iargue, when i said i'm the type of person who consider video games to be art, i never meant to say that i play only video games which could be classified as such in my opinion. i honestly doubt you even believe yourself when you pretend to have understood that i consider a game like pokemon to be art. i often compare video games to movies. both are a fairly recent type of media and happen to be similarly torn between the fields of art and entertainment. a movie like kim ki duk's 3 iron is definitely art, as it is obvious the director's purpose was to make an art-type movie through the use of certain quirks which wouldn't appeal to a mainstream audience. then there is movies which are nothing but pure entertainment and don't make much of a statement of any kind at all (be it artistic, socio-political, etc). and then there are movies that are kind of inbetween, like those directed by tarantino or scorcese. they provide their audience with plenty of action and not-too-convoluted plots and easily appeal to the mainstream movie-goer type, but deliberately adopt a rather unique, distinguishable style which allows them to be analysed, criticised, written about as art.
video games aren't exactly full-fledged art, and whether a game could one day attain this status is a great object of debate because the interactive aspect of the media invariably pushes it closer to entertainment
iargue, when i said i'm the type of person who considers video games to be art, i never meant to say that i play only video games which could be classified as such in my opinion. i honestly doubt you even believe it yourself when you pretend to have understood that i do consider a game like pokemon to be art. this is self-deception on your part so i will not address it.
i often compare video games to movies. both are a fairly recent type of media and happen to be similarly torn between the fields of art and entertainment. a movie like kim ki duk's 3 iron is definitely art, as it is obvious the director's purpose was to make an art-type movie through the use of certain quirks which wouldn't appeal to a mainstream audience. then there is movies which are nothing but pure entertainment and don't make much of a statement of any kind at all (be it artistic, socio-political, etc). those are usually the blockbusters you find to be heavily advertised all over the place. finally there are movies that are kind of inbetween, like those directed by tarantino or scorcese. they provide their audience with plenty of action and not-too-convoluted plots and easily appeal to the mainstream movie-goer type, but deliberately adopt a rather unique, distinguishable style which allows them to be analysed, criticised, written about as art.
video games aren't exactly full-fledged art, and whether a game could one day attain this status is a great object of debate because the interactive aspect of the media invariably pushes it closer to entertainment. so my personal opinion is that games are either total entertainment as is the case of the pokemon series because, let's admit it, you'd have to be high on something really strong to be able to write a convincing essay about pokemon having a unique style or potentially conveying a sociological message, or they can be both at the same time (entertainment and art, that is). but in no way is this pejorative for the video game media, because very often, some respectable masterpieces start off as mere mass entertainment. for instance, dickens' david copperfield was usually published as a newspaper series the people of england couldn't get enough of (much like our modern tv series).
but back to video games. let's take a simple example, you called me out on the fact that i have played through silent hill 2 numerous times, but there are two different approaches you can take to this game: you can either play it as just yet another survival horror with crazy monsters you're supposed to beat up while running for your life and wanting to beat the game, or you can decide to be very attentive to the level and monster designs (among others) to pick up on minor details, symbols, metaphors and the like. silent hill 2 (as is the case for most silent hill games, actually) is fraught with freudian theories of the unconscious and frustration-induced hysteria ; it would be very easy to write an essay which analyses james as a modern allegory for guilt and remorse. i suppose that now you might understand why i found it interesting and even necessary to finish the games several times, considering that when i find a game to be worthwhile of my time and critical energy, i tend to want to analyse it as i might a literary/cinematographical object.
since you don't seem to be too fond of the silent hill series though, i'll throw in another example. you mentioned bioshock in your long (long, long, looong) list of videogames. well, how obvious are its references to the cold war and communist phobia which marked the united states of the 50's and 60's? and let's not even mention the dystopic theme.
it's rather strange though, the way you seem to hold video games in high esteem but still focus on the overall graphic style as the one element which ultimately defines whether the game is worthy of being treated as art or not. the mother series doesn't look like much, at first sight this is nothing but a quirky, cute little rpg with a weird sense of humour in it, but i invite you to play it through (if you haven't done already, taking into consideration your claim to have virtually played every single game in existence) and see for yourself how the ending manages to twist this happy little world into something quite awful and unhealthy.
also, i'm afraid (hope) there might have been a misunderstanding. the few games i cited are in no way a complete list of everything i've played in my entire life, they are only some of those i played during the holidays (july/august) while working part time and doing lots of research for my women's lit masters dissertation. i'm both sorry and sad if i've offended you by claiming to love games even though i don't spend 16 hours a day on them.
but i'm not holding your rash observations/assumptions against you, because i'm certain there's got to be quite a bit of insecurity going on there if you can't help but lash out at someone who was trying to be friendly and casual about a topic you seem to hold dear. i felt like discussing video games for a bit of enjoyable chit-chat without having to go all scholarly-academic type and explain the why and the how (and the how much, since that seems to matter a great deal), but i was wrong and i sincerely apologize for that. remind me to pull the pretentious card out of my sleeve right away next time. i might forget, i'm not a natural when it comes to being condescending, unlike some people.
edit: i wanted to edit this post because after all i did take some time to browse through the list of games you bothered to post, and i have to admit it got a
face out of me because many of them i did enjoy, and a few i adore, even though you mentioned a lot of sports games and these make me wince. i'm quite aware it all comes down to personal taste though. we could have been having interesting conversations of the type you mentioned ("discussing games we like and debating their flaws and strengths") but instead you just had to lash out and pretend you took this post for a bragging rights competition in spite of my intending it to be a light-hearted summer gaming thread, oh well.
also, concerning your saying that nowadays fewer and fewer people truly enjoy video games and we have to deal with a lot of flashy games that will appeal to the "simple" people, it's true that overly casual games have taken over part of the market, i'm thinking about ds games in particular, but in spite of this, a great proportion of amazing games is still released every year, so there's no reason to rage at so-called casual gamers unless you want to implicitly prove a so-called superiority. nobody's ruining the video game industry, but out-of-place patronizing sure is turning it into a sensitive subject. (cf 4chan's /v/)
Edited by kcsays, 17 August 2010 - 09:45 AM.
