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

[LaughingMAN.S9]

I'm guessing Ebert will not be attending the exhibit...

While I view some games as having art like qualities, I still can't think of them as "Art". Love and appreciate them as I do. Someone explain to me how Cabela's Billy Big-Mouth Bass and Deercide Fest 08 qualifies as art and I might be on the verge of shifting opinion. Oh, and the Smithsonian... You're not the Louve, get over yourselves.

that would depend on how you define art dont you think?

i think this like most anything in life is open to interpretation, governed by the courts of both public and personal opinion.

of course to use the word "art" as a blanket term enveloping the entire spectrum in anything gaming related is not only egregious but incredibly presumptious, because not all games fall under the same umbrella much in the same way that not all movies do.

you wouldnt put dumb and dumber in the same pocket as you would eternal sunshine of the spotless mind or the truman show would you? likewise i wouldnt put metal gear solid in even the same universe as army men. but im sure there is some misguided soul out there who thinks army men was the ps1's singular magnum opus. who am i to argue?


i hate these pretentious art house film reviewers sipping their 20 cent coffees from 9 dollar cups, typing up reviews on on obscure criterion collection films no one has ever heard of on macbooks, using their sharp and signature "acid-tongued" prose for their blog that no one reads, using words like "trite", "non-conformist" and "contrived" in whatever hip new "anti-establishment" soho hole in the wall coffee shop, waving around their nyu film degrees/pyschological validations, believing with every fiber of their being, that somehow having the sundance channel makes their opinions on all things art, somehow more valid than yours.

"oh but i've seen everything jean luc goddard has ever made!"

wow really? GO FUCK YOURSELF, seven samurai sucked, a film being foreign doesnt automatically make it better and no matter what you want to believe, FIGHT CLUB IS NOT AN INDIE FILM!


i would also like to add...

that the mona lisa is a piece of shit, i dont care about the whimsical interplay of light and shadow and all that garbage, to me its just some stupid bitch in a room, i consider the watchmen & dark knight strikes again graphic novels to be some of the finest examples of literary art in history, but if i said that to a librarian, she'd probably tell me that alan moore is a douche and that ernest hemingway probably had sex with my mother.

point is, given that the word "art" is so mercurial and context sensitive, it shouldnt be taken so seriously when self appointed judges on all things art cosign it or not.

i personally define art as anything that can be perceived as being emotionally provocative, if beethovens 9th (an admittedly moving piece by conventional standards) is considered art of the highest order, then why can't the same be said of the wu tang clans enter the 36 chambers or nirvanas in utero?

art is subjective by its own admission, regardless of credentials, it should never be dictated, especially by a person who isnt involved or a part of the subculture. ebert is no authority on the matter and neither is the smithsonian. the smithsonian coming around and labeling it as such is great, but should in no way shape or define your views on it one way or the other. you all have the freedom to decide for yourself.


hideo kojimas personal view on gaming not being art is lamentable, especially considering metal gear solid and mgs4 are 2 of the best examples of gaming as art. i found both genre defining blockbusters to be 2 of the most moving, visually stunning, engrossing, cinematic and interactive expierences i have ever witnessed. but ultimately, he doesnt get to decide how i feel on it. the fact that its interactive shouldnt be reason to exclude it from being in the same company as picasso (another artist i think sucks), monet, charlie parker, the beatles, futura 2000, shakespeare or Dostoievsky.


moral of the story? art is just a word, it can be lent meaning, but only if the beholder wills it to have one, forever a product of the human condition, slave to our ever changing fickle nature

finallyyyyyy.......FINISHED!

[TonyTheTiger]

But it's a word that has the power to bring social acceptance and inclusion.

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.

As someone who has been an avid gamer for going on 30 years now, it has only been recently that playing games has been seen as something more than what nerdy little kids do in their bedroom. With the general public starting to recognize that like other media, games can be considered artistic or art, it reduces the level of stigma attached to being a gamer. That's the reason I care so much.

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.

you wouldnt put dumb and dumber in the same pocket as you would eternal sunshine of the spotless mind or the truman show would you?

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.

hideo kojimas personal view on gaming not being art is regretable

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.

[SplashChick]

seven samurai sucked

Stopped reading here, it's obvious to me you don't have any real perception of what art is. Something isn't automatically art just because someone says so, there are still standards that have to be lived up to. Just because you don't care about cultural history of foreign countries and hate reading subtitles doesn't mean the movie sucked or that it isn't art. It just means you don't care about it and aren't one to judge it.

[Aussie2B]

that the mona lisa is a piece of shit, i dont care about the whimsical interplay of light and shadow and all that garbage, to me its just some stupid bitch in a room

Protip: The background is a landscape, not a room.

[LaughingMAN.S9]

Stopped reading here, it's obvious to me you don't have any real perception of what art is. Something isn't automatically art just because someone says so, there are still standards that have to be lived up to. Just because you don't care about cultural history of foreign countries and hate reading subtitles doesn't mean the movie sucked or that it isn't art. It just means you don't care about it and aren't one to judge it.

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.

Protip: The background is a landscape, not a room.

woops....guess it really is art then

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

[LaughingMAN.S9]

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.

i only meant insofar as, it kinda sucks that one of the greatest pieces of art imo, not just in gaming, but i mean in general to me, isnt looked at and appreciated as such by the very person who created it, but i also go on to say its not really that big of a deal tho if u read further on, its more funny than anything i guess is what im trying to say.

its the same type of reaction you'd probably get if one if one of your friends happens to think that your favorite car is one of the ugliest pieces of shit he's ever seen. you'd probably let out a noticeable guffaw before shrugging it off like "ehh" whatever.

[TonyTheTiger]

i only meant insofar as, it kinda sucks that one of the greatest pieces of art imo, not just in gaming, but i mean in general to me, isnt looked at and appreciated as such by the very person who created it, but i also go on to say its not really that big of a deal tho if u read further on, its more funny than anything i guess is what im trying to say.

its the same type of reaction you'd probably get if one if one of your friends happens to think that your favorite car is one of the ugliest pieces of shit he's ever seen. you'd probably let out a noticeable guffaw before shrugging it off like "ehh" whatever.

I don't want to come off as if I don't "get it" or as if I'm intentionally feigning ignorance. I do understand the idea behind the general feelings of art and why people like their stuff to be "in the big leagues" so to speak. I'm just really apathetic to the whole status seeking rat race which is what this whole "are games art?" debate always seems to boil down to.

[LaughingMAN.S9]

I don't want to come off as if I don't "get it" or as if I'm intentionally feigning ignorance. I do understand the idea behind the general feelings of art and why people like their stuff to be "in the big leagues" so to speak. I'm just really apathetic to the whole status seeking rat race which is what this whole "are games art?" debate always seems to boil down to.

same

[Berserker]

This is just my opinion, but I think the definition of art should really only matter to the person creating the art at the time it's being created — the idea there being that the intention shows through somehow in the work itself. So to me the definition of art is something that serves no real-world purpose other than to exist for the sake of itself as an embodiment of pure expression, but that's only something I think about when I'm trying to create something. The rest of the time, why should it matter?

And I should say that even that isn't so much an actual intention, but more like just the foundation that you lay down, upon which other meaningful intentions and expressions can be built. I don't appreciate art, I appreciate the conveyance of intention, and the manner — the elegance, beauty, or perhaps the cleverness — in which that intention is conveyed. You don't need to be an artist to understand intention, you simply need to be human. And you don't need something to be considered art before it's then able to convey intention.

So I realize this is all very broad and vague, but it's meant to be, because it's covering a pretty wide range of things. It's covering everything that's considered art, and many things that aren't, such as design, engineering, architecture, writing, and storytelling. You might notice that many of those things can also be applied to something like video games.

My personal definition of art doesn't interfere with my ability to appreciate and be touched by a well-designed bridge, or a great story, or a moment of beauty in a scene from a film or video game — and this is precisely because I choose only to apply this definition to my own actions of creation.

[Ed Oscuro]

This is just my opinion, but I think the definition of art should really only matter to the person creating the art at the time it's being created

Then some guy decides that it's not art unless it's making a point, and that's why we can't have nice things.

Honestly, art is just squicking emotions deep within the primitive brain, and the problem with academia is that people in arts that really shouldn't feel worried about overhauling society start to feel worthless unless they're making "statements." Just letting art be aesthetics - that's fine by me.

[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.