Why isn't the literary and artistic merit of Video Games respected?

[Anonymous No.14100754]

Many modern novels are just escapism and intellectual masturbation, yet they are still called fine literature. Most ancient folk stories are simply interesting stories, yet they are still called fine literature. Why don't we evaluate Video Games in the same fashion. I think it is just unnecessary elitism to incessantly praise something like ancient mythology but not recognize that a game like Pokemon, in many ways, fulfills the same sort of mythological archetypes for a modern audience. Why isn't a game like OoT seen as a moving story of adventure and coming of age when it objectively has been very impactful to the imaginations of so many people? I know artistic merit is not proportional to the amount of people who like it, but surely it must factor in it somewhat. Plenty of artists are well known now only because of fame in their own time. As I reflect upon my past, I genuinely do think that something like old Adventure, Survival, or JRPG games have had a beneficial impact on my life and expanding my artistic imagination.

>inb4 I'm a brainlet
I go to a top uni and don't even play video games frequently anymore. I am looking to view it objectively

[Anonymous No.14100765]

You have a point. Lots of games do have shite stories though, even “story-based” ones.

[Anonymous No.14100774]

*mental masturbation

[Anonymous No.14100777]

>>14100765
Yeah. I agree with you. I certainly can see that most games are just escapism. I just moreso would like to see people be honest about the emotional and artistic impact of certain exemplary games, since they are such an important cultural medium nowadays.

[Anonymous No.14100783]

Because games that focus on plot or atmosphere are really underwhelming compared to top literature. Yeah, you can say there's a lot of shit literature, but there's also a lot of great literature. There's a lot of great video games, but they're that: great videogames.

The only games with artistic merit are those that try to experiment with the thing that makes games unique: the interactivity between player and character. So games like Metal Gear Solid 2 and, to a lesser extent, Dark Souls.

[Anonymous No.14100819]

the best plot-based game is pretty objectively FFVI and let's be honest it doesn't hold a candle to real literature. it's better than Lord of the Rings though. Games like Zelda are art in the loosest sense, they're more of a substitute good for kids who didn't grow up in the Boy Scouts

[Anonymous No.14100855]

The only game that qualifies as art in my book is Rain World.

[Anonymous No.14101295]

>>14100754
I remember this discussion from when Bioshock: Infinite released. One of the most salient points I read was that video game creators (with few exceptions like Kojima) don’t necessarily hold themselves to the standards of high art, so why would we bother conflating the two? Essentially the storytelling isn’t as responsible as literature we deem as classics, because they don’t have a bar to meet. When they have no social obligation to show interesting or challenging perspectives beyond basic edgelord shit or “save the princess” tropes, why would they put that effort into their games?

[Anonymous No.14101336]

>As I reflect upon my past, I genuinely do think that something like old Adventure, Survival, or JRPG games have had a beneficial impact on my life and expanding my artistic imagination.
That can be the case but was it really due to the writing? Videogames often have great art, character design, music, and universes in general, but the writing is mediocre at best.

And I don't think resembling mythology is enough to qualify them as good because literature as a whole is based on that shit. In general, it's not enough to resemble something considered good, after all that's how cliches and overused devices are formed, it's about bringing something new. And videogames are always trying to be shit action movies or shit fantasy animations.

[Anonymous No.14101373]

The imagination that comes with reading books far surpasses the imagination that comes from video games.

[Anonymous No.14101380]

>>14100783
>The only games with artistic merit are those that try to experiment with the thing that makes games unique: the interactivity between player and character. So games like Metal Gear Solid 2 and, to a lesser extent, Dark Souls.
This. Ico/shadow of the Colossus, dark souls/Bloodborne/thief 1 and 2 and games that focus on the gameplay while presenting the story at the same time are the goat
Also, fighting games are great, we need more games that you need to practice more than 1 hour to be good

[Anonymous No.14101419]

>>14100754
there was a a major exhibition about video games at the V&A earlier this year
it was a bit crap but it's the thought that counts

[Anonymous No.14101434]

>>14101419
one thing that was interesting in the exhibition was how video game artists make reference to "real" art. for example the game kentucky route zero (never played it myself) has nods to works by magritte and others

[Anonymous No.14101443]

>>14101373
Imagination is obviously one of the high point of books since they don't have visuals, imagination is more important in a book than a movie or a painting because they are viasual forms of art and a book is not.

[Anonymous No.14101457]

They often have to merge together many art forms. Games are forced to focus on the art, writing, and game mechanics, and even music. To balance all 3 while creating something of literary merit is a great task.
My favourite game is The World Ends With You because it tries to balance all 3. The story focuses on trusting your partner, the gameplay focuses on balancing between the two screens of the DS console, the art emphasises the individualistic nature of each character. The music is very memorable and created by artists of the area it is set in.
But this is not literature. The story is simplistic and would not hold its own in an indvidual work, but the combination of these creations makes it a memorable creation in its own right.
Video games are an amalgamation of sorts. They don't really exist in their own right, they take notes from many other sources, combine it with a mechanic that tries to resonate with these themes, and markets it in a way 'art' generally does not.
But anyway, I'm drunk so I could probably poke holes in whatever bullshit I'm spouting when I'm not.

[Anonymous No.14101475]

>>14101457
i should've said 4 many times there but you can work it out

[Anonymous No.14101497]

>>14101457
>and even music
true, writing the music for video games is a massive task. not just games like gta or guitar hero or whatever where they just take songs by well known artists but stuff like the elder scrolls and fallout games have got beautiful music. one of the fable games, i think it was fable 3, has got some great soundscape type stuff in it

[Anonymous No.14101498]

Does Heavy Rain have any artistic merit? I don't play games but I thought about buying that one, sounds interesting.

[Anonymous No.14101517]

>>14101497
Nier automata's ost is a masterpiece

[Anonymous No.14101548]

>>14101498
Honestly no, there are much better games than it in pretty much every aspect. I have not played it but apparently Detroit Become Human, from the same developers, is better than it if you want to try something in that vein, I can't vouch for it though since I have not played it.

[Anonymous No.14101554]

>>14101457
TWEWY is extra based

[Anonymous No.14101587]

I believe that video game are already arts, doesn't mean they're intellectual or good. The problem is that you must have some kind of gameplay so if you want to tell a long, engaging story, you're pretty much have to include some kind of fighting or competition as the gameplay's goal, which contrive the story a lot.

>>14101498
Heavy Rain is a cheesy interactive thriller. If it sounds good for you then play it.

[Anonymous No.14101609]

>>14101548
>Detroit Become Human
That game looks terrible. "dude what if fantasy/sci-fi beings existed today and it was all a metaphor for civil rights and discrimination" is the worst take on genre fiction ever

[Anonymous No.14101919]

>>14100754
>I go to a top uni
If this is something you use as an argument or proof of why somebody should give a shit about your thoughts, you should jump off a cliff.
In fact, even if you went to the uni, you've clearly not gained anything worthwhile from it, judging by your basic-bitch thoughts and conclusions that I could've come across on /v/.

[Anonymous No.14103326]

>>14100754
I suppose that the interactive nature of vidja limits its literary and artistic merits as that loosens the direction of the work. Additionally, even linear stories fail to come close to the quality of a good book because a game's story is only one part of a large variety of components and it's often one of the least important aspects of what makes a game good. In fact, it is often the case that the more artsy and story-heavy a game is the worse of a game it is (walking sims come to mind which are closer to interactive experiences than a "game"). When I, and I think most people, think of a good game we don't think of an artistic experience but rather one which is purely entertaining where gameplay is king. The only exception that comes to mind is atmosphere and immersion, where a game aims to immerse you in a world. However, even in that case, overall narrative matters less than cohesive art direction, music, and detailed worldbuilding. There are some games that successfully balance all the aforementioned aspects but its rare.

[Anonymous No.14103333]

>>14101919
Relax, it’s a perfectly fine short preface. You are just projecting your insecurities

[Anonymous No.14103671]

>>14103664
Disagree. A retelling can have artistic value, but so can the thing itself. Analogous to a scene from nature and a painting of that scene.

[Anonymous No.14103675]

>>14100754
I would think you are right that some video games have artistic and literary merit, but there are many things which it from being an art medium. To name a few, the target audience is filled with a despicable kind of people, the industry is dominated by greedy corporations who actively exploit their consumers, and also it is much easier and more profitable to just develop a "fun" game rather than a work of art, which is why almost all of the games are mindless time sinks. Those few titles with any merit are also usually flawed, since the medium is young. It is also much harder and more time consuming for individuals to create video games, compared to, say, writing, which again leads to more commercial video games. Though it is shame. It has a high potential.

[Anonymous No.14103676]

>>14100754
Video Games are entertainment, while it takes artistic skill to create a scenery. That does not mean it should be viewed in a respect such as something painted by Salvador Dali. A WWE wrestler can entertain, make a fight seem real, or even do dangerous stunts. That does not mean he will be respected as much as a UFC fighter.

[Anonymous No.14103696]

>>14101336
>the writing is mediocre at best.
Play MGS.

[Anonymous No.14103535]

>>14100754
Because plots in a video game are like plots in porn or opera. It's there as a framing device for the actual content, not the focus in itself. However good the story might be, it's always second fiddle to the actual reason people are playing the game, and since it is thus constrained there is no real room for themes or deeper meaning the way there is in books or plays.

[Anonymous No.14103714]

>>14100754
Literature began as an artistic medium to express emotion, religion, philosophy, and history. Video games are a cash grab and always has been.

[Anonymous No.14103606]

A lot of comments in the thread focusing on single player titles. It's worth arguing that video games are the most social medium to date. The kinds of stories of human interaction you get in MMOs are exclusive to video games. That's art.

[Anonymous No.14103622]

>>14103333
It's not a preface but a post scriptum. Also, nice "projection" meme, though I have no idea what sort of insecurities of mine are you actually talking about.

[Anonymous No.14103626]

>>14103606
>art is when humans interact
Guess bars were great art when vidya didn't exist.

[Anonymous No.14103634]

>>14103626
I should've clarified--not mundane interactions, but interactions that are possible only within the context of the imaginary setting. The only way you can approach understanding how two humans go about a magic duel is to play a video game.

[Anonymous No.14103646]

>>14103634
That doesn't sound like pointless autism at all. Getting drunk at a bar with friends and talking honestly about your real life is about a million times better and more worthwhile than how two people within a limited and fabricated system... fight in a fucking magic duel, lmao

[Anonymous No.14103652]

>>14100754
I believe that game making itself, regardless of whatever narrative content the game consists of, has to be considered an art form. Many fps's are identical to each other just like many pop songs are. But every once in a while you find a game where the dev's put all their heart and soul into the game design and left things like graphics, plot (obviously there's an art to storytelling but in the case of games it's a peripheral variable), and whatnot. I would argue that even good controls have artistic merit, in a game like Dark Souls for instance. Map making is absolutely an art IMO, especially in games such as Counter-Strike.

[Anonymous No.14103653]

Silent Hill 1 & 2 are the only games I have played that I would consider art.
>>14103535
In these Silent Hill games, I find the gameplay occupies an area that is unique from any other game I have played. The gameplay serves to enhance the atmosphere and story of the game. In games focused on gameplay the story is often second fiddle, and in games focused heavily on story the gameplay is often only a distraction. In Silent Hill the gameplay and story come together as cohesive devices in creating a piece of art, and I can't think of any other game which rivals them in doing so.

[Anonymous No.14103657]

>>14103646
Oops, I forgot to measure using the 'better and worthwhile' scale before claiming something was art. You're right, sorry for posting.

[Anonymous No.14103664]

>>14103634
most player-player interactions rely on an imaginative retelling to be of any artistic value. In these instances, the game is merely the medium for storytelling rather than the story in and of itself.

[Anonymous No.14103999]

>>14103714
Many writers in history wrote because they had to feed themselves, and yet they still wrote great books.

[Anonymous No.14104038]

Minecraft: Story Mode is a great piece of literature, I agree.

[Anonymous No.14104126]

>>14100754
You would need to write a paper to really start discussing this in an intelligent way.

Video games as a medium haven't had time to mature, and people who have played a decent amount of games are not old enough to become voices of authority in cultural discourse. When avid gamers become professors and teachers this trend will probably turn.
Another major problem is that video games become dated very quickly. You'll have no problems reading a 2000 year old novel if you want to, they probably have them available at the nearest library. For video games you have forced hardware or software incompatibility every 5-10 years. Even renown games that are just 20 years old will be difficult to play for the general populace, severely limiting their impact on successive generations. Instead of becoming a landmark, most games just come to define a certain generation but are otherwise forgotten.

Video games consist of several elements, and the way these elements interact with one another is the core of any judgement of quality. Just like books can be both art and trash depending on the writing, so it is that video games can be art or trash depending on how well it manages to merge these elements into a coherent whole.
1. Level design, environments, linearity/openness
2. Story and textual elements
3. Visual elements and artwork
4. Player agency
Video games that try hard to be literature, or try to create an artsy movie visual experience usually fail because player agency and playability is sacrificed. You can't compare a book and a video game on the same terms. The game I think has come closest to unifying good plot and game design to reinforce the story being told while simultaneously being immersive and fun to play is Penumbra.

Some video games I think are artful in their function as video games while telling an interesting story:
Rain World
Metroid Prime
Silent Hill 1
Penumbra Overture and Black Plague
MGS 2 and 3


>>14101498
Artistic merit? No. It is a decently fun game though, and it does experiment with the medium.

>>14101587
The story should be told through the game world. Separating the story and the gameplay makes for a poor video game.

>>14103535
How many video games have you played?

[Anonymous No.14104133]

>>14101295
Bioshock infinite was garbage, people only thought it was sophisticated because it depicted slavery.

[Anonymous No.14104138]

>>14101498
David cage's shit is laughable

[Anonymous No.14104141]

>>14104126
Souls games do what Metroid prime did 100x times better and with an actual interesting lore/story.

[Anonymous No.14104144]

Because video game writers are the worst writers in a society

[Anonymous No.14104157]

>>14100754

KOTOR II
Jedi Outcast
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Trilogy
Thief Series
Castlevania Series
Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri
Dwarf Fortress
The Last Story (Wii)

I would stick with those games for artistic merit, anon

[Anonymous No.14104158]

>>14104157

Legacy of Kain series also would count as well.

[Anonymous No.14104159]

>>14104126
GAMERS RISE UP

[Anonymous No.14104162]

>>14104157
How about Stellaris?

[Anonymous No.14104164]

>>14104162

Poor man's mix of Alpha Centauri, Masters of Orion, and LOGH.

[Anonymous No.14104166]

>>14104141
Metroid Prime is art from beginning to end.
Dark Souls has amazing gameplay, it immerses the player and tells a story through the environment, item placement and level design, but the second half is just one giant train wreck.

>>14104162
Distant Worlds Universe if you want space strategy. Even so it doesn't qualify as art in my book, especially not derivative paradox trash.

[Anonymous No.14104176]

>>14104164
>Poor man's
Not with all that DLC
>>14104166
If you could turn a Stellaris game into a novel, it would be fascinating.

[Anonymous No.14104180]

>>14104166
Metroid lore and world are boring from start to end you mean. Also the best souls game is Bloodborne tbqh.

[Anonymous No.14104181]

>>14100754
They are respected by people who play them. Others just don't care.

[Anonymous No.14104182]

Prey 2017 deserves some recognition. The way it recreates the space station and the lives of the people on it is simply amazing.

[Anonymous No.14104185]

They are respected by people who play them. Others just don't care. Applies to books as well. People who have read something respect it, others don't care.

[Anonymous No.14104264]

>>14104182
On the other hand it suffers from terrible AI, broken shitty audio, flat characters and boring gameplay.

>>14104185
Even normies that don't read are intimidated by namedropping classical authors, the same does to some extent apply to cinema. But if you were to namedrop Kojima, Sakamoto, Carmack or Romero you will be laughed at or simply considered a sperg and disregarded.

[Anonymous No.14104267]

Most games are just not good. However I like games, and they do have potential. Some of them have literary value, but it's not comparable to great works of literarure. IMO the main artistic potential of video games is in the gameplay i.e. not literary.

[Anonymous No.14104273]

>>14104157
Jedi Outcast sucks dick compared to JK2.

[Anonymous No.14104276]

Video games are crap and aren't art. The only kind of video game that would get close are VNs but 99% of those are crap as well.

[Anonymous No.14104278]

>>14100754
Probably because videogames are a blending of cinema, art, literature and interactivity. Adding that onto the numerous genres it's really hard to define what has merit. Some are easy to see as being of literary and artistic value, like Journey and other experimental games. But what criteria can you have for deciding what makes a game have value or not? How do you mesh game design with story, art style etc? It's very difficult, and I think this is the reason why they're isn't much in the way of proper discussion on videogames as art. To be sure, the potential is there I just don't think it's developed fully yet. Give it a few years, and this kind of thing will happen I think.

[Anonymous No.14104280]

>>14104264
I disagree with most things. The gameplay is fun, exploration is also part of the gameplay and it's great and Alex is quite memorable. I think the voice acting does a lot for that.

[Anonymous No.14104289]

Bloodborne does Lovecraft better than most Lovecraft stories and with all the level design, music, visual art and gameplay to support it.

[Anonymous No.14104293]

>>14104280
Alex and Morgan are the only memorable characters. Everyone else looks like melted plastic with extremely stiff animations and bad voice acting, like the people you save from the floating mind-controlling thing.
Exploration was good, but there wasn't enough of it. Several ways to approach obstacles was good, but you can tech up and get everything pretty quickly so it loses value.
Poor mans System Shock 1/2.

[Anonymous No.14104294]

They have artistic value, but most of the time is not much compared to other mediums. Even bad YA books have more complex stories and characters than most videogames.

I haven't played a game in years. But I really like the world construction in Bioshock.

Also, the stories of many games in the Final Fantasy series is decent. In particular, I remember VI and X.

[Anonymous No.14104297]

>>14104289
Imagine being such a braindead zoomer that you actually believe something like this.

[Anonymous No.14104299]

Because games are made by laborers- coders- and not professors, and you can't get status out of them, and you can't use them to launder money, and it's really hard to make people like terrible games, so you can't use them to spin up little cultural celebrities.

[Anonymous No.14104306]

>>14104299
Also, there's way more ways a game can go wrong than a book. You can ignore faulty characterization, or plot holes, or leaden turns of phrase. With training, you can persuade yourself that these are good. Not so with Z-fighting or a bad walk cycle.

[Anonymous No.14104334]

>>14104293
Exploration is good also because of the discovery and the places you are exploring, not just from a mechanical point of view. The game world has to be one big the most amazing digital world creations ever, seeing new quarters, exiting the station, finding new logs etc is all its own reward even if you don't have to do anything mechanically super complex.

[Anonymous No.14104380]

>>14104297
The whole Old Hunters DLC in particular is kino from start to end. Things like Lady Maria's story could only be told like that in a videogame and are amazingly well done. Things like Ludwig the Accursed finding his sword and becoming Ludwig the Holy Blade mid fight. Things like being able to see Kos' carcass from miles away and slowly getting close... this kind of storytelling can only happen in a game.

[Anonymous No.14104384]

>>14100754
Just play chess and read a book, faggot

[Anonymous No.14104386]

>>14104380
I don't know what you're talking about but it sounds gay as fuck.

[Anonymous No.14104397]

>>14100754
>Your princess is in another castle

wow, such good story writing
This is what I call an epic gamer moment

[Anonymous No.14104467]

>>14104386
>I have no idea about what the object of discussion is but I feel the need to expr as my opinion

[Anonymous No.14104484]

>>14100754
Videogames are burdened by a number of things:
They're generally produced by large studios trying to pander to a market. Even if the studio is headed by an auteur, his vision must constantly be compromised.
If somebody wants to make a video game alone, they need a wealth of technical experience. Learning how to program and everything else you need to make a video game exposes you to a culture that will destroy your faculty for art.
Since there are no video games that are art, video game creators have no examples to learn from.

[Anonymous No.14104527]

People need the artist to be above them, to rule them utterly. It's like women: if they sense you're not in control, they'll hate you. Video games take user input, so they who care about such things will never believe they're art.

[Anonymous No.14104530]

>>14100754
The stories of most games could be told without the game itself, it's just the stuff that happens in between gameplay, so from a storytelling perspective, gameplay is not valid.

Some adventure games are exceptions, but those usually too put more effort on fun gameplay than story. In Fallout you spend more time fighting, allocating XP etc. than getting immersed in the story. Really, any game that has a point system is going to be just a game rather then a piece of fiction.

The only game I played so far that was more interactive storytelling than gameplay was I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. It is kind of cheating though because the story is about a computer creating these surrwal scenarios to fuck with people.

[Anonymous No.14104570]

>>14100754
>Many modern novels are just escapism and intellectual masturbation, yet they are still called fine literature.

lol, no.

[Anonymous No.14105224]

Is there any genre of video games more immersive and representative of pure undiluted art than survival horror?
Dead Space, Alien Isolation, Amnesia, Cry of Fear, REsident Evil, Silent Hill, Penumbra, SOMA.
They are among the best games ever made and all completely consume your ego and block out external distractions.

[Anonymous No.14105231]

>>14105224
True art right here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XyghKl72R0

[Anonymous No.14105243]

>>14105224
SOMA would have been better without monsters

[Anonymous No.14105278]

>>14100754
It's a mistake to compare the artistic merit of video games directly with the merits of literature or film or other kinds of artistic expression, because they're a different kind in their own right. They make use of the other kinds and configure them under a new expressive drive—that of interaction—for a new value-drive system of expression. The only person who understands how to evaluate this whole debacle is icycalm, and pic related is the list of games he's so far publicly deemed as "video game art." If you are interested in learning more then go read his stuff.

[Anonymous No.14105287]

>>14105231
Spooky disconcerting soundtrack, believable and cute scared girl voice actor, good camera angle with strong image composition, slightly cheesy dialogue that creates a connection with the player.
RE1 was a masterpiece, I don't care if you were being ironic or not.

[Anonymous No.14105314]

Do “visual novels” novels count as games? Yes, even they usually have pretty lame stories but you can’t really deny that they have artistic potential just as much as comics, animations or even books (maybe) do.

[Anonymous No.14105327]

>>14105287
So it's the level of a shitty B-movie? Great art, man.

[Anonymous No.14105356]

Video games are too focused on completing objectives

[Anonymous No.14105366]

>>14105327
Have you ever watched Twin Peaks? The corny dialogue and music doesn't make it B-tier when everything else works so well together to create something cohesive. What sort of B-tier movies do you watch with good camera works, intelligent angles that support the action and good image composition?

[Anonymous No.14105377]

>>14105356
Books are completely linear, with an ever-present quest marker. You read each letter, and every word and every sentence and every page. What uninventive and trite design. The goal is just to read from one cover to the other? lmao

[Anonymous No.14105436]

>>14105314
Kinetic novels are closer to books than games desu

[Anonymous No.14105444]

>>14105278
Power stone gives me good memories, I'm interested in this kind of take on games

[Anonymous No.14105445]

>>14100754
Kek

[Anonymous No.14106450]

>>14101498
Try Man of Medan. Similar format to heavy rain but the story is very entertaining and the decisions change it up more than other games of its type.

[Anonymous No.14106487]

>>14105377
>doesn't know about ergodic literature

[Anonymous No.14106867]

>>14104273

That's exactly what Jedi Outcast is (JK2), dumbfuck

[Anonymous No.14106879]

>>14100754
Because it is second person and as a medium simply not concise or artistic.

[Anonymous No.14106985]

>>14106879
No part of this post makes sense

[Anonymous No.14107004]

>>14100754
it is respected by real niggas https://scaruffi.com/art/videogames_files/frame.html

[Anonymous No.14107018]

>>14106985
You are the first person anon, if you play as a character that will obviously by the second person. If someone is watching you play he becomes the third, and the man walking his dog outside the fourth and so on.

[Anonymous No.14107031]

>>14107018
You are the first person, if you read about a character in a book that will obviously be second person. If someone is watching you read he becomes the third, and the man walking his dog outside the fourth and so on.

[Anonymous No.14107035]

>>14100754

>why do we assign "artistic/creative/other meme concept" value to some things and not other things ?

why do you care ?

[Anonymous No.14107051]

>>14107018
>by
>>14107031
>be

[Anonymous No.14107069]

>>14100754
I find that games function best as a vehicle for story telling when their mechanics help sell an idea or confront the player. The best two examples I've found are Flower, Sun and Raind and 999. The former sort of feels like an anti-adventure game. All the puzzle solutions are found in a hotel brochure you get at the start of the game, the puzzles are often obtuse, characters mock you for even taking on their dumb requests and you run through large environments and are told to back track through, all the while drip feeding an interesting and insane story. It's as if it's taunting you, asking "why do you even play videogames?", by reducing the adventure to its most monotonous bits. Without spoiling too much, 999 is the best use of a console's hardware to tell a story I have seen in gaming. On top of that, it uses the multiple routes thing th a VNs have in service of the story in such a way that the player is like a third party omniscient entity (which all players are really) that is a part of the story. Play the DS version for the best results.

[Anonymous No.14107130]

>>14100754
Why do crossboarders think their opinions have merit?
>guys this seasonal anime is so great, it's totally /lit/erary
>guys guys look at this generic hollyjew film, it's super /lit/ like totally
>omg guys this vidya gayme about bashing orcs with a sword 100,000 times in a row is super /lit/ take my word on it bro

Fuck off.

[Anonymous No.14107535]

>>14106867
Fuck. I mean JK1: Dark Forces 2. Asshole.

[Anonymous No.14108551]

>>14107130
amen

[Anonymous No.14108561]

Ever tried reading a videogame script without playing the game? I'm not saying it's bad, but have you? Perhaps the text doesn't stand on its own.

[Anonymous No.14108569]

>>14100783
>Because games that focus on plot or atmosphere are really underwhelming compared to top literature.
They're also despised by gaymers who have a full meltdown if they have to go five minutes without using the shoot shoot gun on some enemies. What gamers really want is for people to praise normie games as "art" so they can justify sinking 10000 hours into CS:GO.

[Anonymous No.14108650]

>>14104126
Where can I get that hat?

[Anonymous No.14109175]

>>14104157
Castlevania as a game is wonderful but as story blows

[Anonymous No.14109252]

I will tell you one on the reasons why OP. pokemon silver, I cannot catch all pokemon. I need gold for spider pokemon, and the bear. I need friend to trade golem, and machamp. This is not art, but businesses sham. very engrossing world, and I can hum all the songs, but business interrupted beauty.

[Anonymous No.14109383]

>>14105278
That's sad. Imagine thinking Phantasmagoria is art.

[Anonymous No.14109411]

Because stories in videogames tend to be shit. Same with stories in comics, or in animation.

Stories tend to be shit when no one actually cares to make a good story. And fuck those who think being pretentious leads you anywhere; they only make a fool out of themselves.

[Anonymous No.14109573]

>>14100783
>mgs2 and dahk sows
no people touting these as the pinnacle, or even "great" stories only damage the credibility of storytelling in gaming further

[Anonymous No.14109576]

>>14100754
The only artistic aspect of video games is the coding and no one who plays them knows coding very well except speed runners. The rest is ornament.

[Anonymous No.14109581]

>>14100783
>The only games with artistic merit are those that try to experiment with the thing that makes games unique:

Hahaha medium specificity died off in art crit before video games even existed

[Anonymous No.14109590]

>>14104126
This is low level crit

[Anonymous No.14109593]

>>14104299
WHat do you think workshops were in the Renaissance dummy

[Anonymous No.14109598]

>>14105278
Go away icycalm

[Anonymous No.14109603]

>>14109573
What's wrong with dark souls, it's one of the betters uses of the medium to tell a Storyline

[Anonymous No.14109623]

>the 2 games that are considered to be the pinnacle of video game story telling both came out in 2001

>silent hill 2
>metal gear solid 2

[Anonymous No.14109640]

>>14100754
>Why isn't the literary and artistic merit of Video Games respected?

Because the world is still run by boomers. Give it another decade or two and once they've all retired or died then games will be considered art.

[Anonymous No.14109654]

there are examples of 'Videogames as Art' coming through, stuff like Inside, What Remains of Edith Finch, Shadow of the Collossus, maybe even something as big as RDR2. but i think this conception is still relatively new, and hidden behind nonacceptance of gaming as a thing only kids or mankids do.

but the direct comparison with literature is flawed, videogames come into their own through environmental storytelling and atmosphere, rather than merely the words spoken or the underlying story, so it's not worth the comparison.

[Anonymous No.14109690]

>>14109623
Silent Hill 1 is better.

[Anonymous No.14109729]

watch the part of this video from 32:09 on:
https://youtu.be/4N6y6LEwsKc
if you want context for what he’s talking about, go ahead and watch the full video, but be warned, it does spoil both The Beginner’s Guide and, for an analogy at one point, The Sopranos