It’s an old thought, and one others have echoed. I sadly realise I can’t think of a games forum where I could post the thread and get as balanced or well-thought out opinions as I’d get from just doing it here.

Which is a bit sad.

(The basics of the position would argue that if we have to compare videogames to an accepted artform, why does it always have to be cinema? In terms of how games function - peformance, joy of movement, etc - then it’s *Dance* rather than film we’re closer too)

Though you tell me. I hit the Poole “If architecture is frozen music, then a videogame is liquid architecture” quote from Jenkin’s Lively Arts essay*, and can see the truth their too.

I mean, the obvious (and correct) position is the “Games aren’t the new anything: They’re the first Games”, but that’s not the game we’re playing.

KG

http://web.mit.edu/21fms/www/faculty/henry3/GamesNewLively.html

KG

By Kieron Gillen on 06.30.05 11:31 am

11,000 words? Is “going on and on and on and on” the new rock’n'roll? Can’t any of these people just get to the fucking point?

By Rev. S Campbell on 06.30.05 12:28 pm

I like the sound of liquid architecture, at least for games where creativity or ample player choice lets *you* craft the experience to some degree.

For anyone who thinks about games (which I probably do far too much and to little end) it quickly becomes apparent that it’s such a broad art form with arguably so much more potential than any other. This obviously makes pidgeon holing it to any degree a bit of a bastard. It combines disciplines from so many established art forms (music, film, art, writing and tenuously even dance - an animator is crafting movement too) and there is a vast amount of room for totally new ideas and experiences. Can you really say that of books and cinema? New stories, yes, but it’s still just words on paper or actors on a screen.

I wonder what parallels can be drawn between the birth of cinema and the ongoing establishment of games creation as a… thing. At least they were lucky enough to have theatre as a foundation.

Anyway, yes, games are the first games, but then the word “game”, or even “interactive entertainment” is increasingly inadequate to describe these experiences people are creating.

Er, I’m not sure I’ve made at actual point here, more a series of triggered and barely related thoughts. Tell you what, games are the new improv but without the audience (usually). You’ve got your director (i.e. the game setting) which both limits and guides you somewhat but beyond that you do what you want.

By Pete on 06.30.05 12:48 pm

The new dance?

Bah*.

* You have to imagine here that I was actually able to find a link to an incredibly detailed page about poor disco line dance ‘The Space Invader’. There is a video of people making larger fools of themselves than normal, and a diagram to let YOU reproduce the steps in your own home.

By Andy Krouwel on 06.30.05 1:40 pm

Art is generally seen as a passive experience, it avoids audience participation. The audience is there only to interpret what they’ve seen. The glimpses of art in games have generally come from times when the gamer is forced to watch events unfold.

If Videogames are the New anything, then they’d be the New Panto, since the theatre audience participates in the performance, just as a gamer does in a game.

Alternatively you could see gamers as artists with the game as their canvas. In such a way a gamer could be an artist like a great fencer, marksman or driver, and it is in watching their performance that you can learn something of the human soul.

By Tom Camfield on 06.30.05 2:12 pm

Comparing games to any other medium isn’t difficult because games have so much potential, or more potential than cinema, art, or whatever. Comparing games to any other medium is difficult because games frequently *dabble* in that potential in fairly visible and mainstream ways.

People talk about film as if it’s a single, solid thing: actors on the screen, a story of some kind, and about 90 minutes long. But what about short films? What about silent films, or to a lesser extent documentaries? There are different forms within film that may be explored. Short Films still exist and are popular, but not in a mainstream actually-on-at-the-cinema kind of way most of the time. Silent films went out of style when technology pushed them from the market. Documentaries have seen a resurgence of recent years, but still aren’t that common at the cinema or as big mainstream successes.

With games, the same thing can’t be said. 2D games have been marginalised, but they still exist and they’re still popular - unlike silent movies. Short films I guess could be adequately compared to the stuff available for free online; Garage Games and whatnot. But a lot of these small, short games are very successful, and I’m sure MSN Zone or whatever has huge mainstream appeal. The big blockbusters, that are on at the cinema and make big bucks? Well, that’s Half-Life 2 - story-driven, action-packed and so on. But that’s about the best comparison you can make.

You’ve got 2D games, 3D games. Games that are short, long, story-driven or not. Tetris and Deus Ex are a world apart and yet are both games. So comparing it to any single medium is difficult. But personally I think Music works pretty well.

Tetris is the early Beatles stuff. Driven by a catchy rift and with lyrics and an idea, but no great deep meaning. It’s just fun to listen to. The typical three-minute pop song.

Rainbow Islands is maybe a little further on in the Beatles career; still ultimately fun and catchy, but more lyrically advanced with some semblance of plot, or story, or character or greater meaning beyond a simple expression of joy or happiness.

The story driven stuff, say Monkey Island and its ilk, I guess would be opera. It’s an unfortunate comparison given the lack of popularity that opera enjoys, but opera is still music and it’s *all* about story and themes and characters.

Hell, you’ve even got the obvious Garage Games -> garage band comparison. People making music in the garage as opposed to people making games in their bedroom.

So games are the new music. (But really they’re the new games, and the sooner we stop desperately trying to achieve acceptance by drawing comparisons to other mediums, the sooner we’ll be able to realise the real potential of our own.)

By Graham on 06.30.05 3:34 pm

Clearly you need a Beehive forum, Kieron. This sort of shit BREAKS BOBSY’S HEAD.

By Bobsy on 06.30.05 9:23 pm

Videogames are the new sitting in the corner, fidgeting.

By Rossignol on 06.30.05 10:34 pm

Videogames are the new boardgames.

By Richard Hamer on 06.30.05 11:00 pm

Tru dat. I had a go on the EyeToy for the first time last weekend. I got all sweaty and out of breath, and entirely failed to have sex.
Sounds like dancing to me.
//\oo/\\

By Matthew Craig on 06.30.05 11:39 pm

Videogames have clearly ‘been’ dancing since IK+ included the split kick.

By Andy Krouwel on 07.01.05 12:14 pm

Dance has always been to a large extent linked to courting. Videogames have to be one of the world’s least effective methods of attracting members of the opposite sex, so games are not the new dance.

By Phil Wills on 07.01.05 12:45 pm

Aren’t videogames, just, sometimes, you know, architecture? As much as they are spaces built to be explored and played with. A good example being the spaces of Mario 64.

Off topic, I guess.

By aerisdead on 07.01.05 12:53 pm

video games are the new tourettes syndrome, nothing else comes with some much involuntary twitching & profanity.

By Franklin on 07.01.05 1:17 pm

Videogames are clearly the new being in the kitchen at a party.

By Iain on 07.02.05 12:53 am

Over at GameCritics, we used to have some really, really excellent discussions on games, more than a few on the subject of games and art. The most vigorous debate, iirc, was prompted by a Randian Objectivist, countered by two very high power intellectuals (one of whom is a Ludonaut, the other a critical theorist in Australia).

The way I understand it (and I could be wrong, as it’s been a while since I read the essay), Jenkins was “playing the game” of legitimizing games as an art form, in an era (only a few years ago, really) in which there was hardly any strong support for acknowledging games as such. And there are (arguably) some good reasons why they historically weren’t generally considered an art form. Only with the rise of videogames (and only at a certain period in the rise of videogames, I think) did it become possible to see the game as a powerful (and lively) form of expression, rather than a ‘mere’ amusement generator. It’s hard to see it with Asteroids and Pong…less so with Pac-Man and Super Mario Bros. (Video)Games very much did become the New Something-Besides-Games, because what games used to be were (arguably) not what they are now.

A category can’t evolve if you can only compare it to itself.

By Walter on 07.03.05 9:10 am

I must admit, whenever I’m involved in one of these arguments, I get the urge to create a game experience which can *only* be described as a work of art.

KG

By Kieron Gillen on 07.03.05 1:22 pm