Blog: "The player - The artist?"

[Thomas]

Are players really artists?

http://frictionalgames.blogspot.com/2011...rtist.html

[nemesis567]

Yes they are.

[Sexbad]

I agree with everything you said, Thomas.

Also Extra Credits are a bunch of sensationalist hipster shitheads.

[Leu Radu]

Yes they are.

Very convincing.


I have to agree with Thomas. What artists really do is express feelings, ideas, motifs through their art, creating tools for your imagination.

The person who experiences art (read a book, poetry, see a movie, examine a painting, a sculpture etc.) only reacts to it. Every man reacts differently, according to his personal characteristics. His imagination expands around the work of art, and he may create things from scratch in his mind (for example hidden meanings that don't actually exist). Experiencing art is not an art.

Games are of course totally different from other arts because they are interactive, while a book or a movie are not. But, in the end, gamers just experience the game. They don't create anything*, they just react to the things the game already has. Of course, they might get the sensation that they're artists, but in the end they just do what the real artists (game makers) offered them through the game mechanics and world.

*There are exceptions of course, games that allow artistic expression (like Minecraft). Thomas mentioned this in the post.

[Doctorcheese]

Awesome blog post (as usual)

[Bek]

Ahh I was a little confused watching that ExtraCredits video - they talk about all the other theories like literature theory and how we should have a game theory, and then went and talked about how the player is a part of the experience...

In lit. theory, there are many many different theories / opinions, some argue that readers are part of the experience and bring their own xp. into the text, others argue they do not, etc etc and it gets more complicated than that. If game theory was going to be anything special it would have to focus more on the interactivity. I think one comment on that video said it would be interesting if games could be designed as a sort of aptitude test, which was an interesting idea.

The concluding few paragraphs were very very interesting, I'm nearly going blind sifting through the comments though Keep up the intriguing posts, I'm going to go looking for more about videogame design philosophy / theory as I feel the medium still has a long way to go.

[SquigPie]

Thomas, stop writing articles and work on the new game instead

[hollowleviathan]

I urge with the strongest language that you continue producing thought-provoking articles.

[Leu Radu]

Thomas, stop writing articles and work on the new game instead

These articles are an important part of the process of creating games - understanding them, analyzing them. Mindless work doesn't lead you anywhere. There are tons of articles on the blog that were written during the development of Amnesia.

I would like to hear more opinions about this article on the forum.

[mattwestwick]

Interesting debate but there were a lot of analogies and statements without substance or justification.

But then you are going to struggle proving or disproving anything concering art; since it's mainly bullshit. If you think something is art, it is. If you don't, it is not. If you can convince someone else that it is or isn't then hey! you've got a business.

I wouldn't get too hung up over this.

P.S. Oh jesus I watched ten seconds of that extra credits thing and wished I was deaf.