Games entertain you, and entertainment is art.

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While the art debate is a tired one, the question is important.

No, it isn't. It so isn't. It's an unenlightening semantic fugue.

Q: Is xyz art?
A: It depends on what your definition of 'art' is.

Reread the sentence.

The QUESTION is important. Why do we ask the question?

I think it is important to separate aesthetics and perceived value from the classification of art. At a minimum, art needs a creator conveying an intuitive understanding. Someone mentioned Picasso before - I think his work (as part of the cubist movement) is especially important in finding a definition of art outside of aesthetics.

By this definition some games are definitely art. A popular example would be games created by Peter Molyneux. Not everyone who has played his games would agree that they are beautiful or are great games, but it'd be hard to deny his exploration of alterity and the intuitive understanding you gain by playing his games. I would therefore say that Molyneux is an artist and that his works are art.

I mention Molyneux in particular because Chico Quieroz has an excellent article on Gamasutra about Molyneux's work: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=12038

Interactive entertainment definitely needs more discussion about this - not necessarily to define what art is, but rather to look critically at what's being created.

thats what i am saying is another part of the aurgument GAMES ARE TO ENTERTAIN YOU as someone said before. Games are rarely or even never used to teach people a lesson or to make you think about the subject matter in an intellegent way. The only reason i will say that games are art is because of the different styles that go into the animations and the stories that are interesting like final fantasys.

Painters paint to show feeling and emotion or beauty.
Can we honestly say that there has been a game made to invoke feelings, a game might do that BUT was it made for that very reason.

In my mind games are made to have fun and rearely created to do more. If you want to look at games that were made for art look at cult classics like Okami.



Does examine your zipper mean art heh heh thats a question for the ages
atleast thats what i was brought up to think XYZ was

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Original post by azeime thats what i am saying is another part of the aurgument GAMES ARE TO ENTERTAIN YOU as someone said before. Games are rarely or even never used to teach people a lesson or to make you think about the subject matter in an intellegent way.

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In my mind games are made to have fun and rearely created to do more.

Note that "entertaining" doesn't mean the same thing as "fun". "Entertaining" implies that grabs your attention and engages your interest, but not necessarily in a "fun" way. A good performance of a tragic play, for example, is very entertaining but not very fun.

I'd also take issue with the notion that games "never teach people a lesson" or "make you think about the subject matter in an intelligent way" - even putting aside the obvious genre of edutainment, there's games like Civilization which teach people about history, strategy, and (admittedly basic) politics. Many games (notably RPGs) explore aspects of social issues. And many varied games have abstract problem solving or tactics as part of their gameplay.

To turn round your argument on paintings and games, I could say that most paintings are made to "look good", and the reason why some paintings look better than others is that they inspire emotions and feelings. Not too surprisingly, the same process applies to games as well: people are more entertained by games that successfully play with their emotions. Now you could argue that designers only put those elements in to make their game more "fun", but why single out games instead of other media such as paintings?

It all boils down to the original unanswerable question - what exactly is art?

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Original post by Trapper Zoid Quote: Original post by azeime thats what i am saying is another part of the aurgument GAMES ARE TO ENTERTAIN YOU as someone said before. Games are rarely or even never used to teach people a lesson or to make you think about the subject matter in an intellegent way. Quote: In my mind games are made to have fun and rearely created to do more. Note that "entertaining" doesn't mean the same thing as "fun". "Entertaining" implies that grabs your attention and engages your interest, but not necessarily in a "fun" way. A good performance of a tragic play, for example, is very entertaining but not very fun. I'd also take issue with the notion that games "never teach people a lesson" or "make you think about the subject matter in an intelligent way" - even putting aside the obvious genre of edutainment, there's games like Civilization which teach people about history, strategy, and (admittedly basic) politics. Many games (notably RPGs) explore aspects of social issues. And many varied games have abstract problem solving or tactics as part of their gameplay. To turn round your argument on paintings and games, I could say that most paintings are made to "look good", and the reason why some paintings look better than others is that they inspire emotions and feelings. Not too surprisingly, the same process applies to games as well: people are more entertained by games that successfully play with their emotions. Now you could argue that designers only put those elements in to make their game more "fun", but why single out games instead of other media such as paintings? It all boils down to the original unanswerable question - what exactly is art?

Whether something is art certainly has nothing to do with it being educational, entertaining, or fun. I'd also disagree with your assertion that paintings look good because they inspire emotion, and paintings aren't art simply because they look good. I mean, most things that would qualify under those definitions weren't even made by people! And even though it was made by a person, would a lecture by a math professor be art because it taught me something? No.

Conversely, would something fail to be art because it lacked some of those properties? Andy Warhol would not qualify as an artist under those conditions. Dadaism certainly wouldn't either.

Like I said before, a definition of art would require a person expressing themselves. The expression should convey an intuitive understanding of something, not necessarily a rational one which would make it educational. As far as I can tell, any attempt at adding further requirements has led to the exclusion of something that clearly should be labelled art.

Ideally we'd have a completely objective definition, but art is subjective by nature and therefore I doubt such a thing would be possible.

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Original post by kindjie Whether something is art certainly has nothing to do with it being educational, entertaining, or fun. I'd also disagree with your assertion that paintings look good because they inspire emotion, and paintings aren't art simply because they look good. I mean, most things that would qualify under those definitions weren't even made by people! And even though it was made by a person, would a lecture by a math professor be art because it taught me something? No.

Sorry - I wasn't that clear that my reply was in response to azeime's reply before mine (on the previous page in most settings), and I mangled up some of the relevant quotes (specifically the one regarding paintings and games inspiring emotions).

I was wanting to point out that I've often seen some confusion between "entertainment" and "fun" in game design. While I think games should be entertaining, I'm not convinced that they have to be fun. If you want to make a game that explores a serious topic (and thus make it closer to what many people regard "art") I'd aim to make the game entertaining (as in interesting to people) but not necessarily fun - it would be hard to make a "fun" game that gave the same messages as Picasso's Guernica, for example.

The second point - which I mangled quite considerably, sorry - was that games often do inspire emotion and feelings as part of their dynamic to make them better games.

I wasn't really attempting to put a definition of art in that last post, mainly because it's so darn subjective.

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Original post by Trapper Zoid Quote: Original post by kindjie Whether something is art certainly has nothing to do with it being educational, entertaining, or fun. I'd also disagree with your assertion that paintings look good because they inspire emotion, and paintings aren't art simply because they look good. I mean, most things that would qualify under those definitions weren't even made by people! And even though it was made by a person, would a lecture by a math professor be art because it taught me something? No. Sorry - I wasn't that clear that my reply was in response to azeime's reply before mine (on the previous page in most settings), and I mangled up some of the relevant quotes (specifically the one regarding paintings and games inspiring emotions). I was wanting to point out that I've often seen some confusion between "entertainment" and "fun" in game design. While I think games should be entertaining, I'm not convinced that they have to be fun. If you want to make a game that explores a serious topic (and thus make it closer to what many people regard "art") I'd aim to make the game entertaining (as in interesting to people) but not necessarily fun - it would be hard to make a "fun" game that gave the same messages as Picasso's Guernica, for example. The second point - which I mangled quite considerably, sorry - was that games often do inspire emotion and feelings as part of their dynamic to make them better games. I wasn't really attempting to put a definition of art in that last post, mainly because it's so darn subjective.

A little offtopic, but I 100% agree with you on the fun vs. entertaining point. Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design (Chapter 3 I think...) first brought that to my attention, and I believe this misconception is one of the major limitations for modern games as art.

I dissagree with you yes paintings often look good BUT there is more meaning behind most great paintings reading a diary of a great artist will tell you that. All of the great artists painted for deeper meaning

Yes games are ment to be fun but thats not exactly true either. Games usually dont have a deeper meaning they dont leave me thinking about social issues and such. There are Political paintings and no games that realy were made to tell you something politicly. But this is off topic