Explain why video games aren't the supreme art form

I get it, you move through a construct with preset parameters. You blew my mind user.

>Explain why video games aren't the supreme art form.
Because "high art" is a nice way of saying "government funded and promoted"

"Low" art has always been art that was generated and sold for commercial gain. All the way back to the Roman times there were craftsman making disposable art whose purpose is to make people say "oh wow, I want to buy that!" This kind of art is prized primarily for being easily generated and disposed of, and being simple enough to have broad appeal (some would call this the lowest common denominator).

When artists are liberated from the need to generate a paycheck, they make art for pure art's sake and focus on making the best possible interpretation of that medium. Much of it will be blind repetitive groping for meaning, but the greatest oil painter of all time was a penniless, absinthe-pounding NEET who spent his entire life mooching off of his successful younger brother, and when he wasn't trying to huck paintings for a bottle of wine he was doing things with oil that had never been conceived of, so far ahead of his time that his talent went unrecognized in his own lifetime.

You want a video game that will stand the test of time, give it a gigantic, federal-government-sized budget, hire the best of the best, and tell them that they have unlimited reign to create the kind of games that A: make people care about their country, and B: they will still be playing hundreds of years from now.

they barely ever age well

books almost always age well

movie tend to age good aswell

>even putting Heart of Darkness in the same category as the other two

Video games generally try to be "fun" and put having enjoyable, unique gameplay over narrative depth. Games with great writing and great art are typically older point and click titles with simpler gameplay. Also, see:

It's probably too simplistic but that's the right idea.

Because art sucks, and video games don't suck.
"Art" is nothing more than an excuse you use when you have created something of no value whatsoever, to try and scam conspicuous consumers in to purchasing it so they appear more intelligent than their peer group. Video games offer entertainment, and can be purchased for their own sake.
Many video games age very well, the only exceptions are games that just try to use the best available tech to look realistic without having a distinct style. Metal Gear Solid 1 is an example of that problem. The hardware was just not up to the task of the realistic style Kojima wanted and it really shows. It was cool as hell in 98 but 20 years later it looks like ass. Meanwhile Super Mario 64 which is even more technically limited and 2 years older still looks fine because they realized that with their technological limitations they should make it a colorful cartoon.

Because the technology doesnt exist yet to simulate a fictional universe well enough to make non-competitive games interesting. So 95% or more of video games center on some form of competition - war, sport, crime solving, etc. But competition is only one aspect of life. And even competitive games usuall suffer from the problem that if you play more than a few hours, you see through the surface and perceive the simple raw mechanics - at which point the supposed complexity of the game world collapses.

>heart of darkness shouldn't be in the category of "heart of darkness and things inspired by it"
yeah okay pal thanks for sharing

If that's what you believe, you need an ungame:
youtube.com/watch?v=D7VJ4lP-05A

I would definitely classify walking simulators as art
The problem is that I would not classify them as games. They have no reason to be games. You can watch a video playthrough of them on youtube and get exactly the same experience.

Art can't involve competition?

>the problem that if you play more than a few hours, you see through the surface and perceive the simple raw mechanics
And if you watch a movie enough times, you notice where they used green screen and matte paintings instead of real sets, and when they switch from high-detail close-up props to rubber stunt props.

>The few games that are incredible works of art enough to be in par with works of literature are vastly outweighed by the seas of derivative brainless trash that teaches no lessons other than how to click on heads better
Every medium has this problem. For every Tale of Two Cities there's 10,000 Fifty Shades of Grey. For every Citizen Kane, there's 10,000 Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle.

I have to heavily disagree with that, although I would say the mario games aged kinda good, they are kind of the exception that proves the rule imo, but im not really here to convince you bro, if you think so thats all right aswell, peace!

That film is stonerkino.

It ties together the forms of sound, image and video, and it's interactive. Because of this concepts that are hard to put on paper is almost entirely possible. For example an idea for a story where the main plot fits into a movie but can't work because it lacks it's essential depth of a book can work in a game.

One guy who had an original concept and wanted to use more traditional mediums was Nikolai Dybowski, creator of "Pathologic" and "The Void".

The game is based around you going from person to person, reading their text, some rare fighting in between, surviving the plague while you scavenge and sell items while the market prices skyrocket day to day. All this to progress the plot researching a cure and gathering some information, while desperately trying to save yourself and other important characters.

>“We set out to create depressing but magical things; creepy things that are somehow oddly reassuring!”

You don't need good writting or narrative depth to have a good piece of art. Simplicity is part of life too, and videogames are great at representing this.

You have a very narrow definition of art that is very (you), not the commonly accepted definitions, tho I agree that videogames being made mostly by big AAA companies has limited the medium until recent times.

What are you even on about? The majority of games are single player. Are you saying this because most games have you solving problems? Because "the conflict" is literally one of the 3 fundamental parts of any story and the vast majority of stories across all mediums are usually focused on some conflict or problem that needs solving.

I feel like the person who made that image never even read heart of darkness.

cont.
There is no such diversity of forms in any other meaningful, cultural spheres except games.The variety of genres, character types is comparable only with the diversity of species. Really. Tetris is a game, Football Manager is a game, and Hearthstone and Skyrim.

Well, what do they have in common. Something, some basic elements. Though how can we generalize them. - They're created for making money out of them. They are similar to each other as a troglodyte is a to a crane. Why compare them, it's pointless.

I suppose that many things may be considered art and games as a result, the interactive word, made by a group of people doesn't have a chance to be something else except art. Should they be percieved as art or can all games be attributed to art - it's another question. Anyways games are a form of art, even bad games are a form of art.

Though they are not looked upon as art because games rarely is something to search any meaning in. This combined with games being so different within itself.

It is my believe that over time "games" will be separated from things like text adventures, Even tho they definitely fit the criteria of games. I feel that as the whole medium of computer entertaiment is taken more seriously people will feel that the term "videogame" encompassing so many things so different from each other is problematic. We are already doing this with the whole "walking simulator" thing.

fpbp

...that actually makes sense.

I never thought of it like that but the parallels are there.

viruscomix is the literal definition of r*ddit.

This is the worst image ever made holy shit

I was going to say something memetic like "this site is reddit" but holy shit that comic was fucking shit.

They should have included pic related...

Your first paragraph reeks of projection. How do you know that people don't buy art because, you know, they like how it looks?

They have the potential because they combine voice and art.
But I would argue that a game with good gameplay is still a form of art.

Games that do not need words to communicate are videogames at their best.

Hear ye, hear ye.
Such is the blessing of wisdom.

There's no reason to believe they are.

Because anime is the true gesamtkunstwerk.

Imagine that sausage is your dick.

Because videogames can't be tackled by individuals, unless they're willing to set for laughable technical standards (which means that no contemporary genius will lose time on that).

You'll get no Tolstoy or Dante working on their interactive adventure: the medium is still too limited. I guess it'll come a day in which someone will be able to sit down in front of a computer and intuitively create very complex, vast and intricate videogames, all by themselves. Until then we'll only get somewhat smart guys (people like Mishima or Ueda: guys who have some insight, while still being astronomically incompetent when compared to the actual literary and visual geniuses of the Western tradition) or downright corporate manifactured shit.

This.

Also the fact that videogame production is such a fractured and compartimentalized process means that there is really no way for anyone to learn how to see the "bigger pictures".
Imagine if Beethoven was instead a 10 people project in which one guy had to deal with the counterpoint, another guy with the harmony, another guy with rhythm and so on. The chances of listening to a complete in-itself work such as the Missa Solemnis would be incredibly low.

They have the potential to be but are not. You see, most modern games are written and made by brainlets, for one. Even if they hire historians/artfags/whatever to augment their efforts, it's still creates a weak link in the verbal passing of concepts from the mind of the expert to the STEMfag's vacuum chamber, a problem isn't present when a single person directly writes a book.

Secondly, the 100% fleshing out of the enviroment around the player- music, SFX, character and nature design, degrade the imagination prowess of the human mind. When you read a book, you have to flesh out everything by yourself, which developes the imagination and thinking. Reading literally activates the almonds. In gayming, devs shit out a turd on your face and you only have to remember the spells/combos. Modern millenials probably cannot contemplate how erotic novles work because their brain is basically atrophied.

Play the good indie games
A lot of good stuff made by one dev
cave story and treasure adventure island come to mind

>Spec Ops the line
>pay 60 euro for a game
>game tells you that killing is bad
>only option not to kill is not to play the game
>you're supposed to pay 60 euro for a lesson in morality

Pass.

it borrows all the inherent elements of the borrowed arts (film, music, literature) without actually developing its own, heck let alone finding it's own.

What the fuck is even the inherent element in video games that makes it art anyway?
inb4
>gameplay / interactivity
>what are interactive art installations

>buying non-multiplayer games
>buying games at all
>current year

Because games are made with interractivity in mind. Artistic vidya takes inspiration from movies, and takes away that interractivity. So you're stuck with either good art or a good game, but not both.

Why do you hate Axiom Verge and Cave Story?

> Buy a game about killing people
> complain about not getting a happy ending

heh,, nothin personell violence enabler

>books almost always age well
>implying

Depends, but I'd say they age as bad as videogames. The changes in historical context, language and overall writing trends of the time can be a real pain to read through sometimes.

When people talk about how well books age, they're also typically talking about a handful of "timeless" classics that stand above and beyond their fellows, while ignoring the copious chaff from the time period that's simply faded into absolute obscurity by no longer being relevant. I highly doubt something like Game of Thrones will be remembered well in 100 years. Whereas I could see the 1993 Doom remaining relevant simply by being a groundbreaking milestone of the medium in 100 years.

Wasn't Mount & Blade made by one guy?

Also I know dorf Fort has only ever been worked on by Toady

They're games made by smart people. My point stands.

This medium is not completely devoid of quality, yet it will still take a long time for i dividual artists to have as much control over theor project as Remrabndt had with his canvases. The fact that you're quoting projects as modest in wuality as Cave Story tells us much about the state of the medium. To justify it through extraordinary exceptions, you should bring to our attention games that could compete with the deepness, craft and insight of other great artists of the Western tradition: it's not like Cave Story was written by a Dante or Goethe.
It's still a young craft, give it more time.

I dunno man, The original Doom is nearly 25 years old and I still play it pretty frequently.

>inherent element in video games that makes it art anyway
interactivity

Which film?

Wait until video games can compare to this.

SEMEN STAINS THE MOUNTAIN TOPS

it's funny you should mention that, because I just so happen to be playing a crazy modded out version of that game at the moment, all kitted out to make it realistic and fucking hard as shit.

Doom and the works of Vincent Van Gogh have at least something in common, in that they existed at uniquely foundational moments in the histories of their medium. For Vincent Van Gogh, it was something as simple as having access to oil paint that came in a disposable aluminum tube that allowed him to do things with the medium that would have been utterly impossible for any of the Old Masters, who would have all been stuck making their paints individually by hand, a tedious, labor-intensive process. By "offshoring" the process of actually generating the paint, you were paving the way for a new generation of pioneers who could instead devote more attention to "what" they could be doing with that much oil paint.

Van Gogh is probably the most visible member of this generation of artists who existed at the margins of this rapidly industrializing society, and had to redefine what it means to be an artist when the thing you create is performed more cheaply and inexpensively by cameras, photography, and a rapid proliferation of mediums. Which is ironic considering that for all his genius he died a penniless pauper, uncelebrated in his own time as anything but a nuisance and a burden to his loved ones.

For the designers of Doom, ID Software, before them the concept of a "game where it was like YOU were the soldier, seeing what he could see, shooting what he could shoot" simply wasn't feasible. Afterwards, everybody and their mother was out there trying to make their own Doom-clone, and eventually new players emerged (no pun intended) who carried the idea into so many radical new expressions that the concept of a Doom-clone gradually gave way to the modern first person shooter

These were early pioneers and that's the reason they remain celebrated in their own niche market

I find literature as interactive as videogames, the act of reading, understanding and imagining takes effort.

the only passive arts (from the perspective of the consumer) would be music and film.

understanding music and film doesn't take effort?

There's a difference between hearing and listening, and between seeing and watching.

Video Games are too recent to be respected