The Redneck’s Manifesto
I’ve decided to make my views on the subject of games as art known.
The text referred to in the title appears after the rant. It is a self-descriptive piece, and very ranty, but I personally think that it’s a perspective that needs to be addressed.
It’s no secret, I don’t think, that I’m not sophisticated. I’m not high-brow, I’m not much for fine art, and I don’t like conceptual… Well, anything.
I don’t drink fine wine, nor do I want to. I don’t go to art museums, and never will if I have my say. I enjoy the works of the former Blue Collar Comedy troupe. (Who talk about such heady subjects as the anaesthetics given during colonoscopies and mole-covered relatives)
I played Passage, but found it incredibly dull, and didn’t enjoy Gravitation much more. (Okay, I admit, Silent Conversations was pretty fun) I like Metal Slug, Urban Terror, and Custom Robo.
I am here to declare my place in the indie game developer community. I am here to defend storyless shooters, here to preserve stupid fun, and to be a champion of chopping up generic monsters in a generic dungeon as a classic to be revered. I am here to speak against haughty elitism, stories that pretend to be games but aren’t, and a-priori work simply for the sake of appearing clever.
I’m a redneck, and I’m proud.
Thank you.
—MrDude
Agreed. It’s like how some people just throw big blobs of paint at a canvas and pretend that’s art. There always will be some suckers to believe them and give them the attention (and money?) they want.
It’s best to just ignore them.
I don’t get why people keep deciding they need to rant on art games so much. It’s perfectly okay not to like them and all, but why pick on art games in particular? Surely there are lots of other games you don’t like, too.
I’m a big fan of make-whatever-the-fuck-you-want-to-make-art-game-or-not. Liking art games doesn’t mean you don’t like shooters or storyless games. Making a game that is slow, atmospheric, artsy, or that has a message doesn’t make you pretentious, elitist, or haughty.
If you feel like throwing blobs of paint on canvas, then do it! If you think that makes interesting art, that’s cool! If you don’t like those things, that’s ok! There’s lots of other art out there!
To steal an awesome quote from Ben Ruiz: “The world is awesome and people are awesome and games are awesome and art is awesome and you are awesome. It’s really, honestly, absolutely, as simple as that.”
That’s all well and good, and the definition of art isn’t an established one. (Nor will it ever be)
What I’ve stated is that I (And those who are in my camp) don’t like abstraction. I personally think that any message can be communicated in a concrete way that even someone like me who knows absolutely nothing about art can understand it. Does that create an obligation to cater to lowbrow types? No. It does mean that there will always be those who don’t like it.
And for every genuine piece of abstract art there are several pieces of visual mush that don’t mean anything.
The point I’m making isn’t that conceptual art is bad. I’m just communicating the viewpoint of those of us that don’t care for it.
There are lots of opinionated people out there. Anyone who isn’t willing to declare their opinion (Be it peacefully or in the confrontational way that I have) probably doesn’t have much of one.
If an art-game lover who hates mowing down hordes of zombies with a chainsaw wants to write a manifesto, I’m behind them. I disagree with them, in fact my view is opposite of theirs (Which is why I used that as an example), but I’m behind it.
Why did you feel the need to write a manifesto about it though? I mean, feel free, but it’s not as if people are ramming art games down your throat, is there. There’s no lack of stupid fun games, as you put it. In fact it’s the norm (well, depends on your definition of fun). Some of us think the medium has potential for much more than that, but that doesn’t mean fun games will suddenly disappear. (I like fun games. I also happen to like many so-called art games, though I didn’t like Passage much.)
I seem to be saying this a lot lately, but art and fun are not mutually exclusive. Also, art is not inherently elitist or high-brow. I mean, you probably enjoy some sort of music, right? Does that make you a haughty elitist snob?
I wrote it because I wanted to get it off my chest. I was aware it’d catch some flak, but it was something I wanted to communicate. I didn’t have to, and not everyone wants to read it, which is why I put the page break in.
As for your take on my take on what art is…
Why do you assume I’m picking at ALL art? The stuff I’m picking at is the work that IS haughty and meaningless, not all art. Not even all conceptual art.
Cripes, you can even justify Doom and Metal Slug as art if you want.
And yes, the medium has more potential than just for shooting aliens and beating up thugs. I like seeing that exercised, too.
I admit, I did greatly overstate the trend toward art games, and I apologize for that. What I don’t apologize for, though, is not liking games that were made purely for the sake of seeming clever.
You don’t have to apologize for your opinions. You can like or not like whatever you want. It’s not llike you’re the only one who feels like this anyways, every time an art game (or any game that’s a little different than the norm really) gets posted to one of the indie blogs there’s a loud outcry over how this isn’t a game at all and can we please get back to maintaining the status quo now.
I just wish people would be more open towards new and different things. If you don’t like something, that’s fine, but more diversity is good for everyone.
Wow, speaking of Passage, I totally forgot about Jason Rohrer. We are totally on opposite sides of the artsy game divide. I went to school where he lived and read one of his books. I wonder if he still lives there?
Ah, apparently no.
I just felt like it needed a counter-rant
I can sympathize with this point of view (played Passage twice; thought that there have been much better treatments of the same subject). There are people who will verbally crucify you, condemn you as a philistine, etc. if you confess to not liking a game that is considered part of the Respected Canon of Art. It’s worth stating that this is a perfectly respectable point of view to hold.
That being said, I found myself at the other end of the same issue when a game designer of my acquaintance played Katamari Damacy for 30 seconds and pronounced it “boring”. It will be quite challenging to maintain my respect for that individual, even though I believe that he and his opinion ought to be respected.
Taking pride in ignorance is silly and not a positive character trait at all.(Not about not liking art-games, more about self identifying as a red-neck and making the claim of not thinking)
how to combat art games
#1 refer to them as fashion games
do not bother with any other argument, if you argue, they win
Surely if you can’t even try to defend your opinion it’s time to reevaluate it? (Also see TeamQuiggan’s post above)
I don’t think anyone really hates ‘artsy games’ as such, even if they say so. It’s the same thing with art. You can hate specific pieces and styles, and that’s fine. Others (especially the artists whose work you’re demeriting is how they make a living) may say that you just don’t understand their work. That’s exactly it. There are different ways to appreciate art, and there’s no right way. Some people just can’t appreciate abstract art and think that everything should be as realistic as possible. Some people look at an abstract piece and say “I see what you did there” or “How did you do that?”. Some people like to buy paintings or games that encourage altered states of mind (if you catch my drift). Some people think owning/playing certain art makes them cool to their friends. All we can do is be supportive to game devs who make artsy games. If you don’t like it, then don’t play it. Then, if you ever come up with an artsy idea that intrigues you, you won’t feel lame for ranting about them previously. Just consider how nice Bob Ross was. Could you imagine him slamming Jackson Pollock? My point is to avoid comments which encourage infighting and don’t say things you might regret. Other than that, express away!
Oh and one other thing that annoys me about those artsy games. Making your game have huge pixels doesn’t make it more artistic, it just makes it more pixelated.
I strongly disagree. It’s fine if you don’t like the style, but it is a style. It’s like looking at a perfectly-drawn pencil sketch of the Milky Way Galaxy across the full electromagnetic spectrum and saying “Meh, it’s not impressive, it just looks monochrome!” Although I agree making a game pixelated for the sheer pixelationness is a verrry bad thing to do, pixel art has the allure in that it’s EXTREMELY HARD TO GET RIGHT. When your pixels are that huge, you have to place them just right or else nobody can tell of what the image is.
So making a game have huge pixels _does_ make it artistic–if the huge pixels are matched by creativity in their use.
One thing pixel art has going for it is that it’s more abstract, letting the player fill in the details. When the graphics is close to photorealistic there’s not much left for the imagination with respect to what things look like; with less realistic art the observer takes a more active role, which in a way makes it more personal. Pixel art is abstract enough to allow for plenty imagination while still being representative.
It’s a bit like the difference between a book and a movie.. A book can only describe a scene with text (well, unless it’s illustrated, but most books aren’t), and your imagination does the rest, possibly adding your own little details and putting everything together into a more or less conherent whole. A movie just shows it to you. If you’re watching the movie version of a book you’ve read previously, things will probably look different than you imagined them, because you’re not watching your own imagination, but somebody else’s. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s just a different way to tell stories.. Point is there’s room for both, and one doesn’t make the other obsolete.
While some good pixel art certainly exists, 95% of the time it’s used as a justification for crappy graphics: “No, my programmer art isn’t bad. It’s retro!”
I don’t think anyone’s trying to argue that lowering the resolution magically makes something good. There ARE less pixels to mess up, but since there’s so few of them every pixel counts for much more, and you still can’t ignore basic concepts like anatomy, composition or color theory.
I think the problem is more that many people who want to create games aren’t so good at the gfx part, and getting better at that takes time. At the same time they don’t want to bring in other artists for whatever reason. So, out of options, they declare the graphics as “not important” and throw something together. Which i think is underestimating the importance of the visuals, but hey, at least they released a game right?