like it seems fucking obvious, right? any medium that can contain degrees of symbolism, has the potential to provoke viewer interpretation, has the potential to contain specific or vague messaging from the creator, and just generally can be used for self-expression has the potential to be an art form.

Why the fuck is/was this a point of discussion? to the point of heated discourse, even! Was it just the most geriatric people they could find on the street? Weird snobs?

like, the second games started having narratives this should have been a moot topic. why the fuck did Kojima parrot it?

reading his statement, i feel there's two different discourses happening, the already solved (:lt-dbyf-dubois:) point of "can video games be art" and the more interesting question of "does the video game industry currently have a culture that promotes artistic endeavor over mass appeal"

to which my personal answer is 'no, but we're slowly getting there with the rise of auteurism (despite some of the problems inherent to it) in acclaimed development teams (:praise-it:) and the indie scene's entirety, and we'll see if it starts to push against the corporate board schlock in the future.'

but still, god damn, half of this debate comes from the same place as the video games cause violence bit and the other half is just people being annoyed with call of duty schlock, which, fair. but why is the former even a debate that happened/is happening. i'm genuinely curious.

  • SadStruggle92 [none/use name]
    ·
    3 years ago

    There must be more to it, a cultural or social significance is present. A collective shared audience and interpretative body. A weight of importance placed is placed on certain media and their ability to portray and reflect our lives.

    Could video games become art? Of course. Are video games art currently? I would argue the vast majority are not because society at large doesn’t see it that way.

    Actually, y'know what, if we go by the standards of what you're proposing here as necessarily definitional for what constitutes "True Art", then I can in fact name a specific game/game-series that I think would qualify despite the distaste we might have for it.

    You might already have an idea of what that is, but the answer is the Call of Duty franchise, especially as it exists post-CoD4. It is an extremely important focal point of contemporary American culture (don't laugh), that absolutely does have a massive, collective shared audience & interpretive body; and it's cultural importance is significant enough that the US Government takes a direct interest in it's development.

    Now, that doesn't make it good art. It is bad art in the same way that most Fascist art is, in that it isn't really interested in any way with personal introspection, or the enlightenment of man; it interested only in exalting the ostensible virtues of competition & of dominance over one's enemies. But it is still art, in the ways which you are talking about art, even if it is ugly & antisocial art.