Are video games art?
- Thread starter Tech Noir
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No, they are commercial products means to drive sales.
Only high quality porn VNs
In that case so is most "fine art" because they were paid for by rich Italian bankers like the Medici who wanted something pretty to show off in their lavish homes. That means those weren't created for the art itself. Of course if you do accept that "fine art" is also commercial products, then that's something else.
Before I provide any answer, first define "art".
Those were fine art pieces commissioned by one guy for their own personal viewing, video games are mass market products made to be consumed by millions of people. Never is a video game made for just one person.
Tech Noir
Newfag
Fuck you, knew someone would go there. How to do this without dry esoteric intellectual lingo that obscures more than it explains? But here: art is something created with the desire to express the soul of its author. You wanna discuss the existence of the soul now? Huh? Well do you faggot?
Fag
The problem is tho that just like video games are meant for consumption, so was "fine art": they were commissioned works not for the love of art for its own sake but as a way to demonstrate their wealth and power. It wasn't just one guy for their own personal viewing, but for everyone else who isn't a Medici, etc, to look at it in awe and be like "fuck, I won't mess with them, if they could afford to make something like that, who knows what they would do to me". Frankly if they had access to a literal M1 Abrams tank back then, they would have parked that shit outside their mansions just the same. So is that "art"?
Tech Noir
Newfag
Yes, but I also defined nation as a group of people who agree that they belong to the same nation. I do the best I can.
>hur dur I define something isn't art
>ok by what metric
>FUUUUUK someone ALWAYS goes there
I'm not gonna go discuss the existance of the soul since the discussion is about what "art" is. But the thing is, if a commerical product like a video game is something that someone demonstrably shows they poured their soul into it (or at least how they define their "soul"), then its commerical nature is irrelevant and its status as "art" is confirmed. If you however claim that its commercial nature IS relevant and that is alone to make it not "art", then what's the point of claiming "art is an expression of the soul (and, apparently, nothing else)" when that isn't enough to make "video games" count as "art"?
Tech Noir
Newfag
Don't take it too seriously. Some games have been imbued by the soul. Disco Elysium has soul, but DE isn't a game, it's a one million word literary work pretending to be a game (a make your own adventure book).
Tech Noir
Newfag
Art is difficult to define, but while some games feel like author poured their soul in it, most of them are this kind of art:
This is art in the same way vidya are art: it isn't some sublime art that moves something in my soul. This is art that is meant to distinguish a product from thousand other products, and to entice me, THE HEDONIST, me, the CONSUMER, to purchase it.
This is art in the same way vidya are art: it isn't some sublime art that moves something in my soul. This is art that is meant to distinguish a product from thousand other products, and to entice me, THE HEDONIST, me, the CONSUMER, to purchase it.
Tech Noir
Newfag
By the way, after 47 days of 2-3 packs a day, I quit consuming art, how's your day going?
I don't know and I don't care about gaymes enough
Some of it can be classified as human expression but most are made by people who need their shekels, which is valid but still
Some of it can be classified as human expression but most are made by people who need their shekels, which is valid but still
Guise I heard animal well is bretty gud and made by just 1 guy but idgaf I can't play any of this anymore
letterlocking
Newfag
I believe video games could be art the same way architecture can be art: If the product were infused with the artists vision. Maybe it would also be art if every detail, every level, every mechanic in a game were an artwork. As it is, I think there are some games that contain art, like the writings in Morrowind, but still consist of a majority of shit that was just done by someone "doing their job".
Maybe a few indie games made by almost exclusively one person could be said to fulfill the first definition I wrote up, but I don't play enough to come up with a good example.
Although I just thought of Rollercoaster Tycoon. That shit was written in assembly by Chris Sawyer, so I'd say the code alone is a work of art.
Maybe a few indie games made by almost exclusively one person could be said to fulfill the first definition I wrote up, but I don't play enough to come up with a good example.
Although I just thought of Rollercoaster Tycoon. That shit was written in assembly by Chris Sawyer, so I'd say the code alone is a work of art.
tl;dr ancient greeks believed any artisan product created by a master could be considered art, if you were master potter you were no longer an artistan, but rather an artist. i like to apply this to everything, if you go to a welder to weld you a new wheel arch to your shitty rusty honda and he managed to do it so it looks better than original he should be considered an artist
tl;dr I'm a trolling artist