I am continuing this conversation here in a new thread, as not to derail the Braid's ending discussion thread.

On the last episode of "Games Are Art":
MattBodega said:

"Vaxadrin said:

"One of the definitive aspects of postmodern art is it being left intentionally vague and giving the participants free reign over their own interpretations, much like an aforementioned David Lynch film.  Just look at all the different ideas in this thread.  Given that videogames have come into existence after the start of the postmodern era, it seems really fitting that they embrace this kind of art form.  I hate to jump on the "games are art" bandwagon, because I feel that ever since there's been pixel sprites in NES games they have been "art", but this is something on a different level entirely, and I wholeheartedly embrace it."

I'm in the totally opposite camp as you, Vaxadrin. Despite how much I wanted to embrace gaming as a legitimate art form(if only to prove the medium had some intellectual value to my parents), I'd come to think that almost all games aspire to be entertainment and nothing else. Rarely does this medium offer anything up simply for edification, instead hoping to bedazzle us with sights and sounds before walking away. The reason so few games have strived to be something greater than entertainment isn't, as one might think, because of the very early corporatization of the industry (though that certainly plays a factor). Rather, I think that creating a working, relatively bug-free game is such a technical challenge that even getting a program running requires a team of genius programmers to make it go. To finish a game, you need the technical people first and foremost, so very few games ever have the opportunity to aspire to more.

The few other "Art" games over the past 10 years always succeed by putting an increased focus on unique art design, or unconventional mechanics and a great aesthetic, but those almost always comes at the expense of some technical facet of the game design. Rez is an amazing experience that makes your heart swell the second you realize what’s going on, but, from the gameplay perspective, it’s a on-rails shooter in the vein of Panzer Dragoon, Bland at best and boring at worst. It's amazing, but players to look past the gameplay to enjoy it.

Same goes for Shadow of the Colossus": few people would deny that game's incredible scope, wonderful design, and dark ending rank among the finest the medium has produced. Again, however, that increased creativity caused other aspects of the game to suffer: the framerate is atrocious throughout, rarely above 20 FPS and in a constant state of flux. The gameplay mechanics are interesting and different from any other "platformer" or any game to feature climbing period. But the controls are wonky, awkward to adjust to, and are even more difficult to manage thanks to the game's unhelpful camera. Its one of the greatest game's of all time....but, really, that could very well occur once you stop playing it.

That’s what makes Braid so remarkable: no one aspect of the game in anyway intrudes or detracts from any other aspect. The luscious art design in Braid doesn't in any way hurt the gameplay: on the contrary, it enhances it, makes the player enjoy exploring each individual environment in the game while never fooling them into thinking that some part of the background is important to solving a puzzle. The gameplay is wonderful, starting with rock-solid platforming mechanics and the time control ability, but slowly evolves and meditates on the gameplay over time, so it never becomes stale. The music is almost too wonderful sometimes, always enhancing the levels while never distracting the player too much. And the story is dark, hallucinatory, laden with more metaphor in a single paragraph than most games dare have in the entirety of the product, leaving the player with masterful, iconic imagery that can, pretty easily, connect to their own lives and play styles. But the story never "interferes" with the gameplay, never gets in the way of solving the puzzle and, indeed, helps the player to understand why the time mechanic changes from level to level.

And, of course, there's that ending, that moment when the world seems to stop, just for an instant, and, in one brilliant flash, the story becomes perfectly clear. But it doesn't become perfectly clear: we know what the ending is, but the player is still left to guess what it means, to try and find some nugget of wisdom, some truth to take with them.

Braid is our medium's Citizen Kane, a remarkable gem that may never reveal every single one of its secrets. The game's ending is the iconic Rosebud from that film: a moment of remarkable clarity, soon superceeded by a million more questions.

Braid doesn't pander to the audience. It trusts players, trusts them to complete the puzzles, to listen to the soundtrack, to enjoy the visuals, to find the deeper meaning in the game. A legion of  360 users, writing the game off as a "bad Mario clone" to go play more Soul Calibur, will never understand that final irony. How quickly they leave a worth wild opportunity, a monumental achievement in the medium, to go play something that doesn't have a shred of intellectual depth, for fear of "insulting" the player.

Braid is a balence between gameplay and expierience that is unmatched by any product released to date.

....boy, that post got out of hand fast. I just like that game so much that I start writing and can't stop, even if I make a leap of logic that might seem insane!

"

I think games were moving in this direction before Braid. Shadow of the Colossus is an example that I will likely use forever. The game has an amazing soundtrack, brilliant atmosphere, and a minimalist story that tells subtle, yet deep, tragic tale. The gameplay in SoTC is completely unique, and goes beyond the PS2 hardware. Okami is another example, though I don't speak of it much, as I found it boring.
I don't understand why some feel games are not art, but it may simply be a matter of time before people open themselves to the idea.

For me the first "Art" Game was Ico............A Classic.

I actually gave a presentation for my English class about games as an art form. Used titles like Portal and Bioshock.

I definitely agree (you know...since I said it.....in that big quote at the top....Thanks Vaxadrin!) that Shadow of the Collosus and Rez and even Ico(which I played too late in the PS2's life cycle to really enjoy) have helped move gaming forward as a legitimate art form.
However(as I said in that big stupid quote) all of those games suffer on the technical side in order to stand out as "art". Shadow of The Collosus could barely run on the ancient PS2 hardware: it was beautiful, but it was a World in Frames. While the game is wonderful to play, the actual control scheme is awkward, and the camera has to be monitored closely by the player.
Rez is as wonderful and powerful a game as has ever been made, but, technically, its a rail shooter, and a borring one at that. Strip away the amzing design and the power of synestasia, and the magic is gone.

Now, I'm not "bashing" on those games in any capcity: I LOVE  Shadow of the Colossus and Rez. However, Braid is, ultimatly, a more balanced, succesful step into the "art game". No part of its design has been sacrafised. The Art Design doesn't make the gameplay worse, and vice versa. It's a more complete, full game than those of us who seek out games for edifcation have come to expect, and thats what makes it such a monmumental, revelatory game expierience.

certain games i would feel qualify as art, but something like ninja gaiden, i would never ever consider as art. Bioshock, i feel is the game that I would qualify as art that would be the most recent example in peoples minds. It had a great story with on of the most bizarre twists ive ever seen in a book, movie, or game. It made me actually feel regret for things that i did, but not until way way after i had done the acts, and i found out I wasnt doing what i thought i was. It also had an amazing atmosphere that captured the vibe of its time period rather well, and blended that atmosphere with a post-apocolyptic like city, that made the game have a beautifully creepy vibe. That i think would qualify a game as art, but like i said before, i dont think video games as an entertainment meduim can be called art, but certain games definitely rise above the rest and can qualify as art.

I would say the intricate recreation of complex martial arts, complex movesets, and split second precision timing in Ninja Gaiden elevates it to an artistic level.  Art doesn't begin & end with the audio-visual aesthetic.

Art is, of course entirely subjective and in the eyes of the beholder.

I see art as anything that is created by someone for the sake of stimulating the senses of an audience. So, all games, pictures, paintings, sculptures, movies, songs, writings etc. Are art to me.

It all depends on your interpretation on the concept of art. If something delivers a meaningful message by means other than words than I would consider it art. So by that definition I would say that some games are art but not all.

First, I'd like to say that I really liked what I read at MattBodega's post, I pretty much agree with what you said.

But one thing that I see a lot o people saying, not only here but everywhere, is the subjectivity of what is art. See, something can't be considered art jst because it seem to be in the eye of some individuals, it has some, though flexible, limits.

I can speak more freely about literature at that, since it is something I study and have more closely to me than videogames. For example, it really doesn't mather how much you loved Da Vinci code or all those Tom Clancy's books. They may be books, yes, but they are not literature, they have no literary value whatsoever and, therefore, are not art. They may be fun, but that doesn't change their hollowness and lack of concepts. They are empty and, personaly, I find them to be very bad written.

The same can be applied to games. I'll take the example someone mentioned above. Ninja Gaiden is a very fun game, yes. And though it indeed has some value due to its technical aspect, it is not art. It is a very well done form of pure entertainment. It is much the same as a Tom Clancy book.

Do take notice that this does not take away the main purpose for which we play these games, they are fun. We enjoy ourselfs while playing them, but we surely do not grasp any form of higher knowledge or change as a human being while playing them. I think this is what most games still lack, it is what still makes most people outised of our realm to just look at it as "child play".

There are exceptions, of course there are. But I do not belive that the most producers and game designers really care about this aspect of their games. Hideo Kojima himself siad that he does not beieve Metal Gear 4 to be art. Maybe it is just false modesty, maybe he is right, or maybe he just doesn't know. I think it is something that is changing, it is on its way to become something or, maybe, fail completely.I say it has a great chance of fail because, hell, just look at the cinema. It is barely standing on its legs, it probably is nowadays farther than videogames are to being art.

One thing though, is that I do not believe that entertainment can not be art. All art was born, primarily, as entertaiment. But I do differ things that are just pure entertainment, like in the cases of Ninja Gaiden and Tom Clancy's books.

That's sort of an elitist attitude, though, don't you think?  If we have a rigid set of criteria that define what can & cannot be art, doesn't that defeat the whole purpose?  If entertainment is not art does that mean art cannot be entertaining, or are they not mutually exclusive?

Art imitates life, and actually, Tom Clancy's books seem to become increasingly relevant every day as we observe the geopolitical stage.

Killer 7 is a game I feel qualifies as art, specifically postmodern art. A practical definition of postmodern style that I've seen is a work that takes classic elements and restructures them to be something different. I'd argue that Killer 7 does this with the FPS mechanics by making it the "shoot" moment into something much more tense and dissonant. I don't believe Braid is the first art game but perhaps it's the first popular art game.

The most recent game I played that just made me go "Wow, that's art, and it's beautiful" was Bioshock, for obvious reasons.  Aside from the game-play, the art and design was great, the story was great, and the characters were great.  It's one of the few games that actually made me a little teary-eyed towards the end.

Anyways, for games to be considered art, I think they need to be able to be proven as proficient in several categories, like art and design (obviously), story, acting, and characters, as well as game-play.  So I guess it just needs to be as good as Bioshock.

The most recent game I played that just made me go "Wow, that's art, and it's beautiful" was Bioshock, for obvious reasons.  Aside from the game-play, the art and design was great, the story was great, and the characters were great.  It's one of the few games that actually made me a little teary-eyed towards the end.

Anyways, for games to be considered art, I think they need to be able to be proven as proficient in several categories, like art and design (obviously), story, acting, and characters, as well as game-play.  So I guess it just needs to be as good as Bioshock.

"I definitely agree (you know...since I said it.....in that big quote at the top....Thanks Vaxadrin!) that Shadow of the Collosus and Rez and even Ico(which I played too late in the PS2's life cycle to really enjoy) have helped move gaming forward as a legitimate art form.
However(as I said in that big stupid quote) all of those games suffer on the technical side in order to stand out as "art". Shadow of The Collosus could barely run on the ancient PS2 hardware: it was beautiful, but it was a World in Frames. While the game is wonderful to play, the actual control scheme is awkward, and the camera has to be monitored closely by the player.
Rez is as wonderful and powerful a game as has ever been made, but, technically, its a rail shooter, and a borring one at that. Strip away the amzing design and the power of synestasia, and the magic is gone.

Now, I'm not "bashing" on those games in any capcity: I LOVE  Shadow of the Colossus and Rez. However, Braid is, ultimatly, a more balanced, succesful step into the "art game". No part of its design has been sacrafised. The Art Design doesn't make the gameplay worse, and vice versa. It's a more complete, full game than those of us who seek out games for edifcation have come to expect, and thats what makes it such a monmumental, revelatory game expierience."

"MattBodega said:

"I definitely agree (you know...since I said it.....in that big quote at the top....Thanks Vaxadrin!) that Shadow of the Collosus and Rez and even Ico(which I played too late in the PS2's life cycle to really enjoy) have helped move gaming forward as a legitimate art form.
However(as I said in that big stupid quote) all of those games suffer on the technical side in order to stand out as "art". Shadow of The Collosus could barely run on the ancient PS2 hardware: it was beautiful, but it was a World in Frames. While the game is wonderful to play, the actual control scheme is awkward, and the camera has to be monitored closely by the player.
Rez is as wonderful and powerful a game as has ever been made, but, technically, its a rail shooter, and a borring one at that. Strip away the amzing design and the power of synestasia, and the magic is gone.

Now, I'm not "bashing" on those games in any capcity: I LOVE  Shadow of the Colossus and Rez. However, Braid is, ultimatly, a more balanced, succesful step into the "art game". No part of its design has been sacrafised. The Art Design doesn't make the gameplay worse, and vice versa. It's a more complete, full game than those of us who seek out games for edifcation have come to expect, and thats what makes it such a monmumental, revelatory game expierience."

I'd argue that there was nothing wrong with Rez's game design. When you really consider it, the only difference between the design of Rez and Braid is that Braid was difficult. Ultimately the gameplay is very simplistic in both as puzzles aren't even technically a challenge once a solution is determined. Thus I think Rez served to show players that it takes more than just gameplay to create an art game, it takes gameplay that integrates every other aspect of the medium well."

Rez is an excellent score attack game...you must memorize enemy patterns and try to get as high multipliers as possible.  There's a decent amount of depth to it, especially considering you have to try to prolong the boss fights for as long as possible.  I have no problem with it's design.  I think that's just a matter of taste.

...but Braid is good.

In my opinion, games have been art for a long time. It's silly for people to say videogames can't be art, because you ask those very same people to define what art is and they can't give you an answer. "Art can't be defined," they'll say... Okay then, you can't argue that videogames can't be art then.

I'd also argue that entertainment can't be art. Life's not like it used to be, people can't get by on minimum payments. Hardly anything is made without expecting some type of payment. Films, books, artwork, games, you name it. Most things can't be made because a person wants to, they need to have funds to do it. Videogames are meant to be entertainment while at the same time executing artistic qualities (some not all), it's not fair to say that it can't be art because it is meant to be entertaining... What else could it be?

"That's sort of an elitist attitude, though, don't you think?  If we have a rigid set of criteria that define what can & cannot be art, doesn't that defeat the whole purpose?  If entertainment is not art does that mean art cannot be entertaining, or are they not mutually exclusive?

Art imitates life, and actually, Tom Clancy's books seem to become increasingly relevant every day as we observe the geopolitical stage."

So then by your standards postmodernism isn't actually a form of art at all?

I scoff at art elitism.  Who are a select few to say "only these 3 books are art because we say so, and everything else is pedestrian" just because they read some textbooks by people of like mind and stared at some Rembrant paintings for a few hours?

I have to say, to me art is what I think is art (or you think is art), so something very individual. There is no point in discussing it like there is some clear-cut definition of art, imho. I think it might even be dangerous to say "this is art and this is not". Those sentiments change over time (something Braid shoul tell you, time changes everything ;) ). Just look at the pulp SciFi stories of the earlier 20th century. A lot of those stories are now considered art, although they were seen as garbage and kid's stories when they were first published. I agree with Vaxadrin to a certain degree, I don't really think it's elitism, I think that, for example my English professors, are very serious about this and don't see themselves as elitists, but as scientists. The problem is, that they have very strict rules as to what is literature and what is not. When our professor talked about Thomas Morus "Utopia" (the first SciFi story ever) and did not mention even the slightest impact it had on SciFi literature and later, concerning Anthony Burgress "A clockwork Orange" said that he does not know a lot about this genre, I was in pain, because to me, SciFi is probably the most important "genre" of the 20th century. But that's just how it is. Art is not definable. Finally society as a whole influences what is seen as art, it's more of a democratic decision, than an elitist one.

"LuckyWanderDude said:

"MattBodega said:

"I definitely agree (you know...since I said it.....in that big quote at the top....Thanks Vaxadrin!) that Shadow of the Collosus and Rez and even Ico(which I played too late in the PS2's life cycle to really enjoy) have helped move gaming forward as a legitimate art form.
However(as I said in that big stupid quote) all of those games suffer on the technical side in order to stand out as "art". Shadow of The Collosus could barely run on the ancient PS2 hardware: it was beautiful, but it was a World in Frames. While the game is wonderful to play, the actual control scheme is awkward, and the camera has to be monitored closely by the player.
Rez is as wonderful and powerful a game as has ever been made, but, technically, its a rail shooter, and a borring one at that. Strip away the amzing design and the power of synestasia, and the magic is gone.

Now, I'm not "bashing" on those games in any capcity: I LOVE  Shadow of the Colossus and Rez. However, Braid is, ultimatly, a more balanced, succesful step into the "art game". No part of its design has been sacrafised. The Art Design doesn't make the gameplay worse, and vice versa. It's a more complete, full game than those of us who seek out games for edifcation have come to expect, and thats what makes it such a monmumental, revelatory game expierience."

I'd argue that there was nothing wrong with Rez's game design. When you really consider it, the only difference between the design of Rez and Braid is that Braid was difficult. Ultimately the gameplay is very simplistic in both as puzzles aren't even technically a challenge once a solution is determined. Thus I think Rez served to show players that it takes more than just gameplay to create an art game, it takes gameplay that integrates every other aspect of the medium well."

I do, to some degree, agree with you, LuckyWanderDude. Both games do have very simple. almost stripped down design(Rez is the bare essentials of the Rail Shooter, while Braid is a platformer in the 1980's sense of the genre).
The key, I think, that makes Braid all the more interesting is that it doesn't sacrifice its technical proficientcy-and by technical, I do mean gameplay design- to make its artistic statement. Rez is an amazing expierience, but its a rail shooter, and a rail shooter throughout. It doesn't modify the actual mechanics of the genre, and the gameplay could  very easily cease to be compelling without the game's wonderful soundtrack, amazing visuals, and all around solid implementaion of music into the gameplay.

Braid, I think, is a different animal, because each of the aspects- the expierience and the gameplay- could easily hold their own, and together only complement each other. Braid may be a simple platformer, but it constantly evolves its one key mechanic, meditating on a use ot the time reversal in one level and then meditating on it again in the next world. As a platformer, its downright amazing. As an art game, Braid is triumphent-it's filled with weird, obsucre, hallucinatory metaphors and imagry, and never tries to explain it, merely adding more and more imagry. It's ending reveals everything and nothing about the actual story in Braid, letting the player themselves try to decide "what it all means". If Braid was a story driven game meshed into a simple platformer, it still be pretty cool.

But Braid is a game of balence, where gameplay and expierience work together to enhance the other. Braid is a more "complete" game than other "art games" to come before it: it doesn't suffer in the art or music or story design to make the game "play better", nor does the game ignore the actual mechanics to make the game "feel" more compelling. It's that balence which is, ultimatly, the goal of all the best games, where gameplay and expierience exist harmoniously, and few games period have ever managed to pull that off."

"So then by your standards postmodernism isn't actually a form of art at all?

I scoff at art elitism.  Who are a select few to say "only these 3 books are art because we say so, and everything else is pedestrian" just because they read some textbooks by people of like mind and stared at some Rembrant paintings for a few hours?"

I personally think that having a medium where the people's interpretation of its meaning speaks more about themselves than the work they are discussing, is a welcome addition to paintings of trees & lakes.

As for a specific definition of art, I just grabbed this definition from dictionary.com:
skilled workmanship, execution, or agency, as distinguished from nature.

I'd say that describes videogames (some of them) pretty well. :)

I think the problem is there is no wide spread accepted definition as art. Let alone when transferred to video games. Art is either what you make as art, or what your told to be art by defintion. It seems to be ambigous in description as it is in execution.

IMO it started with Max Payne.

Art is a subjective concept, so this discussion is a little pointless, but I see all games as art, same as I see all music as art. All fantasy is art, imo. Porn is art. The spoken word is art. Art stimulates our mind or our emotions or our other senses. Art is simply a small, powerful word for "expression".

"Art is a subjective concept, so this discussion is a little pointless, but I see all games as art, same as I see all music as art. All fantasy is art, imo. Porn is art. The spoken word is art. Art stimulates our mind or our emotions or our other senses. Art is simply a small, powerful word for "expression"."

"Art is a subjective concept, so this discussion is a little pointless, but I see all games as art, same as I see all music as art. All fantasy is art, imo. Porn is art. The spoken word is art. Art stimulates our mind or our emotions or our other senses. Art is simply a small, powerful word for "expression"."

Well I didn't say it had to be quality, did I? :P

olol true i guess but it isn't expresiion it's just... manufacturing a game

Its like a wave man. Breaking over us with knowledge.

Like wow man.

Games do not manufacture themselves. When you include the programmers and other developers, the discussion gets a little more complicated. Are programmers artists? The word art can be synonymous with the word craft. Programmers are more craftsmen than people who specialize in expression, but everyone expresses themselves. You could so argue that everyone is an artist.

Really, I don't like looking at things in an elitist way. Some people may say my description of art lowers the value of "real art". That's really kind of silly, don't you think? Art is some silly human trick, after all. What is real art? What value does it have? What gives it this magical value? There is nothing that makes the kind of art I like better than the kind of art you like or vice versa.