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.
Agree to disagree then :) (even though I don’t mean it has to have a target audience)
For me, in your example of art you made then deleted, the art is still art. But you did experience it yourself. It wasn’t to your liking so you trashed it, but you did evaluate it through your psyche. For me every art made has at least one person as the recipient: the creator. You make something because you want to see it in the world, or maybe just to practice, or for any other reason. We humans don’t do things randomly (or at least not truly) and imo the creator gains something by creating the art (tangible or not).
Art for the sake of art seems to imply we create stuff just because it’s art, without any expectations. For me that seems a bit reducing, as what’s seen as “objectively pure art” is cultural. Poetry structure in the west is not the same as in the east, so even if you write some for the sake of it, you are implicitly making it western style for a western audience (unless you go out of your way to try eastern style, but then it has a meaning to you).
Sure I don’t want to discard everything and the baby with it, but even then I don’t know (which is logical) any game that was made and finished but never published/distributed to anyone. Every game dev I see at least has some goals for it to be played by someone. Even the games I made in game jams were intended for me to play, or others at the event to test.
There is a ton of research done on UX (not just UI, but also level design) so that the game can be enjoyed by others.
Anyway, my point with Elden ring is that it is possible to do it, so I can understand some people asking for the same treatment for other hard games. It is possible to make the game more accessible without interfering with the artistic vision. So why not?
For TTRPG as well as video games in general, fun can be different things for different people. Some like hard psychosocial thrillers, some like dumb dungeon fights, others like to discuss with every npc. It is up to the DM or game dev to decide which they’ll put forth. For DM it’s easier to change course if needed, but for games it’s less personal. So having options to turn the difficulty up or down is imo not that big of a compromise.
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.
Agree to disagree then :) (even though I don’t mean it has to have a target audience) For me, in your example of art you made then deleted, the art is still art. But you did experience it yourself. It wasn’t to your liking so you trashed it, but you did evaluate it through your psyche. For me every art made has at least one person as the recipient: the creator. You make something because you want to see it in the world, or maybe just to practice, or for any other reason. We humans don’t do things randomly (or at least not truly) and imo the creator gains something by creating the art (tangible or not).
Art for the sake of art seems to imply we create stuff just because it’s art, without any expectations. For me that seems a bit reducing, as what’s seen as “objectively pure art” is cultural. Poetry structure in the west is not the same as in the east, so even if you write some for the sake of it, you are implicitly making it western style for a western audience (unless you go out of your way to try eastern style, but then it has a meaning to you).
Sure I don’t want to discard everything and the baby with it, but even then I don’t know (which is logical) any game that was made and finished but never published/distributed to anyone. Every game dev I see at least has some goals for it to be played by someone. Even the games I made in game jams were intended for me to play, or others at the event to test.
There is a ton of research done on UX (not just UI, but also level design) so that the game can be enjoyed by others.
Anyway, my point with Elden ring is that it is possible to do it, so I can understand some people asking for the same treatment for other hard games. It is possible to make the game more accessible without interfering with the artistic vision. So why not?
For TTRPG as well as video games in general, fun can be different things for different people. Some like hard psychosocial thrillers, some like dumb dungeon fights, others like to discuss with every npc. It is up to the DM or game dev to decide which they’ll put forth. For DM it’s easier to change course if needed, but for games it’s less personal. So having options to turn the difficulty up or down is imo not that big of a compromise.