Roger Ebert: Games are inferior to books, movies

[Skaadi]

I have to agree

 

[15357]

I think games are the same as movies... ;0

 

[Sulkdodds]

lets take the movie schindlers list. i know that i personally was deeply impacted by that flick and it probably changed a lot of my character. most people have seen it, most people think its very good.

has ANY video game done that for you?

List time!

Thief 3. Many times during Theif 3, especially the Cradle, the ending, the girl (whatever her name was), the Assassins.

Deux Ex 2 - I trusted Denton. I thought, 'he's the star of the last game. He MUST be right. I'll go along with him'. But when it finally came to that ending, the full horror of it struck me like a speeding locomotive. I all but fell to me knees screaming 'WHAT HAVE I DONE?' I'd played through this game trying to be as morally 'good' as I possibly could and in the end none of it mattered. I picked the wrong one. The world paid for it. D:

Half-Life 2 honestly did when the G-Man whipped me away at the end and I realised that, almost certainly, just like in the original, the gameworld would advance another ten years or so while I was away. The world would change and I was going to sleep again, to wait. Alyx would die; Eli and Mossman and Kleiner and Barney - hell, I didn't know. It was at this moment I realised I really cared about these people - because when the G-Man told me I had to leave them, had to leave this fight - when I realised I was being taken away from them, it completely pissed me off. I wanted to stay and fight for Earth's freedom but I knew that when I came back, things would have changed again, and probably not for the better. Of course, what with Aftermath it turned out I was wrong - but that's not the point.

Warcraft 3's ending kinda filled me at first with an immense happiness that it was all over, and that everyone would live in peace again - it was so epic and awesome. And then a sadness crept through me. Because I knew, because I'd played WoW, that soon they'd all break up again, and soon it would descend into war again, horrible atrocities committed on both sides. D:

Broken Sword when the old guy, Bruno, decides to stay in the tomb. Just that entire scene.

The original Metal Gear Solid. I was quite young at the time, but the whole ending with Meryl dying and all that shit really affected me. D:

A free adventure game called The White Chamber (download it here. Was very very good, and the entire final sequence, if you've played it, leading up to the 'good' ending, was just incredibly moving. That melancholy walk back through the empty corridors...

...maybe I'm just a big softie and I get too far into things.

 

[Jintor]

I seriously think that games are better than movies. Not than books though.

 

[Raz]

List time!

I'll add the ending of Planescape: Torment and pretty much the whole Silent Hill 2 storyline to this list.

 

[Sparta]

List time!

Thief 3. Many times during Theif 3, especially the Cradle, the ending, the girl (whatever her name was), the Assassins.

Deux Ex 2 - I trusted Denton. I thought, 'he's the star of the last game. He MUST be right. I'll go along with him'. But when it finally came to that ending, the full horror of it struck me like a speeding locomotive. I all but fell to me knees screaming 'WHAT HAVE I DONE?' I'd played through this game trying to be as morally 'good' as I possibly could and in the end none of it mattered. I picked the wrong one. The world paid for it. D:

Half-Life 2 honestly did when the G-Man whipped me away at the end and I realised that, almost certainly, just like in the original, the gameworld would advance another ten years or so while I was away. The world would change and I was going to sleep again, to wait. Alyx would die; Eli and Mossman and Kleiner and Barney - hell, I didn't know. It was at this moment I realised I really cared about these people - because when the G-Man told me I had to leave them, had to leave this fight - when I realised I was being taken away from them, it completely pissed me off. I wanted to stay and fight for Earth's freedom but I knew that when I came back, things would have changed again, and probably not for the better. Of course, what with Aftermath it turned out I was wrong - but that's not the point.

Warcraft 3's ending kinda filled me at first with an immense happiness that it was all over, and that everyone would live in peace again - it was so epic and awesome. And then a sadness crept through me. Because I knew, because I'd played WoW, that soon they'd all break up again, and soon it would descend into war again, horrible atrocities committed on both sides. D:

Broken Sword when the old guy, Bruno, decides to stay in the tomb. Just that entire scene.

The original Metal Gear Solid. I was quite young at the time, but the whole ending with Meryl dying and all that shit really affected me. D:

A free adventure game called The White Chamber (download it here. Was very very good, and the entire final sequence, if you've played it, leading up to the 'good' ending, was just incredibly moving. That melancholy walk back through the empty corridors...

...maybe I'm just a big softie and I get too far into things.

Hang on man, wasn't he asking you to state if any videogame had moved you as much as Schindlers List?

 

[Absinthe]

Deux Ex 2 - I trusted Denton. I thought, 'he's the star of the last game. He MUST be right. I'll go along with him'. But when it finally came to that ending, the full horror of it struck me like a speeding locomotive. I all but fell to me knees screaming 'WHAT HAVE I DONE?' I'd played through this game trying to be as morally 'good' as I possibly could and in the end none of it mattered. I picked the wrong one. The world paid for it. D:

WTF? That was the best option out of all those nutjobs.

 

[Steven]

Most games have a poor story line such as Bet on Soldier, Final Fantasy 1, all Mario games and many others I can't be bother to name.

But a select few are better then the vast majority of movies these include but are not limited to Half-Life, Mafia and Max Payne.

 

[CptStern]

If books and movies are so awesome then I'd be reading and watching right now instead of playing games.

I wouldnt say that too loudly or be proud of it




there is NO game that is as good as Citizen Kane


there is NO game that is as good as The Catcher in the Rye


there is NO game that is as good as Poe's the Raven


there is NO game that is as good as Michelangelo's David


there is NO game that is as good as Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries



there may be in some distant future





incidentily, you will never ever hear this again but ...I agree with gh0st :O

 

[Absinthe]

This is such a stupid ****ing comparison that I think all involved should be shot, including myself.

**** you all.

 

[Venmoch]

Deux Ex 2 - I trusted Denton. I thought, 'he's the star of the last game. He MUST be right. I'll go along with him'. But when it finally came to that ending, the full horror of it struck me like a speeding locomotive. I all but fell to me knees screaming 'WHAT HAVE I DONE?' I'd played through this game trying to be as morally 'good' as I possibly could and in the end none of it mattered. I picked the wrong one. The world paid for it. D:

Dude. That was the good option.

That was the creation of the perfect democracy. Where the needs of everyone are addressed instantly. With proper freedom rather than the veil of apparent freedom humanity had experienced till that point. Helios created a utopia where each human was individual yet was equal to his fellow man/woman.

-EDIT- Plus, as you said. Denton was cool

 

[Gray Fox]

I wouldnt say that too loudly or be proud of it




there is NO game that is as good as Citizen Kane


there is NO game that is as good as The Catcher in the Rye


there is NO game that is as good as Poe's the Raven


there is NO game that is as good as Michelangelo's David


there is NO game that is as good as Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries



there may be in some distant future





incidentily, you will never ever hear this again but ...I agree with gh0st :O

Those arguments do not add much to the discussion cause they are purely opinion.

 

[Beerdude26]

This is such a stupid ****ing comparison that I think all involved should be shot, including myself.

**** you all.

I'm afraid I have to concur (About the comparisons, you can all still live )

 

[Sulkdodds]

Dude. That was the good option.

Spoiler

Supposedly! Maybe I interpreted it wrong but I saw it as everyone basically meshing into one hive consciousness - same mind, same thoughts, no individuals, just The Will - and I'm not quite sure why but something about it just struck me as horrible. I was never able to see what any of the other endings would have been like (I didn't realise that by exploring the whole island first and ending up killing people because they attacked/were hostile to me that I was eliminating options). But if I had my time again, I think I would give them all a big '**** you', take the friend guy's advice and kill the whole lot of them.

 

[Absinthe]

It didn't really unify humanity into a single conscious mind. An equal playing field was created. True equality was established through the global dissemination of nanotechnology. The gap between that of a Wallstreet fatcat and a starving poor man was eliminated. As Venmoch said, it also created a perfect democracy in which all people would be able to communicate to the AI. And because of its omnipotent and omniscient nature, it could analyse and evaluate all people and situations, delivering appropriate justice in all cases. All this without the liability of human nature (greed, tyranny, self-service, etc).

I certainly found it appealing. At the very least, it was a better option than the others, in which:

Spoiler

Illuminati - You subject humanity to the same secret manipulation it's endured for thousands of years.

Knights Templar - You subject humanity to the rule of fanatical archaic tyrants who could be compared to Nazis.

Omar - You subject humanity to anarchy. All institutions are destroyed and the world goes into a state of true natural selection in which only those with the most advanced biomodifications survive.

Even though I found the idea of the Omar ending to be kind of cool, I think that the Dentons were the only ones offering a solution that truly lived up to the game's title.

 

[CptStern]

Those arguments do not add much to the discussion cause they are purely opinion.

no it's not opinion it is fact

10/100/1000 years from now these works will still be seen as pinnacles of human achievement

there is no game that has attained this or will in the foreseeable future

even laymen can appreciate the genius behind those works



games are judged by aesthetic value alone (at least to this point in history). While games are creative expressions they still have yet to achieve "high" art status. Film attained that level long ago, literature much longer than that


according to a broad definition of art it must have some of these characteristics:


Current characteristics
1. Requires creative perception both by the artist and by the audience
2. Elusive (as in "tending to evade cut-and-dried definitions or being fixedly grasped")
3. Communicates on many levels and is open to many interpretations
4. Connotes a sense of ability
5. Interplay between the conscious and unconscious mind, between what is real and what is an illusion
6. May contain an idea other than its utilitarian purpose.
7. Created with the intention to be experienced as art
8. Displays different forms of captivating beauty or intrigue


games fit none of this criteria


here's a good explanation as to what makes art art

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art

 

[Absinthe]

Stern, do you think this is an issue with content or is it an inherent flaw in the medium?

 

[CptStern]

both I guess

 

[Absinthe]

Your argument doesn't have much merit, as games can fit many, if not all, of those criteria you've listed. And some of them, like "Created with the intention to be experienced as art", rely on circular reasoning.

Even if most current games don't fit your definition of art, that does not necessarily prove an inability to attain such a level.

None of you have made a solid argument against the gaming medium being able to produce "art"; a vague, fluffy term that I have no love for.

 

[CptStern]

Your argument doesn't have much merit, as games can fit many, if not all, of those criteria you've listed. And some of them, like "Created with the intention to be experienced as art", rely on circular reasoning.

Even if most current games don't fit your definition of art, that does not necessarily prove an inability to attain such a level.

None of you have made a solid argument against the gaming medium being able to produce "art"; a vague, fluffy term that I have no love for.

no, it is valid ..especially this:


"Created with the intention to be experienced as art" ..games are created with the intention of making money. It's more akin to commercial art. Take Norman Rockwell, his paintings are commercial art. While technically proficient it doesnt meet the criteria of high art because it wasnt created with the intention to do so. I think many of you are confusing "art" with "high art". Techique with high expression

this:

cannot be compared to this:

they're not in the same league. Dont mistake technique for artistic merit. There is no hidden meaning in UT3 ..there isnt any commentary towards the condition of man ...in fact there nothing beyond what is represented to indicate that pic from UT2007 is high art




....btw it's not nice to question a unversity graduate from a visuals arts program with 7 years of art teaching experience :E

 

[The Mullinator]

I think Half-Life 2 may actually come very close in some respects to the idea of "high art". The whole idea of never showing Gordan Freeman, of making the player Gordan Freeman, of never having Gordon saying a word, all of that can really be interpreted as a form of art.

Not only that but the whole game really is really a representation of humanity being oppressed by faceless and overbearing overlords. I mean it is actually one of the few games where it could be argued that there are hidden messages to be gained from playing the game.

 

[Gray Fox]

no it's not opinion it is fact

10/100/1000 years from now these works will still be seen as pinnacles of human achievement

there is no game that has attained this or will in the foreseeable future

even laymen can appreciate the genius behind those works



games are judged by aesthetic value alone (at least to this point in history). While games are creative expressions they still have yet to achieve "high" art status. Film attained that level long ago, literature much longer than that


according to a broad definition of art it must have some of these characteristics:


Current characteristics
1. Requires creative perception both by the artist and by the audience
2. Elusive (as in "tending to evade cut-and-dried definitions or being fixedly grasped")
3. Communicates on many levels and is open to many interpretations
4. Connotes a sense of ability
5. Interplay between the conscious and unconscious mind, between what is real and what is an illusion
6. May contain an idea other than its utilitarian purpose.
7. Created with the intention to be experienced as art
8. Displays different forms of captivating beauty or intrigue


games fit none of this criteria


here's a good explanation as to what makes art art

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art

the games I mentioned can and have met those criteria. The problem is you do not play much more then shooters. So you have not exposed to as much varied gaming content as have been to movie content. Games are in a sense even superior as a medium exactly because of the interactivity. The designers can play more with you, and because you often controll the characters and have made his decisions you feel more involved. And thus the ideas have more meaning to you at the end.
And last but not least it is still your opinion in the end, you have not giving reasons as to why it's a fact that no game has attended that lvl. Simply saying so and hammering it in does not make it so. It's like beeing when it comes to movies only exposed to the powerranger movie, and xXx, and making the conclusion that movies have not attained the status of art.
Offcourse what I said is also just an opnion

 

[CptStern]

I think Half-Life 2 may actually come very close in some respects to the idea of "high art". The whole idea of never showing Gordan Freeman, of making the player Gordan Freeman, of never having Gordon saying a word, all of that can really be interpreted as a form of art.

Not only that but the whole game really is really a representation of humanity being oppressed by faceless and overbearing overlords. I mean it is actually one of the few games where it could be argued that there are hidden messages to be gained from playing the game.

yes I agree HL2 is close but still there's many areas where it fails ...for one there's no room for interpretation, the game plays the same for everyone who sees it. It also doesnt communicate human emotions (when's the last time someone cried while playing a game ...not out of frustration ..although it can certainly happen it isnt a unversal condition of playing the game )


to a lay person this just loks like a jumbled mess of animals and human forms

but to the person who's familiar with the work of art cannot look at it without seeing it's message (Picasso's Guernica was painted as a response to the bombing of Guernica by facist Franco with the help of Hitler's forces) ...what does a game comment on? how does a game exemplify the pinnacle of human achievement?

 

[CptStern]

the games I mentioned can and have met those criteria. The problem is you do not play much more then shooters. So you have not exposed to as much varied gaming content as have been to movie content. Games are in a sense even superior as a medium exactly because of the interactivity. The designers can play more with you, and because you often controll the characters and have made his decisions you feel more involved. And thus the ideas have more meaning to you at the end.
And last but not least it is still your opinion in the end, you have not giving reasons as to why it's a fact that no game has attended that lvl. Simply saying so and hammering it in does not make it so. It's like beeing when it comes to movies only exposed to the powerranger movie, and xXx, and making the conclusion that movies have not attained the status of art.
Offcourse what I said is also just an opnion

I've been playing games before you were born, shooters are a relatively new thing for me


given that there are choices, the choices are still predetermined. Read what I've posted, the proof is all there ...games cannot attain the lvl of high art in it's current form because there is no creative expression (beyond the visuals or gameplay) it doesnt reflect on the condition of man, it's not open to interpretation, it doesnt speak to higher concepts/forms/abstractions ...games are exactly what they are: games. They dont aspire to anything else because at this point they cant. Again you people are confusing technique with artistic merit

is not equal to this:

the former is an excercise in technical proficiency ...but is it high art? no ..it's exactly what it is ...a drawing (albeit a high skilled one) of a guy holding a weapon


the picasso painting on the other hand speaks volumes ...but if you cant understand this concept there's really no use in discussing this issue

 

[Gray Fox]

I've been playing games before you were born, shooters are a relatively new thing for me


given that there are choices, the choices are still predetermined. Read what I've posted, the proof is all there ...games cannot attain the lvl of high art in it's current form because there is no creative expression (beyond the visuals or gameplay) it doesnt reflect on the condition of man, it's not open to interpretation, it doesnt speak to higher concepts/forms/abstractions ...games are exactly what they are: games. They dont aspire to anything else because at this point they cant. Again you people are confusing technique with artistic merit

is not equal to this:

the former is an excercise in technical proficiency ...but is it high art? no ..it's exactly what it is ...a drawing (albeit a high skilled one) of a guy holding a weapon


the picasso painting on the other hand speaks volumes ...but if you cant understand this concept there's really no use in discussing this issue

I'm not, your just not listening to me. The games I mentioned do have crwative expression, do reflect on the condition of man, are open to different interpitation. And the ycertainly do aspire to anything more. I do not know how you can possible say that without even have played those games.

 

[CptStern]

you're right, I havent played the games ...BUT I have played other games and at this point there is NO game that has achieved any of the things you've listed ...I dont mean interpretation of narrative but rather the interpretation of emotional contexts. and creative expression is not limited to the visceral but is experienced through all senses ...2 people looking at the same picasso painting can walk away with completely different interpretations ...that's just not possible in a game because it is made in manner that the outcome of any given scene is exactly the same for every person ...sure there's differences in execution but the end result is the same. IMHO and in many virtual theorists POV this wont happen till AI has a mind of it's own and it writes it's own story ..at that point the outcome will be less in the hands of developers and more in the hands of the player ...therefore opening up the game to interpretation ...games just arent there yet. It doesnt mean that MGS isnt a fantastic game that pushes the boundaries of what games could be ...but it's not high art in the same vein that concept art or commercial art isnt high art

 

[operative x]

The gaming industry isn't up to literature or movie standards, sure. But that doesn't mean we can never achieve such a level. Games like MGS, silent hill 2, FF, etc are paving the way to such a road, but yes, we haven't reached such a height yet. Mostly the games industry has been shoved towards juvenile entertainment.

 

[gick]

Deux Ex 2 - I trusted Denton. I thought, 'he's the star of the last game. He MUST be right. I'll go along with him'. But when it finally came to that ending, the full horror of it struck me like a speeding locomotive. I all but fell to me knees screaming 'WHAT HAVE I DONE?' I'd played through this game trying to be as morally 'good' as I possibly could and in the end none of it mattered. I picked the wrong one. The world paid for it. D:

Half-Life 2 honestly did when the G-Man whipped me away at the end and I realised that, almost certainly, just like in the original, the gameworld would advance another ten years or so while I was away. The world would change and I was going to sleep again, to wait. Alyx would die; Eli and Mossman and Kleiner and Barney - hell, I didn't know. It was at this moment I realised I really cared about these people - because when the G-Man told me I had to leave them, had to leave this fight - when I realised I was being taken away from them, it completely pissed me off. I wanted to stay and fight for Earth's freedom but I knew that when I came back, things would have changed again, and probably not for the better. Of course, what with Aftermath it turned out I was wrong - but that's not the point.

QFT

When I got to the end of Max Payne 2 I nearly cried. T'was very emotional.

Also (and i'm sure somebody has mentioned this before) games have only been around for 30 or so years. Cinema has been around for at least 100 years, art and music have been for millennia. Im sure one day there will be games that will be held in just as much esteem as 'high art'. I may go so far as to say that HL2 will be considered an early masterpiece.

 

[mortiz]

Again, it's all opinion, most of the things you listed Stern I couldn't care less about, for example most Picasso paintings have no effect on me at all. Debating what art is is like debating whether red or green is the better colour, all purely opinion. See, you posted a picture of a UE3 marine and of the Michael Angelo's David, which one looks better to me at the moment? The UE3 screenshot without a doubt, because at the end of the day I'm going to get him brought to life in a game. David will always just be a static sculpture, never changing. What you consider to be incomparable is solely your opinion.

The fact is, there is no begin and end all definition of what art is, if that's the case then Computer Games are an obvious contender to be art. Also how do you know what will be remembered in a 1000 years? I'm surprised at you Stern, I thought you would have known that the general consensus on something isn't always correct for everyone.

As for movies, Hollywood rarely produces anything good, a good Hollywood produced movie is about as common as a good game.

Plus, the UE3 marine has better textures

 

[Absinthe]

"Created with the intention to be experienced as art" ..games are created with the intention of making money. It's more akin to commercial art. Take Norman Rockwell, his paintings are commercial art. While technically proficient it doesnt meet the criteria of high art because it wasnt created with the intention to do so. I think many of you are confusing "art" with "high art". Techique with high expression

You've undermined yourself right there. You've admitted that it's a problem with the content as opposed to the very nature of the medium itself.

Hypothetical: If games were not made with profit in mind, would they still be unable to attain the stature of "art"?

they're not in the same league. Dont mistake technique for artistic merit. There is no hidden meaning in UT3 ..there isnt any commentary towards the condition of man ...in fact there nothing beyond what is represented to indicate that pic from UT2007 is high art

You use a single example to rest your entire argument. Rather poor form, is that not? Again, you take issue with content as opposed to the medium itself. Stern, is the gaming medium fundamentally limited in respect to its potential for being art?

....btw it's not nice to question a unversity graduate from a visuals arts program with 7 years of art teaching experience :E

No offense, but I really don't care much for appeals to authority. Arguments should be able to sustain themselves regardless of educational background.

 

[Muffin Man]

even laymen can appreciate the genius behind those works

no.... no they can't, now i don't know esactly how old you are but whens the last time you have been to a highschool, walked through the halls and heard what the "laymen" have to say, and not only them their parents too, they have no respect for art of any kind at all. just because a few dumbasses say "oh yeah.... thats art i guess" doesnt make it so.

yes I agree HL2 is close but still there's many areas where it fails ...for one there's no room for interpretation, the game plays the same for everyone who sees it. It also doesnt communicate human emotions (when's the last time someone cried while playing a game ...not out of frustration ..although it can certainly happen it isnt a unversal condition of playing the game )

I disagree with this completely. First off i think there is much left up to interpretation, but since you could verbally beat me in that argument probably, you sertainly have had much more experiance arguing your point, i'm going to leave that be for now. I mean maybe it isnt to the level of interpretation of many old storys and narratives (shakespear, poe, etc, you gotta love em). but I don't know about cried, but I have dropped a controller or two and been totally affected to my core by games. I have been just as affected by movies, but they were about the same.

For example, my favorite game of all time Final Fantasy Tactics (though im not fond of the other final fantasies that much) I was so affected by that game. I mean for instance, when you run off to fight the rebels and they have your friends sister captive, and then your friendly warriors come up and you think "yes, we might actually win" and he just takes a crossbow and shoots her, i remember just sitting there and starring and think "what the ****.." and I was, believe it or not, really affected by that.

And another point in the game, you are to fight the main rebels sister, and thinking for a while she is evil. I mean how could anybody attack a place that seems so good? and then before she dies, you realise that they are fighting because they have been seriously oppressed and unfairly cast out, and are putting their lives down for their childrens futures.. I though back to all of them i had killed and shit. And all the way through that game, with the church and everything...

givin i was pretty young at the time (i think around 10), and I read LotR at the same time, I was pretty much equally affected by both. SO call me an emo fag for actually caring about the NPC's in games and stuff, i couldn't really care less what you think.

EDIT- oh yeah and

you're right, I havent played the games ...BUT I have played other games and at this point there is NO game that has achieved any of the things you've listed

opinion alert !

 

[CptStern]

You've undermined yourself right there. You've admitted that it's a problem with the content as opposed to the very nature of the medium itself.

no I said that they're both to blame

Hypothetical: If games were not made with profit in mind, would they still be unable to attain the stature of "art"?

yes, in their current form

You use a single example to rest your entire argument. Rather poor form, is that not? Again, you take issue with content as opposed to the medium itself. Stern, is the gaming medium fundamentally limited in respect to its potential for being art?

yes, I've answered that

No offense, but I really don't care much for appeals to authority. Arguments should be able to sustain themselves regardless of educational background.

oh but it makes all the difference in the world ...I couldnt as a laymen speak with any conviction on the laws of thermal dynamics ...a physicist could ...does it make his opinion more valid than mine? of course it does. If you dont have a background in art you couldnt possibly understand things like artistic expression as it pertains to a specific artistic duscipline. Picasso is just another abstract artist to a lay person but to a student of art his work is much more than that. You couldnt possibly understand abstraction if you havent followed cubism or dadaism ..it's just a collection of scribbed lines if seen through a vacuum

 

[operative x]

I wouldnt say that too loudly or be proud of it




there is NO game that is as good as Citizen Kane


there is NO game that is as good as The Catcher in the Rye


there is NO game that is as good as Poe's the Raven


there is NO game that is as good as Michelangelo's David


there is NO game that is as good as Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries



there may be in some distant future





incidentily, you will never ever hear this again but ...I agree with gh0st :O

Well I think that you keeping trying to bend and mold video games into these different types of art forms. Games are different than books and movies, just as Movies are different from books. Stop trying to compare something that is in a entirely different medium. In the question of "Where are the equivalents to Citizen Kane/ Catcher in the Rye/ etc in games?" Well, as many stated before, MGS, Silent hill 2, FF series, DX, etc. I've read Catcher in the Rye and was deeply moved by it. But I was also moved by these games. In a sense, you could say that Movies aren't quite up to the level of Video games because, as you see numerous times, Hollywood has always trade to convert game franchises into movies and they end up sucking worse than the game.

 

[mortiz]

You can theoretically prove thermal dynamics, why don't you try to prove to me that that Picasso picture your posted is a good painting worthy of my awe? I'm not going to be impressed by something just because other people say I should be.

 

[CptStern]

Again, it's all opinion, most of the things you listed Stern I couldn't care less about, for example most Picasso paintings have no effect on me at all.

because you havent studied picasso within his time frame and within the movement as a whole

Debating what art is is like debating whether red or green is the better colour, all purely opinion.

no, the opinion only works when discussing the aesthetics of a painting

See, you posted a picture of a UE3 marine and of the Michael Angelo's David, which one looks better to me at the moment?

it's not only about which "looks better" ..art doesnt have to be aesthetically pleasing

The UE3 screenshot without a doubt, because at the end of the day I'm going to get him brought to life in a game.

opinion

David will always just be a static sculpture, never changing. What you consider to be incomparable is solely your opinion.

I wouldnt say it's "solely" my opinion ..David is the perfect art piece ..it is perfect in every way as michangelo intended

The fact is, there is no begin and end all definition of what art is, if that's the case then Computer Games are an obvious contender to be art.

I agree, but there is still a set of criteria that all high art MUST adhere to. Now as I've already stated it doesnt mean that games cannot achieve this ..it just hasnt up to this point because it just cant

Also how do you know what will be remembered in a 1000 years? I'm surprised at you Stern, I thought you would have known that the general consensus on something isn't always correct for everyone.

I agree ...but, for example, the beatles will be remembered throughout time ...I doubt the same could be said for say ...Nirvana or Michael Jackson

As for movies, Hollywood rarely produces anything good, a good Hollywood produced movie is about as common as a good game.

Plus, the UE3 marine has better textures

hollywood is capable of producing works of art but since money is the motivating factor they havent achieved this in a long time. Artisitic vision knows no such boundaries


I aslo think some of you are reading too much into this ...I'm not disputing that technically games can achieve more than what they were designed to do but at this point in history they're closer to cave paintings than the monalisa





oh and I picked Picasso because everyone knows who he is

 

[Muffin Man]

....btw it's not nice to question a unversity graduate from a visuals arts program with 7 years of art teaching experience

not really nice to bash our opinions either, but thats what argument is, isnt it? and i agree though, i dont care about your graduate, and art is not physics, you said it yourself, art captures emotion, which is different through all individuals. physics has many rules that basically alwayse apply and need to be learned. Art is left up to the imagination saying "i've studied art, i know more about it then u :]" kind of ruins the whole point of what art is

EDIT - and i dont care what you think abot nirvana, their music was great, and they will be remembered by people with my musical taste for a long, long, loong time

 

[CptStern]

I'm not bashing anyone's opinions


and read what I wrote above ...there's opinion and then there's informed opinion. I couldnt make an informed opinion concerning thermal dynamics because that isnt/wasnt my field of study



and stop having kneejerk reactions ...where did I say Nirvana was/wasnt great?

 

[The Monkey]

I have to agree.

 

[Sulkdodds]

Stop comparing screenshots to paintings. A screenshot is not a game. A painting must express everything through its visual aspects, while a game can express things in many other ways. The art of a game isn't all in the graphics - more often than not it's in the way you play, the feelings it inspires in you, anything. What you're doing is like taking a still from Citizen Kane, comparing it to a painting and telling us it shows that films can't be art. It's not the whole picture. It's an unfair comparison.

it doesnt reflect on the condition of man, it's not open to interpretation, it doesnt speak to higher concepts/forms/abstractions ...games are exactly what they are: games. They dont aspire to anything else because at this point they cant. Again you people are confusing technique with artistic merit

Alright, ALRIGHT. I think you're very very wrong in saying this.

Silent Hill 4. It's a game where you're trapped in your room, unable to get any glimpse of the outside world except through a hole in your wall, and through the window. The only possible way out is the gaping hell-maw that opens in your bathroom - and so you venture, armed with a rusty pipe, into the unknown. Things you glimpse outside begin to make their way into the alternate realities. Each time you go in, you emerge into a new and strange world of fantasy - and each time you finish, you just end up back in your room.

If that isn't a reflection on videogames themselves, the plight of gamers everywhere, and the very nature of fantasy then I don't know what is.

You've seen in this very thread how games can have different interpretations. I interpreted a Deus Ex ending completely differently to everyone else.

...for one there's no room for interpretation, the game plays the same for everyone who sees it.

This is true to some extent, but only to the extent it's also true for films and books.

Alright. Let's say we're talking about games that are art - not your average game - because all your criteria here 'requires' something. There's a problem there, because games can be played by anyone without actually understanding the 'artistic' stuff. But hell, that's true of anything. Anyone can look at a painting.

Let's take, since this is hl2.net, Half-Life 2.

1. Requires creative perception both by the artist and by the audience

Certainly the 'artists' reponsible needed this in the creation of such a world and in the excellent level design, gameplay that comes together for a brilliant experience. Now that isn't just technique - technique would be the coding skills and modelling skills and mapping skills, wouldn't it? The game experience is something different. Certainly the audience, in order to understand the whole thing, needs perception to work out the story and any deeper meaning (which there is).

2. Elusive (as in "tending to evade cut-and-dried definitions or being fixedly grasped")

I doubt most people who played HL2 got the stuff about free choice (or lack of it as the case may be) or the relevance of the game's setting (Eastern Europe - previously occupied by the nazis, by the Russians, and now by the Combine - is it any different? There's comment for you.

3. Communicates on many levels and is open to many interpretations

Do I need to go in-depth with this one? Here's something I made earlier.

Maybe it's about the non-existence of true freedom and true choice. Or maybe it's about something entirely different. Hell, you could interpret HL2 as a battle against religion - a scientist fights the forces of an oppressive organisation trying to 'better' humanity, that converts others (forcibly) to its will and that is convinced it's doing the right thing (and maybe it is - it's just going about it by entirely the wrong methods). They even have backup from another, higher world.

4. Connotes a sense of ability

I think we can all agree that HL2 does this.

5. Interplay between the conscious and unconscious mind, between what is real and what is an illusion

Now this one I'm not sure about. Forgive me, I don't even know if I know what it means - or if it's present in ALL OTHER ART.

6. May contain an idea other than its utilitarian purpose.

We've established this already.

7. Created with the intention to be experienced as art

I'd say yesh. Of course, I'm not Valve. But still, considering all the stuff they put in...

8. Displays different forms of captivating beauty or intrigue

Sun spangles through the broken bones of a dead tree overlooking the windswept coast. A frozen moment as combine corpses disintegrate, floating slo-mo in mid-air - a lull in the battle. Alyx's mournful face as you descend the final elevator, into the Citadel Reactor - and then the music comes in. The stalker screams and smashes its head against the metal over and over again. You ascend the citadel and behold, the city laid out before you. And all that's just visual beauty/intrigue. So yes.

I don't think games have anywhere near yet reached their full potential yet. But I don't agree that right now, no games can aspire to be 'art' - even if you're using a pre-packaged definition of 'art'.

 

[pvtbones]

all art is open to interpretation, lets say for example I drew a circle on a piece of paper and left it on a table in some cafe one day, skip forward 200 years and people could be proclaiming from the rooftops how wonderful it is and how it's symbolism is so deep.

Say someone decides to travel back in time and get me and bring me to the future to see how my work of art has affect the art community. but when I drew it all was thinking was "lets see if I can draw a decent circle for once"

what I'm getting at is people like to read far too deeply into things and art is not excluded (the campbell's soup can anyone?)

*disclaimer* I am not saying the works of picassio or any other artists do not have deeper meanings.