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Archer666 posted:It's been mentioned before, but I think the group of gamers that want games to be seen as art are not the group of gamers who are angry about the "critical eye" that some put on it. Nah, there's usually significant overlap. The key factor is that they think if "games are art" then that means they won't be called a weirdo for playing them. They don't think about actual art criticism.
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May 26, 2016 18:24
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computer parts posted:Nah, there's usually significant overlap. The key factor is that they think if "games are art" then that means they won't be called a weirdo for playing them. They don't think about actual art criticism. Who are these incredibly insecure people, and why should I care about them?
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May 26, 2016 18:52
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computer parts posted:Nah, there's usually significant overlap. The key factor is that they think if "games are art" then that means they won't be called a weirdo for playing them. They don't think about actual art criticism. Well, there is an interesting property of games as interactive art. Normally a critique of a work of art is read as a critique of the creator. This work of art is implicitly racist, poorly structured, etc. With interactive, participatory art, though, where the participant "creates" part of the experience, some of that criticism can redound onto the participant. It's one thing to say that, for example, Marvel objectifies female superheroes. It's another to say Diablo objectifies women because the player is stabbing sexy succubi all day long, especially if the player bought the game in part because of the hot succubi. Counterpoint of course is that the comic buyer bought the comic to stare at superheroine rear end too, bit that's still not better.
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May 26, 2016 18:52
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Well, there is an interesting property of games as interactive art. So let's take a different example: The Sims. You can kill your Sims by luring them into a room and removing the door: is this your fault as the player for doing it, or the creator's fault for leaving it in? I think it's somewhere in between: in some sense the creator is responsible for building the set of actions the player may perform, and in some sense it's a reflection on the player if they insist on doing those things to the exclusion of everything else.
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May 26, 2016 19:07
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Kit Walker posted:I remember when I was like 14 or so, playing Dynasty Warriors 3, where you can cut down literally hundreds if not thousands of random soldiers, and suddenly pondering exactly how hosed up something like that would be to live out for real. Like, even if it's just a game and not real, if it WAS real you'd just be running around creating a tidal wave of grief, on account of all these guys you're just casually killing off presumably having families and friends. The game didn't appeal to me too much after that. Of course, years later I found myself playing games like Prototype and Bloodborne which are incredibly violent and gory but that's different. For the purposes of this discussion, if you had a kid, how old would you want him to be before you let him play a game like this? Its something I've been spending more and more time thinking about. I mean, its easy to think, "Aw, just let them play whatever they want, I did and I turned out fine" but at least this generation of parents has some practical experience in what their kids will be exposed to, and the fact that games are much more interactive lends itself to having a lot more potential influence. *Flash forward to TYOOL 2026* *Watching son making stabbing gestures in his VR rig*  what are you up to, sonny? Buildin' a log cabin in TurboNeoMinecraft? "Naw, I'm stabbing a hooker. Turns out you can get way more of your money back if you stab 'em to death vs running them over. Plus my character is white and in a very racist area, so there will be almost no suspicion it was me."
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May 26, 2016 19:15
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computer parts posted:Nah, there's usually significant overlap. The key factor is that they think if "games are art" then that means they won't be called a weirdo for playing them. They don't think about actual art criticism. Who thinks video games are for weirdos? This isn't the 80s.
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May 26, 2016 19:43
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Jarmak posted:Who thinks video games are for weirdos? This isn't the 80s. Goons, mostly, in my experience.
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May 26, 2016 19:46
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The interesting thing with VR is that we're essentially having to unlearn how to create scary stories because, after thousands of years of narrative traditions trying to make a visceral message pierce through so many levels of abstraction in writing, storytelling, and film, we've created stories and experiences that, while scary to watch, will set your infralimbic cortex on fire and flood your whole body with norepinephrine when you experience them in person, and that's among "horror buffs", while PS2 graphics cartoon skeletons will make people who aren't used to horror experiences. It'll be interesting to see if this is a hard limit on human psychology, or if in 50 years people losing their poo poo in early VR horror games will be seen as quaint, like people freaking out during showings of "Arrival of a Train"
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May 26, 2016 19:48
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Incoherence posted:I think you're onto something, but the given example doesn't really show it. There are plenty of people who buy comic books or watch movies so they can look at the pretty girls therein; that part's not unique to games. It's a completely blameless action since you as the player are doing nothing but exploring a consequence-free virtual world. You can take a flight simulator game, like the Microsoft flight sim games, and smash a fully loaded A320 into the ground. Who's "fault" is that? The designers? The players? Gravity? None of the above, it's a morally neutral event because, and this is what trips some people up, it's simulation. It's not real, you didn't really kill anyone. You did it for your own amusement, at the cost of nothing. So if you want to "blame" designers for allowing players to play their games "wrong," then I don't think games are for you.
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May 26, 2016 20:09
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Incoherence posted:So let's take a different example: The Sims. You can kill your Sims by luring them into a room and removing the door: is this your fault as the player for doing it, or the creator's fault for leaving it in? I think it's somewhere in between: in some sense the creator is responsible for building the set of actions the player may perform, and in some sense it's a reflection on the player if they insist on doing those things to the exclusion of everything else. the sims was pitched as a virtual dollhouse, so i'd make the pedantic distinction of calling it a video toy rather than a video game - there's no narrative or even metaphor to critique, it's nothing more than a sandbox for people to derive amusement from on their own terms and i'm not trying to ignite the is/isn't a game debate, but rather i dunno how much you can critique gi joe action figures in a vacuum versus the gi joe cartoon which told a story and thus is more open to critique. like we can look at the sims as an attempt to model everyday human behavior and social interaction in an entertaining, lighthearted way which includes casual supernatural murder from a detached godlike figure boner confessor fucked around with this message at 20:16 on May 26, 2016 |
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May 26, 2016 20:14
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Archer666 posted:It's been mentioned before, but I think the group of gamers that want games to be seen as art are not the group of gamers who are angry about the "critical eye" that some put on it. Panfilo posted:I enjoy rediculous, over the top violent games as much as the next nerd but the idea of little kids playing it definitely gives me pause. I feel that if I had kids the context of the game would be very important to me and I wouldn't want to either be so permissive or oppressive as to bring about Bigoted Sexist Turbonerd gen 2.0
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May 26, 2016 20:35
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Powercrazy posted:It's a completely blameless action since you as the player are doing nothing but exploring a consequence-free virtual world. You can take a flight simulator game, like the Microsoft flight sim games, and smash a fully loaded A320 into the ground. Who's "fault" is that? The designers? The players? Gravity? None of the above, it's a morally neutral event because, and this is what trips some people up, it's simulation. It's not real, you didn't really kill anyone. You did it for your own amusement, at the cost of nothing. Popular Thug Drink posted:the sims was pitched as a virtual dollhouse, so i'd make the pedantic distinction of calling it a video toy rather than a video game - there's no narrative or even metaphor to critique, it's nothing more than a sandbox for people to derive amusement from on their own terms
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May 26, 2016 20:37
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While games can have an impact on us the drive to do violence to others is much harder to influence via media, barring an already violent individual. Honestly I look at games more for helping us learn empathy for others. Instead of merely hearing or seeing someone's suffering, you can literally step into their shoes and see what their life is like. This War of Mine was a real big success in that regard, at least to me. I'd heard and thought about civilians trapped in combat zones before, but *never* to the extent that TWoM made me. I'd never had to make decisions on if I try and keep my group of people alive, to the detriment of other groups, or try and save everyone and possibly doom us all to lack of supplies. I never before have had to consider between giving the last few medical supplies I have to two kids begging for us to help their mother, or telling them that I can't help them. Do I do the right thing, and possibly kill us all? Do I do the pragmatic thing, survive, and live with the knowledge? I still don't know the answer to some questions on it, and I still debate myself every time I play it. It's a lot easier to do terrible things to the random pedestrians in GTA. They're ones and zeros at most to us. It's only when we get to know a character and like said character that it has an impact. I mowed down hundreds of trouble youths in Saints Row 2, but when The Boss had to mercy kill Carlos, I was genuinely upset and mad. The Boss, my character, the person I had created and was my avatar in this world, had promised to keep Carlos safe and help him. And I'd failed him. And in the end all that could be done was holding his hand and letting him know he wasn't alone, before putting him out of his misery. yes I know it's an older game but I'm paranoid Even in this silly, goofy, bang bang shooty game, it gave me that empathy and feeling of personal failure. Games hold a stronger ability to generate empathy for others, as we're the ones acting. Even if our actions are limited to what is programmed, ultimately *we* are the ones choosing and acting. Games are art, but I feel it can't be compared to the other types of art and media out there because every single other source of 'art' is non-interactive. You interpret artwork, you read a story, but you experience a game. Some games have a stronger focus on artwork than others, and even the biggest most corporate game has some artistic merit, even if it ends up being 'This was made by a corporation who focus tested everything. Look how mechanical and soulless it is'.
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May 26, 2016 21:47
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Panfilo posted:I'm interested in the attitudes of gamers in terms of exposing their own kids to games. Unlike my own generation, whose parents didn't really know what to make of video games, the next generation will have gamer parents. Their values will reflect their own decisions in what to expose their kids to. If I feel that my kid has a good grasp on the difference between fantasy and reality, then I'm going to be more lenient with what games they're exposed to. I don't have a problem with a tween/teenager playing violent video games if he's aware of what real violence in the world actually looks like and how it affects people. I'd absolutely plan to intervene if gaming turns into an outlet for seriously antisocial or harassing behavior for the kid, but I'd be foolish to put the blame squarely on the game.
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May 26, 2016 22:15
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Popular Thug Drink posted:the sims was pitched as a virtual dollhouse, so i'd make the pedantic distinction of calling it a video toy rather than a video game - there's no narrative or even metaphor to critique, it's nothing more than a sandbox for people to derive amusement from on their own terms Further pedantry, I don't think that's enough to distinguish toy from game. Tetris doesn't have a narrative or metaphor either--what does anything that happens in Tetris mean? But it's obviously a game: the player takes actions that affect the game state and there are developer-defined win and loss conditions.
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May 27, 2016 21:02
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Fuschia tude posted:Further pedantry, I don't think that's enough to distinguish toy from game. Tetris doesn't have a narrative or metaphor either--what does anything that happens in Tetris mean? But it's obviously a game: the player takes actions that affect the game state and there are developer-defined win and loss conditions. tetris has an explicit goal, to last as long as possible while following the rules of tetris. the sims doesn't have any explicit goal, you get some simulated people to lord over and generally dick around with. i dont think there's a significant distinction between toy and game when it comes to entertainment value, i'm just trying to differentiate between a board game like monopoly and something like a pile of legos, or crayons + paper where it's really just a tool for pretending
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May 27, 2016 21:10
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Fuschia tude posted:Tetris doesn't have a narrative or metaphor either--what does anything that happens in Tetris mean? Oh? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWTFG3J1CP8
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May 27, 2016 22:34
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Archer666 posted:It's been mentioned before, but I think the group of gamers that want games to be seen as art are not the group of gamers who are angry about the "critical eye" that some put on it. this. I think alot of the "games are art" thing came up after 2 events. 1st was ebert saying games arn't art and the other was the Indi game boom in the middle-late 00s. thats when the critics and the "critics" came into the picture. some i like and some i think are poo poo. personally i think their are some great critics out there. superbunnyhop is pretty good as is Noah Caldwell-Gervais. Dapper_Swindler fucked around with this message at 23:00 on May 27, 2016 |
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May 27, 2016 22:53
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Dapper_Swindler posted:personally i think their are some great critics out there. superbunnyhop is pretty good as is Noah Caldwell-Gervais. We live in a world where these two names are used in the same sentence unironically 
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May 28, 2016 00:41
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Popular Thug Drink posted:tetris has an explicit goal, to last as long as possible while following the rules of tetris. the sims doesn't have any explicit goal, you get some simulated people to lord over and generally dick around with. i dont think there's a significant distinction between toy and game when it comes to entertainment value, i'm just trying to differentiate between a board game like monopoly and something like a pile of legos, or crayons + paper where it's really just a tool for pretending Yeah that's my point, you didn't mention goal before.
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May 28, 2016 02:03
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Talking about video games is something that people try to make way more complicated than it really is, at least when speaking generally- you talk about video games by trying to understand what their own goals as individual entities are (Such as providing puzzles for the player to solve, or testing their reflexes, or telling a story or some combination of all of these or whatever else) and then maybe comparing them to other video games with similar goals. You don't compare, I dunno, Tetris to Analogue: A Hate Story because those games have very little in common, but you might compare Tetris to another puzzle game like Hexic or Zuma, or Analogue with something like Gone Home or Firewatch or since they have enough similarities with each other for comparisons to be sensible and gosh, maybe enough to even begin developing ideas about genre. A lot of times I think people get tripped up by trying to create some grand unifying theory that explains ALL video games, and I think that's a fool's errand.
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May 28, 2016 02:35
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Raxivace posted:A lot of times I think people get tripped up by trying to create some grand unifying theory that explains ALL video games, and I think that's a fool's errand. All games have mechanics, and an aesthetic theory of game mechanics isn't an unreasonable goal.
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May 28, 2016 02:38
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the question "are video games art?" forgets that there exists distinctions within film between art house and commercial schlock flims yet no one doubts film is artful medium
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May 28, 2016 02:41
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:All games have mechanics
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May 28, 2016 02:49
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Raxivace posted:I don't agree, unless you're going to include picking dialogue options in VN's (And even then, there are VN's that don't even have that!) or something like Firewatch as a game mechanic. If a VN has a goal and picking dialogue options impedes or advances that goal, sure, that's game mechanics. If not, then it's just an ebook by another name. If it has choices that are meaningless or which represent different outcomes unbound by goals then it's probably a toy, which is an interesting subject all its own.
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May 28, 2016 02:54
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unwantedplatypus posted:We live in a world where these two names are used in the same sentence unironically whats wrong with them? they arnt the deepest but i find them interesting. better then anything polygon or killscreen has done in my opinion. Errant Signal is pretty good too.
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May 28, 2016 04:43
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Real hurthling! posted:the question "are video games art?" forgets that there exists distinctions within film between art house and commercial schlock flims yet no one doubts film is artful medium Really, people shouldn't wish for the Citizen Kane of gaming but the Suspiria of gaming.
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May 28, 2016 08:26
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icantfindaname posted:It's really not, though. The SNES came out 26 years ago, and the PS2 16 years ago. Comparably, film was more or less a developed medium by the 40s/50s, which was maybe 15 or 20 years after it was viable technologically Hold on a second, think about what you're saying though. The changes in the nature of games have been absolutely gigantic, the emergence of true 3D only took place twenty years ago and the ability to represent humans in something approaching a realistic manner about a decade after that. I'd consider the jump from 2d to 3d to be similar to the gulf between sound and talkies in terms of their effects on the medium, and I'd be tempted to say that videogames were having to work from a blank slate in a way cinema didn't (a lot of early cinema could draw off of theater, musicals and Vaudeville shows, which actually became easier with the introduction of sound).
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May 29, 2016 13:01
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Kit Walker posted:I remember when I was like 14 or so, playing Dynasty Warriors 3, where you can cut down literally hundreds if not thousands of random soldiers, and suddenly pondering exactly how hosed up something like that would be to live out for real. Like, even if it's just a game and not real, if it WAS real you'd just be running around creating a tidal wave of grief, on account of all these guys you're just casually killing off presumably having families and friends. Hit me really hard in GTA 3: San Andreas actually. After mowing down dozens and dozens of gangsters of all sorts, a semi-cutscene made a huge deal on whether I'd actually be the bad guy evil enough to kill the archnemesis or whether I'd spare his life. In a building full of corpses I'd left lying around. Yeah Rockstar guys, I respect what you are trying to do here, but the form really doesn't follow the function now.
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May 29, 2016 19:11
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MonsieurChoc posted:Really, people shouldn't wish for the Citizen Kane of gaming but the Suspiria of gaming. David Cage is the Brian de Palma of gaming.
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May 29, 2016 19:34
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Aureliu5 posted:Hit me really hard in GTA 3: San Andreas actually. After mowing down dozens and dozens of gangsters of all sorts, a semi-cutscene made a huge deal on whether I'd actually be the bad guy evil enough to kill the archnemesis or whether I'd spare his life. In a building full of corpses I'd left lying around. Yeah Rockstar guys, I respect what you are trying to do here, but the form really doesn't follow the function now. Mooks (like elves) aren't people, so it isn't murder.
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May 29, 2016 19:36
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Magic Hate Ball posted:David Cage is the Brian de Palma of gaming. I don't get why people like him. I mean people like their auteur game devs. i love ken Levine and kojima and i can understand why people don't like their stuff. but how the gently caress does anyone like cage. he comes off as pretentious git who doesn't actually know how to make a game so he kinda just half asses it. Sure a lot of his ideas are cool, but he always, ALWAYS fucks it up. if i wanted to play a point and click game with actual emotions i would play walking dead season one.
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May 29, 2016 19:47
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Real hurthling! posted:the question "are video games art?" forgets that there exists distinctions within film between art house and commercial schlock flims yet no one doubts film is artful medium There's actually not a distinction, at least for actual film critics.
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May 29, 2016 19:51
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khwarezm posted:Hold on a second, think about what you're saying though. The changes in the nature of games have been absolutely gigantic, the emergence of true 3D only took place twenty years ago and the ability to represent humans in something approaching a realistic manner about a decade after that. I'd consider the jump from 2d to 3d to be similar to the gulf between sound and talkies in terms of their effects on the medium, and I'd be tempted to say that videogames were having to work from a blank slate in a way cinema didn't (a lot of early cinema could draw off of theater, musicals and Vaudeville shows, which actually became easier with the introduction of sound). It's such a different type of storytelling - how do you convey themes, plot, character to the audience when the audience is given the ability to do whatever they want? I think Skyrim was kind of on to something, where the real fun is in atmospheric exploration, it's too bad the storytelling and acting is so janky because it really infringes on the aesthetic. I'd love to see a smaller exploration game like that, with really, really strong focus on writing and character.
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May 29, 2016 19:57
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computer parts posted:There's actually not a distinction, at least for actual film critics. this. anything can be art to the right person. the problem is alot of the critics seem to believe that spectical is always a bad thing, therefor something like DOOM or GTA anything like that, cant be art.
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May 29, 2016 19:58
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Magic Hate Ball posted:It's such a different type of storytelling - how do you convey themes, plot, character to the audience when the audience is given the ability to do whatever they want? I think Skyrim was kind of on to something, where the real fun is in atmospheric exploration, it's too bad the storytelling and acting is so janky because it really infringes on the aesthetic. I'd love to see a smaller exploration game like that, with really, really strong focus on writing and character. this. but then again my girlfriend has an entire skyrim "profile" dedicated to a khajiit thief who just steals stuff and eats/steals chickens. so the experience is subjective.
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May 29, 2016 20:01
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Dapper_Swindler posted:this. but then again my girlfriend has an entire skyrim "profile" dedicated to a khajiit thief who just steals stuff and eats/steals chickens. so the experience is subjective. It's funny because the crappiness of Skyrim is just as entertaining as the actual awe-inspiring fantasy exploration parts, and I'm glad the game does both.
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May 29, 2016 20:05
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Magic Hate Ball posted:It's funny because the crappiness of Skyrim is just as entertaining as the actual awe-inspiring fantasy exploration parts, and I'm glad the game does both. its kinda like fallout 4. i haven't even finished the game yet. i am just kinda wandering around exploring and trying to level up/make caps. same with witcher 3.
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May 29, 2016 20:08
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Magic Hate Ball posted:It's such a different type of storytelling - how do you convey themes, plot, character to the audience when the audience is given the ability to do whatever they want? I think Skyrim was kind of on to something, where the real fun is in atmospheric exploration, it's too bad the storytelling and acting is so janky because it really infringes on the aesthetic. I'd love to see a smaller exploration game like that, with really, really strong focus on writing and character. Did you ever try goon-favorite Fallout: New Vegas?
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May 29, 2016 20:11
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khwarezm posted:Did you ever try goon-favorite Fallout: New Vegas? I liked Fallout 3 a lot more but I don't really know why (better vaults and music? lmao). I appreciate Bethesda for trying.
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May 29, 2016 20:12
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