Miyamoto: "I never said games are art."

[susanismyalias]

Oh I thought you were trying to debase actual understanding of art as equivalent of nothing more than achievable through a high.

[kyouki]

Good games are art. Just like movies and paintings and novels.

[Jave]

Jun 15, 2011 19:20:31 GMT -5 @ldorado said:

I don't mean the innovative stuff and excitement, I mean like, text-based RPGs, the extreme Nintendo fandom that doesn't evolve beyond the first Donkey Kong and PacMan, and pixelated messes of games, especially the first attempts at eroge.

Okay, I think I get what you mean.

[Ryu the Grappler]

My mom arranged for a personal visit to see Romero and his division was working on software and equipment to help the deaf and/or mentally disabled. Sure, it's a good cause, but it's not what I want to do with my life!

I think Romero only joined the artsnob movement because he never recovered from all the mockery he received over Daikatana. Romero, we forgive you. It's good you're making games for disabled people, but stop hanging out with artsnobs and go back to creating quality games.

Jun 15, 2011 17:58:03 GMT -5 @jasonx said:

I actually think Amano's style is really lousy. Does that mean it's not art? Is Akira Toriyama's work art?

I wish I could draw half as well as Amano and Toriyama. Even though I'm not a fan of their works, they're still truly talented. They're true artists in my book

I guess a better question is...who gives a shit? Play games, have fun. Everything else is irrelevant.

Because these poseurs are making a mockery out of both, actual talented game designers, and the word "art" itself, by implying (and even directly saying) that the works of actual talented game designers are childish "wastes of time".

Samyn then dug in further, intoning, "Beside a few noble attempts, video games are overwhelmingly a waste of time."

www.gamasutra.com/view/news/27133/The_Art_History_Of_Games_Games_As_Art_May_Be_A_Lost_Cause.php

And this is supposed to be a video game connoisseur. This dingbat that I'm quoting is named Michael Samyn, who created The Path.


So how do you make "true video game art"? By making a dumbed-down adventure game with more pretentious writing than an emo kid's poetry.

I don't mind people making crappy games (because that's what most of these so-called "art games" really are). Crappy games have always been around. But if people like Samyn are going to shit on an entire industry while claiming that their crappy games are the "true works of art", then I have every right to shit on their work.

Good games are art. Just like movies and paintings and novels.

Quoted for truth.

[kyouki]

Jun 15, 2011 20:46:54 GMT -5 Ryu the Grappler said:

So how do you make "true video game art"? By making a dumbed-down adventure game with more pretentious writing than an emo kid's poetry.

I don't mind people making crappy games (because that's what most of these so-called "art games" really art). Crappy games have always been around. But if people like Samyn are going to shit on an entire industry while claiming that their crappy games are the "true works of art", then I have every right shit on their work.

People who can't make art hide their incompetence behind a bunch of bullshit that has nothing to do with what they are making. How can someone who has never made a Super Mario Bros or a Contra or a Metroid or a Doom or an Ultima go about making "statements" about video games?

If you don't understand what makes Super Mario Bros art, if you've never made anything that comes close to the perfect marriage of visuals and interactivity that is Super Metroid, how can you unload your abortion of a video game on the internet and claim it is "commentary" on video games?

It's the difference between PissChrist and Picasso. If you don't have the chops to back up your "message" then you are not an artist. You are a provocateur, a carnival sideshow barker.

[kal]

Art Games, Games as Art, Interactive Art, Multimedia Art...these are all different things which I think some people here are accidentally holding under the same umbrella term "art". They're pretty incomparable and attempts to mix them together in the same debate will probably result in a flame war.

As an aside I dislike the guys behind The Path - mostly because they seem a bit deluded about how amazing and creative they are. I wish they'd stop pretending they make games.

[Ryu the Grappler]

Or it could be that the term "art" itself has multiple inconsistent meanings and it's been thoroughly bastardized from its original intention. Poseurs such as Michael Samyn and Jason Rohrer aren't really helping matters. Rohrer is annoying, but Samyn is even more obnoxious.

[ldorado]

I couldn't agree more. The whole thing is a travesty. You know, maybe these people deliberately make crap other people cannot understand so that they can be in a position of false intellect or "thorough understanding". It's like writing a book in a language only you can understand, then going on about whatever literary value it has that makes it "superior".

If this makes it to a philosophy class, I call dibs on the "Dantalian Effect" after the SMT demon.

[kal]

By it's original intention Art would not include video games as they did not exist at the time. It's also pretty unfair to tell people they can't make art because their style of doing things doesn't appeal to you. All of it's subjective anyway and I don't intend to deviate from the topic at hand any further since it's too much of a loaded topic.

[Ryu the Grappler]

Of course it's subjective. Almost everything is subjective in this world. By your logic, we shouldn't talk about anything at all. The point that most of these "art game" designers is that they use the "art" label to hide their mediocrity and at the same time, they clearly don't appreciate video games (both, old and new) as evident by the comments they have made about the industry. I am an old fart as far as my taste in video games is concerned, but even I can see the appeal of most modern video games even if I'm not playing them. A crappy game like Passage wouldn't have made it in my top list even if it came out for the NES 25 or so years ago.

It's not even a matter of me not understanding the "morals" or "messages" of these games. Most of these art games have "messages" that are either, completely juvenile (Passage and Braid) or utterly pretentious (The Path). The "message" of Passage is that people get old and die. Tell me something I didn't learned when I was 5.

Video games are not the only form of art suffering from this trend. Most indie films (aside for the occasional good ones) are crap compared to most studio films and most modern paintings are crap compared to most classic paintings. To use an earlier example, I'm not a fan of Toriyama's art style, but his work required more technical skills than the random splotches of paint that passes off as "art" nowadays.

And it's not just the "art games" designer that are shitting on quality games. Just look at this editorial written by IGNoramus Michael Thomsen, the same dingbat that said Metroid Prime Trilogy is the "Citizen Kane of video games" (an analogy that is so friggin' retarded, calling it "retarded" is offensive to mentally handicapped people).
wii.ign.com/articles/111/1111599p1.html

For all of the attention and timing paid to mood and mechanics in Limbo, Galaxy 2 can feel like an obstacle course with no purpose beyond the invigoration of firing your neurons at a dioramic puzzle garden.

Oh my God! A video game that actually challenges my playing skills? What could they think of next? There's nothing special about Limbo to warrant such praise, much less to shit on Super Mario Galaxy 2, a game of a completely different genre. The only person I can see who needs to grow up is Thomsen.

[Malroth]

...And what was the message of Braid exactly? An interview with the creator essentially rendered the game's "story" useless to me when he said he understood the text in the game was unusual and that it was open to interpretation as far as if the game is open to interpretation (yes, just like that).

God I hated Braid. So sue me.

[kal]

Jun 16, 2011 10:18:48 GMT -5 Ryu the Grappler said:

Of course it's subjective...

You keep calling Passage a game, it's clearly not a game. I don't care if the author calls it such it's an artwork that happens to be interactive. There is also slightly more subtly than you give it credit for and this subtly only exists because it is interactive.

Although it seems your more offended that people can actually enjoy styles of art you don't find any merit in and that's understandable. I completely agree that plenty of people are obnoxious about their beliefs.


God I hated Braid's attempt at a meaningful storyline, ergh, that title just felt like a disconnected mess. Enjoyable puzzles though.

[caoslayer]

Videogames may store graphical art, music, a well done script and acting.

So, someone is implying that the sum of all the parts is less that each individual part?
Beats me.

[megatronbison]

Everytime a "are games art" thread gets posted here a little bit of HG101's soul dies. It's true.

[Ryu the Grappler]

Jun 16, 2011 12:41:53 GMT -5 Malroth said:

...And what was the message of Braid exactly? An interview with the creator essentially rendered the game's "story" useless to me when he said he understood the text in the game was unusual and that it was open to interpretation as far as if the game is open to interpretation (yes, just like that).

Most pretentious authors tend to use many overcomplicated terminology and phrases in order to make their shallow stories seem deeper than they really are. The plot of Braid is nothing special. Tim is a creep and the Princess dumps him for another guy. That's the ending right there. Maybe the plot is an allegory of Jonathan Blow's love life. Who knows? Who cares!

You keep calling Passage a game, it's clearly not a game. I don't care if the author calls it such it's an artwork that happens to be interactive. There is also slightly more subtly than you give it credit for and this subtly only exists because it is interactive.

Although it seems your more offended that people can actually enjoy styles of art you don't find any merit in and that's understandable. I completely agree that plenty of people are obnoxious about their beliefs.

If Passage isn't a video game, then they shouldn't be calling it that. In my book, it barely qualifies as a game. It's an interactive screensaver with ugly dot graphics and a really patronizing message ("look, people grow old and die"). I prefer the Newsground version because, it's short and to the point, it doesn't require a download, and it has better graphics.
www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/528185

I wouldn't even mind people enjoying Passage that much if they just be honest and say that it was an entertaining little program for them. It's when people start shitting on the game industry and start treating Rohrer like some sort of unsung indie rebel going against "the system" that annoys me. You think I'm kidding? Just look at this Esquire article.

According to Jason Rohrer, the reason for this is simple: "Ebert's right." Games suck. Game companies have spent so many years trying to make skulls explode complexly and water ripple prettily that they haven't invested any time in learning how to make games that are as emotionally dense as the best novels and films. Most games are a waste of time. Soulless. Empty.

www.esquire.com/features/best-and-brightest-2008/future-of-video-game-design-1208-2

"People grow old and die". That's the entire "emotional density" (whatever the hell that means) of Passage summarized in one sentence. I felt more emotions playing the Passage parody I've linked above than the official version itself, to say nothing of the countless good games, both old and new.

On a related subject, I did some digging on that Michael Thomsen doofus (the guy that said Limbo was better than Super Mario Galaxy 2) and the guy is a total weirdo.

thefastertimes.com/men/
www.slate.com/id/2295405?wpisrc=newsletter_tis

I always thought Thomsen looked a bit creepy from the photos and video interviews alone, but now I know everything.