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What's wrong with art games?

baronjohn

Cipher
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Nov 8, 2008
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USA
Why does the Codex keep shitting on so-called art games?

How do you define an "art game"? Name some bad art games. Name some good ones.

Must all games be ultra low-brow entertainment, the gaming equivalent of porn?

Is there no room in your semi-illiterate, simian brains for stories and presentations targeted beyond the Young Adult level?
 
In My Safe Space
Joined
Dec 11, 2009
Messages
21,899
Codex 2012
baronjohn said:
How do you define an "art game"?
A masterpiece of art of game-making.

baronjohn said:
Name some bad art games.
It's a contradiction in terms.

baronjohn said:
Name some good ones.
Jagged Alliance 2, X-Com 1/2, Fallout, Metal Slug, Laser Squad, Falcon 4.0, Syndicate Wars, Operation Flashpoint, Ultima VII, Gunship, etc. etc. etc.
 

JarlFrank

I like Thief THIS much
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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
baronjohn said:
MetalCraze said:
Young adult = from 18 to 40 years
More like

12-16 (normal human being)
16-40 (subhuman scum)

po_girl_l.jpg
 

I.C. Wiener

Educated
Joined
Jan 16, 2010
Messages
353
baronjohn said:
How do you define an "art game"?
I knows it when I sees it. A game that tries to mimic the aesthetics of non--interactive art instead of making art out of the actual game part (sometimes at the expense of gameplay), and ends up being incredibly pretentious.
Name some bad art games.
The Path, Don't Look Back, Today I Die (any flash game with a 'profound' sounding title), the art part of Braid (the game part was still a fun puzzle platformer).
Name some good ones.
The Void, Pathologic (the game part was shit, the art part was successful).
 

latexmonkeys

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
baronjohn said:
Why does the Codex keep shitting on so-called art games?

How do you define an "art game"? Name some bad art games. Name some good ones.

Must all games be ultra low-brow entertainment, the gaming equivalent of porn?

Is there no room in your semi-illiterate, simian brains for stories and presentations targeted beyond the Young Adult level?

I think the criticism arises when the game in question is all surface and no substance. When the art in question is simply a new window dressing for another Super Mario clone for example.
 

sea

inXile Entertainment
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May 3, 2011
Messages
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I don't think there's anything wrong with art taking on the videogame medium in order to try to deliver new experiences. Interactivity with artwork is something that a lot of artists experiment with, and while not all art is created equal, I at least appreciate the intent behind a lot of art games.

The problem is the fact that games are typically so time-consuming and expensive to produce, even simple ones. Beyond the actual thought process involved, development can take months or years, and unless someone is planning on turning their game into a statement about the realities of game development or passion projects, I don't know if anything has managed to really justify its own production. A simple game like Gravitation says all it needs to with primitive sub-8-bit graphics and a one-note game mechanic. What's Limbo's excuse?

That's why art games are so often both poor art and poor games: you need to create a game in order to sell it to people and justify the costs, but in doing so you can easily compromise the artistic vision. A painting, short film, performance piece, etc. does not have the same very real financial and market barriers that a videogame does. I'm all for art games, but if you're going to sell it, you'd better deliver a good game and good value, rather than a half-assed game that's one-upped by 30-year-old platformers, with a vague message about environmentalism or something.

And, for what it's worth, I enjoyed Braid, because it was both a good game and an interesting artistic statement about narrative expectations in the videogame medium. I'm not sure any other title has really managed to come close to it, though. Maybe in 50 years when we've perfected the mechanics of games and the science of game creation, we'll start to see art games that aren't fettered by the shackles of oppressive reality.
 

Ermm

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baronjohn said:
Why does the Codex keep shitting on so-called art games?

How do you define an "art game"? Name some bad art games. Name some good ones.

Must all games be ultra low-brow entertainment, the gaming equivalent of porn?

Is there no room in your semi-illiterate, simian brains for stories and presentations targeted beyond the Young Adult level?

If you defend these ''so called'' art games then name some. I have my idea of what games could be called by others as art (not that I call them like that), but you can give some examples.
 

Marobug

Newbie
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Sep 2, 2010
Messages
566
Awor Szurkrarz said:
Jagged Alliance 2, X-Com 1/2, Fallout, Metal Slug, Laser Squad, Falcon 4.0, Syndicate Wars, Operation Flashpoint, Ultima VII, Gunship, etc. etc. etc.

None of these games are art games, you must have your definition confused.

Simply put, art games are games with the sole purpose of transmitting a certain experience, with no regard to entertainment value.
 

thursday

Novice
Joined
May 18, 2008
Messages
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A spectrum of games I have played with high artistic ambitions, rated from best to worst on coherence between gameplay and theme and their use of the unique advantages of the medium:

Masterful:
Pathologic / The Void

Admirable:
Alpha Centauri / The Last Express / Riven / Braid (despite its pretensions, it was a step in the right direction of wedding story with gameplay)

Good, if cluttered:
Planescape: Torment, Morrowind

Problematic:
Bioshock, The Path

Incoherent:
Many (if not most) jRPGs


I don't make mention of the many small indie games that form the rank and file of the artgame "genre." If larger games are analogous to novels and films, these are the poems of gaming and are, appropriately, on the whole much more experimental and eclectic. Many of them try to utilize the unique artistic opportunities of games (e.g. making meaning arise from mechanics, rather than pasting a narrative on top of a genre piece), and for this they should be admired. This is easy to do with small works but a much trickier proposition when scale is increased to what we usually think of full-sized games (again reflecting the poetry vs literature analogy).
 

Wyrmlord

Arcane
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Feb 3, 2008
Messages
28,886
baronjohn said:
How do you define an "art game"? Name some bad art games. Name some good ones.
Heavy Rain. Fahrenheit. Indigo Prophecy. Et cetera.

I'll leave it to others to decide whether they are good or bad.

However, as far as adventure games go, look at the roundly panned game: Outcry. Why was it panned? Because it was extraordinarily difficult.

That's a bad thing? That a game has puzzles which involve taking out a notebook IRL, putting together all the clues, making a graphical map of them, and discovering a pattern in them after some serious thought. That it involves buttons pushed in one part of the house that open secret doors in another? That's what a game IS. Solving problems.

OTOH, we see artsy games, such as BioShock, praised even though they are quite easy.

The problem here is not artsy games, but the gaming industry professional's double standards in promoting easy games that are artsy, but no chance to difficult ones that involve obstacles that are actually game-related.
 

Marobug

Newbie
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Sep 2, 2010
Messages
566
Gragt said:
Which is a problem when you think that art doesn't work with "The Experience".
How so ? Each and every form of art, be it a painting, a song or whatever is all about the experience it provides, the same can be said about a art game. I believe all games are art, except art games are closer to a painting or a sculpture while a regular game is closer to a movie or a song because it has entertainment value, in addition to it's art/experience value.
 
Self-Ejected

Drog Black Tooth

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http://insomnia.ac/commentary/for_artfags_only/
So getting back to the question "Can games be art?" (which to make sense of we now read as "Can games be good?"), the only acceptable answer to this question would be, "Of course, and so can anything." Music, movies and even food can be art (but only good music, movies and food). Books can be art (but only good books, and we even have a fancy name for them: we call them Literature). War can be art (The Art of War). Sex can be art (The Art of Love). Even my cock can be art when I am in the right mood, et cetera, et cetera.

The next question of course would have to be, "So which kinds of games are art then?", and the answer to that question should by now be obviously, "The good ones." So Deus Ex is art, Elite is art, and Ketsui is art. Wing Commander and Pikmin and Master of Magic are art, et cetera, et cetera.

So this is all that needs to be said on the subject of games as art. But why all the hoopla in the gaming press these days, if the issue is so trivial? Well, the hoopla is due to the fact that practically everyone who writes about games today is a slobbering, uneducated, mentally retarded fuckwit, and therefore incapable of grasping the simple facts I just explained here. Today "serious" game writing is all about little kids desperate to have their little hobbies validated by their moms and dads in order to feel good about wasting so much time on them, instead of going out in the world and doing, you know, something useful. "Yes, little Johnny, my angel, it's okay to keep playing your favorite videogames past your bedtime, because they are art. There's absolutely nothing wrong with a grown man spending a whole freaking week as a plumber who frolics around a happy pretend mushroom kingdom, killing off cartoony animals by jumping on their heads -- nothing wrong at all. Carry on, dear."
 

Notorious

Augur
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Messages
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Drog Black Tooth said:
http://insomnia.ac/commentary/for_artfags_only/
So getting back to the question "Can games be art?" (which to make sense of we now read as "Can games be good?"), the only acceptable answer to this question would be, "Of course, and so can anything." Music, movies and even food can be art (but only good music, movies and food). Books can be art (but only good books, and we even have a fancy name for them: we call them Literature). War can be art (The Art of War). Sex can be art (The Art of Love). Even my cock can be art when I am in the right mood, et cetera, et cetera.

The next question of course would have to be, "So which kinds of games are art then?", and the answer to that question should by now be obviously, "The good ones." So Deus Ex is art, Elite is art, and Ketsui is art. Wing Commander and Pikmin and Master of Magic are art, et cetera, et cetera.

So this is all that needs to be said on the subject of games as art. But why all the hoopla in the gaming press these days, if the issue is so trivial? Well, the hoopla is due to the fact that practically everyone who writes about games today is a slobbering, uneducated, mentally retarded fuckwit, and therefore incapable of grasping the simple facts I just explained here. Today "serious" game writing is all about little kids desperate to have their little hobbies validated by their moms and dads in order to feel good about wasting so much time on them, instead of going out in the world and doing, you know, something useful. "Yes, little Johnny, my angel, it's okay to keep playing your favorite videogames past your bedtime, because they are art. There's absolutely nothing wrong with a grown man spending a whole freaking week as a plumber who frolics around a happy pretend mushroom kingdom, killing off cartoony animals by jumping on their heads -- nothing wrong at all. Carry on, dear."

I would love to see this guy review The Longest Journey and Arcanum, because both games suck in gameplay but are great Adventures. (And I would call them "Art")
 

Marobug

Newbie
Joined
Sep 2, 2010
Messages
566
Drog Black Tooth said:
http://insomnia.ac/commentary/for_artfags_only/
So getting back to the question "Can games be art?" (which to make sense of we now read as "Can games be good?"), the only acceptable answer to this question would be, "Of course, and so can anything." Music, movies and even food can be art (but only good music, movies and food). Books can be art (but only good books, and we even have a fancy name for them: we call them Literature). War can be art (The Art of War). Sex can be art (The Art of Love). Even my cock can be art when I am in the right mood, et cetera, et cetera.

The next question of course would have to be, "So which kinds of games are art then?", and the answer to that question should by now be obviously, "The good ones." So Deus Ex is art, Elite is art, and Ketsui is art. Wing Commander and Pikmin and Master of Magic are art, et cetera, et cetera.

So this is all that needs to be said on the subject of games as art. But why all the hoopla in the gaming press these days, if the issue is so trivial? Well, the hoopla is due to the fact that practically everyone who writes about games today is a slobbering, uneducated, mentally retarded fuckwit, and therefore incapable of grasping the simple facts I just explained here. Today "serious" game writing is all about little kids desperate to have their little hobbies validated by their moms and dads in order to feel good about wasting so much time on them, instead of going out in the world and doing, you know, something useful. "Yes, little Johnny, my angel, it's okay to keep playing your favorite videogames past your bedtime, because they are art. There's absolutely nothing wrong with a grown man spending a whole freaking week as a plumber who frolics around a happy pretend mushroom kingdom, killing off cartoony animals by jumping on their heads -- nothing wrong at all. Carry on, dear."

I went I read the entire blog post only to realize whoever wrote it doesn't know shit about what he's talking about and/or has serious mental problems. Going by his (il)logical thinking you can ask him if a picasso painting is art and he'll tell you it's not.
 

Wyrmlord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 3, 2008
Messages
28,886
Although I don't think games are art, that Insomnia guy is right that people who want "serious" games are people who want to validate their juvenile hobby so that they can look serious or sane spending hours playing them.

People like baronjohn for example.
 

Marobug

Newbie
Joined
Sep 2, 2010
Messages
566
There might be a couple of retards who think like that but generalizing is just as retarded. Specially when you use it as an argument and then say stuff like "Today "serious" game writing is all about little kids desperate to have their little hobbies validated by their moms and dads in order to feel good about wasting so much time on them" to reinforce your point of view. Like wtf ?
 

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