Can video games sometimes be considered literature?

[Anonymous No.17404591]

And no I don't mean visual novels

[Anonymous No.17404593]

lol

[Anonymous No.17404602]

>>17404591
Literature is literature. Everything else is not literature. Get it?

[Anonymous No.17404609]

>>17404602
He'll never get it.

[Anonymous No.17404848]

>>17404591
Idk but kotor was very well written

[Anonymous No.17406321]

>>17404591
If it requires visual or musical accompaniment it is not literature.

[Anonymous No.17406340]

>>17404591
Anon, you made this thread because you don’t read and want to pretend that your entertainment franchise product is somehow relevant to the board you want to accept you, didn’t you? Be honest.

[Anonymous No.17406377]

>>17404591
when they get good enough, you can say that they have good writing. But we are not there yet.

[Anonymous No.17406425]

Why do we see this thread so much - are smelly gamers desperate to see their low-brow, low-effort "hobby" as dignified?

[Anonymous No.17406457]

>>17404591
No, least of all games based on braindead sword and planet movie franchises

[Anonymous No.17406765]

the point of video games is interactivity. The smart stuff will come from playing the game

[Anonymous No.17406984]

>>17404591
Imagine what runs through your dopamine fried brain when you make a thread like this. Just imagine understanding perfectly well the reputation your medium as a lowbrow artform, and you post a fucking STAR WARS game as this exception to the rule like what the fuck ahahahahaha.

[Anonymous No.17406991]

>>17406457
>Your son cannot hope to achieve anything of worth in life because all of his predecessors were deadbeat loesrs!

[Anonymous No.17407001]

>>17406991
What did Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic achieve artistically that elevates the franchise beyond nostalgiafag manchild series beyond a mediocre cult following at best?

[Anonymous No.17407013]

>>17407001
I'm not trying to argue that it has any artistic value, I only meant that you can't judge something simply because it is comes from a franchise filled with other dodgy works

[Anonymous No.17407014]

>>17407001
*besides a mediocre cult following

[Anonymous No.17407094]

>>17406425
most of /lit/ isn't full of ambitious young academics or older guys passionate about literature like you're lead to believe.

[Anonymous No.17407107]

>>17406425
the first time someone posted it, it prob hit the bump limit. when that happens ur guaranteed to see repeats for months, idk if it algorithmic or they actually have humans do it, but it seems to be a fairly basic attempt to increase user engagement

[Anonymous No.17407128]

>>17407107
Dude it’s just fags that don’t read wanting to participate.
>>17407094
This is the only logical explanation. No one will ever engaged in book recs. They just want to spout their opinion, which, isn’t very good because they don’t read.

[Anonymous No.17407302]

>>17404591
>Can video games sometimes be considered literature?
Generally no, since they belong in different categories. Sometimes they do overlap, so you get things like visual novels or text-based CYOA kind of stuff, but you've already mentioned those. And KOTOR2 isn't one of those cases, even though it's a cool game. It's more reasonable to judge things on their own merit in their own respective mediums, based on artistic tools that they have at their disposal within those, instead of trying to evaluate them in terms of "literaryness" or other vague notions like that.

[Anonymous No.17407393]

>>17404591
I mean, it could have the quality of writing equal to literature, but due to its inherently interactive audiovisual nature vidya is not literature by virtue of not being a written book. This is, of course, not to say that video games cannot be art, of course they can be, but it as the medium for a given work must earn the status by virtue of narrative or medium unique aspect, immersion and interactivity for example, qaulity.

[Anonymous No.17407409]

>>17404591
something doesn't have to be literature to be art. i assume you meant to ask if games can be art and the answer is yes, but this doesn't really belong to this board.

[Anonymous No.17407511]

>>17404591
No, they're both different mediums etc., but KOTOR II is written in the style of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, that much is obvious. And is also one of the best written games of all time, yadda yadda, not surprising since it's Avellone in his prime.

[Anonymous No.17408172]

>>17406984
I’m with you on this but KOTOR is actually very well written. Nowhere near good literature but still it’s strikingly good..

[Anonymous No.17408179]

>>17404591
Video games aren’t literature. They’re also a terrible medium for storytelling.

[Anonymous No.17408195]

Has a videogame ever touched your soul like literature often does?

[Anonymous No.17408199]

>>17408195
No, and I regret almost all the time I spent gaming when I was younger

[Anonymous No.17408216]

>>17408179
>They’re also a terrible medium for storytelling.
This. The best videogames are the ones that make use of your imagination to create your own stories anyways.

[Anonymous No.17408252]

>>17408195
Clannad did, but that's a visual novel.

[Anonymous No.17408278]

>>17408179
The amount of storytelling you get per amount of time spent playing games is terrible. A standard length movie regularly has more story than a damn 50 hour game.

Game storytelling tends to be a small bit of story, followed by an hour or more of fighting or exploring, followed by another small bit of story. There’s usually a bizarre clash between story and gameplay. Most video game cutscenes seem to be written and directed by people who would never be hired to work on a real movie.

[Anonymous No.17408363]

>>17408195
Death Stranding touched me.

[Anonymous No.17408679]

>>17408363
Where did it touch you and can I do the same?

[Anonymous No.17408799]

>>17408195
Yeah, Planescape: Torment, KOTOR II and Bloodborne all managed just that.

[Anonymous No.17408817]

>>17404591
How do we r8 the elder scrolls literature lads? For me, it’s the Lusty Argonian Maid followed by The Yellow Ribbon of Merit

[Anonymous No.17408865]

Art can be ranked in order by how alive it is. A fresh poem is alive, language fluttering like a bird on the edge of your consciousness, a perfectly acted moment in a movie is like a beating heart captured on screen. A game is like dead frog, given the illusion of aliveness in the same way that you can see how the muscles contract when you pour salt on them.
The 'art' of making games is real but it's always about pouring salt more precisely on a dead frog, it sadly never becomes alive in any serious capacity

[Anonymous No.17408870]

Can paintings sometimes be considered movies?

And no I don't mean moving pictures.

[Anonymous No.17409580]

>>17408195
Yoko Taro games do it every time, call me a fag if you want but I cried like the most pitiful consoomer during the ending E of Nier Automata

[Anonymous No.17409819]

>>17404591
do you know what literature is?

[Anonymous No.17409844]

>>17408216
The closer a video game gets to art, the farther away it gets from being a game.

[Anonymous No.17409858]

>>17409844
v true. People who say what michel jordan does is art are fooling themselves. It's the difference between creation and participation.

[Anonymous No.17409872]

>>17404591
AI Dungeon is a pretty interesting game and pretty similar to those books where you get to choose what the protagonist does that I read when I was a kid

[Anonymous No.17409883]

>>17409858
but ballet is art.

[Anonymous No.17409887]

>>17409858
We may call it an art in the literal meaning of art, in the same way that the maker of a clock is an artisan, or in that there is an art to cooking well. But when we call something art, like we call a painting art, we are using a metonym, subsisting the craft of making for that ineffable thing which we all recognize but cannot otherwise name. So, there is an art to making a video game, and some video games offer more meaningful experiences, but fundamentally the very nature of a game contradicts the essence of that thing we call art and recognize in a Cezzanne.

[Anonymous No.17409900]

>>17409883
Ballet is dance and ballet is theater. Dance as an activity is not art. Dance as theater is art, because as theater it becomes communicative.

[Anonymous No.17409910]

>>17409900
but a dance can be artful

[Anonymous No.17409913]

>>17404591
Some of them reach the quality of genre fiction,but in general writing is not vidya's strength.

[Anonymous No.17409973]

>>17409910
see >>17409887
Art is really the practice of something. This is where we get the term artisan. It is why students pursue a Bachelor of Arts, as opposed to a Bachelor of Science; the first is (supposed to be anyway), a slightly simpler degree that acknowledges a working knowledge and practice of the area of study, whereas a Bachelor of Science denotes (by the word science, from scientia) knowledge or understanding, so is meant for those students who have a more thorough knowledge of the area of study beyond a proficiency in its practice.

So of course, a dance, and even a video game, might be artful. They require skill to make, and one who is deeply practiced and skilled will perform the dance or make the game in a particularly meaningful or beautiful way.

But when we ask whether something is or isn't Art, we are asking a different kind of question. Notice, we readily make the distinction between Art and Entertainment. This other Art does not have a proper word for it, and so we refer to it by metonym. It would seem that when the craft of an object has as its end no practical function except the communication of some higher meaning, then we recognize it as art. For example, a ceramic vase that is designed to carry water is made by an artisan; a ceramic vase that is made in order to sit in a gallery and communicate some aesthetic meaning is made by an artist. In general, the more any object has an end other than its aesthetic meaning, the less the object can be considered art. The end, the purpose of a video game is to be played. Perhaps the playing of that game might be elevated to a level of pure aesthetic meaning, but then it will no longer really be a game.

[Anonymous No.17409981]

>>17409973
my friend, you just fucked up and may G-d have mercy on your soul.

[Anonymous No.17409990]

>>17409981
How so?

[Anonymous No.17409997]

>>17404591
Stop posting this thread

[Anonymous No.17410082]

>>17409844
Dark souls and Bloodborne are pehaps the industry's greatest artistic achievements but they are absolutely closer to games than they are to books.

[Anonymous No.17410087]

>>17408195
Unironically undertale

[Anonymous No.17410101]

>>17409973
>>17409887
Thank you for articulating what I couldn’t. Maybe one day I can post as insightful a post.

[Anonymous No.17410109]

>>17409973
>a Bachelor of Arts, as opposed to a Bachelor of Science; the first is (supposed to be anyway), a slightly simpler degree that acknowledges a working knowledge and practice of the area of study, whereas a Bachelor of Science denotes (by the word science, from scientia) knowledge or understanding, so is meant for those students who have a more thorough knowledge of the area of study beyond a proficiency in its practice.
Braindead beyond repair

[Anonymous No.17410255]

>>17410109
I understand these terms have drifted considerably, but this was the original meaning of the designations.

[Anonymous No.17410286]

>>17410255
you need to end this self-taught nightmare you've constructed for yourself and focus on basic communication.

[Anonymous No.17410305]

>>17408195
I'm not flaming — Disco Elysium affected me in the way that very personal books do [e.g., Demian if you're a young pretentious esotericist; The Tartar Steppe if you're a middle-aged Arab]. The game speaks to anyone who has relished in the grief of their losses, especially those who (like myself) used to abuse alcohol in such a way. Great literature can instruct and guide, but good literature can still help the reader feel less alone. (Thus you get the paradox of the teen who reads The Fountainhead and sez "lol Howard Rourke is totally me!!!1!".)

Also, Disco Elysium is the only work I've seen that captures the 2010s shift in info-consumption and communication. No, neither Tao Lin nor his wife achieved it. I hope that there's enough spirit out there to write the next timeless novel, since DFW, DeLillo, and Franzen are all fucking failing nerds. But if there isn't, then we can at least be comforted by works that embody the spirit-o'-the-times.

[Anonymous No.17410429]

>>17409973
>Art is really the practice of something
>Poesis is really the techne with an ergon

[Anonymous No.17410474]

>>17410286
Could you teach me, then? What have you been taught regarding the development of these terms?

[Anonymous No.17410487]

>>17410429
https://www.etymonline.com/word/art

[Anonymous No.17410545]

>>17410474
bud, it's clear you want to go deeper down the hole you've dug yourself. anything you 'learn' here on /lit/ will only serve to confuse you further. try going for a walk instead.

[Anonymous No.17410553]

>>17410545
I walk with my wife all the time. This is just what I do between work emails.

[Anonymous No.17410569]

>>17410553
sad.

[Anonymous No.17410590]

>>17410569
I am quite happy. Are you?

[Anonymous No.17410597]

>>17410590
are you canadian by any chance

[Anonymous No.17410619]

>>17410597
No. Why?

[Anonymous No.17410704]

I have never seen a literary game. Even the best stories are pulled from a CSI episode or some shitty sci-fi or fantasy pulp novel. But that doesnt mean that I dont think a game can be art. A game is its own medium, and trying to ape cinema or literature is probably a bad way to go about maximizing it.

[Anonymous No.17410738]

>>17410704
A game is not a medium. The screen is a medium. A game is an activity. A video game is a game played through the medium of a video screen. Single player games are essential screen calibration with window dressing. Sometimes a story is told, but the story is always secondary to the game itself. If the game is ever made secondary, it ceases to be a game.

[Anonymous No.17410757]

>>17410704
>Jane Austin: the game
>walk to someone's house
>loading screen
>dialogue options
>walk to dinner table
>loading screen
>mini game about proper timing of taking slurps of the soup
>dialogue options
>leave house
>loading screen
>walk to tavern because you didn't get laid
>drink
>dialogue options
>choose wrong dialogue
>get into bar fight
>never taught the combat controls
>die to Rick the Town Drunk
>game starts over but from a different novel
>walk to someone's house
>loading screen
>dialogue options

[Anonymous No.17410758]

LISA

[Anonymous No.17410781]

>>17410738
A medium doesn't have to be a physical thing, it can also be a construct within the physical thing because if we take your logic to it's extreme a television with cable access and a computer monitor have differing physical inputs and outputs even if they are both "screens". If you want to get into arbitrary, abstract, and ambiguous bullshit discussions about what constitutes a "medium" within the post modern paradigm, we can certainly do that, Mr. McLuhan. But I think it would be a waste of everyone's time.

[Anonymous No.17410866]

>>17410781
That's not the distinction I'm making. A game is not a medium, it is a form, or an object. We don't have to be too technical about the terms here, but there are still important distinctions about the concepts.

A song remains a song whether it is played on the radio, heard over a loud speaker, sung in a Church, a stadium, or a back yard. A song is not a medium. The medium is sound. A medium is the middle ground between one mind and another mind.

So, the game is the thing which is passed between minds. A table-top game is a game which occurs on a table-top. Sports are games which take place in certain competitive contexts, most traditionally understood as on fields and courts with bodies. Video games are games which are passed through the light of a screen or some similar thing. The point is not about having some precision over the exact medium, but simply to draw the distinction between what is the medium and what passes through the medium. A game is something that passes through.

Fundamentally, games have a different function than art. The more a game functions like art, the less it functions like a game. The primary purpose of Art, in its most stripped and minimal understanding, is to communicate a precise and meaningful aesthetic experience. The primary purpose of a game is to give players meaningful and distinct choices. As the aesthetic experience of a game becomes more meaningful and more precise, then necessarily there is less choice overall, less meaning to the choices, or less distinction between the choices, rendering it less of a game.

[Anonymous No.17411027]

>>17404591
what a retarded question

>>17406340
>>17406425
>>17406457
>>17406984
>>17407001
>>17408865
>>17409844
>>17409913
>>17410704
all wrong and blatantly retarded midwit takes

>>17408195
yes

[Anonymous No.17411786]

For all the naysayers, define art and kindly explain how video games aren't part of the program.

[Anonymous No.17412058]

>>17410704
MGSV was a pretty good pynchon tribute

[Anonymous No.17412261]

>>17411027
You sound like a pathetic art ho bitch.

[Anonymous No.17412271]

>>17411027
>defends onions wars
>accuses others of being midwits

[Anonymous No.17412275]

>>17412271
George Lucas is infinitely more cultured than you and probably mogs you with 60-100 full more IQ points

[Anonymous No.17412355]

>/v/eddit poking their heads out when their fellow crossboarders shits up this board's traffic with yet another viddy biddy game, foolishly believing they're keeping good company.
You will never be welcome here, we do not accept you. Not once have you attempted to adapt to the standards this board has laid out for you, and you actively seek to lower the overall level of discourse. Please leave /lit/ for good, I sincerely doubt you even read anyways.

[Anonymous No.17412380]

>>17412355
I actually just finished In the Heart of the Sea for the second time last night.

It's blue bloods like you that'll ensure the already waning membership of this community will remain stagnant and eventually perish in an echo chamber of pseudo elites

[Anonymous No.17412400]

>>17412380
>It's blue bloods like you that'll ensure the already waning membership of this community will remain stagnant and eventually perish in an echo chamber of pseudo elites
What "vitality" have you introduced to this board beyond pointless banalities that you found literally everywhere else on the site?

[Anonymous No.17412421]

>>17412400
I am a mere observer, unable and now unwilling to enter the fray due to attitudes like yours