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[Guillaume]

A lot of commercial games are art games, in the sense that they incorporate elements rich with metaphor, possible interpretations,  defining visual aesthetics, etc.

It's just that art has changed- the same way pretty much no one paints anything remotely close to portraits from the Renaissance now, or composes classical music- what we call art is just what used to be popular culture. If you had asked an 16th century italian dude whether the Mona Lisa was art or not, they'd have likely said "no, it's just some dumb painting this Da Vinci dude got commissioned to paint:

I fully expect people to look at games like Okami or whatever 50 years from now and call them "art games" (if they can still play them, that is).

[1982]

All games are art.

[s0]

All art is games.

[Manuel Magalhães]

All art evokes emotions, therefor calling to a game an "expressive game" is silly. Why make up terms? :p

[JWK5]

It's games like this that make me glad I am playing Dark Souls right now (literally, I just took a moment to try and figure out how you leave messages in Dark Souls, which I discovered you apparently need an item to do now).

[s0]

(literally, I just took a moment to try and figure out how you leave messages in Dark Souls, which I discovered you apparently need an item to do now).

Art games have one message, Dark Souls has thousands. EAT THAT, JASON ROHRER!

[JWK5]

Art games have one message, Dark Souls has thousands. EAT THAT, JASON ROHRER!

Deep messages, at that. Though I haven't seen any Demon's Souls classics pop up yet (such as "Do not proceed without sticky white stuff!" left in front of the old blacksmith or "There's a dead end ahead." left behind the horse corpses). There was, of course, plenty of asshole messages left to try and get you killed or have you searching for hidden doors that don't exist.

[SundownKid]

All art evokes emotions, therefor calling to a game an "expressive game" is silly. Why make up terms? :p

Because otherwise, people will ask, where's the ?

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Uykered]

Good games can't be art, only the terrible ones can be great art.

[AshfordPride]

Tigsource, I am proud.

[DavidCaruso]

Guys, I have a challenge.

Give me one definition of "artgame" by which Deus Ex isn't the best one ever made. Every one I can think of, even the bullshit ones that people have made up in past ART GAMEZ threads, puts it squarely at the top of this category. The "messages" in Deus Ex about transhumanism and limited government are far more powerful, profound, and "challenging to your worldview" than the "messages" in any other "artgame." Deus Ex shatters genre conventions and boundaries that no game has ever done to the same degree since, and far more than any other Advanced Rohrer Technology game has. You can do a pacifist run so there's no killing, and in fact you're even saving an untold number of lives. The narrative is a crucial element of the game, and the player can even affect it heavily through his actions. The game frequently breaks some commonly held "rules of good game design" and emerges all the better for it, and it's one of the least safe and most "experimental" games ever made given just how many elements the designers had to juggle and how much could have gone wrong. The overall experience is one of the most valuable within the artform since it's one of the best videogames ever made, and the game's invoked all kinds of strong emotions in me, from fear to suspense to thrill. The music is fabulous and there are probably pianos somewhere in the OST too. Sometimes levels are very dark and you can see lots of silhouettes. Like most "artgames," the characters are horrifyingly ugly. By all of these definitions and all these factors put together it is the best artgame ever made but I like, never see it mentioned in artgame threads, it must be too underground or something (I guess no one ever got to Paris.)

also

the artistic value in those games are in the stories

gameplay filler

HERE WE GOOOOOOO AGAAAAAAIN

[s0]

Deus Ex doesn't follow the nu-age game design principles of "innovation." But I guess that wasn't the answer you were looking for.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Guys, I have a challenge.

Give me one definition of "artgame" by which Deus Ex isn't the best one ever made.

i've only played 5 minutes of deux ex, but it bored me so i stopped. i'm sure it gets better over time, but it was extremely boring when i tried it. so i can't really say much about this game, except that it's not very accessible, and that if something can only be understood by gamer nerds and not by the general population then it can't reach as many people as something that does not require specialized knowledge. i later watched a few videos of deux ex to see what all the praise was for but it just seems like a typical fps to me from videos

that's not to say it's not good art, but it does make it niche art (but so are many great works). whereas this game doesn't require any specialized knowledge about videogames to understand, even if you've never played videogames before you can probably get through this game, whereas someone who never played videogames before will never get through deus ex

but i don't see why this has to be about what type of game is more artistic or better than what other type of game. the thread is about this particular game, not about whether it's worse or better than other games. it's as if we were in a discussion of 'harry potter' and someone kept saying 'not as good as lord of the rings! give me one reason lord of the rings isn't the best fantasy novel series of all time!' -- even if it's true that lord of the rings is better than harry potter, why would that matter? so likewise, if dark souls etc. is better art than this game, why would that matter? nobody is saying this is the most artistic game or more artistic than every AAA game ever made, it's obvious it's not and it doesn't really add to the discussion to point that out, it just feels overly defensive

it's more interesting to me to talk about what this game does differently than other games, and what (if anything) we can learn from it to apply to our own games, and whether it succeeds at its own intentions or not, and if there are any similar games out there. for instance, does anyone know of any other autobiographical games? it seems a pretty rare motif, i can't recall any other games that are about the game designer him/her-self. i mean directly, not allegorically (e.g. using the dev's name, showing their actual house, exploring their actual problems and struggles, etc.)

[AshfordPride]

that if something can only be understood by gamer nerds and not by the general population then it can't reach as many people as something that does not require specialized knowledge.

Books require a specialized knowledge to appreciate them.  It's called literacy.  

whereas someone who never played videogames before will never get through deus ex

You think someone who only casually reads books will be able to get through something like Gravity's Rainbow?  That someone with a passing knowledge of paintings will regard works of Cubism as anything more than worthless shapes?  I fail to see how accessibility is a positive attribute for art.  Creating a piece that is accessible to everyone is a great way to severely hinder the things you can do in a medium.  

And man, we've been over this whole 'artgame' gripe a million times.

why would that matter?

Because semantics. 

Imagine if Harry Potter belonged to the 'best fantasy novel' genre.  This is where it would be categorized in libraries, websites, and in the minds of people who read it. This is what artgames feel like.  For the millionth time, and as blunty as I can say this, when someone calls a game an 'artgame' they might as well just call it 'a video game that actually matters'.  Feels like a hot poker in the eye.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Books require a specialized knowledge to appreciate them.  It's called literacy.  

And man, we've been over this whole 'artgame' gripe a million times.

yeah but about 95%+ of people (in industrialized nations anyway) can read, and very few people can get through a fps game relative to that. so it's about reach. trying to make an artistic fps is like writing a novel in esperanto: sure you can do it, but nobody will appreciate it except the people who know esperanto

and of course we've been over art game gripe a million times, that's why i think it's more productive to talk about this game and not about art games in general. the point of my post is that we should stop talking about art games and be talking about other things, such as about autobiographical games, or the other new things this game brings up, rather than the old things this game brings up. it felt like a lot of the responses (especially in the last two pages) were reactive to the idea of art games in general, and could have been written in response to *any* art game, not this one in particular

[s0]

Just replying to Samtagonist's post because the "art game" discussion interests me more than "Key of a gamespace," sorry.

I fail to see how accessibility is a positive attribute for art.  Creating a piece that is accessible to everyone is a great way to severely hinder the things you can do in a medium.

I agree with this 100% and I think it's really the core of this whole "games as art" thing. The reason we're so obsessed with "accessibility," "streamlining" and "target audiences" in videogames is that we still essentially see them as consumer products and not art. Ease of use and marketability is important for things like computers, cars or electric toothbrushes but for works of art, it shouldn't be a concern.  In all other "art forms," being uncompromising in your work is seen as an ideal to aspire to, but in videogames, it's frowned upon.

If we really want to take games seriously as art, we have to fundamentally question these standards.

Peace out yo.

[DavidCaruso]

i've only played 5 minutes of deux ex, but it bored me so i stopped. i'm sure it gets better over time, but it was extremely boring when i tried it. so i can't really say much about this game, except that it's not very accessible, and that if something can only be understood by gamer nerds and not by the general population then it can't reach as many people as something that does not require specialized knowledge. i later watched a few videos of deux ex to see what all the praise was for but it just seems like a typical fps to me from videos

I think you'll find that much of the best or most important art can only be appreciated to the fullest extent by nerds (please don't tell me you were trying to use the word as a pejorative there.) Citizen Kane and A Fistful of Dollars are most appreciated by movie nerds. Mozart and Bach are most appreciated by music nerds. Shakespeare and Kafka are most appreciated by literature nerds. Rembrandt and da Vinci are most appreciated by painting nerds. However, even to non-nerds all these artistic masterpieces will have some apparent awesome qualities, just like if you had played Deus Ex longer than 5 minutes (which is, what, walking into the Liberty Island park and shooting/electric-prodding the first dude there? Finishing the tutorial?) you would have probably been able to appreciate some of its awesome qualities despite not being an FPS nerd (it was one of the first FPSes I ever played through fully years ago and I still thought it was great.) To any nongamer friend I have, the game this topic is about would seem just as basic and boring as it does to me, if not even more. If it was the first game they ever played, then they probably wouldn't have wanted to explore the artform much further. In that regard, Keys of a Gamespace is much less accessible than Deus Ex.

but i don't see why this has to be about what type of game is more artistic or better than what other type of game. the thread is about this particular game, not about whether it's worse or better than other games.

At the point in the thread where I had made that post, the discussion was about "artgames" in general, not this particular game (and talking about whether this particular game is better or worse than other games is still completely relevant to this particular game anyway.) I already said everything I really needed to say about this particular game. If the discussion evolving and becoming more general over time is a huge problem then someone can just split this thread and call the new one "earth-shattering battle between artgames and brown shooters."

As for autobiographical games, it seems like an interesting idea at first but you'd need a lot more crazy people with unusual crazy ass life stories making games, and moreover they'd need huge teams to help them. The autobiography in Keys of a Gamespace felt positively cliche, even if it was true; I mean, game developer who spends all his time participating in WoW raids neglecting his girlfriend, and it turns out he had deep-seated childhood issues with his father all along? It's like an internet forum troll topic. Regular biographical games about an individual person seem more plausible and possibly interesting, but the designer will have to be tied down to some degree by historical accuracy if he's trying to make a game where, say, you play as John Dillinger and rob banks, and that might have a negative effect on the final product (I mean if they couldn't even adapt a Batman movie without adding a bunch of stuff that wasn't there to make the game more varied and interesting to play, how are they going to do John Dillinger? =P)

That someone with a passing knowledge of paintings will regard works of Cubism as anything more than worthless shapes?

Uhhhh that's what they are bro. But that's another topic (we can call it "artpaintings.")

[moi]

deus ex isn't an art game because its' gameplay isn't subverted

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

(which is, what, walking into the Liberty Island park and shooting/electric-prodding the first dude there? Finishing the tutorial?)

i couldn't even figure out how to do even that. i died on some sentry robot thing that reminded me of those driller robots from tmnt; after dying on it 5 times in a row without being able to figure out how to get past it, i quit. the game didn't seem to give me any clues about how to get past it (i could have looked it up in gamefaqs, but i didn't have the internet available at the time)

[s0]

BROTIP: That robot isn't an enemy.