Video Games Deserve Better

[@Blurns]

Most of the times I hear "X isn't art" or "X can't be art" what they really mean is "X isn't the art I want, or would make if I could." and that's really all there is to it.

[@StroJPP]

Yeah, and a 1 hour video to say : « that is not art to me », it’s boring.

[@melindawolfUS]

Professional artist here: marketing of abstract art in the 60's messed up what had previously been clear to humanity for thousands of years: A thing is art when it requires both skill to create, and it communicates some emotion or idea to the viewer. Both need to be present to be art and where one element is missing, that item would not have been historically called art but simply 'craft'. Regular cloth takes skill, but doesn't communicate: therefore it's a craft, NOT art. A tapestry can use symbols and colors to communicate and it requires skill to make, therefore it IS art. But the level of skill involved and the perception will let everyone disagree on weather it is GOOD art, or not. However, no one would have said it didn't qualify as art. An abstract painting might move you emotionally but it takes little skill. Even one that takes years to complete might only require patience and not skill. Therefore purely abstract art should be considered a design or craft, but not art. The art market wanted to sell more art and make more money, and abstract art is quicker and easier to make which meant they didn't have to wait for a painter to spend months on a single canvas. MONEY is why they effectively blurred the public perception of the line between art and craft. But we're smarter than their marketing, right? I think most millennials are: Picasso's works are losing value at auction over the last several decades while representational artists like William Bouguereau have seen a major resurgence on the last 20 years. Art is NOT defined by our feelings or perceptions as viewers. We can't legitimately claim something isn't art just because it isn't to our taste. Continuing to insist that crafts and creative messes and shock-value stunts are art just continues to have society undervalue the actual art that modern artists are creating. It's really lowering the class of our society; please stop.

[@Blurns]

​@@melindawolfUS The definition of art I'm used to is that it is something that requires mastery of a skill to create, sharing its etymology with artisan and artisanal. The idea that it needs to communicate some emotion or idea to the viewer seems completely irrelevant. Craft serves a functional purpose unlike many forms of art, such as paintings, but crafts themselves can be forms of art in that a master architect can design a building that is both functional and aesthetically-pleasing, but it wouldn't be art if it was only the latter. Evoking an emotion requires no mastery of a craft and is completely dependent on the viewers.

[@melindawolfUS]

@@Blurns Which is why both are required. Architecture is not always art. A square box building can be pure utility. Trying to create beauty or an impression of beauty also satisfies the communication requirement I was talking about. And yes, without craft, pure emotion is still not art. It might serve a utility, but it's not all art just because of the medium. Painting included ; there are lots of house-painters with skill/craft, but they're usually not being paid to communicate their ideas onto your house. And for the same reason an artist who drops a paintbrush on a canvas has created something decorative that people might enjoy in their home, but it's not art. You ended up agreeing with my definition in your example... is it maybe you didn't read it well the first time? I did mention that the communication can be an idea and not just an emotion

[@nondescriptcat5620]

@@Blurns "something that requires mastery of a skill to create" Punk laughs at your definition.

[@IfYouSeekCaveman]

I often find that when people talk about games being art, they either talk about subversive and innovative indie titles or big budget storytelling epics. They praise these games for their similarities to already respected forms of art, such as films or books. But to me this still doesn't acknowledge the level of craft and artistic intent that goes into the many aspects of games which are dissimilar from other mediums.

[@treasey8655]

But those artistic elements serve the purpose of entertainment, engagement, and profit maximization most of the time, no? We don't call tennis art, even though someone had to design the bat, therefore something like playing a round of call of duty can't be experiencing art, even though many artists helped make that experience possible. Just some thoughts, haven't watched the video yet all the way through.

[@PineappleLiar]

Is that the case? I find that often the games that do the most to mimic traditional storytelling end up having the weakest narratives, even if upon release they are lauded as groundbreaking. The archetypal examples are the works of David Cage, which are highly narrative, interactive cutscenes more than games, and they suffer for it. Mimicry of cinema/theater has played an important role in the development of video game narratives, but only in the way that training wheels play an important element in teaching a kid how to ride a bike. At some point the language of gameplay becomes robust enough that it can stand on its own, and further reliance on the language of filmmaking becomes a detriment. For example, you can make a game with well acted, dynamic cutscenes that progress the story, but the current standard is to segment off the game into ‘game time’ and ‘story time’, isolating the mechanics of play from any narrative influence. Meanwhile a game with weaker/less plot can hit harder if it responds directly to your actions within the play space; something no other form of media can replicate. Pathologic is an early example of gameplay/narrative synthesis. Its a game where you are trapped in a town succumbing to plague, and are doing everything in your power to try to slow it down/find a cure. The game reinforces this stress inducing setting with a constantly ticking clock, scarcity mechanics, unfair combat, and plague jumpscares. It’s not fun, but its compelling and gives you the space to dwell on if you’re doing the right thing. I’m not even saying this is the ideal, as the game also suffers from plot cul-de-sac itis, but its a good sight better than most!

[@seangdovic4967]

@@treasey8655 The problem with comparing sports to video games is that with sports the game part doesn’t actually exist. The rules, the dynamics, everything you can do, it all has to be remembered and performed by the player (and as a result can be changed however the player sees fit). That’s why you have to have referees to enforce the rules. Video games aren’t like that. With games, everything exists within the software for its own sake. You could call a controller a tool for playing video games in the same way you call a racket a tool for playing tennis. Tools aren’t necessarily art. But the actual content of a video game was crafted entirely by a team of creators, and as a result is a concrete thing that exists for its own sake. You can’t call the actual game of tennis art because it doesn’t actually exist, it’s just an idea. But the actual game of video games is rendered and constructed. It becomes content, or in other words, art. There really isn’t anything else you can call it.

[@brunoactis1104]

EXACTLY. That's why i loved so much that Dark Souls 1 was chosen as ultimate game of all time, or something like that, don't remember the name of the prize it won.

[@egrytznr8893]

Video games are art, some are even high art. Just because academics don't recognize it doesn't diminish the impact they have on people. Even bad art is art I don't get what this video was going on about that something has to be a masterpiece to be art, it's ridiculous. If there wasn't bad art we wouldn't recognize masterpieces, there would be nothing to compare them to.

[@Peasham]

To ignore the gameplay of a video game is to dismiss most of its art. It's critiquing music on lyrics and not its notes.

[@rattlethecages]

underrated comment

[@the1doctorwhat]

Taking advantage of the medium is something I want to see more often from developers. It's one of the reasons I've gotten so fond of directors like Yoko Taro and Kojima. The games don't always prioritize fun, but they always take advantage of the medium in really strange ways.

[@jmiquelmb]

The Kojima case is so interesting because in many ways he’s a frustrated cinema director. But while he sometimes forgets that he’s making games and not movies, he’s able to come up with interesting new mechanics and revolutionary gameplay. Some of his decisions are baffling and tone deaf but he has a genius stroke that’s for sure

[@THICCTHICCTHICC]

Kojima is essentially utilising the philosophy of Japanese/French/Iranian new wave cinema - which is to maximise immersion by simulating reality almost perfectly, and then absolutely crushing the fourth wall at random moments. It's pretty cool to have hours of trance-like gameplay just totally shattered by the game saying 'oh yeah by the way you're a human playing a video game so now you need to disconnect your controller and put it in a different slot'

[@viewedlarvae]

There are SO many games out there that are subversive and creative, that do not 'prioritize' the fun (fear and hunger, cruelty squad, papers please, lisa, super meat boy, this war of mine ect). You aren't seeing these games because you are only looking to AAA. And just like Disney or Marvel AAA will never give you the subversive creative experience you are looking for. There are so many indie companies and indie devs out there creating wholly unique and mind-blowing work. Find those and play those instead. Here are some of my favs: "Lisa the Painful" "Inscryption" "Critters for Sale" "Norco" "Return of the Obra dinn" "The red strings club" "You and me and her" "Secret little haven" "Signalis" "Who's lila" "Smile for me" "Her story" or "Immortality"

[@enman009]

I think Yoko Taro and Kojima make fun games with flawed ideas and execution. Drakengard 1 to OG Nier and MGS 4 or Death Stranding are examples of this. But when they have good execution and focus? You get classics like Nier Automata and MGS 3.

[@glowerworm]

Yoko Taro is a hack tbh. Not a bad person or anything but he's idolized even though he really doesn't deserve it, sort of like Hayao Miyazaki of Ghibli. Taro is like if Todd Howard was idolized as an artist when really all he does is make alright games, sometimes good games. Kojima is alright though. Snatcher was good, some of the MGS games are unique when looked at as art. Definitely really just a born-at-the-wrong-time movie director who likes video games.

[@babbaganush9659]

I wanted to offer one comparison: Folktales and mythology. These have changed depending upon who is telling the tale. Local “flavor” is often baked into the telling, and for many there is no definitive version. There’s even a video game about this called “Where the Water Tastes Like Wine” in which you travel america listening to folktales, which you then hear again later in a different location, with a different local flavor.

[@iota-09]

that is a comparison i never would have thought about and can see working perfectly, in hindsight, folktlaes and fairytales are in their ever-evolving yet also referential form the next most interesting non-element(music, drawing) medium i can think of for my own personal preferences after videogames.

[@patricklewis9787]

Performance arts were like this too before the domineering emergence of recorded media. Plays always had different interpretations of a set, different people in the play, etc.. Even music was this way both in how folk tunes emerged and how even Classical pieces are played despite having the same sheet music. In with classical music, no two performances of a piece are the same

[@2emo2function]

Surprised you haven't mentioned anything like pathologic or the void. Pathologic in particular is one of the most reoccurring names of the discussion of games as an art form.

[@alessandroderosa8073]

Pathologic Is also very central in the discussion about what should be considered as "fun" in games. Love that shit.

[@jmiquelmb]

I see another Ice Pick Lodge fan here. There’s dozens of us. Now I’m going to cry in a corner until bachelor route is released

[@sivzzz3008]

Also, The Beginner's Guide

[@RaphRain]

I must also mention Kentucky Route Zero, which was incredibly thought provoking to me and still inhabit my mind until this day.

[@jmiquelmb]

@@RaphRain Yeah. I'm not the biggest fan of Kentucky Route, but this is the game it came to my mind when trying to think about games with superb writing and themes. It's magical realism done competently

[@lolnope0451]

I fully recommend watching video essays by Jacob Geller, Razbuten, and Noah Caldwell-Gervais!! They discuss video games in a way you struggled to find (:20-ish), and often have channel recommendations of their own. There's definitely a community of folks out there who give video games the attention as art that they deserve, and I really hope these channels can scratch your itch for better discourse about the medium!

[@KnjazNazrath]

Noah is an armchair intellectual who can't see outside of his own narrow worldview and refuses to get to the point in less than five pages rather than one sentence. He is also bad at video games by his own admission and speaks primarily from his own experience with scant references to anything of merit that suggests he engages with art or literature beyond the usual "starbucks" archetype.

[@mimipeahes5848]

@@KnjazNazrathFor someone who thinks he’s an armchair intellectual you sure used a lot of words to say “he’s bad at games and talks too much”.

[@KnjazNazrath]

@@mimipeahes5848 Context and evidence is important to corroborate a point.

[@lococomrade3488]

​@@mimipeahes5848 Teach us, o sage.

[@coreybertelsen7689]

Jacob Geller's video essays are wonderful.

[@seangdovic4967]

As a video game director who vastly values the medium as an art form… I love you and your content! Thank you for seeing this beautiful form the same way I do. I think this art form is very young. Which is exciting, but also frustrating. We still have yet to standardize the unique potential of digital interactivity. Game makers need to begin to use the unique tools of this medium (game design, mechanics, systems, level design, etc.) in the same way that filmmakers utilized the unique tools of their own medium (cinematography & editing etc.). All art forms have their own unique language. Film has the cinematic language and video games have an interactive language. However, both mediums are multi-media (incorporating all other art forms) which can lead to an identity crisis, where the unique language is sacrificed by relying too heavily on the languages of other mediums. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe film went through a similar phase in the beginning, using the languages of theater and literature as a crutch (in the same way many video games have used the cinematic language as a crutch in the past 10-20 years). It was only when certain pioneers came along and produced groundbreaking work that utilized the unique poetics of cinema to express themselves that other filmmakers began to rethink how they made films. The same has been true for video games, with certain games being artistically far ahead of their time. I believe as long as we continue to experiment with the art form and expressive ourselves with the unique poetics of our own medium, the same evolution will happen to video games. When interactive language becomes standard practice for developers, more people will play truly groundbreaking work and will begin to treat games as art. Edit: I loved the video, but one thing I disagree on is the notion of video games as a “malleable” medium or the idea of the “player being more in charge of the experience than the artist”. I have heard these kinds of sentiments before but they always ignore one fundamental fact: video games are not malleable. Even with the most open-ended game, every permutation and every possibility has already been designed, programmed, modeled, textured, animated, given sounds/music, and tested endlessly. You talk about experience being prioritized over the design, but your mistake is that the experience IS the design. The closest equivalent to video games that existed before them were choose your own adventure novels. With a choose your own adventure novel, everything that can happen and every possible way any of the events can be experienced is already determined by the writer beforehand. It is like a pre-determined multiverse where readers play out one of the many many different permutations that the writer created. Video games are the same thing, but on a much much bigger scale. Instead of making one decision every couple of pages, players will make several decisions every single second. But make no mistake, the player did not create any of these permutations (in the same way a reader does not create any of the pages). Like any other art form, everything has been created by the artist and presented to the audience for them to experience. That is why video games have limits. You state the difficulty of analyzing video games artistically due to their subjective nature. But video games are no more subjective than any other medium. The difference is that traditional arts require the artist to render a universe, whereas video games require the artist to render a multiverse. You talk about procedural generation and systemic design allowing for possibilities that the artist never could have foreseen, but even Dwarf Fortress has been carefully curated so that the only possibilities are the ones within the intended experience of the piece. Video games CAN be analyzed objectively, you just have to look at the entire multiverse that the artist has created as a whole. You have to broaden your understanding of the piece to all possible experiences and not just your own (which is why all good video game analysts replay the game they are reviewing many many times). Think of the intended experience for a video game as an umbrella rather than a line. Regardless of the difference in its shape, the intended experience for a game still has to be tightly crafted, same as any other kind of art. Because every aspect of a video game is determined by the artist, it does not pose a threat to the artist’s voice in the same way it would for a board game (where players are free to add, remove, and change rules however they like). This non-malleability makes video games distinctly different from any other type of game. Because in reality, video games are not truly games, they are simulations. The best way to define video games is to say that they are “simulation as art form”. Any tool can be used to create a piece of art, and video games are what you get when simulation technology is used to create art. That is the one thing that defines and unites all video games. It is also helpful for discussing them artistically because every aspect of a simulation has to be… well, simulated… by its creators (in other words, rendered/programmed by the developers).

[@walterroux291]

To me, music is the most fundamental of art forms. Something we have been practicing for millennia, through speech and song, as before books most knowledge was passed down through song. When I go to an art gallery, some conception often has to happen, breaking down the piece in order to fully appreciate it, but music just happens naturally from within. But I think a case is to be made, that the best art currently being produced is through the medium of games. I can't think of a single art form that takes the form of and envelops so many disciplines. Like movies are sound and vision, with narratives, games are like that as well, but with the form of added interactivity. It seems to have bits from almost every other art medium. I can't think of another art form like that... sorry if this idea was not said as eloquently as it could have, but hope you understand my sentiments.

[@seangdovic4967]

@@walterroux291 I agree! Although, I’d say that music can also be broken down through music theory, analyzing individual notes and tones. Anything can be experienced as a whole or broken down into the pieces that make it up. Not that this is a bad thing however. I think there is beauty both in the experience and the analysis. Also yes, I agree that video games are the most comprehensive form of art to date. No other medium utilizes cutting edge technology to integrate every other art form that humanity has ever invented into a single cohesive whole, only video games do that. That’s what makes game creation so exciting for me. Anything I could ever want to express can be done through a video game.

[@bobloblaw418]

what games have you directed?

[@seangdovic4967]

@@bobloblaw418 I am currently working on my directorial debut: Visions of Recollection. It’s a game about an old man who gains the mysterious ability to bring his memories back into reality. My team and I are finishing up a demo that we will use to find funding for the full production. So, keep an eye out! I hope you’ll see it in the future!

[@jmiquelmb]

In a similar ways as there’s the rule “show don’t tell” in cinema, I think that games should follow the formula “experiment, don’t show”. Films use dialogue as a crotch, since the invention of sound cinema. And games use cinematics as a crotch since the adoption of the cd. Those rules can be broken, but I think that if you plan to use a cinematic rather than gameplay, there should be a good reason why.

[@Rejinx]

5:02 Temple University opened a Video game course in it's School of Theater, Film and Media Arts in 2022. The first Film study schools in the US didn't open until 1929, that is over 40 years after film was first invented. These things take time.

[@StevenHarmonGames]

This video ignores game studies at the collegiate level, independent games like That Dragon Cancer that are not fun and are created both as a catharsis for the artists but also a dialogue between player and developer. Heck I've made an hour-long VR game about being stuck in an elevator to express boredom, claustrophobia, and isolation. But games and game developers don't need anyone critical institution to recognize what we already know we have as a medium. Academics are always obsessed with definitions, but those definitions hinder more than benefit the medium itself. Game mechanics can serve expression as motif, metaphor, etc. The dynamics that arise from that exploration or play that can't be completely foreseen doesn't cheapen or dull the artistic intent just as one's interpretation of poetry doesn't make the poem any worse either.

[@jqydon]

Art is so much broader than you seem to think in my opinion. The differences like interactivity are what makes video games the most unique and I’d argue the best medium of art as the range of experiences is tremendous. Games can tell linear stories akin to cinema, games can blend linear storytelling with Cinema like Alan Wake II did recently, games can be absent of story or objective meaning beyond the predictable dopamine rushes of shooter games, Games can use environmental storytelling and difficulty to teach players mechanics and invoke sense of intrigue, challenge, frustration and more, and games can provide a canvas to allow the players to paint a reflection of themselves onto by impacting an experience or creating an entirely unique one, and some of these same games blur the lines between 3D modelling, architecture and gaming with the example of Minecraft ALL while still invoking a range of feelings, emotions and retaining some semblance of meaning, the defining factors of art in my opinion. I would personally describe Art as: “A human creation that generates and or intrinsically holds meaning and or feeling of any level of objectivity.” Its broad but intentionally so, art is hard to define because it isn’t one singular thing, sure some art forms have rules or constraints but I think the definition covers the only true commonalties amongst art. It’s biggest ‘flaw’ is that it emphasises the role of the audience in meaning creation amongst art, when often a creative or group of creatives have an explicit intended way to interpreting it. This is where the intrinsically held meaning part comes in as I do believe art has a degree of objectivity, mostly coming from the explicit messages and artistic choices of the creator. There is most of the time an intended way of experiencing art, but this exists amongst a landscape of potential interpretations from the audience, meaning art most often holds intrinsic meaning through the artists intended baseline experience, while simultaneously generating or provoking meaning and emotion through the range of differing perspectives of the audience.

[@jqydon]

I’ll also add that I too want video games to take the next step and I think steps are being made on that direction. Hellblade, Psychonauts 1+2, Alan Wake II are some examples of my favourite games of all time, each being supremely unique. It bothers me that the games of highest praise are basic blockbusters (pretentious I know) because the writing in this games barely touches upon the potential of not only the medium, but the format itself. There is a place for linear story bases games but the writing quality as you mentioned simply isn’t there. Alan Wake II did this perfectly IMO and with a much smaller budget than the big blockbusters. That story plays uniquely to the medium while implementing aspects of other mediums such as music, TV, Cinema to create an experience that is incredibly unique and unapologetically littered with the studios DNA. I’ll also add that it doesn’t help that ‘The Game Awards’ are a fucking joke and a disgrace to the creatives that make it possible, prioritising ad money and the allure of game trailers. I love a good game showcase, even if it’s funny that video games are the only thing that gets its consumers excited about watching advertisements but the disguise as an award show to celebrate the industry is thinly veiled and counterintuitive to its desired outcome.

[@JoeLaRocca]

This is hopefully a turning point. Good work friend.

[@Disthron]

I think that the reason game companies in particular do NOT want their work to be seen as serious art, is the same reason they like to claim their games have "no political messages"... even though they clearly do. If games are art, then they should be preserved, curated and given deeper examinations. These are things large game publishers do not want. Specially the preservation part. They want people to throw old games away, so they can sell them new ones.

[@dr6559]

To be fair Hollywood and cinema isn’t immune to this either. See Wb throwing away multiple films this year for tax breaks or tv shows/ films being removed from streaming services unceremoniously with little warning.

[@tgcid2018]

a piece of art will satisfy some and disgust others, even if or maybe especially if it's good. If your goal is to sell things (that is you are living in a capitalist world and have to do capitalist world things like paying rent) then you cannot afford to disgust even a small percentage of people as every single person who dislikes your work is another 70 dollars you won't get, and the shareholders will NOT like that.To this end, media is made as bland and accessible as possible,and even 'edgy' media is simply a product genre, with virtually all political or artistic content stripped away to boost sales. We are the fish, and media needs us in a barrel.

[@Ψυχήμίασμα]

That doesn't make sense at all. If I were a company, I would want people to continue to make purchases of my old games for as long as possible while simultaneously for them to be buying the new ones. I milk the old while selling the new. I might even get a Remaster of the older products, like Final Fantasy 7 Remake, Demon Souls Remake, Shadow of the Colossus Remake. Also, the preservation is part of Brand Name Recognition. Fromsoftware is known for its artstyle which is deep enough to actually be academic, and that is part of its brand, and people want to continue to by Fromsoftware games because of it. To this day, there are new playthrough and twitchstreams for first time playthroughs of Dark Souls. It's.....literally the opposite of what you're suggesting.

[@tgcid2018]

@@Ψυχήμίασμα fromsoft is known for their art style? And what would that be, blocky polygons and muddy textures? In my experience, fromsoft is more known for being an absolute train wreck of thoroughly mediocre and weird but experimental games that occasionally accidentally get something right.Not entire games,usually,but some part or some mechanic of a game usually. Before souls games became their thing...well, go back and try the rest of their games. You might call some innovative or something like that, but for the most part you'd struggle to call them good. Some good parts of one or the other, or maybe a few games WOULD have been good if...but ultimately fromsoft is the Gainax of game design. Good in certain technical sense, but not really good. And I say that as a diehard fan of Armored Core,King's Field, Eternal Ring, and so on.King's Field is a perfect example; good in the sense that it was a hell of an achievement under the circumstances but not good as a game even compared to other games of the time. The FF7 remaster is proof that they'd rather sell a new game, because that's what it is. Capitalism demands that more money be made,and more upon more as they pursue endless growth. This requires that they find ways to make more off of old products but primarily financial growth comes from introducing new products which they can charge more for than an old product.Imagine Square trying to sell FF7 for 70 dollars. Yeah not happening, so instead they sell the remake of it,which is actually a new product. Kind of,I mean most of the development is already done which is convenient. But that's just it,they're only interested in how to make new 'content'. Capital isn't interested in any aspect of any thing except how else they can extract money from it. They don't give a rat's ass if a game is art or not, if it's preserved or forgotten; just if there's any way to exploit it going forward. They don't want you to purchase their old games, they want you to buy the new schlock because that's the money maker. So they take 7, chop it up, add some fillers, then reconstitute old meat into 'new'. They're not interested in the old meat for any other reason.

[@PedroKing19]

Dark souls is a relatively new and highly profitable franchise. Imagine a franchise that didn't succeed or one that isn't doing so well. Those are not well preserved on purpose, to make room for new, more profitable games, or yes, remakes of those old ones, just as you said. A remake is not the original, it's not a remaster, it is a brand new product, ready to be sold anew to new fans AND, crucially, the OLD fans who have already experienced the original. By not releasing the original FF7, for example, the publisher gets to cash in on both markets.

[@geordiejones5618]

The simple fact that a medium less than 50 years old can compete with mediums much older is a testament to the strength of interactive artforms.

[@cwpv2477]

some bros just be coping hard and clinging onto the idea their oil painting would be more complex then bioshock or alike.

[@Amaling]

⁠​⁠@@cwpv2477complexity is one thing, quality is another. Because video games has so much complexity and so many components to make one, their (currently) highest possible mean quality is undeniably lower than a simple painting

[@nondescriptcat5620]

@@Amaling "highest possible mean quality" is a nonsense phrase with regards to art. and it's hilarious you don't think there are *millions* of dogshit paintings by amateur artists lowering the "mean quality."

[@Puerco-Potter]

@@Amaling "Mean quality" applied to a movie will mean that every prop in the background needs to be equally good as the movie or will make the "mean quality" lower, which is ridiculous.

[@venomtang]

@@cwpv2477 lol, this is a funny take. which bros are you referring to?

[@English2Elvish]

Video Games ABSOLUTELY is an art and art form. So many gorgeous moments, places, stories!

[@austin0_bandit05]

I think part of the problem is the design philosophy of chasing "fun". That games are something to be consumed for enjoyment and nothing more. It brings to mind The Last Guardian game. The creature is often designed to literally ignore you. This is sometimes frustrating. Art should service the content first and the "fun" second. I also think the entry level for video games is comparably higher than other art forms. Of course this has become more and more accessible every year. Games are expensive to make and require and huge spectrum of skills and resources. Whereas a painter can have his start in a room with a single brush and a single piece of paper. So there's a huge need to "sell" your game. The artist can make art for art's sake. A game designer has to sell his soul because most of us dont have thousands or millions to burn. I think its also worth aknowledging that the art form is still in its infancy. Our generations will be the ones that elevate the form.

[@TheOvy]

The comment on Dark Souls making artistic reference while other games "only refer to Dark Souls" strikes me as revealing -- you've read a lot about Miyazaki and the making of FromSoft games, but not nearly as much about the making of games by other developers. I hear and am sympathetic to the call to pretension (must video games forever be occupied with pop culture exclusively?) but it's unwise to overlook how much pop culture itself is, actually, informed by what's normally considered "high art." Sort of like how the Barbie movie can open with a 2001 homage, or drop in a Proust reference. I think the video games you seem to discount as Soulsborne clones have more in them than apparent at first blush. And i say that as someone who generally finds the acclaim for the Soulsborne genre as overstated. And also because every successive FromSoftware game seems to be a response to an earlier one -- it is, itself, referencing Dark Souls, too. They're just better at it than the copycats because its their own method that they're refining. In the many years since Demon Souls, I do wonder if Miyazaki will, at some point, do something new. The endless iterations are starting to wear thin. I am unsure where he can go past Elden Ring. I certainly appreciate the lessons it heeded from Breath of the Wild, but entering yet another overly-dour apocalyptic fantasy world, for a story that never ends well, to engage yet another series of domineering bosses that, roughly, need you to dodge the hits in the same way you time the beat in Guitar Hero, is starting to feel... well, like the million Guitar Hero games that came out ten years ago. It's wearing thin. Oh, and I think video games had its Citizen Kane. You're trying to hold them to the artistic standards of movies or novels, but it's probably better to not think of Citizen Kane not as "the aesthetically best film ever made" (because that's highly debatable, and is slowly losing that status now that the movie brats generation who originally boosted Citizen Kane to that position are dying off -- look at the rapid ascendancy of Jeanne Dielman over at Sight & Sound; the new generation cometh), but rather, how it influenced later movies and normalized the many tools that we take for granted today. Citizen Kane seems like a strangely modern movie a good 80 years later, and that's thanks to its many innovations that movies ever since have learned from. Is there a game we can look back to, that has done the same for interactive arts today? I think so. Critical of Dark Souls, I may be, it's clearly had an influence on the medium over the last ten years (for better and for worse). But there are many games far more seminal, far more influential. We just don't want to call one of them "Citizen Kane," because we haven't refined an aesthetic standard specific to gaming yet. However, we don't have to be high minded academics, nor does a game have to be as psychological as Dostoyevsky, to say it is an exemplar of the form, one that will be appreciated not only for its time, and not just for today, but also for years, decades, maybe even centuries to come. Such games already exist, if we only have the temerity to make the case.

[@yup7380]

Armored Core 6 and Sekiro exist, you can see the amount of people complaining it doesn't play like Dark Souls despite being marketed for being different than Dark Souls. The fanbase and media are part of the problem. The media love to spread souls word to the point of if a game has stamina and dodging then it's souls which is so damn stupid. The advertising of "prepare to die" edition also created stigma that it's a hard game and that's it. The roaring question of will Miyazaki ever try something new is good but I doubt it will ever change Fromsoftware. It's beating a dead horse. Fromsoft will never abandon their based formula. Dark Souls originated from Demon Souls, some of souls mechanic are influenced by Armored Core. There is also King's Field which I heard inspired souls in some way. This is what they do. They upgrade or combine many of their formulas. At this point, it's their philosophy design. They won't do something totally different like God of War 3 to 4 or Metal Gear to Death Stranding. This led to my final point, an idea can be boring or something that has been used many times but unique execution could make it feels unique. I think the excecution is what we should criticize more of not just fromsoft games but every game in general. Such as ER could have had a little bit smaller world and still feel good to play. Or since Fromsoft love ruined world story, why don't they make a game where you have to deal with world ending threat directly instead of taking place before and after the world get ruined.

[@lucasLSD]

@@yup7380 Miyazaki had nothing to do with AC6

[@smergthedargon8974]

I don't think gaming can _have_ Citizen Kane due to how different its genres are from one another. Lessons from a landmark in one genre are often completely useless in another or applicable to all artforms. Lessons from Undertale aren't going to help you make a first person shooter in nearly any way.

[@zzzzzzzzzzzspaf]

if we are talking of a "citizen kane" in the sense of "how it influenced later movies and normalized the many tools that we take for granted today.", then surely mario 64 and ocarina of time should count. both are widely influential and setting the expectation of how the camera, movement, and the world should behave. In fact something similar could be said about every genra defining game (castlevania, sims, rogue, etc)

[@pepp418]

@@smergthedargon8974 that is simply false, it is like saying lessons from a successful comedy cannot inform a noir or vice versa. The techniques employed in integrating the content of the gamefile with the interactivity of device the user employs is the core of videogames and anything that innovates on that front is applicable to all videogames. I guarantee an aspect of undertale has already been employed in a first person shooter, whether something it is iconic for or something more minute.

[@urdin2242]

YYEEESSSSS!!!! a feature length video!? Are you serious right now? Made my whole week right here and my birthday is tomorrow so that’s a high bar.

[@leonardoferreira2372]

Hey Lewis, fan of the channel since the Criswell days; videogames are my medium of study and expression, and it's been a while since I seen such a in-depth, serious look about its core fundamental and undeveloped potential, so I felt like sharing some thoughts here: About interaction, I think the main method in which designs imprint authorial intent in a game is not just through defining systems and possible player interactions, but in the creation of a possibility space defined by the dynamic interplay of such systems; the aesthetic appreciation of a game happens through understanding that space and what can happen in it, and the limits and possibilities it offers for spontaneity and invention. One does not need to be a speedrunner to understand the thrill of it while playing a game normally; self-imposed challenges come from a individual relationship with the game, but they are as part of that possibility space as playing it "regularly", by the book; all those manners of play are confined into that. Also regarding interaction, a rarely discussed topic in games is the aesthetics of interaction itself; the sensory response of playing a game, something that can be obsessively pored over by a designer, but due to it being invisible, the language to discuss it is very poor (aside from nebulous concepts like juice or game feel); it is also the aspect that is truly unique to games. The experience of playing, say, Mario and Sonic, is very distinct, through the characters size, speed, relationship with level design, rules that generate risk and pressure like time and health, etc. In the past decades the act of interaction has been polished and standardized to a level of almost homogeneity, but games with so-called "clunky" or "janky" interactions, like the original Resident Evils, contain a lot more uniqueness than their more normalized contemporaries. That also applies to games in which you do not control an avatar, like how text, music and sound cues can create a sensory space that is also unique to the form Also, in the regard of games needing to be fun, I do think that is a simplification of the relationship of engagement between player and game. A lot of very successful games have gameplay that could be considered "boring" (like idle and crafting games, or simulators), but they manage to be engrossing through systems like discovery of information, accumulation of resources, and progression; those systems do not come from technical advancement, but through design mutation, combination and experimentation. Also, that leads to the fact that games exist in a continuum: even something deeply rich in narrative subtext and play possibilities like Dark Souls exists as an evolution of things that came before (Zelda, Shadow of the Colossus, the long story of dungeon crawlers, even Fromsoft past projects like King's Field and Shadow Tower) Finally, regarding the (lack of) discourse surrounding games, the medium has an unique peculiarity of developing alongside the spread and slow consolidation of the corporate internet; because of that, critical discourse is inseparable from how the internet shape it, and the incentives for that, from usenet to blogs to social media . . Game design have suffered a lot from its development being dictated more through market forces (which also informs the largely unneeded stories and subpar writing most games have) and a largely enthusiast and non-academic critic class (film had a good headstart in the deveIopment of its critical language; I highly doubt we could have the influence Cahiers du Cinema had in today's hyper-accelerated media sphere). This perpetual critical adolescence is something the industry largely profits from, considering the enormous space triple A games with very little to say occupy in said discourse. Such games exist to feel expensive, to justify the investment on newer and more expensive consoles; even though I personally think they (sometimes) can have tremendous artistic value, videogames will perpetually be stunted as a medium if discussion is forever centered on those, when it is in the margins of the recommendation algorithms is where the real games lie. We just have to sort them out.

[@wren.10.]

On the segment of this video "Video Games Need to Be Fun," I understand the perspective that intractability demands engagement and engagement primarily is derived from some value of "fun". That engagement and instructiveness is what primarily defines a video game a unique medium of art. However, I and likely other comments below this video may suggest a game called Pathologic, to illustrate the interplay between fun, gameplay, narrative, and how it all reflects upon the player. I do strongly suggest taking a look at this game, as it primarily addresses this sort of relationship between fun and engagement in the context of video game conventions.

[@AngelicMissMarie]

I think a more important aspect to this is that you have to replace the enjoyability of the game with anything interesting. People will be able to overlook a game with bad gameplay if it has anything else going for it.

[@manaman9625]

Then other ones like fear and hunger, and probably this war of mine. Quite oppressing in their own ways too

[@gardian06_85]

Fun for who: in a multiplayer competitive game is the winning team supposed to be having fun, is the losing team that is yelling at and blaming each other? is the person that is running for their life in a "horror" game supposed to be having fun? Is the person who has been struggling against a challenge for the past 3 hours with no hope in progressing supposed to be having fun? Is a person who just had a touching moment in a game that makes them have catharsis and introspection about their own life leading to them crying for days, are they supposed to be having "fun"? this notion that games are meant to be fun is a surface level analysis based on "games are for children, and we don't want children having existential crises about loss, mortality, and the futility of existence even if it is coming from a cell-shaded anthropomorphized dog". games are meant to be "compelling" the same way a 20-minute short film about the "duality of man" is meant to be compelling so to can a grinding "murder simulator" can also be compelling.

[@Amgarrak]

Yes! Was looking for this comment. As there is so much tedium and oppressive atmosphere, of the doom and gloom in regards to being forced into a position to try and save people from a plague, all the while being still a normal person. Of how prices can be raised by shops to account for possible shortages and demands in food and medical supplies. Of being forced to dig into trash cans. Of trading with children and homeless people just to potentially save someone for one more day.

[@Michelle_Wellbeck]

The question of whether a medium, whether it is photography, music, film, now games. can be "Art" is mostly a facile importation of notions of a High/Low Culture divide whereby Art is defined as objects that should be seen or are intended to belong to a "High", (exalted, valuable, legitimate) class of objects most identified with the visual fine arts of Painting and Sculpture. Discourse of whether something can be "Art" is then just mere attempts to appeal the position of High culture to a particular obiect so as to appropriate a degree of prestige, legitimacy, seriousness, and status upon those creations and by proxy the people making them. The traditional class of objects "Art" in that it is becoming more associated with Esoteric self-referrentialism and financialization is also steadily losing its credibility among common people (not the ultra rich), so the appeal to identify as "Art" as opposed to just "Significant objects of popular culture" might go away eventually. Forget any discourse "Is X Art" as it can only be judged retrospectively as mass society reaches a consensus which largely ignored critics trying to force the issue.

[@Envy_May]

this is a good comment but i would recommend cj the x's video about art and subjectivity because i think that's the most solidly defined/argued analysis of "what is art" i've seen anytime recently

[@alexismoma]

Thank you for this video, it's one of my favorite essays on KZbin because it sums my two favorite media products, videogames and cinema. Great work, not only on this but on the channel.

[@StickNik]

5:17 - "So why have we yet to form a legitimate space in which video games can be spoken upon the same level as high art?" It exists, it's on KZbin with people like Max Derrat and countless other video essayists (including your later mentioned Matthew Matosis and Josesh Anderson), it's in Discord servers and forums, in peoples discussions with each other, there are even exhibits on video games, and sports from them that rule in countries like South Korea. These are all legitimate spaces that do not generally pander for or seek approval beyond the people interested in it. I would argue academia does little to determine the quality of films beyond giving talent the opportunity to practice and learn technical skills, but not what to apply it to creatively and artistically. Video games have much to learn how to technically do, but the majority of games and classics already considered high art were made by passionate innovators with no academic input or structures.

[@Puerco-Potter]

The video seems to argue for being snobbish more than for mature discussion, I routinely talk about the merits and influences of video games with friends and on forums, I don't need a class that uses exclusionary vocabulary to legitimate my observations. Video Essays like this one are starting to come out and Indies keep pushing the boundaries both in gameplay and in narrative, but he seems to only focus on bestsellers, that he already knows are not meant to be consumed as art.

[@gerunkwon2598]

@@Puerco-PotterCasual conversation with friends will never go deeper than scratching the surface of the medium. For instance, I doubt one can casually discuss the Bergson and Deleuze's complex theories on film without years of reading rigorous academic text, which absolutely proves there's some merit to the artform. I'm sure we will get philosophers discussing video games, like those I mentioned, but we'll have to wait, since it is a relatively young artform. Essayists like Max Derrat, Matthew Matosis, and Josesh Anderson are good essayists, but cover no more than a basic undergrad-level philosophy class.

[@Akasha6915]

I feel like with the Academia critique circles around a big elephant in the room of how Feminist Frequency was treated for basic Feminist critique that would happen in a classroom, and how the video game players treated that. When I do see attempts at video game critique in an academic views seems to be met with such admonishment and vile treatment that seems almost makes games as art not worth considering.

[@iota-09]

@@gerunkwon2598 but alas, they already exist, are they famous? not, but are their ideas and/or products derived from their conclusions valuable? well you're gonna have to be the judge of that of yourself as i have no intention of putting words into the people's mouth, but the fact of the matter is: if you want books or essays and 1-on-1 discussion between cultured people about games that go in depth as far as discussion all art forms in existence, technicalities of music, religion, esotericism, psychology, philosophy, anthropology and so on so forth,they already exist. honestly while i appreciated the video as a whole, the final message that it tells me is "people should read more, but also people should publicize and advertise the ones who are actually talking about things properly game-related because the very same people who complain are to busy studying or furthering their own projects to know about the smaller critics and creators" which is all fine and dandy but... well, it could have been made in a much shorter video if that was really all there is to it.

[@seaweed5269]

​@@gerunkwon2598 there are genuine academics in this field (which is called "game studies" btw) discussing games - of course, not on youtube, but in academic articles, books and monographies. To those who would like a precursor, I recommend the podcast Game Studies Study Buddies, where two guys with PhDs (in semi-related spheres) cover one academic book and often explain various concepts and techniques used in the text for the non-initiated.

[@malvineous]

If you're interested in games as art, you should play Passage by Jason Rohrer. It's a reflection on the nature of life itself, but it has no dialogue or even storytelling. It communicates its message and evokes emotion purely through gameplay mechanics and level design alone, which really shows off what video games have to offer as an artistic medium that no other form of art can do. There's a lot of arthouse games like this that remain in complete obscurity, mostly because audiences are unreceptive to games that sacrifice fun in favor of artistic expression.

[@goosewithagibus]

That really is the curse of good art: the masses don't like to be challenged in any way, they just want mindless content. Not that I'm outside that group or anything. I do enjoy some mindless content as well.

[@leonardoferreira2372]

Passage is often my number one recommendation when it comes to the artistic potential of games; it length makes it almost universally accessible. Shame about its creator though.

[@FluffySylveonBoi]

Malvineous explores old ruins!

[@henri3170]

​@@leonardoferreira2372Would you elaborate on that last sentence?

[@skii_mask_]

1:22:21 "Maybe subjectivity is the cornerstone of video games, which makes it difficult to slot into the more objective world of art." I hate this. I genuinely appreciate this video, but something was bothering me about the way you presented certain points, and this is really the crux of it. It's pretentious, and elitest. I'm at work so I can't write a whole ass essay right now, but this legit might be the motivation for me to make my first video essay, because I feel like I've got A LOT to say here.

[@Prizzlesticks]

You know that scene in Dead Poets Society where Keating has Perry read the introduction to "Understanding Poetry?" ...Yeah, I think you should watch that scene again.

[@Prizzlesticks]

It's really weird to me, your stiff and narrow rules for what can and can't be considered art, and your limited knowledge of games, it seems. Minecraft does actually have an end goal, built directly into the game, but you say its only directive is to build. Weird, but okay. I guess I can't expect too much from a guy who thinks fashion is transient and never repeating, when in fact it has a long history of repeating trends and fast fashion is a very modern and alarming development. And to imply something can't be art because of a limited shelf life is... Asinine. Tell that to any pâtissier. Or look up 'ephemeral art,' transience is often the entire point of a piece. Or what about performances not captured on film? Or plays and orchestral performances from before records could preserve such art? Or books and paintings burned by the Nazis? Are you really going to say art is only viable so long as it is preserved and observable forever? How foolish. Your treatment of both video games and traditional media runs counter to the very essence of art. The function of art is merely to create, to turn a thought or vision or a sensation into something which can be experienced by others, whether or not it ultimately does so. Whole movements of art arose from pretentious insistence on "high" art, which you both somehow denounce by claiming good technique does not always make "good" art and also uphold by saying "real" art must do more than entertain and must have depth. Also, games can be un-fun and valid. The explosion in popularity of Fear and Hunger is illustrative of that. And last, because I could only get an hour and some change through this and could already nitpick this for a two-hour response, it is idiotic to write off entire games as unoriginal because they employ the mechanics of other games. Despite what you claim, Dark Souls is not actually the first Soulslike game. Not even the first FromSoftware game if the subgenre. Demon Souls predates Dark Souls, as does Eternal Ring. In fact, a lot of their first ever game in 1994, King's Field, can be felt mechanically through much of Dark Souls 2. So to bash on other developers for implementing mechanics they themselves have recycled (or refined) is silly. Because much like any art form, the establishment of a genre means a set of recognizable tropes. Creators can then take those tropes and audience expectations and either expand upon, subvert, or break them for new and unique results. You don't get Picasso, who was actually incredibly talented in traditional realism, without having expectations of a genre to break. That's literally the point of avant-garde art. You seem to have a lot of opinions on art and games, despite not bringing much of either into the discussion. And bruh, I'm gonna need you to cite your sources. Intellectuals and artists have been examining games as art for decades. Like, since the 80s. SCOTUS has recognized games as a form of creative work, which means the rest of copyright law worldwide pretty much does too, barring some exceptions (China, for example, has a long history of not giving a shit about foreign copyright restrictions, that's not the point though). Multiple major museums, including The Smithsonian and The Museum of Modern Art have held exhibits of video games as art. Heck, my local museum is currently hosting the final stop for the largest video game museum exhibit, for Minecraft. The Tribeca Film Festival has both featured games before and created the Tribeca Game Awards. Which, you know... Even if the end product of a game sucks, that doesn't invalidate the work of artists on the project, or even of the developer if they're ambitious enough to be working alone. Games, like films, can be comprised of countless art pieces, from concept art, scripts, in-game assets, music, and more. And they can be appreciated in part or in full, depending. Yes, the way Hades weaves the mechanics into storytelling make for a compelling and fun game, but I can also appreciate the stunning character design and modeling work which bring the world to life. The game would be good without it, but those assets elevate the game. Anyway. Cool video essay, but I guess when it comes to criticism, uuuh... git gud, mate.

[@iota-09]

on point@@Prizzlesticks

[@Aurora-bv1ys]

Facts.

[@PedroKing19]

Excellent

[@alucard347]

I think that a large thing this video essay completely miss is the fact that every single criticism levied against video games is valid against cinema and literature. Almost every movie or book in history tried to put forth the big trio of emotions, joy, sadness and horror. The movies and books that don't do so are experimental rarities, not a staple of the medium. There are games who are, by default, not meant to evoke any emotion from you, but rather be purely philosophical. But they are rare, yes, not only because of how young this medium is, but also because that very concept is rare in all arts. And the idea that most games are just attempting to larp on Cinema or literature is also so very wrong. All games by being games have mechanics that separates them from those mediums, and no matter how little or how much the designers intend on utilizing them, the mechanics of the game are there and inform and shape the art.

[@kidkangaroo5213]

I agree with most of the points made here, but there's one thing I find a bit odd: In my eyes, knowledge of old art is not necessary to make great art. You don't need to use Marvel heroes as an inspiration for your characters, but you also don't need to use Odysseus. Nobody grows up free from culture, so there will always be artistic influences present. At the end of the day, art is a fractured mirror of life, if you draw most of your inspiration from experiences you've had in real life and extrapolate them into artistic form, your work has a better chance of resonating, than being a copy of a copy of a copy.

[@noneofyourbusiness4616]

Are you more likely to break running records if you actually know what it was possible for human beings to achieve in the past and studied how it was done, or if you just get on the track and run aimlessly?

[@noneofyourbusiness4616]

@@Arum638 From where in "the culture" did you passively assimilate the detailed knowledge required to become an Olympic-level sprinter? Did Morpheus plug the program into your neck port?

[@noneofyourbusiness4616]

@@Arum638 Jesus Christ, apparently you never heard of comic book characters like Thor which went "all the way back to ancient legend" to create new things.

[@noneofyourbusiness4616]

@@Arum638 Oh, Thor wasn't "worthwhile" enough for someone who thinks people don't need to know history at all. Your two arguments above contradict each other. Jack Kirby based Thor on the Norse legends. It doesn't matter that you don't think it was good enough, he took his knowledge of history and created with it, rather than making a comic based on another comic book.

[@noneofyourbusiness4616]

@@Arum638 I'm sorry I responded to something you shouldn't have said, then.

[@alessandroderosa8073]

I always love when someone who doesn't usually discuss videogames but is well-versed in other forms of art decides to address the topic. To discover you've been sharing so many of my experiences with the medium is quite surprising, given how much time you devoted to cinema. I'd really like to watch/read more from you about this young medium, which is so desperately in need of some good theorists. But I'm thankful we were lucky enough to get this one. This and Meta Microvideos by matthewmatosis are among the most exhaustive takes on the state of videogame theory and the fruition of videogames you can get.

[@JokerMxyzptlk]

this was… Amazing. I was expecting a video just describing which games had artistic merit and which ones didn’t, but instead I got a much broader discussion about what a video game can even be and how to define it and what the artistic process has to become while developing this entertainment

[@TheCD123]

This is exactly the kind of conversation I’ve wanted to have about games and art. You’ve given me so much to think about that I can’t effectively write a response in a KZbin comment. This, I think, it the mark of a good academic analysis: it demands that quality responses to it are also academically informed. I just might write a video essay of my own! This was a great watch.

[@bigmilkhog6440]

Fantastic video, i remeber a few years ago being aware of a growing discourse online about the lack of academic terms to describe games and the features unique to games. One that stood out was ludo narrative dissonance, which you mention in the video. This is when the gameplay and thematic content of a game are in opposition, like in red dead redemption. Games need a cahiers du cinema or something similar, a collective dedicated to serious artistic discussion of the medium. There are people doing this, like the great matt mattosis who you mention here, but they are all scintillating in different niche pockets of the internet.

[@gustavoh.desouza6336]

I never thought I would see in a video about videogame a guy mentioning Béla Tarr and Yasujiro Ozu, and I think this prove your whole point

[@blarblablarblar]

I do think there's one additional problem you haven't mentioned - Satantango is a 7-hour movie, which is criminally long for a movie. Most video games easily pass 10 hours; the standard measuring stick for playtime is 1:1 price-time ratio, with a normal total play time for each individual game at 20-60 hours, and in some cases reaching 100+ hours. Regardless of whether this is a good measuring stick for the value of a game, that is a really high barrier to entry for an unenjoyable artistic experience that you have to force yourself to interact with, not to mention for non-gamers. There might be some potential for smaller games, but I think it's a big ask (maybe even an unreasonable ask) to want something like that from games running high production cost and long playtime.

[@gusty7153]

i think the main problem is simply that there are different kinds of games that serve entirely different purposes but are all lumped under the same umbrella of "videogame" some exist to be an interactive visual experience akin to visiting an art gallery. and i mean the ones called "walking simulators" the "screen savers" the "desktop toys". and also tech demos for a new experimental interface tend to fall in this category. fun fact, the first first-person-shooter was allegedly invented as a tech demo for the mouse others exist to be an interactive narrative experiences, this is where you have the rpgs, the visual novels, and other genres where there's emphasis on storytelling and in turn could be considered a whole different category of art from the previously mentioned group. and this group is the group that's often emphasized a lot in regards to these kinds of topics. the"realistic" simulators that exist more or less as technical benchmarks on account of how much effort goes into trying to simulate some real world experience. and myriad of genres of "true games". games in that exist for the gameplay mechanics and skill challenges this group is defined by being games in the traditional sense of how one would define a game or puzzle and this in of itself can also count as an entirely different form of art from the previously mentioned groups. then there's educational games with their own myriad of genres that gives the potential for videogames to have practical utility in learning and training exercises. and delivering a quality learning experience can be considered a form of art. there's also games that exist to be parodies or commentary on things, including satirizing other games and things about games. and of course satire and commentary is a form of art in of itself that's already been established long before videogames were ever a thing. then there's the multiplayer games that exist to be a social experience. it's traditionally dominated by competitive multiplayer and every AAA company striving to make the next hit e-sport. recently though most of the general public finally found a way to prove that most people actually want a more co-operative social experience ranging from casual and relaxing to teamwork in a darksouls clone. subcategory of this are the games that have tools and features that allow for art to be made by the players.

[@Vertexavery]

I've had a lot of conversations with folks over the years about this and I firmly believe that in the right hands, interactive media like video games has the potential to be affecting in ways that traditional cinema cannot. With the growth of consumer grade (and priced) VR equipment, it's only a matter of time before we find an auteur that can create in the medium and affect us in ways we can't even imagine yet.

[@ps2progamer814]

Kojima and Houser already have

[@morkmon]

Yeah had this experience with Pentiment last year, the feeling I got at the end, feeling the actual weight of history is a thing I will never forget and that is not replicable in another medium

[@MrNateM]

I think "finding" that auteur might be more a matter of looking, than waiting. The ocean of video games is far broader than most people think, apparently including the maker of this video. I think highly thoughtful and experimental games don't find much of an audience (and therefore aren't as refined as they might be) in large part because people assume they don't exist. This video seems to go out of its way to assert that they don't, and then mentions only one game (the Columbine game) that hasn't sold over 3 million copies. For a very approachable game that works in ways other media never could, I'd suggest "Before Your Eyes." I wouldn't necessarily describe it as artistically profound, but it's an aesthetic experience that explores the possibilities of interactivity in an eye-opening way.

[@viewedlarvae]

These games already exist. You just have to look. Just go on itchio and you will find SO many.

[@fernandofaria2872]

@@MrNateM I _see_ what you did there... haha. Get it? 🤔

[@Minopker]

I'm surprised by the disparagement of Super Mario Bros (NES), I think it's a pristine example of early narrative design. The story is just a framing device. The *real* narrative is the skill growth of the player as they slowly master the controls and the world, and the entire gameplay loop is designed to feedback and foster that growth. The unpaywalled arcade design philosophy translates into a wholistic home experience where difficulty still drives conflict, but ownership now leads to perserverance and resolve. Going from 1-1 GAME OVERs, to warp zones, to Bowser screens (all within a single sitting) is grounds for a player's personal monomyth. Reading the manual was *my* invocation of the muses. What was your experience honing Ninja Gaiden?

[@seangdovic4967]

I agree with this a lot. However, I believe Super Mario Bros. is very basic interactive storytelling. The game uses it’s gameplay to tell a compelling story, but it isn’t one that evokes deeper themes or more profound ideas. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. I think there is a place for all kinds of experiences in this art form. Not everything has to make you think deeply or make you cry. But I don’t blame anyone for pointing out the lack of philosophical sophistication in its storytelling. Regardless, I love all the Mario games for their brilliant artistry and also respect them greatly. But I get why not everyone would see things the same way. Your line of thinking (interpreting every element of the game design as narrative expression) is actually a very evolved and holistic way of viewing the art form that even many high level analytical thinkers don’t yet see. I believe this will change as developers continue to create groundbreaking experiences that redefine the way people see and think about games.

[@nevercanyoucant]

I love this view. The narrative is your experience within the game world. This I think is the thesis present in higher level open world or systemic game design. Also perhaps more present in true rougelikes

[@kidkangaroo5213]

@@nevercanyoucant And yet that doesn't make the fundamental narrative, that stays the same across runs, less worthy of criticism

[@seangdovic4967]

@@kidkangaroo5213 Yes, although I do take slight issue with framing fixed content as “more fundamental” than dynamic content. All of it has to be consciously crafted by the developer. Every dynamic possibility must be designed, programmed, animated (etc.). Video games are truly a multiverse approach to storytelling. All of the different possibilities and dynamic events in a game’s story are just as authored as the fixed events, so I think a game’s story should be taken as a whole. Every component in a game is just as valid as every other. Although, even with this mindset, you could definitely still criticize Mario for lacking profound philosophical substance.

[@ratus7538]

@@nevercanyoucant what games would you suggest with this?

[@SovereignCaustic]

Part of the problem I have always felt, is the definition of Art is not enough. I would say that Art needs to be experienced to be Art, and that a painting no one ever has seen(even the artist), is not Art, for it is never experienced. Which when you apply it go gaming, the Art is not just in the game, like a movie, a painting, or a poem, but in what you take/give to it of yourself. Certainly this is true of those example, but the discourse happens more often after it, and not as a part of it. This is far harder with gaming not because it is so little, but because in gaming, we give so much more of ourselves, and more is experienced during it. There are no movie critics who give their impressions every 15 minutes, but a game can have impressions at intervals easily. Your attention, your choices, even just you messing around. I admire many forms of Art, but few will ever appreciate watching a 10 year old for a few hours making things in Minecraft, and yet there is an undeniable beauty to seeing it. It will be different for all of us, based on our own experiences. Not everyone has ever built a sand castle, but everyone can spend a few hours in Minecraft, and we can see that in others. We are all reaching towards each other, in our own way. Art reflects this, but in gaming we see it easier than ever, as we all see the differing mirrors in this funhouse. Other forms do as well, but gaming is like being able to move your hand around and see how it is reflected back at you. Everything else is less interactive and seems to be more of the authors vision, opposed to our own within something.

[@iota-09]

there is definitely something interesting to say about how gaming is one of the few if not exclusive medium in which the act of experiencing art is by now, considered standard form entertainment and an enjoyable experience just to watch, a painting depicting people watching a painting may have its artistic values and depths, but only through the rigorous work of finely tuning such a painting to have its own values, references, experiences and such -or perhaps not, but i'm talking in general here-, but when we can just see, i dunno, someone like donguri990 play devil may cry and be enjoying the game nearly as much as if we were playing it ourselves, when we can see someone discuss the game they are playing observing its artistic qualities and then be moved when narrative or even merely non-narrative but artistic catharsis arrive and appreciate that as much as if we were watching a movie, what does that say about gaming? i dunno, maybe i'm looking too deep into it, but i believe that if games have such an intrinsic method of being enjoyable to people, there is more to them than a need for academical discussion to be considered art, but alas "beuty is in the eye of the beholder" and i also find myself with the essay's own definition of art, as art isn't necessarily about references, but about giving a message and having someone interpret it, not receive it, just interpret it. is art, art if it is privy of references? does that mean that games or movies or anything that are created in a bubble with the only clear references being those that inspired the artist and not those you might see in the piece, not art? is the first painting ever not art? if an alien made a painting based on what one would describe art to be based on a strict definition not be art? i dunno, it just sounds... feeble, i'm not sold on the video's message especially considering that there IS deep discourse around videogames, there IS videogames that are much deeper than your average dark souls, there IS people and institutions that teach the art of videogames on a more academical level. the only exception is that THE INDUSTRY doesn't prize these as much as they should, and the only reason that for other medias this is not felt is because those other medias existed in eras in which hypercapitalism wasn't rampant and where their respective industries could be flourishing in their artistic components without too much worries compared to nowadays, something gaming as an industry didn't have the luxury of, if not for an extremely brief timeframe.(i'd say between 1998 and 2005)

[@BruhBruh-ej4cd]

thats wrong imo, art is not communication but Expression.

[@achrafmaaden6263]

Well , Jacob Geller is watching this one.

[@MrNateM]

I think maybe Cinema Cartography needs to watch Jacob Geller more than Jacob Geller needs to watch this.

[@cleverman383]

I thoroughly enjoyed your thorough analysis on the artistic potential of video games. You raised many astute critiques and observations I agree with. After watching your essay, I feel compelled to recommend looking into the work of Yoko Taro, specifically his magnum opus NieR:Automata. Based on the artistic criteria you outlined, I believe you will find Taro's work masterfully fulfills the very elements you argue great games should pursue. NieR:Automata seamlessly blends action-RPG mechanics with a philosophically profound narrative concerning existentialism and humanity. The storytelling leverages the interactive medium to subvert player expectations and deliver an emotionally harrowing experience. Visually, NieR:Automata exhibits incredible art direction with a decayed post-apocalyptic world layered with haunting symbolism. The soundtrack by Keiichi Okabe is equally breathtaking, complementing the tragic tale. Taro prominently displays his unique creative vision through boundary-pushing gameplay sequences and narrative techniques rarely seen in the medium. You argued convincingly for advancing games as an artistic medium. I believe Taro's work, especially NieR:Automata, aligns closely with your perspective on how creators can achieve this goal. The way NieR:Automata weaves interactive gameplay, evocative style, and resonant storytelling into a cohesive experience shows the true potential of video games as an art form. I sincerely think you would find Yoko Taro one of the few "pioneering auteur game creators" you rightly believe the industry needs. I hope you will consider experiencing his work, especially NieR:Automata, as I believe you will find it a shining example of your artistic values for unique, meaningful video games.

[@user-cq5sg9cb4t]

It's not so much that the medium itself is incabaple of producing a Dostoevsky, but it's the climate of which the medium is a part of that is incabaple of doing so. I claim, and you may, of course, argue, even film, for all its richness and history has not been able to come up with a Dostoevsky. Again, it's not that the form is incabaple of reaching such depths, but, perhaps, the world around in its socio-political, cultural manifestation is no longer capable of it. After all, it's a Dostoevsky that establishes and defines the medium, not the other way around.

[@kidkangaroo5213]

!. Nobody has explained what arbitrary set of characteristics would make a "Dostoyevsky" 2. Looking for that is another act of trying to fit video games into a preconceived mould. Keep an eye out for video game auteurs and let them shine in their own metrics.

[@user-cq5sg9cb4t]

@@kidkangaroo5213 1) If you understand what Dostoevsky(not "a", but "the" Dostoevsky) is to literature, then you will understand what is meant, no need for it to be explained by someone else. 2) The metrix is universal for every form of art - the depth, the visceral, the transcendent qualities of the artist's work. I don't see why video games must be excluded from that. When the o.p. talks about a Dostoevsky, he doesn't mean the actual Dostoevsky, of course, he means any possible artist whose work will be able to go beyond the boundaries of form(video games in this case) and influence culture generally, so there's no comparison or moulding here. At least that's the way it strikes me.

[@pulx1481]

To understand if a video game is a form of fine art one need to look at what is a video game in its core. Music is a melody, litterature is wording and cinema is image in movement. Well video game are defined by their gameplay, some video games could potentially be considered as art but not the video game as a media. Why? This because if video games are defined by gameplay well Tetris, pac-man, FIFA and other games like that have brilliant gameplay and in fact are brilliant videogames. Does anyone fight to make Pac-Man a form of art?? No... people always talk about a certain type of video game when comparing it to art and they do so by showing how good the story is... how good the look is... but all those are not necessarily fearures of video games. Video games don't need to be considered a form of fine art to be legitimized!!! They are there own category and people should be proud to play anyways...

[@squigglyarmz197]

One man doesn't establish or define anything in a vacuum completely by himself (except maybe Jesus, the Buddha, Muhammad... If you believe in that sort of thing) you sound like a Dostoevsky fanatic, do you read it like scriptures?

[@King-wl6zj]

@@pulx1481bro said fifa has particularly good gameplay lol

[@blmn564]

1:15:31 I think this is actually a good thing. You could say the same for a lot of great movies: The Godfather, Blade Runner, No Country for Old Men, The Social Network, Great Expectations, The Lord of the Rings, etc. If a wealth of good games with good stories come from good literature, so be it.

[@darthbakercamelia]

The Université de Montréal has a whole program dedicated to the study of video games. Some incredible work from both students and scholars.

[@lamMeTV]

A video by someone who thinks they are very smart. Live performances, music theater or otherwise, are historically very famous for being different depending on who and when its experienced.

[@catmansion]

Good video but sorry, buddy, no book can make Oxenfree or Transistor any less impactful. The power of the video game as an art form is in its immersive quality. The existence of agency creates emotional investment and a feeling of connected responsibility which simply does not exist in purely observational media like prose and film. I've read many fantastic, soul-twisting books but after time has passed, the memory of them is like a story that was told to me - it holds little sway. Video games provide memories where I was the actor; I did something and the emotions tied to those actions are attached to the memory of the action, even if it was done through an avatar. Maybe I'm just used to projecting my "self" into someone else because I've been roleplaying for over 25 years but I'd wager this is not just my opinion.

[@cartib6677]

This is definitely one of my all time favorite video essays, I’ve relistened to this dozens of times. Will continue elevate my reference

[@smergthedargon8974]

Personally, my qualification for what makes a game good: -Do I enjoy it in the moment? -Do I keep thinking about it after playing it? If a game meets both of those two, it's usually something special. You can have both fun, interesting mechanics and ethical/philosophical ideas. Prey 2017 and The Talos Principle come to mind. Both are about consciousness and empathy, the latter in general and the former specifically in regards to video games. Did I enjoy playing Prey and Talos Principle? Yes. Do I still regularly think and talk about them because they left a lasting impression? Yes. 1:16:36 You might have more people on your side if you simply said people should do things like "broaden their horizons" and "what really makes something _art"_ instead of the far more derogatory calling them juvenile. That's just gonna put people off. I do not like movies and books nearly as much as I do games, and for this you have called me juvenile. I still engage with media that discusses them, because for me the dissection of such is often more enjoyable than the experience of actually engaging with them, but is it now mandated for me to enjoy other forms of storytelling to have thoughts on a game? Also, anyone who thinks Life is Strange has good writing has brain damage, most sane people agree. If you're wondering why video game writing is often so bad, it's because publishers refuse to hire on proper writers half the time.

[@HelloKolla]

Lesgooo finally some love for Prey

[@Puerco-Potter]

Play "Lisa the painful", it has everything you ask for in this video. The bad feelings, the references, the difficult themes... "Fear and Hunger" also come to mind

[@Puerco-Potter]

.

[@Therudicle2]

When mentioning that work must pull from what came before or at least recognized where a medium is going, I remembered something Hayao Miyazaki mentioned in regards to the new animators entering the industry. He was concerned with the influences the young animators had where based solely on anime and not real experiences. Then you nail exactly what is wrong with soulslikes that fail to successfully recreate what makes fromsoftwares games great.

[@jaydinotjd]

Tbh when I think about video games as art I mainly think about indie games. I feel like they are the ones that put the most heart into creating games and it’s always through really specific means mostly through their visual design and their music. The examples that initially pop up in my head are UnderTale, Omori, Hades, Cuphead, Hollow Knight, Faith: The Unholy Trinity, Needy Streamer Overload, Doki Doki Literature Club, Darkwood, Inscryption, Outerwilds, Anatomy, like if I were to keep going the list would simply be too long but I think indie developers have more of a say in how to use game mechanics as a form of story telling. Video games as art at least to me combine a number of art forms in order to convey a certain experience. Main ones bring visuals, sound design, music, and writing. I think some of the best video games as art are the ones you keep thinking about.

[@jimijenkins2548]

Funger

[@tal4347]

Thanks for the recommendations. I've played around half of those but I'd be curious to try other interesting works. The only game I'd add to the list is Pathologic.

[@Blurns]

1:15:48 Bioshock isn't an adaptation.

[@boi9842]

The Fountainhead inspired Bioshock, but it was not an adaption you're right, instead it was a clever critique of it.

[@Blurns]

I don't even know if I'd call it a "clever critique" because it was seemingly written by someone that doesn't really understand it.@@boi9842

[@zerolelouch22]

video games would be seen as the pentultimate form of art to previous generations of composers. Wagner himself was a believer in combining music and theatre to tell stories. Video games are the summation of music, sound, visuals, and story.

[@squigglyarmz197]

I agree, and we get to be a character in the story, interactivity makes them more impactful. If we could go into a painting and walk around and interact with it? that's basically what some games are like. I do think artists of old would have way more respect for interactive media than the academic art critics of today.

[@malvineous]

One small correction, but penultimate means second to last. Y is the penultimate letter in the alphabet for example.

[@bobbyj-x7v]

What absolute self-serving deluded crap. "The pentultimate". It's not an evolutionary process. Many great novels require deep, deep thought and engage upon the great topics and themes they brouch; a poem, a short story, a classical piece (such as Holst's 'The Planets'), radio plays, songs, and film are different species of art from each other.

[@bobbyj-x7v]

@@squigglyarmz197 No they wouldn't. There are sports (personal expression in movement) Games (chess, monopoly, computer games) Art (literature, music, film, paintings)

[@lococomrade3488]

@user-pi8qw9jj7h The world is nowhere near as black and white as you wish it to be. You should study some Philosophy, instead of just believing whatever stupid shit fall out of your head.

[@benflightart]

I think one of the things keeping video games less accessible to academia is how easily they lend themselves to so many other types of discourse that already are. Serious critique of environment design falls under the same rules of composition or color theory as painting or cinematography, writing and storytelling in videogames can be tackled as a cinematic endeavor, while all of the things that make the genre unique and distinct, such as interactivity, procedural, reflexive or emergent storytelling, game mechanics, character and playstyle design all are highly technical fields that lend themselves more to a technicians approach to academia rather than a scholars. As someone who went to art school for visual effects, both we and the game designers were taught from a technical standpoint, we learned the software first, and the artistic theory was secondary to that, which we had to pick up on our own explorations, or through resources like gnomon where the software itself is often taught as secondary because they have some of the greatest masters in the industry who truly have that artistic focus at the forefront and the value of their teaching is in individual artistic technique, the processes by which they achieve shape language or anatomical realism, rather at the software level. Still, these courses are designed with creators in mind, rather than for the sake of deconstruction, or documentation of their historical or artistic significance.

[@theghostsofgiants]

The last line of the "Lack of Reference" section might be my favourite thing you've ever put in one of these lol

[@TheLooneyGhost]

I disagree that video games are not widely accepted as an artform in academia, I am studying in art school right now and I can assure you they are taken seriously, its the whole reason I'm watching this video.

[@S_raB]

How many museums hold dedicated sections to display video games? Celebrated within a school is not the same as being wholly accepted by society. That's what he said, society as a whole doesn't acknowledge video games as a legitimate art form.

[@coreybertelsen7689]

@@S_raB "How many museums hold dedicated sections to display video games?" I can think of at least 10 in the US alone, including MoMA which is one of the most prestigious in the country

[@aqwthetroop]

One of the most important aspects about video games and what can make them, in my opinion, be the most impactful medium of art is interactivity. The most profound artistic moment I had in any medium was probably in Outer Wilds when, and *SPOILERS* for anyone reading, you find out that the ash twin project failed and that the sun has reached the natural end of its lifespan. It reminded me about the cliché but ever-popular "to be or not to be" speech from hamlet. The game has up until that point provided you the history and culture of an entire people that, through the generations, built the infrastructure for your species to succeed as interstellar explorers, yet you find out in that moment that within minutes all years of constant effort from the nomai and hearthians will disappear in a flash rendering all our collective efforts useless. To pursue the eye of the universe (or in more metaphorical terms: meaning) in spite of that is a decision you as a player have to make; there's nothing stopping you from stopping the time loop and getting the credits after flying into the sun. That kind of introspection, in my opinion, is only possible when you're given complete agency to decide what happens next in the story.

[@lostwanderingprince]

I came from gaming and move on to reading classics and modern classics literature. Stories in books are much more philosophical and artistic than in any other medium depending on the title. Like I'll mention you some title and these has movies/shows and even games but they're originally better and has more substance in books, like: Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Queen's Gambit, The Witcher Series, The Handmaid's Tale, Dune, 2001 A Space Odyssey & etc. Books are much cheaper and the ultimate physical media. Doesn't need much accessories and electricity. Comprehension and imagination are trained and improved by reading. It can open up opportunities like being a writer, a cultural associate, working in media and in environments like libraries, museums, publishings, studios and even being a teacher of language and literature itself in schools and colleges. Here language are being utilize to the max and can explore many topics, then philosophizing it. It can be argued that stories are the much more essential part of our being, without it, we won't have all the other stuff, so it can be argued that this is the ultimate art. For it can also inspire visual arts, music and etc from the contents in literature worldwide. It can touch art, history, culture, philosophy and etc.

[@tomhato5523]

50:47 “can you even imagine a game employing such a perspective?” I know of some! They’re all from Japan.

[@bu5415]

name them, please!

[@underarmbowlingincidentof1981]

@@bu5415 I mean there are enough video games where the person you play is just an active shooter... but I think what original commenter means is japanese dating sims where you try to hook up and copulate with as many young looking girls as possible.(all of which are of course 30000 year old vampires...)

[@smergthedargon8974]

Kek, great comment.

[@mr.b89]

​@@bu5415not exactly taking the role of the guy from Lolita but Drakengard supposedly has a weirdly nuanced pdf file character

[@Hagosha]

​@mr.b89 that it does! His name is Leonard, and I think the writing around him and the party's interactions with him are done very well.

[@enistoja]

I cannot say i agree with many of your points as to what makes a game worthy of being called art, or what art is to begin with, but i see where you come from and i appreciate your arguments, especially when boiling down to the title card of Games Deserve Better. A very good essay that I shall ponder about, but i will say one thing: Art is not objective, i would argue it is the least objective thing there can be! And some may disagree. But they’re wrong. Fabulous job, have a fantastic day!

[@BusinessWolf1]

Since.. when have artists cared about being ackgnowledged academically

[@grizz7714]

Academia is and should be generally well regarded amongs artists. A central body to teach and define certain conventions is not a bad thing.

[@noelcastillo3829]

There are many weird arguments here. You mention "many games" often when comparing to films like Citizen Kane... like that movie represents "many movies." It does not, the ratio of high art films to garbage films is probably larger than that of games, just due to the sheer amount of movies that have been made through its longer period of existence. I understand that you want more scarf wearing eccentrics to write scholarly articles about games... and they will. You ask in 01:17:30 what I think when I think of art... and you lead with Mona Lisa... which is funny. I was thinking of Cattelan's Banana taped to the wall, sold for 180k as high art in art Basil 2019. Contemporary art is curated and stamped as high art on the spot, and we can all agree, banana on the wall is not exactly Citizen Kane. I promise you when the business of games can bend to fit into the business of collecting and selling art, there will be plenty of scarf wearing people ready to put the stamp on it, and then all those scholarly articles will be written and archival efforts will emerge... and your video essay will have its Dostoyevsky.

[@nosex_nosex]

it's actually a long standing debate in academia which takes its roots in the late 90s trend of "interactive fiction..." there were two primary camps: the narratologists and the ludologists (aarseth). the narratologists argued that storytelling could be sufficiently integrated into game play so as to produce a cohesive and legitimate "art" or at least "art-like" experience whereas the ludologists argued that games and gameplay were essentially agent (fundamentally centered on making meaningful choices) and that storytelling was essentially anti-agent (never presenting meaningful agency for its audience) and that each of these qualities were in fact the primary strengths of each medium... for the ludologists, games and play were valuable in their own right and the media ecological landscape, which connected games to storytelling and antecedent mediums, was a confusion and a mistake: when games tell stories we are not playing and when we play we are not being told a story... it becomes a frankenstein monster divorced from itself, wrong, and apart from everything. if anyone has ever been frustrated by a cutscene that breaks their focus on an intense play moment or that bores them when what they would rather do is *interact* can immediately understand this. since the 2000s, the debate has developed and while i do believe there are some significant exceptions (which cohesively integrate interactivity and storytelling, e.g. "papers please," "insycrption") for the most part: games are not art... they are games! and that's actually a good thing. for the ludologist, tetris was the purist, archetypical example of a video game. and it was a beautiful and amazing thing; the need to integrate games into a community of "art appreciation," perhaps driven by the social problem for the medium to be respected, recognized, etc., has in fact degraded gameplay itself... the argument that games should be considered art implicitly devalues games themselves-it says these things cannot be taken seriously unless they depart from their own most essential features, that alone play is not worthwhile... to me this conception hurts games. just imagine how awful tetris was if it had a story and was constantly interrupting your puzzle solving, speed-freak flow to tell you how meaningful and important it was... when your fun, joy, creativity, ingenuity, and technical ability were already so meaningful and so important in their own right.

[@ChrisPriceforhumanrights]

Do you listen to 'Game Studies Study Buddies'? It's a pretty great podcast about the field of game studies.

[@nosex_nosex]

@@ChrisPriceforhumanrights no, i was just pretty into game studies when i was at university. read some aarseth and got into it. buuuut! this sounds awesome; i'll def have to check it out.

[@treasey8655]

You get it. I don't know why the creator of this video is so obsessed with categorizing video games as art when all he talks about, is how it doesn't make sense to do so. I'm halfway through the video and so far, he keeps contradicting himself eg. " this factor makes it near impossible to call a video game an experience of art. but...... I'll keep calling it art regardless!"

[@nosex_nosex]

@@treasey8655 i mean i think the rare exceptions are worth consideration. the issue is, like how you say... "categorizing" video games as such. the vast majority of games are so obviously excluded it's immediately disqualifying in a conversation like this to suggest otherwise. despite this, just read the comments: the emotional investment ppl have is overwhelming. for so many people "art" signifies quality and respectability... if you like games you *want* them to be art because you like them, you *want* them to be art because you spend so much time on them... it's an emotional appeal that's difficult to overcome with reasoned arguments, even when you're making the arguments yourself.

[@treasey8655]

@@nosex_nosex wow, that's a great argument as well! outside this thread I actually wrote a longer comment which more broadly describes my thoughts on this topic after watching the video in its entirety. let me know if you're interested, I'll copy paste it then in here

[@WhispersOfWind]

It's wonderful to listen to someone who is very versed in I would say one thing, at least that is what we all thought, expand into another medium in which they seem to be also very well versed in but we didn't know. I enjoy listening to NeverKnowsBest too and this (long-form) essay also made me get similar, very similar vibes which I love to dabble in into and enjoy greatly. Thank you for speaking to us on Games as an Art.

[@123456789tube100]

It depends on what you view as art The issue with books is most people don't read high brow avant garde lit and same with music...most don't listen to ambient and post classical music and also film....most don't watch art house films that require a phd to understand. Games will always have low and high brow titles just like other media

[@smergthedargon8974]

Yeah, I do find it strange how he goes on about games as if major AAA games and one or two indie games are the only ones in existence. You shouldn't walk into a summer blockbuster then complain you didn't receive high art.

[@123456789tube100]

Yup or walk into a book store near a train station and ask for a avant garde poem@@smergthedargon8974

[@Akasha6915]

@@smergthedargon8974 that's my biggest issue through this essay is this focus on high art as the pinnacle and wanting all video games to be that but that also requires ignoring the mass media and low brow works that are abound in the world. And like both can exist. And not to mention the amount of artists in all mediums that play with and mess with the idea of what is art.

[@iota-09]

​@@Akasha6915 in his defense he does say "both can and shoul exist", but indeed, throughout the whole video there was such heavy pressure put on games, as if they have to speedrun dishing out masterpieces(which by the way, exist, the same way cultured critics exist, but naturally i'm not expecting the video author to be aware of all of them... although he could have informed himself a little more on it before making the video rthna just mentioning a couple names here and there, as he says he "Can't find people who talk about games the way i'd want" but there indeed are many names, across multiple lnaguages too) gaming as a medium started 5-40 years ago, movies had over a 100 years of time to develop, and let's not even talk about the other mediums. there's no need to rush it, academia barely ever did anything positive for any medium in these last 20 years of internet-dominated time, we'll eventually carve our own niche... it's just that while movies etc had their own time to develop their nieche with only afterwards having the mainstream blockbusters come in grove, games have to do it in reverse order due to being born so close to the era of hypercapitalism and dopamine&serotonin addiction, that's all.

[@BoopTheSynth]

gotta say if I was going into the film industry instead of the games industry I would have been a fan for at least months by now. Great work dude Ive always wanted to discuss games like this and you have validated that want, thank you. Some of my favorite games are indie stories that make me feel emotions I cant explain. The way mae from night in the woods talked about people mealting into shapes and pixels made me understand my own experiences and the way the bard in wandersong keeps pushing forwards dispite the almost impossibility of his goal never ceases to make me cry. if thats not art then art doesnt exist.

[@husoyoo]

A great in dept analysis in video game world. It was thought provoking and fun.

[@glltyt]

I find the performances people can give through video games to be a beautiful form of art in itself. To see how others express themselves within the boundaries of a system is fascinating. I love Any% and 100% speedruns, I love high damage combo exhibitions, but I also love comprehensive glitch and niche interaction exhibitions, playaround TASes, etc. I love seeing experimentation more than fierce competition or impressive achievements. People are incredible and can come up with amazing solutions to things that were never even proposed by the game itself to begin with. They are sharing their own interpretations of the work in that way. And I value interesting interpretations above all else.

[@LifeUpz]

Academia is for academics and not for artists. This reality hits hards to critics because they attach a lot of importance and even their social status to their chosen artform, but this is not and has never been the world of the artist. Very rarely you see critics and experts making salvageable art themselves. It is another way of the audience reacting to the artists creation and not a more essencial part of the process than the tickets sold.

[@smergthedargon8974]

Yeaaaah, agreed. This video places too much emphasis on "academic" respect as opposed to general cultural respect. Who cares what the academics think of your game when your players, including those who think about them in more critical terms and as works of art, love it?

[@LifeUpz]

Yeah in my mind, who cares if you can't discuss a video game with your tedious and snobby friends over a bordeaux wine. It's more of a crisis with elitist snobby people than with video games.

[@iota-09]

@@smergthedargon8974 and said perspective i fear is heavily skewed by the video author's own interpretation and definition of art, putting far more weight on reference and the act of giving people a message through art, than on experience on giving A message to people through art emphasis on "A" as it does not necessarily have to be the message the author initially intended, as long as a reaction and something is felt by the viewer, then the art reached the individual and achieved its job as a form of art and to convey message, regardless if it did poorly, forgoing this idea is i believe what creates this bias of over-appreciation for the academia.

[@smergthedargon8974]

@@iota-09 Yeah, isn't that the same reason Roger Ebert said video games weren't art, because they don't... force you to the same conclusion the author has, or something like that?

[@iota-09]

@@smergthedargon8974 i got a feeling both of them don't like modern art if that's why they consider games to not be art.

[@rattlethecages]

Ok so there are a couple of things to address here. I think the points you make about artists needing to broaden their scope of influence is noteworthy in order to see more art that truly differentiates itself from the pack. Self referential and insular creation eventually reaches a point of stagnation and diminishing returns. However, this does not need to come from other forms of art that many academics would consider the exemplars of their medium, it need only come from their real life experiences and surrounding environment. You just need a mind willing to engage with material outside of the conventional box. What strikes me as strange though, is that this video seems to be making an appeal to some sort of "high culture" that exists entirely separately from art. Interpretation of art and art itself are not one and the same, and very often the former is found within the circles of academia and scholars who use intellect as a barometer for legitimacy. The ability for a game to be profound or even tell a story is completely divorced of its artistic features. Art is primarily concerned with aesthetics, and any attempt to overlay philosophy or literary technique is a bonus, NOT a qualifier of its legitimacy as an artform. That would be like a poet interjecting into an instrumental jazz musician's session and declaring it "not art/high art" because it lacks a clever construction of linguistics. What's happening here is certain people want to look at older artforms as well as entirely different fields like philosophy and literature, and then use them as some sort of high water mark prerequisite that games need to reach in order to be taken seriously. Comics also faced this same uphill battle. Have any of these "high minded" people ever stopped to consider that the people involved in making and participating in the gaming and comic culture don't give a flying fuck what any of them have to think? It's quite frankly elitism and narrow minded, to the point where I wonder if they are the ones who need to do the growing up. Dostoevsky is a great writer no doubt, but to say that if you aren't aspiring to be of Dostoevsky's caliber then what you are creating is merely iterative entertainment and not art is complete tripe. So much of the art in games is composite in nature, as well as being completely unique to games. Any attempt to be more like it's literary and filmic counterparts only serves to say "games are only art when they act more like their older siblings". At that point, why even bother making a game? Sometimes I wonder if a lot of these "art critics" even know how to enjoy and experience a video game. Like what is the point if you can't even appreciate the defining aspect of the medium - the gameplay. We also need to stop with this either/or mentality that suggests something cant be art if it's a product intended to produce a profit. The two things aren't mutually exclusive. You can argue over how pure of an intention it is, but to dismiss something wholesale as mere entertainment and not art honestly feels like "art is only art if it aligns with my tastes and values". You don't get to decide that shit. Art is art and it exists based on aesthetical skill. All these other appeals to lack of purity of intention, literary technique and philosophical depth are often just pretentious hand waving so that people can feel more justified in their smug view from atop their ivory towers.

[@islandboy9381]

I agree that anything aesthetic is art and this video has a snobby gatekeeping fart sniffing vibe to it that wastes more time than add to the discussion, but would you agree that the greatest art we know in every medium is a combination of aesthetic mastery and literary depth?

[@ia2625]

This video is a bit redundant in a world where the likes of zero puncuation, errant signal and the acknowledged matthewmatosis exist. Most of the points are fairly familiar. Also I don't think the medium is necessarily as distant to other artforms as its painted out to be here, especially compared to mediums as abstract, unmimetic, arguably more subjective (when taste is concerned) yet inarguably still as aesthetically capable as music. Video games aren't alone in having limitations and strengths and having mediocre examples... I found the adaptation point particularly weak considering more good movies are adaptations than video games (and no, bioshock isn't an adaptation). Maybe the extent and specificity of some of these issues is at hand here, but none of what was said seemed to me to be very new. And dostoevsky as a standart to aspire to came off as daft, when his aesthetic merit is questionable. Games like Portal have definitely surpassed with creativity, craftsmanship and aesthetic impact works from other mediums that insist on their profoundity with sentimental appeals to empty cliched "human condition" generalities.

[@d3mon215]

I think the fun part overshadowes the art behind video games. Developing a completely new virtual world and mechanic needs lot of artistry . I think thats the art behind video games . It doesn't need to be a thought provoking story to be called art.

[@coreybertelsen7689]

God the statement at 9:43 is so incredibly, frustratingly myopic. You didn't even _try_ to seek out experimental games. Your entire thesis depends on "what I've heard of" or products that have had ample budgets and mainstream penetration, which.. ffs man, do you get how awful of an approach that is?

[@coreybertelsen7689]

@Goatpuke Well, I wrote that before I saw that he included an Increpare game in his supercut. So he's tried a lot of different games, which makes me even more confused why he would say something so inane.

[@linnaealyn]

5:08 I glanced back up from what I was working on just in time to see Xenogears just as it was running through my mind with what you were saying. I was not expecting to see it at all, but I'm pleasantly surprised to see it acknowledged. That game has had such a profound impact on my life since I played it across 2020 and 2021. No other piece of media has done for me what it has.

[@linkenski]

I went to a Computer Science college with focus on making video games. Besides the programming teachers we had one named Milo, who had a background in Religious Science and Rhetorics and he stressed the theory of "Mechanics, Dynamics & Aesthetics" when making games. A framework you could use to analyze other games and to blueprint your own design. It goes from Mechanics, which is the technical "What does what?" in terms of input and output. Dynamics refer to how the mechanics are able to come into play once they work as intended, and Aesthetic refers to what it's supposed to represent. Pushing a button to jump, jumping highler than the tallest skyscraper, you're a character living in a dream dreaming of reaching for the sky.

[@mr.b89]

Huh this is exactly the way we broke down game design at my college, "MDA"

[@DarkClaymore555]

I was on board until Dark Souls was brought up. To this day, I don't understand what's so impressive about it. When I played it, all I experienced was a goalless, slow, and buggy game. As someone who's interested in video game design, I can't help but feel like I'm missing something important about it considering so many people praise it. I just can't see anything special there beyond competent dungeon design. Even its "difficulty" is only relevant praise in the context of how numbingly easy modern AAA games have become. The game wasn't particularly difficult for somebody who is used to playing dungeon crawlers.

[@thefebo8987]

The world, narrative and visuals are really special in dark souls

[@DarkClaymore555]

​@@thefebo8987 I don't see it. To me, it feels like a classic case of devs that don't really know/want to tell an engaging story, so they create some vague setting to pretend like it's "deep". I feel like people have an unwavering trust in the creators that the setting makes sense and therefore is worth exploring. Nothing about the game convinced me that's the case. Dark Souls failed to meet even the most minimal storytelling requirement of giving me a goal that'll explain why I'm even going around killing all these random bosses. It's also not surprising that when FromSoftware made a more straightforward JRPG (Enchanted Arms) it had very mediocre writing.

[@Avarshay1]

Thank you for making this. This has impacted me tremendously and I'll have to rethink a lot of what I've built up in my head. This doesn't sound like much but I'm really grateful I watched the entire essay. Beautiful. Thank you!

[@v.0scar]

1:01:00 You make a good point about contextual readings and understanding of games, and the progression of how they are presenting themselves and argue that you don't need the history to play all games. However, there is a series about this man putting his wife through a few games but she's never played any video game ever. She may have been approaching from how you're stating. Though, in my anecdotal case, I struggled to play mario maker 2 as that game relies on your previous knowledge of other side scrollers to play. Or maybe i just missed a tutorial section, but theres a lot of ideas and stage layout ideas that i just didn't know because ive never played any other mario game at that point.

[@Pensive_Scarlet]

This is so inspiring. Sometimes I feel alone in seeing and appreciating the artistry of and within the medium. Also, S-Ranks on Revengeance difficulty? Kinship! >;D

[@maricorp.449]

the love the "its just a game" format of videos found on youtube.

[@atompunk5575]

I've been debating over the National Film Registry, we should have a National Video Game Registry, preserve video games like we do movies, but it will only apply to American developed video games, which that would be difficult to apply since so many video games are developed in many nations

[@oonmm]

Why should it only apply to American video games? They are the most evilest country in the world, and wouldn't recognize the fine are of other countries even if they did.

[@the11382]

The US Library of Congress does some preservation work, but most preservation is done by the independent Video Game History Foundation. Otherwise, different European national libraries try to preserve games.

[@Jakco808]

Thank you for making this video. This is exactly how I feel and want to convey but often shelter my thoughts in certain situations pertaining to games

[@ArkhaosGR]

10 mins in and I already see Xenogears, Vagrant Story and Planescape Torment. This man is cultured.

[@herobrinesblog]

I think the discourse on "are games art" need to focus on something else: GAMEPLAY! Im tired of ppl judging games artistic value based on visuals and plot. Visuals and plot are avenues explored in other art forms, its not unique to games. GAMEPLAY IS! Gameplay is artistic. The craft of street fighters combat is amazing. The joy of marios platforming mechanics is godlike. This is what we MUST focus when calling games art.

[@jocelynnr5505]

There is a podcast called Failed Architecture where in one of their discussions they talk about videos games and it’s influence on urban design. I would recommend!!

[@_rubl]

I think treating the requirement for games to be fun as a major limiting factor is silly because every medium has limitations it needs to follow in order to allow people to consume it. Music must be pleasant to listen to, Films must not give people headaces, books must both be readable and interesting enough for one to continue reading. sculptures and paintings must be of apropreate scale and materials, and architecture must be functional.

[@AhriMcCoy]

It's interesting, I think academia is onto this question-I was in a fairly high level art class recently and the question was posed whether video games can be considered art. Despite everyone answering in the affirmative the topic was only broached the one time. I assume that will change in years to come

[@iota-09]

honestly, i think the problem is people wanting to consider game art rather than *A* game art. if we were to see movies nowadays and judge them as if they were art now but only looked at blockbusters, marvel movies, etc, would we also ask "are movies art?" or "are *some* movies art?"? the industry is in shambles but so was the movie industry during covid, people want money and of course the bigger titles are gonna be the more shallow and the ones that bring more economical influx, but we shouldn't just ignore the fact we ourselves may be ignorant of the more artistic titles, because the moment we ignore that fact and try to judge a whole through a lens of very limited knowledge, we stop being objective and will only be able to claim things through the lens of what we as individuals perceive rather than as a collective, something which should not be the case for definitions of things.

[@ADreamingTraveler]

I feel as though video games present an artistic medium that is even deeper and stronger than what any other form can represent. You the player are thrust into that world and are experiencing it, guided along and feeling as if you are in that world. I can't tell you how many games have provoked such strong emotions in me that no other medium has. There's just a deeper connection video games as an art form can provide to the player than for viewers in movies etc. Since you are the one in control it creates a more personal experience. For the people who have experienced what I'm talking about they know what I mean.

[@FiggsNeughton]

Imagine having access to the grassroots medium of youtube, where you can discuss games and debate with gamers all across planet earth, but then saying this isn’t enough because you want some overpaid boomer in a scam college to be an “authority” and hand out the truth from on high. Unbelievable. Surely the legacy of Millennials will be remembered as a simpering desire for validation from authority figures.

[@BioClone]

The best of videogames is that it is an art being supported by columns that respond more to our past with art rather than on real boundaries, the fact is, the ceiling in this case can be all up we may be able to dream... and put effort on the making.

[@diabl0r]

Thank you for this wonderful essay! When it comes to creators who critically and deeply examine video games, I'd have to mention Noah Caldwell-Gervais. His long-form essays are as a critical commentary is to a work of literature, but uniquely suited for the medium they critique. Caldwell-Gervais, and others e.g. Errant Signal, Malmrose Projects etc. interrogate video games as art, often very rigorously, and attempt to historicize this particular moment in video game development. I don't think there is a shortage of insightful and critical commentators who in their way push our understanding of the medium forward. Unless I misunderstood that segment, I wouldn't discount Spec Ops as merely an adaptation (or what makes it half-decent is it being an adaptation). It's commenting on the interactive nature of video games, meta-commentary through writing/mechanics. I'd arguee that unlike literature engaged in self-critique, Spec Ops engages the audience in the acts themselves, raising questions about portrayals of war in video games, agency, moral involvement, game design etc. Questions particularly related to video games as a medium/plane of action (violence as play/game). It attempts to interrogate its own genre (even itself) and deepening the conversation of video games as medium/art. What can we be made to do or enjoy through video games? What do mechanics communicate? What are the contradictions? Indirectly related to this, what are the consequences of engaging remote control military technology that dehumanizes the enemy? What does it mean when violent video game play and military operations logic intersect? I've read quite a few interesting papers on video games and I've seen courses like "critical game studies" being offered. It's a growing field that uses critical tools from other fields but is in the process of developing uniqe new tools to examine a distinct and particular art form. It's a long process and video games are young and constrained by our conceptions of their possiblity. Unlike in e.g. cinema, I can foresee no revolutions or radical shifts in the paradigms of video games, only technological/franchise advances. But perhaps the evolution of games is different to literature/cinema - a new medium in a strange new age. Games are another form of creative expression captured by the markets and forced into forms from which ROI can be maximised, even more predatory and frenzied than before. Games are interactive and player engagement is built into the medium, which is exploited by the industry to foster dependence and addiction. Precisely the issue of infinite games you mentioned, instead of writing good stories, just provide an open-ended adventure that the player can write for themselves while also paying for it. In a way, this reveals the twisted end goal - to make a never-ending game that can be monetized forever. In general, I think art should disturb or shake us up, to change our ways of seeing. When games strive for graphical fidelity (as if realism wasn't discredited last century) they become even poor escapism. Fluidly slide from one "real" world into another "real" world, sit cosily with all preconceived notions of art and life unchallenged. Like always, we need to get our hands dirty and look below the surface for irreverent experimentation, where boundaries are tested and potential for new directions are cultivated.

[@_noahwainwright]

Thank you for sharing this. I just checked out his work and I'm floored

[@estusshart6470]

Jacob Geller is also an amazing youtuber who analizes art in a much More profound way

[@griffinhan-lalime4357]

​@@estusshart6470 More profound? Jacob has a slicker aesthetic, but you ought to know: he idolizes Noah Caldwell-Gervais's writing, as do many other heavyweight game analyst youtubers including Hbomberguy and Writing on Games. You can find them all in Noah's comment sections. This isn't to say that Jacob isn't a profound writer-he DEFINITELY is-but I really wanted to push back on your comment because it runs counter to my own experience. And while I'm here, I'd also like to recommend Super Bunnyhop and second the recommendation for Errant Signal-those two have been setting the bar for originality and thoroughness for a very long time.

[@ded-rocinteractive8536]

Brilliant video. As a game developer, you touched on many things I’ve personally when wresting with my intent and motivations

[@anwvererere]

oh niec hotel dusk clip. journey, team ico, ookami, undertale, inscryption, blasphemous,braid, limbo, so many indie games... many more, have captured artistic and philosohpical beauty since i was a kid. language, philosophy, history, all sorts i have learned from games!

Is "video games" vs "cinema" the right comparison? VG vs "video production as a whole" seems more fair. In this frame you can put TV and TV shows, which, like you said, "involve artistic people" but are difficult to consider as art. Candy Crush feels more comparable to Family Feud than it is to any movie. And Counter Strike or Battlefield look a lot like the retransmission of a sports event: it requires art people for the form, but the content doesn't feel artistic at all (unless writing football rules is an art? 🤔 maybe 🤷‍♂️). But I'm 100% with you on the fact that some videogames are clearly pieces of art. I'm finishing Chants of Sennaar, and I can't think of any other word for it. The graphic design, the gameplay, but also the underlying social commentary are finely crafted. Loved you work, love this piece too. 🙌

[@pinkaltercation]

this is a good comparison I hadn't considered :)

[@mlhill]

Thx.for the video.. I'd quibble w plenty but still helpful.. plenty good critics to check out that i didn't hear mentioned.. esp Jacob Geller... awesome channel

[@GoreSpattered]

most of what you reference when discussing dialogue being poor are huge AAA games, but look at so many indie titles (Lisa, Soma, Doki Doki Literature Club, Deadwood, Disco just to name a few) + less high art but equally amazing dialogue such as Undertale and Omori, I feel like you're discrediting so many amazing writers writing games today.

[@Peasham]

Considering Undertale as a whole package, it's definitely high art.

[@yviefae]

what people refuse to understand is art is fake, art is nothing and everything simultaneously. someone could make anything for any reason and as long as it invokes strong emotion in someone then its art.

[@squigglyarmz197]

This "my subjective opinion is objective truth" approach in academia is what makes people disdain "fine art".

[@LorcaLoca]

At which point in the video did they say that?

[@squigglyarmz197]

@@LorcaLoca the whole premise of the video was to try to critique video games as art in an objective way, It failed IMHO

[@whitedude416]

@@LorcaLoca 1:06:23 , kind of baffled by everything they show and say in this section

[@invoicequaint]

This is my entire issue with this channel. I see this 'objectivity' Lewis talks about more as a respected consensus, one that's held by those who interact with the art forms in ways that they would not classify as 'casual'. What is considered to be 'good' inside of these bubbles are still opinions, and some in the group may still disagree with what is good at the end of the day, making the whole thing simply opinion and consensus.

[@LorcaLoca]

Ah I re-watched the video and they boldly state this at 27:47

[@タカトー年1998]

I love how the firest game you actually show is SH2. So fitting for a video like this.👍

[@GizmoMcs]

why is this a problem for games to be considered art when other arts also suffer from the same problems, just separate what kind of games they are. if we focused on the majority of things people are creating and consuming right now in the other arts its not like its great quality too. Since the games are being done now they just mirroring the culture of our time. also other thing to consider is that the barrier of entry and expertise needed to create a game is higher than lot of other art types (budget to achieve the creative vision also might be a issue), so a creative person might just choose to express themselves in other art forms.

[@paulbrandoli7145]

At one point in the video (approximately 45 min mark) you discussed the qualities of the game Tetris and pose the question of what the movie analog would be. I suggest you follow this line of thinking to it's conclusion for a future video. For example, a list of your top 20 favorite games and what movie would be the spiritual analog. Metroid Prime = Citizen Kane, etc etc

[@museumofmusic9702]

The metal gear games hit that intersection of good story telling and utilizing the medium.

[@AmazingOwnage]

I really liked your take and commentary on video games. I tend to focus mostly on indie games since to me that’s where most innovation is found nowadays, but I’ll occasionally dabble on the AAA releases if they are well received, finished upon release, and don’t exhibit predatory practices (DLC, loot boxes, battle passes, etc). I believe there are games that can be regarded as high art aside from those you mentioned throughout your video, but I think some will be different for others. Great job~