Take Two chairman: Manhunt 2 is fine art

It depends upon how one classifies 'art'. Is every creative work "art"? Or does a work have to have "beauty" to be "art"? Is it subjective or objective beauty? Is it intrinsic to the item/work or in the eye of the beholder? Can a work of anti-beauty be art? Can something offensive be art?

Personally I think any creative work is art; I don't care how disgusting it is or how many people are offended by it. Da Vinci's David is art just as well as the game Postal, which has been banned in 13 countries. The Beatles music is art just as well as Britney Spears music.

Agreed, vidGuy.

i do not agree with the line 'the beatles music is art and so is britney spears' i think art is created by artist to speak for itself and that CRAFT is created by workers to be consumed. the two can overlap (i.e. the early beatles) but it is ridiculous to think that the analogy between spears and Lennon is illustrating your point of 'Any creative work is art.' Any creative work designed for its own end is art, any work employing creative faculties in a tool-like fashion to create something for dissemination and consumption in exchange for profit or other benefits is CRAFT. Lennon does the first, and early on both at once, but Spears does neither. Her songwriters, producers and instrumentalists do the second.

I understand your point, but doesn't your argument have a similar weakness, troy? If all creative works intended for sale are the result of craft, but only some are art, how can we objectively distinguish among works of craft and works of art?

I know people who would disagree that any of Lennon's music is artistic; likewise, there are people who would say ALL of his work is artistic.

If Britney Spears music is not artful, is Jewel's, which is entirely heartfelt but also intended to be sold?

Does art have to "speak for itself" to serve a purpose?

Would a book describing all of the actions players can take in the game Manhunt 2 be considered art? What if it was intended as satire to show how brutal mankind can be?

Obviously, every person is going to have their own opinion on what is and isn't art, but I think what's important for something to be labeled as art is the feelings it attempts to invoke from its audience. By that definition, yes, Manhunt 2 is art as it strives to instill real fear and tension in the player. Of course, I can't comment any further than that, having never played it myself.

I wouldn't be so quick as to say every game is art, though, such as something like Mario Party 8, which is clearly just a game. Either way, the games as art debate is one that will be going on for a long time, but so long as we can keep the lines of communication open, I'm happy. :)

Dave

@troy

The point that vid guy is trying to make is that "art" is not something that is black and white. Art is almost always grey and what one person thinks of as art, another may think is garbage. It is no one's place to say what is or isn't art.

There is nothing but grey, if i disagreed with that notion I wouldn't have pointed out how the early beatles mixed the two perspectives. But to say that 'les fleurs du mal' was not art as baudelaire knew it would be published and read as he was writing it is false, just as it is false to say that a song written from the perspective of a 17 year old girl by three 38 year old men to get rich and then given to someone else to sing, someone who's vocal recordings need to be processed endlessly to give the illusion that they are recording an album for any other reason than that they have had a hit show on the disney channel since they were 13 and wanted to 'branch out' to help their film career, and had enough money to buy producers and studio time to make that happen, and even then all this is mostly so that the person can look good in the video, inspiring young girls to want to buy 'her' clothing line (the one that is created for 'her' by other businessmen, other 'designers' who are hawking their particular craft and hitching it to whatever has the most momentum) and inspiring young boys to want to sleep with the girls who have that line of clothing. At the end of the day, 'Steel & Glass' by John Lennon, originating from an inward-gazing search for meaning in a disordered world, is much more artistic than Hillary Simpson Spears and all the radio gloss in the world. I agree, a game like Mario Party 8 isn't meant to be full of earth shattering truths, but there are touches in it that are done art-fully and it is done with taste, grace, and wisdom of fun and atmosphere, past experience of what makes people happy and brings joy, wonder, mystery. I would argue that most Nintendo first-party games are craft done very artfully, and with love, making them a highly universal form of art.

What? This game is violent? Get outta here!!!

I know that I consider anything that has to do with microwaving cats as art.

^^^

It's called "Splatter Art"