Video Games as an art medium?

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It's time to fan the fires.
This has actually been a large topic of discussion for quite some time in various gaming groups on the internet. With the advancements in graphic capability and game size that have come to home consoles in the past few years, it seems that many developers are taking what they're doing with games much further than simply flash-bang-whizz entertainment. Add to this the inevitability of the current standard nearly doubling itself every four ot five years, and it's easy to see that there's a lot of potential for some great works.
But even as the technical aspect of art is being approached through the use of CGI and film-making techniques, games evolve into an art form on an emotional level as well. There are plenty of games already existing that play on the players emotions and natural reactions to draw them into the game world. We've all heard gamers admit, with a hint of reverence, to tearing up during one of the Final Fantasy series' most moving scenes. The Resident Evil and Silent Hill games, if you can get past the gore, are fundamentaly built to immerse the player into a larger-than-life horror situation (I, for one, have had to turn the lights on playing... Horror movies hardly phase me anymore). Even driving and sports simulations are being engineered to be a more immersive, true-to-life experience.
So, what are your thoughts? Is it art? What many seem to forget is that art is as much about personal enjoyment as it is about expression.
 
I don't know if you can call it an art form. I mean the idea of a game is to stimulate you. I can say games are getting more creative in terms of how they immerse you. As far as the "art form" half, the art to me exists in the actual look of the game. Toiling in front of a computer to model a charecter, render out backgrounds, the music, and of course the story. But it's Just an opinion of course.
 
What a very interested idea! Its tough to gage whether the world of video games could be considered "art." But, the potential is certainly there!!!!
 
If a play can be art and gives entertainment for a few hours, and if making a movie is art and gives entertainment for a few hours (including animated movies), then an animated video game that can give entertainment for hundreds of hours then yes it can be art. The difference between a movie/play and a video game is the involvement of the observer. Art is not always something to look at, but cant actually be something to interact with. Video games are an art that require much more involvement than a painting, a movie, or a play.
Peace!
 
How can anyone even question wether or not video games are an artform? Remember the watercolored backgrounds from Saga Frontier 2? Or how about the non-stop action of MGS2: SOL? Or the suspense of any of the Resident Evil games? Hell, most of the Final Fantasy games have a better written, deeper plot than many movies!!!
 
"How can anyone even question wether or not video games are an artform?"
I'm astonished it took 4 posts for this to be said (though I will consider computer games in this too, but these have to be considered imo. You can't completely seperate console and pc games development).
You can go back about 10 years and find the difference between 2 overhead soccer games to be amazing kick-off vs sensible soccer for example, and the far far far higher quality of the latter is less due to the graphics than the feel.
Consider the differences of Quake 3 vs Unreal Tournament.
How could you look at monkey island 1 and not consider what went into it art?
Even if you pick your simple concept there is a huge amount of art in it. A lot of it goes into programming so that all instructions execute quickly. But this isn't really visible.
The physics/engine of a game are an incredible art form, affects so many things in it. Even if you knew how to program very well it is not easy to make an engine/ or design the physics in a game so that it is as good as something like quake.
There are so many ways of making a game based around even the most simple concept.
To be honest, this has never been a question for me, but that's meant that this thread has been quite interesting for me :)
[ 04 August 2002: Message edited by: Setarcos ]
 
Originally posted by Setarcos:
"How can anyone even question wether or not video games are an artform?"
I'm astonished it took 4 posts for this to be said (though I will consider computer games in this too, but these have to be considered imo. You can't completely seperate console and pc games development).
You can go back about 10 years and find the difference between 2 overhead soccer games to be amazing kick-off vs sensible soccer for example, and the far far far higher quality of the latter is less due to the graphics than the feel.
Consider the differences of Quake 3 vs Unreal Tournament.
How could you look at monkey island 1 and not consider what went into it art?
Even if you pick your simple concept there is a huge amount of art in it. A lot of it goes into programming so that all instructions execute quickly. But this isn't really visible.
The physics/engine of a game are an incredible art form, affects so many things in it. Even if you knew how to program very well it is not easy to make an engine/ or design the physics in a game so that it is as good as something like quake.
There are so many ways of making a game based around even the most simple concept.
To be honest, this has never been a question for me, but that's meant that this thread has been quite interesting for me :)
[ 04 August 2002: Message edited by: Setarcos ]
yes yes yes....but is it ART??? ;)
Click to expand...
 
first if all, you need to define what you mean by "art".
by "Art", do you mean something that transcends time and space, that captures a moment, a feeling, an idea?
something that challenges the mind, the body, sprit?
I don't know the real defination of "art".
if so, there are games I would consider art mediums.
 
videogames have come a long way since pong, here be a collection of images from games
ICO
495-0.jpg

495-3.jpg

REZ
ss_rez_ps2_02.jpg

ss_rez_ps2_03.jpg

ss_rez_ps2_06.jpg

[ 06 August 2002: Message edited by: mike@point ]
 
Having just finished ICO on the PlayStation 2 I've been left without a shadow of doubt that videogames are 'art'. I've rarely been so involved with a medium, the sense of vertigo, suspense, joy... I could go on.
If movies can be considered art (which they quite rightly are) then videogames have to be too. And it's only going to get better! Whooo!
 
jsg - didn't you get the point. Of course it's not art :D
"If movies can be considered art (which they quite rightly are) then videogames have to be too. And it's only going to get better! "
When they get to really emersive 3d graphics then it is gonna make the current stuff look like black and white tv.
Imagine how fucking well they will be able to do horror, they will need to give free diapers with every copy of some games ;)
 
Originally posted by Looper:
Having just finished ICO on the PlayStation 2 I've been left without a shadow of doubt that videogames are 'art'. I've rarely been so involved with a medium, the sense of vertigo, suspense, joy... I could go on.

ICO is a prime example. The level of immersion in that game was surreal for me. Vertigo, as you cited, from hanging over the huge ledges of the castle; or also the mystery of what's lurking in the corner in some of the more ruined spots, relief when you finally get outside... pure magic. Of course, it didn't hurt that that game had spectacular graphics. :D
Click to expand...
 
I think video games are a plethera of art mediums wrapped into one, but I don't think you can call the game itself an artform. It's like someone saying a game of baseball is an artform. i just think people try to make it out to be more than it is. Yeah , like a movie it's entertaining , but I don't day "wow what an awsome piece of art", when I finish playing a game. I tend to be more in awe of the designs, music, modeling, animation and other visual elements with in the game.
 
"Yeah , like a movie it's entertaining , but I don't say "wow what an awsome piece of art", when I finish playing a game."
Are you saying films also are not an arform? :/
Do you consider literature an art form?
If no to both ignore the rest of this (though please say no to both) :) because it just means we have very different conceptions of art
If no to the first and yes to the second why? What makes certain pieces of literature better art while film is not.
And make sure not to compare a serious novel to a commercial hollywood action movie. It would only be fair to compare an airport novel to a film like that.
And if that's what you are injesting then of course there is little art in it but what do you expect?
If you are looking for whether there is art in either medium then you look at more art-housey/classic/serious films, and at serious well thought out novels.
And then if you say yes to film or literature and no to gaming then why?
"but I don't think you can call the game itself an artform"
As someone above said it is like film but with an interactive element. Surely the interactive element is the art in the game itself? In what other mediums has there been such interactivity. Perhaps in sports, but do you have a medium to consider? certainly not to the same extent.
Given this element the programmers/game designers have to find new techniques to involve the player in the game, to make it play as well as possible and be interesting.
[ 06 August 2002: Message edited by: Setarcos ]
 
i have quite a liberal view of what is art. basically i think that everything has an art to it, especially things that are physically constructed. whether or not it is deemed as "good art" is completely subjective.
now i do understand that people will separate art into two categories, fine art and design. fine art being completely the artists conception from the theory behind it, all of the way to the actual production: everything is theirs. design being an artist creating for a client. both in my eyes are art, but i know people tend to separate the "artfulness" of a project in this way.
however you choose to define art is entirely up to you, but i do hope that you can see the beauty and ART of creating something wonderful within a clients boundaries. :D
 
It's just the way I percieve it. I'm a Senior at a Private Art school studying Time-based media, emphasing Animation, Video, Motion Picture and Video games. And I had all the finer points of of beat into me (art History, Art Philosophy, Art and Society, trends, blah blah etc etc) So I know what I'm talking about.
Ok to go for broke, entertainemnt is an artform, one that is overlooked because it is so common. And to say I don't consider "film" an artform was a dumb thing to insinuate, I never typed that. Like I said entertainment is taken for granted, and noone except for those who take an active role in producing one of these forms of entertainment, really doesn't understand wherethe kind of work and commitment it takes.
So video games as an entertainment "artform"
is beautiful in that fact. but again it is my OPINION, not matter how brazen or cold it may sound to some. don't get me wrong..I do drop my jaw when I see how detailed and smooth a game Like FF10 is modeled and desgined. But the novelty out after I play the game a few hours, and it just becmoes a game to me and nothing more.
So there you have it, and Opinion. I probably am going to catch flack from the lot now having posted this
 
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