NPR's "Video Games: The 21st Century's Fine Art Frontier"

[draconian]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=129256077

It's about 30 minutes long. They also had Kelly Santiago from 'that game company' on.

My thoughts...
1) Games are super sets of film and if film is considered art, then I guess games are too. But only because games have cinematic film.

2) Games are not art for their game mechanics. Do Chess players claim chess is art? Do football players claim football is art? No.

Where game mechanics could be considered art are few and far between. One instance is that new Journey game from thatgamecompany. I read an interview with Jenova Chen(Kelly Santiago's partner) where he wanted players to feel isolation/loneliness. The game is going to try to achieve this affect via player's interaction with the world and with other players.
So, in this instance, the game mechanics aid the player's experience in feeling the isolation/loneliness.

 

[eastmen]

Na man. To me they are the logical conclusion to the writen word. Books are able to drag you into thier world and with your mind you give the world life. You envision the charters and the world and move them through the story.

With video games the world and characters are created as the author (or game designers) want it and you move yourself through the world they envisioned.

 

[Toaddio]

Na man. To me they are the logical conclusion to the writen word. Books are able to drag you into thier world and with your mind you give the world life. You envision the charters and the world and move them through the story.

With video games the world and characters are created as the author (or game designers) want it and you move yourself through the world they envisioned.

This is complete rubbish. Games and books both ignite the imagination. Bad games are simply like bad books. Complete rubbish like your hypothesis.

 

[Prophecy2k]

All books are not art... as all books are not artful works of fiction (e.g. reference, text books etc)...

However in my view most videogames should/could be considered art as they are someone's (the game devs) visual depiction of a world they created. Regardless of what the game mechanics are, you are interacting as a gamer with someone's graphical representation of a created game world....

i dunno... i've never really understood why this debate still rages on? Who cares if VG are considered as art or not? I as a gamer can apreciate a beautiful looking VG in the same way as i can a painting... why should i need someone else to tell me if i can or can't because "VG are [or are not] art"?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It all depends on what one means by 'art', as there's clearly at least two distinct cases, just as there's more than one type of love. There's high art for art's sake, that can see people get paid loads of money for crap like a toilet bowl or a messy bedroom that intellectuals consider a talking point that make us think (about why idiots are paid large amounts of money for crap...), and then there's entertaining art that makes something 'enjoyable' (may be different emotions) like a film or book, that has aesthetic qualities in the imagery, literature, or narrative.

But at the end of the day, games are games. By their very name and definition they are play things and pastimes, who's evolutionary heritage is the likes of dominoes, tag, and kicking a football about in the park. That contrasts with visual and literary arts who's heritage was self expression. And who cares when it pays the bills? If a developer is that serious about creating 'art', they should probably buy an SDK, smash it with a barrage of high-velocity 3.5" floppies, give some high faluting name and sell it to the Tate Modern for £200,000.