Why don't people consider video games art?

boing
22

ART, n. This word has no definition. Its origin is related as follows by the ingenious Father Gassalasca Jape, S.J.

One day a wag – what would the wretch be at? –

Shifted a letter of the cipher RAT,

And said it was a god’s name! Straight arose

Fantastic priests and postulants (with shows,

And mysteries, and mummeries, and hymns,

And disputations dire that lamed their limbs)

To serve his temple and maintain the fires,

Expound the law, manipulate the wires.

Amazed, the populace that rites attend,

Believe whate’er they cannot comprehend,

And, inly edified to learn that two

Half-hairs joined so and so (as Art can do)

Have sweeter values and a grace more fit

Than Nature’s hairs that never have been split,

Bring cates and wines for sacrificial feasts,

And sell their garments to support the priests.

2 Likes
23

I know of at least one university art department (UCI) that has a gaming sub-department and it has existed for about 25 years. So …

Look up Robert Nideffer. Maybe you could write a post about his work.

1 Like
24

BAFTA (The British Academy of Film and Television Arts) have presented video game awards every year since 2004, for what it’s worth.

2 Likes
25

This.

What he didn’t say was that many/most films are not art either. Which I suspect he may have agreed with. I kind of get his view that if the point of a game is ‘winning’ (and also ‘fun’ as you note) it is not art in the way a good film is. But there are games now that are almost all ‘experience’, aren’t there?

(Disclaimer - have not played any computer games for maybe 40 years.)

The next ‘debate’ will be whether aspects of virtual reality (or some virtual realities) can be considered art.

3 Likes
26

There are also the annual Game Awards run by Geoff Keighley, but they are basically crap

27

Art can be fun. Anything that makes you think, exposes you to different perspectives, makes you uncomfortable, gives you pleasure, evokes an emotional response, etc etc can be art. Art is not just visual - books are art, music is art. Games are definitely art. Of varying quality and intent, like all other forms of art. Some of it (a lot of it) is commercial art, but that is still art

4 Likes
28

Of course it can. But not all fun is necessarily art, by a long chalk.

29

Yes, but something being fun or having the goal of being fun is not automatically outside the realm of art

30

The most convincing definition of art I’ve ever run across is this:

“That which remains unexplained the longest is most likely art.”

Said another way, if humans keep going back to something that refuses to stop being interesting or curious or enigmatic, that thing and its inherent ambiguity is often put into the category of art.

So Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel and da Vinci’s smile on Mona Lisa and Monet’s water lilies and James Joyce’s Ulysses and Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane and Jackson Pollack’s Lavender Mist and Frank Gehry’s Disney Concert Hall … all of these things are most likely art. They also share something extremely illuminating about what we call art; they are all intimately tied up with the authorship of their creators. This is why, when the Allegro from the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 starts, we don’t say “Ah, Concerto No. 3,” we say “Ah … Bach.” Art objects are made objects, made by human beings, and the ambiguity of that madeness is the thing that is so strange about them. So, the art object’s maker becomes a fundamental part of their curiosity.

So, can a video game 1) refuse to stop being interesting or curious or enigmatic such that 2) the video game’s maker becomes a fundamental part of their curiosity? Probably. Has it happened yet in all of the video games made to date? That seems improbable for the infinitesimal amount of time that video games have been around.

1 Like
31

Can video games be art?

14 Likes
32

Well, “art” in a more narrow sense. They’re creative human endeavors intended to convey meaning and provoke emotions, and film has a tradition that even the most “artless” action movies are a part of and build upon (and their makers do to some degree consider formal elements, for example, not to mention thematic and narrative elements, even if they are a mess) that put them head and shoulder above video games, historically. Games for a long time were being made, in the whole, without any conscious consideration of those sorts of issues.

Of course. But my point was that this was the only consideration of some game-makers. Solitaire and poker, for example, are games, not art, no matter how well made the cards, because of the function of the game. Of course, art can be made with the play of those games or their artifacts, and art can be made which references them as games, etc. but that’s a different thing entirely. For quite a long time, game makers were creating ever-more complicated versions of solitaire - that was the sole intention, and the idea it could be more than that didn’t really come into the thinking (much less the practice). There was certainly no theory, no criticism. (“This game is fun, good graphics, 9/10” is not criticism.) If there was any sort of analysis, it was purely in the realm of ludology. The early makers of art video games were being informed by new media art theory, as there was no video game equivalent. At this point plenty of video game art has been made - for every definition of “art,” though the old habits and ways of thinking about games persist to some degree, but the way video games are thought about - especially by the people making them - has changed a great deal.

I mean, you don’t have to tell me that. I got an MFA in fine art some years back, doing conceptual work that was mostly new media - including art video games.

3 Likes
33

The question is badly put, but that doesn’t mean games automatically deserve the same cultural status as Jackson Pollock or anyone else who’s been tarred with the same inarticulate brush.

Obviously software is as valid a medium as paint or clay, and yeah, art made from software will be shelved as “games” if only by default. But that’s a red herring; it’s not really what anyone’s arguing about.

When I see people insisting that video games “are art”, they usually seem to mean “I should get the same respect for playing Call of Duty as for hanging out at MoMA”. Which I agree with, but what I would poke at here is the feeling that games should be immune to criticism as culture. That’s backwards; if games were taken as seriously as fine art, they’d also be critiqued far more seriously, and for a typical AAA game, that critique would be absolutely withering.

I don’t even mean the cheesy Thomas Kincaid esthetics, dogshit acting, and infantile right-wing social consciousness that are standard in big console titles. Those things might be graded on a curve, as the acting in opera notoriously is. But even taken on their own terms, most games are just pure stimulus. They’re not aiming to be something you have thoughtful conversations about, and it’d be cruel to judge them on those terms.

But it’s fine! Gaming isn’t the same as the stuff turtle-neck wearers are into, and it doesn’t need to be. You can be nourished by both.

1 Like
34

What I meant was it is generally people one might considered “high brow” who are concerned with hierarchies of which media are a more “pure art form”.

Regular people tend not really worry about that. And others gravitate to alternative forms that haven’t classically been considered “high art”.

I can’t recall what the hierarchy is/was, I just remember painting is at the top, only because I used to joke about my BFA being superior as I had enough credits for a painting or a design degree.

35

I’m half-tempted to say it’s because they’re interactive, and these people think of art as something to be passively absorbed. But of course, there are interactive art exhibits, so maybe the more likely scenario is that they’ve just never played a video game, or at least not one that caused them to have any kind of emotion. That said, I think there might be a case for even early arcade games like Space Invaders or Pac-Man to be considered art- if nothing else, they’ve certainly inspired many artists.

3 Likes
36

Not just that they are interactive, but that the critics don’t understand that interactivity. Roger Ebert saying “you can do anything!” is an example of this. You most definitely can not. The bounds that are placed on the player in the form of mechanics, level/area design, the tools/abilities that the player’s character has to interact with/affect the game world and the way that the player controls the character to use those tools and abilities are all part of what makes games art

As for old games I think you can even say that game mechanics are artistic expressions in a lot of those early games (and in many games today! play Brothers if you disagree with me)

I also think that a lot of people think games aren’t art because they are typically 1. Commerl and 2. The product of a team. Of course this is silly because movies are art and many artists work as part of a team on their paintings/sculptures/fabric fences/glasswork and so on

I think that it’s mostly just gatekeeping and unfamiliarity that has us where we are right now

1 Like
37

The summation of artistic elements that make up a game can be art, but the game itself isn’t art.

Think of it this way: The Monopoly game is a beautiful work of pop culture art. The box is art, the board is art, the cards and pieces are art. The game itself where you roll the dice and circle the board collecting money and property isn’t art.

The same idea applies to video games. They can have compelling stories, great music, wonderful character and world designs, but the game itself isn’t art.

38

jeff bridges opinion GIF

User name checks out

3 Likes
39

Tapping a small metal Scottie dog on a game board path is not art much in the same way that pushing up on the D-pad is also not art. Creating the elements that make you want to push up is the art, the game being played is just a game.

A dazzling slam dunk is an art like a dance move, but basketball the sport is not art and playing basketball is a skill.

40

Why would basketball be “just” a skill and ballet be an art?

1 Like
41

Ballet doesn’t have a score or a way of “winning.”

Ballet is a performance based on artistic expression and basketball is a sport based on trying to outscore your opponent. What the Harlem Globetrotters trotters do, is more acting than actual sport and qualifies as art (not the greatest art in the world, but still). Many basketball purists would argue that the Globetrotters isn’t basketball because it is essentially a work. What the NBA tries to do on a match-to-match basis is a sport with some artistic moments.