Comments on: On Defining Art and Video Games http://blog.oizys.com/post/280 The Game Design, Science, Rants, and Thoughts of Aaron Matthew Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:22:22 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: James Gonzalez http://blog.oizys.com/post/280/comment-page-1#comment-145 James Gonzalez Tue, 01 Sep 2009 15:58:52 +0000 http://blog.oizys.com/?p=280#comment-145 Art or not Art... every now and then I hear this question and see heated debates on the subject when the ultimate truth is, why bother labeling. All because it has a new meta tag as "art" doesn't make it less playable than it was before hand. To me it seems like human nature's insatiability to further categorize things is a wasted practice and frankly pointless. Great article though! Art or not Art… every now and then I hear this question and see heated debates on the subject when the ultimate truth is, why bother labeling. All because it has a new meta tag as “art” doesn’t make it less playable than it was before hand. To me it seems like human nature’s insatiability to further categorize things is a wasted practice and frankly pointless. Great article though!

]]> By: keyvan acosta http://blog.oizys.com/post/280/comment-page-1#comment-144 keyvan acosta Tue, 01 Sep 2009 04:44:01 +0000 http://blog.oizys.com/?p=280#comment-144 > yes even painting - that verb is also used when you paint a house EXCELLENT and funny. I like this article very much. The list of questions you proposed are excellent and your expos̩ of the fields are quite sound. The only problem I see is that it seems that any mediums acceptance needs examples and we're sorely short on them. Moreover, saying time will quiet the nay sayers doesn't really contribute with works of art that support the need of our medium to be a worthy art. Maybe an official list should be started amongst us that agree that it is. A list of the top 100 artistic games. Anyway, sure, it took many years before the other fields were examined to have artistic meritt, but I can't wait that long. It feels the nay sayers, no matter how old and bony they are now, will outlive me; NAY, us! > yes even painting Рthat verb is also used when you paint a house
EXCELLENT and funny.

I like this article very much. The list of questions you proposed are excellent and your exposé of the fields are quite sound.

The only problem I see is that it seems that any mediums acceptance needs examples and we’re sorely short on them. Moreover, saying time will quiet the nay sayers doesn’t really contribute with works of art that support the need of our medium to be a worthy art. Maybe an official list should be started amongst us that agree that it is. A list of the top 100 artistic games.

Anyway, sure, it took many years before the other fields were examined to have artistic meritt, but I can’t wait that long. It feels the nay sayers, no matter how old and bony they are now, will outlive me; NAY, us!

]]> By: aaronm http://blog.oizys.com/post/280/comment-page-1#comment-143 aaronm Tue, 01 Sep 2009 02:44:08 +0000 http://blog.oizys.com/?p=280#comment-143 Thank you for your comments! The academia dissonance is true of most disciplines - teaching and doing are different skills and not everyone has both or the desire to to both. I think we tend to measure success a little too metrically (metacritic + sales numbers), and then attribute it to people too much (we seem to discount market factors a lot like right idea/ right time, demand, IP leverage, etc when looking at success because we like to pat ourselves on the back). That said I'd like to see more crossover of commercial and academic players. I've always planned to be a teacher as my 'retirement job' - after I've learned all I can by doing and talking it's time to pass it on. But the game industry is still so young, even if many people did this, there wouldn't be enough teachers to meet the demand. Thank you for your comments!

The academia dissonance is true of most disciplines – teaching and doing are different skills and not everyone has both or the desire to to both. I think we tend to measure success a little too metrically (metacritic + sales numbers), and then attribute it to people too much (we seem to discount market factors a lot like right idea/ right time, demand, IP leverage, etc when looking at success because we like to pat ourselves on the back).

That said I’d like to see more crossover of commercial and academic players. I’ve always planned to be a teacher as my ‘retirement job’ – after I’ve learned all I can by doing and talking it’s time to pass it on. But the game industry is still so young, even if many people did this, there wouldn’t be enough teachers to meet the demand.

]]> By: PMera http://blog.oizys.com/post/280/comment-page-1#comment-142 PMera Mon, 31 Aug 2009 22:33:51 +0000 http://blog.oizys.com/?p=280#comment-142 Nice post. Very complete and well fundamented. I personally agree with most of what you propose here and what your take on "games as art" is, but I'm too lazy to write an article about it, so I appreciate reading something like this. xD Something I've noticed, though, is that in videogame industry the biggest names with the biggest success are not the ones creating academia, discussing their process on game design and/or development in detail. It seems to me that the people most interested in finding out whether or not games can be art or writing books about such topics are not necessarily the ones with the most success. Just a thought, but probably true to most disciplines anyway. :p - PMera Nice post. Very complete and well fundamented.
I personally agree with most of what you propose here and what your take on “games as art” is, but I’m too lazy to write an article about it, so I appreciate reading something like this. xD

Something I’ve noticed, though, is that in videogame industry the biggest names with the biggest success are not the ones creating academia, discussing their process on game design and/or development in detail. It seems to me that the people most interested in finding out whether or not games can be art or writing books about such topics are not necessarily the ones with the most success. Just a thought, but probably true to most disciplines anyway. :p

- PMera

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