Do you consider FNV (and video games in general) to be works of art?

[SayinNuthin]

Just your opinions (no one needs to get het up about it...) I was surprised to come across someone who didn't consider video games an artform and wonder how common this is. Here's Google's definition;

 

Art¹ ɑːt/

noun: art; plural noun: arts; plural noun: the arts

1. the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power.
   

   "the art of the Renaissance"

   synonyms: fine art, artwork, creative activity

   "he studied art"

   • works produced by human creative skill and imagination.

     "his collection of modern art"

     synonyms: fine art, artwork, creative activity

     "he studied art"
   • creative activity resulting in the production of paintings, drawings, or sculpture.

     "she's good at art"
2. the various branches of creative activity, such as painting, music, literature, and dance.

   "the visual arts"
3. subjects of study primarily concerned with human creativity and social life, such as languages, literature, and history (as contrasted with scientific or technical subjects).

   "the belief that the arts and sciences were incompatible"
4. a skill at doing a specified thing, typically one acquired through practice.

   "the art of conversation"

   synonyms: skill, craft, technique; More

Seems pretty straight forward to me, games and FNV are probably not great art, possibly not even good art :dry: but it was a creative endeavour by the devs and continues to be, by modders so it qualifies.

 

Anyone else have ideas on this?

[MarchUntoTorment]

I personally - and this will sound supremely elitist - view some games as 'art' based on their intellectual and atmospheric merit. Much as with literature and film, only some of them qualify as 'art'.

 

Now, keep in mind that there is nothing wrong with not being 'art'. I typically qualify 'art' as something which exists to make people think, and often, 'art' is actually less enjoyable than its counterparts.

 

With that said, I do not consider the Fallout series to be art. It certainly comes close at moments (the grim atmosphere and incredibly well-written characters of Dead Money spring to mind, as do parts of Lonesome Road), but it never quite gets there. And there's nothing wrong with that - I love the series to death, and it's extremely enjoyable. It's just not art.

 

There are, however, certain games which I do consider art. Anything by Team ICO, first and foremost, along with the Souls series by From Software (to a lesser extent). The king of all 'art games', however, is - without a doubt - Spec Ops: The Line, a game which exists not for gameplay, nor for sales, but solely to make an artistic point.

[SayinNuthin]

Well I'm certainly going to be trying Spec Ops: The Line from your recommendation, but what a broad and very liberal view of what constitutes an art I seem to have then. Truly one never knows... :mellow:

An Art (for me) is the product of an act of creativity and/or imagination to invoke a response in others. And I make no distinction between arts and crafts in this. This is why I think something as banal as decorating cakes can be an artistic pursuit. Why something very technical like Architecture has artistic creativity at it's core. The last being a good example because by art, imagination and creativity you can end up with threatening and ugly buildings that are an affront to the human spirit such as;

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ap-hMHXgd9Y/TP15-3-hSYI/AAAAAAAABq8/AhTlMe7lC7E/s640/IMG_6965.JPG

as opposed to Anton Gaudi's expression of the devotion and religious sentiment of his people and culture - which even if your not a Catholic, subscribe to religion or even believe in a deity, is an incredible building to experience;

 

http://www.europeish.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2010/12/Barcelona-Sagrada-Familia.jpg

And they are art because those buildings were created and intended to have an effect of people, and that's why the broader definition I propose includes games . At the most basic level they tell a story, and I can rest my whole case on that one point. Because storytelling is quite possibly the oldest, most intrinsically human, artistic endeavour. At some distant point in history someone began to use paintings on the wall of the cave to 'illustrate' their narrative and around forty thousand years later we are doing the exactly same thing with game-engines* instead of pigments on cave walls and the why simply doesn't come into it.

So leaving aside the design elements of the game, ignoring the aspects of sculpting models and painting textures, overlooking the theatre involved in fabricating the illusion or the drama used to persuade the player to invest emotionally... Just the act of storytelling, for me, is sufficient to make video games an artform.

The caveat is games are rarely great art and often not even particularly good and I'm not (or wasn't) aware of any that aspire to fine-art. But even the most sceptical have to admit the artform is still in it's infancy, 40 years out of 40,000 it's practically fetal! But look how far cinema came in 100 years and, I think, hold tight because I recon we're in for a hell of a ride!

 

But hey, that's only my opinion there, to ignore, dismiss or mock... :laugh: and not intended to offend anyone's sensibilities.

* this from some other wooly liberal and the pinkos at the UK's Guardian newspaper

[kingwilfre16]

Well I'm certainly going to be trying Spec Ops: The Line from your recommendation, but what a broad and very liberal view of what constitutes an art I seem to have then. Truly one never knows... :mellow:

 

An Art (for me) is the product of an act of creativity and/or imagination to invoke a response in others. And I make no distinction between arts and crafts in this. This is why I think something as banal as decorating cakes can be an artistic pursuit. Why something very technical like Architecture has artistic creativity at it's core. The last being a good example because by art, imagination and creativity you can end up with threatening and ugly buildings that are an affront to the human spirit such as;

 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ap-hMHXgd9Y/TP15-3-hSYI/AAAAAAAABq8/AhTlMe7lC7E/s640/IMG_6965.JPG

 

as opposed to Anton Gaudi's expression of the devotion and religious sentiment of his people and culture - which even if your not a Catholic, subscribe to religion or even believe in a deity, is an incredible building to experience;

 

http://www.europeish.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2010/12/Barcelona-Sagrada-Familia.jpg

 

And they are art because those buildings were created and intended to have an effect of people, and that's why the broader definition I propose includes games . At the most basic level they tell a story, and I can rest my whole case on that one point. Because storytelling is quite possibly the oldest, most intrinsically human, artistic endeavour. At some distant point in history someone began to use paintings on the wall of the cave to 'illustrate' their narrative and around forty thousand years later we are doing the exactly same thing with game-engines* instead of pigments on cave walls and the why simply doesn't come into it.

 

So leaving aside the design elements of the game, ignoring the aspects of sculpting models and painting textures, overlooking the theatre involved in fabricating the illusion or the drama used to persuade the player to invest emotionally... Just the act of storytelling, for me, is sufficient to make video games an artform.

 

The caveat is games are rarely great art and often not even particularly good and I'm not (or wasn't) aware of any that aspire to fine-art. But even the most sceptical have to admit the artform is still in it's infancy, 40 years out of 40,000 it's practically fetal! But look how far cinema came in 100 years and, I think, hold tight because I recon we're in for a hell of a ride!

 

But hey, that's only my opinion there, to ignore, dismiss or mock... :laugh: and not intended to offend anyone's sensibilities.

 

* this from some other wooly liberal and the pinkos at the UK's Guardian newspaper

Journey is most definitely art, also what is that top building?

[SayinNuthin]

 

 

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ap-hMHXgd9Y/TP15-3-hSYI/AAAAAAAABq8/AhTlMe7lC7E/s640/IMG_6965.JPG

 

Journey is most definitely art, also what is that top building?

 

 

The British Secret Intelligence Service HQ in London (where James Bond works).

 

Anyone getting George Orwell's Ministry of Truth? Terry Gilliam's Brazil?? Could you ask for a more intimidating, ominous F***-You structure for spook central...

 

[Edit] Having said that if they made it look like some dull anonymous office building (not in the centre of the city) critics like me would only claim they were sulking in the shadows :laugh:

Edited December 1, 2014 by SayinNuthin

[SlaughterWolfStudios]

Personally, I see video games as art. But someone could argue they aren't. The video games that pop up in my mind when I think of 'art' would be the Telltale narrative games (TWD 1 & 2, Wolf Among Us, Tales from the Borderlands, Game of Thrones) and highly moddable games such as Elder Scrolls and Fallout. But back to my first sentence, if a painter can dedicate himself to a painting and it be considered art, why can't a game dev dedicate himself to a game and consider it art?

[ArekkusuStorm]

I never really understood why people wouldn't consider games art - as an artist and now studying to be a game designer.

 

If I create a 3D model of a character, it would be considered a digital sculpture, therefore a piece of art. (Same applies for an interior of a building, for this example in the sense that it's a potential concept to be constructed.)

 

If I now animate that character, it can be used for an animation, still an art.

 

If I create a script/story, it can be used for a movie/novel, which is also an art.

 

Now, if I were to put that character and allow - with the use of programming - the viewer to control the character in the interior I mentioned earlier and add a narrator talking in the background as you explore this interior, it is now (what people consider) a game and... what, not an art?

 

Unfortunately, there is no proper definition for a game that can apply to every game. Take Moutain for example, it's on steam. It's a game, but as the player or as some may say, a viewer you don't... do much. Which is very different to New Vegas where you're shooting, sitting, exploring, talking, etc. You could compare games and state the properties that games share but ultimately there will be no defined list that can be used as a checklist for something to be considered a game.

 

So with that in mind, what is this mess that combines these different types of art considered?

Edited December 3, 2014 by ArekkusuStorm

[SayinNuthin]

I never really understood why people wouldn't consider games art

 

There seems to be two main issues that people have trouble with, 1st games are a commercial product - as if michelangelo painted the sistine chapel because he had some spare time to kill... :laugh: 2nd is the quality of the artform is the equivalent of pulp fiction and never mind that Charles Dickens novels were exactly that, churned out for weekly magazine publication.

 

Interestingly it normally history that 'decided' which works were great, sure the folk at the time (and who paid) liked them but history, museum curators and art critics decided they were 'great' sometimes much much later eh, Vicent.

"What?"

I said, Sometimes A Lot Later!

"What?"

oh never mind...

[JoshBadWriter]

All games are art. I'm still debating if some games can be more "artistic" than others, but at a base level, again, all games can and should be considered art. To me, art is when someone or a group of people creates a work intended to inspire some kind of feeling in whoever is consuming it. The intended feeling could be as simple as excitement in shooting enemies, or as deep as a navel gazing piece with life, death, loss, etc.

 

And just because it's art doesn't excuse it from being good or bad. The thing about art is it's subjective. Yeah we all laugh at Big Rigs or Ride to Hell Retribution, but on some level they have worth to someone. They provide good examples on how not to design a game, for example, and you can certainly learn a lot more from bad examples than from good.

 

I hope that doesn't sound too pretentious, though that's probably asking for a bit too much.