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[Icedemon]

my little quirk to all of this is that there are two parts of every brain, Flack, and people use one more than the other (apparently) but we all still have both. Oh, and i'm no moderator, but i've sincerely enjoyed reading this great debate-ish thing, and everyone's being real considerate, for the most part. However, i really really don't wanna see this go spiraling somewhere bad... Just saying, though, as this is the heart of it all....

ight fellas.

[Alec]

Oh, we all love each other. A lot. 

We just have odd ways of showing it.

 

[Icedemon]

no, i know that. I've only been here for like a week, and this is one of the chillest online communities ever. Hands down. word.

i wont tell though. 

[Alec]

no word of the manhugs can escape...

you know... too much!

[Icedemon]

hahahahaha

[Chris Whitman]

Yeah. I just think its wrong to try to think of what we "should" be doing to make games a more like "art" - because I believe games are art already.

I don't think there's anything wrong with thinking along those lines. What I have a beef with is that steps towards art games are largely exclusionary, as if what makes a legitimate 'art' medium is just the terrible bureaucracy that grows up around it. So I take offense when people say, "Art games cannot have linear stories because books are already linear" or "Art games cannot be 2D because 2D is old." There is so much we can do with multimedia that I think a real development of video game theory is going to need to be very open-ended in terms of medial choices.

I guess, yeah, games are already art, to an extent, some more so than others. I certainly don't think we need to knock down the quality stuff that has been made previously in order to make new things that are different. I, for one, am always going to appreciate the things which got me interested in the medium in the first place and even a handful of recent games. To put aside whether we are 'making games more artistic' in some nebulous way, I still think that the further development of video games could use a good deal more intellectual and emotional sophistication than we are displaying now.

And just to be clear, I'm not suggesting this out of pandering, or improving our mass appeal, because I think that's what got the business of gaming into trouble in the first place. I think that a larger following will be the natural result of a more sophisticated approach. I think we've already had enough demonstration of the fact that universal appeal requires aiming for the lowest common denominator. If anything, that kind of approach is an example of self-conscious development that I feel is quite counterproductive. I think it is sufficient that a general increase in quality means a general increase in quality, regardless of who notices.


As an aside, I think it's important to discuss this kind of thing, really. I think the anti-theorists should keep in mind that a wealth of theory develops around any creative medium -- there isn't an essayist alive, I don't think, who is unfamiliar with Strunk and White, and certainly no professional musician goes through his career without any concept of the diatonic scale -- it's only natural that we are asking ourselves these kinds of questions at this point in time. Of course, the important thing with developing theory is peer review and debate to determine what is 'effective:' we don't want to get saddled with a bunch of useless theory.

I'm not about to dictate to everyone a complete theory of video game development. For one thing, I don't really no what such a theory would even look like, but I think we can determine from induction that it ought to be possible to formulate such a theory in a manner that is effective without the necessity of 'chopping bits off' to make them fit. Personally, most of my opinions on this matter are based on attempted theories written by others which I think have, up to this point, been incomplete (either from inaccuracy or what I would consider an incorrect focus, such as an overemphasis on business aspects), so to take a page from Derrida (name drop: ten points!) I would say that I have a better idea of what a theory of video games isn't than what it is, which at least is a decent criterion of evaluation, if nothing else.

Maybe someday we will get some kind of genius in the video game development community who can put his foot down and say, "Look, gents, here's how things are," but I really doubt it. I think it sounds a lot more reasonable that theory is going to develop from a lot of people thinking about and testing the various problems that development seems to be coming up against.

[Alec]

Maybe someday we will get some kind of genius in the video game development community who can put his foot down and say, "Look, gents, here's how things are,"

I hope he has a monocle.

[Chris Whitman]

But mostly, I think it helps for artists to stay humble. Realistically, anything I do in life isn't really going to matter all that much to the course of human history.

If you ask me (which you didn't), I think you should have higher hopes for yourself than giving people moderate amusement.

I had a classical voice teacher once who told me that we should always count on achieving less than we set out to do... something about human nature, I guess. She said that if we have moderate hopes for ourselves, we will achieve very little; if we have high hopes for ourselves, we will have moderate success; and if we have unobtainable hopes, then we will do some pretty great things.

I'm not suggesting you get all artsy-fartsy about video games, of course, but give yourself some credit. You probably deserve it.

[Chris Whitman]

I hope he has a monocle.

He'd better.

I'm also hoping he will drink martinis day in and day out, and when he sees something particularly astonishing, his monocle will pop out and drop into his martini glass.

[Alec]

when he sees something particularly astonishing, his monocle will pop out and drop into his martini glass.

Oh dear, this is getting exciting, my own bi-monocles are starting to fog up!

>_<

[moi]

"I'm Tony sinclair and this is how I play videogames..."

[Chris Whitman]

Oh dear, this is getting exciting, my own bi-monocles are starting to fog up!

I would recommend lying down for a spell and seeing if the situation improves. Failing that, I find leeches or bloodletting to be most efficacious when I am suffering from an imbalance of the humours.

[Anthony Flack]

If you ask me (which you didn't), I think you should have higher hopes for yourself than giving people moderate amusement... if we have moderate hopes for ourselves, we will achieve very little; if we have high hopes for ourselves, we will have moderate success; and if we have unobtainable hopes, then we will do some pretty great things.

Well... I guess that the standard that I try to set for myself is kind of seperate from the effect I hope it will have on people. Honestly, I don't really feel like I do things for the sake of an audience at all; just as a sort of weird private compulsion. I'm certainly not going to go giving myself credit though, because that is sure to lead to complacency (besides, I haven't released anything in years, so my current status is effectively "failure")

It occurs to me though, that this is really a very big topic with multiple facets. So why do we make art? Is the size of the audience really important?

my little quirk to all of this is that there are two parts of every brain, Flack, and people use one more than the other (apparently) but we all still have both. Oh, and i'm no moderator, but i've sincerely enjoyed reading this great debate-ish thing, and everyone's being real considerate, for the most part. However, i really really don't wanna see this go spiraling somewhere bad... Just saying, though, as this is the heart of it all....

Um, well I wasn't aware of any kind of hostility in this discussion at all, except perhaps for you slappin' me with the last name thing just there, and maybe that's just me being sensitive but it always sounds like "bitch" to me. I thought we were just kicking around this very interesting subject all friendly.

Personally, I've never really bought into the whole left-brain right-brain dichotomy thing, but if you were implying that I thought that only certain people are "wired for art", so to speak, then I suppose I should clarify a little. My suggestion was that the most powerful, refined sorts of art - the kinds that affect you most profoundly - are probably quite personal, and will only find their receptors in a small number of people. A few people were tuned to receive that classical violinist's performance and received it loud and clear. The rest of the people passing by had their dial set do a different frequency, but that's okay too. Perhaps they should have hung a fantastic painting on the other side of the room, because I wouldn't be surprised if a different set of people stopped to look at that. The thing I objected to about the experiment was the presumption that this music performance could be expected to transcend, that it was something that everyone "should" like.

And as I say, lots of people find their spiritual nourishment in things other than "art" in the traditional sense. Some people really responds strongly to math, or philosophical ideas, or precision engineering. Some people won't notice the music, but they will notice the beautiful car parked outside.

I guess what it comes down to is, we shouldn't really expect to attain universal appeal. It's okay to exist within a small niche. All we can do is try to do whatever it is we are wired to do, as well as we can.

[Icedemon]

well. sorry about the last name thing, i mean man, you're a higher LVL than i am (...) hah but my friend:

Personally, I've never really bought into the whole left-brain right-brain dichotomy thing, but if you were implying that I thought that only certain people are "wired for art", so to speak, then I suppose I should clarify a little.

You did clarify, quite nicely i should say. 

And i don't think this thread is hostile at all, i agree on that, i've just seen these sorts of things be discussed before, and it can get hot. That's all.

[Paul Eres]

Sorry for the delay in reply Anthony, I've been busy creating art ^^

And yes, I think there's room to see this differently. But I think the greatest artists did great things because they *weren't* humble. For instance, Leo Da Vinci's last words were: "I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have." (Okay, that sounds humble at first glance, but it really isn't.)

And while you may have had less effect on history than than George Bush, Leonardo Da Vinci probably had more of an effect on history than George Bush. Think of it this way: you're a (as of yet) largely unknown artist with a moderate influence on people (your old clay game did reach a significant number of people, but still, small). You're not one of the most important artists to have ever lived, is all I mean. George Bush on the other hand isn't just a rank-and-file politician, but one of the most powerful politicians in the world (note that I didn't say the most powerful, because some of his advisers are more powerful than he is, realistically speaking).

Now when you compare top-level politician with mid-level artist, it doesn't come out that well, but compare equal levels. What's your influence compared to a mid-level politician, like a city council member, or a small-town mayor? *Probably more!* Don't underestimate your long-term influence on the independent games community, it's been very important, in ways you probably don't even notice. Now compare a top-level politician like Bush to a top-level artist like Da Vinci. How does that come out? Probably in favor of the artist. So I'd say that when you compare artists and politicians of equal influence, the artists win.