You’ll have to do a little more legwork to make that connect back to the idea it’s being used to support, which correct me if I’m mistaken is that every game needs to make all of its content easily received or it’s not valid art/less valuable/somehow problematic.
You don’t demand a guarantee that you’ll finish every book you’ll buy and you don’t hate every song you can’t dance to, why are games different? They’re different because you think of games as purely entertainment, and you don’t respect it as art. If you did, you would not be arguing that creators should conform to your personal preferences.
I’m not arguing that every game must cater to my casual needs. What I’m expanding upon the op is that art is art only in the eye of someone experiencing it. Artists like game devs are free to make the kind of games they want, but it is a balance between making the game attractive and marketable and making something only the most purist will like. Concessions are to be made for the game to be accessible, as you will have to sell it to make a profit. All the examples are from commercial games that need a consumer base to buy it.
Some will criticize Elden ring for being a bit more easy and approachable (than previous DS), because they are used to the elitist view that games must be difficult to play. But on the other hand, all gamers that had fun playing their own way are valid. Some will like having a hard time, some will like having an easier path to progress.
In the end, if you make art you want for others to see it. If your game doesn’t sell because only hardcore players can progress, it could be seen as a failure for your art to be spread. It’s also certainly a business failure as well.
So as I said, it’s a balance and there is no right or wrong way to do it. People can still discuss what their preferences are, be it hard games or story mode for easy gameplay.
I’m not 12 anymore so I don’t have time to learn, memorize and train for some of the newer games. I can appreciate games that include an easy path for me, allowing me to experience their art. Unlike eg. the Dark Souls universe where I’ll never truly experience it because it’s too hard for me.
Devs are then free to take this feedback into consideration for their next game.
art is art only in the eye of someone experiencing it
That flies in the face of one of my core values so I’m glad you underlined it for me. My view is ars gratia ars. That is an entire body of thought that stands against the idea that art needs to serve some purpose or agenda in order to be valid. Art is complete in itself no matter who gets to receive it, and anyone who tells you otherwise is some brand of authoritarian sooner or later. I’m ride or die with the bohemians on this one.
As for Elden Ring, I am fully onboard with their design choice with regard to difficulty. I enjoyed the time I spent with it, and the only reason I didn’t finish it is because I approached it while burnt out in other areas of my life. I finished all but one Dark Souls game, and I found them harder for sure. The creative vision with Elden Ring is a few steps toward the accessibility crowd, and you seem to notice how it’s still not enough. It never will be, and it’s folly to try. Once they’re running the show, you get to do a lot less.
Again, I am not talking about preferences, I am arguing that we should treat games as art and do art critique about it. We should not be treating games as mere commercial products that must amuse us at all costs, that is a long road that goes nowhere. Difficulty in games has a meaning, it is a design choice, and we can talk all day about what that choice meant - whether it served the creator’s aims - whether that difficulty achieved what it was trying to achieve - but if we are only here to bicker about whose preferences are more important, leave me out of it.
Regarding your first paragraph, after reading the Wikipedia page (English and French, since the EN one is quite short).
Seems like it’s mostly as a reaction of moralism and sentimentalism.
While I agree that art is art in itself, it still has to be experienced by someone else to exist.
and appeal to the artistic sense of eye or ear.
To me it seems to imply that art must be experienced for it to be, even if just by its creator.
Art is purely human, made by humans and experienced by humans. The concept wouldn’t exist without us. That’s also why AI gen is not art most of the time.
On the other hand, I disagree that art can be “pure” without any moral or political stance. Everything we do and express, we do through the lenses of our mind, which inherently lives in a world surrounded by morals and politics.
Also the Wikipedia article suggests that this view is completely eurocentric and does not represent other cultures around the world. So I would take it with a grain of salt.
That’s fair enough - the hill I’m trying to die on is the idea that nobody should be allowed to tell artists what they can or can’t do, whether it’s for politics, ideology, morals, or money. Let art simply be, and let us talk about whether and how it succeeds. Enough art has been prescribed or prohibited for long enough.
I’ll check out your link later, but holy shi, this went from 0 to 100 really quick. I’m authoritarian because I think you can’t appreciate art if you don’t see it? Like I can tell you I made a super cool game, but I’m the only one allowed to see it. Is it art? To me yes but how can you know if you never even saw it or know what it’s about?
For me, art is inherently human. If it’s not seen by anyone, it may as well not exist for anyone.
The art someone makes is not always meant for everybody, you can make art for yourself or a specific group, but you always make it for someone.
Once again I’m not advocating for removing all difficulty. But in the case of Elden ring, they probably went like “DS is too hard, let’s make some adjustments so more casual players can also enjoy the game”. And it seems to be not at the detriment of the experience for others.
I’m not here to bicker about preferences. I’d like to criticize games as pure art but we both know it’s not the reality. Big games only get made because lots of money is invested and they must make some back unless they want to lose their jobs. I’m not suggesting that Elden ring must be made easier, but they evidently saw that there is value (art and/or monetary) in making adjustments to make it more accessible.
For these games where the difficulty is core to the game it’s difficult to do it without compromise. Other games allow a choice and aren’t so tight about how difficult the gameplay must be. I think more games could see the value in having it more accessible. They already provide so much accessibility when it doesn’t impact the artistic vision: localisation, subtitles, key binding, color blindness, etc.
Like you said, it’s a design choice. Some games make the choice to be overly difficult and some like that, cool. Not all games are like that, and having options to allow more casual gamers to enjoy the game is a free win.
It’s possible to implement without compromise for the core users, and it will expand the reach your art has.
Edit: as a final point, in TTRP the golden rule is to have fun. If a rule in the book is not fun, the DM has the ability to change it so it’s fun to play. Why can’t I play a game and be like “this is way too hard for me, I’ll do X to have it easy there to advance”. Must I be frustrated to be able to enjoy the game? For ER/DS the idea seems to be yes, the game is for masochist. For other games why would it be?
Some games even allow custom rules to be set. BG3 and others have options where you change the rules so you can have fun your way. (Again not all games need this, but it doesn’t detract from the art of those games).
The conversation was at 0 yesterday. If you look around you, a lot of ink has been spilled since then, and the people who are really at 100 with it are not getting responses from me anymore! To be clear I am not calling you anything, I’m talking generally about philosophies of art and art history, some of which you will read is mixed up in Maoism and stuff - I apologise for not being clearer, and I do appreciate that there are still sane people who think I’m worth talking to about these things.
I still disagree that art has to be for somebody. If I do some art and then delete it because I wasn’t satisfied with the attempt, I still did the art. It still existed for its own sake, and it was art while it existed. When we treat art as a means to an end, I feel it is diminished. Video games are almost always a means to an end, just as with almost all commercial art products. That doesn’t mean we should treat it purely as a commercial product.
“Pure art” might be that which we do for no reason other than we want to do it. You’re putting your finger on that in your middle paragraphs there, and my view is just this: treat the commercial aspect of art as nothing more than a regrettable circumstance, sort of like the fact that Harvey Weinstein was involved in so many great movies. It’s just a fact of life, but that doesn’t mean you discard all that art - you just keep it in mind. Babies, bathwater, etc.
Elden Ring kept to the “single difficulty mode” while easing up the overall challenge, likely out of commercial interest (in order to have wider appeal) and that was commercially successful, but they managed to do so in a way that maintains the fact that they have set the challenge at the same level for all players, so that challenge still has the sense of impact in the intended play that melds with the themes of the game so well. I would call that a commercial and artistic success story.
TTRPGs are games also and they are definitely an art form, but the situation is subtly different. If you get that many people together to play in realtime, the impetus has to be geared towards maximum fun. I would consider it a practical limitation of the artistic medium of TTRPG design, rather than some deeper truth known only to Brennan Lee Mulligan and his ilk - video games need not attempt to be fun at all times, because not all art is trying to be pleasurable. Games are free to have any intended experience, any not all of it is going to be for all people. This is a feature, not a bug - but the commercial interests will always side with the accessibility interests. If I spent a little more time writing, I might even connect the dots between capitalism and fascism somewhere along the way, but I should probably be decreasing the temperature in the room.
it is. but if the reason that you think something is poor is because you were not the target audience, you can come across as entitled and clueless. it is not like their games pretend to be easy games, it is clear from the start that that the challenge is part of the design
It’s like making music and experimenting with discordant harmonies and unusual rhythms. Art can be challenging, it can require engagement and time and study to fully experience. It can make people uncomfortable and it can appeal to only a small audience and still be good.
Is poor the word you’d use for art that fails to be amusing and charming? Because a lot of art is not trying to be amusing and charming.
Edit: I don’t care if people disagree, but at least have an answer. Not liking art because it wasn’t intended to be delightful and pleasing is not how to do art criticism.
Ah, I think there’s a bit of a disagreement here between what types of art are respectable and what types aren’t. For context, I subscribe to the definition of art that says “everything made with intent” is some form or other of art.
Suppose you go to a gallery. Would you consider handicap-hostile architecture, which is part of the exhibit itself, to be worth respecting as a art enthusiast? (Stairs required to be used in order to see a painting, specifically because the artist wants you tired from walking, not pushing a wheelchair, which they don’t like, when you look at it, for example.)
I could see it both ways, but I fall more on the side of accessibility. If an artist requires someone to use stairs to see their art, they are an asshole, regardless of how good their paintings actually are.
This is exactly the kind of conversation that I’d rather be having. Thank you! I’ll try to disagree at least interestingly.
I subscribe to the idea that art is the study of choice, and that’s fairly close to your definition of art, but the difference is that I’m not saying I can draw a circle around what is and isn’t art. Gun to my head, I’d probably define it as something like “anything done with aesthetic intent”, to exclude the act of intentionally kicking a puppy as performance art. We intend many things in life, many of which are also intentionally artless.
I think I see what you’re driving at with the bit about ramps. To hew to the heart of the matter as the metaphor applies to video games, I would still call that exhibit art - it would simply be limited in how successfully it achieved what it was attempting, which is a severe flaw. I would want to talk about how it could have better achieved its aims. The aim of such an art installation could have merit, if it was more intelligently done.
The reason I do not place the accessibility question from the metaphor on the same level as difficulty in video games is that completion of a game is, I would submit, something that the creator should only endeavour to guarantee if they believe completion of the game is part of the intended experience. I would caution against taking this as a maxim.
When media is highly interactive, as with games, it is a mistake to take it as an implicit assumption that that this media must be completable by a broad majority of participants. Booksellers do not make such guarantees, and books are far less interactive.
If we all raise our voices on behalf of accessibility proponents with the idea that games that are not as easily completed are of lesser value, or if we even become so strident that we say they are not even art, we are limiting the space of an art form that is still in its nascence. We are very permissive with other, older art forms (and they have all taken their lumps with highly prescriptive and proscriptive schools of thought, over the years). It would be like saying music with too many notes isn’t music, or that music isn’t good if I can’t personally dance to it. Those are preferences, not art critiques. We should be asking how the choices of a game developer serve or betray their creative aims. We won’t always get what we want out of every game, but at least we’ll have better conversations.
I like games that take a generous view of accessibility, and I respect that vision. Celeste is a masterpiece. I like games that take a stern view of difficulty also, when it serves their aesthetic vision in a meaningful way.
That last bit is easy to get wrong, and I respect people who struggle with the subject of difficulty in how it interacts with creative ideas, but I have less time for people who hate the music just because they can’t dance to it. That’s not always the point.
It’s like with any other art. Some of it is a simple pleasure, and some of it wants you to struggle. Some people read Gwenpool, some people read Cerebus.
Exactly, games are art. I don’t go around telling artists not to make things I don’t enjoy. I just buy other art.
Art can’t be art without an observer.
If someone is unable to get to the art, then that “art” is useless to them and might as well not exist.
To them, even a derivative of this art is more worth more than no art at all.
I made a drawing yesterday, and I will not show anyone.
It’s not art? It doesn’t exist? Would you rather play peek-a-boo right now?
It’s art to you, not us as we haven’t seen it.
You’ll have to do a little more legwork to make that connect back to the idea it’s being used to support, which correct me if I’m mistaken is that every game needs to make all of its content easily received or it’s not valid art/less valuable/somehow problematic.
You don’t demand a guarantee that you’ll finish every book you’ll buy and you don’t hate every song you can’t dance to, why are games different? They’re different because you think of games as purely entertainment, and you don’t respect it as art. If you did, you would not be arguing that creators should conform to your personal preferences.
I’m not arguing that every game must cater to my casual needs. What I’m expanding upon the op is that art is art only in the eye of someone experiencing it. Artists like game devs are free to make the kind of games they want, but it is a balance between making the game attractive and marketable and making something only the most purist will like. Concessions are to be made for the game to be accessible, as you will have to sell it to make a profit. All the examples are from commercial games that need a consumer base to buy it.
Some will criticize Elden ring for being a bit more easy and approachable (than previous DS), because they are used to the elitist view that games must be difficult to play. But on the other hand, all gamers that had fun playing their own way are valid. Some will like having a hard time, some will like having an easier path to progress.
In the end, if you make art you want for others to see it. If your game doesn’t sell because only hardcore players can progress, it could be seen as a failure for your art to be spread. It’s also certainly a business failure as well.
So as I said, it’s a balance and there is no right or wrong way to do it. People can still discuss what their preferences are, be it hard games or story mode for easy gameplay.
I’m not 12 anymore so I don’t have time to learn, memorize and train for some of the newer games. I can appreciate games that include an easy path for me, allowing me to experience their art. Unlike eg. the Dark Souls universe where I’ll never truly experience it because it’s too hard for me.
Devs are then free to take this feedback into consideration for their next game.
That flies in the face of one of my core values so I’m glad you underlined it for me. My view is ars gratia ars. That is an entire body of thought that stands against the idea that art needs to serve some purpose or agenda in order to be valid. Art is complete in itself no matter who gets to receive it, and anyone who tells you otherwise is some brand of authoritarian sooner or later. I’m ride or die with the bohemians on this one.
As for Elden Ring, I am fully onboard with their design choice with regard to difficulty. I enjoyed the time I spent with it, and the only reason I didn’t finish it is because I approached it while burnt out in other areas of my life. I finished all but one Dark Souls game, and I found them harder for sure. The creative vision with Elden Ring is a few steps toward the accessibility crowd, and you seem to notice how it’s still not enough. It never will be, and it’s folly to try. Once they’re running the show, you get to do a lot less.
Again, I am not talking about preferences, I am arguing that we should treat games as art and do art critique about it. We should not be treating games as mere commercial products that must amuse us at all costs, that is a long road that goes nowhere. Difficulty in games has a meaning, it is a design choice, and we can talk all day about what that choice meant - whether it served the creator’s aims - whether that difficulty achieved what it was trying to achieve - but if we are only here to bicker about whose preferences are more important, leave me out of it.
Regarding your first paragraph, after reading the Wikipedia page (English and French, since the EN one is quite short).
Seems like it’s mostly as a reaction of moralism and sentimentalism.
While I agree that art is art in itself, it still has to be experienced by someone else to exist.
To me it seems to imply that art must be experienced for it to be, even if just by its creator.
Art is purely human, made by humans and experienced by humans. The concept wouldn’t exist without us. That’s also why AI gen is not art most of the time.
On the other hand, I disagree that art can be “pure” without any moral or political stance. Everything we do and express, we do through the lenses of our mind, which inherently lives in a world surrounded by morals and politics.
Also the Wikipedia article suggests that this view is completely eurocentric and does not represent other cultures around the world. So I would take it with a grain of salt.
That’s fair enough - the hill I’m trying to die on is the idea that nobody should be allowed to tell artists what they can or can’t do, whether it’s for politics, ideology, morals, or money. Let art simply be, and let us talk about whether and how it succeeds. Enough art has been prescribed or prohibited for long enough.
I’ll check out your link later, but holy shi, this went from 0 to 100 really quick. I’m authoritarian because I think you can’t appreciate art if you don’t see it? Like I can tell you I made a super cool game, but I’m the only one allowed to see it. Is it art? To me yes but how can you know if you never even saw it or know what it’s about?
For me, art is inherently human. If it’s not seen by anyone, it may as well not exist for anyone.
The art someone makes is not always meant for everybody, you can make art for yourself or a specific group, but you always make it for someone.
Once again I’m not advocating for removing all difficulty. But in the case of Elden ring, they probably went like “DS is too hard, let’s make some adjustments so more casual players can also enjoy the game”. And it seems to be not at the detriment of the experience for others.
I’m not here to bicker about preferences. I’d like to criticize games as pure art but we both know it’s not the reality. Big games only get made because lots of money is invested and they must make some back unless they want to lose their jobs. I’m not suggesting that Elden ring must be made easier, but they evidently saw that there is value (art and/or monetary) in making adjustments to make it more accessible.
For these games where the difficulty is core to the game it’s difficult to do it without compromise. Other games allow a choice and aren’t so tight about how difficult the gameplay must be. I think more games could see the value in having it more accessible. They already provide so much accessibility when it doesn’t impact the artistic vision: localisation, subtitles, key binding, color blindness, etc.
Like you said, it’s a design choice. Some games make the choice to be overly difficult and some like that, cool. Not all games are like that, and having options to allow more casual gamers to enjoy the game is a free win.
It’s possible to implement without compromise for the core users, and it will expand the reach your art has.
Edit: as a final point, in TTRP the golden rule is to have fun. If a rule in the book is not fun, the DM has the ability to change it so it’s fun to play. Why can’t I play a game and be like “this is way too hard for me, I’ll do X to have it easy there to advance”. Must I be frustrated to be able to enjoy the game? For ER/DS the idea seems to be yes, the game is for masochist. For other games why would it be?
Some games even allow custom rules to be set. BG3 and others have options where you change the rules so you can have fun your way. (Again not all games need this, but it doesn’t detract from the art of those games).
The conversation was at 0 yesterday. If you look around you, a lot of ink has been spilled since then, and the people who are really at 100 with it are not getting responses from me anymore! To be clear I am not calling you anything, I’m talking generally about philosophies of art and art history, some of which you will read is mixed up in Maoism and stuff - I apologise for not being clearer, and I do appreciate that there are still sane people who think I’m worth talking to about these things.
I still disagree that art has to be for somebody. If I do some art and then delete it because I wasn’t satisfied with the attempt, I still did the art. It still existed for its own sake, and it was art while it existed. When we treat art as a means to an end, I feel it is diminished. Video games are almost always a means to an end, just as with almost all commercial art products. That doesn’t mean we should treat it purely as a commercial product.
“Pure art” might be that which we do for no reason other than we want to do it. You’re putting your finger on that in your middle paragraphs there, and my view is just this: treat the commercial aspect of art as nothing more than a regrettable circumstance, sort of like the fact that Harvey Weinstein was involved in so many great movies. It’s just a fact of life, but that doesn’t mean you discard all that art - you just keep it in mind. Babies, bathwater, etc.
Elden Ring kept to the “single difficulty mode” while easing up the overall challenge, likely out of commercial interest (in order to have wider appeal) and that was commercially successful, but they managed to do so in a way that maintains the fact that they have set the challenge at the same level for all players, so that challenge still has the sense of impact in the intended play that melds with the themes of the game so well. I would call that a commercial and artistic success story.
TTRPGs are games also and they are definitely an art form, but the situation is subtly different. If you get that many people together to play in realtime, the impetus has to be geared towards maximum fun. I would consider it a practical limitation of the artistic medium of TTRPG design, rather than some deeper truth known only to Brennan Lee Mulligan and his ilk - video games need not attempt to be fun at all times, because not all art is trying to be pleasurable. Games are free to have any intended experience, any not all of it is going to be for all people. This is a feature, not a bug - but the commercial interests will always side with the accessibility interests. If I spent a little more time writing, I might even connect the dots between capitalism and fascism somewhere along the way, but I should probably be decreasing the temperature in the room.
Then it should be perfectly valid to criticize poor art.
it is. but if the reason that you think something is poor is because you were not the target audience, you can come across as entitled and clueless. it is not like their games pretend to be easy games, it is clear from the start that that the challenge is part of the design
It’s like placing a statue at the top of a flight of stairs.
It’s like making music and experimenting with discordant harmonies and unusual rhythms. Art can be challenging, it can require engagement and time and study to fully experience. It can make people uncomfortable and it can appeal to only a small audience and still be good.
No it isn’t
Is poor the word you’d use for art that fails to be amusing and charming? Because a lot of art is not trying to be amusing and charming.
Edit: I don’t care if people disagree, but at least have an answer. Not liking art because it wasn’t intended to be delightful and pleasing is not how to do art criticism.
Ah, I think there’s a bit of a disagreement here between what types of art are respectable and what types aren’t. For context, I subscribe to the definition of art that says “everything made with intent” is some form or other of art.
Suppose you go to a gallery. Would you consider handicap-hostile architecture, which is part of the exhibit itself, to be worth respecting as a art enthusiast? (Stairs required to be used in order to see a painting, specifically because the artist wants you tired from walking, not pushing a wheelchair, which they don’t like, when you look at it, for example.)
I could see it both ways, but I fall more on the side of accessibility. If an artist requires someone to use stairs to see their art, they are an asshole, regardless of how good their paintings actually are.
This is exactly the kind of conversation that I’d rather be having. Thank you! I’ll try to disagree at least interestingly.
I subscribe to the idea that art is the study of choice, and that’s fairly close to your definition of art, but the difference is that I’m not saying I can draw a circle around what is and isn’t art. Gun to my head, I’d probably define it as something like “anything done with aesthetic intent”, to exclude the act of intentionally kicking a puppy as performance art. We intend many things in life, many of which are also intentionally artless.
I think I see what you’re driving at with the bit about ramps. To hew to the heart of the matter as the metaphor applies to video games, I would still call that exhibit art - it would simply be limited in how successfully it achieved what it was attempting, which is a severe flaw. I would want to talk about how it could have better achieved its aims. The aim of such an art installation could have merit, if it was more intelligently done.
The reason I do not place the accessibility question from the metaphor on the same level as difficulty in video games is that completion of a game is, I would submit, something that the creator should only endeavour to guarantee if they believe completion of the game is part of the intended experience. I would caution against taking this as a maxim.
When media is highly interactive, as with games, it is a mistake to take it as an implicit assumption that that this media must be completable by a broad majority of participants. Booksellers do not make such guarantees, and books are far less interactive.
If we all raise our voices on behalf of accessibility proponents with the idea that games that are not as easily completed are of lesser value, or if we even become so strident that we say they are not even art, we are limiting the space of an art form that is still in its nascence. We are very permissive with other, older art forms (and they have all taken their lumps with highly prescriptive and proscriptive schools of thought, over the years). It would be like saying music with too many notes isn’t music, or that music isn’t good if I can’t personally dance to it. Those are preferences, not art critiques. We should be asking how the choices of a game developer serve or betray their creative aims. We won’t always get what we want out of every game, but at least we’ll have better conversations.
I like games that take a generous view of accessibility, and I respect that vision. Celeste is a masterpiece. I like games that take a stern view of difficulty also, when it serves their aesthetic vision in a meaningful way.
That last bit is easy to get wrong, and I respect people who struggle with the subject of difficulty in how it interacts with creative ideas, but I have less time for people who hate the music just because they can’t dance to it. That’s not always the point.
I wouldn’t say a difficult game is poor art, it just challenging and may be more than the user wanted.
This is part of why reviewing a game’s difficulty and it’s play options are critical.
I mostly play sandbox games because the online ones come with the constant strife and challenge which is the antithesis of what I want.
Will really enjoy a well thought out puzzle game however…
My introduction to that was Myst, way back in the early 90’s and my main love are games of that nature.
It’s like with any other art. Some of it is a simple pleasure, and some of it wants you to struggle. Some people read Gwenpool, some people read Cerebus.