On many polish forums there's rule

"do not quote the whole post that is directly above yours". Well, it's an artifact from the dial up modem times, and small databases for most forums.

You may be sure that I wouldn't quote the entire post directly under it, don't worry :D
So can I and so can elitists in ivory towers, don't they? ;P

hehe, yes you can, and it just shows how ahead of his time Benjamin was.

Yeah, in the end, it doesn't really matter that the whole world doesnt consider something art as long as it's art to you.

I described why I don't consider most video games an art (The only game that made huge impact on me [artistically? :P] lately was Braid, but haven't played Limbo yet :P)

Peace and booze to everybody :-)

Yes, but... isn't that exactly what I have been saying in the quoted post?

Trying to make myself clear again... I can see how someone could say, hey, Book A is greater (as a book, or as art, pertaining to, for example the criteria you mentioned) but Book B appeals to her/him more. I can't however see someone saying Book A is greater as art, but Book B is a better book, because those to me depend on the same criteria (like, for example the ones you mentioned). Of yourse you can refer to the greatness of a work of art simply in context of it's status in the accepted canon, and that's fine, but that's also, intentionally or not, missing the point I was trying to make.

Namely, that differentiating between games that are art, and games that aren't, seems a bit iffy to me.

I guess that's why the part in the OP that mentioned Indie games appealed to me - because there seem to be people who are more willing to consider them art specifically because they are less conventionally entertaining, and appeal to fewer people, and the thing is, no matter if one believes games are art or not, that kind of thinking surely leads to worse games.

That's nonsense. By that definition, there's never been any art.

Never mind the ages, you can take any 2 people from today and put them in front of the same piece of art, and it'll have a different impact on them and create different feelings.

Just reading articles by art critics or art historians is enough to realize that.


Anyway, my first thought about this debate is; who cares?
Personally, I play games to have fun, and whether they're art or not is totally immaterial to that purpose.
I neither need nor want to somehow validate my hobby for the benefit of people who don't know anything about it by claiming it's art, as some gamers apparently seem compelled to do.

For a more thoughtful answer, I'd say it depends on your definition of art, but it has to be acknowledged that some games, like strategy games, are much closer to chess than to any form of art. If chess isn't art (and I've never met anyone who claimed it was), then I don't see how a strategy game could be either.

Personally, I'd say it comes down to the intentions of the people who created the game, or any other sort of media for that matter. If they felt, during and after the process of creation, that they were creating art, then what right does anyone else have to look afterwards at their creation and say; "no, that's not art"?

Na zdrowie

I agree completely. I might as well describe my definition of art: The output of any creative activity.

Now on to work....which is boring and not creative - therefore not art...

Edit: Play Limbo - it is a good

Most probably. Whether video games can be considered as a form of art was argued already by the old Greeks like Homeros and Okeanos.

Who knows, maybe even the cavemen argued whether clubbing each others in the head for fun is a mere spectator sport, or real art like the stick men on cave walls.

I'd say its no different to deciding if something is art in any other field. Is a sketch a sketch or art - is a book art or not - is a photo art or not. Often its not a case of it being art or not but just one of is it good or great.

This is more, as I see it, a matter of experience within the niche area of games. The gamer experiences a lot of games so the gamer that appreciates games as art develops a more selective taste in the art. The Average game made commercially will often have an artistic experience or direction they've experienced before. The Art itself can be very good - however its not "unique" enough to make it stand out.
This uniqueness is what starts to become the "great" art displays. Again its not really saying games are or are not art, but more confusing that view point with the view of "its average or unique/great art" .

Thank you; that's pretty much exactly what I wanted to say.

That's a very bad way to define art - you'll suddenly lose a great many works of art which were made for many reasons; art being the least of which in the creators mind. Further you'll get a whole load of tripe that isn't art, but the creator thought/hoped/wanted to make art when they were creating it.

Like I said before - art shouldn't be judged on why it was made, but upon the final work itself. We can judge and measure that - mostly everything else that comes to result in its creation shouldn't have any effect on how we judge its artistic appeal.

Everything is Art, but some Art is more Art than other Art.

Yah. Someone give me a definition of art and we can argue about it :D My standpoint is quite clear, one game changed my outlook on the world around me, which is not something a mess of georaphical shapes nowadays considered 'art' could ever do.

Where did you appear all of the sudden, I thought you said you were going to be gone (not that I'm complaining)
edit: You're clearly WRONG, by the way. You know, just sayin' :-P

And who are you, or anyone else, to judge what's art and what's not?
According to which universal standard do you measure whether something's art?
What are any objective qualities that make some works "tripe" and others "art"?


There aren't any, art history shows us that the definition of art, what's accepted as art by a society changes as time passes.
Therefore, the perception of art can only be be subjective, and as such, no one's opinion is more valuable than the rest.
Which means nobody has the right to dismiss something as "not art" if somebody else thinks it is, except for themselves. That makes art a very personal thing, which is probably why people get so passionate about it.

Personally, I'll say I have a hard time accepting much of modern sculpture, for instance, as art. It seems more like random bits and ends cobbled together, to me. Yet the artist and many other people obviously feel differently.
Which means I'll accept their opinion, as long as I don't have to pretend to share it.

Oh, I agree that it wasn't an original thought. Still, it's probably the only way we can get a definition of art that respects everyone's opinion.

You didn't watch the Donald Duck video did you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oT_Bxgah9zc

There are historical and current standards of art and artistic theory as to what counts and what does not. Sadly this is a topic generally not covered in school (art is one of those subjects most teachers rely totally upon natural talent rather than upon teaching the basics it seems) and thus is one many are ignorant of.
There are theories to art - quite a large number - and they can be used to judge the worth of a creation.