CAN GAMES BE ART?

*obligatory Okami post*

Yes, they can.

bahleted

naa you're confusing subjectivity with dumb people

Honestly, saying everything is art is the same as saying nothing is.

I don't really care about the games-as-art debate since it usually just turns into some intolerable pedantic argument over definitions, and also because there's always a slightly creepy sense of seeking validation about it. I have no love for garbage FPS's or whatever but I don't think the alternative is to make the videogame equivalent of some awful New Yorker story about melancholy white people staring into the sunset while suffering suburban malaise, and the problem is that in trying to find an example of artistically worthwhile videogames it's easy to fall into exactly this kind of stupid binary: to make examples of games which kind of tick the boxes marked ART like minimalist graphics or stories about ~~love~~ or whatever without thinking about what they really mean. I'd rather see the videogame equivalent of Robert Crumb or somebody than some oscarbait bullshit about menopausal cancer lesbians raising autistic children during the holocaust. Basically Roger Ebert has never to my knowledge been particularly insightful or worthwhile so who gives a fuck? Quick everyone make games now before boring middlebrow people decide it's okay

Basically in general I think a more interesting argument to have isn't "are games art" but "why should we give a fuck": what is there about videogames that is actually worth exploring and that you can't get in other media. I'm kind of wary about talking about INTERACTIVITY as the primary focus of games, since it's kind of a nebulous idea anyway (is a book interactive if you read the pages at random?? isn't all art interactive in that it depends on some level of personal interpretation from the audience etc) and descends into more semantic shit about definitions. Also interactivity is not in itself a particularly interesting idea, I think. What's more important is the WAY in which games are interactive, namely the idea of videogames as exploring environments (which I think is the one thing videogames 100% have over everything else, although idk if this is actually a good thing per se). I'm too lazy to track down the links but there was some article I read once about game design as architecture which I liked a lot, and which I think is a much more interesting and productive concept than some vague bullshit about interactivity which is usually implemented in the dumbest most obvious way possible anyway (KILL BABBY SAVE BABBY THE CHOICE IS YOUS ~ every bioware game (ps in the future i predict branching storylines will be regarded with the same embarrassment as those old films which were shot entirely from a first person perspective despite the fact film doesn't work like that - "nostradamus" catamites........).

Also re. the idea that videogames are incapable of expressing the artist's viewpoint because they involve interactivity, this is kind of an oversimplification imo because in good game design the intersection of uh predetermined choices and individual agency is exactly what should be used to make a point.
A GOOD QUOTE from the book "Life: A Users Manual" (ggood book..)

From this, one can make a deduction which is quite certainly the ultimate truth of jigsaw puzzles: despite appearances, puzzling is not a solitary game: every move the puzzler makes, the puzzle-maker has made before; every piece the puzzler picks up, and picks up again, and studies and strokes, every combination he tries, and tries a second time, every blunder and every insight, each hope and each discouragement, have all been designed, calculated, and decided by the other.

Basically what I'm saying is good game design (or puzzle-making, in the terms of the passage above) is almost a DIALOGUE in the subtle combinations, the give and take, between player and designer: individual agency as channeled through a specific set of tools and carefully- almost invisibly- guided by the construction of the space itself so as to provide an aesthetic experience. Poetry as combinatorics! el diablo juegas.......

bahleted

Wolfcoder, is that EDGUY? I know nothing about them except that they randomly came on the Pandora I had made for working on To Arms! and I looked up their lyrics and they are fucking ridiculous.

But I don't think the alternative is to make the videogame equivalent of some awful New Yorker story about melancholy white people staring into the sunset while suffering suburban malaise

Thanks for reminding me why I hate all mainstream/literary fiction by default.

I have to follow all the rules that any artist would use to make something look at least tolerable at worst and beautiful at best.

critical system failure