It's Wrong to Pretend Video Games Are Art

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I sure hope this guy has his asbestos suit on because you know he's about to get flamed to death.

I like seeing good work honored in my field, but we shouldn't ignore the consensus of the centuries: games are not art. For some, the appearance of video games in major collections is seen as evidence that the medium is finally earning acceptance as a "legitimate" art form. Others, myself included, remain unconvinced.
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TS;DR s= stupid

I refuse to give that retard a page hit. I'm sure his reasoning is off based or he just made this as flame bait to get page hits.
 
Gotta admit, the original trailer for SC2 was really, really good "art".
 
Why bother flaming him. Volcano's are always a good choice when disposing of the garbage out there....
 
Well, it's just his opinion, but he's basically putting down all the artists who work on the games so I'm not convinced he's a good person.
 
Its certainly more artistic than the majority of "modern art" nowadays.
Art is what people decide it is.
 
That being said, I went to MoMA a while ago and didn't consider most of the stuff there "art" :p
 
The problem with digital art is it has no easy way to speculate on it. The art industry is based on making money, and it's seldom the artists who get rich.

If they allow digital art into the fold, they are Doomed (har-d-har)
 
Although I don't agree with his assessment, art does tend to be VERY subjective ... people don't always agree if "art" is actually art ... if comics and animation can be art then so can video games in my opinion ;)
 
kbrickley said:
Although I don't agree with his assessment, art does tend to be VERY subjective ... people don't always agree if "art" is actually art ... if comics and animation can be art then so can video games in my opinion ;)
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Games can be beautiful, deep and philosophical. If people can't call that art, there is a bias that needs to be overcome. Meaning: it's a personal problem.
 
They can allow old comic original art and old animation cells into art galleries because money can be made.

Games are going to be tough. There isn't a physical limited production object to buy and sell except the preliminary sketches. If right amount of those become available (not too many, not too few) they can be art. I don't think they use pencil/ink anymore for the preliminaries, dunno.
 
Agreed. "Art" is defined as:

The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture,...: "the art of the Renaissance"
Works produced by such skill and imagination.

It is not limited to any type of medium art is what draws an individuals interests.
 
i agree not all games are art.. but then not all movies are art, and not all books are art.

I wouldnt label Skyrim art.. but i would label Bastion as art.

to apply a brush "no games are art" or "all games are art" is silly.
 
soulman901 said:
Why bother flaming him. Volcano's are always a good choice when disposing of the garbage out there....
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Even though it's astronomically more expensive, I prefer the "fling it into Sol" approach... Very effective. :D
 
RIght... if you post a picture of the Sims thinking that that game is art, I would say the same thing. If, perhaps, you post a TRUELY artistic game in there, I am sure that anyone that reads this website will agree hands down that VGs are art
 
corhen said:
i agree not all games are art.. but then not all movies are art, and not all books are art.

I wouldnt label Skyrim art.. but i would label Bastion as art.

to apply a brush "no games are art" or "all games are art" is silly.
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A terrible game is still art, much in the same way a terrible painting is still art.

There's no minimum level of quality that has to be reached for art to be art.
 
I've seen actual paintings in art museums that are labeled "Art", but I find that they are very much NOT art, in my opinion. Some are just paint splatters on a canvas. I've also seen some that are very much definitely 100% artistic and amazing.

Games are the same way. I've seen some that are dog shit horrible. Others are just done so perfectly, from the visuals to the audio to the game play and story. Movies - same thing.
 
If I think it's art, then it's art. What you consider art may be something entirely different. Doesn't mean its not art.

Hell, you got a museum with an empty canvas on the wall that's consider art. I don't consider that art, but apparently enough people did to decide it needed to be displayed. Never mind the shit paintings that look like someone simply threw paint on it.
 
Art

Noun:

1:) The expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture,...: "the art of the Renaissance"

2:) Works produced by such skill and imagination.


I'm not sure anyone can prove this guy wrong better than Webster.
 
What about super meat boy, bit trip runner, journey, limbo, bind of issac lots of games, are, and should be considered art.
 
thebaest said:
RIght... if you post a picture of the Sims thinking that that game is art, I would say the same thing. If, perhaps, you post a TRUELY artistic game in there, I am sure that anyone that reads this website will agree hands down that VGs are art
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It could be argued that art is supposed to evoke a reponse, and the meaning or experience of art can be different from person to person. Art is therefore ever-changing. What's a word that is an accumulation of changing, personal inlfuenting media?


Interactive.


Therefore, it could then be argued that games could be the pinnacle of art.
 
Qinsp said:
Gotta admit, the original trailer for SC2 was really, really good "art".
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And yet it has nothing to do with the actual game itself. Thank god for that. I like SC2 because it has great multiplayer that is taken care of.
 
From what I found out about Johnathan Jones, he was a judge on the 2009 panel for the turner prize (this is the same turner prize that was awarded to an art piece of a bisected cow in formaldehyde, and a bunch of splintered railway sleepers made into a circle), other than that he is a self opinionated twat, that hasn't produced any art of his own besides writing s#!te.

If movies can be considered an art form, then so can games, someone spent time drawing and creating the characters and scenery, whatever way you look at that, it is an art form...And I'd take that over anything they call modern art, heck my slept in bed would probably be nominated if someone hadn't already done that.
 
Looks like a d-bag trying to be noticed.
The question of whether video games are art is not really up for debate. There is no denying that a creative expression through any medium can be considered art.
 
It's wrong to pretend to have the authority to tell people what is art and what is not art.
 
Games, like comics and Animation/film, offer additional dimensions to the art:

- Regular art is primarily a visual medium although some avant garde types might try to combine different mediums

- A good comic offers the visual art combined with the storytelling type art

- A good animation or film offers visual, auditory, and storytelling (like Miyazake's Spirited Away)

- A good game can be like a film with visual, auditory, and storytelling elements (Bioshock comes to mind here)

:cool:
 
I remember Roger Ebert's argument that, since a game revolves around user input, that your experience is likely to differ from the director's intention.

My response to this kind of reasoning is: Have you ever watched a comedy film and never laughed? Because if you have, then your experience has different from the director's intention. In fact, if you've ever looked at a painting and a sculpture and didn't feel the way the artist intended, then it would somehow invalidate all art.
 
People splatter paint cans on a wall and call it art. Someone put a crucifix upside-down in a jar of urine and called it art. If the standards for what is considered art are so low that a complete lack of effort and a deliberate attempt at offending a specific group of people can pass muster then video games absolutely are a form of art. After all, video games tend to be offensive and controversial. They've been blaming murders and other violent crime on Doom and other video games for how long now?
 
I think the author of the article is poorly skilled at expression and rationalization. So instead of well expressed rational thoughts it came out "Video Games Aren't Art."
 
Well to be fair, he probably feels frustration much like some here do with mobile games... "Those aren't real games" is a common attitude I see... the dude just doesn't want his museum experiences being diminished by something he doesn't relate to, probably
 
Ballistic, I thought the same thing when I read Ebert's words. Comedies are an extremely easy and frequent example of that, lol.

I'm going to go play Trine 2 and revel in the glorious, colorful world that I consider to be an incredible artistic expression for the videogame world :D
 
Youn said:
Well to be fair, he probably feels frustration much like some here do with mobile games... "Those aren't real games" is a common attitude I see... the dude just doesn't want his museum experiences being diminished by something he doesn't relate to, probably
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That would make for some pretty empty museums if we excluded everything some people didn't want to see ... I don't think most games are hang on the wall types of art (anymore than most movies or animated films are) ... however, they are definitely a participatory art form (like music) where they are best when experienced first hand :cool:
 
kbrickley said:
That would make for some pretty empty museums if we excluded everything some people didn't want to see ... I don't think most games are hang on the wall types of art (anymore than most movies or animated films are) ... however, they are definitely a participatory art form (like music) where they are best when experienced first hand :cool:
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It would be kind of hard to hang a song on the wall. However, you could mount the album cover, like you could mount a box cover of a high quality game. Or something.
 
I think there can be art in a game, but the game itself is usually not art. There are a few examples of games that attempt to be art. I think Braid is one of the very few that succeeded in being both a game and an artwork. I can't think of any others at the moment. Guild Wars 2 has a lot of great art and an artistic style that I really enjoy, but the game itself isn't art.

Then there are a few games that are presenting themselves as being nothing but art. There's an indie game maker called Tale of Tales, and the "games", like Bientôt l'été and The Graveyard, appear to be awful games.
 
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