What about certain games is NOT art? What is?

civilization IV, meanwhile, is powerful art.

chess as a performative act can be art, but chess the game is just a board, pieces, and a rulebook.

"the ideal art is a method by which a creator communes with an audience, lets them into him, tries hard to get into them, helps people notice connections and implications and ideas they might not have found alone."

this breaks down in the case of chess where the creator is ... is there an actual creator of chess? It feels like a game arrived at through iterative evolution.

the problem is in trying to nail a specific definition of Art, i think

I don't think it's impossible to nail it down. It's certainly a fuzzy category, but there are generally things we consider as art and things we don't and it is totally possible to build a working model of how we define the concept. It's not purely arbitrary -- there's a mechanism behind it.

there is, but a thread like this is demonstration of how undefined the art/craft definition still is, i reckon. or how disparate people's definition of art can be whilst still being recognisably related to the dictionary definition.

I mean, take something maybe more philosophically fraught than Art -- What are things that are Alive?
and ultimately, you can make some sense of it in that things that move constitute life, because as a mode of survival, it's useful to foreground moving objects versus stationary ones, and from this simple principle you can build a framework of how we think of certain things as living and other things as not-living.

But, for the most part, we can agree basically what is a living thing and what isn't, and with a little work, I think we can do the same for Art.

I just don't believe that. I think definitions of Life have historically been circling around the same measurable characteristics, but Art is demonstrably a different idea in 2011 than it was in 1711. And if we maybe want to argue for a coherent definition of Art today then there's no dominant authority that we could refer to for convincing support.

art sucks the big one

so do games

vanquish 4 lyfe

fuk u

there are discoveries and developments of edge cases on what constitutes life that must have changed its borders somewhat over the past 100 years or so (artificial life, discovery of microorganisms, etc...), so the fact that borders change doesn't present too high a threat for a coherent Art consensus.

the lack of a dominant authority isn't a problem either, if you suspect as I do that art as a concept has as much evolutionary basis as the concept of life/non-life.

let's approach it this way -- can non-human animals make art? which ones and why those and not others?

this breaks down in the case of chess where the creator is ... is there an actual creator of chess? It feels like a game arrived at through iterative evolution.

there are presumably a whole bunch of creators. the point is that's a set of rules, and an environment, created by some people (in this case over a very long period without knowing each other personally) for the express purpose of being played in by other people, who will bring themselves to it.

chess as a performative act can be art, but chess the game is just a board, pieces, and a rulebook.

sure, but ulysses the book is just pulp and ink. it only flares up when someone reads it. in chess, the interpretive act is to play.

xp

We could formulate a lot of conditions that we would probably agree were Not Art. I don't think you can come up with a set of conditions that we would agree defined Art? And by "we" I mean a significant majority of authorities qualified to grant a definition.

oh well no there is never going to be an Authoritative Definition of this. but my appeal-to-authority for mine would be the brittanica definition: "the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others". i think that's the most useful definition possible. in which case the are-games-art question is trivially easy.

the problem with folding appreciation of a piece into the defining quality of art is that it necessarily eliminates neglected art from the table.

I can totally neglect ulysses and be comfortable on the hearsay that joyce was really serious about the thing when considering its arthood,
but do people honestly think of the accumulated mass of chess creators when considering the arthood of chess, or rather kasparov and fischer's idiosyncrasies?
who is the artist in a basketball game? Naismith or Jordan?

it's the notion of Art as needing a single, unified Artist that's historically shaky I think?

the problem with folding appreciation of a piece into the defining quality of art is that it necessarily eliminates neglected art from the table.

well, the definition is that it "can" be shared with others. now, if it is never shared with others, that's a shame. call it "potential art", like an egg is "potential life". (under a nonscientific but popular and here more analogous definition of "life".) when it actually is shared with others--even if with only a few others! even if only with one--it comes into artistic life.

who is the artist in a basketball game? Naismith or Jordan?

well i mean the obvious line here would be, who is the artist in hamlet? shakespeare or olivier?

the fact that we largely don't give a shit about naismith but we do about shakespeare isn't just a cultural accident, I think, but speaks to some fundamental aspect about how humans produce the concept of art.

but let's try attacking this from a game-to-game perspective:

miyamoto vs. naismith -- what does miyamoto do that qualifies him as an artist more so than naismith?

I don't think it's impossible to nail it down. It's certainly a fuzzy category, but there are generally things we consider as art and things we don't and it is totally possible to build a working model of how we define the concept. It's not purely arbitrary -- there's a mechanism behind it.

― Philip Nunez, Saturday, February 5, 2011 8:57 AM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark

would be interested in this, I mean hasn't this been a Big Question since forever, if you are really able to answer this conclusively once an for all, I would like to subscribe to your newsletter

There was a recent scientific paper on the question why people laugh when other people tickle them but not when they tickle themselves, and the answer was because they're surprised. I think figuring out what Art is will be about that level of breakthrough, and might require the same amount of MRI scans.

i'm not necessarily convinced miyamoto does qualify more than naismith but yeah it's def true that most people would say he does. so, why? well the amount of his input has something to do with it--all naismith has control over in a game of basketball is (an earlier version of) the rules, but miyamoto (and his team) have control over the rules and images and environmental details of every level of every copy of the game. so it's easier to talk about what he does.

i would say that naismith is one of a series of people who were part of the development of jordan-era basketball, which was an artistic process. some of those people were players! which makes basketball, and sports in general, an odd kind of art because they are endlessly being revised and contributed to by people who are also receiving and interpreting them, but a lot of people would label such a thing as Art were it a visual artifact or a piece of architecture, so i figure you might as well plug it into games too.

basically i want the broadest possible definition of art and the reason i want it is this: because it minimizes the danger of having protracted arguments about the definition of art. much more useful is to talk about whether this or that game is or isn't good, and why.

What are people really worrying about when they debate this question?

I can't help thinking that there's an undercurrent of "Why isn't there a meaningful discourse about the cultural value of games?" when people mention the games as art issue, which is a problem that sure seems to be fixing itself these days.

Don't really think there's much underness to that undercurrent.

I mean if people could just agree that games where culturally valid/useful/powerful/just as good as film have a pat on the head then about 80% of the games as art discussion would stop.

where = where
i = idiot.

i give up.

selfpwned

the worst is all the thousands of people who wrote ebert letters about that and recommended he play games that have "incredible stories" that "match the best literature" and he took all the recommendations as votes, so i think the only video game ebert's played recently is "clive barker's the undying".

which is nothing against "clive barker's the undying" it's just not exactly a conversion tool.

I feel the goalposts of 'what is art' get moved around all the time, let's revisit this question in 10 years

"much more useful is to talk about whether this or that game is or isn't good, and why."

the art question is still something to be wrangled with because by and large the things that make for a great game also make it terrible, or anti-art, and vice versa. It's not a coincidence that the kinds of games that make it into museum exhibits are absolutely no fun to play.

"all naismith has control over in a game of basketball is (an earlier version of) the rules, but miyamoto (and his team) have control over the rules and images and environmental details of every level of every copy of the game."
This issue of control I think is one of the keys to figuring out the game/art distinction. There are kinds of games in which the creator has a great deal of control while the player has very little, such as crossword puzzles, but as great as crossword puzzles can be, they don't leap to mind as being very good exemplars of the best that either games or art can offer. What makes individual crossword puzzles deficient as a game or as art?
On the game-side, I feel like the lack of replay value, the inability of the player to alter the outcome in a meaningful way (other than getting the solution wrong) seem like deficits most people would agree on. What's missing on the art-side?

Are you positioning this as art vs. ludus, with ludus = fun and art = no fun?

One-time puzzles (crosswords, sudokus etc, as opposed to replayable puzzle games like Tetris) are interesting because they don't really fit in with ideas of ludic gameplay or creative / narrative play; you have to stretch the definitions to consider a crossword puzzle a 'game' at all. They are clearly gameplay-deficient because they have only one solution, and aren't replayable. What makes them artistically deficient is impossible to say without defining art, which is a question I still feel can't be answered.

the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others

...is a good start but fails to exclude design and decoration, and maybe even entertainment depending on how you define 'aesthetic'.

the ideal art is a method by which a creator communes with an audience, lets them into him, tries hard to get into them, helps people notice connections and implications and ideas they might not have found alone.

...I think this is closer to it, particularly the last clause. I'd go further, and add that art doesn't just help you to notice things, but aspires to present those things in a way that creates resonance, gets in behind your intellectual defences, and changes you / your understanding. I could spend all day elaborating on that, but let's move on.

So a crossword puzzle could be art if it was designed by, say, a poet, and the experience of completing the crossword puzzle was such that it touched you emotionally or changed your worldview. I have not encountered such a crossword puzzle but I can imagine it. I think it could be enjoyable, even entertaining, but it's unlikely that it would be fun.

Fun can't be your sole criteria for a good game though?

i dont even understand why its an important question... i thought ebert nailed it when he asked the nerds why they even care if Games Are Art... maybe you could think of a great Gale Sayers run as a work of art, but does it in any way change how you appreciate the run? of course not... its exciting and beautiful, that's all u need 2 know.........

I don't think it's an important question, but it can be an interesting way of looking at games and appreciating them. Looking for some kind of wider artistic approval is a load of old bollocks, yeah.

if games being fun are important to you, then this question is important, because the cultural establishment of game creators as artists threatens to change the distribution of what kinds of games get made -- basically you should expect to see more money and talent siphoned into games that are less game-like.

"Fun can't be your sole criteria for a good game though?"

I think fun is as essential to what a game is as motion is to life. Certainly you can have life that is mostly inert, but we would considered such life abstracted away from the primary exemplars of life.

"you have to stretch the definitions to consider a crossword puzzle a 'game' at all. "
the way around this problem is to treat the crossword form itself as a game, with the constructor not in the role of the author, but rather the opponent.
suddenly the crossword game becomes endlessly replayable, and the artistry is de-coupled from the game itself, which is only a series of rules governing
how one is allowed to construct the puzzles.

So ideally, if you wanted to buy a videogame version of crossword puzzles, you'd get one that simply embedded the rules, which you could then play against opponents of various degrees of artistry. The videogame-as-art paradigm would package and sell each individual puzzle as a different game. So you can see how on a purely $ level, gamers lose out.

"So a crossword puzzle could be art if it was designed by, say, a poet, and the experience of completing the crossword puzzle was such that it touched you emotionally or changed your worldview. I have not encountered such a crossword puzzle but I can imagine it. "

What is it about crossword puzzles that prevent this from thus far happening? You can view the general act of writing poetry as a kind of game involving wordplay, so what is it about the generalized game that affords artistic expression more easily than in the specific wordplay game of crosswords? I suspect it is something in the structure of the game itself.

the games as art 'debate' is marginally harmful in that it encourages ppl to underappreciate or maybe just obscures how best games really work - physically, aesthetically, neurologically - in favour of highlighting aspects of 'games' that are tangental to the most appealing parts of 'gaming'

super mario bros. 3 isnt any more 'art' than pale fire is a game - you can be a reader or a consumer or a critic but you cant be a player of 'art' this distinction matters

Pale Fire doesn't strike me as the best counter-example :D

haha it just came to mind because nabs once referred to it as 'a kind of game', which it sort of is, but not really

it's kind of telling how audiences will turn terrible or deficient art into a kind of game
(e.g. rocky horror, MST3K, garfield - garfield)

xp

It belongs to a kind of PoMo fiction that generates meaning almost without limit tho which is kind of game-y, kind of crossword-y too.

I only think about this on a semantic level really. What are the reasons why gamers wd want their hobby to be considered Art? Except to have a snappy comeback when yr parents are mocking you?

if games being fun are important to you, then this question is important, because the cultural establishment of game creators as artists threatens to change the distribution of what kinds of games get made -- basically you should expect to see more money and talent siphoned into games that are less game-like.

Like the way the cultural establishment of some film-makers as auteurs has siphoned money and talent away from Hollywood blockbusters and into art-house cinema?

I don't think there's any danger here.

the games as art 'debate' is marginally harmful in that it encourages ppl to underappreciate or maybe just obscures how best games really work - physically, aesthetically, neurologically - in favour of highlighting aspects of 'games' that are tangental to the most appealing parts of 'gaming'

Which is why, if we're going to have this conversation, NV's argument about having a definition of art that's appropriate to the medium is important. Nobody criticises a Henry Moore for its lack of character development. We just aren't there yet with games, either as critics or creators.

What are the reasons why gamers wd want their hobby to be considered Art?

I don't. But I am v. v. interested in the cultural impact of games, just because it's massive and until recently, relatively unexplored. As a writer, I'm fascinated by the apparent conflict between ludus and narrative play. Not to mention there's a dire need to address the issues of sexism and violence & the potential impact of both on an immersed player (not that I mind the violence personally, but if one more developer expects me to identify with their male appetites I'm a gonna shoot them in the neck until their heads done fall off.)

seems pretty simple to me.

A lot of people work on one game. A lot of these people are artists proudly contributing to the game their 'artistry'.

all this art is strung together with code and other non-art type seriousness, to make a game.

So a game is a form of entertainment, but uses art to portray itself.

Anyway, LBP has a tonne of lovely art but it's jumping mechanism (not art) sucks major balls.

zora why do u keep talkin about ludacris

b/c I am ludicrous

"Like the way the cultural establishment of some film-makers as auteurs has siphoned money and talent away from Hollywood blockbusters and into art-house cinema?"

1. Auteurism afflicts Michael Bay as much as it does Lars von Trier
2. Auteurism doesn't make movies less movie-like, but it does make games less game-like.

The New Yorker profile of Miyamoto certainly plays up the auteur aspects of his role, but he has clearly subordinated these impulses to the benefit of the game remaining a game. Is this something the current crop of game designers will feel bound by?

As a business model, treating games as art is a great proposition -- spend less money developing the game rules and engines that can more or less be copied by your competitors, spend more money on the trademarkable, copyrightable, merchandizable art-trappings.

"all this art is strung together with code and other non-art type seriousness, to make a game."
This doesn't speak well of games (or coding) as an artform, and makes it sound as if games are no more a vehicle of expression than someone's meticulously arranged record collection, but that does seem to be the way the industry is heading.

w/r/t Angry Birds, the game itself is something that's been around for awhile in the form of various catapult-type games, a few versions of which have nearly identical controls and gameplay as Angry Birds, but as popular as those versions were, none of them made the amount of money as Angry Birds, which is disheartening if you want to see people encouraged to make newer and better games rather than newer and more marketable trappings around existing ones, or worse, things that are not games at all.

i dont even understand why its an important question... i thought ebert nailed it when he asked the nerds why they even care if Games Are Art... maybe you could think of a great Gale Sayers run as a work of art, but does it in any way change how you appreciate the run? of course not... its exciting and beautiful, that's all u need 2 know.........

― My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Princess TamTam), Sunday, February 6, 2011 7:55 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

this is basically my opinion

there was a time when Art wasn't even "art" and so, by that criteria, sure games are art. but since the time when great masters wore the livery of servants while covering up bare walls, art has taken on a lot of other narrower and heavier expectations so it's not really a question that can be answered without really digging into the premises. we know what games are, asking whether those experiences and products are artistic is basically to ask, what is art these days?

i think this question comes up more and more these days because video games are now becoming technically advanced enough to make them compare directly to the last big "are they art?" artform: cinema.

and frankly, as much as i love them, as movies, games are routinely really shitty. there isn't a game yet where i wouldn't have gladly done a rewrite of the scripted elements, a re-take of all the v/o and a re-edit of all the cutscenes. even your well-regarded rockstar titles are sub-direct-to-dvd horseshit.

Seriously? You'd rewrite or re-record stuff like Grim Fandango or PS:Torment? How?

i never played grim fandango. i remember liking planescape except for the goofy skull which was a little too princess bridey

the video game equivalent of "show, don't tell" would be the elimination of cutscenes altogether.
but to give props to rockstar, the radio DJ stuff is onion-level comedy.

yeah that's otm

but you can't escape the "narrative element" (if we're dividing things up that way). half-life was a gold standard imo, told a pretty great story with no cutscenes and a character who didn't talk. every now and again people talked to you (more in HL2 obv) but most of it is just details in the changing environment.

this is really hard to pull off in open world games cos you can kind of go everywhere and do what you want. it's hard to write around that convincingly cos things so easily stop making sense in that context. "so, you're new in town? let me give you this intro mission" no i've been tooling around doing side shit for 70 hours already thx.

"i might think affordances are the primary medium, the paint, of artists who make games."
the problem with this idea is that the affordances are tied into the interface elements, not necessarily the game itself. going back to the chess example, you can play chess in multiple modalities (using live people, a marble chess set, on an ipad, in your head), each with its own sets of affordances, but the game itself remains constant.

this is a new word that you just taught me so i defer to you, but wiki sez: "An affordance is a quality of an object, or an environment, that allows an individual to perform an action." so while all those interface things you list are indeed affordances, isn't it also an affordance that a knight moves in an L and can jump over pieces? that the knight has a quality which allows a chess player to perform L-shaped jump moves with it? and this quality is granted to the knight by the game designer (in chess obviously kind of a diffuse concept as we've already been over). if i'm misusing the word then just forget it, but either way, that's part of what i mean by design, and i think it's artistic.

miyamoto does make sure the pieces have a good weight and slide across the board right, but he also designs the en passant rule: he designs how the things in the game interact with each other. like, here's a "rule" of super mario 64: if you jump against a wall and press A at the instant of contact, you fly off the wall at a 65-ish-degree angle. this is simultaneously a visual/auditory/tactile experience, a "move" in various puzzles, and one of many means by which the player can improvise interaction with the world. the en passant rule is all of these things except the first one; that's the province of people who design pieces and boards. one of the ways video games are different from chess (and maybe why people classify them differently?) is that a video game designer designs the game and the board. miyamoto's good at both--i remember reading someone somewhere enthusing just about the way mario's jump feels, about how unnaturally high it is while still having limitations, about the pleasure of the sound it makes, etc..

anyway. again, i think the best way to talk about this stuff is to talk about what works or doesn't work in specific games, and why.

(should be noted here that i'm using "miyamoto" as synecdoche for "miyamoto's team", if necessary; i don't actually know the credits on any of the games i'm talking about)

'Miyamoto was like (and I paraphrase) "We came up with a demo version of SM64, which was literally just the mechanics of how Mario moved and jumped. And controlling Mario was so satisfying an experience in and of itself that I was content to leave that as the "game". But others at Nintendo persuaded me that we actually needed levels and stuff."'

I think I'm with Miyamoto on this one, but this makes his work great neither as art nor game, but rather more like a well-crafted instrument, like a knife that's a pleasure to wave around even if you have nothing to cut. But maybe he's uniquely good at this? Every other game seems quite clumsy by comparison, or requires a ridiculous learning curve before you can appreciate its mechanics. (the button combinations on fighting games never made much intuitive sense, but obviously there are dudes who can become jedis at it)

Every other game? c'mon.

If you look at sonic, which has about the simplest interface possible (1 button), there's still a certain rigidness to the controls that make it less joyous than mario.

Every other game? c'mon!

oddworld was pretty cool

so was boy and his blob

the first serious sam was kind of art right because it made me all lollllllllll at the concept of fps

just the name 'croateam' brings a smile.