I've always imagined art as the opposite of science. Something created that can never be correct or incorrect. Something that strictly requires opinions to judge it's quality. And of course it needs to be created in that sense.

There's no doubt in my mind that game development is an art. If you think otherwise, you most likely stick to programming, or you're developing clones of games. There are literally millions of tiny and huge decisions that are neither right or wrong but have to be sorted out and decided on. But before there are even decisions, the designer sometimes needs to create the choices. Most game worlds alone are works of art. Most are not modeled from real locations. They were concived with imagination.

i think video games ARE art^^



because its more difficult to make a game, than making a film.



in a film, you have to set the focus on the pictures and on the sound, so working together as a whole situation.

of course the story is important too.



so you think about a story, make concept shots of the scenes and think about how the camera has to move and which person says what, and what face they make and so.



but this all, can be in game developing too.



if you have a ingame sequenze(or not..) its like a little movie, it has story, sound, pictures, and you have to think about good camera moves too.



BUT something more(as long as it is ingame).



you have to keep the polyons down.

in a rendered sequence it isnt so important, that it renders 1 hour more or not...



but when its ingame..

it can begin to slow down and destroy the whole situation!





But something that isnt in movies is:

the gameplay.(thats why it is a game =P)



its can be very difficult to get a good gameplay.

set the right keys, so that is is comfortable.



also you have to think about what the player can do.



its INTERARCTIVE!

so many things can happen.



a movie isnt interactive, so you can see how it looks and feels and it is like it is.

a game not.



a player could make a wrong move and stuck into the wrong modeled wall.

or just cause he hold the up+down key at the same time he will began to jump 5000 meters in the high.*shrug*



so games are much more than films i think, cause films can also be included in games.



So~



YES, games are a bit overall art.^^

I think that the Melbourne based cartoonist Michael Leunig summes up the problem with defining art very well in one of his comics.

He has a man standing on a chair, looking up with wonder at a painting of a chair, that is exactly like the one he is standing on. The title of the painting is "still life: chair"

@topic: I think that video games can be art, but only if they are made that way. It is the same thing with films, you would not describe "Eurotrip" as art, yet something like "Sin City" is very artistic. And that is where there is a problem. Some shooting games are art. Just look at half-life 2, the way it portrayed the run down, depressing City 17 so well, Ravenholm, the mines, the coast... it was all done in an artistic manner, yet the focus of the game was still shoot to kill.

Anything has the potential to be art, and anything that is intended to be art (almost by defention) becomes so. That said, there is good art and baaaad art. Just go to deviantART to see examples of both extremes. Video games are the same. Killer7 looks to be built with art in mind, Darwinia is the art of our youth, and a game like Deus Ex perhaps isn't asthetically pleasing, but in line of story, setting and charatcers - I would rate it as art.

Video Games can be art, but many are merely good pass-times.

Art is not about what you're looking at, it's about how you're feeling about it.

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Original post by izhbq412 Art is not about what you're looking at, it's about how you're feeling about it.

Well said. If you think that it is art, then it is art.

I think art is something that comes from inside and expresses your view of the world in an emotional sense. That being said, I think most "art" that you see in galeries is as much art as Daikatana is, but that Ico expresses true emotional feeling (my opinion only :) ). I think most games don't achieve that status because they are made by to many people. And that with 200 people its hard to settle on one inner message to be portraied, and to express that feeling in an honest fasion. :)

Quote:

Original post by methulah Quote: Original post by izhbq412 Art is not about what you're looking at, it's about how you're feeling about it. Well said. If you think that it is art, then it is art.

1. "Art" is an opinion word like "fun"? Meh.
2. That still doesn't define art. ;)

I don't think it's an opinion at all. I don't think it's about how you feel when you see it. It's about how you feel when you make it. Anyone with an overload of creative energy can easily explain to you what things are art and what are not. You don't use up creative energy by sexing your girlfriend (or at least not that much ;P). You don't get it by washing your car. Kids get it by playing with legos, hicks get it by building garages, nerds get it by making video games. You get it by building, creating, designing, and inventing. If you build something (such as a car), and that something contains unique designing aspects (such as spikes on the hood), then you've just used your artistic ability. Much more than drawing your own cartoon character.

Art does not equal quality. Art is still art, even if some people see nothing but a rock, or see nothing but a guy running around shooting random cardboard billboards with a double action shotgun.

Video games are like physical toys; they are direct pleasures. Most things we call art intend to communicate something higher to the audience; I just don't see that happening between designers and players of video games.

I would consider some games to be a work of art, there are some games that utry to communicate a different message to the user than just being a game. I think the intresting point about games is that they are many forms of art combined. A game usually has a story, images and music and sound. How anyone can argue that writing a story, painting an image or making a soundtrack is not a work of art is impossible for me to comprehend. Perhaps the only part of a video game that couldn't be defined as art are the line of code themselves, but when some programmer comes up with an innovative and original algorithm, is it science or art?

In this country, if I can prove my game to be a work of art I don't have to pay tax on the profits. Only problem is you can't define a computer program as a work of art, which is quite convienient for those money grabbing corrupt people in the government.