/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.4215805]

>videogames are art!

[Anonymous No.4215809]

>>4215805
>art is meaingful as a term

[Anonymous No.4215812]

You've obviously never played The Last of Us. That game invoked more emotion in me and any book will ever do.

[Anonymous No.4215814]

>>4215809
>art is subjective

[Anonymous No.4215816]

>>4215809
>art
>not meaingful

[Anonymous No.4215817]

"""""HARDCORE GAMER"""""" here. I think some games are art and some aren't. For the most part, games are trapped in a state of infancy where they try to imitate other forms of art to be taken seriously. Look at Uncharted or Metal Gear Solid, and then look at Dark Souls and Shadow of the Colossus. They take a fundamentally different direction. One group seems to regard gameplay as a hindrance to telling the story, while the other games would be destroyed without the gameplay. I think it's just a problem of it being a new medium.

>>4215812
Emotional does not necessarily make art.

[Anonymous No.4215822]

>>4215812
>You've obviously never played The Last of Us. That game invoked more emotion in me and any book will ever do.

[Anonymous No.4215819]

>>4215812
This is the direction videogames need to go down if they ever want to be considered art.

You're still a pleb tho

[Anonymous No.4215824]

>>4215819
I totally disagree. Not everything has to be a grimdark emotional tale with cutscenes and movement restrictions. Seriously, it's like the story and gameplay are fighting each other.

[Anonymous No.4215825]

>>4215812
Then you are clearly not well read.

[Anonymous No.4215830]

>>4215814
You seem to be implying that art is not subjective... Why are you doing that?

[Anonymous No.4215837]

>>4215814
That erroneous notion is precisely why it has lost all meaning.
The only people who still care about the term are the kind of people who think it's elitist to exclude horrendous shit like "Interior Semiotics" from it and that it somehow lends creedence to whatever it is they're doing.
People who actually work with it tend to, quite naturally, hate the idea that they're somehow the same as people who shit in a can or shove moldy food up their sex organ in front of a crowd.

[Anonymous No.4215840]

Wait, people actually think videogames are a legitimate artform? Holy fuck, they're GAMES, the clue is in the title.

[Anonymous No.4215844]

>>4215805

You're quite right. You do, however, appear to be lost.

>>>/v/

[Anonymous No.4215845]

video games are art,noooo they give it a low score on this game fuckking feminists

[Anonymous No.4215849]

>>4215844
not op but oh jesus i thought i was on /v/ until your post.

[Anonymous No.4215850]

>>4215840
>Wait, people actually think videogames are a legitimate artform?
Yes, although /v/ tends to hate the crowd who say as much.
Of course neither is literature.

[Anonymous No.4215855]

>>4215805
It is though. Granted, it's not particularly good art, but it's art all the same.
Personally I would define art as "Anything that results from a creative process." Based off of this definition, Video games qualify.

[Anonymous No.4215859]

>>4215817
I tend to think that story is most of the time a hindrance to gameplay.
That's why I stopped buying vidya at the PS2.

[Anonymous No.4215862]

>>4215816
>reading
>comprehension

[Anonymous No.4215863]

>>4215855
Wrong.

[Anonymous No.4215867]

>>4215855
good thing that definition is horseshit then

[Anonymous No.4215870]

>>4215863
>>4215867
nice counter arguments

[Anonymous No.4215876]

>>4215812

Obvious bait but as we're on /lit/ it's nice that people can pick up on it easily.

I thought The Last of Us was pretty poor by the way. Perhaps a good game but a bad piece of fiction. It showed too much of an infatuation with cinema and insofar as invoking the feeling of being in control it failed because all of the profound moments take place whilst you're watching it, not controlling it. It also gave me motion sickness.

[Anonymous No.4215878]

>>4215876
>It showed too much of an infatuation with cinema and insofar as invoking the feeling of being in control it failed because all of the profound moments take place whilst you're watching it, not controlling it. It also gave me motion sickness.
yup

[Anonymous No.4215879]

"Hardcore" gamers usually force this idea so they could be considered as "connoisseurs" justifying the massive fedora tipping among these "contemporary gentlemen".

[Anonymous No.4215883]

>>4215879
wow hot argument you sure convinced me by righteously striking down that strawman

[Anonymous No.4215885]

>>4215870
>I really need a shit, better create something to allow me to flush my turds away!

Toilets aren't art.

Unless they're flipped on their side.

[Anonymous No.4215886]

art is dead
video games are commodities
games, on the other hand, are the shit

[Anonymous No.4215888]

I didn't know I was on /v/.

[Anonymous No.4215897]

>>4215883
Except he's right.

Gamers want their hobby to be legitimized as art so they can justify wasting their time twiddling their thumbs.

[Anonymous No.4215898]

>>4215883
It's not that much of a strawman, though.

Video games are intrisecally a waste of time, and even the best stories in videogames are pretty low on quality.
After you had spent years pursuing something as worthless as this, you'd love to have others forced to take you seriously when you write an essay on how deep was Halo 3 and how it was a metaphor for the epic of Gilgamesh.

[Anonymous No.4215902]

>>4215885
I realize that my definition is vague and inclusive (perhaps to a fault), but the more precision a definition has the more arbitrary it seems. Can you give me a better definition than my own?

[Anonymous No.4215903]

>>4215898
How is it more of a waste of time than literature or film? It's just another hobby that some people take more seriously than others.

>>4215897
get off 4chan grandpa

[Anonymous No.4215904]

[Anonymous No.4215910]

>>4215904
>posting comics by that guy
Jesus Christ I am the one arguing for video games here please fuck off

[Anonymous No.4215911]

>>4215897
Nah, gamers in general hate the people pushing the "games are art" bullshit. Just post it on /v/ and see the reaction.
The ones who want it to be art are generally those who work in the tertiaries of the industry like games "journalists" aka really shitty bloggers.

[Anonymous No.4215919]

>>4215904

[Anonymous No.4215921]

>>4215837
but interior semiotics is actually really interesting
it has elementary references to "interior scroll," maybe even to warhol if you want to be "elitist"

what's your favorite contemporary performance art piece
if u say u only like history paintings ill rip ur head off

[Anonymous No.4215922]

>>4215911

Do you really think /v/ is representative of 'gamers in general'?

[Anonymous No.4215929]

>>4215903
Because literature, art, film and music require critical thinking skills in order to engage fully with their subject matter.

[Anonymous No.4215931]

>>4215929
You don't think you need critical thinking skills to complete and understand Dark Souls?

[Anonymous No.4215933]

>>4215931
No I don't.

I think you need quick reflexes and strategy but not real, applicable, critical thinking.

[Anonymous No.4215935]

>>4215931
Watch a walkthrough, memorize the steps to it, etc. You don't even need to think your way through any vidya with fighting when you can just follow a path and muscle your way through it.

[Anonymous No.4215936]

>>4215933
What about something like Portal or Myst?

[Anonymous No.4215937]

>>4215922
The first quote is about "hardcore gamers". /v/ is fairly representative of those, yes.
But really you only have to follow the talks to see who cares. People who play casually don't even discuss games, most forum-goers ignore those discussions and the only ones who froth at the mouth over it are journalists, one or two of their "indie" friends and the small subset of people commenting their articles.
Like even the really pretentious game developers like Icepick Lodge barely care to discuss it.

[Anonymous No.4215940]

I don't think I'd care to call video-games art but when I see people forming their opinion based on a) the shit /v/ peddles and b) commercial/popular games it makes me wonder what's going on with /lit/.

[Anonymous No.4215946]

>>4215940
>forming their opinion based on a) the shit /v/ peddles
Only because the alternatives are worse.
>and b) commercial/popular games
Games are a commercial business. Just like all good art.

[Anonymous No.4215948]

>>4215814
The art canon no longer exists
There is no academic standard by which to measure art
Film and photography of the 20th century has removed such ideas from having any possible existence.
Mechanical reproduction displaced the traditional aesthetic values of 'authenticity', 'permanence' and 'uniqueness'. What was authentic can be replicated, what was unique became the common property of many and what was permanent proved transitory and reversible
The icons of 20th century art are the urinal and the brillo box.
All art is equal; All art is artifact
Perhaps Duchamp’s greatest achievement, Donald Kuspit writes in The End of Art, “is the discrediting and undermining of the aesthetic.”
Those who tremble when they hear phrases like “the end of Art,” “the death of the author,” and “Postart” would do well to remember that what is being talked about is not the death of works of art or even art but the demise of a tradition, one that is only 200 years old.

[Anonymous No.4215951]

>>4215937

>pretentious

Stop using that word

>People who play casually don't even discuss games, most forum-goers ignore those discussions and the only ones who froth at the mouth over it are journalists, one or two of their "indie" friends and the small subset of people commenting their articles.

Most people who read don't discuss their books either

>>4215940

I'm this guy and you're clearly in violation of both of these things

[Anonymous No.4215958]

>>4215936
Again, it's not critical thinking. There's nothing below the surface to be taken from playing videogames. It's all problem-solving and strategy as every game is.

Not that I hate or dislike videogames, far from it, I quite enjoy them. But they are a waste of time and are certainly not an artform.

[Anonymous No.4215959]

>>4215885
industrial design is art. The idea of the toilet itself is not art, the design of the toilet is.

[Anonymous No.4215960]

ahaha oh wow this thread got really popular really fast

you people are so egotistical, you feed this shit at every opportunity

[Anonymous No.4215962]

>>4215958

What about Passage?

[Anonymous No.4215963]

so do u guys think stories in video games can be good

[Anonymous No.4215968]

>>4215812
>>4215819
The Last of Us is the exact OPPOSITE direction that video games should be heading.
>there are people who support the watering down of gameplay for the sake of story

christ.

[Anonymous No.4215969]

>>4215958
Why aren't video games art? Can you please define art?

[Anonymous No.4215970]

Here's my view:
The problem that I see with the whole 'video games are art!' deal is that the term art that is used is an extremely conservative term. >muh narrative, graphics, atmosphere. No. It tries to emulate the formalism of the conservative art forms, the 'high arts', and of course fails miserably, because it wants to appeal to conservative art views through a very nontraditional medium. It will never happen, and no one really wants it.
The key thing that separates video games from traditional art forms is the fact that the person experiencing it is not a mere spectator. Through this alone, and through multiplayer options, exciting new options are opened. A whole new space for interaction - with the game being a basis for it. This is the way to go - to emphasize the process taking place, the interaction, the concept behind the game, and not the artwork in the game and the story. Leave that to history. That path is dead. Focus instead on the possibilities - focus on what people do *in* the game (like all the shit people do in Minecraft).

To sum it up - both sides of the argument need to look at the calendar and check their high art privilege.

[Anonymous No.4215971]

Silent Hill 2 is my favorite game.

[Anonymous No.4215974]

The only video games I even would consider being art are Shadow of the Collossus, ICO, Silent Hill 2 and Sid Meier's Civilization.

[Anonymous No.4215975]

>>4215968
But The Last of Us had great gameplay and if you don't think so you're a moron, sorry.

[Anonymous No.4215976]

>>4215951
>Stop using that word
I love Icepick Lodge but you really can't come away from reading one of their dev posts without thinking they're pretentious. If a perfectly well-defined word bothers you then that's your issue.
>Most people who read don't discuss their books either
Quite right. You're not going to pretend /lit/ matters for the literature establishment are you?
>I'm this guy and you're clearly in violation of both of these things
That's cute. Too bad you're not really doing much more than leaving an unspoken statement that you think it's dumb.

[Anonymous No.4215973]

>>4215809
This.

What is art?
Sitting on a rock doesn't make it a chair, painting a picture does make it art. Of course it does or doesn’t because It doesn’t matter.
The key is that whatever we call it is never the thing itself, the thing itself is never what we name it

[Anonymous No.4215977]

>>4215958
>There's nothing below the surface to be taken from playing videogames
This is untrue.

Just as in any other medium, some video games are art, and some are not.

[Anonymous No.4215978]

The subject of video-games is one thing but I've noticed that the worst threads on /lit/ typically tend to be the ones about the nature of art.

This thread was doomed to fail when 'art' was brought up. If it asked: 'Can video-games be used as a medium to provide social and political discussion?' we would have seen something different entirely.

[Anonymous No.4215982]

Can anime be art?

[Anonymous No.4215983]

>>4215975
nice strawman faggit

[Anonymous No.4215984]

>>4215975
Absolutely not.

[Anonymous No.4215985]

>>4215976

Very self-deprecating post anon

[Anonymous No.4215986]

>>4215975
TLOU had ok gameplay. That's it.

Still liked the game as a whole, but it didn't have great gameplay.

[Anonymous No.4215988]

>>4215978
>we would have seen something different entirely.
Anger and enmity from other boards presumably, since that's what /v/ people hates the most.
That their hobby should degenerate into something as vile and pathetic as a vehicle for politics.

[Anonymous No.4215989]

Video games are an artistic medium, though thoroughly lacking of any actually artistically good works so far. The label itself is worthless anyway.

[Anonymous No.4215990]

Why do you want video games to be art? It's an entirely meaningless term. What possible validation could be brought on by recognizing it as art? None, it wouldn't change games and it wouldn't change "art"

[Anonymous No.4215991]

Step aside peasants, real art coming through.

I'm serious, this is the only game I would ever consider to be art.

[Anonymous No.4215994]

Art hasn't held meaningful status since 1910-1920.

[Anonymous No.4215995]

Is it a creative expression?
>Yes
Then it's art.

Is it a creative expression?
>No
Then it isn't.

>so that means vidya is art because of the art in muh vidya

No. The concept art is art, the OST is art, the narrative is art. But as soon as you add objectives and rules to the mix, it stops becoming art.

[Anonymous No.4215997]

>>4215994

[Anonymous No.4216002]

>>4215997
>>4215999
See, that's art right there. OC is art.

[Anonymous No.4215998]

>>4215970
This perfectly expresses my thoughts on the matter. Most video games try in vain to emulate other art forms, and it's like trying to make a painting taste good.
Video games are actually in a really unique position in that they empower the user to be something more than just a spectator. The 'art' should come from the interactivity between the player and the game, not perfunctory stories or characters.

[Anonymous No.4215999]

>>4215997

[Anonymous No.4216003]

>>4215995
gameplay can be creative expression

[Anonymous No.4216004]

>>4215990

I think that brings us back to the people who are concerned with it. Another anon pointed out that it's mostly journalists; in which case the label of 'art' may be desired in order to validate their own existing relationship to the medium or even to validate their careers (which even /v/ says a lot, although in less than elegant terms).

But really the idea of whether something is 'art' or not should go beyond those pushing it, but you cannot deny it is a politically-driven desire in some sense. As you say, it probably makes no difference whatsoever.

[Anonymous No.4216007]

>>4215990
because >>4215879

[Anonymous No.4216006]

>>4216003
Whose creative expression?

[Anonymous No.4216010]

>>4215995
Why? Can't it be argued that objectives and rules are a creative expression?

[Anonymous No.4216011]

>>4215991
That game was fantastic. The gameplay was suprisingly deep.

[Anonymous No.4216014]

>>4216004
>(which even /v/ says a lot, although in less than elegant terms).
You mean how they consider them parasites who have nothing to do with games and not a single one of them has even heard of journalistic objectivity?

[Anonymous No.4216015]

>>4216010
No, they're simply constructs in order to allow a game (soccer, chess, etc.) to have an endpoint, nothing more.

[Anonymous No.4216018]

>>4216006
of both designer and player ie minecraft

[Anonymous No.4216019]

>>4215970
This.

After post-structuralism, anything and everything can be read as a text.

This 'video games as art' ordeal is just something invented by the mainstream public who have a separate conception of what 'art' is.

[Anonymous No.4216020]

>>4216015
>to have an endpoint
So if an artwork included limitations on how it can be viewed it's no longer art?

[Anonymous No.4216021]

>>4216015
But what if the rules and objective serve not just to limit or direct the player, but to also make a statement or convey meaning?
I think it's important to remember that metaphors are very versatile. A figure on a painting can be a metaphor, a sound can be a metaphor, a phrase can be a metaphor, so it stands to reason that a players actions, as forced by the game, can be a metaphor.

[Anonymous No.4216022]

>>4216014

Something like that. I don't know where I stand on them personally. If /v/ was more open-minded about video-games then I'd think it fair they were looking down on them but as far as I can see, both parties have a shallow (albeit different) view of games. It's funny because /v/ thinks journalists don't get it, and I'm sure journalists would look at /v/ and wonder what the heck they are all about as well.

People who write for sources like Hardcore Gaming 101 are the only people who seem to be really knowledgeable in the way that both other parties would like to be.

[Anonymous No.4216024]

>>4216019
That is, there is a cultural concept of 'art' that remains no longer attached to high culture outside of people's conceptions that it does. 'Art games' are usually just those that try something different and push the envelope, or those which are surrealist.

[Anonymous No.4216025]

>>4215991

Why is it art? The aesthetics? That's hardly part of the game. It is as a game just an action platformer. If all it takes for a game to be art is some aesthetics, then it's just who can pain their model car the prettiest

[Anonymous No.4216028]

>>4215988
>That their hobby should degenerate into something as vile and pathetic as a vehicle for politics.
I rarely ever read anything from my country because of that shit.
Everything is politics, fucking faggot llamas.

[Anonymous No.4216029]

Videogames can't be art because they're games.

[Anonymous No.4216031]

>>4216029
Then what is art?

[Anonymous No.4216032]

>>4215902
there are no good definitions for art, either they are too general and thus inclusive, or to insular and thus exclusive. People have been arguing about that shit for centuries

[Anonymous No.4216035]

>>4216032
I'd say that art is a cultural concept. Whatever is 'art' under a specific culture is what art actually is; there's no perfect platonic form of 'art' out there floating about in space.

[Anonymous No.4216037]

>>4216031
That's a very difficult question to answer but it's certainly not games. You wouldn't call a game of tennis "art" (unless you were horribly misinformed on the subject).

[Anonymous No.4216042]

>>4216037
E.g. Under this culture we don't recognize tennis as art, ergo it is not art.

However, it is easy to imagine a hypothetical culture where tennis is art.

Culturally we see video games function as sports (esports, moba, etc), and culturally they function as art in that they have story components. If the audience doesn't recognize it as art though, then it isn't art.

[Anonymous No.4216054]

>>4216022
>both parties have a shallow (albeit different) view of games
Depends on your point of view. /v/ has a lot of (intentional) shitposting on subjects that should be ignored but when the few thinking people gets out they tends to get fairly close to the truth.
Whereas Games Journalists just write exactly what the PR team says (really, if you've been to an E3 journo preview you already know every single line of what 99% of the people there are going to write) and defend it by the extreme cliques they've formed among their own. Even the games they hold up as art tend to be made by people they know personally through IGF.
HardcoreGaming101 is interesting because they write of older and non-english games, i'd doubt they'd be much better if they wrote about contemporary crap. Their quality is mostly noteworthy because unlike many of their colleagues they do some form of research on the game before writing about it.

[Anonymous No.4216058]

>>4216024
>just those that try something different and push the envelope
>or those which are surrealist.
More like rehash stupidities found in really bad 90s FMV games.

[Anonymous No.4216060]

>>4215817
>"""""HARDCORE GAMER"""""" here.