Can Cutscenes be Art?

[xwd]

Okay, I'm going to see if I understand what you're trying to say. Most of this philosophy stuff seems to be going over my head, though I think I can understand some of it. I honestly don't want to be some dumbass who goes around calling games "art" if they're bad.

The question "Can games be art?" has the answer "Yes, and so can everything else." If the answer doesn't make sense, it's because the question doesn't make sense either since we can't accurately describe art with words.

Only good games are art. People who call bad games "art" are trying to make the games something special when they're not. Saying a game is good just because it's "art" is fooling yourself from the truth. See the game for what it is.

If it's a piece of crap but looks beautiful, then say it's a horrible game but it looks beautiful, this kind of merges with the "gameplay" article from a few months ago. (Using the word "gameplay" is stupid because the "gameplay" IS the game and above all is what the purpose of the game is.)

All games have messages. Some are just more obvious than others.

I'd also like to mention how much I love your site, icycalm. You've got a great way of expressing your thoughts.

[icycalm]

Okay, I'm going to see if I understand what you're trying to say.

First off, I am not "trying" to say anything -- I am SAYING it. YOU are the one who is trying to understand it. Just so we're clear.

The question "Can games be art?" has the answer "Yes, and so can everything else." If the answer doesn't make sense, it's because the question doesn't make sense either since we can't accurately describe art with words.

Only good games are art. People who call bad games "art" are trying to make the games something special when they're not. Saying a game is good just because it's "art" is fooling yourself from the truth. See the game for what it is.

If it's a piece of crap but looks beautiful, then say it's a horrible game but it looks beautiful, this kind of merges with the "gameplay" article from a few months ago. (Using the word "gameplay" is stupid because the "gameplay" IS the game and above all is what the purpose of the game is.)

All games have messages. Some are just more obvious than others.

A+
I could nitpick, but there wouldn't be much of a point at this stage.

Most of this philosophy stuff seems to be going over my head, though I think I can understand some of it.

How old are you? If you are in your teens or early 20s, and if you haven't read any philosophy seriously, you're doing great. Next step is to buy some books and start studying.

[Zantra]

The new article that you put up has to be one of the greatest video game related articles I have ever read. Kudos Alex.

If people still don't understand what you're getting at, then they probably shouldn't be here.

[CosMind]

Art is a perspective. Perspective leads to opinion. Opinions don't warrant question or opposition (however, they often make for interesting discussion).

Thoughtful article, by the wway. I learned quite a bit reading through the quotes you included.

[icycalm]

Art is a perspective. Perspective leads to opinion. Opinions don't warrant question or opposition (however, they often make for interesting discussion).

Plz save the bullshit for your blog. Thanks!

Thoughtful article, by the way. I learned quite a bit reading through the quotes you included.

But apparently not nearly enough.

If people still don't understand what you're getting at, then they probably shouldn't be here.

It seems to me that those are the ones who are most in need of being here. And as long as they are not filling my threads with too much bs, I am okay with that.

[CosMind]

Interesting. I'll take a stab at explaining that conclusion/summary I came to:

The next question of course would have to be, "So which kinds of games are art then?", and the answer to that question should by now be obviously, "The good ones." So Deus Ex is art, Elite is art, and Ketsui is art. Wing Commander and Pikmin and Master of Magic are art, et cetera, et cetera.

I read this statement as a collection of opinions and/or preferences toward a number of games. Primarily because of the "good ones" label. Now, that adjective "good" can (and often is) used as a subjective label (unfortunately!). While an educated player may use it to describe technical proficiency within a game, the common player likely uses it to state, "I like this game" (regardless of its quality). In turn, those folks may consider the games that they feel are good games to be art (perspective/opinion). Even though folks that view games from a more nuanced viewpoint (which I assume most of us here do) may (and likely do) disagree, is it worth questioning the others' opinion? Is it worth trying to change their mind?

What is art to one may not be art to another.

6.5 When the answer cannot be put into words, neither can the question be put into words. The riddle does not exist. If a question can be framed at all, it is also possible to answer it.

In that case, it seems that the big question at hand cannot be directly stamped with a final answer. It will vary from person to person. So, does the question hold any merit? Does the riddle even exist?

That's essentially my broad interpretation. Seems that I missed the mark, though, eh?

[icycalm]

The next question of course would have to be, "So which kinds of games are art then?", and the answer to that question should by now be obviously, "The good ones." So Deus Ex is art, Elite is art, and Ketsui is art. Wing Commander and Pikmin and Master of Magic are art, et cetera, et cetera.

I read this statement as a collection of opinions and/or preferences toward a number of games. Primarily because of the "good ones" label. Now, that adjective "good" can (and often is) used as a subjective label (unfortunately!). While an educated player may use it to describe technical proficiency within a game, the common player likely uses it to state, "I like this game" (regardless of its quality). In turn, those folks may consider the games that they feel are good games to be art (perspective/opinion). Even though folks that view games from a more nuanced viewpoint (which I assume most of us here do) may (and likely do) disagree, is it worth questioning the others' opinion? Is it worth trying to change their mind?

What is art to one may not be art to another.

The last statement is correct.

The rest is full of misunderstandings, and so terribly, terribly written to be almost incomprehensible by anyone who doesn't already know what it is that you are so clumsily groping towards.

So yes, since we have effectively defined art as what is good, what is art to one may not be art to another. And that is exactly what we observe! Art (as in painting, sculpture, etc.) critics cannot agree on what is art art (i.e. painting art and sculpture art), film critics cannot agree on what is cinema art, book critics cannot agree on what is literature (i.e. book art), and naturally game "critics" cannot agree on what is videogame art.

But to go from that to:

opinions don't warrant question or opposition (however, they often make for interesting discussion).

... implies unfathomable stupidity. I am sorry CosMind, but I have to tell it like it is. This is a serious thread, and whoever can't face the music shouldn't be posting in it. I am not saying you in particular can't face the music -- so far you are taking it very well -- I am only saying it so that you don't flip out on me for calling your statement stupid, and force me to ban you like the others.

[icycalm]

This guy (I presume it's a guy) who just registered in the forum, sent me a paraphrased quote of Wittgenstein's from his Philosophical Investigations that I think is worth posting here. It's not in response to CosMind's remarks back to Crawl's and Dale's, from previous pages in this thread:

And so he shows the way out of the fly bottle...!

But some of them just keep banging against the glass...

Only now from the outside!

Alas, such is the fate of human beings that lack sense and education.

[CosMind]

... implies unfathomable stupidity. I am sorry CosMind, but I have to tell it like it is. This is a serious thread, and whoever can't face the music shouldn't be posting in it. I am not saying you in particular can't face the music -- so far you are taking it very well -- I am only saying it so that you don't flip out on me for calling your statement stupid, and force me to ban you like the others.

Haha! No worries, dude. Honestly. The last thing you can ever expect from me is a flip out. 'tis not in my nature.

And you're not offending me in the least. It's clear to me that you're trying to make a very specific point - and, as such, I'm trying to make sure that I understand this point.

So tell that snit like it is!

[Bradford]

Opinion: Tell Me What Art Is, and I'll Tell You What Games Are,
by Matthew Wasteland

http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2008/09/opinion_tell_me_what_art_is_an.php

This guy seems to be leaning in the right direction. Although it's not a good sign that he can't be bothered (at least in this essay) to try to answer any of the questions he poses.

[icycalm]

I read about half of it. Up to this point, actually:

Humble argues that a set of rules by itself can communicate meaning and achieve the status of art.

This goes to show that none of these people understand what art was. They all seem to think that whatever "communicates meaning" is art, a definition of art which, were we to adopt it, would immediately render EVERYTHING art because everything can "communicate meaning". But if everything was art then nothing would be art -- the word itself would be meaningless. Which it actually is, nowadays.

There's really no hope for all these people. You can give them 10, 20 or 30 years and allow them to write as many articles and books as they want, but they will never get anywhere, because they have these frigging MASSIVE gaps in their education which they are not even aware of and consequently will never be able to overcome. It's like trying to build a car while being ignorant of the existence of the wheel. You can either study hard to LEARN about how the wheel works, or you can RE-INVENT the wheel. If you don't do either of those things you'll never build a car no matter how long you go at it.

It's really depressing watching them slave away at these pathetic articles day in day out and getting nowhere. But hey, it keeps them happy so whatever. At least this guy seems less stupid than most.

[mees]

Where can we get a good education?

[icycalm]

Nowhere. You have to learn how to educate yourself. There's a passage I think in one of Nietzsche's Untimely Meditations where he explains this. I looked for it but couldn't find it. If I do I'll post it here.

[Volteccer_Jack]

Just got around to reading this stuff. Very nice article; although I seem to be in the camp that finds this stuff to be painfully obvious.

If you want to know if something can be something else, all you have to do is compare the definitions of the two somethings. As long as the definitions aren't mutually exclusive, then the answer is yes. So we invariably get the same results to the question "Can games be art?" If the person has his own personal definitions of "game" and "art", it takes him all of 3 seconds to conclude either 'yes' or 'no'. If the person doesn't know the answer, it's because they haven't the faintest idea of what they are even asking.

As for me, I've given up on defining "art", and settled on the old "I know it when I see it." And going from there, I've seen games that are art.

The clarifications and additional Tractatus quotes will doubtless be helpful to many, despite the fact that they are not really necessary in order for the article to make sense.

That they have. Especially this quote:

6.125 It is possible -- indeed possible even according to the old conception of logic -- to give in advance a description of all 'true' logical propositions.

...

6.1262 Proof in logic is merely a mechanical expedient to facilitate the recognition of tautologies in complicated cases.

That whole section was a bit of an epiphany for me. I'm going to get right on reading this Tractatus.

[icycalm]

Here's a quote from Pauline Kael's essay which I just posted on the frontpage, that validates what I say in my own essay:

Movie art is not the opposite of what we have always enjoyed in movies, it is not to be found in a return to that official high culture, it is what we have always found good in movies only more so.

http://insomnia.ac/essays/trash_art_and_the_movies/

Replace "movies" with "games" and you have essentially the same thing I said in the article:

Videogame art is not the opposite of what we have always enjoyed in games, it is not to be found in a return to that official high culture, it is what we have always found good in games only more so.

The next question of course would have to be, "So which kinds of games are art then?", and the answer to that question should by now be obviously, "The good ones." So Deus Ex is art, Elite is art, and Ketsui is art. Wing Commander and Pikmin and Master of Magic are art, et cetera, et cetera.

[icycalm]

More from Kael's essay that is relevant to the subject at hand:

“The Thomas Crown Affair” is pretty good trash, but we shouldn’t convert what we enjoy it for into false terms derived from our study of the other arts. That’s being false to what we enjoy. If it was priggish for an older generation of reviewers to be ashamed of what they enjoyed and to feel they had to be contemptuous of popular entertainment, it’s even more priggish for a new movie generation to be so proud of what they enjoy that they use their education to try to place trash within the acceptable academic tradition.

Again, substitute "The Thomas Crown Affair" for any pseudo-artistic game (Rez, Ico, Shadows of the Collossuses, etc.), and replace any mention of "movies" with "games", and you have something that is perfectly current and perfectly valid.

[JoshF]

http://www.segabastard.com/rub/kane.html

[icycalm]

Aaaand it's now on the frontpage:

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/desperati ... y_cologne/

I like his style. Simple, relaxed and completely lacking in pretension. Gets the job done.

He has some other good articles up there too. We'll see if he'll allow me to copy-paste those as well later on.

[icycalm]

Whoever is in the mood for more Citizen Kane x Videogames artfagotry than that ABC News video provided could do a lot worse than check out this piece of pseudo-intellectual dreck:

http://www.insertcredit.com/features/kane/

It's even widely regarded as one of the best essays on Insert Credit, which should give you a good idea of how bad the regular ones were.

[icycalm]

It is endlessly amusing to me how good writing can deceive pretty much everyone into thinking that what it signifies are GOOD THOUGHTS. Because, clearly, this guy is a good writer. So what he writes MUST be correct, right?

Those industry jokes I mentioned -- Takeshi, Desert Bus -- are not fun games. If they were, they'd be entirely above any type of criticism. This has always been the deciding factor; if a game is fun, it's a good game. If it's not fun, it's bad. This, though, is an almost farcically bad way to judge art. Art is as expressive as language itself -- more, even. It can disgust people, or inspire awe, or make children think about cats. To limit game design to what people find entertaining is to admit defeat before you code your first INCLUDE statement.

And yet paragraphs like this, however "well-written" they may be, have "UNEDUCATED PSEUDO-INTELLECTUAL" written all over them. See the Pauline Kael quote I posted above. Pauline Kael sure as hell was not very educated, but she was educated enough to realize that fun and art should go together, and that only a pseud could claim the opposite. Let's quote the same passage once again, and burn it in our minds:

Movie art is not the opposite of what we have always enjoyed in movies, it is not to be found in a return to that official high culture, it is what we have always found good in movies only more so.

The guy is basically a dingbat who has a flair for stringing along words -- nothing more. "Art is as expressive as language itself -- more, even." MY ASS, LOL. Nothing is more "expressive" than language, dingbat -- people had art even before language was invented, yet they needed it in order to express themselves more clearly to their fellows. Without language we would still be living in caves, no matter how much cave-art we may have had.

But what does an uneducated pseudo-intellectual artfag know about history, language, or even art? As much as I know about the copulation rituals of homosexuals.

Insert Credit: For All Your Uneducated Imbecilic Pseudo-Intellectual Artfag Essay Needs.

[icycalm]

And just for the hell of it, let's try taking the article seriously and examine closely what it is it's trying to say to us.

Basically, the dude is saying: "The games you've all been playing and love are just that... mere games, in which all you do is click buttons and masturbate. What you SHOULD be asking for from now on is ART GAMES, games like Desert Bus and this Takeshi Kitano shovelware, which have actual messages. And what are these messages? THAT GAMES ARE BAD AND THAT YOU SHOULD STOP PLAYING THEM, AND THAT IF YOU DO KEEP PLAYING THEM IT MEANS THAT YOU ARE A FAILURE OF BIOLOGY."

This is what the article says in a nutshell.

Fair enough, I say. But if the message of the two greatest art games yet made is that games are bad and that we should stop playing them, WHAT THE FUCK IS THE POINT OF ASKING FOR THE INDUSTRY TO BEGIN MAKING MORE SUCH GAMES? WHAT THE FUCK IS THE POINT OF BEING BITTER ABOUT THE DIRECTION THE INDUSTRY IS TAKING, AN INDUSTRY WHICH ACCORDING TO ITS TWO ALLEGED GREATEST ART GAMES WOULD BE BETTER OFF IF IT DID NOT EXIST?

Therefore the article turns in on its own argument and provides not even the slightest glimmer of a resolution. It is, in other words, incoherent mumbo-jumbo, just like pretty much all the articles ever published on Insert Credit. Or at least the ones people take seriously. Because the ones people DO NOT take seriously, such as, for example, Brandon Sheffield's early reviews of GP32 games, are pretty damn decent game criticism, at least by the standards of the time frame in which they were written.

But no one cares about all that. IC is not remembered for its solid criticism or obscure news coverage -- it is remembered for the angsty imbecilic uneducated psycho-babble of emo cryptogay pimple-faced teenagers.

[Khazar]

The past has been completely strip-mined. Emulation, roms, homebrew; everything we so desperately needed at age eight hovers within the most half-hearted grasp. Video games are everywhere; the perceived value drops like a fucking rock

So downloading old games and playing them is a bad thing? I suppose books that are out of print shouldn't be read either. And what does "perceived value" mean? His perceived value of games? Mine? Does the fact that a SNES game exists on the internet in ROM form make my cartridge copy of the same game somehow shittier? I suppose I shouldn't get so frustrated with this article since its silliness has been exposed.

[icycalm]

You do not understand what he is saying. All the questions you direct at him are completely irrelevant. He is basically saying that now that all games ever made are at his fingertips -- now that he can have them at the press of a few buttons -- the enjoyment to be had in trying to get hold of them has vanished. And this is correct. But that was not the only enjoyment we derived from games. We also enjoyed what came after this process -- we also enjoyed actually playing them. And this enjoyment of course still exists. And in fact even the OTHER kind of enjoyment still exists, as long as you play obscure, or Japan-only, or China-only, Korea-only, or Arcade-only etc. videogames. Videogames, in other words, which are still hard to get and require considerable time and expense to find and source.

As for his "perceived value" comment, it is just a nonsensical way of expressing what I said above. Which goes to show once again that being able to string along euphonic sentences in no way presupposes that those sentences are actually smart or even meaningful.

[endless]

Define this "Art should be fun" thing a bit more for me here.

[hyac]

The next question of course would have to be, "So which kinds of games are art then?", and the answer to that question should by now be obviously, "The good ones." So Deus Ex is art, Elite is art, and Ketsui is art. Wing Commander and Pikmin and Master of Magic are art, et cetera, et cetera.

A piece of videogame art is just a good videogame. Good videogames are fun. So art, in this case, should be fun.