Is video game an art? [Archive]

View Full Version : Is video game an art?

Leet Eriksson

08-22-2006, 19:51

Based on what i read, this guy is claiming its not an art, and thus violence should not be depicted, becuase LOL THINK ABOUT THE CHILDREN.

So orgahs, a change from realpolitik to video game politics, while a very arbitary issue, i'd still like to hear opinions on it.

http://www.collegenews.org/x5107.xml

Degrees in Video Game Design "Kidnap American Education"

by Ted Rueter, Assistant Professor of Political Science at DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana

Coming soon to a college or university near you: a major in designing violent video games. The New York Times reports that such august institutions as the University of Southern California, Georgia Tech, Carnegie Mellon, the New School, and the University of Central Florida are now offering undergraduate and master's degrees in joysticks and video predators. The International Game Developers Association notes that there are more than 100 North American universities offering programs in video game design, with many more overseas.

Video game design as a college major? It's yet another sign of the coming of the apocalypse. Schools of higher learning are simply cashing in on a fad that is destructive to society.

Electronic Arts, the nation's largest game maker, has led the way in encouraging ivy-stained institutions to teach the design of such games as Grand Theft Auto, World of Warcraft, Doom, Wolfenstein 3D, and Mortal Kombat. Last year, the company contributed millions of dollars to establish a three-year master of fine arts program in "interactive entertainment" at USC.

Video games are big business--rivaling the movie industry. In 2004, video game sales totaled $9.9 billion. Electronic Arts alone employs 4,300 video game makers.

Video games also have a grip on the younger generation. Surveys indicate that young boys spend an average of 13 hours a week playing video games. For girls, the figure is 5 hours per week. Studies indicate that the amount of time spent playing video games is associated with lower grades.

The central problem with video games is their violence. The National Coalition on Television Violence (NCTV) has developed a ratings system to evaluate the violent content of video games, ranging from XUnfit, XV, and RV (highly violent) to PG and G. NCTV surveyed 176 Nintendo video games. They gave the XUnfit rating to 11 percent of games. Forty-three percent received an XV and 15 percent earned an RV. A different survey found that 40 of the 47 top-rated Nintendo video games had violence as a theme.

Unfortunately, children seem to enjoy violence in video games. In a 1993 study, psychologists asked 357 seventh and eighth graders for their preferences among five categories of video games. Thirty-two percent said they preferred games that involved fantasy violence.

There is evidence that exposure to violent video games increases aggression. Psychologists Craig Anderson and Karen Dill examined the behaviors and attitudes of 227 college students who play video games. "Our study reveals that young men who are habitually aggressive may be especially vulnerable to the aggression-enhancing effects of repeated exposure to violent video games," said Anderson. "Even a brief exposure to violent video games can temporarily increase aggressive behavior in all types of participants." Anderson also notes that "violent video games provide a forum for learning and practicing aggressive solutions to conflict situations."

Fifty years of research have established the negative consequences of watching violent television and movies. However, violent video games may have even stronger effects on children's aggression, because (1) the games are highly engaging and interactive; (2) the games reward violent behavior; and (3) children repeat these behaviors over and over as they play.

In addition, the content of video games may influence children's atititudes toward gender roles. In Nintendo games, women are often depicted as victims. The covers of Nintendo games show males striking a dominant pose. Many games are based upon a scenario in which a woman is kidnapped or has to be rescued

Offering degrees in video game design is to kidnap American education. Higher education needs to be rescued from such destructive nonsense.

What say you? is it art or is it not art?

Blodrast

08-22-2006, 20:08

eh.... the question whether it is or not something worth of a degree is barely addressed in the article. Instead, the author nicely launches into a rant about how evil video games are, and how they are destroying our children...

I wish we had a puking smiley.

So, no offense to you, faisal (it is you, right ?), my disgust is directed to the article and its fanatical holier-than-thou author...

"There is a connection between kids who play games and lower grades".... BULL****.
How about a connection between lazy kids and low grades ? How about a connection between kids who spend too much time doing anything but homework and lower grades ?
We should make it illegal for kids to hang out in malls, playgrounds, watch TV, and generally do anything other than homework - because, if you do "serious" research on it, I'm sure it will reveal a connection between those activities and lower grades. Pah!

Don Corleone

08-22-2006, 20:20

I have a brother in law that's a cop and his favorite console game was vice-city. Go figure.

I think any valid business enterprise that requires four years of eduction should be considered as a viable educational pursuit that the board of trustees for the University should consider. Not really any of my business what degrees are offered at which University.

I wonder how the author would feel if he discovered that Bob Jones University was losing it's accreditation for offering 'Rhapsody Studies and Preparedness" majors.

IrishArmenian

08-22-2006, 20:36

In 10 years, the videogame generation will be the politicians and none of this rubbish will fly. What about sports games? For my money, Fifa 06 is one of the best games ever created. This guy just wants to fit in and join all of America Politishans in thier hate of videogames.

Leet Eriksson

08-22-2006, 20:39

Conqueror

08-22-2006, 20:55

So what does this have to do with whether video games are 'art' or not? ~:confused:

drone

08-22-2006, 21:00

What about the rising red tide of violence in movies? Do universities have courses on film studies? What?!? They do?!?! Think of the children!!!!

I think the missing link (and I do mean missing) between children and violent behavior is the parents. The games have a ratings system. If you let your 10 year old kid hole up in his room playing GTA, you have no one to point your finger at but yourself. If parents insist on letting Hollywood or Playstation babysit their kids, they deserve what they get.

Keba

08-22-2006, 21:39

I most loved the part of how playing violent video games causes agression in people who are, and I quote, "habitually agressive".

Are they sure it's the video games?

Who's taking bets that the NCTV is some nut-case group?

And since when does video game design have anything to do with violence? I'll admit that most games these days are violent, but not all of them ... I'm fascinated how they can make sweeping statements from partial information.

Justiciar

08-22-2006, 21:48

They CAN be. 95% (statistic pulled from the wonderful world of "my arse") aren't.

caravel

08-22-2006, 22:23

I can see it now...

MAN ALMOST KILLS WIFE IN COPYCAT OF VIOLENT MEDIEVAL VIDEO GAME
A reclusive, spotty and anti social youth, Mr caravel 92, almost decapitated his entire family while demonstrating the infamous 'mortal kombat' style "finishing moves" with a plastic spoon and plate. Police believe that caravel was attempting to emulate a 'viking huscarle' (one of the violent characters from the game "Medieval 2 Total War") when he almost grazed his pet rat's left ear with the blunt side of the spoon. Police arrived at the house during the early hours of the morning (as they usually do) and laid siege. Chief Inspector Plod repeatedly asked Caravel to "put the spoon down and let's talk". Witnesses reported not alot of blood and no scenes of sickening slaughter. Caravel was charged with 1 counts of using a plastic spoon to commit a finishing move act, 2 counts of posessing violent video games involving little men with swords and 1 count of wasting police time. Judge Mr Somebody, prosecuting, said that Mr Caravel had caused 'untold damage' and that he would go to jail for a 'very long time' adding that 50 life sentances were simply not enough, but the Blair government's barmy laws had tied his hands. A neighbour, that does not wish to be identified, commented earlier today "when will these sickening perverted games be banned? The streets aren't safe, you never know when you'll come up against a load of those bedouin camels and a 4 star general...

drone

08-22-2006, 22:29

:laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4: :laugh4:

Kongamato

08-22-2006, 22:51

Video games are a medium, like paper or celluloid or vinyl. You can make very artistic games, or you can have vapid crap. Isn't art is a subjective definition anyways?

doc_bean

08-22-2006, 22:55

Kids like violence, big surprise, has that guy never seen Tom&Jerry cartoons ? Honestly, do they hand out doctorates with purchase of a Big Mac these days ?

As for video games being art, I agree with Kongamato.

Blodrast

08-22-2006, 22:58

Caravel: rofl!

Keba:

Who's taking bets that the NCTV is some nut-case group?
Why, NCTV = Nut Case against Teen Violence, of course ! :laugh4:

econ21

08-23-2006, 01:45

I confess I have not read the article (doesn't sound too promising) but the thread title poses an interesting question.

I mean, essentially, a video game is a game - like chess or football. But those earlier games seem to lack much aesthetic qualities and would not be considered an art, except when speaking figuratively. Is Counterstrike art? It's hard to see it. The same, I have to say, would be true of Total War (STW had some nice flourishes, but not enough.)

But some games have other qualities - story telling and dialogue, that are clearly literary; others to do with sound and vision that are purely cinematic. Consider a game like Planescape Torment or System Shock 2, it is hard to deny that they are art forms that rival 95% of what we see on a TV screen or can pick up off a bookshelf. Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic arguably had a better plot than any of Lucas's films. Yes, there's a game in them, but some of the literary or cinematic aspects are significant enough in themselves for them to also be regarded as art.

So I would say video games are more games than art forms (well, ~:doh: )but some do have significant artistic value.

Lemur

08-23-2006, 05:15

Hmm, I just wasted almost three minutes trying to find a comprehensive timeline of the various anti-media hysterias. I'll just do them from memory, and suffer the corrections as various better-read Orgites fill in the blanks.

The first "modern" novels get published in England somewhere around 1719. Hysteria ensues. Novels will corrupt young men and women, and Something Should Be Done!

The Waltz becomes fashionable around 1780. Hysteria ensues. The waltz will corrupt young men and women, and Something Should Be Done!

Skip ahead to the 1930s. Pulp magazines become popular, with seedy writers such as Robert Howard and H.P. Lovecraft leading the way. Hysteria ensues. These magazines will corrupt young men and women, and Something Should Be Done!

Jazz becomes popular in the 1940s. Hysteria ensues.

Comic books reach a broad audience in the 1950s. Hysteria ensues.

Rock and roll becomes popular in the late 1950s. Hysteria ensues.

(I forgot to mention movies in the early teens. Definite hysteria.)

Heavy metal is invented in the early 1970s. Hysteria ensues.

Punk rock emerges around the same time. Do I need to say it?

The first video games reach mass audiences in the 1980s. Hysteria ensues. Mario will turn our children into vegetables!

Doom hits computers in 1993. We're training murderers! Doom caused the Columbine massacre! Shrieks of hysteria! (My distaste for Holy Joe Liberman dates to around this time.)

GTA 3 pops up around 2001. We're training carjackers! All your youth are belong to us! Something Should Be Done!

It just keeps going, doesn't it? And every single time, the people doing the heavy breathing about the dangers of medium X think they've found the key to the end of Western Civilization. This article seems to be more of the same cr@p we've been hearing for the last 300 years. And no doubt there was a cave man who railed against the corrupting, degenerative influence of drawing on the walls.

Some things never change.

Devastatin Dave

08-23-2006, 05:37

Its a creation of man for the enjoyment of man, so yes, it is art.

Gregoshi

08-23-2006, 06:02

I like games withart violence...:inquisitive:

Ahem. Seriously, I think video games are art on a couple of levels. First, it is art in the same sense that theater, TV and cinema are art. Second, it is art with function much like cars, furniture, etc. except its function is on a virtual level. Okay, this second one might be a bit of a stretch, but the fact that you interact with a video game via its user interface puts it into the form/function category too - at least in my mind.

JimBob

08-23-2006, 06:24

Depends. Space invaders? Probably not. Half-Life, which has a story that took some thought to write, well yes.

Gregoshi

08-23-2006, 06:31

I don't know about that JimBob. Although crude, think of Space Invaders as cave drawings or ancient pottery. :yes:

Ironside

08-23-2006, 09:21

Hmm, I just wasted almost three minutes trying to find a comprehensive timeline of the various anti-media hysterias. I'll just do them from memory, and suffer the corrections as various better-read Orgites fill in the blanks.

The circus, at latest around 1850.

Moral tales from the nineteenth century (http://digital.lib.msu.edu/projects/ssb/index.cfm?CollectionID=60)
Check out Are You Going to the Circus?.

For example:
M. How, then, do poor people and children get money, when they can hardly get food and clothing? I am sure my mother finds it hard enough to get us those things.

U. I must inform you what I have

been told on this subject, for this is another bad thing to which the circus leads. In order to go there, some have been known to pawn or sell their clothes or furniture to get money, or borrow it of their fellow-workmen and others; and when pay-day comes, it must be returned, and then the wife or family must go without some necessary of life or clothing. But that is not the worst, for I have heard of masters being robbed by their servants, and even parents by their children, that they may get money in order to go to such places of amusement.

And that's about circus.

I suspect that link is a gold mine when it comes to silly hysteria issues. :book:

Edit:
As for the question if video games are art or not, I would say that they generally aren't, but that there's some very artistic games out there. The games aren't gerally done for artistic reasons either.
Video games are an interesting cultural phenomena though.

ezrider

08-23-2006, 09:52

Keba

08-23-2006, 10:23

Ted Rueter, Assistant Professor of Political Science at DePauw University, Greencastle, Indiana has obviously never played Pokemon,Krusty's super fun house or PuzzleBobble or any sports games, driving games -........ its clear that everyone in the US and the rest of the world will only play violent R rated games
like RTW etc:dizzy2:

Eh, the TW series isn't all that violent.

Remember the old quote, a single death is a tragedy, a thousand, a statistic.

And we deal in thousands in TW, so I doubt that falls into the category of games training our children to go on murderous rampages. Training them to be dictators, maybe, but not people who will go out and randomly shoot around.

Moros

08-23-2006, 11:03

And we deal in thousands in TW, so I doubt that falls into the category of games training our children to go on murderous rampages. Training them to be dictators, maybe, but not people who will go out and randomly shoot around.
Thank god we're only training dictators! ~;)

Games can be art but only few are. Because games are mostly made for lucrative causes. It's like pop music, do you consider Britney Spears as art? Well except for her body (~;)), I don't! But if we have a look at Beethoven...someone who didn't compose only because of money. Yes I consider Beethoven as art, don't you. (Tough I'm not sure if is sexy, tough...:sweatdrop: ) Anyway, games mostly aren't art because of the commercial stuff. Take a look at totalwar. It has become more popular over the years, bigger budget. But I'd consider Shogun or medievel more of an art form then Rome.

The_Mark

08-23-2006, 14:20

Definately art, with it different genres et all. Too bad only few rise above kitsch status, and what we need is development of this medium to something resembling modernism, and, eventually postmodernism. We do have the cave paintings. Romance and realism phases might be the more prevalent forms at this point, with a couple odd balls representing modernism in between, amidst the kitsch.

Because games are mostly made for lucrative causes. It's like pop music, do you consider Britney Spears as art? Well except for her body (), I don't!
Kitsch.

I mean, essentially, a video game is a game - like chess or football. But those earlier games seem to lack much aesthetic qualities and would not be considered an art, except when speaking figuratively. Is Counterstrike art? It's hard to see it. The same, I have to say, would be true of Total War (STW had some nice flourishes, but not enough.)

But some games have other qualities - story telling and dialogue, that are clearly literary; others to do with sound and vision that are purely cinematic. Consider a game like Planescape Torment or System Shock 2, it is hard to deny that they are art forms that rival 95% of what we see on a TV screen or can pick up off a bookshelf. Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic arguably had a better plot than any of Lucas's films. Yes, there's a game in them, but some of the literary or cinematic aspects are significant enough in themselves for them to also be regarded as art.

So I would say video games are more games than art forms (well, )but some do have significant artistic value.
How would hypertextual literature classify then?

caravel

08-23-2006, 14:58

When I look at some modern art, such as the unmade bed and the immersed animal carcasses, or the more common splurged of paint thrown at a bit of paper, then there is no compeition. If that crap is art, xTW is a masterpiece...

I think some games are an art form in there own rights, but don't forget that all games contain art, which artists spend time creating.

The_Mark

08-23-2006, 20:00

Educate yourself, good man. It might be (even literally) crap, but it's art.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postmodernism
Once you know what modernists are trying to do you can actually understand them. Once you do, you will see them in a whole new light. Though, for the record, I still steer clear of those carcasses.

As a sidenote, modern and postmodern art require a good bit of viewer engagement, and what medium is as engaging as video games? And once we get more uni graduates creating games we will see much, much more interesting games. Amidst the kitsch, of course.