Video game is not art - Hideo Kojima

[Helm]

I am sorry, it doesn't seem you're understanding me. I didn't look for your subjective answers to my questions. They were there to show how fundamentaly unanswerable they are objectively. That was my point.

[Luzeke]

I'll probably just say what someone else said over again, but I jujst felt a need to voice myself in the discussion! 

Firstly, I agree totally that it's individual and also that what claims to be art, is art. Just the fact that this;

, is considered high/fine/whatever- art proves that point nicely.

The main difference between art and commercial art is that each piece (eg, a sprite, a song etc) is supposed to invoke a particular emotion, whereas art mostly (but not always) aims to prove a point, portray a string of thought from the artist or critisize society. Not meaning that this cannot be done in games, but mostly not in the games actual art then. As art, games are actually very versatile, since they consist of various different forms of art (2D art, 3D art, Cinematography, Music, Storytelling, Acting etc) It's kinda funny, of the four really big commercial artforms (movies, music, books & games) movies are absolutely the most stagnant one of them all.

Here in sweden there's a debate going on, where an ideal organization (I think they called themsleves Fair Play or something) wants games to be recognized as culture.

I myself consider games as an artform (to me, the artform alongside to comics  ). There's still alot of unexplored territory in games. Amusingly enough, those territories 'almost' belong to the indie-scene, since the 'big' companies doesn't have the guts to make something weird! We need a game version of (and I quote Moe from the Simpsons) "Weird, for the sake of weird."

Let us all delve into the vast ocean of weirdness! 

[Xion]

Yeah, art is pretty much undefinable.
But in my view, everything is art, except that which is deconstructive/destructive to the world or environment. So, despite the clichè of "the art of war," war is infact, in my mind, not at all artful.

But with that said, as with every art, there is both high quality and low quality art, as well as good art and bad art. I think that pretty much all art falls somewhere in two of these four categories, and each to it's own varying extent, but only completely relative to the individual who percieves it. High quality means it's got...well, high quality. Good art is more of an objective thing containing things like the art's content, and whether it's done in good or bad taste. High quality art can be done in bad taste, as well as low quality art having good intentions behind it.

But of course there are exceptions to everything.

Back to the conversation of games.

Games fall into the same categories, methinks, with games like Starfox (64) having high quality but are terrible for being represented as art. On the other hand, Final Fantasy 7 would be an excellent example of art as games (note, not in games), but I personally hated it and think its execution as a game (completely ignoring the artistic aspects and focusing on the gameplay) was low quality.

But then again, the gameplay is pretty much the biggest part of art in games, so I guess FF7 would be bad art as far as that goes.

I have thusly concluded that my theory is incorrect and therefore the entirety of this post is null and void.

Carry on. I never said this.

[Darien]

I don't know, Xion, it seems to me that your decision to exclude destructive things from art seems arbitrary to me, only based on the idea that destruction is bad and art is good.  Would things contributing to the destruction of an oppressive environment be, then, not art?  And things contributing to the construction of the same oppresive evironment be art?


On the subject of video games, here are some questions I'd like to raise, I don't know the answers myself:

Is game of Chess art?  How about the act of playing chess?

If you replace one opponent with a computer, does it change anything?

How about if you then add a storyline about your king trying to defeat the other king, and adding an ending or what have you, is that art?

[MoD]

My opinion on the chess one is no. Chess is a game of perfect information; it's processing power and time that affects the outcome of the game and the benefit of each move, not someone's emotions and feelings (usually the basis of art). If you're playing chess and trying to get something to happen, such as the opponent to move his knight to E5, it might be art, but that depends on if you're playing against a perfect opponent or not. If you're playing against a perfect opponent such as a computer (not a current one but one that has enough processing power to BE perfect) then you can always tell what move they'll make. Also, as in any game of perfect information, the first player wins if they don't make any mistakes. So it would be pointless to play against a perfect opponent if you're playing as black.

Reference/resource: www.gameai.com (also has hilarious "You know your game is in trouble when..." and "You might be a game developer if..." sections)

If you do the thing about the kings and ending, I would say it is art, as that's a form of storytelling.

[Conzeit]

I think any game is art. Any game is a statement on a human's hopes, multiplayer ones on interaction...and they do mark the time they're made in.

[Xion]

I don't know, Xion, it seems to me that your decision to exclude destructive things from art seems arbitrary to me, only based on the idea that destruction is bad and art is good.  Would things contributing to the destruction of an oppressive environment be, then, not art?  And things contributing to the construction of the same oppresive evironment be art?

Is the glass half full or half empty?
Would you be destroying an oppressive environment or making way for a more free one?

Is game of Chess art?  How about the act of playing chess?

Yes, and yes.

If you replace one opponent with a computer, does it change anything?

Yessss. The human element is removed, which is the element that provides the foundation for everything awesome. Chess would still be art, but it would go from being great art to terrible art. It's also not the same playing with someone online. The player-to-player bond is broken.

How about if you then add a storyline about your king trying to defeat the other king, and adding an ending or what have you, is that art?

Merely pointless embellishments. It would still be art, and as long as the game played the same, then there wouldn't be much difference, but by making one king good and another evil or some kind of bias like that the minds of the players may be affected to unconsciously conform to a more rigid game until they manage to cast off the presumptions and focus solely on the game at hand, like the best players do.

[SolidIdea]

My idea of art is anything that try consciously or not, to represent nature itself or/and it's aspects, and that includes subjective things of it like war, love, mind.

If when you look at something through the "frames" of your eyes, you end wondering about, it probably is art. 

[MoD]

Here's a question I'd like to hear the opinion on:

Are fractals (picturally represented) art?
What about function graphs?
Human-created art that follows a specific formula without variation?

[Darien]

Is the glass half full or half empty?
Would you be destroying an oppressive environment or making way for a more free one?

Exactly, so how can you easily label something as destructive?  If its all relative, then how can you say something is destruction and not art or constructive and art when both contain elements of each other?  For example, what about the simultaneous destruction of wildlife through construction of a city, or destruction of a city through the reintroduction of wildlife?  I don't see how you can label either act as simply destructive or constructive, and so I do not thing that is a good basis to judge art on.

Merely pointless embellishments. It would still be art, and as long as the game played the same, then there wouldn't be much difference, but by making one king good and another evil or some kind of bias like that the minds of the players may be affected to unconsciously conform to a more rigid game until they manage to cast off the presumptions and focus solely on the game at hand, like the best players do.

I think you are missing my point here, I think I should have clarified.  Adding a storyline essentially turns chess into a conventional videogame, most directly similar to FFT or some other tactics game, but the analogy can pretty much extend to any other genre.

So do you consider the storyline in a video game to be a pointless embellishment with no additive artistic value? Is the art of video games solely in the gameplay?