listed; they are mediums from which art can be created. "Art game" doesn't make any sense because you are treating "art" as an object when it is not. Descriptors such as the ones you listed refer entirely to the artistic value of the given medium, they are not saying that the given object is an "art".

[Icarus Moonsight]

Then art book doesn't make any sense either, and you've lost me.

Architecture is the concept of design of structures. Literature is the concept of volumes of written word. They're not objects. The house or magazine or book is the object. I did say book was a concept, and I fudged it on that. It is an object with certain characteristics, and it has a categorical term to distinguish those characteristics with a word: book. Descriptors can mix objects, concepts and even other descriptors. That's what I meant.

[LaughingMAN.S9]

You really REALLY don't understand art, this is painfully obvious. Art is not art because some random idiot thinks it's good, nor is it not art because some moron says its 3 hours of black and white garbage. If there were no standards that art had to live up to, art exhibits around the world would be filled with random, meaningless garbage; your saying this is really just laughable.

lady...you test my patience, so i'll try to go a bit slower...



ART HAS NO STANDARDS TO LIVE UP TO, ART EXHIBITS AROUND THE WORLD ARE FILLED WITH RANDOM, MEANINGLESS GARBAGE...


...unless of course, you CHOOSE to give it meaning, you obviously do, i obviously dont, we're both right. art isnt inherently anything, its bound to the whims of perception.

example: a dead rat, dangling from a shoe string noose, dipped in yellow paint and strapped with a suicide note staple-gunned to his chest, might be heralded as a new wave of avant guarde post modernism by someone as "refined" and "cultured" as yourself, but to my untrained and uncivilized eyes, all i see is a dead rat, dangling from a shoe string noose, dipped in yellow paint and strapped with a suicide note staple-gunned to his chest.



the time u spend deconstructing my every post and telling us what art isnt, could be better spent trying to convince us what art is. explain it to me in particular as its clear that my reading comprehension isnt what yours is.

remember to tell me just exactly how many years of your life you waisted in film school, and how its helped enrich your life.



oh and btw



samurai seven......FUCKING....

















sucked.

[SplashChick]

lady...you test my patience, so i'll try to go a bit slower...



ART HAS NO STANDARDS TO LIVE UP TO, ART EXHIBITS AROUND THE WORLD ARE FILLED WITH RANDOM, MEANINGLESS GARBAGE...


...unless of course, you CHOOSE to give it meaning, you obviously do, i obviously dont, we're both right. art isnt inherently anything, its bound to the whims of perception.

example: a dead rat, dangling from a shoe string noose, dipped in yellow paint and strapped with a suicide note staple-gunned to his chest, might be heralded as a new wave of avant guarde post modernism by someone as "refined" and "cultured" as yourself, but to my untrained and uncivilized eyes, all i see is a dead rat, dangling from a shoe string noose, dipped in yellow paint and strapped with a suicide note staple-gunned to his chest.



the time u spend deconstructing my every post and telling us what art isnt, could be better spent trying to convince us what art is. explain it to me in particular as its clear that my reading comprehension isnt what yours is.

remember to tell me just exactly how many years of your life you waisted in film school, and how its helped enrich your life.



oh and btw



samurai seven......FUCKING....

















sucked.

No, you're just wrong and have no perception of what art is. Funny you're saying I'm deconstructing your posts when you're the one writing page-long responses to my 6 line posts.

[SplashChick]

Then art book doesn't make any sense either, and you've lost me.

Architecture is the concept of design of structures. Literature is the concept of volumes of written word. They're not objects. The house or magazine or book is the object. I did say book was a concept, and I fudged it on that. It is an object with certain characteristics, and it has a categorical term to distinguish those characteristics with a word: book. Descriptors can mix objects, concepts and even other descriptors. That's what I meant.

Alright, but it mostly didn't make sense because you can't really define an "art game". Games of all genres can have artistic value in both subtle and blatant ways, labeling something as an "art game" really does nothing to help describe it.

[pseudonym]

example: a dead rat, dangling from a shoe string noose, dipped in yellow paint and strapped with a suicide note staple-gunned to his chest, might be heralded as a new wave of avant guarde post modernism by someone as "refined" and "cultured" as yourself, but to my untrained and uncivilized eyes, all i see is a dead rat, dangling from a shoe string noose, dipped in yellow paint and strapped with a suicide note staple-gunned to his chest.

Stuff like this is never art, people who make edgy "art" like this are douches IMO. Are you Urzu's alt account, I swear with the ellipses, spelling errors and nonsense you post most of the time, that you are.

[Frankie_Says_Relax]

If you passed on it the first time in this thread, I again invite everybody to watch this:

http://www.megavideo.com/?v=SYMMJ3O1

[slip81]

I just hope that if video games are finally being recognized as art that it isn't limited to the "artsy" games.

But seriously, if this:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...an_CompRYB.jpg

and even this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fountain_%28Duchamp%29

are art, then certainly video games can be as well. Both of those are taught in the college art history course I'm currently taking, by the way.

I'm curious as to why you feel selected works of Mondrian and Duchamp shouldn't be considered art? Especially since a main point of dadaism and Duchamp's Fountain in particular were made to try and broaden peoples interpretation of what could be art. I think if he were alive today he'd be all for calling games art.

And Mondrian was basically about pure aesthetics, mainly concerned with removing the "meaning" element from art by using simplistic abstract to forms to force the work to be judged based on it's primary qualities like, balance, composition, form, color, etc. Though it could be argued that his work contains a deeper meaning and philosophy simply because of the fact that he felt so strongly about what type of art he was creating and why.

[Bojay1997]

I don't see much of a difference whenever this topic ends up in the media.



Well that clearly hasn't been a problem for video games so it's really a moot point. And forgive me for calling it as I see it. When Roger Ebert made his statements, and presented them perfectly cordially, the gaming public called for his head on a platter. I call that butthurt.



Again, this industry is thriving. A random "art" moniker is not going to change anything. If expanding the industry is the goal then arguing for acceptance as art is one hell of a roundabout way to go about it.

I think you're confusing financial growth with growth and maturity of a medium. I would agree with you that more people are gaming and buying games than ever before, but that's not the same as the industry thriving in the same way that film and other media have done. The commercially viable independent games market is fairly tiny and most of the releases in 2010 appear to be sequels. I'm not saying we won't get some good games, but growing the industry further will require even more mainstream acceptance so that niche audiences can grow which will in turn mean more titles and potentially more creative games. Whether you like it or not, the "art" moniker has significance to certain people in powerful positions to influence the public. If it didn't, Ebert wouldn't have bothered to even talk about it and we wouldn't be debating it now.

[TonyTheTiger]

"Art game" doesn't make any sense

Mario Paint.

I think you're confusing financial growth with growth and maturity of a medium. I would agree with you that more people are gaming and buying games than ever before, but that's not the same as the industry thriving in the same way that film and other media have done. The commercially viable independent games market is fairly tiny and most of the releases in 2010 appear to be sequels. I'm not saying we won't get some good games, but growing the industry further will require even more mainstream acceptance so that niche audiences can grow which will in turn mean more titles and potentially more creative games.

Most 2010 releases are sequels because games cost more to the consumer who thereby feels less comfortable taking a chance with a new I.P. A $60 gamble at GameStop is a bit bigger than a $10 gamble at the local movie theater. And even $10 is pushing it. None of that has anything to do with art.

Whether you like it or not, the "art" moniker has significance to certain people in powerful positions to influence the public.

And if that is the case, which I doubt it is, then bowing to that, caving in to the oh so powerful Art Gods, would be a straight up act of cowardice. Talk about selling out. If this image you're painting of the world is true, I'd rather see games buck the system and be successful on their own terms, for what they are, rather than be assimilated into some hive assemblage with the mentality that genuine success can't be achieved without succumbing to some art cabal.

[Bojay1997]

Mario Paint.



Most 2010 releases are sequels because games cost more to the consumer who thereby feels less comfortable taking a chance with a new I.P. A $60 gamble at GameStop is a bit bigger than a $10 gamble at the local movie theater. And even $10 is pushing it. None of that has anything to do with art.



And if that is the case, which I doubt it is, then bowing to that, caving in to the oh so powerful Art Gods, would be a straight up act of cowardice. Talk about selling out. If this image you're painting of the world is true, I'd rather see games buck the system and be successful on their own terms, for what they are, rather than be assimilated into some hive assemblage with the mentality that genuine success can't be achieved without succumbing to some art cabal.

Who cares? I just want more great games. If that means "selling out" to art critics, journalists or people with huge wallets, I could care less. Games are a commercial product, there is no bucking the system because they are now and have always been part of the system. They are created to make lots of money for companies, not so that you can feel all edgy because you like them and other people don't. Like films, I just want more games to choose from and like I have been saying consistently, mainstream recognition of games as art is one powerful tool in making that a reality.

[Aussie2B]

I'm curious as to why you feel selected works of Mondrian and Duchamp shouldn't be considered art? Especially since a main point of dadaism and Duchamp's Fountain in particular were made to try and broaden peoples interpretation of what could be art. I think if he were alive today he'd be all for calling games art.

And Mondrian was basically about pure aesthetics, mainly concerned with removing the "meaning" element from art by using simplistic abstract to forms to force the work to be judged based on it's primary qualities like, balance, composition, form, color, etc. Though it could be argued that his work contains a deeper meaning and philosophy simply because of the fact that he felt so strongly about what type of art he was creating and why.

I wasn't really trying to say that they are or aren't. I just think it's silly that a guy can take a urinal (that someone else made), tilt it on its side, sign it with a pseudonym, say "look at this art I made" and the fine arts museums of the world readily accept this (shortly later at least, after the initial outcry), yet video games, which often contain very traditional arts like classical-style music and non-abstract painting, struggle for even those elements to be recognized as "real" music or "real" visual arts.

As with Mondrian, that was my feeble attempt at a clever analogy in that his paintings actually resemble early video game graphics, I feel.

[TonyTheTiger]

Who cares? I just want more great games. If that means "selling out" to art critics, journalists or people with huge wallets, I could care less. Games are a commercial product, there is no bucking the system because they are now and have always been part of the system. They are created to make lots of money for companies, not so that you can feel all edgy because you like them and other people don't. Like films, I just want more games to choose from and like I have been saying consistently, mainstream recognition of games as art is one powerful tool in making that a reality.

And you have completely missed the point. Clearly this bowing to some phantom art cabal you think exists implies a kind of homogenization of entertainment mediums. "Damn, if Street Fighter isn't appreciated by Hamlet critics just as much as Hamlet itself then we're really fucked."

Seeing enemies who don't actually exist, interpreting even innocent things as personal attacks, and constantly feeling that you have something to prove amounts to a textbook inferiority complex. That results in a kind of overcompensation. But unlike the guy who's really small in stature and goes out to buy a huge truck, I see the gaming constituency going out of it's way to "prove" that games are art. Even if they are, the constant "Look at us! We're gamers! We play art! Hironobu Sakaguchi is a modern Shakespeare!" is immature at best and outright counterproductive at worst.

Games are games. Everything else is everything else. If games are art, great. If not, get over it. Not once have I ever heard fans of Monopoly or Chess decry random art critics for denying the "legitimacy" of their past time. They don't need it. Games don't need it. Movies don't need it. Books don't need it. I'll go so far as to say paintings don't need it. What's good is good. If it's good, and not sunk by poor marketing, then it will perform decently enough out there in the world. If it sucks, then it sucks. That's all that matters.

[Bojay1997]

And you have completely missed the point. Clearly this bowing to some phantom art cabal you think exists implies a kind of homogenization of entertainment mediums. "Damn, if Street Fighter isn't appreciated by Hamlet critics just as much as Hamlet itself then we're really fucked."

Seeing enemies who don't actually exist, interpreting even innocent things as personal attacks, and constantly feeling that you have something to prove amounts to a textbook inferiority complex. That results in a kind of overcompensation. But unlike the guy who's really small in stature and goes out to buy a huge truck, I see the gaming constituency going out of it's way to "prove" that games are art. Even if they are, the constant "Look at us! We're gamers! We play art! Hironobu Sakaguchi is a modern Shakespeare!" is immature at best and outright counterproductive at worst.

Games are games. Everything else is everything else. If games are art, great. If not, get over it. Not once have I ever heard fans of Monopoly or Chess decry random art critics for denying the "legitimacy" of their past time. They don't need it. Games don't need it. Movies don't need it. Books don't need it. I'll go so far as to say paintings don't need it. What's good is good. If it's good, and not sunk by poor marketing, then it will perform decently enough out there in the world. If it sucks, then it sucks. That's all that matters.

I actually suspect that you have no point, other than to mask your belief that games can't possibly be art behind a screen of claiming it doesn't matter.

I don't think it's about overcompensation at all and I'm not hearing anyone in this thread or any other brag about the fact that they are playing art. The reality is that I consider gaming to be like any other emerging form of media that the public is now slowly starting to discover. I'm happy and excited that people are getting to enjoy what I have been enjoying for almost three decades. I'm also excited that more gamers can potentially mean more diverse games.

As someone who works for a large media studio, I can tell you that the status of a particular form of media in the view of pundits, critics and journalists does make a difference. Corporate executives allocate resources based on their perceptions of what's happening in the market and those perceptions are directly shaped by pundits, journalists and critics. Whether that's right or wrong is a whole other debate, but I know for a fact that it happens and as such, I want video games to get the most resources possible. Therefore, I have no problem promoting the view that they are art. I guess I would just ask why you are even bothering to continue debating and posting if the status of games as art doesn't even matter to you. It seems like your statement should just be, "I don't care if games are considered art. The end."

[Rob2600]

More funding? From whom? Video game companies are going to continue making video games. That's their business, it's what they do. They fund themselves. Nintendo will continue to release Super Mario games, Capcom will continue to release Resident Evil games, Sega will continue to release Sonic games, whether or not video games are officially considered art.

Also, do you know many painters or actors who are living it up, raking in millions? All of the artists I know are scraping by, living in converted old knitting factories in Williamsburg and waiting tables to pay the bills. But painting and acting are officially recognized forms of art...so why aren't my friends getting all of this magic funding you keep mentioning?

[TonyTheTiger]

Seeing enemies who don't actually exist, interpreting even innocent things as personal attacks, and constantly feeling that you have something to prove amounts to a textbook inferiority complex.

I actually suspect that you have no point, other than to mask your belief that games can't possibly be art behind a screen of claiming it doesn't matter.

Interesting.

[Bojay1997]

More funding? From whom? Video game companies are going to continue making video games. That's their business, it's what they do. They fund themselves. Nintendo will continue to release Super Mario games, Capcom will continue to release Resident Evil games, Sega will continue to release Sonic games, whether or not video games are officially considered art.

Also, do you know many painters or actors who are living it up, raking in millions? All of the artists I know are scraping by, living in converted old knitting factories in Williamsburg and waiting tables to pay the bills. But painting and acting are officially recognized forms of art...so why aren't my friends getting all of this magic funding you keep mentioning?

Actually, they don't. While all of those publishers you listed do in fact have in-house development teams, there are still many, many independent developers which end up creating new games and IPs either under contract to the big publishers or prior to selling the rights to a publisher. Those independent developers are constantly being created (and sadly closing) and they depend on capital from investment sources (whether that be investment banks, private equity or large studio financing) just like any other media-related business.

There are actually many, many artists that make a decent living as full time artists and some that make remarkable amounts of money doing it. Similarly, there are many who don't make much if anything. It's the same in game development. I suspect if one day everyone woke up and agreed that paintings weren't art, the number of painters making a decent or remarkable living would shrink to nothing.