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[Lurk]

Ivan:

Mainstream acceptance often serves more as a gauge of the lack of artistic merit than the presence of it, so seeking it is probably not the right path to take.

In earlier human history, art was financed by rich elite institutions who had surplus enough to spend on the superfluous. In recent times, the wealth has relatively been spread around enough for the common man to be able to buy non-essential items. It's a bit of an elitist worldview, disseminated in art classes mind you, that the majority isn't intelligent enough to appreciate the artistic merits of something. As an answer to this, I would refer you to the old tale "The emperor's new clothes".

Also, people referring to a movie, book, painting or musical score as "the" emblematic masterpiece of the genre often base their opinions on the analysis of genre professionals. This isn't done in the case of games, because there is not yet a university field of doctoral critics for them.

In the end, I don't think we should be over complicating the enjoyment we get from video games. I would cite the poet Paul Verlaine:

Ah! si je bois, c’est pour me soûler, non pour boire.

Or in english "Ah! If I drink(alcohol), it's to get drunk, not to drink."

Analyzing games based on subjective and hermetic terms set by the critic body creates an elevation of the said critic body, that it probably doesn't deserve. Democratization of a medium, making games for the masses to enjoy after a hard day in the field, shouldn't it be the glorious aim of any respectable community?

[aeiowu]

Alec is dead-on about this whole thing.

I think the "CK" of video games will have to be a game that is so watered down, so digestible that most of us will probably  at it than  over it. I predict situations where people come to us saying - "aw, dude! Have you played Citizen Game? Why hasn't anyone done something like that yet?" And then ensues and I'll say "Ugh, remember that game called Gravitation I showed you? That was like 5 years ago!" and then Citizen Game II comes out and it's another stairstep and the beat goes on. Citzen Game V comes out and then they finally play Gravitation again and they get something out of it.

Like I said earlier, it'll be on the Wii or something, and involve kittens or babies and maybe pop music.

[MalcolmLittle]

I think that a Citizen Kane needs also to be hugely influential to the next generation of creators. Hugely. As stated earlier it needs to be a water mark on gaming, which will have historians and critics say “shit, that one changed things”.

The last part is important, the game needs to have some long teeth, needs to be kinda old. We have to look back and see the game’s influence. And first and foremost it needs to become canon. It needs that universal acceptance. The only reason we’re having this discussion is that we all, on some level, agree that Citizen Kane is a hallmark work in film history.

But that kind of canon is not how culture works anymore. There is no great divide between high and low culture, not like it once was. We dearly love trash movies like Night of the Living Dead, get our kicks out of Dallas (apparently inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s Scenes from a Marriage), and think fondly of the Bee Gees. There are too many different criteria, too many differing tastes. One work of art can't sum it up anymore. And even if we in the gaming community were to find some game that we all could agree on being “our” Citizen Kane, we have to also convince the general public the same. Practically no one has even seen Orson Welle’s movie, but there’s hardly one person on the planet who doesn’t know of the film’s importance.

Not to say that this discussion is meaningless, it is very important and the thought and effort put into the would-be criteria are all sound and intelligently put forth. This thread is also one of the many reasons I love this forum but I just think we have to realize that almost all the replies that question the premise of this thread are quite valid. We might not see another Citizin Kane-anything, let alone a CK of gaming.

Democratization of a medium, making games for the masses to enjoy after a hard day in the field, shouldn't it be the glorious aim of any respectable community?

Nicely put, Lurk.

[Anthony Flack]

Damn right. Life doesn't have to be so serious. And most people would prefer to experience great sex than great art any day. Who's going to say they're wrong?

Video games have already established a good working vocabulary of techniques. The Citizen Kane era is long past. It was probably Super Mario Brothers or something. Why not.

analogies are just analogies, but the closest thing to a competent "game about games" that i can think of is auntie pixelante's mighty jill off

And that's what overthinking this kind of thing will get you... I like Mighty Jill Off, but only because it took an existing game and basically just removed everything non-essential from it and in doing so made it better. I don't think it has anything in particular to tell us except that less is often more.

[Bree]

I do find the destruction of the high/low art barriers to be utterly fascinating. In the same way that there will never be another 'Citizen Kane', I wonder if there ever can be another Beatles- or, more importantly, if we'd even want another.

[MalcolmLittle]

Well, I should explain myself and point out that there is still a struggle between high and low culture on many levels. Comic books have only just recently gotten out of their own cultural ghetto and I believe that video games are seen by practically all people outside the gaming community as either too childish or too violent to have any real artistic value. Gaming is anti-social, a waste of free time, etc. Gamers and game designers can and should fight for artistic recognition.

I just don't think that the CK of video games, or the Beatles of game design, is possible because that I don't believe that level of cultural consensus is achievable anymore. I don't know if that kind of idolization of a work of (popular) art can ever happen again.

[Captain_404]

I just don't think that the CK of video games, or the Beatles of game design, is possible because that I don't believe that level of cultural consensus is achievable anymore. I don't know if that kind of idolization of a work of (popular) art can ever happen again.

Using the Beatles and Citizen Kane as the same thing really isn't a great analogy. Citizen Kane, as far as I know, did not sell spectacularly well in its own time (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_Kane#Reception). The Beatles, however, were unanimously popular.


Furthermore, this idea of idolizing a thing not being possible today is ridiculous. I would argue though that the thing a culture focuses on is not bound to being "art" or not. The Beatles are considered a cultural phenomenon only because their culture decided they were phenomenal; you could extend the same logic to sites like facebook or just social networking in general. It's just that with the Beatles or what-have-you the things also happen to be art.

I think it underscores the point of just how fruitless this discussion can be. At a certain point you have to stop talking and just go make something.

[poorwill]

Plus, Tetris is a natural candidate for a videogame work of art that is phenomenonally popular.  If we're not just talking about videogames there's Chess, Poker, Soccer, Go, Pool etc.

And now I'm gonna go make something.

[Smithy]

Analysis results:

Pandaking4 is the Citizen Kane of video games.
Piccasso's 'Smithy' is the Citizen Kane of paintings.
The Big Labowski is the Citizen Kane of films.

End or report.
Thread no longer necessary.

[jkd003]

Analysis results:

Pandaking4 is the Citizen Kane of video games.
Piccasso's 'Smithy' is the Citizen Kane of paintings.
The Big Labowski is the Citizen Kane of films.

End or report.
Thread no longer necessary.

No, Citizen Kane is the Citizen Kane of films...
And by everything you have said I don't think you read the thread or even fully understand what a Citizen Kane piece of work is.

[William Broom]

lol jkd003 you done got trolled

[jkd003]

I would have to disagree William, I'm still trying to find my way around this forum, get a feel of the community, and I assumed Smithy was just a idiot in need of correction.
Trolling has always been about provoking people in order to get a negative response from them.

I feel like sarcasm and irony its far too wildly misused on the internet. But being slang I suppose it can be whatever you want. 

[poorwill]

are you a robot?

[Montoli]

...I assumed Smithy was just a idiot in need of correction.

Man, that's never a safe assumption.  Not that I know Smithy personally, but just say'n.  Even on the internet where idiots abound, any time you decide "haha, that person clearly has no clue, I shall set them right forthwith!" you're just asking for a kharmic-justice-powered, monocle-popping surprise as you realize the tables have been turned.


   <---Like this!

[Alec]

I guess I feel like... in this era, we can't have a "Citizen Kane" or a "Beatles" of anything. (either something super popular in the time period or something retroactively acknowledged for being a classic)

Maybe the closest parallel to the "Beatles" thing in video games right now is Rockband, because "everyone" plays it. (and they have a Beatles branded version lol) Even my friends who rarely play video games are all into that. So I guess that could be considered a "Beatles"-level culture-wide thing.

But if we're talking about deeply meaningful or personal art... its kinda cool that we don't have a single "champion" for it. I'd like to think with all the ways that communities can be created now that we have the internet, that smaller, niche works can find an appreciative audience.

I know its kinda happened with Aquaria. Its definitely not a huge hit, but there are a good number of people that really love the game and they have their own little corner of the internet to share that love.

So I'd like to see more diversity and more respect for diversity - rather than ranking games against each other as if there's some definitive list of what is "the best" and what is "the worst", with a scale for everything in between.

I mean, ultimately I really enjoy Citizen Kane and I respect it in a lot of ways, but there are a lot of other films that I prefer for personal and/or objective reasons. I'm sure most people feel that way too. I'd like to see more celebration of diverse tastes in the general games media.

Suggestion: Have a TIGSource front page post once a month featuring one forum member's favorite games with a few paragraph write-ups on each? I love reading passionate, positive reviews of games - even if I don't agree with them. Its neat to see how other people view things and it might expose us to something we didn't even know we would enjoy.

[moi]

I would have to disagree William, I'm still trying to find my way around this forum, get a feel of the community, and I assumed Smithy was just a idiot in need of correction.
Trolling has always been about provoking people in order to get a negative response from them.

I feel like sarcasm and irony its far too wildly misused on the internet. But being slang I suppose it can be whatever you want. 

A TIGSource moderator in the making...

[Anthony Flack]

It's nice to see how many other people are rejecting this whole notion of "high art". It was always a sham; just another hierarchy, another cool kids' club. You can play that game for a high score if you like, but it's really no better than trying to be the greatest ever c64 demo coder or the world's foremost authority on spoon collecting. And no worse.

Whatever it is you do, just try to do it as well as you can. And don't let anybody tell you that their club is better than your club. It really doesn't matter; we're all dead soon anyway, right?

[jkd003]

are you a robot?

I believe its quite clear I'm a cat good sir.

...I assumed Smithy was just a idiot in need of correction.

Man, that's never a safe assumption.  Not that I know Smithy personally, but just say'n.  Even on the internet where idiots abound, any time you decide "haha, that person clearly has no clue, I shall set them right forthwith!" you're just asking for a kharmic-justice-powered, monocle-popping surprise as you realize the tables have been turned.


   <---Like this!

Thanks for the advice, I'll try to take note of that.
As I think I have already made embarrassingly obvious, I don't frequent forums much.
I've always been uncomfertable with how easy it is to don a avatar mask and pretend to be something you are not when premeditated text is the only form of communication. Its very impersonal.
But here I am, trying to further my own dream of making video games. I'll try my best to fit in with the community.

I'm sorry for being so cold and emotionless. I'm dealing with a lot of crap in my personal life right now, stuff painful enough that the only way to deal with it is to shut down all my emotions.

And here I am derailing the topic.
Like many people I also don't believe that a Citizen Kane piece of work will ever show up in the video game industry. If anything it already exists. I can think of a couple of games that have had a tremendous influence on the industry, as well as a game that flipped everything we know on its head, and was hated and regected just for being so radically different.
The video game industry still has many ways to grow and mature, but I think the industry is already so alive and vibrant that the making of one legendary super game is impossible. Instead we can look forward to many wonderful fantastic games that will become immortal classics.

[FatHat]

Apparently Altered Beat is the Citizen Kane of gaming: http://www.destructoid.com/altered-beast-gaming-s-citizen-kane-143324.phtml

[team_q]

I knew that was Jim Sterling before I clicked the link!
It's practically his job to try and antagonize the piss out of developers who take video games too seriously. He usually makes some valid points but he is too busy trying to be clever to actually say something completely useful. In a recent podcast he gloats about how he doesn't have to pay for video games anymore because he trades his review copies in for other games at Gamestop.

Here's a fun drinking game, listen to the Destructoid podcast where Rev Anthony tries to get them to listen to Jon Blow's MIGS lecture, every time Jim calls Jon a faggot, take a shot. I hope you like alcohol poisoning.