Why are video games not taken seriously as art by the mainstream? Is there something inherent about the medium that forever dooms it to be glorified playtime, or does it just have to learn to free itself from the dopaminergic shackles of its arcade past?
>>739560428>Is there something inherent about the medium that forever dooms it to be glorified playtimeyes. games aren't art. playing them is (unglorified) playtime
>Why are video games not taken seriously as art by the mainstream? Because "the mainstream" is boomers and boomer accessories.
>>739560428“art” isn’t even a mainstream thing
>>739560428It's because video games are SHIT
>>739560428The games that are truly art have a very high mechanical barrier to entry that even filters the shitters on /v/. No normalnigger has any hope of ever enjoying an actual well designed game.
>>739560428Because "art" is just rich cunts jerking each other offThe games that push boundaries are rare because unless you are a solo dev or have crazy backing no one is going to risk money on anything "risky" Right now a fucking polish suicide game is the best horror game released in years and there 0 hope of it ever being finished before the dude hangs himself
>>739560428>>739560575It is glorified playtime yes.Art is a matter of perception, the moment you engage interactively with the medium it loses its artistic nature. It's the main reason.It's just a matter of semantics. Don't overthink it. Don't cry about it, it's okay you can enjoy videogames it's fine, it's a great medium, healthy and everything. It's just not art 'per se'. The definition of art is very ancient and academic, that's the sad reason as well.
>>739560428>good writers are snobby and hate vidya>game companies are forced to hire shitty writers cause good writers refuse to work with them>shitty writers make shitty games>shitty games reinforce the believe that games are not really artGo to /lit/ and ask how many of these writers would prefer to starve on the streets than deal with corporate bullshit, crunch time and pay that is only barely better if not outright the same than if they were a full time independent writer.Not to mention the type of people you would meet in game dev. A proper writer would have a stroke talking and working with a guy named "Lilith" that's for sure lol
>>739561045>Storyfag
>>739560428Video games that take full advantage of the medium in building worlds that are both interactive and reactive to player inputs are rare and not popular with general audiences, what is popular with general audiences is the things they already know adapted to the medium i.e. movie games.
>>739561346>Video games that take full advantage of the medium in building worlds that are both interactive and reactive to player inputsName 5
>>739560876that's retarded. there's plenty of good art that invited invitation. see cardiff & miller for an example.>>739560428there are games that are art but they're shit. mulholland drive is art because it forces you to be curious, and to ask questions about yourself and the world around you, and it's also an interesting and fun movie to watch. Nobody has yet bridged the divide between making a game that expands your consciousness like good Art should do, while also being a fun game, which good art should also do. A lot of developers are in it for money so they try to make games addictive, but this isn't getting us any closer to having true art experiences. One of the problems with games is that they take so fucking long to play. A masterpiece movie takes max 3 hours to watch, a masterpiece painting you could look at for 3 mind or 3 hours and know it's a masterpiece and be getting something out of it. Even Half Life which is maybe one of the best examples of a videogame masterpiece takes like 30 hours to play through. So tons of time is wasted in this medium.
>>739560428The dopaminergic ludonarrative lacks versimilitude and never achieves diegesis.It's already hard to convince people that something called a "game" can tell a decent story, and video games are thought of as being Minecraft or Call or Duty, not anything good.
>>739560428if you want people to take games seriously, ironically you should start with no longer calling them art and taking them so seriouslywhen you put games up on a pedestal and say they're art, and then you get someone like Ebert to play them, he's going to play games like TLOU, Gone Home or whatever else and expectedly see them for the junk they are, and accurately assess that even the most well-written game is lucky to have better writing than average young-adult fiction. or he'll see that the majority of games are commercial AAA junk without a shred of creativity, obviously aimed at cattle, and think huh so this is what these idiots think is art?conversely if you just let people make their own mind up and introduce them to games with no major expectations, they might play games like Katamari Damacy or Hyper Demon or WarioWare and think wow, games are interesting, weird, wonderful and fun, I can't get these kinds of experiences elsewhere, maybe there's something to this stuff after all I'm not sure why you care about any of this either way, since who cares what anyone thinks about the medium? the entire planet could absolutely hate video games and think they're childish toys and it would make no difference. I enjoy them for what they are and always will and you should too. you don't need to convince your boomer dad that they're art
>>739561346>take full advantage of the medium>not popular with general audiencesThat's true of every medium
>>739561249based>>739561390Dodonpachi is art
>>739561435its definitely more art than the witness
>>739561431No other medium gives you a failing grade for being a shitter. The game tells the critic he sucks, and the critic has no other way to protect his ego besides coping and impotently screeching "N-no you!!1!"
>video games>not taken seriouslymaybe 10 years ago, the vidya industry is bigger than the movie industry now. it's funny that so many hollywoodfags scoffed at vidya while many actual directors and artists like vidya, look up "[your favorite director] favorite game", you might be surprised.>whynormalfags. normalfags operate under one simple principle - they fear whatever they don't understand, unless it's "a thing" already, then they don't bat an eye. they have scoffed at every single medium of art in history that tried to break into the mainstream like this, even books were scoffed at at some point. vidya became "a thing" when teens that played cod started going into their 20s, 30s, and 40s, and started having families. at that point, vidya has been encarved into mainstream conciousness.
>>739560428Games pander to dumb audiences. Even the most cerebral game is a neutered husk compared to a marvel slop film. That's how bad they are.
>>739560428Why are you engaging with "snob art connoiseurs" (who as a group must be millenia old by now) that are game-hating is the question. In this day and time? When the actual mainstream watch any slop like marvel or GoT and even they don't care about art or connoisseurs? All that matters is if I and (you) consider it art or not.
>>739561626post clears
when the gamer audience considers the nu resident evil games as better then both tlou games. it can never be be taken as arr.
>>739560876Retarded circular logic
>>739561626It's the opposite. Even the least cerebral games have more artistic value than the average hollywood movie.
>>739561419>It's already hard to convince people that something called a "game" can tell a decent storyThat's because it can't, and it shouldn't. Not all art forms tell stories to begin with, you fucking midwit. Minecraft is an infinitely better example of "games as art" than whatever moviegame slop you had in mind while writing this.
>>739560428It might be something that changes over time, because what makes up the "mainstream" will change. There are still large portions of the population that are ambivalent at best towards the medium, and younger generations are often inclined to follow their example and thus not take videogames seriously as an artform even if they are gamers. Consider how this might be different years from now once millennials are the elders of society.
>>739561045>good writers are snobby and hate vidyaayo dis shid righ ereIt doesn't help that games are almost exclusively produced by committee. They're mostly made for a buck by people who mostly don't give a fuck. They have the same artistic value as a Funko Pop.But the writing is especially bad.The positions are extremely limited, geographically isolating, highly disorganized, limited in time, and pitifully paid. Why in the fuck would anyone who can actually write take that job? They're either going to write their own work or shit out platitudes "from" the c-suite once a quarter while flirting with the hot bitches in HR and marketing the rest of the time.Video game writing is never going to be good if it always starts as a stupid choice.
>>739561951Don't know what you mean. Post best games
>>739560428>Why are video games not taken seriously as art by the mainstream?Because all mediums (written, audio, visual... Books, music, film) can be broken down into two categories: toys and art.Toys:>Thor: Ragnarok>BBno$>Chainsaw Man>Mistborn>Devil May CryArt:>Twelve Angry Men>Chopin>Potato Eaters>As I Lay Dying>IcoToys just want to mash the dopamine button. They want to provide you a good time right then in the present. Art wants to evolve a more complex or nuanced emotional response OR make some commentary about the human lived experience either in general or specifically in the present time.A LOT of people think all games are toys. These same people tend to think all books are art. Or that all paintings are art. Etc etc etc.Being able to understand what a given piece of work is trying to do and whether or not it is a Toy or Art requires some degree or artistic literacy that a lot of people honestly just don't have.
>>739562229>the most basic normalfag taste imaginableIf you'd said something like Dorf Fort or CDDA I might have respected it.
>>739562229Those are good games. Don't know what they have to do with board or card games though.>>739562403>walking sims are art and real games are toysDMC3 is way more like Chopin than Ico is. It's technical and complex. Ico asks nothing from you, like pop music. You can just nod along and feel good without being tested.
>>739562403sorry but the things you think are art are actually toys. Ico is a toy you've just worked out a different binary to express 'thing I like vs thing I dislike' to determine what is and isn't art
>>739562447those are way worse than the games he said. turn based is barely even a game
>>739562574>>walking sims are art and real games are toysNowhere did I say that /v/ had the literacy required to distinguish these things, so your being retarded is not a meaningful addition to the conversation. You like toys. That's fine. Toys can be good. Art can be bad. It's not how *well* they accomplish their objective, it's being able to tell what their objective is.
>>739561390>cardiff & millerStill just perception you goofball.>>739561738>muh circular logicUsually a "circular logic" accusation is the result of a cognitive bias. Educate yourself more. No other argument than "muh circular logic"? What the fuck bro.
>>739562556But you should. Also I think your looking at games through the lens of storytelling is misguided altogether. Games in their truest form are designed, not written.
>>739560428Because they're not art, they're GAMES first and foremost. If you ignore that you get the bizzare situation of shitty games being made by people that fucking hate videogames by removing as much gameplay as they can for it to be more "art" that we have now
>>739562628For you too:>>739562689If either of you actually have something to assert in terms of the artistic merit of your favorite games, by all means, drop it.
>>739560428>Why are video games not taken seriously as art by the mainstreamBECAUSE THE CRITICS ARE ACTUALLY DUMB FAGGETS AND LACK DEXTERITY AND CRITICAL THINKING TO ACTUALLY FINISH A GAMEThese people who have their head so far up their parasite infested anus suck at videogames, they can not be bothered to set up a console or install a PC game and play through it the end and come up with a conclusion, they are filtered from getting the game.
>>739562651Yeah of course, but there's a barrier to understanding it. A shitter will look at it the same way a pigeon does. Someone who understands the systems inside will understand the story.>>739562689You're a shitter that's coping
>>739560876Dumbest thing I've seen in a while.
>>739562646Please put on a tripcode so I can filter you and not see any of your opinions ever again
There is no mainstream anymore
>>739562829>You're a shitter that's copingI always wonder why the illiterate get so defensive when you point it out to them. If you don't care about understanding the details of artistic work, why do you get so upset when someone points out you can't do it? This would be like someone tell me I'm horrible at sucking dick. Ok, I probably am. I've never done it and I don't care about that skill set at all.Why get riled that you can't do something you've clearly never put any time into?
>>739562917Second-hand nonsense that has nothing to do with games.
>>739562990correct. same thoughts echoed here >>739561420whole thing reeks of desperation, like game 'journalists' that have yet to convince their parents that they have a real job so they need to get the Art Stamp of Approval™ from dinosaur luddites
>>739562403well put
Because they're not art and never should be. "Art" hates FUN and GAMEPLAY, the most important parts of a videogame since the very begining.
>>739562574He didn't pick out a walking sim as an example of art. Ico is still a game. It's not a good game and definitely not as good as DMC3, but there's value in pointing to that as an example of video games trying to be art instead of like Gone Home.
Lets delve into the mind of Yoko Taro and why he has a cult base>Creator is obsessed with melancholy>His writing is cheap and entirely about pulling heart strings anyway possible through obvious means>A love interest who is female but has a penis, a molested boy who has an obsession with his sister falls in love with this women that has a penis>A gay little boy who is cursed and unable to express his homosexual love to the man who saves himYou can not be straight if you like Yoko Taro games, you are a closet homosexual mmmkayHomosexual *circles homosexual on the board*
because the people who hand out awards and take this stuff seriously didnt grow up with them so they think theyre toysif movies were invented 10 years ago itd be the exact same, it is exclusively that
I can't enjoy video games until some Jewish guy gives me the thumbs up and says they're Art™
video games aren't art
>>739562783For a game to be meaningful, there must be a fail state. A walking sim that doesn't test anything is akin to giving a baby an unplugged controller and letting him pretend to play. Why even give the player a controller if he can't do anything meaningful with it? The best games question the limits of our consciousness and redefine the boundaries of what we think is humanly possible. Guitar Hero and Mushihimesama Futari are better games than Ico because we enter the game doubtful a given set goal is even achievable and we exit the game with not only a new understanding of a complex system and objective mechanical skill, but knowledge of who we are as a person. The TV lies, music lies, movies lie, books lie, but what's unique about the game is that it is programmed to always tell you the truth.
>>739562574>Ico asks nothing from you, like pop musicIco is literally about the dangers of prolonged isolation and transcending language barriers in pursuit of joint benefit. The whole thing is about how knee-jerk fear responses do more damage than good. That's absolutely more "artistic" than "skateboard pizza man uses lightning swords to carve up building sizes demons". Not saying Ico is a better game than DMC3, but DMC3 is definitely a toy (and a better toy than Ico is... because using that anon's definition, it's not meant to be a toy)
>>739562731perception is interaction. consider that you have different experiences of a painting if you stand right in front of it vs. if you stand at the back of the room. Of course you could "interact" with any piece of art like this, but cardiff & miller have pieces that invite this kind of interaction. This is no different from manipulating the keyboard to explore different parts of the puzzle box in front of you (the videogame)
>>739563660Ico tells you how deep it is. DMC3 shows you.
>>739563635Gameplay absolutely can be the vector of artistic merit for a game, but not understanding that Ico has fail states makes you sound retarded out the gate. Not understanding that gameplay challenge is not the *only* vector of artistic merit for a game cements you as retarded. Nice job getting that one thing right though
>>739563763>Ico tells you how deep it is. DMC3 shows you.Meaningless statement. Give examples or kill yourself. Whichever is easier for you.
>>739563763>DMC3 shows youhow? what about pizza game makes you feel or think about anything beyond the current moment while you're playing the game?
>>739560428>Why are video games not taken seriously as art by the mainstream?The real question is: who cares? Why do you want braindead lefty boomers to like you?
>>739563763Ueda's games doesn't tell you anything
>>739562403fuck you I like toys. if I wanted art, I'd go to a museum
>>739560876>the moment you engage interactively with the medium it loses its artistic nature.lmaowhat about the many many many instances of interactive art, faggot?>watching a movie in a theatre is art>but watching that movie on dvd isn't art because you have to push the play button and are thus interacting with it>Cage's 4 33 isn't art akshually because there is audience participationfag
>>739564049>>739563943Ico gives you a few fluff puzzles and combat systems so it can be nominally labelled as a game. Critics like it because any douchebag can feel like they understand it. DMC3 gives you a complex system with set tools and restrictions, and a letter score entirely based on merit telling you objectively how well you understand it. No book or movie ever did that or ever can do that.
>>739560428>art by the mainstreamwhat mainstream? a group of people with money saying a toilet is art?
>>739560428Why do they have to be art and why do you care if others say they're art or not? Modern art was a CIA psyop and a jewish money laundering scheme anyway, are those the kinds of people you want to seek validation from and let them shape your worldview?
>>739564567No one is disagreeing that DMC3 is a great toy. It's one of the best action toys out there, but it's still a toy. Ico was not made to be difficult. Your post boils down to "I don't understand why anyone would like puzzles"
>>739564696Anime aside, this anon is correct.
>>739564775>a Chopin piece is a toy and a Justin Bieber piece is art and if you disagree you're just being obtuse and not understanding why people like mumblerap
>>739560428why are you so insistent that the mainstream should take games seriously? fuck the mainstream
>>739565469Because I am desperate for validation and I have no other way to earn it.
>>739564696>>739564847TRVKE
Games are objectively not art in their modern form. They were accidental art before, but nu-gaming is nothing more than cleverly disguised gambling. Is gambling art?
>>739560428>Why are video games not taken seriously as art by the mainstream?Who the fuck takes "the mainstream" seriously?
>>739565132>If I'm illiterate, everyone is illiterate. There isn't a single person in the history of the world who understands art better than I
