I was never trying to state my definition of art as being universal. My personal belief is that there are different levels of art. To me there's "art" (basically any human creation) and within that realm there's art (a creation that is made specifically for the sake of being art and to make a statement or invoke an emotion). yeah technically a kitchen table or an action figure can be considered "art" but that doesn't mean that it's on the same level of art as the mona lisa. I probably should've clarified this earlier. to me videogames fall into the former category as they aren't made for the sake of being made like a painting or a song is. the only exception to this are indie games, but I've already stated that one could make a far stronger case for indie games to be considered an art than commercial games.

but anyway my other point was that you're every bit as guilty of making your standard of art look like a universal standard as I am.  if art truly is subjective then other people can and should be allowed to draw a line in the sand of what defines art for them and you're not allowed to call them out on it. you can feel free to make a case for your side and try to engage in the debate and explain why you believe videogames are art, but don't try to tell me that I'm wrong simply because I have a definition of art. like I said, everyone has a definition of art.

I don't see why you're singling out video games. Video games can also be created specifically for the sake of being art. Just because you can play it, that doesn't make it any less artistic. As for me being hypocritical by saying that it's subjective, I'm not creating a definition or standard. That's the difference between my stance and yours. You bring up criteria such as method of production and purpose of product for qualifications as art. I'm just saying that everyone has a different view of what qualifies as art. I don't really care if you consider video games as art, however I am questioning your criteria because they don't make sense to me and I'm looking for some clarification on your thinking.

the topic is about video games.

Yeah, but that didn't stop you from bringing up movies and music.

reread the last sentence of the first paragraph in that post you're quoting. I said you can make a better argument for indie games to be considered art than with commercial games because indie games are often created simply for the sake of being created. I guess everyone here is just lumping commercial and indie games together, but I'd personally much rather separate the two much like how I would separate the creation of action figures from real sculpture.

Okay, but you're apparently fine with big movies because they can be viewed in a theatre. That doesn't change the fact that they're mostly created to make money and yet you have no problem with considering movies and music as art. For whatever reason, video games are not art unless they're indie. That's like saying music is only art if it's indie.

everyone has a definition or standard of art regardless of whether or not they openly stated it in this topic. feel free to tell me why my standards and definitions are wrong, but don't tell me that I'm wrong simply for having a standard or a definition while pretending that you don't have one. the belief that anything and everything can be art is a standard and a definition.

I didn't say I believe that anything and everything can be art, I just said they could be considered as such. I also didn't say that you were wrong, I'm just not following whatever logic you're following and therefore I'm questioning it to gain some understanding.

w/e dude I'm done with this anyway. I just realized I spent the last hour of my life arguing about the artistic merits of electronic children's toys. fuck this. my posts make a lot more sense if you realize that I was arguing against whether or not videogames are an artform and not whether or not videogames are art. like I said in my other post I thought this is what everyone else meant when they debate this issue since arguing about whether or not something is art is pretty obviously stupid.

So you aren't arguing whether video games are considered art, instead you're arguing whether video games are considered a form of art. Yeah, I don't think I understand and you calling video games "electronic children's toys" just shows that you're putting on a "2 cool 4 dem vidya games" attitude because it's cool to bash video games and dismiss them as toys for children, but movies and music are deep art forms.

regardless I still think this argument is silly at best and I feel pretty gross for having taken part in it to this extent already.

Too bad cause you are the best debater in this and at least willing to have a mature discussion as opposed to Psyburn.

I guess everyone here is just lumping commercial and indie games together, but I'd personally much rather separate the two much like how I would separate the creation of action figures from real sculpture.

See, that's totally how I feel. It's like trying to compare the artistic merit of an arthouse film and something by Micheal Bay.

One point that bothers me though is that you seam to link game design and programming a bit too much. Game design is more about the creation of a set of rules to be used in a game and it's surrounding "universe". World creation and such are probably more linked to writing but the creation of rules is something more specific to the medium.

You may have been facetious with the toy comment, but I wouldn't be surprised at someone being on gaming world and not caring much about games. In fact, gaming seems mostly like a joke here and things like movies and music are discussed more seriously without the constant "I can't believe I'm talking about this seriously" crap I see here so often. Anyway, you're in the same debate as everyone else, you're just off on some crazy logic. For example, I don't understand what you're talking about when you say that creation of computer software must be considered an art form as well. Does that mean instructional videos should be considered an art form? You also ignore the similarities between the other forms of media. Are you telling me that when you play games you become an emotionless zombie? Video games clearly invoke emotions, even the ones that aren't trying to be artsy. Many pieces of music don't make artistic statements either. As mentioned before, there are instructional videos and those don't make artistic statements, neither do many documentaries. So your definition is very vague. You also bring up the whole museum and theatre bogus baloney again. Video games must be found in a specific type of building to be considered an art form! Yeah, that sounds so ridiculous. You try to make the distinction between commercial and indie for video games, but you don't make the same distinction for music and movies. That just seems inconsistent to me.

I'm sure konix knows the difference between a film with artistic merits and a instructional film.

Some video games are about as artistic as the label on a mountain dew bottle. But I believe that the right person can make a game be art. The interactivity that games provide could be used for artistic expression that is different when compared to other art forms, but i don't think anybody has used it to its full potential yet.

Well obviously he knows the difference, but my problem is that he points out non-artistic video games while ignoring non-artistic music and movies in his comparisons between them.

while offering nothing unique like how filmmaking has cinematography (I mean there's gamedesign and programming but as I said if you want to accept this as a unique medium of art then you must also accept the creation of computer software to be an artform as well), and lastly that videogames are not only not required, but very often do not make any artistic statement or invoke any emotions.

Two points :
1) The way I see it, programming is only a tool used in the process of creation and not the medium through which a message might pass. Computer software and games are not the same thing because games use other art form (writing, painting, etc...) and what make it different; a system of rule, commonly known as gameplay, and interactivity. Which brings me to my next point...

2) Video games can use interactivity to invoke emotions other medium can't, such as guilt. Aki Järvinen wrote a very interesting text about this in the Video Game Theory Reader 2.

The ultimate result of anything commercial is to make money, that includes music and movies. Movies and music are not required to have artistic merit either, which leads me to think you have some sort of bias against video games for whatever reason. There are plenty of mindless action movies, for instance. Music doesn't have to be artistic in nature either (I don't know if you consider Weird Al as artistic, I don't). There is nothing about the nature of music and movies that require artistic merit. Sure, there may be more examples of artistic works in those media, but they also have been around for a longer time.

I guess what you're trying to say is that gamemaking is a unique medium of art but you haven't given a single reason as to why.
the difference between indie movies/music and studio movies/music: the budget
the difference between indie games and commercial games: indie games don't roll off an assembly line, aren't sold in stores, are extremely rarely created for the purpose of money, and, compared to commercial games, more often than not actually do attempt to contain some artistic statement. this doesn't necessarily mean that indie gamemaking is a unique medium of art but it tries a fuck of a lot harder to have genuine artistic merits rather than just being a product at a store designed purely to numb your brain. note that I never once said itt that indie gamemaking is an artform. I only said that one could make a much stronger case for it being one than you could for commercial gamemaking.

You're placing music and movies on such a high pedestal. What makes you think that commercial video games do not include any artistic merit? Why do you think commercial music and movies have more artistic merit? You're asking me for a reason and yet you haven't given me one yourself. You just assume that those media are artistic in nature. The only difference between a movie and a game is that the game is interactive.

the point isn't that they're in a certain building. the point is that they can be enjoyed entirely as an experience and aren't required to be a product that you purchase at a store. yes, many films, albums, and works of art can only be purchased at stores. however, the issue isn't with individual works of art but rather the entire artform itself. is it possible to enjoy a video game without it being a consumer product?

You already mentioned arcades. Either way, the method of delivery does not change the artwork itself. Are home releases of movies any different from the theatre releases, other than the more expensive equipment in the theatres? Sorry to break it to you, but when you're in a theatre, you are still acting as a consumer and the product is your one-time viewing of the movie.

To restate things one last time with the hopes of clarifying my point: my argument against this is that the end product of gamemaking is that it must be a commercial product and cannot be enjoyed as an experience like going to a theatre or museum, that the process of gamemaking is composed entirely of other artforms coming together while offering nothing unique like how filmmaking has cinematography (I mean there's gamedesign and programming but as I said if you want to accept this as a unique medium of art then you must also accept the creation of computer software to be an artform as well), and lastly that videogames are not only not required, but very often do not make any artistic statement or invoke any emotions.
Evidently nobody really seems to be arguing about this at all and instead people were trying to decide whether the video games themselves can be considered a work of art or not.

Okay konix. I'm trying to see how the distinctions you make apply to the entire field of game creation, but am ultimately failing despite everything you have said thus far.

For instance, what if I applied the logic you used about accepting game design and programming as unique forms of expression to accepting sculpture as a unique form of expression? We know that sculpture is a unique form of expression, but by your logic that means we would be forced to accept the creation of furniture or a house to be an art form as well. Or if we are to accept writing as a unique form of expression, we must accept the manuals that accompany most useless consumer gadgets to be an art form in it's own right.

You say that the end product of game making is that it must be a commercial product, but in the same series of posts you openly acknowledge the products of indie game developers as counterexamples to this rule. Even when ignoring this, I still fail to see how the commercialization of a work has any bearing on the enjoyment of the experience that is produced by that work. How is buying a mass-produced disc and using a device to interpret it as a binary stream of data any different from paying admission in order to tour a museum or enter a movie theater? How is the process that generates a high-budget video game title any more detached than the process that generates a high budget blockbuster film that has already lined up massive endorsement deals and their own series of consumer products directly related to the film in question? Does the experience generated by a profound artistic work really become less profound if you have to trade pieces of paper and metal assigned arbitrary values before you are allowed to be exposed to the source of that experience?

From what I can tell, and maybe you need to state your point again so we can clarify any mistakes in my own logic I may be applying to your argument, it looks like everything you are saying about modern games that detaches them from the artistic creative process is directly derived from the most recent products of the industrialization of the previous art forms that you are trying so hard to distinguish from the medium of video game design and development.

With or without any of these considerations, I want to ask you a simple question (you can even take your time to counter everything I've said thus far before even answering):

How do you feel about the creation of non-digital games as a unique form of artistic expression? For instance, would you consider the game of chess to be a work of art? Can you think of the invention of the sport of soccer to be an artistic achievement? What are your thoughts on the processes used to design and develop things as abstract as the games that have been played for centuries before the first computing device has even been imagined? Are the experiences generated from each something that can be considered unique to any other expressible art form, or simply the combination of the other art forms that preceded them?