| Slimebeast said: 1. Art is a flawed term to use for gaming, just as it is for movies and litterature. By using the word "art" I believe people actually mean something else. Something which is harder to summarize with just one word. I believe what they're trying to say is they want games to be deep, sincere, atmospheric, narrative and emotional. But that's not art. I think it would better be described as 'sophisticated'. 2. No matter what we call it, even if we would call this characteristic 'art', the OP is wrong in his claim that games have become more mainstream and that developers chicken out instead of innovate. It's just not true. The proportion between 'mainstream-generic' games to 'original-innovating-emotional' games has not evolved towards an increased number of mainstream-generic games by time. It's actually the other way around. In the 80's it was all Pong, Karate, Pac-Man or shoot'emups. The 90's brought us a steady flow of deeper, story-driven emotional games and they've been here ever since in an increased ratio. Like so many others, the OP is suffering from a memory disorder which is called nostalgia. |
Art is damn hard to define, in this context I mean the craft of games, audio, visuals, atmosphere, story, gameplay, all coming together to create a particular intended experience for the user.
I don't particularly think that things have gotten shit now, and companies DO chicken out of things that are risky, Activision chickened out of Brutal Legend because they didn't see the ability to make sequels from it (The only reason acti does anything anymore.) Schafers game before that (Psychonauts) was rejected by publishers for being creative, which wasn't considered profitable, thats not an exaggeration, its what they said to Schafer, they literally said "Wow, this is really creative, too bad no ones buying creative right now". The publisher they did end up getting, Majesco, got there hands burnt from its commercial failure and are doing mindlessly shallow games now.
And to be honest the only games that have been any notable at all this gen have been on the computer from what I can see, most of the console games across the Wii, PS3 and 360 are just mindless sequels, blatant generic-cookie-cutter-games, or just bland. The few games that are selling me this gen of consoles aren't even out yet.
But maybe games were always like that, and I just have nostalgia like you say.
