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.
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.