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French Minister wants games classified as art
Author: Ryan GarsidePublished: 9th November 2006
A minister in France wants games to be classified as art. Whatever next? Frog's legs for dinner?
The minister, who has already given away the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres to legendary game director Shigeru Miyamoto, had this to say about the topic:
"Call me the minister of video games if you want — I am proud of this. People have looked down on video games for far too long, overlooking their great creativity and cultural value."
He continued by clarifying his position on the artistic nature of games: "Video games are not a mere commercial product. They are a form of artistic expression involving creation from script writers, designers and directors."
The significance of recognising games as an art-form is emphasised by the number of top publishing houses located in France: Vivendi, Ubisoft and Infogrames would all see financial benefits should Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres get his way. The tax breaks they may receive on future products could be as high as 20%.
In recent weeks Britain's Science Museum has opened an exhibition for games called 'Game On'. As well as other game-art related events the Video Games Live, orchestral recital of popular videogame songs, is set to take place in London at the end of this month.
This is one of the areas Donnedieu de Vabres stresses in his argument, the fact that both France and the UK are worldwide leaders in games development and that he wants this to be celebrated and encouraged. In a closing statement that will bring about a collective sigh of relief from the rest of the world he said: "Video game characters will not be required to wear a beret and carry a litre of wine under their arm."
Should games be considered an art form? Let us know your thoughts in the forums.
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Comments (14)Stats: 0.119 seconds
btw link is broken
While he MAY be a good guy for this (and i am impressed to learn this, from an English site),
he also proposed the new DADVSI laws which prohibit a lot of things (think DMCA), so open source programs like VLC link (might be outlawed...)
'Bout Game On : What ? No CS or any FPS whatsoever ? w00t ?
Damn right its not! Just how a painting isnt just colours. And like you say, games are on the same lines as a film, which I agree on, so surely if we made games an artform then wouldnt be have to place films in there to?
How is a game not art compared to things that are called art? Carving a statue out of stone or a virtual environment still takes detication and creativity.
In that same line, taking a seemingly random string of letters and numbers and combining them such they create a model of a man carrying a BFG could be comparable because, again as you said, it takes dedication and creativity. After all, producing a game takes a lot of creativity and dedication, from the earliest design phases to actually implementing the code so that everything renders properly on screen. Id didn't create Quake by accident.
Still, I don't think the video game itself is necessarily art just because someone worked on it for a while. Rather, like so many things in life, I think the video game is the culmination of a combination of disciplines. It combines elements from art (such as modelling, texturing, cinematics) and engineering (computer code, etc.). Would it still be art if you stripped the pretty graphics? Is a poem or orchestral movement art if it doesn't come with pictures?
Or, as Frank Zappa said, "Art is making something out of nothing and selling it."
-monkey
sound (including but not limited to background music) = art
storyline (some have almost none but most RPGs have a novel's worth) = art
cut scenes = art
There is even an "art" to creating the interface.
But at the same time; is a board game, or even a card game, "art" simply becuase the pieces contain artwork?
I'm leaning towards a "yes but...?"
Becuase GTA games keep coming out.
Although the situation is really no worse than all the sequels Hollywood keeps dumping on us. Nor is Hollywood any more creative about movies (one studio makes a movie about virus outbreaks so the other does too, one studio makes a movie about asteroids ..., one takes on a poplar comic book character(s) ...