Video Games as Art: Yes? No? Maybe?

[DinoDeLaurentiis]

Okay I made uppa the last part...

Hehehehe

[ThisIsTheGirl]

Anna I know that a the TITG, he gonna to be sad iffa the Mandingo, she not a be made.

Do not even talk about that as a hypothetical situation, Sir!

[The Ginger Man]

I'm quite interested to know which development studios you really admire - I'm a big fan of Treasure and Sega-Am2

As much as we're talking about story in video games, the thing that really grabs me right now is innovative forms of gameplay. I crave for something new to come across my desk. Generally, whenever a game or company is touting a game that "does something no other game has done before," it's nothing but hype.

The games (and developers) that currently have my attention are Red Octane's Guitar Hero. Atlus' Trauma Center: Under the Knife. Capcom's Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney. And SCEI's Shadow of the Colossus.

I'm also eagerly awaiting the Nintendo Revolution. That being said, I didn't get into the new generation of Nintendo gaming until I entered the gaming industry. Before that, I was fine with playing the same basic game (just with a different graphical theme) over and over. But when I had to play hundreds of those games for 10 hours a day, 5 days a week, I found myself suddenly interested in what Nintendo had to offer.

[JAGUART]

I'm suprised at all these snap judgements about a medium that's really only ten years old.

Video Games will mature when they have "the power of the gaming medium to carry one directly into the mental state of the composer/developer."

Ebert is way way off on this, the burgeoning sophistication of the medium will lend itself to a whole new level of immersive and emotional interaction. We're talking decades out from now and current games will have about as much in common with them as
Lascaux cave paintings.

Steven Spielberg is swapping the silver screen for a computer one in a deal with Electronics Arts to make three original video games.

The Academy-Award winning film director has signed a long-term agreement with the world's biggest video games publisher to collaborate with its Los Angeles studio on the projects.

The deal is an indication of the convergence happening in the media industry as big-budget games are made with Hollywood production values for next-generation consoles


The director of Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, War of the Worlds and many other Hollywood blockbusters will open an office this year at EA's LA studio and work on the concept, design, story and artistic visualisation of the projects.

EA said the subjects of the three games had not been decided and it was too early to say whether they could eventually be turned into movies, as had been achieved with other successful games franchises.


"There is no greater storyteller than Steven Spielberg," said Larry Probst, EA chief executive.

With the release of the Xbox 360 console by Microsoft next month, video games are being launched into a new era of high-definition quality with increased processing power enabling far more realistic movement and movie-like interactions and scenarios.

One more quote;

USATODAY: Spielberg, Zemeckis say games, films could merge

Quote:
"Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis say students can change the face of filmmaking if they only play more video games.

"I think the real indicator will be when somebody confesses that they cried at level 17," Spielberg said.

Zemeckis, the Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit director whose name adorns the new lab building, said he has borrowed gaming techniques for his films.

While developing his digital Christmas movie The Polar Express, he updated the motion-capture technology that makers of sports games use to recreate the moves of athletes. Zemeckis used it to digitally capture the facial features of actor Tom Hanks.

He and Spielberg agreed that movies like Spider-Man 2 and The Matrix series also reflect the impact gaming style has had on cinema.

"My influence, when I was a film student here, was a television influence," Zemeckis said. "In the '80s, cinema became influenced by the pace and style of television commercials. And in the '90s, it was the pace and style of the music video. And I think the next decades are going to be influenced greatly by the digital world of gaming."

[DinoDeLaurentiis]

Spielberg's first a game, she gonna to be call a the "Touch a the Face of a the Hero" anna inna the game, you play a the group of a the children, anna you gotta to find a the Hero anna get him a to cry a so's a you can a touch his a face.

Anna Johnny Williams, he's a gonna to do a the "touchy face" music a too, eh?

[The Ginger Man]

Hype, hype, hype. You can't quote press releases and press releases disguised as articles to prove a point. Spielberg in games will be interesting, but I'm not expecting anything fantastic. Certainly not a game on the level of "Art."

The idea of games and films merging feels like a marketing department's dream, not a gamer's. Anyone play Ultimate Spider-Man? Man was I pissed when I discovered the only way "complete" the story was to start buying the USM comic book. A game should be self-sustaining.

"The deal is an indication of the convergence happening in the media industry as big-budget games are made with Hollywood production values for next-generation consoles." Ugh. That scares me. Are we headed down a path where most games are the controllable equivalent of the summer blockbuster? The "prettier" you make a game, the shorter it generally is. If all this union has to offer is hollywood production values, then we really will get a 7 hour game that's all flash, no substance, and completely forgettable by the time you load up the next one.

[Lord Voldemoo]

Fable, which was released last year, was a beautiful game and the interactivity was built into the story with purpose. That work was guided by one story telling master who directed a team to bring his vision to fruition.

Too bad the team didn't finish the damned game. Fable could have been the greatest RPG to come out, maybe ever. As it was it was a very good game, but didn't live up to potential, mostly because of it's relatively short length. I hope that for Fable II, assuming they make one, they will take the time and money constraints off of the game designers...

At this point in history, Video games are an inferior medium for storytelling, in my opinion. Part of the reason for that is the inability to explore some of the darker themes, except in rare instances. Grand Theft Auto certainly allows you to do a lot of bad shit, but for the most part video games are deathly afraid of getting a M rating, much less an AO, despite the fact that there are more adults who play games now than kids. An AO rating is tantamount to death, and many game designers will steer safely away from that possibility, even at the expense of the story they are trying to tell. Unlike film, in which an NC-17 rated film may find alternative channels of distribution via DVD, etc., video games have no established alternative distribution venue for such adult-rated games.

[Lord Voldemoo]

Spielberg's first a game, she gonna to be call a the "Touch a the Face of a the Hero" anna inna the game, you play a the group of a the children, anna you gotta to find a the Hero anna get him a to cry a so's a you can a touch his a face.

Anna Johnny Williams, he's a gonna to do a the "touchy face" music a too, eh?

OLD SCHOOL BABY!!!!

[ThisIsTheGirl]

Atlus' Trauma Center: Under the Knife. Capcom's Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney

Ginger Man, you and I are one.

I've been hammering Trauma Center for the last fortnight, and I've spent much of the weekend telling people that the next game on my list is Phoenix Wright.

I never used to be much of a Nintendo nut, either, but over the last couple of years, they have proved beyond doubt that they are more commited to innovation than any of the other hardware manufacturers. The DS in particular, which many dismissed as a gimmick - has been easily my most played console this year - thanks to games like Wario Ware, Electroplankton and more recently, Under the Knife and the addictive MarioKart DS. Have you experienced the joys of wi-fi kart racing yet? The area where I work is a massive wi-fi hotspot, so it's the perfect game to play on a lunchbreak - unlike Trauma Center - which requires massive dedication.

That isn't a criticism though - if anything, I enjoy TC even more than MarioKart - but I need to be in a quiet room with as few distractions as possible if I'm to save the lives of all those patients. A few observations on TC: UTK - -

When a patient's pulse starts to rapidly drop - I genuinely get extremely stressed! I can feel sweat forming on my brow as I repeatedly inject the patient with the adrenaline, trying to raise up their heart rate, while at the same time, tend to the (aforementioned) thrombii stuck in their goddam blood vessels! Amazing game - I have not had those kind of real-world emotions from a game since I first started playing Pro Evolution Soccer! I'm also particularly fond of the fact that in the pre-operation briefing, they use real medical terms - this had the effect of unsettling you before you've even begun the thing! (although in case you don't know, you can skip that stuff by pressing select).

I have high hopes for the Revolution, I'm just worried that Nintendo will be late in getting it into the shops - is the PS3 still on schedule for a March release?

I'm also pretty pumped about some of the other wireless games which are coming to DS (I may as well admit it - I mean Animal Crossing)- I just wish they would hurry up with them!

[jgraphix]

I'm still waiting for my bro to finish TC so that I can have a crack at it.

[Pudie]

Talk to steph about that. I havent touched it in a while. Many other games I'd rather play. I can't find my Castlevania though

[ThisIsTheGirl]

I'd be interested to know how long it takes him - I feel like I've barely scratched the surface, because I'm still basically a trainee doctor - although I've saved many lives by this point!

There really is nothing more satifying than sewing up an incision, knowing that you've fixed the problem and that your patient is going to survive - it's a ludicrously addictive game!

[The Ginger Man]

I hope that for Fable II, assuming they make one, they will take the time and money constraints off of the game designers...

An AO rating is tantamount to death, and many game designers will steer safely away from that possibility, even at the expense of the story they are trying to tell. Unlike film, in which an NC-17 rated film may find alternative channels of distribution via DVD, etc., video games have no established alternative distribution venue for such adult-rated games.

First part: taking time and money constraints off the game designers. Whew, that's dangerous. You could end up with "The Cotton Club" of video games. Time and money must be guided by vision to equal greatness. And even then, the vision itself must be great. And we've all seen great visionaries with self-mastubatory visions.

Second part: the dark side of games. I agree, companies are afraid of going this route...unless it's one of the game's selling points. When companies start using death and violence to further a story rather than as a tagline (buy this game cuz you can set a homeless guy on fire!) then maybe something can be done about alternate distribution.

A factor that I think is overlooked in this discussion is the programmers and the equipment. The most important parts of the equation. You can have the greatest story, the best dev leader, and all the time and money in the world. But the fact remains that capabilites are limited. B/C of the 360s decision to release two versions of the console (one with a harddrive, one without) the developers are stuck making games at the lowest common denominator, for systems without harddrives. Also, it needs to be noted that the industry has yet to find the genius programmer who can code a game up to the standards we're discussing in this forum. This is especially true with AI. There have been some amazing leaps forward, but it's mainly in the illusion of AI, not the actual thing. And this is where games differ from films. A movie only has to look better. A game has to play, interact, and control better.

[Lord Voldemoo]

Please bear in mind, I didn't mean ALL constraints, but certainly money/release date issues led to Fable being released as it originally was. In this case these constraints led to the release of a product that was not anywhere close to its potential, which is sad...

[Pudie]

It also doesn't help that Moleneux(sp?) hyped it up to be a LOT more then it ended up being.

[The Ginger Man]

Please bear in mind, I didn't mean ALL constraints, but certainly money/release date issues led to Fable being released as it originally was. In this case these constraints led to the release of a product that was not anywhere close to its potential, which is sad...

Have to blame the hype machine on this one. If developers/publishers would shut their mouths and not talk about a game until they have a better grip on it, then things would be gine. Instead, games now get cover articles when only the first level has been programmed and even that level is only at an Alpha state. B/C once a game is on the public radar, it gets a release date, which affects plans for a fiscal quarter, which fucks everything up.

More companies need to take Rockstar's example with The Warriors. This game had been in development for years. They only started rallying the hype as the game's development was winding down and had everything under control.

[Lord Voldemoo]

I partially blame the hype machine. Fable was certainly overhyped, but after having played it you can see WHY it got so much hype. The potential was there. With a little more love and time, it could easily lived up to it.

[The Ginger Man]

It also doesn't help that Moleneux(sp?) hyped it up to be a LOT more then it ended up being.

Almost every game is like that. But the general public rarely sees the design docs for every game. They only get the hype for the high-profile ones.

Every design doc that crosses my desk describes how that game is "the complete and utter revolution of all that has come before, with graphics and gameplay that will not only evolve your senses to the next stage of human existence, but also make you pancakes and give you a blowjob at the same time." You learn to read between the lines. That, and never trust a game until you play it.

Actually, it's a lot like the Marvel Comics Hype Machine at the moment.

[The Ginger Man]

I partially blame the hype machine. Fable was certainly overhyped, but after having played it you can see WHY it got so much hype. The potential was there. With a little more love and time, it could easily lived up to it.

The thing with Fable is that they made such outragous claims BEFORE they knew if it was possible to program the game that way. Once they discovered they couldn't live up to their original idea/hype, they can't tell the public...well, it's not all that we said. They have to keep up the illusion. Which is why I think companies need to hold off on the self-back patting until they actually know what they can do.

[MasterWhedon]

This got posted in Ebert's Sunday Answer Man column:

Q. Thank you for jump-starting a discussion about the relative artistic and critical merit of video games as compared to film and books. I do take issue when you argue that video games can never have the merit of a great film or novel. You say: "There is a structural reason for that: Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control."

Where you see a flaw, I see promise. Arguing that games are inherently inferior because books and movies are better at telling stories and leading us through an author-driven experience is begging the question. It's like saying that photography is better than painting because photos make more accurate visual records.

The invention of photography sparked a crisis in the world of painting: "Why should we paint if pictures can do it better?" But then painters figured out that there were lots of other things that they could do, that cameras can't. Now we see an enormous explosion of creativity in the world of painting. And another different explosion in the world of photography.

We agree that games are inherently different from films and books. I believe they are at their worst when they try to mimic films and books, and at their best when they exploit this difference to create experiences that films, books, and all the other art forms cannot. No one criticizes sculpture for failing to tell a story as well as a good movie.

Many people would agree with you that there aren't yet any games that rival the best films or books that you care to list. Game makers are only just beginning to understand that games are not films/books with action sequences. I think that you'll see that the more we work that out, the more we will find ways of creating meaningful artistic works that are unlike anything anyone's seen before.

Tim Maly, designer, Capybara Games, Toronto

A. If or when that happens, I hope I will approach it with an open mind. This debate has taken on a life of its own. In countless e-mails and on a dozen message boards, I've found that most of the professionals involved in video games are intelligent and thoughtful people like yourself. A large number of the video game players, alas, tell me "you suck" or inform me that I am too old. At 63, I prefer such synonyms as "wise" and "experienced."

Today I received a message from Professor David Bordwell (retired) of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who is generally thought of as the leading scholarly writer on film; the textbooks he has written by himself and with Kristin Thompson are used in a majority of the world's film classrooms. What he said was intriguing on a practical level:

"The last dissertation I'm directing is on video games as they compare to film. The guy is bright, so we let him do it. But he brought his games and game platform to my house to give me some experience on this medium. I lasted through 15 minutes of 'Simpson's Road Rage,' largely because my coordination is so poor. Even if I got good on the controls, what keeps me away is the level of commitment. The idea of spending hours at this boggles my mind.

"My student told me that the most sophisticated games require up to 100 hours to master. In 100 hours we can watch 25 Bollywood films or 50-plus Hollywood/ foreign features or 80 B-films or 750 Warner Bros. cartoons. Depending on how fast you read, in the same interval you can probably finish reading 20-30 books. Not to mention 25-35 operas or 100-120 symphonies. And that's just for one game! On the basis of my very limited experience, and given my tastes (a big part of the issue here), the problem with video games is that they're too much like life -- too much commitment for thin and often frustrating results."

[Lord Voldemoo]

I partially blame the hype machine. Fable was certainly overhyped, but after having played it you can see WHY it got so much hype. The potential was there. With a little more love and time, it could easily lived up to it.

The thing with Fable is that they made such outragous claims BEFORE they knew if it was possible to program the game that way. Once they discovered they couldn't live up to their original idea/hype, they can't tell the public...well, it's not all that we said. They have to keep up the illusion. Which is why I think companies need to hold off on the self-back patting until they actually know what they can do.

Completely agree with you there...

[ThisIsTheGirl]

Have to blame the hype machine on this one. If developers/publishers would shut their mouths and not talk about a game until they have a better grip on it, then things would be fine.

Too true! It happens all the time - how long ago was it when the first screenshots of games like XIII and Killer 7 were released? Almost 2 years before the actual game hit the shelf in some cases - by which time, the gaming public have worked themselves into a frenzy over the games and inevitably, they didn't live up to expectations. Have to say, Nintendo are as guilty as anyone of this. All these videos and screenshots of the new Zelda game have been doing the rounds for months now - but you can bet we won't see the game in the West until Q3 2006 at the very earliest.

It almost seems like companies can't control their emotions - as soon as they get some decent screenshots, they pump them out to anybody who can be bothered to listen - it's hella lame

[The Ginger Man]

This got posted in Ebert's Sunday Answer Man column:

"My student told me that the most sophisticated games require up to 100 hours to master. In 100 hours we can watch 25 Bollywood films or 50-plus Hollywood/ foreign features or 80 B-films or 750 Warner Bros. cartoons. Depending on how fast you read, in the same interval you can probably finish reading 20-30 books. Not to mention 25-35 operas or 100-120 symphonies. And that's just for one game! On the basis of my very limited experience, and given my tastes (a big part of the issue here), the problem with video games is that they're too much like life -- too much commitment for thin and often frustrating results."

Wow, I totally get where Ebert is coming from now. I once loved games that required weeks, even months, of my time. I bought Dragon Quest 8 the other week, a game sporting 100 hours of gameplay. I sat down, played through the first mission and said "Man, I don't have time for this." Then I took my dog for a walk through Central Park.

The older you get, the more things fill your life. With Ebert it's film, books, symphonies, etc. I have my own things. So do you. What Ebert is saying is that if games require 50 to 100+ hours to reach this standard of art, then they never will reach the masses who have to contend with work, family, and whatever brings them fullfillment. And by that fact alone, they are hindered from becoming art in the eyes of the world.

[The Ginger Man]

It almost seems like companies can't control their emotions - as soon as they get some decent screenshots, they pump them out to anybody who can be bothered to listen - it's hella lame

I can't help but think about Bill Hicks.

"If anyone here is in marketing or advertising....kill yourself. There is no justification for what you do, you are Satan's little helpers, kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself now. Ok, back to the show."

[El Scorcho]

Ebert. Nail. Head.

[brainiac]

I'm looking forward to OBLIVION (Morrowind IV) with all its innovations. I feel like I'm a major character in a novel when I play Morrowind. I do spend hours and hours reading, watching movies, DVDs, and TV...why isn't investing hours and hours in a game just as much of an immersion in the artist's vision?

[MasterWhedon]

Ebert's Final Chapter on the video game debate is up.

[Chief Redcock]

Video games are art in the same way that chess or painting represent art. They aren't books or movies, but they don't want to be. That's perfectly legitimate.

[Chilli]

Games shouldn't be art.

They should be fun.

But so should movies. If a movies isn't fun to watch, then IMO its a waste of fucking time.

Films are for bohemian assholes.

[TonyWilson]

Games shouldn't be art.

They should be fun.

But so should movies. If a movies isn't fun to watch, then IMO its a waste of fucking time.

Films are for bohemian assholes.

Then you just found a forum full of bohemian assholes. Enjoy!

[Doc Holliday]

I'm guessing thats Chilli as a name due to the cold stares.....meh.

Irreversible is a powerful film that makes for uncomfortable viewing, raises questions about your sense of self and in a wider context the human condition as a whole.

Its a good film, very well-made and one that succeeds in its ambitions.

I've seen it once and I suspect I will never watch it again.

But if you think this film is "fun" then I don't even want to know you.

Similarly if you don't get what the film is attempting to do or see the value in this then you probably shouldn't be making widespread comments about the whole medium in the first place.

And one man's "fun" is another man's "tedium" - see teen comedies for further discussion.

Chilli?

"Be Cool" would seem to apply....

[ThisIsTheGirl]

Games shouldn't be art.

They should be fun.

But so should movies. If a movies isn't fun to watch, then IMO its a waste of fucking time.

Films are for bohemian assholes.

Can a piece of art not be "fun", then?

[Chilli]

...

I would like to say I lack the ability to proofread.

[papalazeru]

There is a structural reason for that: Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control.

But for most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic.

Authorial control?

What about a good whodunnit? The old Basil Rathbourne Sherlock films? Aren't you glued to the screen looking for clues yourself and trying to work out who the murderer was....just like...I don't know...Grim Fandango, Monkey Island, Discworld Noir?

Alot of Peter Moulineuxs creations gave the player freedom to think for himself in the environment...Total War series let the player strategise as an Emperor and how to attack and govern his troops. Is this not culture? Enabling the player to indulge and learn how to form an attack or how to work something out for themselves.

The same way a film or a book unravells so does a game, with a game your interaction is crutial to how this works.

Is Lord of the Rings books not considered Art?

I feel a Games producer/Drector needs to have much more control than a book writer because he is not only planning for a multitude of ends but he is planned to give the player a wealth of other storylines which may or may not invariably be essential to the plot but just to give the player some character?

Take Oblivion for example, a carefully constructed world that no only allows the player to follow the main storyline with some depth, but follow their own path through life in the world. The Characters in the game have lives of their own and move about independantly of what you do. You use your judgment on who to talk to and who not to answer back to. The Actions you take as your character also affect all other people in the game.

If you read through an exciting fight scene in a book you can read through it again, it will never be different....in game, it will always be different.

Oblivion may not be the future just yet but its getting there and soon we will have games of this freedom and magnitude maybe based around real events in life, and example would be re-enacting the 9/11 incident with all characters faithfully where they were on that day, you play a fightfight and must save people...all based on the actual time and events? Thats just one thought...the list could be endless.

How can that not be art? Planning for what the user might or might not do in the universe around him.

Can games not carry the same social messages across to audiences the same way films can? Of course they can. Many games have been created surrounding realistic events, some have even gone so far as to show the futility of war. Soon there will be more games emerging which will allow players to make the choice, we already have Flight sims that re-enact certain battles.

I feel personally that games are on par with films or a book, as with all of them you have to take time to create the right atmosphere, the right modd and the right characters. A games designer is often careful to construct an eeire presence in a room or making a school on a dark night look looming and overbearing. Its not just book writers who are artists, its game makers as well. How about a decent link up between a programming house and an actual book writer? You could have to read the book to give you clues during the game or the book tells of a different path of some players in the game giving characters an extra background story and both have a social and political message? Theres an idea.

[Chairman Kaga]

I really don't see a legitimate argument that games are not "art".

Art
Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature.

The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium.
The study of these activities.
The product of these activities; human works of beauty considered as a group.

Video games seem to fit that quite well.

[The Ginger Man]

I see there is big support here for the VGs = Art opinion. While I don't agree that the medium as a whole counts as an artform, I do think some games come quite close. But not all games are art. Just like not all films and books are art.

As per art's definition provided by Kaga, art is the human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature. A concious production...that affects the sense of beauty. Which says to me that a video game is art if it's creator intended it to be art.

However, a Doom 3 FPS clone that is created to cash in on Doom 3 like FPSs (this goes for any popular game/genre) doesn't count as art.

So instead of arguing that an entire medium is art, why not list specific games you consider to be art...and explain why.

[papalazeru]

You have the power of good reasoning my friend which makes you an art critic as far as Im concerned.


1. Jet Set Willy/Manic Miner
The first game that really need pixel precision jumping. It sold 3,000,000 copies here in England (considering that the spectrum was just an english machine thats alot in those days). Its level designs were cunning and was one of the most addictive and many people still have not completed it. I also respect and give credit to the bigger mass market appeal of Super Mario Bros. It also came after JSW (1984)

2. Elite
Need I say more than that. The first ever space trading game that required FPS space shooting skills and strategy. Over 256 thousand planets were in the game, and for 48K machines, that was a hell of a lot.

3. Doom
The first ever FPS game that scared the living shit out of its players. Sounds alone were enough to make you panic when you first play.

4. Morrowind
The largest and most adaptable game ever to come out on the PC. Incredible graphics and story and one of the first fully free roaming RPG's. You felt like you were the character and you lived it.

5. Monkey Island - I know Kal Mckraken was around before this but this is the one that spawned a generation of Pont n click adventures. Monkey Island not only combined cunning puzzles and inventive ideas (insult sword fighting) but it had you in histerics. Remember the Vegatarian Cannibals?

6 Streetfighter 2
Not for originality but for creating a game to perfection of the Nth degree. A standard which has never been beaten in the fighting genre. Incredible skill was needed to be a champion at this game and the moves took time to master. Everybody now can do a dragon punch without a second thought but then........it was all thumbs. Sounds and visuals lived up to everything you could have ever wanted in a fighting game and it is still one of the most competitive fighting games in history.

These are but some. Im thinking of more. I have been told that the story to Soul Reaver is amazing but I have yet to verify that.

[happydude3]

I'm not really a gamer, although I do enjoy them once in a while. I AM an Ebert fan as I usually agree with his opinions on movies, but I'm reminded of something Dylan said when asked how he felt about his songs being taught in academic settings. I'm totally paraphrasing, but he responded along the lines of 'That's fine, but they're not poems or literature, they're songs and that's something different.' I couldn't agree with this more. A play in (insert your choice of sport here) isn't art, but that doesn't make it any less important in and of itself. By the way, I'm new, so skewer away. I need to develop some callusses. I have no idea how to spell callusses.

[The Ginger Man]

I'm not really a gamer, although I do enjoy them once in a while. I AM an Ebert fan as I usually agree with his opinions on movies, but I'm reminded of something Dylan said when asked how he felt about his songs being taught in academic settings. I'm totally paraphrasing, but he responded along the lines of 'That's fine, but they're not poems or literature, they're songs and that's something different.' I couldn't agree with this more. A play in (insert your choice of sport here) isn't art, but that doesn't make it any less important in and of itself. By the way, I'm new, so skewer away. I need to develop some callusses. I have no idea how to spell callusses.

No flame coming from me, Happydude. Good early post, and I agree with you (and Dylan) in this regard. I think the drive to label VGs as art is a drive to bring a critical validation to the medium (and ultimately) the people who chose to spend a lot of time with it. Much like comics have gone from "funny books" to "award winning graphic novels." Or "toys" to "action figures" to "I buy them for the sculpting...it's like art." As the video game demographic gets older, it's members are seeking an unneeded justification for continuing to "play games." Which is why someone from an older generation who plays zero games (Ebert) says games aren't art. But someone from our generation who plays many games (pick anyone) says games are.

But like I said, I feel that "validation" is unneccessary, b/c the medium has become something unto itself and doesn't need to be clarified as art.

[papalazeru]

Its not about the validation, its about the recognition for what some of them are.

We would like to see the games producers and programmers praised on such a level as say books or film.

If Ebert is just a critic, he should be able to be a critic of games and maybe 'try' them.

Its he is a 'media' critic he should be well enough informed to make this attempt.
If he is just a book and film critic than let him say so and fair enough.

The proof is in the pudding.

I think one day, games will be accepted as art, theres no denying it.

Its only in retrospect can we call something art.

Im not talking about that crappy Tracy Emin or Damian Hurst bollocks

[happydude3]

Papalazeru: Isn't recognition of a game's artistic merit just that: validation? Believe me, I don't intend any offense- in fact, I really appreciate your argument, and you may be proven right. People treated movies as a trifle when they first came around and thought novels and painting and theatre and dance defined art. But not 100 years before that novels were dismissed, too. The issue to me is that we're in such a unique technological era right now that it's become possible to treat artistically things that in the past couldn't be because they couldn't be realized, they could only be described. But the one fundamental argument Ebert makes is that all of these older art forms were trying to tell you something- they want you to actively listen, but you don't change what they are trying to say. I've seen lots of games I thought were amazing to look at, but I don't want to just look at them, I want to play them. Which is why they are games. I can completely admire all of these fancy, ornate chess sets with intricately carved pieces and there is an art to the craftsmanship, but ultimately the point is to play with them. Wow, was this long enough for everybody?

[papalazeru]

Its just a shame that people still dont see Video games as a lesser medium for putting across a message.

I remember worrying about the futility of war and how many men must perish, men of honour, men of valour, men who have years in the battlefield blindly following orders and then they die by one stupid mistake.
All thats left is a plaque honouring the memory of this soldier........

Bloody Cannon Fodder.

Spent ages with Doobie and then he goes and walks onto a landmine.

[MonkeyM666]

REPOSTING THIS FROM LOCKED THREAD.... PLEASE CONTINUE....


Following on from an article I posted in the Random Gaming thread. Some interesting ideas on what movies have helped craft the video games industry as we know it today. Do you agree with the choices? Disagree? Are there other films that you think you would add? Looking at the list, I'd have to agree with most of the choices. The Matrix is a film that I don't think made that much of a differance in the style, or application of some ideas within games, but it added bullet time to it's vocab.

The sincerest form of imitation

Games' relationship with cinema is pretty simple: Games rip it off.

Games are, hugely, a derivative art-form. Their best visual motifs and scenarios are taken directly from one movie or another. What's amazing is how relatively few in number these are. This article evolved from a conversation with a designer friend of mine when we tried to work out the smallest number of films we'd have to remove from existence to destroy the game industry in its current state. With a short-list of six thrown into the void, the industry would be barely recognizable, full of designers stroking their chin and thinking, "You know, I know we have to drop our soldiers from an orbital vessel to the ground in some manner of ship, but God knows what we could use."

Clearly, cinema is derivative culture, too. Films echo films all the time. But at least a filmmaker had a bright idea somewhere along the line. Games echoing film just implies that game developers aren't smart enough to think up ideas themselves. That films are now taking from games doesn't particularly help address the imbalance either. Taking games' derivative plots, settings and mores

and turning them into cinema only ends in concentrated derivativeness; a photocopy of a photocopy. The actual original bits of game culture integrated go no further than the occasional first-person shot in a movie like Doom.

The real hopes for turning parasitism into symbiosis lie outside the films, which are directly licensed. The games that resonate most are those which make themselves influential, like NHL being used sociologically in Swingers. And if you look outside of cinema, games' cultural mores weigh heavy on comics, like Scott Pilgrim, or TV series, like Spaced.

But, this process is relatively new and has a long way to go yet. At the moment, the conceptualists of videogames are often indebted to cinema to the point of creative bankruptcy. Admittedly, some fare better than others. Even if cinema is stripped away totally, specific genres walk away with relatively few scars. Until Lord of the Rings, fantasy cinema was only a small influence on Western Fantasy games. They took either from a literary source or good-ol' Dungeons & Dragons. Eastern fantasy games' influences are equally hard to tie down to a direct singular influence. Outside fantasy, sports games would be pretty much untouched. However, it's interesting to speculate what sports games would look like if you didn't draw from modern television's coverage of sporting events.

Some other sub-genres are left bereft. Fantasy games can get away without movies, just about. Science fiction games just fall apart. For as long as videogames have been a rising cultural force, the primary way science fiction has been consumed is on the silver screen. While Halo quietly took some pieces from Iain M. Banks' Culture novels, its more celluloid-inspired riffs were more obvious. Irrational's forthcoming BioShock - inspired by objectivist classic (yes, I know: contradiction in terms) Atlas Shrugged - really is in a minority.

The following list is our best attempt to collate those who have been pillaged so often by games, it's almost reached the point where we've forgot where the component elements came from. In terms of series, we're taking the film which was taken from most. If any of these films had never happened, the game industry would be so screwed they'd even have to - ladies, hold your man, gentlemen, pour a stiffening brandy - try being original for a change.

Mad Max 2
Mad Max manages the rare trick of both being enormously influential and curiously ignored. In terms of its look - once described by JG Ballard as "Punk's Sistine Chapel" - it entirely cemented the idea of what anything even vaguely post-apocalyptic should look like. Yes, come the end of the world, everyone will immediately attach bits of car tires to their shoulders and apply a car-grease foundation to their features.

Dawn of the Dead
When the game shops are full of games which take from George Romero movies, the dead will walk the earth. It will come soon enough. Especially in certain sub-genres - anything that marches with a shuffling gait beneath the banner of the survival/horror game - the images of society falling apart (shortly followed by the remaining humans) lingers in many a designer's mind. It would probably be cruel to suggest that the zombies have inspired a considerable number of AI programmers over the years, even when not programming zombies.

The Matrix
For all its success, The Matrix arguably would have scored higher if it was a less derivative work itself. For example, the trench coat and shades was already a post-cyberpunk cliché, and visible in Matrix-contemporary games like Deus Ex. And we didn't see anyone try bullet-time until the Wachowski brothers showed how cool it was, despite the fact the Wachowskis had to arrange a million cameras in a circle in a particularly laborious process. To get bullet-time working in games, developers just had to stop the game's progress and waggle the camera around a bit.

Full Metal Jacket
Pre-1970s war movies are rarely influential on videogames. It took America's disillusionment with Vietnam to mix up the genre until it made more sense in the modern world. But of those classics, it's Full Metal Jacket whose shadow in games is longest.

Why? Because it's the most fun. As much as the depths cut through you while watching it, the memories people take from Full Metal Jacket are the ones which - whisper it - entertain. While R. Lee Ermey's drill instructor is one of cinema's greatest sadists, he's a fun sadist to be around, and as such it's rare to see a drill sergeant in a game not reference his performance.

The Terminator
RoboCop or The Terminator? RoboCop or The Terminator? RoboCop almost made it, through the simple beauty of its ED-209 design, which will be re-used as long as a designer needs a robot to have the dual abilities of carrying enough firepower to flatten an average town and looking a bit like a gawky chicken. In the end, The Terminator pulls clear, with the design of the titular robots being regularly pillaged - though perhaps its panoramas of the mankind's future war proved even more influential, for all their brief appearance. Tangentially, the first-person views of the Terminator (and RoboCop) are clearly in mind when any developer has strove to make the HUD an atmospheric part of the experience rather than mere decoration.

Saving Private Ryan
Spielberg's reinvention of the modern war movie acted as a sharp kick in the head for games' World War II games. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was the ground-level chaotic battle scenes that were most influential. It's easy to compare pre-Ryan WW2 games to ones after it and note the phenomenal increase in spectacle. The action games pre-Ryan were like Hidden and Dangerous - stately boys-own adventures which were often almost understated. Post-Ryan, you're in Allied Assault's recreation of the film's opening. Even the more strategic games - like this year's peerless Company of Heroes - are aware that it's those minutes that are affixed in the majority of gamers' minds when it comes to What War Should Look Like.

Perhaps most interesting is Saving Private Ryan's influence on games outside of the period. Its low-level shaking hand-camera view of the action can be seen in other action games attempt to ground the action. Consider Gears of War's run function, complete with camera-shake.

Evil Dead 2
In short: Hero kills hordes of monsters, makes wise-cracks and wields chainsaws. What could be more videogame? While Romero's films have had more influence in a smaller number of genres, Evil Dead's influence reaches further, especially in the early '90s, when id Software was doing the closest videogames have come to articulating the inchoate cry of the teenage metalhead by bringing album covers to life. The more extreme demonic energy of Evil Dead was a clear inspiration to Doom's gates to hell. Of course, elsewhere in the world of first-person shooters, 3D Realms took the lighter tone - and lifted lines - to create Duke Nukem. While the Dawn of the Dead is what action games turn to when they want to take themselves a little bit seriously, when the dials are turned to 11, a developer is certain to consider digging out an old VHS Copy of Evil Dead.

Blade Runner
Put it like this: Blade Runner invented the future. While others' view of the future is clear fantasy, as Ridley Scott's world unveils in front of us, there's a nagging worry that we may end up living there. Clearly, Blade Runner is a film that has had huge cultural impact on how everyone portrays the day after tomorrow.

Star Wars
If we were looking across the whole life of videogames, it's arguable that Star Wars would be the single most influential movie in the industry's history. Its release in 1977 provided inspiration in everything from high level ideas like game types (Space Invaders was created in 1978. Space remained the natural adventure-playground for games for years afterward) to the base implementation (even if videogame tech could have made more realistic noises, with Star Wars influence, it's entirely possible they'd still have applied an exciting and iconic array of bleeps). A virtual sub-industry has been created around the Star Wars franchise, and when a developer wishes to present an enormous space battle, he's thinking of matching what Lucas managed.

Aliens
Ironically, while Alien was the original, it's Aliens where the majority of developers go when their creative well runs dry. For example, Giger's original design for the body-horror, genitalia-phobic organic alien has inspired anyone who sat down to workout something icky to shoot, but the implementation in games owes more to Aliens. An alien's lifecycle is too iconic to take without being too obvious, but the more generalized egg-laying queen has been used time and time over. Any alien race, if they're not taking from the "Grays" of urban folklore, is more often than not Giger-derived. But that isn't even the primary influence. Instead, the movie's Colonial Marines provide the backbone for everything from Halo to Command & Conquer's view of the future. Where in even the dirtiest parts of the Star Wars universe are elements of romance, the Colonial Marines take their own visual cues from a post-Vietnam military with its array of firepower, gung-ho slogans and omnipresent wise-cracks. The Colonial Marine's weaponry provides the backbone of most shooters. Hell, if they managed to cram a mini-gun into the movie, they'd have a majority shareholding in weapons stocks in any given shooter. It goes on an on, and watching Aliens can feel like an advertising video for game hardware. The drop-ship design specifically is borrowed whenever an orbital landing is called for. Actually pre-empting Full Metal Jacket, the easy, brutal camaraderie is reprised time and time over. Developers make use of the Marines' hand-scanners, which chirped faster the closer the enemy way, to build tension. The specific design of the armor, all clasps and hard edges, shows up everywhere. Even the use of dropped flares as a cliffhanger comes from Aliens. The billowing smoke and blue light that director James Cameron fills the corridors with are modern games' default atmosphere.

If we removed Aliens from existence, the list of games left without a premise could have filled this article. To badly paraphrase Voltaire: If Aliens didn't exist, someone would have had to invent it. And really, that would just be too much work, wouldn't it?

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/comments/781

Kieron Gillen has been writing about videogames for far too long now. His rock and roll dream is to form an Electro-band with Miss Kittin and SHODAN pairing up on vocals.

[Fawst]

Ugh, I had to stop reading that article. Video games are a VERY easy target. If you want to bash on their form of storytelling, you can easily say something like "Oh yah, Kaboom! resonates with the emotional gravity of Ayn Rand" or something like that. The fact is that video games are still in their infancy. They learned to crawl (Pong), they learned to walk (S/NES, Genesis days), and now they are learning to run (current gen). Soon they will be sprinting, and eventually they will learn to just fucking teleport.

Film has had a far longer time to gestate, to become something bigger. The craft has been studied, dissected and studied some more. And guess what? Almost all film is completely derivative. If you have a movie about a rock, a simple conjuration of nature, that somehow ties the lives of an ethnically diverse group of 20-somethings in a New York highrise together, and then you have another story about another rock, this one poisoning all of the children in a sleepy mountain village, what do you have? Movies about a rock. They're just done differently.

Is that taking it to extreme basics? Yes. But video games are a different form of entertainment. They are interactive. To a large extent, the gaming community has been at this for a couple of decades, maybe longer. I myself started playing games when I was 4, and 24 years later, I still manage to pump 130+ hours into a title like Final Fantasy XII. We've grown with these games, we have seen everything they have to throw at us. Are some of them brainless? Absolutely. Are some of them mind bogglingly good? Absolutely.

Go find me one year, just ONE YEAR, where there was not one derivative film released, that everything was original, and I will concede. But you can't. The royal "you," I'm not bitching at anyone here. I'm just ranting to the sky.

Gameplay used to be king. Then it became graphics and sound. Next on the list is realism (physics, mostly), and I am willing to bet that storyline comes next. At least for the people who "get it."

Someone get Jim Cameron on the phone, cuz he needs to dominate a different market, now

[TheAllSeeingEye]

It's fair to say that many videogames take themes and ideas from popular movies; that's undeniable. There's no arguing that Halo certainly bears some similarity, at least in the design, to James Camerons ALIENS.

Is this a bad thing?

No, I don't think so. After all, the people designing and making these games are, in their own way, paying tribute to the great movies they're emulating.

By this guys own admission, movies also borrow heavily from movies. So why lambast one medium and not the other?

Be it a movie or a game, I don't have a problem with the slight plagiarism you see because, a)Most of the good ideas are gone and b) if Hollywood only made 100% original movies and writers write original books then my collection would certainly be a lot more sparce.

The real meat of this guys argument though is that nothing original comes out of gaming. That's not true at all. If the guy who wrote the article has been writing about videogames for as long as he claims to have been, he's obviously lived under a very large rock. To say that videogames have never had an original idea is plain wrong. As a videogame writer, i'm sure the man should have heard about a little Japanese guy called Shigeru Miyamoto; a man widely regarded as the greatest innovator in the entire world of videogames and recieves the highest praise, even from his rivals.

In the article you posted, the writer closes his arguments with:

If we removed Aliens from existence, the list of games left without a premise could have filled this article. To badly paraphrase Voltaire: If Aliens didn't exist, someone would have had to invent it. And really, that would just be too much work, wouldn't it?

That, is a load of bollocks. The concept of "Aliens" were around a long time before Ridley Scott and James Cameron made their iconic movies. I think it's fair to say, "If Aliens didn't exist, someone else would have invented it"

Since this got put into a thread that was started a year and half ago, it's probably pointless to address some of the other comments made about writing in videogames and it's supposed need to be seen as an artform but i'm going to anyway....

The success to writing the story in a videogame relies upon the writer having knowledge of how a game is structured. Where alot of games fall flat is their use of a single linear storyline that is more suited to a movie or a play; some games can work well on that kind of story; the Zelda games being one of them.

However, the real art of writing a good game, is writing a dynamic story that can change depending upon the actions of the player. Someone mentioned Fable as an example.

Whether this can be classed as an artform or not is debatable. To my mind, making a game is certainly a creative process that can equal, (if not exceed), the challenge of making a movie. Infact, the creative process employed by most game studios is a parallel of their hollywood counterparts. As a lifelong gamer, I would say that it is an artform but like any art, the appreciation is in the eye of the beholder. For example, i like renaissance art; it's beutiful. I find modern art an eyesore; it's still art.

As for looking for looking to call games art as some kind of validation. I don't need no validation. I enjoy them. Period.

[MonkeyM666]

Good to see that this has caused some debate.

I think that the basic idea of the article is true in regards to what gaming has taken from another medium to grow and mature itself. Considering how much gaming has grown in such a short amount of time it has to be expected to feed off of its mass media counterparts. Like you guys have said, Film has had time to mature, be taken apart and categorised... gaming has just done it so much quicker with less people so ideas can be expected to be regurgitated.

Some of the big changes in gaming have been noted by cinematic releases (all though I'm not sure about the whole Star Wars/Space Invaders link). It's just what happens. The programmers and developers are human too and if they see something cool they're going to feed off of that and spit out their own version. Every industry does it, don't try and protect video games so much because it's newer. It works the other way as well... Pokemon is a prime example. That became a cartoon, then a mess of movies.

Graphics are in the spotlight with gaming at the moment… but not for all systems/platforms. Nintendo show that they want to push for the game not the graphics. It’s a form of media like no other with regards to its dynamic nature and endless possibilities. As well as the fact that it now slams Hollywood with generating entertainment revenues.

Games as art… now I’m not sure about that. I believe that games are entertaining, exciting, controversial and all the bits in between but to call it art? I would think that calling something art means that it’s been refined and definitive choices have been made towards moving the medium forward. So I guess yes, but it’s like asking when did wall painting turn into art…. Hard question.

I'm defiantly not saying that video games are just a cheap knock off of cinema. Zelda, Final Fantasy and the like franchises are their own entities.... It’s just that everything has its origins. I’d say that everything, these days at least, feeds off of everything else.

[The Ginger Man]

The article you posted Monkey is entirely true. Insanely true. Beyond belief true. Every game I've worked on that wasn't already licensed from a film or TV show has started with a simple powerpoint of ideas. And what slide is in everyone one of these presentations?

List of Films for Visual and Emotional Inspiration

Game developers crib heavily from films all the time. Its not a deep dark secret. Not only that, its totally ok for them to do it. Developers see something cool in a movie (say Matrix), think "I wish I could do that!" Realize they make video games...decide to do that.

See? Not a big deal. Hell, anyone seen that Ghostbuster prototype on the web? The Dev's GB title didn't get picked up so they transfered all their ideas into a "Ghosbuster-like game."

The article isn't saying every game is a rip of film. But you're lying to yourself if you believe a very large portion of games released aren't directly influenced by cinema.

[MonkeyM666]

Yeah, there's no need to get testy guys... the article is called 'The sincerest form of imitation', and on the writing thing... I don't mind the writing in Games. It has only been the past couple of years where it's been voice and not dotted text on our screens so that takes a while to sink in. Especially if the programmers are trying to do it on their own and not getting 'outside' help...

Final Fantasy X has quite a good script. They are different formats so you can’t completely compare game scripts to movie scripts/stories. They're close, but movies don’t run for 25 hours! I hope that they're different!

[godzillasushi]

Graphics are in the spotlight with gaming at the moment… but not for all systems/platforms. Nintendo show that they want to push for the game not the graphics. It’s a form of media like no other with regards to its dynamic nature and endless possibilities. As well as the fact that it now slams Hollywood with generating entertainment revenues.

Games as art… now I’m not sure about that. I believe that games are entertaining, exciting, controversial and all the bits in between but to call it art? I would think that calling something art means that it’s been refined and definitive choices have been made towards moving the medium forward. So I guess yes, but it’s like asking when did wall painting turn into art…. Hard question.

I'm defiantly not saying that video games are just a cheap knock off of cinema. Zelda, Final Fantasy and the like franchises are their own entities.... It’s just that everything has its origins. I’d say that everything, these days at least, feeds off of everything else.

I think your definition of art is to strict. Painting has been around so damn long, but the idea is the same. It hasn't exactly 'moved forward' and made great leaps. Its about what your applying from your mind. Everyone is different, so the art will be different from person to person making endless possibilities. It doesnt have to move forward to be art. Games are art and you dont need to look any further then a couple of recent releases. Graphically, Wind Waker, Okami, and Gears are all beautiful. I mean, people knock Gears, but the archetecture is unique and different throughout it. Obviously someone went in and created each little stone and pillar. Its something that no one notices. That 400 feet off in the distance, some guy threw in a few broken telephone poles. The more you stare, the more you notice.

We are really just getting into what can be done artistically because it really has been so limited. I remember Mario 64, and how unique that game was. I dont know how anyone cannot call that art. Levels like the inside of a clock, or characters like the goombas or the Delfinos (different game). Those are art, they are unique and special.

And speaking of scripts, how about the worlds Blizzard created. Or Beyond Good and Evil that kept throwing plot twists. Theres some really good stuff out there.

[MonkeyM666]

But there must be a line. That's what I'm mean. When does art become art? I wouldn't call Super Mario Bro's art, but I would lean towards it in regards to FF7 (1998?) up. You’re right, it's all personal. I'm wondering where does personal inflections stop and actual classified art begins. Do you know what I mean?

Does art, in this regard, rely on technology? Where you get to a point where technological restrictions don't hinder the idea. Film went through the same kind of challenges... and look at what's being made now!

There is no doubt that there are many beautiful games out there. I wish I could comment on the new gen consoles, but by what I've seen they could be called artistic.