/v/ - Vidya Games

What do you define as art? Can you give an example of media that would qualify in your mind as art and one that would be entertaintment? Im not trying to be snarky i want to better understand your question because i think we have very different views on entertaintment and art.
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I think video games as a medium lean more towards entertainment rather than art but it still contains some properties of art like cinematography, imagery, music, narrative and messaging. The last of us and whether movie game you can think of suck not because they try to be art but because they try to tell a story the same way movies or books do. Video games have gameplay in them which tends to fight with traditional ways of storytelling for the players attention and time. I think a game can become art if it manages to balance these two or find a way to tell story through gameplay. I can't think of many games id classify as art, maybe sifu and journey purely because of their visual aspects. If silent hill 1 and 2 had better voice acting id *maybe* say they are art.

>>61364
>I think a game can become art if it manages to balance these two or find a way to tell story through gameplay
While still having a compelling story.

>>61359 (OP)
Games are games. Art is art. Games are meant to be interacted with while art is meant to be witnessed. A game can have artistic qualities, but it will never be REAL art, and there's nothing wrong with that. The reason some people get upset about games being treated the same as art is because they want games to have the same respect art has. They want games to be as historically significant as a book, painting, film, or song. The main difference between any of those mediums and gaming is that games were never meant to be anything like them. They were meant to be in the same category of other inventions meant for play like toys, board games, and even sports. Making the next step from physical play to digital play. I don't want games to be more like art since it would take away from what makes it unique. However, that doesn't exempt them from criticism just like any other craft. Stagnation and mediocrity is just as bad for games as it is art. I'd say it's even worse since unlike art you can seemingly feel when a game is poorly made (I'm talking about really shitty games, common examples being anything made by sonic team and game freak within the past decade).

Im the nigger from the other thread. I kind of got tired of this conversation because I dont want to write basically the same post a third time. You mentioned Nintendo and thats the best example of a company that view their shit just as products. Your idea that art has to be entertaining and its made to bring joy to as many people as possible is completely infantile. Art can be immediately enjoyable by everyone but when one have knowledge of that craft it has a deeper meaning, one can enjoy a cathedral, a song a painting… but only when you understand how they are made its possible to be aware of the different artists choices and technique that make that piece stand out and not be like everything else. Bringing joy to people is a worthless metric unless your only objective is to sell as much as possible. Again, I refuse to consider The Witness or Baba is you the same thing as Candy Crush, by your metric the later is better since it has brought joy to more people than the other two. The art is in finding new ways of telling something, new ways of experimenting, not copying something that works just because you know people will like it. Im not saying products are bad, I enjoy a lot video games that are just products, but they are not the same thing.

vidya can be art if it's not pretentious

Some indie's or low budget games are. Everything else is just a product made with the only idea of making money.

>>61364
>What do you define as art? Can you give an example of media that would qualify in your mind as art and one that would be entertaintment? Im not trying to be snarky i want to better understand your question because i think we have very different views on entertaintment and art.
Well like i implied (I think i did at least.) this is about how everyone else views it but if ya wanna know my specific views then i have always been literal minded, i call entertainment everything made to entertain and i view art as something made to be looked at without really engaging in it.
Vidya, along with animation, comics, live action, etc is what i call a mix of the two with one having more priority over the other depending on the experience the creator wants to give but at the end of the day the entertainment part will always be a core part of any media so it's all classified as entertainment no matter what.
And with that being said, my thoughts on your views on the subject is that they are as valid as mine and anyone else's as long as we're polite about it and not view anyone else's views and inferior.

Botj

>>61367
You see, now this is something i agree with.
It's like you managed to articulate my feelings.
Thank you.

Machinarium is a good example of a game that is actually art. It's linear, simple point and click with emphasis on visuals, atmosphere and storytelling. Devs are more like artists than programmers. Ev&doe it's not fancy and is accessible to anyone. And it is somewhat culturally significant.

>>61390
>Games are meant to be interacted with while art is meant to be witnessed
>art as something made to be looked at without really engaging in it.
By thinking about it and tying to interpret it you do interact with it. If a painter makes a painting with a certain message but the vast majority of people interpret it in a different way from what is intended then the meaning of it is permanently changed no matter what the artist might say. Also this logic does not explain interactive art pieces being considered (mostly by snobs thoughbeit) real art.

>>61375
>You mentioned Nintendo and thats the best example of a company that view their shit just as products
They view their games as worlds to interact with for the fun and joy of it.
Every single company can be seen as treating their games as "products" through a cynical eye.
>Your idea that art has to be entertaining and its made to bring joy to as many people as possible is completely infantile
What exactly is wrong about bringing joy to others? You sound really miserable when you say stuff like this. You're telling me you never want to give other joy and gain joy yourself?
>Art can be immediately enjoyable by everyone but when one have knowledge of that craft it has a deeper meaning, one can enjoy a cathedral, a song a painting… but only when you understand how they are made its possible to be aware of the different artists choices and technique that make that piece stand out and not be like everything else
That applies to literally every piece of media out there.
Same as all media being made to bring joy.
Yet they don't contradict each other.
>Bringing joy to people is a worthless metric unless your only objective is to sell as much as possible
Not only is wanting to bring joy and wanting to get sales two completely different things but even if they are somehow link what would be so wrong about that?
>Again, I refuse to consider The Witness or Baba is you the same thing as Candy Crush, by your metric the later is better since it has brought joy to more people than the other two
I never said that, don't twist my words. I never used joy as a metric i never even bothered to learn exactly what a metric is.
After reading this part it has become clear to me that you're lashing out like this because you have completely misconstrued me causing you to get offended and defensive over something said in your own imagination as your not reacting logically and thinking about what i said but you're reacting emotionally and getting mad over what i never said.
>The art is in finding new ways of telling something, new ways of experimenting, not copying something that works just because you know people will like it
And i agree with this, i don't like copying and i hate it when something new and unique comes out only for it to be compared to something else based on trivial similarities as it's people stripping away the unique qualities in the public eye and shoving it into something else's shadow, something that is sadly common nowadays as the modern human mind lacks nuance and is unable to comprehend viewing something on it's own, people need a comparison to comprehend anything these days and it really proves how far humanity has fallen.
But with that being said there really is nothing new under the sun, the only uniqueness anything can have nowadays is what can be added.
I know i said i don't like comparisons but for the sake of making a point, The Witness is really nothing more than a walking simulator with puzzles i have already seen before from the likes of Professor Layton, while Baba is like an top down Typoman with your typical cute white creature design in front of a black background.
Like i said, i am against this kind of stuff, but for the sake of making a point i can easily take your examples of "art" games and call them copy cats.
I'm not saying that's the case or that there's much wrong with it, simply making the point that ya seem to have selective pessimism.
>Im not saying products are bad, I enjoy a lot video games that are just products, but they are not the same thing.
It's all classified as entertainment.
And to try to devalue a work as nothing more than a "product", no matter how much ya say it's not a bad thing, is still insulting, on top of everything else i have said about it.

>>61417
All forms of art has some element of entertainment, modern art is widely considered inferior from the works of the old masters due to not looking aesthetically pleasing or technically impressive.

>>61417
>By thinking about it and tying to interpret it you do interact with it. If a painter makes a painting with a certain message but the vast majority of people interpret it in a different way from what is intended then the meaning of it is permanently changed no matter what the artist might say
I get what you're trying to say but i personally don't look at art pieces that way, i look at oit like every other, i think it looks cool, nice, beautiful, etc and then move on and i might go back to look at it later.
If i find out that the creator has a specific meaning to it then it their work and i say i have no business trying to change it.
>Also this logic does not explain interactive art pieces being considered (mostly by snobs thoughbeit) real art.
You can consider them in between the two of them, you can even consider it a spectrum.
>>61419
I say those who say that kind of stuff as if it's objective is narcissistic of them as they're pretty much saying that their views on something so subjective is the only truth that should be followed.
Yes, what is modern is different from the works of The Scream but i honestly prefer Vaporwave, Y2K, stuff like that and i can enjoy them all equally alongside The Scream. Pics related.

>>61424
> i look at oit like every other, i think it looks cool, nice, beautiful, etc and then move on and i might go back to look at it later.
i think thats kind of shallow.
>Yes, what is modern is different from the works of The Scream but i honestly prefer Vaporwave, Y2K, stuff like that and i can enjoy them all equally alongside The Scream. Pics related
when i said modern art i meant this shit. Vaporwave and y2k arent modern art because they are styles belonging to the 21st century

>>61427
>i think thats kind of shallow.
Explain how please.
>when i said modern art i meant this
Those are cherry picked examples of a small minority that gets blown out of proportion.
>Vaporwave and y2k arent modern art because they are styles belonging to the 21st century
AKA the modern century we're living in.

>>61450
>AKA the modern century we're living in.
Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s
Modern art is an art movement that emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was characterized by a shift away from traditional styles to a more abstract, experimental approach to creating works of art. Major modern art movements include Impressionism, Expressionism, Cubism, Fauvism, Dadaism and Surrealism. Influential modernist artists include Pablo Picasso, Wassily Kandinsky, Salvador Dalí and Marcel Duchamp. Modern artwork has had a lasting impact on the development of visual culture and continues to influence contemporary art today. Here you go since you are too lazy to Google it
>Those are cherry picked examples of a small minority that gets blown out of proportion
These aren't cherry picked examples, as a matter of fact the urinal (fountain by Marcel Duchamp) is considered a major landmark for 20th century art. You can clearly see the modern art movement degenerate as time went on.
>Explain how please
Because you don't think about how it effects you or the world around you beyond mmm it looks nice. There are paintings that tell a whole story but you cant understand it if you don't take time to think about what you're looking at (The Arnolfini Portrait, Primavera, the night watch the Fallen angel are a few examples that come to mind).

>>61450
Vaporwave and suck are contemporary art

>>61456
I think around cubism is when it started turning to shit

>>61457
Such*

I think both can be good if handled well?

>>61477
Tsmt

>>61457
>>61459
Well, yeah, that's pretty much what i'm saying.
>>61456
I'm not lazy, it turns out we were thinking of different definitions of the word "modern".
Like i said i am literal minded, lets be polite about this.
>Because you don't think about how it effects you or the world around you beyond mmm it looks nice. There are paintings that tell a whole story but you cant understand it if you don't take time to think about what you're looking at (The Arnolfini Portrait, Primavera, the night watch the Fallen angel are a few examples that come to mind).
There's nothing wrong with this though.
When i look at a painting for example all i want to do is look at something that looks nice, and lets be real here, not every painting has a story to it, realty the vast majority of them were only made to look pretty and that's OK.

It's a toy. It's purpose is to be fun, entertainment as you say.

Any argument for vidya being art.
>It has music/art/drawings/paintings etc. that would be art on it's own!
Could literally be made about literal baby toys.

Not to mention as you say any vidya that tries to be less toy and more heckin valid arterino is coal slop

>>61367
>>61616
Pretty much what I think as well

>>61491
I think your mindset is wrong because it leaves you vulnerable to subversive messaging

>>61616
>Could literally be made about literal baby toys.
not really

>>61648
Despite what i have said i also tend to go into deep dives into things that set of alarms and red flags so no need to worry about that.
>>61649
Well they can look nice and artistic in their own ways.

Who says that "entertainment" and "art" is mutually exclusive?

>>61359 (OP)
It's both. The problem is that most people are really, really bad at making video games and they end up making garbage/interactive movies. Half the director roles in the industry are filled with people who couldn't even make B movies.

>>61786
>Well they can look nice and artistic in their own ways.
there are tiers to art, something like Hamlet or the great Gatsby is more important to society than the moomins

>>61887
Well if you think about art in general isn't really important to society as we can all live without it.
It's mostly all for creativity and fun more than anything else.