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/lit/ - Literature

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File: 281 KB, 1000x563, 3653719-ff7 tifa mature dress.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
15185076 No.15185076[DELETED]  [Reply] [Original]

Is there any legitimate aesthetic worth to a game like Final Fantasy VII, where the world is immersive, the story engaging, and there is some sense of meaningful character development?

I'm somewhat torn. On the one had it's an interactive narrative, and there's nothing inherent in its interactivity that renders it a lesser artistic experience. One the other, the interminable grind accompanying the RPG experience inevitably leads to an experience of shallow gamification, in which the story is merely a tinsel decoration to solving puzzles, battling monsters, and frittering away time on mini-games.

>> No.15185117

AAA productions (even moreso, remakes) are never in any way innovative regarding art, design, narrative, music or anything besides showing off technological improvements. The rest is just picking the best/most popular of what's already stabilished to work and shitting it out in a nice package.

It's the same in hollywood blockbusters, pop music, contemporary art, and so on.

>> No.15185139
File: 28 KB, 354x486, f434d196-ce95-405a-b880-813e9acc008e.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
15185139

>>15185117
>and so on

>> No.15185143

>>15185139
Yes it's a curse for us ESL

>> No.15185174

>>15185076
>where the world is immersive, the story engaging, and there is some sense of meaningful character development
If any of these were true about FFVII(they're not), then sure.

>> No.15185175

>>15185117
The picture was just for illustrative purposes (I mean, Tifa is kinda hot). I've only ever played the original game (am doing so for the first time now, the first time I've conventionally gamed in about 5 years).

>> No.15185186

VIDEO GAMES AREN'T ART.

>> No.15185187

NOOOOOOO WHAT THE FUCK DID THEY DO TO TIFA WHERE ARE HER HUMONGOUS BOOBIES NO TITS NO BUY

>> No.15185200

>>15185186
Even if they aren't art (which I disagree with) they follow the same trends all mass-media do under the rule of capitalism

>> No.15185203

>>15185186
Justify yourself.

>> No.15185224

>>15185200
>>15185203
Video games are art in the same way that a game like baseball is an art (not at all).

>> No.15185233

>>15185224
I don't wish to compare baseball too closely to video games though, because baseball has some value while video games are entirely a retarded waste of time.

>> No.15185260

>>15185224
We should first define what's art.

Even then, I think we can agree that sports aren't art. Despite this, high level sports end up having an 'aesthetic' component to them. Watching Messi, Jordan, Federer, does, in fact, have aesthetic worth. I don't think it's appropiate to say that a videogame is not allowed to have that.

That's the discussion OP proposed. Videogames being an art form or not is another thing.

>> No.15185266

>>15185076
FFVIIR attempts nothing except to pander as hard as possible. It has no value, it's entire purpose is to be cynically made nostalgia bait, reacting to and accomodating peoples perception of the original while updating the game elements with generic modern ones.

>> No.15185293

>>15185224
Let me see if I've got your logic straight.

Video games fall under the category 'game'. Baseball likewise, among other things, is also a 'game'. But 'game' != 'art'. From whence does this proposition arise? Is Bandersnatch, the interactive episode of Black Mirror, not 'art' because it involves user-input, and has therefore been gamified? What about novels that require you to choose what action the protagonist takes?

I think it's eminently possible for a video game to induce an experience of the sublime. The composer behind the FF music, Nobuo Uematsu, has been dubbed 'the beethoven of video game music', and his stuff - solo, or as part of 'The Black Mages' - is pretty good. In fact, I'm listening to it now. This music combined with the atmosphere of the game - of, say, the dystopic cyberpunk feel of Midgar - could (and probably in many cases, has) filled people with a sense of the sublime as Burke would've seen it. Surely that is, then, art?

>> No.15185304

You tell me:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8NznczzoEE

>> No.15185306

>>15185260
Can something has aesthetic worth but not be art? I suppose architecture if you go with the utility != art method of thinking.

>> No.15185330

>>15185306
Mathematics is an example of something aesthetically pleasing that isn’t art.

>> No.15185331

>>15185203
The video game community has no appreciation, often no knowledge even, of the great game developers who built the foundations of the medium. For example, gaming journalists will constantly say that games are maturing and treating modern game stories as major innovations, but they'll have never played something like Ultima V, that told a more mature story any modern game I can think of while also integrating the interactivity well. Gamers are just obsessed with the next big thing and perceive the quality of the tools to be the quality of the product. Just look at /v/, if a game doesn't confirm to modern standards of graphics, controls, framerate, whatever, then it's dated and needs a remake.

There's also a tendency for gamers to qualify games as art by their inclusion of music, images, and stories, and there is no better argument for games not being art. Because in that qualification games are relegated to being the vessel of art. Like a canvas is for a painting, or a book is for a novel, or a record is for music, so a video game becomes for all three. If a game isn't art because of it's gameplay, then it's not art at all.

>> No.15185365

>>15185306
Beautiful women are aesthetically pleasing but I don't think they're art

Some art has divorced from the concept of aesthetics, too

>> No.15185366

>>15185293
>Is Bandersnatch, the interactive episode of Black Mirror, not 'art' because it involves user-input, and has therefore been gamified? What about novels that require you to choose what action the protagonist takes?
These aren't games you retard. Games don't have a monopoly on interactivity. Interactive movies and novels predate videogames.

>> No.15185391

>>15185366
Which level of interactivity or content would you say separates a novel or a movie from a videogame? Or is it a platform thing?

>> No.15185444
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15185444

>>15185293
>the beethoven of video game music

That's the dumbest thing I've ever read.

>> No.15185446

>>15185331
I'm afraid that you've failed to justify why video games cannot be classified as 'art'. You've denigrated the video gaming community - something that is external to the medium in itself - and told me that they neither seek nor appreciate the aesthetic worth of the games they play (something that is probably true). What you haven't done is tell me why there is something inherent in video games that prevents them from being considered as an art-form.

>> No.15185457

>>15185444
In that case I'd like to refer you to this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VFClaxe3XQ

>> No.15185459

>>15185446
Video games are just that - games. Checkers isn't art. Chess isn't art. Dodgeball isn't art. Video games aren't art.

>> No.15185477

>>15185330
Well, some theorists contend that Debussy used mathematical proportions in his works. Mathematics might not be 'art' as a default, but in certain manifestations - like, perhaps, video games, which are programmed with the use of mathematics - it certainly is an 'art'.

>> No.15185482

>>15185391
I'd say a game has to have a set of rules that the players can be more or less skillful with and that directly influence whether or not the player wins the game. If you just pick what page to turn to, that's an interactive novel, not a game.

I realize this is contrary to modern terminology, but think for a minute how absurd it is to consider interactive movies and visual novels to be video games. It'd be as absurd to say that novels have a monopoly on written language and any video game or movie that includes it is thus a novel.

>> No.15185504

>>15185330
mathematics is absolutely art. it is more beautiful than most other forms by a country mile.

>> No.15185509

>>15185459
But all of those are quite distinct from video games in that they do not possess narrative, music, etc,. Are you saying game != art. If so, does that invalidate novels requiring user-input?

>> No.15185522

>>15185446
>and told me that they neither seek nor appreciate the aesthetic worth of the games they play (something that is probably true)

What better way to define art? I think any form of human creation has the potential to be art, but it takes a community of artistically minded people to drive it there.

>> No.15185537

>>15185186
For a video game to be properly called art, the gameplay itself has to be an essential element of the artistic experience (whatever that is). This almost never occurs. Usually the elements of a video game which might be thought to make it art—its graphics, musical score, storyline, etc—merely decorate the gameplay without actually making it any more artlike. Similar to how chess is not made art by ornately carved chess pieces. However video games still CAN be art, as difficult as it often is to pull off. A good example off the top of my head is the flash game "oiligarchy," in which the player acts as a petroleum corporation, and in attempting to gain as much money as possible (the game’s ostensible objective), must perform a series of acts most people would see as immoral and destructive. Irrespective of its quality (though it’s quite good for a flash game), it’s a good example of gameplay being an essential artistic element, as it highlights the perceived tension between morality and profit in a unique way through gameplay, by making it so to play the game well is also to be destructive and inhuman and vice versa.

>> No.15185541

>>15185457
Pretty bad, here's some actual Beethoven.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwZsDzGY1XA

Now please compare the two to justify your earlier statement.

>> No.15185550

>>15185537
Good answers.

Any other games you'd consider art?

>> No.15185577

>>15185482
That makes sense.

I'm a painter and sculptor so honestly I can't be certain, but I'm leaning towards videogames being art.

I think some can be considered, in the historical sense they're not far from contemporary art projects, they could be seen as cousins or a byproduct. But then I hit a wall, because how can I justify some videogames being art, while also claiming others aren't. It's complicated.

>> No.15185592

>>15185457
Is this a joke? I gave it ten minutes, and it was terrible. It's just bad prog rock.

>> No.15185604

>>15185459
I don't think there's a binary distinction with video games, some games like the Silent Hill series are partly a video game and partly an aesthetic experience

>> No.15185607

>>15185477
In that case the manifestation is art, not the mathematics. A painting of natural scenery is art, and is largely beautiful because its subject is beautiful. This doesn’t make natural scenery itself art. Art requires some sort of human creation.

>>15185504
I agree with the second sentence. Beauty doesn’t make something art, though, nor does art necessarily have to be beautiful.

>> No.15185646

>>15185592
It's just a bunch of guitars and synths whaling away. Everything is EXTREME and turned up to 11. There's no subtlety, there's no depth, there's no meaning.

There's a reason this shit didn't get any attention outside of the video game community.

>> No.15185649

>>15185607
OK, anon, you have completely MOGGED this thread.

I want to get to know you, to unwrap you from the nameless persona you masquerade under on this board. Are you a writer? What are you currently working on? Can I see it? What are you reading at the moment? Any reqs?

>> No.15185678

>>15185646
>It's just a bunch of guitars and synths whaling away.

I mean, that's progressive rock in a nutshell, but it's still art.

>> No.15185721

>>15185076
What is the literary equivalent of Tifa's fat milkers?

>> No.15185729

>>15185678
There's plenty of prog that's much better than that.

>> No.15185752

>>15185646
>whaling
Or "wailing," if you're literate.

>> No.15185796

>>15185076
Yes. Only prejudice would deny. Videogames are the next step in the realization of Wagner's dream of a total art work because it adds what even cinema didn't have: interactivity.

>> No.15185800

>>15185752
Whale is a verb for "to hit or strike vigorously." Whaling is an accepted present participle.

Your mom should have aborted you when she saw your deformed retard head on the ultrasound.

>> No.15185834

>>15185076

FF7 the original anyway is quite a robust archetypal story
If anything aesthetic worth is the only type an archetypal story can truly have and the thing is if anything does have aesthetic worth it will never go unnoticed in other words aesthetic worth always translates to some degree of popularity after all when exposed to thousands upon thousands of archetypal stories as with anything one naturally gravitates towards the one that stands out from the others and that is precisely the decisive point where aesthetic worth is determined in anything
You're falling into the classic trap of trying to dissect and quantify something while questioning its aesthetic worth when aesthetic worth is never and cannot be determined this way
When you look at a painting you generally do not create a list of pros and cons in your head associated with the painting after all the painting is immutable so long as you accept it as a painting it embodies itself and only itself no what you do is you measure your own response to the painting to the immutable and that is in essence the entire process of aesthetic striving

>> No.15185869

>>15185537
>>15185550
Is Papers Please art?

>> No.15185900

>>15185076
>mature

is that code for 'prostitute?'