Notgames Forum

Not that Mr Steinberg is an art critic, but I can't help thinking that it's significant that when talking about "real" art, he mentions the names of the artists. And when talking about games, the titles will suffice.

I don't think this is negligence. This is how we think about games. They are products. And correctly, too. Many don't really have authors. Or the authors hide behind the format, the production process, the commerce, etc.

Art is made by artists. We'll be able to tell when videogames are art when people can just say "Jonathan Blow" and it will mean as much as saying "Vincent Van Gogh". Without naming a title of a product.

Thanks for the link (http://edition.cnn.com/2010/TECH/gaming.gadgets/08/31/video.games.art.steinberg/index.html#fbid=rVhWU4ay1IH&wom=false), though. :)

I guess that's partially up to us too. Maybe we should start signing our work with our names. Instead of hiding behind our companies.

There are some games with auteurial influences, such as Another World, but in most cases you are correct- the studio is a better reference. Still, can we not call groups like Metallica or Coldplay? Does art *need* a single identity behind it? In the industry today, the influence of one person in each game may be important, but it is rarely dominant. Game authors might better be compared to bands than soloists, to galleries rather than artists.

You have a point. But only to some extent. Bands are musicians, interpreters. The songs are often written by one or two people (one does the text, the other the music, e.g.), often members of the band. So even in pop music, there's auteurs. You are correct, however, that their names are only mentioned in specialist publications. Most people refer to the interpretations and recordings of the songs (by the band), not to their compositions (by one or two persons).

There's no names of studios in the article either.
Only titles of individual games.

This is why I moved away from my previous company name, "Post Black", to the more appropriate and authorical "Stout Games" :)

You must be happy he names Gogh and not Hirst, in any case. Perhaps nothing is more telling for the modern state of art that when we ask 'is something art' we compare it to classics, not moderns.

It's what I like about the games industry.  ;D

To me this single thing has always been the most important aspect of what we call "indie"; way more important than the possibility of "unlimited freedom", "no deadlines", etc etc.

When you put your name on something you immediately make it 10000% percent more interesting, because you take the biggest possible responsibility for it. It's basically like saying "this thing describes me", and that's a very good way to make other care about what you do. People are interested in other people.

And obviously it helps anyone with a big ego, like me :)

I agree that explicit authorship is a matter of responsibility. I think this is why many commercial developers don't sign their work. They refuse to take responsibility for the messages they are sending out (and there is always a message!). Of course one could argue that they are just being honest. Since those games generally don't really have authors (as they are designed in board room meetings or by an entire production team).

I think you've hit it there Michael. I think guilt about what they are producing, or perhaps more accurately something kind of like a mild disgust is behind the lack of authorship. It's intesting to note that many of the more challenging titles do put names behind the message -ken levine is synonymous with the 'shock' series of games, will wright with his own various titles. Of the two, Levine is perhaps the more identifiable having a distinct message, will wright considers himself more of a toymaker than an artist.

That said, I think some studios are (rightly) proud of what they produce. Blizzard and Valve in particular ooze indepedendance, little touches and 'signatures' by the various designers throughout their products. I'm sure you'd be willing to shoot me for saying games like WoW and Starcraft are phenomenal pieces of art, but I think blizzard is to normal fantasy/sci fi products what terry pratchet is to fantasy literature, warm hearted and scathing at once, postmodern in their acknowledgement of what they're building and simply awe inspiring in their execution much of the time. I don't think we should be quick to type all popular, somewhat standard games as something to be ashamed of, only those which are shamefully derivative and purely commercial.

I think games can be original and meaningful without having to be art.

If the very definition of art is not something that is original and meaningful, what is it?

It is interesting, somehow it had never truly established with me, but obviously this exemplary of what you mean; games have not been tainted with modern developments in art, only with commercial establishment?

God, what a messy thinker. I thought objectivists were supposed to value elegance... :P

For me, the intention is important. Something has to be made on purpose as art.

But I like the idea that other things can be beautiful and meaningful too. There's religion, for one. Mathematics, for another. And games. Why not? All different things that perhaps have a similar effect. Perhaps in different people. Some get their "understanding of the world" out of mathematics, others are more open to art. Just a theory. I like thinking of art as something very factual that exists next to other things. Instead of thinking of it as the "superlative form of anything".

Interesting observation. Though I think he picked Van Gogh and Michelangelo because they are artists that everyone knows about. Their names are more famous than the names of their separate works. In games, only the really big companys like Nintendo and Microsoft can be considered public knowledge, so it makes more sense for him to refer to the games' titles. I assume this article targets the general public, and it's more likely they recognize the name of those games than the name of their creators. If the article targeted gamers, they could easily refer to Blow, Söderström, Ueda, Rohrer, the Miller brothers, etc.

Compare it to movies - The Shining vs Stanley Kubrick, Star Wars vs George Lucas, Pirate of the Carribean vs Gore Verbinski, etc. More people probably know about the movies than their directors.

It might also be the simple fact that a painting doesn't need marketing, and the work itself usually doesn't include words. Hence, the name of the painting is never as important as the image of the painting.

So, perhaps if we didn't name our "games".

I kinda like this idea, naming is always difficult. Although it would probably only be even remotely plausible for well-established developers.


I think a lot of the problem is that game's are generally made by large groups of people. In fact, within the gaming press, games (and game series) are often reffered to as belonging to their developer (or copyright holder).

Perhaps it's also a matter of scale, as in, it's hard to believe that something so vast could be one person's. For example, I tend to think of Braid as being by Jonathan Blow (even though I think he used a contractor for the graphics), partly because his name is synonamous with it in the press, but there's also something else. On the other hand, American McGee's Alice has his name all over the title, but I don't really think of it as being by American himself. I'm not exactly sure why, but maybe it's a subconcious thing to do with scale (or possibly just because I know a lot of other people's work went into it).


Of course, the ultimate game company at not recieving credit is TOSE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOSE). I only happened to hear about them because I was looking at some top-ten lists on gamefaqs.

I agree that it is probably appropriate for most current big games to not be attributed to a single person. They are often the product of teamwork. This is also the reason why they are not very valuable as works of art.

But cinema and architecture show that the scale of a production does not necessarily exclude the vision of individual artists. In cinema directors and actors, and cinematographers and music composers all get credit as artists. In general we think of movies, especially artistic ones, to be made by the director. In architecture, it is the person who designs the building, the architect, who gets the artistic credit (even if they work within a studio). Similar production processes could be used in videogames too.

I'm right there with you Erik.

And I think you're right Michaël that the author's use of artists' names vs. game names is telling and significant. To me it emphasizes the fact that with video games we are generally working on a product, as you say, rather than attempting to express ourselves in a meaningful/personal/authorial way.

I actually think she summarizes it quite well. I do, like her, think that art is a selective re-creation of reality that exemplifies certain aspects (truths, values) which the artist finds significant.

I very much dislike art that seems to have no purpose and does not express any values in a clear manner. Certainly in my own work I am growing towards this view... it makes for art that you find yourself enjoying with your rational mind. That does make it meaningful, and I suppose if it is not a platitude it is also original. But that description hardly says anything about the philosophical implications and reasons to tastes in aesthetics.