May 25, 2004

• Bungie's Marathon (made long before Microsoft bought them out) was verging on art almost a decade ago. A nail biting story that kept you playing to find the next twist. A story I might add, that's still being picked apart today. Other than that, there's the Myst games which were absolutely beautiful. (If a little too staid for my tastes. I'd rather play Zork in a situation like that...)
• Ah, Zork! Many happy hours were spent with it. Deadline and Leather Goddesses of Phobos helped realize the literary possibilities of the medium. Riven affected my dreams in ways no book ever had. The Ultima series, especially parts four, five and six, had an ethical and spiritual depth that was completely unexpected. The later Zeldas, including Wind Waker and Ocarina of Time, are special favorites, and shooters like Unreal, American McGee's Alice and Max Payne, if not quite art, are still terrific accomplishments. All of the above have strongly plotted stories and well-defined characters, and innovative design for the time they were made.
• I have been discussing the subject of video games as art a whole lot with one of my good friends recently. The whole concept of a virtual world is one that has barely been touched upon in an artistic sense, and I think there's a lot there to be explored. There's a parallel to architecture, because in some ways we relate to a 3-D virtual world in ways similar to actualy space, but it has much, much greater potential for invention. Unfortunately, the videogame industry right has a very strong parallel to the old studio system in film -- very controlled, a lot of emphasis on sequals and star power, and high budget and special effects often trumping real artistic merit. Big websites that report on videogames also follow suit: IGN and Gamespot, possibly the two biggest sites on videogames, rave about games the same way mainstream movie sites review summer blockbusters. What would be really interesting is if there were an independant developer revolution, in the same way there have been a few indie film explosions over the course of film history. It may not be that far away; more and more people have the programming and graphical knowledge to get an interesting, artistic indie game off the ground. Anyone here up for the challenge? Of course, some of the games within the big "studio system" of videogames are starting to push the limit. In my mind, much of what turns something into art is a self-consciousness of the medium and its advantages and limitations. Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, already mentioned, uses a cel-shaded graphical style that refers back to a virtual world, instead of pushing towards an unattainable realism. Another favorite of mine is Eternal Darkness, where as the character goes more and more insane, the game in some ways starts toying with the player and exploiting videogame conventions. And then there's one of the most fully realized virtual worlds of all: Planescape: Torment (sorry forth the lack of a link; it seems that both interplay, the pulbisher, and Black Isle Studios, the developer, are no longer in existence -- or at least not maintaining websites). I could rant and rave about this game, but meh, you should really just play it.
• From the Reason article: In the soundtrack-heavy skating and graffiti-tagging game Jet Set Radio Future (Sega), pirate radio DJ Professor K helps the "cool kids fight off the evildoers that want to take their freedom." The chief evildoer in this case is the CEO of a huge corporation that has bought the police and attempts to dominate Tokyo. In the cel-shaded world of this game, "freedom is a valuable commodity, and freedom of expression is even more so." That's a good point, and I'd definitely say Jet Set Radio Future is art. It presents a really eye-catching, stylized version of Tokyo that could double as the equivalent of a painting in a still frame. I'm pretty sure this game is almost three years old, but I haven't seen anything look quite as good both in and out of motion since. ..... Anyway, even though the last two movies were major letdowns, I think the forthcoming Matrix Online could qualify as art, especially for a MMORPG. If any subject material is begging to be translated to a real-time computer world, it's the Matrix...and plus the screen shots just look cool.
• JSRF would definitely qualify as art in my book. The fact that it had an awesome soundtrack was just icing on that cake. And on the Indie front, I'd say there have been a few indies in gaming history already. The aforementioned Bungie, pre-microsoft, was a fairly good analogue of an indie film maker. Two guys working out of their dorm to make a couple of Mac games, going on the success of those first games to make and publish more on thier own. Pretty Indie. Valve was another example, sure, everyone knows them now, but back before Half-Life, they were just a bunch of quake modders with mundane jobs like pizza delivery boys. (That one still gets wedge riled up) The problem with indie developers these days is the nature of the software industry. Anything really good gets gobbled up because the Microsofts and the Sonys can just throw obscene amounts of cash at the small development houses and they'd be insane to say, "no".
• Whilst I play a lot of games, and enjoy them, I'd never consider any of them to be art. I doubt a game could be art. Even the most inventive script so far written for a game (say, Shenmue or that game starring the Nameless One whose name slips my mind (uh, the game, not the name of the nameless one... Let's just stop these parentheses right here)) would not pass as a script for the most cliché'd Hollywood film. Almost all games with some kind of pretention towards art are based, essentially, around clobbering people. Personally, I don't think that computer games as an art form have developed beyond the analogy of the biggest, most stupid action film, or a particularly dumb Tom Clancy novel (notice how there's a million Rainbow Six games, but no game based on Gravity's Rainbow?).
• We're not there yet, but we're getting there. In twenty years, the technology is going to be outrageous. The question is if there's going to be any content. Really, the most innovative gaming experience of the past five years has been GTA Vice City... now can we do that again with more thinking and less shooting?
• For every million Rainbow Six games, you'll get one or two like Forbidden Siren. Japanese horror flicks aren't exactly high art, but they do, on occasion extend beyond big, stupid action. And while there may well never be a game based on Gravity's Rainbow, (A small mercy, as the complexities of Pynchon's narrative...or lack thereof... would be butchered in the translation from novel to game.) quite a few books have been made into games. Gibson's Neuromancer for one (though not a spectacular translation either) and an interesting experimental novel called Portal. Oh, and the game you're forgetting the name of is, Planescape: Torment.
• Ahh, a subject near and dear to my heart. The short answer is no. Games are not art. The slightly longer answer is yes. There are games that are art or close to it, but they aren't what you see at e3. They are small little things, probably written in flash, that someone has done on a whim or for love of the form. The even longer answer is that the commercial game industry is doing its best to kill any "art" that might be found in games. It isn't intentional, in fact most game companies would love to create something worthy of being called art, but it isn't likely with the current business model. That being said, I'm going to contradict myself once more and say that there are a few game companies that are close to art. Blizzard has come close, but (at least in my mind) only close. Nintendo has done some amazing stuff, Pikmin anyone? And Wind Walker does parts that could be considered art. While the game is lacking in some ways, the art direction was astounding. Cell shading in that game wasn't gimmicky at all, it was an integral part of the style, and the artists used it in some amazing subtle ways. The Jet Set Radio games also had style in spades, too bad the gameplay was so atrocious. WarioWare might be art, I'm not sure. And among the many brawlers out there I'm willing to give the art award to at least one. Probably the Guilty Gear games, but that's just me. (Although my modern western way of thinking about art sure gives the genre huge negatives for lack of real originality.) Oh and possibly Tony Hawk as a franchise. Actually, when I look back at it that's a lot of games I'd consider art. Wow. I might have to rethink my grumpiness about the state of the industry.
• In twenty years, the technology is going to be outrageous. The question is if there's going to be any content. The same is true of movies. Right now, CG can do anything, create any effect the writer and director can imagine. But are we getting better movies than we were ten, twenty, thirty, fifty years ago? Were SW I and II really better than SW IV? Was Matrix: Revolutions better than The Philadelphia Story? Special effects are nice, but plot, theme, character and acting are essential. Bad special effects can doom a movie, but good special effects can't save one that lacks those essentials.
• GameCritics has a nice editorial discussing this same topic here, which, in turn, had me thinking about the definition of art (a terribly subjective thing). Merriam Webster defines art as, the conscious use of skill and creative imagination, which I think can safely cover the realm of video games. There are many games, past and present, that can delight and excite the imagination. Beyond Good and Evil, Pikmin, and Animal Crossing are just some of the games that accomplish the goal of delighting and engaging audiences in unique and innovative ways.
• Any time a game makes me say, "Oh, no, no -- don't go in there! For god's sake don't open the door", I know it's art. I ♥ silent hill.
• I ♥ silent hill. I'll second that! The Silent Hill series is a game to play late at night with the lights off. Anytime when you go to sleep and find yourself dreaming about a piece of work -- be it a book, a movie, music, or game -- is when you know it has crossed the boundry.
• The question of whether or not videogames are art is one that has been frequently discussed by many people, including myself. Basically, I don't care if they are art. The only thing that could be gained by calling them art is freedom of speech protection and respect. Freedom of speech protection is important but as far as respect is concerned, I don't care. The people who are open minded enough to respect games on their own terms already do, those that do not will never respect videogames no matter what label is attached to them. As I always do when this question comes up, I suggest that "Is it Art?" is not the right question, but "Why should we care?"
• Video Games are definitely an art form, as anything involving creativity can be. Whether they are an Art form is another matter, but I would agree they are, though still a nascent one. One factor unique to video games is that they are an art form that could actually evolve itself out of existence. As the graphics get better, the possibilities get broader, but so does the time and money necessary to produce the art, at an almost exponential rate. Video games are movies where every prop, every set, every actor has to be designed, prototyped, built, and trained from scratch. How many independent (art) films would be produced if that was the case in movies? The art element in video games could very likely slowly leech away except for rare instances as it becomes a creative form solely populated by corporate blockbusters. For every Moulin Rouge, there are a dozen Hulks and Mean Girls.
• This discussion raises the question: what is "art", anyway? For me, "art" is any creative effort that changes the way I experience the world. If it causes me to think, feel, or see in a new way, or get an interesting perspective through the artist's eye, it works as art. This includes a great number of things not normally considered "art", including many video games. I'll second the praise for Eternal Darkness and Pikmin, mentioned above. Both are gems.
• were any monkeys able to get to e3? jccalhoun, were you there? i got the invite, but couldn't make it.
• No, I'm a lowly phd student, so I don't have the time or resources to make it there. Someday though, someday...
• On zedediah's question: The way I define art is similar. Art makes me see the world in a different way. But art the way I want to define it has an added criterion: it's timeless and therefore universal. Maybe it has politics and sociology and pop culture in it, but those are of little consequence to what makes it art. Non-academics don't read Dante to know what he thought about politicians and popes of his era, although he certainly includes those trifles. People read Dante because his imagery is so vivid and his language is so physical and strangely beautiful, perhaps unmatched in its intensity. So my question is this: what video games will still draw people's attention and captivate them in 2046, say, or 2500 (assuming we don't kill ourselves before then)? This rules out most of those games that only rely on technological advancements in visual effects and hopefully leaves in those video games that are great because of their strong gameplay and perhaps strong storyline (although that's not as important in a video game, imo). By the way, I think tetris is timeless. Do y'all agree?
• I think the notion of still drawing attention over time is interesting. Chess, checkers, go, tic-tac-toe are really old and yet people still play them, but we don't debate them as art. I think that videogames are pretty much in the same situation. Videogmaes can and do grab us and captivate us without having to get involved in the art debate. (don't get me wrong, I don't see anything wrong with games trying to be art)
• jccalhoun's comments have gotten me to thinking about the differences between games and "normal" art like novels, films. Do you consider performances art? I think the largest difference is that novels and films are objects, whereas games are interactive performances like theater or, to connect with the last question in my original comment, sports, where the audience effects roles and therefore affects the rules. (This might explain why story isn't necessarily important to a great game, since performances are judged by the live interpretation of the script (the rules) but not necessarily the narrative object of the script itself.) Am I being at all coherent?
• To put it another way, novels and films are more about the authors or makers, whereas games and theater are more about the players, the audience, actors, and the tension between them when the rules are enacted. Expanding further and getting a little meta, I think regular print journalism is more like regular art, monolithic, and more of an object. Blogs and filters like this, on the other hand, are performances, relying on all of us playing our roles and building off one another free-form but still basing our performances on the rules in the faq. And I have to say, the best threads on mofi are certainly up there with the best of journalism imo, but it's definitely a different form. Shakespeare is probably a good case study on this dichotomy between performance and text, since when his plays are taught in high schools as ART, they are normally not taught as performances as he intended but mostly silently and alone. From what I've read on him, Shakespeare didn't think his plays were art, he was basically playing around, treating them like, yes, games. It was his sonnets - true texts - that he thought were going to make him immortal. (And of course they did.)
• silently=silent
• derised- Good points about art, but I disagree with your conclusions. Games create a structured environment for us to play in. There are rules that must be followed, goals to be achieved, skills to learn, etc. There are moments of beauty that appear in any skillfully played game, whether chess or baseball, but I can't call these games art. Narrative works in print, performance and moving image, require us to submit to the author as they tell their story, which if told skillfully will move and entertain us. You called stories 'objects', but it is the active sequence of presentation that creates the work, and the enjoyment (if any) derives from this. Call it sequential art, like music: instead of a painting or sculpture, this art takes place over time. The work makes no sense unless played, performed, or told. Video games, I think, join these two ideas together. The player gets the structured environment to play in, but there is also a narrative, however subtle. If you're playing Quake or Unreal Tournament, you're the bad-ass warrior using your wits and skill to kill everything that moves, and that's all the story there is. If you're playing Final Fantasy, Ultima, or Legend of Zelda, the story is deeper and much more complex, and may never be finished as long as these series continue. The point here is that, no matter how much control you think the game gives you, you are still an actor in someone else's story, and just behind the scenes are the people who have worked very hard to create the environment you play in. This, to me, is where the art lies: in the skillful presentation of the game's story, creating the immersive world and guided narrative that allows the player to take part in an entertaining and satisfying tale. Just because someone like Shakespeare was trying to entertain doesn't diminish the artistic achievement. Art can happen in spite of the creator's best efforts. Damn! You pushed a lecture button in me somewhere. Sorry for the long post, but hope some of this makes sense!
• It is art when you can hold the bridge with 100 spearmen and 60 archers, and charge the concealed mounted from a flanking position and cause a rout, even though you're outnumbered 4 to 1. It is art when you alone hold the last choke point, your MG42 firing in controlled, accurate bursts across the courtyard, screaming for someone to bring you more ammo. It is art when you're so lethal, they vote to boot you from the server for cheating when you are not. It is art when you yourself can tweak the game (or mod it) to salvage a few more enjoyable playing hours from that platform. The game is just a canvas or a set of tools. It is not the graphics, or the music, or the sound effects that make it art. The art is what you can make of it.
• I'm not sure where I stand on the "art or not" question, although I think it's probably a question of symantics and am not sure if it's even worth debating (except insofar as it has caused some interesting discussion). The game that has come closest to Art that I've played -- is ICO. It's also the only game my girlfriend has ever been interested in. She didn't want me to play it when she wasn't around, because she wanted to "see what happened next." A simple, gorgeous game, that drew both of us in with the story, visuals, and audio. This isn't really about Art, but what I'm waiting for is an experience where I don't eventually run up against the boundaries of the game. I agree that Vice City and the like are pushing those boundaries further and further away, but not until I can invest myself in the reality of what's happening without being reminded it's NOT real.
• Well, as I've said before, I don't find anything wrong with games trying to be art, but i find the whole debate pointless. Art is an artificially constructed category and if that category gets opened up to include videogames, so what? Why are people so invested in art? As can be seen from my post on the "what should I watch this weekend?" thread, I watch what I like, and what other people think of it is pretty irrelevent. Games that are really good, are good, and that is good enough for me, I don't really feel the need to try to shoehorn them into another category because i don't see the point. I don't see people looking at paintings and saying, "that's really artistic, but it just sits there, you can't interact with it. If only you could make the Mona Lisa jump over obsticals and throw fireballs at bad guys, THEN it would be good" which is basically what people are doing with videogames. That was a bit of a rant, and I want to make clear that I am not against games having artistic merit, but I really think we need to interogate why that debate seems to come up so very often (see my first post in this thread for links to tons of articles about videogames being art or not).
• justification of lost time perhaps? maybe because it is still viewed as a 'kid thing' and not a 'respectable, grown-up' hobby?
• If there really was a game where you could make the Mona Lisa jump over obsticals and throw fireballs at bad guys, that would be so cool. And the controller would be made of wood, labelled in mirror writing.