Book critic plays BioShock, says it's not quite "art"

Not sure how you can consider video games art. I think to even consider it you must play through the whole game. On top of that you need to understand the medium and have prior experience. I myself wouldn't consider Bioshock art.

Bioshock is a great game but I agree it is overrated. The plot is really stupid. I don't know what it is about video game plots. Lately they have tried so hard to be mysterious but then they just end up making no sense at all. FEAR was another way overrated game in recent memory. It was quite repetitive and it was a massive rip off of various recent horror flicks. It also made no sense. The Japanese are still much better story tellers.

I don't see why so many people get worked up about this or even care. Levine has the right attitude. A game's a game and there are certain expectations associated with that. Who cares if it's art as long as it meets the expectations required of a game?

I challenge anyone who doesn't think video games can be art to play Final Fantasy (6 or 7 for best results) or the Metal Gear Solid, among hundreds over other games with stories at least as in depth and detailed as that in any novel or movie.

Am I insane in thinking that games and such (books, paintings, songs, etc) things that don't fulfill any sort of physical need, but fulfill emotional needs qualify as art?

Ultimately, few games are going to ever cross the threshold into "art," even though that judgment is entirely subjective, simply because in the end, they are entertainment products. If they piss off the player, if they are too confusing, if the things the player must do aren't considered fun, if it is too hard or too easy, no one will buy the game. Art challenges our perspectives and ideas, and it is often difficult and not at all fun. Certainly it is possible to be both entertaining and meaningful, but frankly, the majority of the gaming public has little in interest in anything with more depth than "Live Free or Die Hard" (or Halo 3). Wish fulfillment and hero fantasies are pretty much the gamut of major game releases, and based on sales, that's pretty much what the gaming public wants.

The larger question in my mind is why this issue keeps coming up. How many gamers give a toss about "art" anyway? And if the question is about what it will take for games to be elevated to the same artistic status as some books and movies, well, I would hazard a guess that the first step would be to stop trying so hard to please the 12-40 year old male demographic. In other words, games millions of gamers will want to play and "games as art" are probably going to be mutually exclusive, and there's nothing wrong with that.

While I don't agree with the idea that games are not art, I am so burnt out on this issue that it's lost all meaning to me. It's tiresome to defend the medium at this point. Some games are art, some games are not, and most of them are fun. End. Of. Story.

Okay, Heres the bottom line, there is no argument against it, its hard fact. Whether you accept that or not is up to you.

The entire point of art, is that art is what you make it, its self expression, I can take a shit on a canvas and call it art, i can record the sounds of dying animals and call it art, and unlike what someone said above, I can make a movie centered completely around violence and gore, and interpret it as art. You do not have to conform to any standard or rules for anything at all to be art, I could start the art of breathing if i wanted to, and guess what!? Its art! As long as i am somehow creating something, I can call it art all i want, and it is.

I disagree matt, I think what makes Shakespeare art is that even though those barriers of language and meanings were set up the message and feeling his plays created transcended to other cultures and languages.

The accessibility of Shakespeare was hampered by language but the meaning of the story was something everybody could relate to and identify with, and has spread through out the world. Videogames do not do that, that accessibility is not there yet. A tribes man from a backwater jungle may not have a DVD but you take him to a theater and show him something, cinematically breath taking and they will understand.

Ever watched somebody play a videgame, it is a mind numbingly boring process, because you are not involved in the story, in which the game unfolds. Music, movies, books they break that barrier of language, videogames have not because the evolution of the story involves the player being able to move the protagonist. Art has to be accessible art has to have the ability to reel you in even if you don't understand what grabs you about it. Videogames just don't have that feeling as of yet, they are niche, they aren't just genres, they are factions that only some can manipulate and find interesting. The fact is people can love Romeo and Juliet by just having basic knowledge of the English language, you can't love Bioshock if you have the basic idea of videogames.

The argument about whether or not this is art is rather boring.
A better question is if it's good art or bad.

I caught that quote from a show discussing another art style, but I think it applies so brilliantly to Video Games.

I considered Bioshock to be good art. Probably not something scholars will be disussing fifty years from now, but certainly a notable piece in its own time.
The scenery in the game was very well done. I had found myself spending frequent breaks in the action to just stop and look out the windows, or take a look at the MacGuyvered turrets.
Awesome art.

When a more visually stunning game with even better production values sets a higher artistic standard, gamers should reconsider how valuable Bioshock as art is.

If Bioshock is the only game he's ever played, he would know nothing about how many games can make you feel depressed. I remember I was off-kilter for a couple days after beating Conker's Bad Fur day for N64. That game had a seriously depressing ending.

Wait, all I need is to be depressed an my game is art? I think the criteria is much higher than that. And I don't mean depressed about not meeting a challenge in the game. I was depressed whenever I had to shoot a cop in The Darkness, whenever I stole something by accident in Oblivion, or whenever a Zelda game ends and Link rides away from the land he just saved to search for a friend or whatever he's after.

Can't wait for this stupid phase to pass. the same was said about books about certain subject, movies, music, etc.. fact is art is left to person view it. Some will see the beauty others may say it's a trash bag. How someone who understand how art doesn't see it as perhaps being a form of art they don't understand is beyond me. I don't understand or really like death metal but I acknowledge it's still music to some out there. that's just the way Art is..

What is art anyway. In the Glasgow's Necropolis, a monument is considered art if it has two signatures, one of the architect and one of whoever constructed it (mason, iron monger, etc). So "artistic" merits simply come down to the number of signatures. As for making you depressed or not, I'm currently on a break from my second trip through Bioshock because I can't bear to kill any more little sisters. :(

(Seriously)

I like to laugh when these people think they have some unseen right to classify what is art. Now if he is trying to say a game must evoke emotion to be art then they really need to me able to play the game all the way through to say that I personally found the good ending to be heart warming. But even that does not classify as art, art does not have to evoke emotion at all though I admit much of the best does but some just evoke WTF for me. Why can a heap of steel twisting and turned into abstract shapes be art, well simply it is. Even when art is Commercial it is still art be it commercial Art.

So if anyone wants to argue what is or isn't art I ask you to look in a dictionary and you might want to rephrase your argument.Dictionary.com says the following.

art1 /ɑrt/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ahrt] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun

1. the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.
2. the class of objects subject to aesthetic criteria; works of art collectively, as paintings, sculptures, or drawings: a museum of art; an art collection.
3. a field, genre, or category of art: Dance is an art.
4. the fine arts collectively, often excluding architecture: art and architecture.
5. any field using the skills or techniques of art: advertising art; industrial art.
6. (in printed matter) illustrative or decorative material: Is there any art with the copy for this story?
7. the principles or methods governing any craft or branch of learning: the art of baking; the art of selling.
8. the craft or trade using these principles or methods.
9. skill in conducting any human activity: a master at the art of conversation.
10. a branch of learning or university study, esp. one of the fine arts or the humanities, as music, philosophy, or literature.
11. arts, a. (used with a singular verb) the humanities: a college of arts and sciences.
b. (used with a plural verb) liberal arts.

12. skilled workmanship, execution, or agency, as distinguished from nature.
13. trickery; cunning: glib and devious art.
14. studied action; artificiality in behavior.
15. an artifice or artful device: the innumerable arts and wiles of politics.
16. Archaic. science, learning, or scholarship.

I wonder if the guy even witnessed the defining moment of the game? I'll try not to give any spoilers, but I felt a sense of anger for the main character and some well-placed audio recordings helped to drive home some emotional bits. "Break the puppy's neck." Which was repeated later for emphasis.