Video Games - art form of the 21st century?

The potential is there, but only time will tell. Film is certainly collaborative, like game design, but almost always benefits from a strong directorial force. There are plenty of strong, vocal designers in gaming, but I'm not sure anyone is currently influential enough to keep a "visionary project" on course.

It's certainly on the verge of becoming a major, permanent entertainment medium, if it hasn't already. Becoming art, on the other hand, is a bit trickier. I agree with Jacob that art often requires a singular vision behind it. The work of art should also be unique to its medium; i.e. cannot be duplicated or better conveyed in another one. Currently games have cinema envy, and I don't think we'll see an argument for a work of art until it gets through this phase.

That's not to say that the videogame industry hasn't already produced arguable works of art. In fact, I think the further back you go in videogame history, the better the case gets, as the games become the work of fewer and fewer people, and technology so limited that aping other mediums is impossible. Off the top of my head, I can think of two games I might bother arguing as legitimate art: Tetris and Missile Command. Really.

Tetris is as pure, simple and unique a creation as any I could ever think of, its existence impossible outside of its medium, and its genius only fully appreciated through its interactivity. As for Missile Command, well, all early games were expressions of futility, but Missile Command's always-inevitable nuclear holocaust takes it to a whole different level.

Depends - I've seen the tendancy to make EVERY single bigtime game that's come out the bees knees end all work of art. And it never is. Even sublime games that I love, such as Alice, KOTOR & NWN have their problems. I think that whiles games COULD be an art form, they started out as a singular person's art form (back when games were programmed by one or two people) and now they are collective - in my mind, much more similiar to films and/or tv, which is purely an entertainment form, but can transcend into art.

(Basically should be evaulated as art on a case-by-case basis, but offers much more solid fruit for a sociological reading than an artistic one)

I would also submit Ico and Grim Fandango as nominees for actual works of art.

Ico: Heard a lot about it, know next to nothing on it.

Descriptions never really do it justice - it sounds like virtually any other "rescue the princess" game. It has to be experienced to be appreciated. And it's the way it sucks you in to its world, the way it seduces you, that sets it apart. You won't load it up and go "WOW!" right off the bat.

Hmmmm. Jacob, from you, that sets it up for a Must Get.

They are definitely two close candidates; I considered both of them but wasn't sure if the gameplay was integral enough to the experience. Possibly ICO, I think Grim Fandango would make an equally magnificent movie.

Prala, beg/borrow/steal a PS2 if you don't have one and rent ICO. Jacob's right, it's far, far more than the sum of its parts. There's barely a story, and yet it's so sweet and sad. I beat it in a weekend and have never forgotten it. For reference, the excellent Prince of Persia was a very poor man's ICO.

Just wondering, Jacob, did you run all the way down the beach at the end?

I have one at work, its just a matter of finding time to play it.

I third the Ico vote

Get it.

I agree with it being a work of it - but largely due to the storytelling. There are some fantastic stories being done out there that really deserve to recognised as legitimate art.

Then again - look at something like Legend of Mana and the whole thing blows me away. It's like playing a water colour painting.

Good point. It could easily have been a fantastic animated film.


Yes I did, and it was a lovely coda to the entire experience.

Re: Video Games - art form of the 21st century?

Masterpieces?

Masterpieces?

What "masterpieces" are you talking about? You mean "masterpieces" as in "Endless amount of sequels with the sole purpose of ripping into your wallet" masterpieces?

I'm looking at the release calendar for the next year or so and I'm quite taken aback and the amount of "masterpieces" that have suddenly swept into the world of video gaming.

Final Fantasy XII, Gran Turismo 4, Metal Gear Solid 3, Doom 3, Grand Theft Auto 5, Halo 2, Half-Life 2, Star Fox 2, Driver 3, Metroid Prime 2, Prince of Persia 2, Resident Evil 4, The Sims Whatever (What number are they at now? 14?)

Yup. Masterpieces abound almost everywhere.

I especially love how each one of those games above are basically reincarnations of their previous installment, only with "better" stuff and "more" stuff, ie Making you feel less guilty when you've realized you've just been ripped off.

Hell, if I wasn't such a jaded individual I think I could compare this certain situation to another we're familiar with - Summer Action Movies. And we all know how high-up summer action movies are on the art scale, don't we?

Let's be honest here, guys. The video game industry is going to hell. Don't kid yourself by saying it isn't, that video games are healthy as ever, look at the sales figures, etc... On a purely creative level, video games have more than stayed past their welcome. In fact, they're in the process of shitting on your carpet in some drunken frenzy.

You KNOW a industry that supposedly builds itself upon creativity is dead when the only thing that is keeping it together is with rival developers trying to one-up the other guy on the violence scale. It's all about violence now, it's all about "realism" now, it's all about spreading your opponent's guts across the multiplayer map as you jump around typing 1337-speak, pissing off the other players on the same server.

Yeah. Masterpieces indeed. What maturity. What artistic merit. My bladder quivers just thinking about it.

I find it interesting how you guys raise up Grim Fandango and Ico (Ico was truly the last great game this industry has seen). I remember finishing Grim Fandango, and reaffirming to myself that the adventure game genre was quite possibly the greatest creation known to man. The value held in these games was incredible, the humour was sharp, the production values were greater than any movie could accomplish (Don't believe me? Play a game called "The Dig" and come back). It truly opened a brand new window of opportunity for video games to develop, to grow.

What did Grim Fandango do? It killed the adventure game.

Ico was the most atmospheric, the most involving, the most incredible game experience ever created, and that is truly how it should be described as - an experience. You could literally smell the cool, moist air trickle down your lungs as you jumped from chasm to chasm, helping some innocent girl along the way. It redefined the potential for involvement in an entertainment medium.

What did Ico do? It sold 10 000 copies and killed any chance for games like it to come along.

I have lost all of my faith in video gamers. Their inability to appreciate truly great works, truly ARTISTIC works is staggering. Their refusal to desire anything original, anything without a fucking number after the title is just depressing.

Art form, you say? Fuck that. The potential for video games to become an art form died when the adventure genre died. It died when some $5 discount bin motocross hackjob sold more than the most involving masterwork ever created.

Whatever, I guess. If people only want sequels, then fine. Give them sequels. But that won't stop me from dreaming of some creative ressurection that will make me appreciate again why I've spent so many hours of my life in front of a monitor pressing buttons.

I'd also like to raise up the situation involving a once-great company, a company that prided itself on making some of the greatest accomplishments in interactive media EVER.

LucasArts.

There was a point that I can recall in which LucasArts was simply unstoppable. Day of the Tentacle, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Full Throttle, Sam and Max... I don't think I'm the only one that forgets those "The Adventurer" magazines they used to release. I remember looking through those with my mouth gaping open at the excitement and anticipation.

And what are they doing now? Star Wars. Star Wars. Star Wars. More Star Wars.

It is the quintessential situation. The situation of financial liability over creative merit. Their refusal to take chances, instead opting to play it "safe", to release Star Wars after Star Wars after Star Wars.

And what's sick is that people still buy it.

Sam & Max 2 was recently cancelled, because the publisher felt it wouldn't be able to recoup its costs, when you factor in marketing and finishing development and such. The game was NEARLY FUCKING FINISHED and these idiots CANNED IT.

Imagine 20th Century Fox putting Fight Club on the shelf because at the last minute they felt it wouldn't make enough money. Imagine New Line ditching Lord of the Rings because they felt it was too much of a risk.

LucasArts is just one of the many idiots that have swept the development industry, and they're one of the reasons why I kick myself everytime I walk into an Electronics Boutique and see the shit that plagues their walls.

Sorry guys, but this is something that I really hold close to my heart. I have too many memories of staying up way past my bedtime as a kid playing stuff like Broken Sword and Lost Eden and King's Quest, trying my best to live everything I could from these games, and to see such a vibrant industry turn into what it has today just sends this dark cloud over my head that won't go away.

Oh well...

I get the feeling Stench would nail that to the front door of EA if he could.

I can't quite match your, er, enthusiasm in a rebuttal, but I will note that if you threw a dart at the NES library, you'd have about an 80% chance of hitting a truly shitty game. The bell curve has always been the same or worse. Yes, the amount of money in the industry now discourages risk, but if you think the overall quality of games hasn't risen with each successive generation then you need to fire up a few 8-bit movie-licensed games. If ICO and Grim Fandango were huge hits, you wouldn't have a thousand masterpieces, you'd have a thousand clones of ICO and Grim Fandango. It has far less to do with lowest-common-denominator tastes than the simple fact that the truly great, in every medium, is exceedingly rare. (I doubt Tim Schafer had a better adventure game in him than GF and I think he knew it.) All those "easy-money" games help the industry survive so that every few years someone can come up with something truly special and you can pretend it used to happen a lot more often than it does now.

I try not to be judgemental in my posts, but Stench is an asshole.

I mean, what the hell? Your favorite game came out 10 years ago, so the entire medium is now a despicable sham? And there aren't sequels in film or literature? Movie studios and publishers don't cancel projects they don't think will be successful? Wait, they do. But what right does any company have not to finance a project that some dickwad on the internet thinks would have been a masterpiece (I would stress thinks because it was never made, so how the hell would anyone know?)? Fuck. Some of the greatest videogames were part of a series (FF3, GTA:VC, SW:KOTOR). A lot of great movies have been sequels too (Godfather 2, ESB, Terminator 2, LoTR). But, you know what, he was probably right. If a movie/book/game has been made about a topic, no one should ever try to make another about it. So, please, Hollywood, don't make any more mob dramas, we already have Goodfellas. Or Sci-fi flicks, cause we already have Blade Runner. Or comedies, because we already have Airplane!. And prospective authors out there, who the hell do you think you are? You think you can write a great American novel, when Catcher in the Rye was written 50 years ago? And for fuck's sake, will the video game industry just die already? ICO can never be topped!! Stench says so, so just accept it!!!

Yeah, sure. You're right. There's always been those "easy-money" games that are just a quick fix to ream in some extra bucks. But what do you do when ALL games are now those "easy-money" quick fixes? That's the problem, isn't it.

First off, I find it a bit funny you mention GTA:VC in your post as one of the greatest video games ever made, when really it was just a repackaged GTAIII meant to be rushed into the marketplace to take advantage of the consumers. Don't kid yourself, either - it's obvious that Rockstar churned that one out just to reap a few extra bucks, yet somehow people fell into their trap believing that this was a "worthy addition" to the series.

You know how there's two types of sequels in movies? I'm sure you do. There's the sequel that's identical to first one, only with bigger this and more of that, meant to attract people who want "more of the same". Then there's the sequel that tries to continue where the first one left off, it tries to move into new ground and take the viewer elsewhere.

I suppose you're the kind of guy that loves the first type, hey. Well maybe I should apologize to you for saying that I would really like video games to take the second route, and try to evolve from what they've accomplished already into something else, instead of staying in the gutter that they've been stuck in the last few years.

Yeah, and that second part of your post made no sense because you interpreted what I said incorrectly so I won't bother talking about it.

But hey, Duke, if you're happy, then that's all that matters. Now why don't you rev up your Gamecube and start playing some Mario Kart: Double Dash.

Try the decaf, Stench.

As for me, I'm not quite ready to sound the death knell of videogaming just yet. I still see risks being taken here and there. I remain guardedly optimistic.

Probably a good idea, isn't it...

Here's something I remember reading earlier over at E3... highlights in bold.

http://www.addict3d.org/index.php?pa...pe=news&ID=774

Now at least a few people get it, although Will Wright saying that the industry is on autopilot is a bit ironic, considering he was the one that pretty much started this modern "moremoremore" trend...

Okay, Stench, sorry I went after you so hard. For some reason your posts just really got my blood up. It seemed like you were writing off the entire medium because you weren't happy with how a couple sequels turned out. Like it or not, sequels are a huge part of the videogame market, and a lot of them are gonna be crap. But sometimes they are good, and sometimes they are great, so I am fine with that, and I don't think you should scrap an entire series because of one crappy installment. I am glad that LucasArts made Knights of the Old Republic, one of my favorite games ever, even though Clone Wars sucked. Or, to use an older example, I thought Mario 2 on NES sucked, but I am glad they made Mario 3 anyway, which was a much better game. And as for Vice City, I have never felt Rockstar took advantage of me with it, because it actually delivered more than I expected. I wanted more when GTA 3 ended, and that is what I got. A new but similar story, similar but expanded gameplay, a new and bigger environment, more weapons, a main character who speaks, more vehicles (including the awesome Faggio), and a kick-ass 80's soundtrack. I guess this falls into the first type of sequels you mentioned, and I love it for that. I never thought GTA warranted a "Type 2" sequel; GTA is not really about story, its about gameplay, and beating old ladies with baseball bats.

Okay, a little bit more. This thread was originally about video games as an emerging art form. I think this is true, or could be at least. Vice City may not be great art, but it is so damn fun. Besides, I wanted it to entertain me, not cure cancer and lower oil prices. And entertain me it did. I got more hours of enjoyment out of that game that probably any other. And many other people feel the same way. You don't like it, or don't think it's art? Fine. But to use it as an example of the spectacular failure of modern videogames just seems ridiculous to me.

I might add that the GTA series already had an envelope-pushing sequel called GTA3.

Putting aside the ridiculous fact that you're writing off every game with a number in front of it, movies and games are not entirely congruous and I wish people would making direct comparisons. Movie sequel does not equal game sequel. Games and movies are engaging in entirely different ways. A game is a couple dozen hours of active entertainment, a movie is two to three hours of passive entertainment. There's a lot more entertainment value in a game sequel than a movie sequel, and I can assure you that everyone who enjoyed GTA3 was looking forward to another fifty hours of similar fun. Sure, after a couple of iterations it gets old like everything else (see: Tomb Raider), but then it stops selling (see: Tomb Raider), and we move on.

Believe me, I'm far more interested in whatever, say, Treasure is working on than Madden 200X, but the bottom line is I have more games I'd like to play than I'll ever have time to actually get to, and you sound like the kind of person who stops listening to a band once they break into the mainstream.

This discussion, to date, has been seriously addled by a fundamental misperception of what, exactly, art is. To whit:

Count Floyd:

"[Videogames are] certainly on the verge of becoming a major, permanent entertainment medium, if [they haven't] already. Becoming art, on the other hand, is a bit trickier."

This is emblematic of a somewhat prevalent opinion (I hesitate to use the word "position," for various reasons) that seems to plague certain aspects of the general populace -- when one creates something, it's just a thing; but when one creates something of quality, it's *art*. It's the same sentiment that has been voiced in regards to other media, as well: there are movies, and then there are *films*; there are stories, and then there is *literature*; there are comic books, and then there are *graphic novels*.

While the structure of words and logic both is quite a wonderful thing, and while humanity's attempts to divide and conquer in order to better understand or analyze an item is oftentimes sound in principle, there is such a thing as misusing -- or *abusing* -- one's tools or abilities.

Art is art. Period. End of story. It either is good or it isn't (or a shade somewhere in between). This rather pretentious attempt to cleave category after category within whatever medium of art is not only misguided, it is misleading, as well -- it washes the artist of any responsibility held in the act of creation (*creation* being, of course, the definition of art). Instead of creating something that is of low quality or poor construction, it's now just a "movie," and that's okay, since "movies" are supposed to be poorly composed. Never mind the responsibilities of the artist to tell his stories and to tell them well; now he can simply pander to the lowest common demonitor, and his audiences will not only thank him for it, they will also create entire microcosms of excuses to justify it for him.

We have enough definitions and divisions and categories as it is; let's try to keep the invalid or unsound ones out of the equation.

Of course, this itself is emblematic of a much deeper, and much more troubling, perception of art and how it interrelates with our society, a misperception as indicated by Mr. Floyd's first sentence in the above quote. While it is best to delve into this subject at a later time, it has something to do with the words "art" and "entertainment"...

On a differe note:

Jacob Singer:

"Film is certainly collaborative, like game design, but almost always benefits from a strong directorial force. There are plenty of strong, vocal designers in gaming, but I'm not sure anyone is currently influential enough to keep a 'visionary project' on course."

Never heard of Shigeru Miyamoto? Or Hideo Kojima? Or, even, Dennis Dyack?

I imagine my idea of what constitutes "visionary" differs rather a lot from yours.

And Stanley Kubrick is a mediocre director...

Kubrick made a video game?

Now that's talent.