5087 réponses à ce sujet

[delta_vee]

Hawk227 wrote...

This ties in with how I read Kita's questions regarding the issue. If the authors are intentionally allowing for reloads that impact the narrative, isn't that authorial intent? Bioware could have gone the direction that the Heavy Rain developers did, but they chose not to. My feeling is that if the game allows for something within the possibility space (particularly simple mechanics), that that should signify intent. Heavy Rain wanted you feel the consequences of your choices, whereas Mass Effect chose to leave it up to the player how strictly choices were adhered to.

I think it does indeed stand as authorial intent, but only up until the conclusion wherein the devs realized how that model constricted their ability to end the series on a statement of their choosing, not the player's. I've come to believe this is at the very heart of the ending's problems.

MrFob wrote...

Which brings me inevitably to the point where I have to show my age because there is one candidate out there which IMO did a really great job on branching narratives with meaningful varied consequences and which actually succeeded to make the player think about his actions beyond the question of how best to survive. The game I am talking about is the Blade Runner adventure from 1997, one of the only really worthy movie adaptations in the history of video games. Here you get it all. Different endings and plot, Characters that will interact with the protagonist according to their choices and morally ambiguous gray scaled decisions that are anchored deep within the plot line. Try it out if you have the chance, I hope they'll release it on gog.com one of these days. I personally can't think of a better example to incorporate decision and consequence into an interactive structure to date and that is quite incredible, given that we are talking about a game which will see it's 15th anniversary by the end of the year.

I never got the chance to play it, but from what I've heard it embodied the direction adventure games were supposed to go, instead of largely dying off until their current minor resurrection. I think it stands as a shameful missed opportunity at the very least.

Bah, leadoff again!

Modifié par delta_vee, 22 mai 2012 - 06:53 .

[delta_vee]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

There's a point where we, as a society say "NO! GIVE UP YOUR DREAMS. THEY BELONG TO WRITERS AND IMPORTANT PEOPLE WHO HAVE BETTER IDEAS THAN YOU DO." Anyone who persists after this is labeled a "fanficcer" and dismissed as a pathetic fringe case deserving of ridicule.

This was perhaps the most infuriating part of much of the gaming media's reaction to the ending furore. Too many commentators gleefully declared that of course it would be a bad idea to allow the fans a say, obviously their ideas would be without merit and devoid of artistic value.

For all the blathering I've done about authorial intent in games, I'm still skeptical of its relative level of importance. It reminds me in some ways of the transformation and democratization of photography, first begun with the Polaroid and the New Topographers, and cemented with the one-two punch of digital cameras and image-sharing sites. The definition of "professional" (read: those with the cultural currency to claim their work as "art") changed with the flood of amateurs and the ease with which good photos could be taken and shown. Curation has in many ways replaced creation as the primary skill requirement, as even the most casual photographer can produce stunning work amidst their own private deluge.

Much of the "art" debate around games, both for and against, is centered on this notion of the importance of the author (which Barthes tried and failed to completely dislodge), and while the arguments may give lip service to the participatory nature of the medium, they rarely address the possibility for creativity and involvement such participation can enable.

In short, I think you're absolutely right, and I'm somewhat tired of game designers attempting to shove their own vision down my throat in such a fashion. ME3's end seems like exactly that to me.

Modifié par delta_vee, 22 mai 2012 - 08:21 .

[drayfish]

MrFob wrote...
 
While promising in the beginning, ultimately the Mass Effect series has disappointed me in this regard. Sure, the narrative does change in certain situations according to your actions but as people have pointed out, it is all short term. It would be easy to see most of it with a simple reload of the save 1 minute before a decision is made. It's a nice gimmick but it doesn't really make the player feel a responsibility of the plot that goes beyond trial and error. Players get instant feedback and thus don't have to think ahead.

So IMO, the true potential of narrative changes lies in long term delayed consequences and this is where ME falls flat. Despite the save game imports, most changes due to player decisions are merely aesthetic in nature. Do you get this guy as a companion or another? Which texture will you see in the background or will Fist mumble a few half-hearted insults to you on Omega? These are the issues you decide, rather then the fate of a galaxy. And in the end, you get three buttons to decide the fate of the galaxy - even if the consequences would go beyond color selection again, you get instant feedback and it really doesn't make much difference if you can save after the heaven elevator or not.

Wonderful post, MrFob. I couldn't agree more. ...Well, not about your recommendation of Blade Runner, I'm sad to say I've never played it, but from the description I think I very much missed out...
 
I must say I too was sad to see how little variation there was in the choices in Mass Effect 3. I remember having decisions like the sparing or murder of the Racchni Queen hang over me (in a thrilling way) for days after first playing them in ME1. I remember speaking in hushed tones to friends, who weren't familiar with the whole Mass Effect universe, describing my actions as they sat staring blank-faced at me, squirming with delight in my chair as I recounted the thrill of committing myself to a course of action that would literally take years to materialise...
 
And then, a little over a month ago, I opened the art book that comes with the Collector's Edition and realised: Oh.  So everybody gets the Racchni. Then I heard in a review that everyone gets a Queen. It might be a robot Queen – one that I've come to discover might betray you (off-screen, unseen; causing a minor impact on your EMS, a number that has no visible consequence in the momentary experience of the game) – but a Queen she be, and the (only) level she's in plays out much the same either way.
 
I'm not totally adverse to this kind of narrative funnelling. Some of the (relatively minor) variations prove to be quite thrilling to compare. The moments connected to the curing of the Genophage, for example, seem extraordinary. The basic narrative line remains constant: there will be a big space worm; a tower; a Krogan battle squad; a Reaper going buck-wild; but the vibrations of behaviour within that span present compelling thematic shifts: shooting Mordin in the back; convincing him to give away this hope; allowing him to sacrifice himself to clear his conscience and bring healing to a proud but broken race; perhaps not even having Mordin there at all but another eager young idealist called Wiks; leaving the future of the Krogan in the hands of Wrex; or Wrex and Eve; or Wrex's ****** brother... All of these kinds of shifts produce compelling tailored narratives that invite contrast and comparison, and these I loved.
 
But it does seem that major, narrative-altering beats were avoided – which seems a disappointment considering that this was the promise of these games for several years, and I would argue were still being espoused in the marketing material up until the day of release. I still see a number of people quoting the claims that there won't be an A, B, or C ending, and that there will be 16 different conclusions. The thinking on Bioware's part seems to be that having such dramatic alterations would lock new players out of avenues of the experience – but this seems antithetical, because that was exactly what thrilled me in the first place, as a new player. Rather than seeing this kind of narrative exclusion as a drawback, I was enthused to realise that, well, I guess I'll just have to play it through again. And so I did. And then again. And then one more time for good measure. ...And, well I guess there was that one other thing I wanted to explore... And on and on, deepening my bond to each game.
 
Until ME3. 
 
For ME3 I played through once, felt a strange stirring in my gut that has still not yet abated, and switched my machine off. I've tried to return to that world, but I've watched Tess Shepard die for a meaningless cause, and I can't yet put my other roster of characters through that grinder. ...And for much the same reason that CulturalGeekGirl benched her Crow Shepard, I don't even want to let my Full-Renegade Malcolm get dragged into some gruesome validation of complete moral compromise.
 
So I wait. I'm not even sure what for, but I do seem to be waiting. Talking it all through with you nice folks to see if I can come to terms with any of it, and being delighted that even if it couldn't be through the thrill of comparing wildly divergent endings, the finale of Mass Effect has ironically led me into an extraordinary conversation with y'all.
 
So, as always: thanks for helping dull the ache.
 
 
p.s. - @ CulturalGeekGirl: your post was extraordinary. Avatar play as the salve to keep at bay the imaginative atrophy of the 'real' world? What a beautiful and profound concept:
 

I think games have an ability that no other art has: they can allow a person to keep up the kind of participatory pretending we all did as children. They enable pretending, encourage it, identify it as something of value, something that need not be discarded when one reaches adolescence. They allow us to clad ourselves in the armor of an avatar and reach untold heights of dreams and self-actualization. They allow us not to just see the hero, but to be the hero.

Thank you, yet again. 

...And shut it down, Ebert.

Modifié par drayfish, 22 mai 2012 - 10:17 .

[frypan]

If I can play devil's advocate for a second, it seems the art debate is symptomatic of an attempt to establish games as something more than simple play, when it may not be necessary. I certainly believe that art is a component of games, and some whole games could be called art. However, it seems we are also fighting tool and nail to have our pastime recognised as fitting of the kind of scholarly analysis that art is subject to.

An alternative might be to view it as a cultural phenomenon, replacing or supplementing other human activity that involves art, but is a mechanisim for communication or finding meaning. I think of oral traditions, dance and other activity that may be recognised as art, but that often also serve a valuable social function such as learning.

I'm sure this must have been examined before, but when I look at Eupides, Virgil, Ovid and other ancient sources that are called "art" they served a valuable place in society, even if they evolved from a particular author. Whether it was to establish a cultural background, as in Virgil, or as a cathartic social experience in the case of Euripides, they functioned just like static art in serving a social purpose but were also expressions of group activity. (especially if they were read out in company - such as epic may have been done)

The point I'm fumbling towards is that games as art is too simple in and of itself as a definition, as gaming is a manifestation of so much more and maybe we should address the higher purposes instead. I'll leave it there - both art and anthropological scholars will probably eat me alive on this.

But to get back on topic and address the idea of the malleable form, I disgree with the whole Romeo and Juliet argument of Ebert & Co. The ancient authors messed with traditions when it suited them- such as the fate of Helen at Troy which could be changed when it suited an author.

Ovid's interpretation of myth in the Metamorphoses is also a good example, as he brushed over Augustan history as part of his own interpretation of the history and myths of the world, and only included certain aspects such as the changing of Aeneas' ships into birds, to build the interpretation he wanted of Roman history in his epic. He also bloodied up the story of the Lapiths and Centaurs, part as this was his style, but also to build his concept of how the myths fit together. These are crude examples, and I'm sure there are better ones, but the basic idea is that the art was not necessarily canonical.


The author in these cases, who initiallly served as receipient of a particular work, would then change it for their own purposes - in the manner a player may choose to change the substance of a story to match their interpretation of game. This is common now in remakes of movies and the like, but goes back a long way in fields we now consider art. Ineffect, as has been so demonstrably shown throughout the ME3 controversy, players are powerful authors of the story - nicely put by Drayfish just above.

There are differences of course centred on who does the changing - but the shifting state of author/recipient, and developer/player have similarities that show the creator's ideas do not simply spring out of their mind in a self contained manner, but come from a mind that has already played with alternatives choices, endings and emphasis as part of the artistic vision.

Just some thoughts that arise from thinking about the classics. An appeal to history is not in and of itself authoritative - but there are useful comparisons considering the gravitas attached to such works.

Modifié par frypan, 23 mai 2012 - 12:35 .

[KitaSaturnyne]

@drayfish, delta_vee

Would it be better and more accurate to say that Mass Effect allows for the customization of the narrative, rather than being able to influence its direction and purpose?

[delta_vee]

Egads, this turned into a textwall. I'm sorry. You can all tell me to shut up now.

@Kita:

Eh, I'm not sure "customization" is quite the right term, either.

Earlier upthread, drayfish called Shepard an arbitrator - of people, of conflicts, of species. Perhaps this is merely a fit of recursion, but I think arbitration suits our relationship to the narrative best. We are presented with discrete decisions to make, and we sit in judgement (using the dialogue wheel to issue our rulings). We are rewarded by the game to a degree by consistency in our philosophy (through the bonuses conferred by hewing either paragon or renegade exclusively, not vacillating between them). But we can only judge the cases brought before us.

(This, of course, would imply the ending was us being forced to rule on a technicality virtually unrelated to the case at hand. Ugh.)

@frypan:

I'll bow out of the particulars of defining art, as my boundaries are so wide as to be virtually useless taxonomically. However...

But to get back on topic and address the idea of the malleable form, I disgree with the whole Romeo and Juliet argument of Ebert & Co. The ancient authors messed with traditions when it suited them- such as the fate of Helen at Troy which could be changed when it suited an author.

For as much as I disagree with Ebert's conclusions, I don't think he was concerned with rewriting older works per se. I believe the core of his argument was that games (or at least the desires of the players of games) worked against any sort of permanent (and therefore supposedly properly affecting) loss. There's something in that argument, as I've been clumsily trying to tease out - the ability to revisit and redo encourages seeking the best possible outcome - but it may be a misunderstanding of the nature of loss in games.

I'll return to Dark Souls for a moment, if I may. The game is hard. We die a lot. However, the structure of the game penalizes us just enough to refrain from throwing our virtual lives away, but never enough to place completion any further from our reach. The only way to "lose" Dark Souls is to cease playing. The difficulty of progress, though, makes victory seem that much more valuable to us. So perhaps it may be that games are less suited to conventional tragedy, presented to the audience as a fait accompli to be digested - but games are able to contextualize and crystallize the process of triumph in a fashion no other media can match, because to some (usually large) degree the victory is ours, not the author's.

The corollary of this is found in Fapmaster5000's gloriously doomed campaign. As he said so eloquently, catharsis is only possible when it's someone else. A conventional tragic narrative in a game hurts us, the players, instead of a character we can observe from afar, and violates the sense of completion and victory we have accumulated over the course of finishing the game. If we "win" the game, only to "lose" the story, we are struck by a peculiar dissonance. I think this is what happened in ME3 - when our "victory" causes so many of us to turn away, what was it we invested ourselves for?

What confuses me so greatly about the case of ME3 is that Bioware itself already seemed to understand all this. The structure of the Suicide Mission of ME2 was brilliant, even if the specific criteria are subject to disagreement. The possibility of "winning" the game with a Pyrrhic victory, losing Shepard and everyone else, provided a baseline. And especially for those of us who took losses during our first playthrough, the triumphant success of the everybody-lives ending was as compelling as one could possibly ask. That we got something else instead seems to me to be a grand miscalculation of what we were playing towards.

Modifié par delta_vee, 23 mai 2012 - 03:27 .

[frypan]

Customisation, arbitration and if we can add, personalisation all seem to cover some of the main aspects of the relationship, and all of them seem applicable in various ways. Customisation seems applicable to the rpg elements and the character itself, arbitration to the options presented, and personalisation to the emotional attachment. there are porbably more related specifically to the combat and other success/fail aspects of the game as well.

delta_vee wrote...

I'll return to Dark Souls for a moment, if I may. The game is hard. We die a lot. However, the structure of the game penalizes us just enough to refrain from throwing our virtual lives away, but never enough to place completion any further from our reach. The only way to "lose" Dark Souls is to cease playing. The difficulty of progress, though, makes victory seem that much more valuable to us. So perhaps it may be that games are less suited to conventional tragedy, presented to the audience as a fait accompli to be digested - but games are able to contextualize and crystallize the process of triumph in a fashion no other media can match, because to some (usually large) degree the victory is ours, not the author's.

What confuses me so greatly about the case of ME3 is that Bioware itself already seemed to understand all this. The structure of the Suicide Mission of ME2 was brilliant, even if the specific criteria are subject to disagreement. The possibility of "winning" the game with a Pyrrhic victory, losing Shepard and everyone else, provided a baseline. And especially for those of us who took losses during our first playthrough, the triumphant success of the everybody-lives ending was as compelling as one could possibly ask. That we got something else instead seems to me to be a grand miscalculation of what we were playing towards.

Dark Souls requires a whole book methinks. I cannot think of another game that evoked such a combination of fear, anger and determination, combined with the relief and joy of success. Haven't felt that way since playing football (a long time ago) when real people seemed out to take my head off - in a very painful manner.

A great observation about the condition for defeat being to cease playing. This is why I suspect, no matter how much a walkthrough was used, getting to the end felt like such an achievement. Even the interference of other players played into that. I would normally despise the interference of others in an essentially SP experience, but it worked here.

They became another obstacle in line with the game's harsh nature, and defeat at their hands part of the game's dynamic. That was easier to deal with than an apparent competitive failure (and I died a lot against those guys, curse that Anor Londo level!)

As you say, tragic catharsis does not apply in such a game, however the feeling seems cathartic in nature. Not sure how to define it and whether there is applicability to ME3. The comparsion to sport certainly helps - that feeling of winning is not just competitive with others but about self fulfilment, the realisation of all the training and preparation.
 
If ME1-3 were about training and preparation for an ending, it fell apart at the end, with not only a sour payoff (as you note - that does not even match the "base" endgame of ME2) but without an exercise or affirmation of the skills learned and perfected through the game, such as the experience in choosing conversation options to match a style of play.

[edisnooM]

Forgive me if this makes no sense, or if it rehashes things already said, but this has been rattling around in my brain since Ebert was brought up in discussion.

It seems odd to me to try and judge the worth of one medium by the standards of another. For instance Mr. Ebert is quite knowledgeable about film, I would probably go so far as to say an expert, but he is not I think, a gamer. I doubt he has ever claimed the Triforce, or chased a princess through eight castles, yet evidently he feels he has sufficient preeminence to decide that video games cannot be art.

You do not critique a painting on it's sound, nor a piece of music on it's use of colour. Video games are a medium all their own, with many different forms of expression unified in single display. Do we judge the separate parts of which it is composed or together as a whole?

And has been mentioned the matter of interactivity allows the work to affect the players in a way that a book or film never could. We are taken from audience to participant, we form bonds with the avatar we control as we guide them through the adventure, we cheer at their triumphs and weep at their losses more keenly because in a way these events are happening to us as much as they.

It seems to me that rather than declaring that games can never be art, Mr. Ebert should pick up a controller and try to understand why gamers feel so strongly about this medium he considers beneath his gaze.

[KitaSaturnyne]

edisnooM wrote...

Forgive me if this makes no sense, or if it rehashes things already said, but this has been rattling around in my brain since Ebert was brought up in discussion.

It seems odd to me to try and judge the worth of one medium by the standards of another. For instance Mr. Ebert is quite knowledgeable about film, I would probably go so far as to say an expert, but he is not I think, a gamer. I doubt he has ever claimed the Triforce, or chased a princess through eight castles, yet evidently he feels he has sufficient preeminence to decide that video games cannot be art.

You do not critique a painting on it's sound, nor a piece of music on it's use of colour. Video games are a medium all their own, with many different forms of expression unified in single display. Do we judge the separate parts of which it is composed or together as a whole?

And has been mentioned the matter of interactivity allows the work to affect the players in a way that a book or film never could. We are taken from audience to participant, we form bonds with the avatar we control as we guide them through the adventure, we cheer at their triumphs and weep at their losses more keenly because in a way these events are happening to us as much as they.

It seems to me that rather than declaring that games can never be art, Mr. Ebert should pick up a controller and try to understand why gamers feel so strongly about this medium he considers beneath his gaze.

Also, I call into speculation the chosen profession of his childhood matriarchal caregiver.

God, I've been dying to say that all thread! Whew!

On another note, I'm wondering how gameplay might affect a game's validity to be considered 'art'.

For example, if running around shooting bad guys to save a kidnapped child isn't considered art, is it art if you're pressing up until your character walks to the next story point and talks about their own existential angst?

On one hand, you're just running around ending the lives of digital humans, whether there's an end goal to reach or not. In the latter, the gameplay is very minimal, it's little more than a very lightly interactive story. But, it might allow for metaphors and philosophy that would get some sort of posthumous seal of approval from Nietzsche himself. Maybe these seemingly disparate scenarios could be from the same game.

And for that matter, why do video games need to be considered art at all? Why can't they be fun, entertaining diversions and leave it at that? I'm not saying it has to be one way or the other, I'm just putting the question out there.

[edisnooM]

@KitaSaturnyne

Whoa now let's go easy on the insults, don't want to bring the mods down. :-)

I have actually wondered that myself, Does it matter if games are art? Do video games as an artform bring any more enjoyment to us as players? Is it a prestige thing so we can feel vindicated somehow, or perhaps less awkward about playing/making video games? Do we want to be able to sit around sipping espresso and discussing the deeper meaning of Kojima's use of bipedal robots?(Obviously a commentary on the plight of mimes in modern society :-) )

I will admit do have gotten into discussions about games as art before and have argued in their favour, but I'm not sure it really matters at the end of day. I play games to have fun, to explore new worlds and have grand adventures impossible in normal life, for much the same reason I read books, or watch movies. I believe games can be and are Art, but even if Ebert and the world disagree I'll still hit coin blocks with an Italian plumber.

Edit: Also in regards to gameplay I'm not really sure. Given the drastic differences in gameplay between games it might require evalutation on a case by case basis, how it relates to the whole and so forth.

Modifié par edisnooM, 23 mai 2012 - 05:25 .

[frypan]

@edisnooM and KitaSaturnyne

I agree. At the end of the day, I'll discuss the meaning and implication of games with people who do appreciate such things. If someone engages in the debate, for or against the idea that game are art, it doesnt matter as long as they come from experience with games.

If they know the content and can discuss it, that is all that matters. If they show ignorance of the topic, well, they quickly get dismissed. (Kinda what happens on this thread when the uglier posts pop up).

The likes of Ebert only matter if they can add something to the conversation. Otherwise they will increasingly grow distant from a disourse that arises naturally as game narrative matures.

Alternatively, if gaming goes down the Farmville path, (a worrying possibility at the moment) Ebert may be proven right, and gaming could end up discussed in the same way poker machine addiction is examined.

Of course I suspect we'll have both and games will be even muddier than art as a term!

[CulturalGeekGirl]

I want to take a look at classical tragedies and why they work. Tragedy is all about flawed but sympathetic characters whose flaws cause their situation to worsen until their complete downfall. The audience sees this path, but the hero does not. In Shakespearean tragedy, their downfall is not brought about by circumstances beyond their control; rather they are always free to make other choices, but they do not. And then, as A.C. Bradley states "the author dictates, they must move unheedingly to their doom."

"Unheedingly" is the key word, there. It is why traditional tragic structure does not work well for games. If we are the protagonist and the audience both, then we often heed the doom and see where it leads. If we are embodying the protagonist, driving him, and we heed the doom, then the tragedy is ruined. It just feels... stupid. If we're having Shepard's thoughts and making his decisions, and we see that they're leading to a bad place, but we follow them to that conclusion anyway... then we feel stupid.

For a Shakespearean tragedy to work, the hero must be free to make other choices... the tragedy is that he does not. In a game, if the hero is free to make other choices he must be allowed to actually take those paths, or the player feels foolish. If the hero is not free to take alternate paths it is dissatisfying in other ways. Still, it may be possible to do tragedy in games, after a fashion, but you have to put a tragic ending onto a tragedy.

And that is where the writers of Mass Effect may have erred. If you want to put this story into a classic form... this was not a tragedy. It was also not a comedy either, not really... no clever servant, and no mistaken identity. No, this was a romance. This was Cymbeline, the Winter's Tale, or the Tempest. This was an epic of far away lands, strange magics, and mythic entities. This was a mix of the courtly, with the council and the presidium, and the pastoral, Horizon and the wards. And while romances have pain and sorrow and doubt and darkness scattered throughout, there is always a happy ending. I think modern stylistich fashion seems to have conflated "works that contain tragic elements" with "tragedy", and that leads to many unfortunate artistic misadventures.

* * * * *

As for the other debate happening in this thread:

Games have to be art because there is no non-stupid definition of art that excludes them.

Even Ebert failed to provide an exclusionary definition, he just rambled about some things that games do and then mumbled about how that makes them not art. And excluding games merely because you are old and crotchety and do not understand them is nothing but standard-issue crackpotism. If participation that changes the outcome makes something not art, what about the obliteration room? What about interactive theater? What about renaissance dance recreations where newcomers are invited to learn the steps?

What games are not is... film. They're only sort-of theater. They're not-at-all comic books, and if we keep writing and evaluating them as if they are these things, we're going to develop problems.

Games need to be art because if we do not fight for our own dignity, who will? If we do not propose that we have a true culture, then there will be those who believe that intelligent society died with the generation before ours and I, personally, will not stand for that. I proudly declare myself a member of the Nintendo generation (keep your X and cold Y, your letters don't define me - but a tiny grey box that sat upon a paneled wood AV cabinet does? Yes. Shut up.)

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 23 mai 2012 - 07:28 .

[edisnooM]

@CulturalGeekGirl

I see what you're saying, but my thinking is that if someone yells at me that 1+1 = 3 there's not much point in arguing with them about it, I'll probably end up looking as foolish as they. I know what I think and believe on the issue and if somebody disagrees with me so be it.

Think about Van Gogh, unpopular in his own time his work was probably not considered art by many, but now it is and incredible at that. Also film when it first began it was not considered art, but try finding someone who will say that now.

I think that all mediums and art forms have to pass through the metaphorical fire at first, and I think by all means state your opinion and stand up for it, but I don't think it's worth becoming embroiled in fierce debates on the issue with people that disagree. Let them rage while we keep our dignity intact.

But I guess what I was really driving at in my previous post is does it matter if that label is applied to games? "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."


Edit: Also for interests sake here is a quote from Hideo Kojima on video games as art:

"The thing is, art is something that radiates the artist, the person who creates that piece of art. If 100 people walk by and a single person is captivated by whatever that piece radiates, it's art. But videogames aren't trying to capture one person. A videogame should make sure that all 100 people that play that game should enjoy the service provided by that videogame. It's something of a service. It's not art. But I guess the way of providing service with that videogame is an artistic style, a form of art."

Modifié par edisnooM, 23 mai 2012 - 08:06 .

[TobyHasEyes]

@CulturalGeekGirl

I don't want to disrespect your extensive knowledge of literature, but I do want to say that not every work of fiction has to fit into the strict templates found in classical form to be successful or enjoyable

[delta_vee]

KitaSaturnyne wrote...

For example, if running around shooting bad guys to save a kidnapped child isn't considered art, is it art if you're pressing up until your character walks to the next story point and talks about their own existential angst?

We have that. It's called Dear Esther. It's art (sort of a mixed-media digital sculpture plus spoken word), but I wouldn't call it a game.

And for that matter, why do video games need to be considered art at all? Why can't they be fun, entertaining diversions and leave it at that? I'm not saying it has to be one way or the other, I'm just putting the question out there.

Eh, there's plenty of art whose primary purpose is entirely decorative. Many of Ebert's precious films fall under that classification, for that matter. It doesn't disqualify the medium itself, nor impose some ironclad requirement of "deeper" meaning.

Edit:

@edisnooM RE: Kojima

I'm disinclined to give Kojima's opinion much weight. MGS4 was basically him talking to himself for endless stretches.

frypan wrote...

If they know the content and can discuss it, that is all that matters. If they show ignorance of the topic, well, they quickly get dismissed. (Kinda what happens on this thread when the uglier posts pop up).

Quoted for truth.

Of course I suspect we'll have both and games will be even muddier than art as a term!

 
We're already there, man. We can't even get a consensus definition of "game".

Modifié par delta_vee, 23 mai 2012 - 01:28 .

[edisnooM]

@delta_vee

Fair enough, I haven't actually played MGS4 (don't have a PS3) though I fully intend to some day. To me though Kojima's work provides some of the better examples of how games can be more than kill X number of bad guys collect X number of whatever (though they have those too), mindless actions that people seem to associate with gaming. MGS3 for instance is an excellent example of how you do a bittersweet ending, and the bad ending in MGS provided exceptional motivation for beating it again to get the good ending. Also if it matters that quote is from 2006, two years before MGS4 came out.


Edit: I was just thinking maybe I should clarify what exactly I was saying.

I don't think we shouldn't say games are Art, and if you want to do so feel absolutely free. What I was more saying is that affixing that label to the medium doesn't really change anything. 

Even if some sort of Grand Art Council declared that games are not art, I think that Todd Howard, Shigeru Miyamoto, Peter Molyneux, Casey Hudson, all the designers would still keep making games, all the companies would still keep putting games out, and gamers would still keep playing games.

We do not need a generic term like "Art" to define the value of the medium, and we can exist without it.

Modifié par edisnooM, 23 mai 2012 - 08:38 .

[drayfish]

Everyone ready for a self-indulgent rant? Because I bought this soapbox in from the car, and they only let you hire out these megaphones for the day. So, ready? Excellent. Testing. Testing. Is this coming across self-righteous enough up the back there? Can you hear me being judgemental? Okay. Here goes.
 

I think anyone arrogant enough to arbitrarily dismiss the possibility of games being Art based solely upon their own inability to fit the medium into some preconceived notion of what Art must be, or definition of what it needs to have in order to earn the title, reveals more about their limitations and ignorance than it does the failings of games. Someone like Ebert (man, he's getting a drubbing today, and deservedly so) is a critic staring at the birth of something new, incapable of seeing its significance because his definitions and designations of Art are so ingrained that they have already begun the steady decline toward deterioration. But Art should never be shackled by the expectations of the old. Art is innovative, progressive. It manifests human experience, and we are creatures of adaptation and evolution to new stimuli. A contemporary Art that remains mired in old thinking loses the capacity to meaningfully reflect anything of our existence back to us.
 
And if, as most any definition if it suggests, Art should communicate the nature of the human condition, then it must acknowledge that we are creatures of play. Play is how we develop language (thank you, Grover); how we learn social structure; how we develop our motor skills. Storytelling is a manifestation of imaginative play; theatre is an expression of imitative play; music; visual art; dance; all have their basis in the freedom and modulation of play. And it is arguably only now, in the birth of this new medium of videogames, that we can see one of the most natural and engaging forms of crafted play in our history. To dismiss this as childish fancy (as critics once did with graphic novels); or merely a tacky commercial product (as they once did with cinema), or a thoughtless leisure activity (as they once did with the novel form), only further perpetuates the same tired reactionary fear of the new that has consistently plagued all Artistic development.
 
I guess I shall leave it to my friend Anton Ego (a character from an animated film; yet another medium once patronisingly dismissed as being only for children) to describe:
 

'In many ways the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and themselves to our judgement. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face is that in the grand scheme of things the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something: and that is in the discovery and defence of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent. New creations. The new needs friends.'
 
- Anton Ego (Ratatouille)

I believe that we need to acknowledge that games can be Art (even of not all of them are), because that sad truth is that if we don't defend the new then no one else will.

Modifié par drayfish, 24 mai 2012 - 12:04 .

[drayfish]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...
And that is where the writers of Mass Effect may have erred. If you want to put this story into a classic form... this was not a tragedy. It was also not a comedy either, not really... no clever servant, and no mistaken identity. No, this was a romance. This was Cymbeline, the Winter's Tale, or the Tempest. This was an epic of far away lands, strange magics, and mythic entities. This was a mix of the courtly, with the council and the presidium, and the pastoral, Horizon and the wards. And while romances have pain and sorrow and doubt and darkness scattered throughout, there is always a happy ending. I think modern stylistich fashion seems to have conflated "works that contain tragic elements" with "tragedy", and that leads to many unfortunate artistic misadventures.

@ CulturalGeekGirl:
 
Okay. 
 
So, I want to say this in as mature and sensible a manner as I can. I want to put it in the right context, and express it fairly, because it's extremely important, and I don't want there to be any misunderstandings.
 
What I want to say to you, CulturalGeekGirl, now, at this moment, is: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...
 
And as an addendum: ohmygoodlygoodnessholyyesgodyes!
 
 
...Ahem. Yes.
 
By which I mean, thank you for finding a way in which to align the universe of Mass Effect (which may-or-may-not comprise my favourite ever videogames; spoiler alert: they are!) with The Tempest (which may-or-may-not be – but most certainly, absolutely without question is) my very favourite piece of literature ever crafted in the whole – whatchacallit? – history of the world.
 
And while I agree with TobyHasEyes (and indeed with you yourself, as you so eloquently stated it) that Games need not fit into conventional or classical forms in order to validate their communicative potential, I'm personally delighted to go with the allusion. A Shakespearean Romance play – brimming with darkness and passion and space magic (the biotic kind, not the tri-coloured variety), but always infused with hope, and a deliverance from ruination through the betterment of the human soul.
 
So you win. Whatever it is that we're playing. I vote you.  For the winning. You win all the things.  You win-doer, you.
 

Although sadly, because of those final scenes on the Crucible, I fear that one reference within the play might be more fitting than I would wish it to be. Because when, in the final act, the Tempest's Miranda looks out upon a collection of drunks, murderers, thieves, fools and frauds and gushes with wonder: 'O Brave New World that has such people in't', Shakespeare is loading his work with the most palpable possible irony. Miranda has entirely misunderstood the dark capacities of these figures, and in her blissful ignorance, mistakes them for something divine. That image, now that you've cited the likeness, brings to mind that final scene of Joker shuffling out into the light from the shattered Normandy.  He is met with a beauteous sight, filled with promise, but it is perhaps a vision of a new utopian world that, like Miranda, naively mistakes the moral sacrifices necessary to bring it into being...
 
...Okay, now I'm depressed again.
 
But Caliban! Yay!

Modifié par drayfish, 23 mai 2012 - 11:21 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

edisnooM wrote...

@CulturalGeekGirl
I think that all mediums and art forms have to pass through the metaphorical fire at first, and I think by all means state your opinion and stand up for it, but I don't think it's worth becoming embroiled in fierce debates on the issue with people that disagree. Let them rage while we keep our dignity intact.

But I guess what I was really driving at in my previous post is does it matter if that label is applied to games? "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

Edit: Also for interests sake here is a quote from Hideo Kojima on video games as art:

"The thing is, art is something that radiates the artist, the person who creates that piece of art. If 100 people walk by and a single person is captivated by whatever that piece radiates, it's art. But videogames aren't trying to capture one person. A videogame should make sure that all 100 people that play that game should enjoy the service provided by that videogame. It's something of a service. It's not art. But I guess the way of providing service with that videogame is an artistic style, a form of art."

I find this amusing, because Hideo Kojima is the one major Nintendo creator whose products I do not really enjoy. If they're art, that's ok, because art is subjective. If they're a service, then he has failed in providing that service like whoa.  (That was a joke)

That said, I lied when I said there was no non-stupid definition of art that excludes games. I thought of one midway through writing, so I took my rhetorical liberties. There is a school of thought that says games aren't art...

they're architecture.

Architecture lives in a strange netherworld of art and engineering... one that constrains it but also makes it more generically useful and concerned with function than most art.  Both architecture and gaming are primarily focused with achieving a purpose (shelter or amusement), and evoking emotion or achieving beauty are by their very nature a secondary consideration. Still, there are some pieces of architecture that are art first, or a mix of art and sculpture. The same is true with games: there are games that whose primary motives are emotional engagement, and these sit in that same superposition. Or perhaps we should look at architecture's younger sibling, design. When does a chair stop being a chair and start being art? When does a sculptural table become a sculpture... when you can no longer effectively rest objects on top of it? Is something only art when you remove all functions beyond pure aesthetic joy?

Maybe not every game is art, in the same way that not every building is art, not every chair is art, not every long-form-written-word-thing is art. An instruction manual is often not art, but it can be (see the old Fallout games). Perhaps some games are closer to pure design and others are closer to pure art. At this point we may be dancing about architecture. I don't even know anymore.

I still think most games are art, or at least contain art. As for why this is important to me... well... the word "art" is important to me. I had kind of a renaissance childhood: I was surrounded by painting, singing, dancing, theater, good books, all that stuff. I've been doing art my whole life, art is fun and important and great, and I don't think I've stopped doing art because now I do most of my work in video games. Yes, a lot of what I do is architecture or... perhaps a better word is "Imagineering." I spend a lot of time thinking about movement through space, and landmarks to draw the eye, and immersion as well as thinking about words and colors and sounds.

We may not need the term art, but we shouldn't let them take it from us, either. Yes we'd continue to create without it, but it is our word every bit as much as it is theirs. Abandoning the word to their stifling machinations isn't fair to art.

And now I've anthropomorphized a word and suggested we need to rescue it from the clutches of an evil overlord. I think I'm... I should be done for a while. I was going to go on about the lessons we can learn from classical romances some more, but instead I'm going to go shopping. Then I'm going to go home and reread the Tempest. It's been too long.

(Oh also, I have DiabloIII now. If anyone wants to play, PM me your handle and I will try to figure out friends.)

[frypan]

The art debate always reminds me of Schroeder from Peanuts, banging on his piano proclaiming "art, art, art" after being asked to play at Lucy's birthday party. I fall generally into the "games are art" school, but the image makes it hard for me to get too passionate or take Ebert and the like too seriously, even though I should.

Moving on..if I can be even more frivolous, I have a general question about the intensity of people's gaming experience. Did anyone ever dream about the ME games, or rather, remember doing so?

My presence here attests to a fairly intense experience with the game, but I have never dreamed about it. I've dreamt about other immersive or intense games such as Dark Souls, but not this one.

Be not concerned either - this is no attempt to get all mystical as I have a very mechanical view of the dream process. Just wondering - in the case of Dark Souls I know the dreams seemed to centre around tactile experiences and the intensity with which combat was fought, but am wondering if the emotional experience had a similar effect on folks, manifested through conversations with in game characters and the like - things I know I've done with movies or books.

I have also dreamt about tabletop rpg situations, but never, as far as I can recall, computer rpgs, including DAO which is one of my favourites. Is this indicative of a different level of engagement, or simply the ability to walk away at the end of a session without anything that requires interpetation or mulling over? As I have posted previously, my playthroughs have been an essentially passive acceptance of the milieu and situations, which may be one explanation for the lack of dreams.

If this is too silly, feel free to ignore the post - I have a few spare minutes and this was quicker than a rant about quick time events and game immersion, something I get very crabby about (hmm, crabby - another term that had its roots in Peanuts, I'm on a roll!)

EDIT: In an attempt to make the post a little more relevant to the ending of the game, the amount of head scratching we've all done would suggest some serious unresolve issues and possible sleep disturbances - lack of sleep being something a few folks on other posts did mention. 

Modifié par frypan, 24 mai 2012 - 02:00 .

[Dean_the_Young]

I don't have anything to add, but I do want to say:

CGG, your posts are a pleasure of thoughtful introspection and intelligence as always. Keep it up.

[frypan]

Oops - the above post wasn't in reply to yours CultureGeekGirl. I only posted as things seemed quiet.

Your comment "Games have to be art because there is no non-stupid definition of art that excludes them." was enough for me to declare my undying support.

Im all thrown now architecture has been raised- that too is a compelling idea.

[edisnooM]

I sort of feel like I've been arguing devil's advocate on the art issue, and I want to reiterate that I believe games can be and are art. It just seems that people become so fixated on declaring them such, as though that will somehow solve every problem and make the world see games as equal to any other form.


@frypan

I don't think I've had any dreams about ME3, though I don't tend to remember my dreams often so it's possible I have. The only time I can remember for certain dreaming about a game was Earthbound. There was a puzzle I couldn't solve, and I woke up in the middle of the night with a solution. Interestingly the solution did work but for a different part of the game and not the one I had been stuck on.

[frypan]

edisnooM wrote...

@frypan

I don't think I've had any dreams about ME3, though I don't tend to remember my dreams often so it's possible I have. The only time I can remember for certain dreaming about a game was Earthbound. There was a puzzle I couldn't solve, and I woke up in the middle of the night with a solution. Interestingly the solution did work but for a different part of the game and not the one I had been stuck on.

Thats interesting as it is exactly the kind of experience I had with Dark Souls. Puzzle problems, gameplay and the like end up insinuating themesleves into sleep, but not the story or emotional elements. Considering how my conscious experience of various events in the game was so intense, I would have expected something else. Maybe others will report different experiences.

Like the idea that yours led to a solution too, even if it wasnt the one you hoped for. That has happened to me with research or work related issues as well.

Maybe the ME3 writers are dreaming about the end, and someone will wake up with an epiphany that solves all the problems with game, ending, fans and the third party stakeholders.

[drayfish]

@ edisnooM:

It's good to have a Devil's Advocate. Keep it up. It's an incredible service. Both dynamic debate and the opportunity to explore the foundations of our beliefs are always welcome. Otherwise things get pretty boring as everyone nods silently and hears the clock tick...