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Why Are There No Highbrow Video Games?
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Aug 08, 2006 11:35 AM
from the easier-to-do-boobs-and-guns dept.
from the easier-to-do-boobs-and-guns dept.
simoniker writes "In his latest 'Designer's Notebook' question, columnist Ernest Adams asks a very simple question: are video games' lack of cultural credibility partly due to the fact that "we don't have any highbrow games"? Titled 'Where's Our Merchant Ivory?', Adams asks: 'Almost every other entertainment medium has an elite form... We produce light popular entertainment, and light popular entertainment is trivial, disposable, and therefore culturally insignificant, at least so far as podunk city councilors and ill-advised state legislators are concerned.' Do games have an image problem compared to other popular media, and how do we fix it?"
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Games: Revenge Of The Highbrow Games 90 comments
simoniker writes "In the follow-up to last month's popular 'Where's Our Merchant Ivory?' feature, The Designer's Notebook author Ernest Adams responds to the wealth of feedback submitted by further examining what a 'Highbrow Game' might be, and categorizing the potential audience for such a product." From the article: "Several people pointed out that much of what we see as high culture achieved that status because it's old. Longevity imbues a work of art with respectability regardless of its original purpose — and of course, time tends to weed out the inferior works. For every Mozart there are dozens of classical composers who went to their graves and are forgotten."
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Isn't art highbrow? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Isn't art highbrow? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Isn't art highbrow? (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re:Isn't art highbrow? (Score:4, Interesting)
The bottom line, though, is that true classics of any artform have layers upon layers of subtleties. There just aren't many examples of comics that are truly rich in intellectual value. From my own experience, I've found that most classical painting was done using very conventional, often uninspiring, subject matter. Look at the Mona Lisa- a standard portrait of a woman. Nothing exciting. What makes the Mona Lisa so amazing is the incredible subtlety and thought that went into the painting, and that isn't something you can pick up at a glance. A Spawn cover may look more interesting, but it pales in serious comparison.
So back to video games- there are many examples of intelligent, extremely well-executed video games out there. However, I don't see any games that are comparable to Bach or Rembrandt or Dickens. Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are beautiful pieces of art, but beautiful doesn't necessarily mean "high brow".
Parent
Re:Isn't art highbrow? (Score:4, Insightful)
Let us never speak again of the sequel, though.
Parent
Re:Isn't art highbrow? (Score:4, Funny)
There was a sequel to Deus Ex? How could anybody hope to top that? Next you'll be telling me there was a sequel to the movie "The Highlander".
Parent
Re:Isn't art highbrow? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think the problem is so much that we don't have highbrow games, as it is that no one, not even snooty columnists, recognizes them when they see them.
Parent
Re:Isn't art highbrow? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Isn't art highbrow? (Score:4, Funny)
Stiff-upper-lip man: *pushes shuffleboard puck* "Right-oh."
Parent
Re:Isn't art highbrow? (Score:4, Funny)
Rich
Parent
Very simple answer (Score:5, Insightful)
Movies can be "highly intellectual and cultural". Music too. Even food. Computer games are simply nothing to brag about in front of your high profile friends.
Re:Very simple answer (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's face it, though, that the computer culture is, so far, a short one. It's a very new medium, unprecedented by anything it developed from that could be viewed as the "heritage" of it. Music developed during the ages. Even movies had their roots in theatres and plays. Computer games have nothing to draw from.
Thus they are not taken serious as a cultural element. One could argue that the junk that's currently sold as music is at best what fast food is to cooking, but there is "good" music, maybe it's a bit dated, but there are pieces of music that can be considered true art. And it needn't be something along the lines of Mozart or Beethoven. A lot of "pop music" is very capable of moving people, inspiring them, it had some serious impact on our life and it even had influence on politics and the way people see the world. I'm especially thinking about music from the peace movement in the 60s, for example. Most of it can be considered pop music, but it had a "message", it contained elements that are thought provoking, it's not just easy listening and entertaining.
Such precedents are missing in the computer games history. And now is maybe one of the worst moments to try something like that. Making games is costy. It's not like you can sit down in the basement with your friends and you strum your guitars 'til something with a message comes out. You need good people, with a lot of math and physics in their brains, and I do take a serious background in computer languages as granted, who spend a lot of time working out the game.
And then, nobody will buy it. It doesn't carter the fast food generation gamers, who want a quick, fun game to rush through and then go on to the next. And, as stated before, people who are looking for entertainment with depth, meaning and message are not looking for it in computer games.
Parent
Re:Very simple answer (Score:4, Insightful)
True, that. How can games ever hope to be taken seriously? It's not like there are ancient traditions of gaming with deep roots in our culture or anything. No serious intellectual would dream of wasting his time on a frivolous pursuit of the working classes, like chess, or go, or bridge.
Parent
Re:Very simple answer (Score:5, Funny)
Even if you create a true masterpiece now, it would not be taken serious until the gaming culture had its three generations. It would simply not be recognized, and in about 50 years, you'd be celebrated as the grandfather of true computer games art.
Your games may even be sought after (and people would maybe pay millions to just get a copy), the few remaining originals would probably travel under tightest security from one museum to the next, but you'll die in poverty.
Parent
Re:Very simple answer (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh I disagree.
Games like M.U.L.E., Seven Cities of Gold, Mail Order Monsters, Tetris and the brilliant Infocom series of games were masterpieces of gameplay, craftsmanship and ingenuity. Games today have much better graphics, but originality and creativity? That can be argued.
My kid sister (who is 29) and I still regularly fire up the old Commodore to play M.U.L.E. Ah, the 640K floppy disk, no entering mystic serial numbers and checking with the company server to grant you "permission" to play your game .. those were the good ol' days.
Parent
Re:Very simple answer (Score:5, Insightful)
I recall a Star Trek toy I received as a child. It had a "screen" which was really a scrolling screen made of a big hidden wheel which simulated motion. To play, you had to navigate around various obstacles like planets and Klingon ships. Similar race-car games were around in the 70s. These, along with similar childhood amusements, are the true tradition that video games grew out of, and I doubt it will ever be regarded as high art.
Art is essentially a medium of communication, from the artist to the audience. The best art conveys feelings and notions which can not be conveyed with literal descriptive language alone. The interactive nature of gaming, almost by definition, excludes it from being regarded as an art form, beyond the creative trappings of the game's "eye candy" and music soundtrack.
Parent
Re:Very simple answer (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a very sophisticated notion, and the greatest challenge for gaming designers and critics today. I do not agree with it, but it's not trivial to refute.
Part of the problem is that video games are not homogenous in an artistic sense. Most art forms are, and thus they can be placed in a fairly straightforward conceptual box: film consists of moving pictures and sound; music in essence consists of sound only; sculpture consists of arranged and constructed objects; literature consists of language only; etc.
A video game always contains music, and it may contain cinematic sequences, and it will certainly contain still images of some sort. Many games include some amount of text material and a story. Certainly all of these can be art in and of themselves, but they all have their own history, so it's tempting to strip them away and examine the game without these "tacked-on" elements.
There are only a few games which betray this notion with clarity, and many of these are not well known. Rez is the best example I know; while it is indeed futile to consider Rez without its music, the game also adds something that the music doesn't have on its own. (Go play Rez now, if you care about art. I'll wait.)
Games like Rez can be regarded as unique, though, if you consider the game side of the experience a mere hypnotic device designed to increase mental immersion and thus increase the effect of the music. Also, this example doesn't apply so easily to a game like Super Mario Bros. However, I feel it is a good starting point to show the fallacy of the notion that interactivity excludes artistry by definition.
To go from there, I argue that the nature of art in a video game in general is what I call the "constructed experience". Traditional art can discuss and portray what it's like to be a pirate, or a race-car driver, or a spider; video games aspire to replicate the experience itself, within various limitations.
Of course, the real-world experiences are more or less dull, so we throw in a princess or two to spice things up (just like painters rarely paint the many dull scenes that they would see). Actually, this has led to the more imaginative practice of inventing the experience out of whole cloth, so that you too can spend a day in the life of the Prince of All Cosmos as he rolls up anything and everything to make new stars. When we hear talk of "gameplay", this is what it means -- the creativity and hard work that goes into creating a meaningful and textured new experience for the player. In a great game, this communicates something more than mere "fun", and that is where the art is.
Parent
Re:Very simple answer (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sorry but this struck me as pretty silly. Mozart wasn't 'high-brow' (i.e. intellectually and asthetically sophisticated) because tickets cost a lot of money; he was, like Beethoven and especially Bach a musical genius who made sophisticated, complicated and beautiful musical constructions. That the people who were predisposed to like him were educated and therefore also predominantly wealthy (in order to get that education) is quite literally a coincidence, a correlation which you confused with causation. That any Joe can pick up a Mozart CD does not mean any Joe can understand and appreciate said CD; music of all genres and categories requires an extant cultural setting and prior aesthetic vocabulary to be appreciated. But, any Joe with exposure and time may learn, like many people with a classical education already had an opportunity to do, to appreciate his works.
Parent
Re:Very simple answer (Score:4, Interesting)
I singled out Bach in my post for being particularly ingenious, and certainly some of the asethetic value of Bach's stuff can be appreciated without a prior explicit understanding of what's going on in the piece; I would submit to you, however, that your friends' musical backgrounds was closer to Bach than you might imagine. Rock and Alternative Rock borrow heavily from old blues, it is true, but also from Classical music, particularly its tonal structure, and also its peculiar use of meter (which is not present in a suprising number of other musical traditions), and some of the instruments would sound familiar...at least more familiar than, say a sitar, or liuqin (Chinese lute) which are based on different tonal scales.
If you were to play that same Bach piece to someone who grew up with a different tonal scale, like a 5-tone Chinese scale, I doubt you would get the same reaction as you did with your friends; the gap is far wider, and the music does not transmit emotion with any accuracy. I just (odd coincidence) finished reading an essay by Theodore Gracyk who describes an experiment he runs in his class every year, playing westerm music of various contexts and purposes and then playing eastern music of similar contexts and purposes; the students can easily pick out in the western styles which is meant to be somber and which joyous, which secular and which religious, but have no luck guessing what emotion or purpose is meant to be conveyed by the eastern works.
What I was trying to make clear in my post was that these sorts of cultural contexts (which are present in some extent even in popular music) frame our understanding of music and our appreciation of it; formal education and training reveals the explicit structuers behind the music and also helps to create a reservoir of experience with whcih to compare works and search for similarities.
Parent
High Brow (Score:4, Interesting)
People don't like to do that, they like to watch other people fail at doing that.
As far as high brow goes, we have Patrician, Total War, Civilization, and the Sims.
All of which offer some pretty interesting insights if you look deeply into them.
One of the largest factors is probably that in a book a grammatical mistake is something from the author that might lead you to think about something diffrently, a bug in a game totally spoils your ability to analyse the small points that are so important for real understanding of the artist.
Does it matter? (Score:4, Insightful)
Are gaming consoles or personal computers themselves socially acceptable to that type of person?
If the device is seen as "low brow", the actual content present on that device becomes far less relevant.
Re:Does it matter? (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
"High brow," no, culture yes... (Score:5, Insightful)
I personally believe some video games do reach the level of art like Myst that was mentioned before, I also think games like Sim City encourage us to think about things from architecture, to the quality of life in a cit,y and if they aren't exactly art at least qualify as a culture product.
I also agree with the parent that you don't have to be of a particular class to enjoy "high brow" art, I make less than the U.S. poverty level and enjoy both Mozart and Tool, and see no inherent contradiction there at all. Perhaps what we need is a less loaded term for art and other culture that engages us at a higher level than the kitschy trash pop that Americans seem to produce to such excess. Not all culture has to be "high brow" there is of course a place for mindless escapist entertainment, but if a society ENTIRELY lacks culture that forces a person to reflect then we are probably in deep trouble at a level that can scarcely be expressed in human language.
Parent
Same reason most modern films are rubbish (Score:3, Interesting)
Can you immagine the Slashdot comments if ED was used as the basis for a game, exploring the nature of the internet?
Couple that with the fact that naturally creative types are pushed away from/dont want to touch programming or the 'hard' subjects that go along with video game design and you end up with the situation we have today.
Pointless article... (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is that "highbrow" is not defined. Classical music, perhaps the definitive example of "highbrow", was actually the pop music of the time; it enjoyed widespread popularity amoung all classes. One can profitably argue that this is because it had no real competition from 100 genres like today and it was about the only real music available of any kind beyond folk songs, but it was still popular music.
Is highbrow merely a synonym for "pretentious and boring"? I can't find it in me to cry about "pretentious and boring" not being well represented in gaming.
Is highbrow something like "acquired taste"?
Is highbrow "difficult to understand"?
Depending on how you really define what you're talking about, the answers vary widely. In the absense of such a definition, this essay is simply content-free, alluding to some vague idea in your head that may or may not resemble some vague idea in the author's head, which may or may not actually correspond to reality in any particular sense. It may make you feel warm and fuzzy to say something insightful like "we need highbrow games", but that's the totality of the value of the statement: warm fuzzies.
Highbrow definition (Score:3, Interesting)
Sometimes it is, though it may be due to hypocrisy rather than intent. The culture of the elite is supposed to portray the best traits of humanity, its noblest and worthiest virtues, its most beautiful aspirations, and the perfection of taste. One might contrast this with the culture of the "proles", which tends to glorify mediocrity and small aspirations, encouraging its consumers to adhere to a "steady-state" life of simple wants, of "living f
Re:Pointless article... (Score:4, Informative)
Classical music, perhaps the definitive example of "highbrow", was actually the pop music of the time; it enjoyed widespread popularity amoung all classes.
Not to dispute your original point, but this statement isn't true. Classical music (specifically, symphonic music and opera--the Classical era runs from 1812 to 1900-ish (IIRC, and I may not)) was generally funded by wealthy patrons (i.e. nobility) and performed for them and their guests. Common people's music was ditties that could be played by one or two musicians and sung along to. This is what we now call "folk music". The concept of "pop music" didn't really come about until the early twentieth century when it became possible to distribute recordings.
A better example would probably be literature. Shakespeare, for example, wrote plays that everyone could enjoy. He had dirty jokes for the aristocrats and flowerly language for the peasants.
Parent
"High Brow" means inaccessible (Score:5, Interesting)
The problem is that "highbrow" is not defined
I agree with your point, but my theory...
I think "High Brow" means inaccessible. It's a socio-enconomical class marker; In many ways, it is often legitimate.
The upper socio-enconomic classes have more money to educate and entertain themselves. These people thus are introduced to a variety of forms and influences. Sometimes, allowing them to develop a more 'nuanced' taste. This has nothing to do with the person's natural abilities, which are equal across classes. This is all nurture.
The elite, now 'learnt', begin to take interest in different things. Everyone else 'below' this elite socio-economic class begin to follow suite because it is ingrained in us to 'improve' our socio-economic class. It's a bain hardest felt by the middle class.
So why 'dig' inaccessible things? Exclusivity is one yes. But these forms of art may also simply provide enjoyment to people who prefer to invest more into their enjoyment, and choose to do so in that fashion.
Parent
says you. (Score:3, Insightful)
Merchant Ivory films are melodramatic garbage (Score:5, Insightful)
The kind of people who think of Merchant Ivory films as "high art" are the same kinds of himbos and bimbos that think that "George" magazine was the height of political commentary. They are the kind of people who celebrate classical music and ballet because they think they're SUPPOSED to, not because they truly enjoy either. They're the kind of pompass asses who laud the brilliance and insight of an Italian opera even though they don't speak a word of Italian and, consequently, have no fucking clue what the Hell was even going on onstage.
Yes, it is true that there are many great, brilliant, insightful films out there. And, yes it is true that there is a derth of sophisticated, clever, original, and intelligent video games. But film as a medium has been around for over 120 years now. And it wasn't until "Birth of a Nation" (25 years later) that anyone even BEGAN to expand that medium's horizons. It took 60 years into the medium to produce Citizen Kane, and 90 years for serious films outside of the strident studio system to become widely accepted.
Video games can indeed become a more serious artistic form, and they are already beginning to take those strides. But it's hardly fair to compare it with more mature forms, and downright pig-headed to bring crap like Merchant Ivory into the comparison (when it doesn't even represent a mature form of its OWN medium).
-Eric
Re:Merchant Ivory films are melodramatic garbage (Score:4, Funny)
Then have I got a movie [imdb.com] for you!
Prince John: And why would the people listen to you?
Robin Hood: Because, unlike some other Robin Hoods, I can speak with an English accent.
Much better than the feminine Robin Hood that Cosnter portrayed. Pansy.
Parent
someone needs a chill pill (Score:3, Insightful)
Merchant Ivory films aren't "high art," they're pretentious fluff aimed at airhead elites who think that "great actor" is synonymous with "actor with a posh English accent."
Relax dude. Of course there are lots of posers out there, but have it occurred to you that many people enjoy these films? Looking at their filmography [merchantivory.com], I at least think that The Remains of the Day [imdb.com] and Howard's End [imdb.com] were great films. In fact I like most of Anthony Hopkin's movies.
And it wasn't until "Birth of a Nation" (25 years l
Re:Merchant Ivory films are melodramatic garbage (Score:4, Interesting)
While composing most of the elements that now make modern filmmaking, it would be more accurate to say that The Great Train Robbery was one of the first films to explore film as a long form different than drama (1903, so 13 years after). It utilized "parallel editing, double exposure composite editing, camera movement and on location shooting" as well as pioneering the theory that the element of a film was a shot (as compared to a scene, the unit of a play, which dominated filmmaking thinking up until then).
One could also say that in this modern communication era where the length between flash and bang is much shorter and that it should be reflected in the maturation of a medium. There are Eisners for webcomics and humanities departments are embracing blogging and hypertext. While those are just extensions of existing media, they've still matured very quickly.
Of course I'm in the camp that what makes a game a game is a competitive element (either PvP or Player v. Machine) which is absent from art (even the interactive type). A game can be profound just as art can demand something of its audience but by needing to satisfy that element it is wholly seperate from art (unless using the most liberal use of the word where we could discuss the art of the fast ball or the art of running the pick and roll). But Merchant Ivory isn't the way to think about making better games. Merchant Ivory is just yuppie porn like Architecture Digest. "Highbrow" is what folks throw out when their only measure for entertainment is if it is something that "someone like me" should do. It is completely perpendicular to the concept of quality.
Parent
Re:Merchant Ivory films are melodramatic garbage (Score:3, Insightful)
People who are fans of opera tend to be fairly familiar with the librettos so Italian really isn't a prerequisite.
I should add that you state your case in a way that isn't likely to win you any kind of meaningful support, despite your points having some validity. I like many Merchant Ivory productions and believe them to be better than most Hollywood productions.
There are some "High-Brow" games (Score:5, Interesting)
Apples and Oranges (Score:3, Insightful)
No interest in high art that doesn't elevate. (Score:5, Interesting)
But to be honest, I don't know if I can take somebody seriously who says something like 'Suppose the only music in all the world were rap or heavy metal.'
I mean, honestly, has the guy never heard of Saul Williams [saulwilliams.com]?
Hell, even Tupac wrote books of poetry, and with artists out there like Mos Def, Talib Qweli, Outkast, etc., it's hard to understand how somebody could use rap music collectively as an example of "low art".
But then again, given his examples of high art being the kind of things that wealthy white people put on tuxes to clap softly to, I'm not sure I'm particularly interested in what he has in mind.
It's a cultural thing (Score:4, Interesting)
There are no high brow videogames because the people you think are the better people don't talk about how they're better because they play Y videogame instead of Z videogame.
In other words: STFU you pompous, pretentious snob.
Entertainment isn't high brow or low brow. Different people are entertained differently by different things and no one is better or worse because of their entertainment choices.
Re:Umm No.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Usually high brow means entertainment that requires a little higher intelligence level to enjoy it.
The term "high brow" comes from "high brow or high forehead" which used to be seen as a sign of intelligence.
To use an example from the comedy genre:
"High brow" comedy may involve dialog containing witty puns, word play and/or other clever situations. On the other hand, "Low brow" comedy involves hitting someone in the crotch with a bat.
After seeing someone hit in the crotch with a bat few times, some people tend to get bored and want something more. It is this group that needs the so-called "high brow" entertainment. Doesn't mean that people who can't get enough of bats-to-the-crotch are a lower form of life. As long as they enjoy it and are having fun, that is great. The problem is that the some people do not enjoy it anymore and want more. It does not make them better than anybody else. At the same time, they should not be called snobs either.
What the guy in the article is lamenting about is not that he would like to see high art or some pretentious art. Nor is he implying that he is better than others. It is just that he would like to see something that he can enjoy more. And for that, it has to be more intellectually stimulating for him. Nothing wroong with that.
Problem is what he wants, he labels as "high brow" which to some people means he is being snobbish although that is not what "high brow" means.
Parent
Chess programs (Score:3, Insightful)
Chess programs qualify as "highbrow games".
Order Fritz or Junior from ChessBase [chessbase.com]. Play chess against the machine. Unless you've been on the cover of Chess Life, you're going to lose. Chess programs are very strong now. "Deep Blue" is obsolete; now multiprocessor PCs are beating grandmasters. You can buy and run PC programs that have beaten Kasparov.
Now that chess programs do better than people, nobody really cares outside the chess world. One of the leading chess programmers made a comment that explains what's happened. Analyzing grandmaster games, he discovered that, about once in every ten moves on average, grandmasters choose a suboptimal move. Not a really bad move, but one where a better option existed. That's the base human error rate, and that's enough to give computers a fundamental edge at the higher levels.
Hello? WING COMMANDER! (Score:3, Insightful)
Planescape: Torment (Score:5, Insightful)
In the end, when the game ended for me, I wept. I wept because there was no happy ending, only a bittersweet "best I could manage guys, sorry" ending. It felt very true to life, with consequences for each decision I made. When I was done, I felt that I had learned many life lessons, that I had been exposed to viewpoints contrary to my own and had come away better for it, and that sometimes the best way out of a bad situation is to be a better person from the start.
-Tony
Not their time yet (Score:3, Interesting)
However our attitude towards animation is changing, in part due to the adult themed animations coming from Asia. With deep searching themes and adult discussions of sometimes very tough subjects these are certainly not Mickey goes to the beach animes.
It's the same with games. In the future games will gain a foothold among an adult audience. Our generation might be the one leading that assault, as we are so completely embedded in a gaming culture. However these things will take time. Don't expect it to take place over night.
Generational Disconnect (Score:3, Insightful)
But Rock 'n' Roll is now considered mainstream because those darn kids grew up. Video games are almost there, given how many adults play them too now. Let's see how long politicians continue to slam video games once 80% of their audience pipes up and says, 'hey! i play video games and they rock and you have your head up your ass.'
A definitive list of (commercial) highbrow games. (Score:4, Insightful)
- A Mind Forever Voyaging [csd.uwo.ca]
Admittedly it's not a very long list, but it's accurate, complete, and most importantly of all, non-empty.I should think the answer is obvious (Score:3, Interesting)
The sweet spot is a high end of the middlebrow segment, that will flock to a movie like Sense and Sensibility to see Ang Lee's take a novel they had to read in college. You don't blow huge amounts of money on post production, don't have any megastars unless they're anti-slumming for some artistic cred, in which case they aren't charging on the same payscale as they do for Titanic.
I'm not sure that there is an analgous way to produce a cheap, high brow game.
Obviously, the author of this article... (Score:5, Funny)
It may remind you of the robust Dance, Dance Revolution, only much less...hmm...how to say this without sounding like a snob....plebian.
Instead of contorting your body on a sweaty mat likely recycled from vagrant filth, you simply recline in your accent chair by the fire, light up a pipe, and compose eloquent verse in sync with the metronome, sprinkling it with chiasmus, litotes, synecdoche, elision and other poetic technique as the television screen instructs.
Sadly, it may no longer be on the market - though you may be able to borrow it from Oxford's archives. You might want to check out the sequel, Joyce's Dubliners: The Re-Imagining of Early 20th Century Literature
A fetching game indeed, my good man.
Oops (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Wait a second... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Because of the lack of highbrow people (Score:3, Interesting)
If you live in a place large enough for there to be people lined up at the symphony, bookstores, and museums -- a place large enough to HAVE a symphony or museums -- then you live in a place large enough that even if there's 5,000 people in attendance, that's still only a tiny tiny percentage of the city's entire population.
I would bet that Major League Baseball fills more seats in a single game day than all