/lit/ - Literature

0/10

10/10 I actually really liked it
/saved

i liked it.
a bit depressive...

Does anyone have that one comic where it goes like "I represent the author's opinion. I state my views calmly and rationally." and the other dude is all "I AM SILLY!"

Old comic is old as fuck.

as a former avid gamers myself, video games can't tell stories for shit.

They're fun, but as an artform they're not yet anywhere near the level of literature/music/sculpture/whatever, and they won't be until this obsession with graphics and cutting-edge technology is over.

>>1096580
I have obviously won.

>>1096600

thanks bro

Aren't you forgetting something?

>>1096596
You haven't seen the DEEp, INTRICATE PLOTS of Braid, No More Heroes and No More Heroes 2

>>1096596

That's like saying that literature is not a medium capable of conveying a grandiose story until everyone gets over their obsession with grammar, spelling, and language.

>>1096606

No, the current obsession with graphics is like being obsessed with the grade of the paper, the tone of the printing ink and the quality of the bindings. They're just incidental to the actual thing (provided they're of a basic quality that's sufficient to actually allow the reader/gamer to use it properly).

>>1096605

oh shit, Braid. After I finished it I spent the next 2 days telling people that they should play it. The twist ending floored me pretty hard.

>>1095344

The problem with games is that there is not one, at present, that can be considered to have real literary merit.

There are games that are well written, sure. They have plots and characters and settings: but these are all present in action films and teenage fantasy novels.

Because games are made by such large teams it must be very hard to focus any artistic purpose, as an author would. The purpose of a text is the difference between writing and literature: between entertainment and art.

Games suffer because, first and foremost, they must always entertain. What a writer wants is slave to technical limitations, the budget and the time-scale.

I believe that literature must present big ideas and themes and challenge the reader's attitudes and values. Writing is to entertain: literature is to enlighten, to educate, to provoke, and great literature will do this whilst being very entertaining.

Games have certainly flirted with this, but not to a satisfactory extent. I'm not demanding that the industry realign to my whims in a crusade for gaming literature, I am simply hoping for someone to come and prove that it can be done.

Thoughts?

some video-games (halo) have books that expand the game plots

>>1096609
See >>1096377

>>1096613
Some books (Divine Comedy) have videogames that make them more enjoyable

>>1096612

There's something in this. I think that games will realize their true artistic potential (which is massive) once technology reaches the point that game designers are no longer limited by their budget and processing power, but simply by what they can imagine and transform into a game. There will come a point where the technology will mean that realistic physics, life-like graphics and so on will be available to anyone, not just those who spend tens of millions of dollars developing them (just imagine if Tom Clancy novels, the book world's equivalent of Call of Duty, took nearly $100,000,000 to write). When that happens, and people become constrained by nothing but their own capabilities, that's when games will become an artform.

>>1096612
>>1096609

Have you tried any of the epsiodic stuff from Tell Tale Games? i.e. The latest Monkey Island series or the latest Sam and Max series? Thay are almost the antithesis of what you are talking about. They focus much more on character, setting, and story than gameplay. Yet, they are still enjoyable.

video game thread on /lit/?? 300+ posts easy

>>1096620

I know that there are some games out there with -some artistic merit - but I just feel that really, videogames are a medium that are still very much in its medium, and we'll eventually be seeing things that make the games currently proclaimed as "art" like Shadow of Colossus or Cave Story pale into insignificance.

>>1096612
>the difference between writing and literature: between entertainment and art.
Art? Imo, if a book is not entertaining, it's a piece of shit. Or a textbook whose pictures haven't yet been drawn with ballpen to create funny jokes about penises and drugs.

Also, lol at captcha >>1096617

>>1096619

Have you ever played one of the many Tom Clancy games?

Splinter Cell: Double Agent, (not sure how much input Tom had on this one.)

Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter 2, (far superior to Call of Duty)

Both hugely story driven.

>>1096612
I would agree with that up to a point. Basically speaking, there are two types of game developers, commercial and independent. What you have described well is the commercial.
>"writer wants is slave to technical limitations, the budget and the time-scale"
This can pretty much perfectly describe how a indie game developer operates, under high stress, little time situations. These same developers often lack the tools to get to the actual gameplay because they don't have the corporate backing to make their ideas happen, so they compensate with story(or try to anyway).
Many studios try to keep that sense of urgency when they go commercial with limited success. Another problem with the medium, which should change over time, is that most of the hired writers, again on the corporate level, come in after most of the gameplay has been developed. On top of this many writers that have been hired are not really familiar with how to write with gameplay being the centerfold and not the story, as in a book. These kind of obstacles are what have prevented the medium at a corporate level to progress story wise.

>>1096629

Indie games are like novellas, they're a good showcase of skill but they wont set the world on fire. There is no quest for the Great American Novella.

We need a game not only offers something of real substance, but does it with production values and quality that can't be ignored. I think that Mass Effect was a step in the right direction: a "AAA" title that was technically well written. It put big themes on the table and left it up to the player to try them on. Themes like racism, sacrifice, surrender and the human condition. Players could get something out of it -- something of literary merit -- if they invested into it.

Perhaps this is the ideal balance for games, leaning into artistic territory but with both feet planted on the side of entertainment. Perhaps one day they will learn to juggle both.

More to the point of this argument for me, is, can we hold a game to the same standards as a piece of literature? Would we compare the Mona Lisa to Dante's Inferno? Can I compare Austen to Kursawa? Is a brush stroke or the composition of a photograph equal to a well crafted sentence or paragraph? Is unique level design less creative an endeavour than intelligent, well reasoned prose? At what point does the obsession with technology, and what one can DO with that technology become less than the obsession with language, or imagery?

I submit for /lit/s consideration: Peter Molyneux and Milo the Virtual Boy

http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_molyneux_demos_milo_the_virtual_boy.html

>>1096639
Gise what if inception had been first made liek a videogame insted of a movie

>>1096639
Speaking of game writers and speaking of Bioware:
http://www.bioware.com/bioware_info/jobs/positions/austin_writer.html

>>1096639
That's a blanket. I would never consider La-Mulana to be a novella of a game, and I wouldn't consider The Turn of the Screw to be failing in any capacity from it's designated format. Just picking particulars though. I get what you're saying.

>>1096612
Best post. They are purely entertainment until CAD tools are simple enough for real artists.

>>1096639
>Mass Effect
>step in the right direction
Please, MGS2's plot was far more interesting. Point is Mass Effect is a terrible game for neckbeards. Perhaps the same type of neckbeard who proclaims vidya as art.

>>1096639
I would say the most frequently quoted game that fits that description is the Bioshock series. However, it all goes back to corporate again. Indie game developers often have the ideas, but none of the resources. Corporate often has the resources and none of the ideas. The CEO of Activision is often much more content with making the next call of duty game rather than take a chance on one guy with some ideas. Both sides aren't really keen on giving into the other. Indie doesn't want to give up its artistic freedom and corporate doesn't want to give up its money. There have been suggestions on both sides of the table to try and work something out, but nothing that has been tried has really stuck together for more than a year.

>>1096657
>They are purely entertainment until CAD tools are simple enough for real artists.
Are you saying art can only be achieved by means of narrative? That artists must be technologically dumb?
also mass effect is fantastic

>>1096657

Sure is mad /v/irgin in here.

The entire MGS series is Hideo Kojima's love/hate letter to videogames. It's not well written, exactly, because it doesn't need conventional writing structure to hold it together; what holds it together is the theme (part of which is the fact that the plot is retarded and silly).

>>1096612
>The problem with games is that there is not one, at present, that can be considered to have real literary merit
I disagree, while the average standard is miles below, consider the contemporary nature of the medium, whereas written literary is millenia old, and thing of all the pulp crime fic chick lit whatever that is spat out in high volumes. We just don't bother to look at it.
I've never considered the idea of a 'canon' to be really appropriate so 'real literary merit'...similarly too exclusive.

Best written game ever. Y/n/idklol, why?

THIS APPLIES IF WHAT YOU READ IS SHIT LIKE PULP FICTION.

NICE TRY THOUGH!

>>1096666
Oh sorry you guys are wanting "good writing" in video games? Bwhahahahahahaha.

Contemporary /lit/ fucking sucks itself. Why don't we expect games to have the most emotional scores whilst we're at it?

That's retarded because as is easily shown in the case of music, you want it to be background, tense or dramatic. Good game music != good listening music. Same goes for writing in games.

>>1096676
Not the best written video game of all time, given that there isn't much to it at all, aside from a few tropes like HAL 9000/GLADOS. Still a great game, purely because they found a unique, fun, mechanic, and allowed the user to play with it.

Video games have the potential to connect and express things never possible in other mediums

You can experience taking your son on his first trip to school, getting married etc

but no, the majority of games are simply murder-fests and offer nothing substantial. The potential is there but it's not being taken currently.

>>1096657

>Mass Effect
>Bad

Well that's a valid opinion I can se-

>MGS2
>Good

Well shit, I'll try not to fag up /lit/ with this but you're retarded. Kojima is a very ambitious writer without the talent to back it up. His meddling in game mechanics ranges from inspired to disastrous, and nobody in Japan has the balls to tell him when he gets it wrong.

If Kojima restrained himself and wrote to entertain he would probably succeed: far worse writers have made fortunes from it. Instead he pushes half-baked ideas through a tangled plot. There is no competent character development at any stage. He only challenges the player's attitudes on non-issues most people don't even have a stance on, such as human cloning.

If you can name such weak points in the first Mass Effect then I'll be amazed and impressed.

I am >>1096612 and >>1096639, FYI.

>>1096686
>Contemporary /lit/ fucking sucks itself.

YOU TAKE THAT BACK.

>>1096686
>Contemporary /lit/ fucking sucks itself.
Except you don't even read it and you probably aren't even aware of it

>>1096706

>Contemporary literature is so shitty. I haven't read any of it and I'm a little cannon baby who can't appreciate a book unless it's been cherished and hailed for tens or hundreds of years. I need people to hold my hand for me and tell me what to like.

>>1096692
Mass Effect storylines are like a Soap Opera mixed with a Dating Sim...

>His meddling in game mechanics ranges from inspired to disastrous
Funny how the game (MGS4) where he handed over the controls to the man responsible for "Westernising" them & the interface is when the gameplay is suddenly as dated as the first game.

>If Kojima restrained himself and wrote to entertain he would probably succeed
>Instead he pushes half-baked ideas through a tangled plot
Imo he did. Why do people keep thinking Kojima was attempting a big, "epic", complex storyline with the games? The plot is meant to be nonsensical & outrageous. The intangibility allows him to just put in the funnest & weirdest gameplay scenarios.

>There is no competent character development at any stage
Why do I *need* this in a game?

>He only challenges the player's attitudes on non-issues most people don't even have a stance on, such as human cloning.
Again you're focusing specifically on one issue he put in. I don't think manipulating the player by placing Raiden as the protagonist instead of Snake is a "non-issue" for the player for example. Been a while since I played that one but I'm pretty sure Raiden was meant to piss off the player by being exactly like him- wanting desperately to emulate Snake. That's probably more effective in demonstrating Snakes "message" at the end to the player than a good plotline. (Again the game context, like I said here >>1096686_

>>1096698
OK. I just mean there's less good stuff. It's the same in all arts since it's cheaper to produce & "scenes" that brew the best of a style are slowly going extinct since they're all aware of each other through the internet.

I like Battles. I think they're one of the few really good bands that came out in the 21st Century. Despite this I'm not going to claim that they've done the best Prog album ever or anything...

I think the MGS games are a great example of how a videogame can be brilliant, and even artistically interesting, even though its plot is absurd at best (MGS1) and absolutely tiresome at worst (#2) - and EVEN THOUGH the plot takes up like 50% of the play time!

>>1096735

To elaborate on this:
as an English graduate, I sympathise, but people really focus too much on the idea that games should have better writing. It would be nice if they did. But it is not necessary to their quality as entertainment or even, sometimes, their artistic interest.

>>1096735
>videogame can be brilliant, and even artistically interesting
My thoughts exactly. I'll also add there's a a good chemistry in the gameplay elements, at least in MGS2+3 that also makes them one of the most entertaining games around.

>>1096738
>But it is not necessary to their quality as entertainment or even, sometimes, their artistic interest
Bingo!

>>1096724

>Mass Effect storylines are like a Soap Opera mixed with a Dating Sim...

You're regurgitating crap from /v/. Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 romance scenes are about 40 minutes worth of content all combined. 40 minutes, which are entirely optional, in games which offer maybe 70 hours of content overall. Compare, of course, to the mandatory and offensively bad "JACK I'M PREGNANT LOL" of MGS2. There's a mandatory sex scene in MGS3 as well.

>[Game mechanics etc.]
are irrelevant to /lit/, my point was that he's an egotist and there is no quality control on his ideas at all.

>The intangibility allows him to just put in the funnest & weirdest gameplay scenarios.
Then why are you claiming that these are superior to a game that takes itself seriously and succeeds? This is a week excuse, any perceived shortcoming is dismissed as a joke.

>Why do I *need* this in a game?
Why do I *need* adjectives to write? Characters must develop along logical lines to build the natural rhetoric from author to reader. What good can static characters be, if they are boring and serve no purpose?

>text
"Wanting to be Snake" is not a literary theme or an attitude/value that can be explored. At a massive stretch you could say that Kojima has shed some light on the theme of hero worship?

Snake's "message" is the most one of the worst pieces of writing I've ever been confronted with in a game. This is coming from someone who finished Far Cry believing that it was badly written /on purpose/.

I enjoy games with good story, I really do, but you just can't compare them to books. Games are visual medium, same as films, only that they are also interactive, thats all. Offcourse there are some exceptions, but they are not Mass Effect or Braid or whatever the hell was also mentioned here. One exception are japanese dating games. Those are practically an extension of those 'make you our adventure' novels. The other one is Planescape Torment. Text driven storytelling and some little combat.

>>1096758
I think you must be the only person ITT that doesn't see the folly in wanting games to contain great literature.

GOOD NIGHT /LIT/.

LOVE YOU.

KEEP THAT AWAY FROM ME!

>>1096765

How will games be considered art if not through their writing?

Graphics have been good enough for six or seven years now, with modern engines we are well into the real of diminishing returns aesthetically for an exponential investment in talent, money and time. Nothing is holding the musicians back. Physics simulation and other coding, where relevant, is again at a point where it is good enough.

The writing in games is also "good enough", when the writer clearly intends for it to entertain. As literature, however, as art that can provoke thought, conjure emotion and provide something of real merit, games are underdeveloped.

Again, I'm not demanding a tectonic shift in the games industry to purge games that "aren't art", I'm just asking for it to be tried competently and earnestly.

>>1095344
>reminds me of my dad

>My face when I come to /lit/ to get good discussion on video games.
FUCKING /v/

>>1096817

>Assumed you were quoting >>1096799
>My face.

>>1096758
The writing of ME and ME2 was OK but you can't possibly compare them to books.
Just read the novels and you'll see the mind behind the story is a pulp writer who's fond of clichés and, yes, soap opera elements.

Games fall short when compared to books. It's not a matter of lol whatever dude, that's YOUR opinion.

When anybody picks a book, you try to look at the characters and the author's intention from multiple PoV's.
It's certainly a challenge to your imagination and your way of seeing the world. You'll find yourself in an internal argument to tell whether you agree with what you're reading or not, whether you'd do the same thing, think of alternative approaches, sometimes even learn something.
Images and metaphors tend to be subtler and some can even move your whole body and make you cry or just feel happy if you pay enough attention. A good writer does that consistently. Leaves little details to arouse your imagination.

No video game has ever done that for me. Even the best games you can think of always end up using the same common places and plot devices.

>>1096827

>Games fall short when compared to books.

That is exactly what I have been saying for this entire thread. My point with Mass Effect was that it's probably the closest game writers have gotten with a budget.

>>1096852
Try some of the old RPG's

Baldurs Gate, Arcanum.

Some new but generally unnoticed titles -Pathologic, for example, has quite a complex plot, or the Path, a simple horror retelling of little read writing hood using jungian symbolism - are all examples of great writing

Mass effect is a bit like a blockbuster. Well done and polished but the brilliance isn't in the writing.

>>1096859
did I say little read writing hood? Jesus, it's late.
Little red riding hood.

This is a stupid discussion, /v/. Of course a medium which is inherently NOT story-centric will not tell stories of as high a quality as one which is. You cannot expect it to.

Games, by their very nature, have to focus on the interactive aspect over the story aspect. Think of those "choose your own adventure" stories: have you ever seen THOSE praised for their plots?

>>1096901
Thanks. I don't know how many different ways it has to be put.

>>1095344
yep definitely how a 15 year old who spends too much time online/playing games would see it.
of course he can't connect to people of his age because his head is up his ass and he won't try in the slightest to change it because he feels superior. but under that mask lies a hurt, troubled little person. at least the comic artist here managed to have found a "crusade" to give his life value and meaning, possibly preventing him from killing himself or murdering others.


see? I can make a one sided argument too!

>>1096596
What now?

>video games
>art
My fucking ass. >>>/v/72120486

Yes that must be a fucking record of misogynist rapid response force...

>>1096971
>bawww /v/ actually has people posting

>>1096977
>implying 90% of the people ITT don't genuinely agree with "douk nukem"s portrayal of women

>>1096979
>implying that view of women isn't entirely correct

>>1096619

>I think that games will realize their true artistic potential (which is massive) once technology reaches the point that game designers are no longer limited by their budget and processing power, but simply by what they can imagine and transform into a game.

1. >limited by ... processing power
>implying that the only reason videogames aren't reaching "their true artistic potential (which is massive)" is that the ps3 isn't powerful enough
alright dumbass, name one videogame designer complaining about the inferior processing power of today's state-of-the-art consoles and PCs

2. >limited by ... budget
>implying that games would reach their true artistic potential (which is, apparently, massive) be better if they were cheaper to make
if budget is the only thing that keeps people from designing truly artistic videogames, then why aren't we already seeing games that reach this supposed massive potential due to developers taking advantage of cheaper technologies, i.e. games that are technologically on par with those that were state-of-the-art 10 or 15 years ago, but which can now be made at negligible cost due to the ubiquity and cheapness of that technology in today's technological environment? i mean, if there were a true artistic potential to videogames, then we would already be seeing artists taking advantage of yesterday's now very cheap technologies to make games that exude this supposed massive artistic potential

>>1096971
>>>/v/72120486

Mods are fags...

>>1096981
The problem is that people like you don't believe anything has artistic potential unless it was made by a Russian who's been dead for at least 50-100 years. Thus, not video games, or even current literature. Go back to sucking Dostoevsky's mummified cock.

First of all, OPs picture is basically an excuse for being a social loser. It's not a defense of vidya at all. As someone who used to think like that, it makes me rage at having to see it regurgitated as true.

The dad is yelling at the kid for being a loner, not for believing video games to be an equivalent art form of literature. Hate that kind of self-pitying bullshit.

>>1097034
>mfw I can't assume everyone here thought OP was re-posting it comically from /v/
Oh yeah, I'm on 4chan...

I don't know if anyone else here has played the game, or if anyone would agree with me for that matter, but I personally found the small stories that Kaim recollects in Lost Odyssey, deemed A Thousand Years of Dreams, to be particularly good.

A few of them almost brought a tear to my eye.

>>1096612

>I believe that literature must present big ideas and themes and challenge the reader's attitudes and values. Writing is to entertain: literature is to enlighten, to educate, to provoke, and great literature will do this whilst being very entertaining.

GOOD.

GRAVY.

You are balls and away the most incredibly pretentious douche on 4chan. If this is honestly what literature is as opposed to just writing then I'll take writing any fucking day of the week, any artform that's so terminally stuck up it's own ass than it needs to 'challenge' my 'perceptions' or what the fuck ever to deem itself worthy of it's own inherently worthless label can chug sixty dicks worth of battery acid. This is exactly the same sort of shit that soured me on the art scene, when any sort of diarrheic shitspray on a canvas or off-color soupcan could be pronounced 'FINE ART' by all those piles of PURE HUMAN TRAGEDY that comprise the New York intellectual scene.

Son of a bitch I mad.

>>1096807

>How will games be considered art if not through their writing?

Well, I dunno, why not through their gaming? Take games on their own terms, as systems of choice and interaction, and you'll see that experiencing those systems and acquiring knowledge/mastery of them can be as artistic an experience as available in any other form.

You can have a good game with bad writing, but good writing alone doesn't make a good game.

>>1097078

Why are you so mad about people potentially disagreeing with you? Why would you prefer art to only function for adults as a soother does to infants?

>>1097087

^ this

incredibly immersive environment with a meaningful plot about human nature

>>1097078

>I'm a smart kid who was over-praised by parents and teachers and ended up a douche. As I grew and matured I realized what a douche I was and decided to stop being so stuck-up. I even got laid! But now I think any intellectual activity is inherently pretentious.

Don't worry buddy, this phase will pass too.

>>1097191

Sure thing, less substance than Blade Runner the game.

>>1096612
>The problem with games is that there is not one, at present, that can be considered to have real literary merit.
Ok.
>There are games that are well written, sure. They have plots and characters and settings: but these are all present in action films and teenage fantasy novels.
Exactly.
>
Because games are made by such large teams it must be very hard to focus any artistic purpose, as an author would. The purpose of a text is the difference between writing and literature: between entertainment and art.
Good point.
>Games suffer because, first and foremost, they must always entertain. What a writer wants is slave to technical limitations, the budget and the time-scale
Er... technical limitations in telling a story? Really? We're comparing them to books, here.
>I believe that literature must present big ideas and themes and challenge the reader's attitudes and values. Writing is to entertain: literature is to enlighten, to educate, to provoke, and great literature will do this whilst being very entertaining.
Didacticizers and automatons, man. Didacticizers and automatons.

As a professor who teaches an art seminar, i can safely declare that none of you know what "art" is. There is an interminable flood of literature devoted to this topic. No one has been able to define "art" in its entirety. The debate is still ongoing

Can a video game be a work of art? Possibly, most likely.

Are there currently any video games that can be considered works of art? Not a chance.

>>1097260
0/10

>>1097267

Care to refute my sentiments? Or are you content with contributing absolutely nothing to the discussion at hand?

I doubt a professor would be dumb enough to state that no one can define art and then turn around and say that there are no video games that could be considered art.

How can you say what it isn't if according to you no one can define it.

herp derp.

>>1097313

You need to read carefully. I said no one has been able to define art in its ENTIRETY. There exists no one definition or checklist that can ascertain what a work of art, in all its capricious permutations, should be. Every rule can and has been broken.

One hundred years ago no one would believe a urinal, or a snow shovel to be a work of art, now we take such things for granted.

However, one thing that is fundamentally analogous to all art is that an artist willed it into existence. Video games, conversely, are the spawn of an industry that panders to a demographic. Like pornography, they aren't art. But it doesn't mean an artist couldn't employ that aesthetic to create art.

>>1097451

>Like pornography, they aren't art.

What about amateur pornography?

>>1097451
Art is a) something created or put forward as something that has value beyond its functionality and b) something that is appreciated for it's non-functional aspects.

Just name any one thing considered art (yes, including dadaism) and this definition will cover it.

ITT: A bunch of people who are categorically stating that an entire medium posesses not one piece of art, despite not having experienced the entirety of the medium.

Unless you personally have played every game ever programmed, you aren't qualified to state that there is "not a chance" that there is a video game that is art.

Clifford the Big Red Dog. It's a book. Technically, it is literature. Is it art? By a broad definition, probably not. Does that mean that Dostoyevsky isn't literary art? A four year old draws a stick figure family outside a cube of a house. Is it high art? Again, probably not. So was Monet any more skilled than that child?

>>1097503

Of course you wouldnt give any examples....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buVOkAd2hzA

>>1097514
Every single game ever created has the capacity to be art. When the player looks back on their experience playing a game and goes "whoa, holy shit, that was awesome", they are seeing an artwork, exactly like their response to a book or a painting or a film.

>>1097532
You could say that's talking about them being entertainment of which most people would agree they all can be.

I think some of the arguments in this vid >>1097522 are a bit more precise. Well they're coming from someone who has the background to best consider the question..

>>1097194
>I'm an unremarkable guy that does shitty art. No-one likes it because it's shit, so I blame it on people not "getting it". Meanwhile I spend my free time trying to be a profiler on the internet in a vain attempt at insulting people who disagree with my views instead of refuting their points. The thought of using this time to improve my skills never crossed my mind.

I don't understand why this all matters. I play video games for the fun of it. And I read for the fun of it. I seek entertainment from my mediums. What's so hard to grasp about that?

Who the hell cares about art? Christ, if you think something is better because it's artistic, then you might just be a pretentious douche.

...No offense to anyone who does, of course. I am simply stating my opinion.

Trying to define art as an objective label when it nowadays it defines extremely subjective tastes and perceptions. I say screw that term. On a more manageable and realistic subjectivity level, I rather argue whether a book or game is good or bad or better or worse, not ART.

As far as story and storytelling goes? Fuck, yes, books are centuries ahead of games. And decades ahead of films. And years ahead of us.

>>1097596
It doesn't really MATTER, of course, but it's an interesting (to us) topic to discuss, and it's the sort of thing that is both relevant to our age and not discussed as extensively as some other things.

Where's the harm in letting us have a simple discussion on the artistic merits of the medium? Consider it an intellectual exercise.

I really liked the story of the Assasins Creed games. Especially the second one. I loved the historical references, like Machiavelli being an Assassin. Also the whole genetic memory thing is one of the cooler sci-fi concepts Ive ever heard of.

I just felt like saying that, you can all get back to your argument now.

It made me smile. It makes me sad that I don't have time to play any good, complex games anymore.

I only have time to get a few rounds of cheap stuff like Call of Duty in before I have to work or spend time with my girlfriend.

>>1097602
I loved it too. The games themselves are kind of shallow, but the plot is very underrated. Is there a new one coming out soon?

As Kierkegaard said, the reason no one wants to admit games are art is because they're now made by whole teams of people. There is less skill, less craftsmanship from the individual artists than from old forms like literature and painting. But while there's less craftsmanship from each individual, the sum craftsmanship of the final work is GREATER. The advancement of technology that created the medium and decreased individual creative skill, also made art more IMMERSIVE and therefore MORE ENJOYABLE. Film was already a step in this direction (they require smaller teams of people, and short stories can be told through movies way more effectively than through words), videogames are another. The most important aspect of art is that it is enjoyable.

Also, since only certain aspects of games can be attributed to the efforts of one guy or another, the pretentious art fags have a hard time breaking everything down and finding gods to worship. But those fags only pretend to enjoy art anyway.

>>1097616
Have you watched >>1097522 ?
Thoughts?

>>1097485

Those are faulty definitions. You seem to take the notion of "function" for granted, as in only something with some sort of physical application, as if only power tools are capable of "function". While consequently ignoring the obvious personal, social, and political function of art, which is more often than not quite corollary to their esteemed value. And In some cases, like the works of Goya, their political function superseded their merit as a work of art. Furthermore, I would advise you to study African and pacific island cultures, where there exists no divergence of art and function in the sense that you mean.

>>1097605
I really liked the COD:4 storyline too. Thats why MW2 pissed me off so much, HURR IMMA NUKE THE EAST COAST.

>>1097607
Yeah, you get to play as Desmond. I still want to know how their going to handle it being in the modern era, what with guns and all that.

Also while I love the shit out of AS 2 it really pissed me off at the end by giving in to one of my most hated tropes.
The main character has just slaughtered a good +50 guards who were just doing there jobs. Then he finds the man responsible for all sorts of evil and suffering "HURR KILLING YOU WONT BRING MY DEAD FAMILY BACK"

Its really bad considering he killed ANYONE who was even remotely involved with the Templars indiscriminately up to this point, but no, he cant kill the man whos behind ALL OF THIS.

I enjoy the Civilization series immensely, but I'm not sure what to classify it as. I mean, the plot of a game of civilization is unique for each round. Same thing with a lot of RTS games.

>>1097638
The gameplay aspect is what we're discussing as art. Otherwise it's a pretty pointless discussion.

A game doesn't need amazing music or story in their own rights in order to be the best game it can be.

>>1097522
I'm sure he's making a good point, but it sounds lost in translation to me.

He appears to be dismissing games as art because they're not timeless. Is that what he's getting at?

I'm not sure if I would classify them as art, but I'm proud to have grown up with video games in my life.

>>1097646
That was the first point. There are a few others but I haven't watched it since the first time I saw it. I'm pretty sure one point is that the creator has to take how the user will receive it/interact with it into mind.

Do you have counter-arguments for any?

>>1097630
Kojima says "videogames are not art, but entertainment". He subscribes to this backwards idea that art and entertainment are mutually exclusive, or even opposites.

Videogames were born in a time of capital and consumption, which absorbs art as product. Kojima doesn't notice that all forms, painting, theatre, etc, succumb to the system. Art and advertisement are now interchangeable and indistinguishable.

Kojima's point that games are not art because you "use" them is also wrong. All art is "used" in the sense that all art is interacted with. Videogames are just a higher level of interactivity, the next step.

What about a game like silent hill 2? It's not about the gameplay or graphics, it's about story, music, atmosphere, character development etc. Surely that constitutes art.

/lit/ - Easily trolled.

>>1097677
I think you're simplifying his points & unfortunately he's not there to elaborate on them.

I think he says they aren't art because the designer has to consider how interactive the games are when creating them. They have to be "usable".

Id say the closest video games have ever come to achieving the status of art is the Myth Series.

One of the characteristics of any good work of art is breaking boundaries whilst avoiding cliches and formulas. And presenting some aspect of our existence in a new light. I'm having a hard time seeing a video game do this.

Most video games struggle to transcend their genre, let alone make any sort of important statements.

>>1097692
A side-scroller of falling to your death enough times to memorize the gameplay?

>>1097689

The question is in what sense interactivity - "usability" - disqualifies it from being art, or, indeed, differs qualitatively from any other kind of art.

>>1097692

I meant to say Myst Series, my fault.

>>1097689
I watched the first minute, heard three wrong points and turned it off.

Let's see: he goes on to say he loves Taro Okamoto (lol modern art. Kojima is obviously an artfag), because he made a chair that is not enjoyable to sit in. Then he says that a chair that IS enjoyable to sit in can not be art! I was right, he has this bullshit idea that's shared by so many artfags that art CAN'T be enjoyable which is so BACKWARDS of the truth I don't know where to begin. I guess this twisted definition comes from when they were kids and were told that some shitty play they had to suffer through was "art", and if they pulled out their gameboy during it they were scolded. This gives them the idea that art should be boring as fuck, painful to sit through and unenjoyable. The OPPOSITE is true.

>>1097705
It limits the expression of the artist immensely if they have to consider how acceptable it is for the audience. It has to be a certain way in order to be experienced as a game.

>>1097721
Does the concept of emotion exist to you? I think if you're going to watch so many different parts of the video in different orders it just be worth one simple linear sitting next time.

>>1097721
>Then he says that a chair that IS enjoyable to sit in can not be art! I was right, he has this bullshit idea that's shared by so many artfags that art CAN'T be enjoyable which is so BACKWARDS of the truth I don't know where to begin.

It is you, who knows not shit.

A chair designed to be purposefully uncomfortable is an obvious artistic statement. it makes us stop and think. Conversely, a comfy lazy boy, is just another comfy mass produced chair at ikea.

A fun videogame, just like a fun blockbuster movie with dinosaurs, is mindless hurr durr entertainment. Schindlers list however...

vidya is not art

/thread

>>1097744
A chair designed to be uncomfortable doesn't make us stop and think. It makes YOU stop and think, because you are retarded.

I'm not going to discuss why tragedy is enjoyable with the retarded.

>>1097814


go shove a Dan Brown book up your vagina you god damn peasant.

video games are not art

>>1097723
>>1097744

I don't find it necessary to take the snobbish position that difficulty has no place in art. Of course it does. And in the case of the chair it is precisely that deviation from the norm that declares artistic intention (though it is one device among many).

But who decides that the purpose of a videogame is to be comfortably enjoyed? Put aside the issue of whether the mix of frustration and obsession demonstrated by many players can really be called 'enjoyment'. Leave aside also the question of whether the purpose of videogames might not be to represent something real (as people once said about painting; flight simulators) or to shock us back into apprehension of real objects by distorting their images (as per Shklovskij and russian formalists; Braid). Forget even my apprehension at the idea that an entire medium - or art itself - can be said to have a single, certain 'purpose'.

Consider only what resemblance videogames really have to a chair. Aren't they consistently praised when they force their players to adopt new ways of thinking - to adapt to new mechanics? That's one reason why MGS is loved in the first place: it keeps messing around with what you expect from it. Often it releases potential playability that was hitherto invisible or unexpected - for example, if you stay out in the snow, you actually catch a cold, or if you wade in water, you get covered in leeches. These are only minor examples. But the enjoyment gleaned from them is, crucially, bound up with surprise, and with learning. The process of 'enjoying' a game often begins with discomfort - what do I do here? Why did I just die? One proceeds by getting to grips with the machinery in question, understanding its principles, and learning how to connect them. A good game, like a good novel, will guide its player artfully through those connections, and, at points, subvert them, introducing new elements, reversing expectations, etc. Of all people Kojima must know this. Yeah, there are people who buy things that do not challenge them. But there always are. Summer blockbusters don't invalidate Werner Herzog or 'Bringing Up Baby'.

Even if enjoyment is their purpose, you'd have to explain how that differs from films, plays, novels, and so on. You would have to rescue the likes of Shakespeare and Dickens - whose works are clearly intended to be enjoyed viscerally as well as 'artistically' - and who pandered to specific demographics in a highly commercial environment - from your own arguments. The novel itself, in England, was initially seen as just fluff for the masses (in a manner of speaking) - sentimental nonsense marketed to bourgeois women. And that most experimental of rulebreaking works - Tristram Shandy - was a commercial smash with the very same audience. The position that fun, 'enjoyment' or monetary success are incompatible with artistic worth is as perverse and short-sighted as its opposite (that enjoyment is the only thing worth a damn); both are positions of snobbery and neither are capable of dealing with videogames on their own terms.

Video Games are slaves to genre and sales. How can you expect to express anything artistically? This is coming from someone who has played a lot of them. Some of the stories are indeed fantastic - but at the end of the day people are far more concerned with gameplay than anything else.

Before you say it: yes, I don't really consider genre fiction or movies to be art. tis more of a craft.

>>1098371
subverting a bunch of videogame tropes and breaking the 4th wall doesn't magically turn a videogame into a legitimate work of art. MGS is a short videogame punctuated by cliched action scenes with several contrived plot twists.

I think that what people recognize as 'art' is really only the 'higher' forms of craft that are taken more seriously.

The line between high and low craft will always be blurry. I don't really feel theres much of an important distinction.

I mean, video games could be 'art'. Ico is, if you ask me. But really the distinction, for most people, seems to be 'entertainment vs. loftiness'. And I imagine it would be very difficult to instill lofty ideals in a form that, for the most part, places entertainment above all else.

However, video games expire rapidly. In thirty years time no one is going to be playing the first Halo, but they're certainly going to be reading Dickens, etc.

>>1098397
i think there may well be some games that in 30 years are considered "required reading" for anyone interested in the medium.

pic related.

>>1098397
>I think that what people recognize as 'art' is really only the 'higher' forms of craft that are taken more seriously.

reminds me of a quote from nabokov i read somewhere, saying that he regards dostoyevsky as merely a talented writer of mystery/detective genre fiction

to call videogames mere art is an insult to videogames.

<-- this

a massive canvas. a canvas THAT YOU FUCKING EXPLORE.

>>1098405

Then this place is decades ahead.

>>1098475

um, maybe this time I'll post the link.

Sorry, I'm tired.

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2010/08/portal-wabash-college/

>>1098413

Nabokov was actually such a raging faggot.

Just saying, it's a bomb.

>>1098504

>OH MY GOD JC A BONG

-A bong-....

>exhales smoke

>>1098511
I think /lit/ would love Deus Ex, although it does have that whole 7.62x51 "Assault Rifle".

On the plus side: 10mm.

>>1098387

But I'm not making any sustained argument for the worth of MGS. I used it as an example - not even an example of 'art', but of 'enjoyment'. The real argument is not whether there are any games which fulfil the criteria of art. Even if there were not (and it would be a close thing), that would only be a practical problem. The real argument is whether games can ever/never be art at all.

sage

>>1098413
Nabokov had talent as a writer, but his opinions on literature as a whole leave a lot to be desired. One of the reasons he didn't take too kindly to Dostoevsky was because the two of them used novels for entirely different purposes. Dostoevsky used them to explore philosophical and humanistic ideas, whereas Nabokov enjoyed the aesthetic aspects of it. To claim that Dostoevsky "was a good writer of mystery/detective fiction" seems to miss the point of what he was trying to say.

>>1098405
I can see this happening, honestly. There are definitely people who complain about the dated vocabulary in "required reading" or other facets that display the age of a work. Yet there are those who enjoy them despite, or even in spite, of these signs of age. Videogames are subjected to the same challenges, albeit in a different way. FF6 is certainly 'dated' by contemporary gaming standards, both in the graphics department and the gameplay department. So what significance does such a game hold? Certainly not the innovative element of it; it's Final Fantasy *VI*, not I.

The same idea applies to Silent Hill 2, a game that IMO makes a strong argument in favor of games having some sort of artistic appeal. Lots of people have praised this game, but rarely because "it has good gameplay mechanics" or even "it's just fun to play". The story, characters, and themes explored are frequently brought up and with obvious reason.

>>1099338
Damn the character limit is a pain, sometimes.

Cont.
Frankly, at the end of the day I think I agree with >>1097596 . I want to be entertained first, whether it's by a game with fun mechanics or a book with interesting characters, or a movie with visually pleasing cinematography. There doesn't have to be a set list of what is considered entertaining, because people are different and are pleased by different things. I think the same applies to art, and I think it's better for people to find out on their own what constitutes art rather than be told. More importantly, I think it's better that people find out why THEY should care about something rather than be told "you should pay attention to this; this is art."

>>1099338
>>1098405

Wabash College in the U.S. already has Portal on it's "required reading" list.

http://www.wired.com/gamelife/2010/08/portal-wabash-college/

I didn't take the time to read all of the posts ITT so someone may have mentioned this already, but in my opinion the entire Metal Gear Solid Series has a better storyline than a lot of "classic" novels.