He begins:
In the article, Gans praises video games as a form of art and says "The Legend of Zelda" was "a beautiful, poetic moment for me."
See above. No, I can't accept that. I'll accept that there can be beautiful, poetic moments in comic books, movies, music, puppet shows and music videos, but video games? No. No, I don't think so.
6 comments:
Ben, I have to disagree with you, here. I have played a couple of games that took my breath away with their beautiful artwork and compelling stories: Syberia and Gabriel Knight III: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned (the other GK games were cool, too, but this was pretty close to art in the story).
Both of these games were spearheaded by people who had some success out of the gaming industry before joining it. Benoit Sokal (Syberia) is an accomplished book illustrator, and Jane Jensen (GK) is a helluva storyteller.
Granted, they are both in the "adventure" genre, and adventure games have a very small niche market. You don't see too many of them made anymore.
Here's the thing. Video games cannot be art because putting the audience in control of what happens in a story is the very definition of anti-art.
Art is not about going only to the places you want to see, it's about being taken places you've never been before.
There's a covenant with the artist that he or she will, in exchange for your time and/or money, take you along routes you would never have explored on your own.
Video games, however entertaining, however technologically advanced, eventually are about returning to the same old places over and over again.
That's hardly good entertainment, but it's certainly not good art.
"I know a lot of people who very strongly believe that video games are an art form, and they would think you are being pretty snobbish to leave them out."
Fuck 'em, they're wrong.
Your argument about video games not being art because the player controls them is speciously reasoned. Explain how, in Final Fantasy 7, when a character dies (in a heartbreaking manner)it is not art, when the whole sequence is depicted in a cinema sequence. If video games are antiart, than your reason, being binary (art/not art)is ant-reason.
I already have. Because the player controls them is the reason, whether you think it specious or not.
It may break your heart, but it's never going to be art the way a fine piece of music, for example, is.
Because I can't, with just the touch of a controller, change the outcome of a piece of music very seriously.
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