To Jim Sterling, Who Hates Art Games

By: Derek Yu

On: February 19th, 2010

Jim Sterling of Destructoid

Ah, art games, the lightning rod of indie gaming… Jim Sterling (pictured above) recently wrote a couple of inflammatory articles about art games. The first one is titled “Indie games don’t have to act like indie games” and the second one is titled “Art games aren’t innovative and innovation isn’t good”. The headlines are clearly sensationalistic, but Jim does a reasonable job expressing a common view about art games: they’re stupid, boring, pretentious, and not very innovative. If you scroll through the comments on Destructoid, you’ll see many a “Hear, hear, Jimbo! Preach it, brotha!” People are sick of art games.

But Jim and others, here are some important points that I think are missing from these articles (after the jump):

1. Art games are a relatively new concept, and like anything new, they are primitive by default.

2. People do genuinely enjoy these games, and find meaning in them. Even if a player is simply filling in what’s intentionally vague or abstract about the game, that’s valuable. By analogy, there’s value in a cup or a bowl.

3. Jim, you tore apart Edmund and The Marriage, calling them “boring”, “horrible”, and “intellectually lazy”. These are free games made as experiments, as prototypes – the video game equivalents of doodles or sketches, and just as necessary to making games as to making paintings. You railed on two little experimental games for half a dozen paragraphs, and failed to mention that Edmund’s creator, Paul Greasley, also made Zompocalpyse and The Marriage’s creator, Rod Humble, is the executive producer for The Sims (the lazy bastard)!

4. Your argument is the same argument people have used for centuries against artists trying to do new things. Here is what art critic Louis Leroy wrote of one of Claude Monet’s paintings around the dawn of Impressionism (1874):

“A preliminary drawing for a wallpaper pattern is more finished than this seascape.”

Impression, Sunrise

Does that sound familiar? He thought it was lazy, sloppy, and unfinished. In fact, it was the start of something entirely new – something that many people couldn’t imagine living without today. (By the way, there are a lot of other parallels between Impressionism and many of these new experimental game movements.)

I actually agree with some of the things you’re saying, like how AAA mainstream games can be innovative, and how games can be artistic without being unfun or pretentious. But with the attitude you took in your articles (fuck this, fuck that, sarcasm), you may be remembered as the Louis Leroy of this generation⁺. Food for thought.

Art games will always have a place here on the TIGSource front page, and I will never ever tell people to stop making them.

⁺ (Although, to be fair to Louis, he at least coined the term “Impressionism”.)

Posted in Community, Games and Art? | Tags: JimSterling, PaulGreasley, RodHumble

Lemon Jesus

@TeamQuiggan:

Are you being stupid or work as a strawman to prove Jim’s point about indie people being shallow self-righteous pricks?
Lemon Jesus

@alastair:

If you mean specifically games that call themselves “art games”, then no.
http://14113.co.uk 14113

@alastair
Define experienced gamer. Do you mean one of the knee jerk frat boys who plays every halo clone and thinks he knows everything there is to know about games because he usually comes second in every game of cod he plays?
Barkwiss

What’s the quote from?

I would argue that they’re mostly played by ‘experienced gamers’ but on the other hand, they’re mostly short too!

I like how ‘art game’ is simultaneously used to legitimize or discredit stuff people like or dislike.
Derek

I think it’s possible to be a H4RDK0R3 G4M3R and an artfaggot at the same time. ;)
Lemon Jesus

@14113:

The last time I checked false dichotomy was a logical fallacy.
Lemon Jesus

Actually, I’d compare current indie games to suprematism, especially to the infamous Black Square.

Look at Black Square and tell me if it’s art or not. The similarity is striking.

Looks ugly and primitive – check

Even a kid can make it – check

Uneffective in conveying it’s message or has no message at all – check

etc. etc.
alastair

@ Derek, of course. You are both a gamer and an artfag (as Alex Kierkegaard would say) at the same time.
http://14113.co.uk 14113

@lemon Jesus
I agree that it is probably wrong to group people so rigidly into two classes, but I think it is important to distinguish between people who dislike ALL indie games and those who appreciate indie games but dislike certain art games.

I dislike the term “Experienced gamer”. It’s too much of a hard term to define, like the term good driver. Does good driver mean that you drive safely or that you can drive quickly. In the same way does “experienced gamer” mean that you are an extremely good player, beating every game with ease, or someone who plays every single mainstream game released or someone who plays lots of varied games of different genres, mainstream and indie and who has a good knowelege of all games, not just the ones he usually plays.
Barkwiss

Black Square isn’t especially ugly or primitive looking though…you’re thinking of Matisse maybe.

As for the other stuff, Malevich is a pretty interesting case and too specific to apply here! If you want to it’d be more comparable to really hardcore genre games. I mean one of his main aims was basically to dispense with the baggage of art history and start building a self-dependent visual language. Black Square was sort of as far as you could pare things down, really.
ROM KITTY

‘Games that ACT like indie games’.. thats what truly pissed me off. Derek’s relatively more open mind wins this argument for me… tigsource for the win, forever.

Artgames are cool and all… But its pointless to seperate them from other games. All games are art, whether you agree with me or not, its true.

When you stop doing that (seperating) some games pop out and some just aren’t good. I haven’t played The Path, because its not my kind of thing, just from the vibe and all that it didn’t compel me to play it. I’m sure those who felt some sort of connection to images of it and descriptions of it would enjoy it, I assume i’d probably end up brushing it aside. Somebody who looks and acts like that guy just simply doesn’t have any business playing a game like that. It’s down to choice, and everyone gets to make their own decisions about whether it was enjoyable or thought provoking or not, but to put out a negative public message aimed at the people creating these things is just off, in my book. It seems like the general consensus here is, that some games are good and some are bad, full stop.

We’ve already seperated indie games from “normal” games, lets just stop right here and let anybody make whatever they want. If people aren’t buying it eventually it will turn free if it wasn’t to begin with, if nobody downloads it then nobody downloads it, and if people do and try it and don’t like it, everyone knows downloads don’t hurt. In fact they’re addictive like crack. Many indie games are small in the MB sense. Some people manage to convey things with words, some with music and some with visual art, and this big internet we have here lets us share these thoughts and feelings we have without any corporate/commercial shit involved. Now the art form that contains all these more familiar forms of art; visual art, music, moving pictures, the art of story-telling, and the “new” interactive option that allows you to manipulate all of the above, is in my opinion the most expressive art form the world has seen so far. Let us keep making whatever we want to, and sharing it, and not care what furry monocle-wearing nasty rude beasts have to say.

Nothing’s ever made me feel exactly like Survival Crisis Z did. It’s not a so-called ARTGAME, but its version reality and the feeling of “I need to survive” oozing out of every element of everything in the game can inspire unconventional kinds of thoughts in a person. Somebody might really need to play that game, and times might come again in their lives when just playing it will fulfill a need that’s come around again, the mindset of sleep deprivation and repetitive survival-related actions in a very hostile and dark environment… Its the addictiveness of the gameplay that adds to its overall effect. The thing is this could be ANY game, and the effect it had on me may not be the intended effect, I know this and that exactly is my point. Just keep making games everyone. Whatever it is you want to make. The Marriage, The Crowd, that-browser-poetry-girl-swimming-word-changing-one-i-can’t-remember-the-name-of, whatever floats your independent boat. I wrote way too much!
Lemon Jesus

@ROM KITTY :

“Artgames are cool and allâ€¦ But its pointless to seperate them from other games”

But that’s what indie developers do. Instead of making games that can be called art (e.g. Silent Hill, Mother 3, Yume Nikki etc.) they make “artsy” games, as if trying to prove to players and themselves something that we – the intelligent people – already know.

Listen people, games are already art. They can make us feel, think etc. They can have a profound message. Don’t pretend to be artists, just be them. Make some good stuff, not the usual pretencious bulshit.
Dracko

You forgot to mention that the creator of Edmund made Edmund, basically invalidating indie gaming for a solid three decades or so.
Dusty Spur

>You forgot to mention that the creator of Edmund made Edmund, basically invalidating indie gaming for a solid three decades or so.

also forgot to mention that art games aren’t fun or good or art
squidkid

I always read Jim as satire.
http://ufho.blogspot.com Ciro Continisio

Great article, Derek! I agree with everything, and I have nothing to add!
Nope

I’m fine with art games as long as they are, you know, FUN TO PLAY.
TeamQuiggan

@Lemon Jesus
I think you missed the main thrust of what Jim was saying, or at least, trying to say between silly hyperbole and pointless vulgarity. Which was Art/Indie games should be better games, which was the topic of a much more reasonable Rev Rant months ago.

Guess what? I don’t like most art games, I just like the fact that they are made, and that they can find an audience. What I don’t like is jerks that shit in other people’s sandbox, which Jim stole the crown and ran with.
David Anton

Why is Jim fighting it so much? No one is forcing him to eat green eggs and ham.
http://www.klikscene.com Radix

Answer: “119 comments”.
paul eres

from his article:

“Of course, most of these indie games get away with their bullshit because there is always a subgroup of people too terrified of looking stupid to argue against â€œart.â€ ”

when someone says something like that, that’s kind of it. you can’t argue against that type of mentality. they actually believe that the only people who like games like blueberry garden or yume nikki like them because they’re terrified of looking stupid. which kind of completely ignores that you’re far more likely to be attacked on the internet for liking that type of game than for hating them.

if someone were really concerned about looking stupid on the internet, they’d pretend to hate every art game, even the ones they sort of enjoyed.

this isn’t restricted to art games, either. a lot of people are saying that if you like vvvvvv, you only like it to look cool, you don’t actually like it, you have to secretly hate it instead.
AaronAardvark

I can see why so many people seem to think games have to be fun, but I personally think that’s a very narrow view of what games are. It’s like saying all stories have to be non-fictional.

What’s with all the hating anyway? If you don’t like it, then don’t buy it/use it/play it. Stick to the stuff you like, if that’s what you want to do.
JPL

Dismissive troll is dismissive.
GB

I’ve spent ten minutes trying to write some dumb artful response when all I need to say is that Paul Eres’ comment is one hundred percent correct.
fuzz

y’know, um…

by my definition of art, freeze tag qualifies, so i dont see how vidyagames aren’t it
KC

Perhaps the fine members of this community should look up “ad hominem.” Attacking Jim Sterling is both easy and enjoyable, but it achieves nothing; that halfwit stumbled upon, or perhaps stole, some legitimate points, and attacking him won’t make them go away. From what I’ve seen, there IS a subgroup of people who will fawn over every game that attempts to be art that is pushed their way. I enjoy art games, and feel they are a worthy part of the gaming world, but not everyone turns the critical eye towards them that they deserve. Perhaps I’m still angry that Blueberry Gardens, a decent but unremarkable game, won over Zeno Clash, Machinarium, and Osmos at IGF ’09, but sometimes I wonder just how good at being critical the indie gaming community really is.
Alex

I need to say: don’t stop the art.

Games with different purposes shouldn’t be measured the same way. Even if the art games sometimes don’t meet up all the expectations as a game, they more often than not show something new. Even when they don’t actually innovate, they show a new perspective.

Perspective is everything. Including why some people see more value in art games than others. It is subjective.

There is no right answer. A vastly popular solution will still be lacking for some.
Extended

Dignifying Sterling’s sensational trolling only makes him seem more important than he is. For a guy who writes about video games, he seems to hate pretty much anything about them (though he especially hates the Wii). When caught with his pants down on illogical arguments, he just brushes it off, and continues to write the same shit as proven fact. I’m very disappointed with you Derek, you should instead simply write your article “in defence of art games” without telling us what exactly inspired you to write it. Sensational blogs isn’t what we come here for and someone of your status bothering with people like that makes them seem more legit than the fad of the sensantional gaming blogs really is.
Dodger

@KC,

I agree with you but the entirety of these comments has degraded into an abyss of immaturity and buffoonery pretty rapidly (not everyone here, just the few that really want to stand out because they need attention, badly).

Derek didn’t post this topic as an Attack against Jim. I think people just got heated because of the topic or subject matter. It definitely makes for interesting debate, but when people don’t express themselves intelligently or thoughtfully they end up making themselves look like dickheads. Not that Jim is a dickhead, but some of his viewpoints did seem a little brash but without putting much thought into it. Some of his comments just seemed like heated comments. The opinions in the article just happened to be linked to one of the nerves in the indie game creation community. Unfortunately some of the people in the community, or passerby’s that decided to participate in this comment thread, got carried away and acted like ass-hats. For the most part the community is civil, but there will always be those asshats that desperately need attention and usually drawing the wrong kind of attention by as if to say “Oi! Over here – I’m an Asshat! Listen to me now, don’t I look like a knob?”

It would be amusing if it wasn’t so sad. Luckily, most people in the community also have good humor. :)
Extended

Not sure why people are expected to show respect when Sterling clearly didn’t. Fuck this and fuck that and my opinion is king, yet if you tell me off for being an asshole, you’re an asshole yourself, and your points are void? That’s not how it works… Derek was civil in his response, that’s all that matters. If Sterling can write crap shitting on people’s work, people’s sense of art, people’s thoughts and ideas they doodle into games he can choose to play, or not, then I think it’s more than fair game to tell him off for it… After all, he did just insult everyone who has ever liked an art game, regrdless of what game that was, and what made them like it. I maintain his trolling should not have been dignified with a response from an actual respectable person, and an artist. It’s what I think, and just as Jim writes what he thinks (well, more like what he thinks will drive traffic to his posts so he can get a bonus) so can anyone here.
paul eres

@KC – i love that you’re saying not to attack him while simultaneously calling him a halfwit, which is just as bad (or worse) as anything anyone called him in this comment section so far

anyway, art games don’t really get free passes — go back read the reviews of blueberry garden some time. i enjoyed that game quite a bit, but i also agree that machinarium is the better game and should have won the igf. if anything, art games are attacked the most of any genre, saying they get free passes from the indie games community seems ridiculous to me, i’ve seen more hate leveled towards them than any other type of game, at least in this community.
http://www.playthisthing.com Dustin

Holy fuck people, play games you enjoy and let other people do likewise. I applaud Derek for sticking up for all games, regardless of genre, but really Sterling is nothing more than a troll. I can see his contorted face right now — monocle and all — chuckling as he sips yet another glass of wine, disguising the self-loathing he obviously harbors. Don’t feed the troll, and don’t beat a dead horse. If everybody is going to come into these ‘discussions’ pigheadedly without even considering the other side’s opinion we shouldn’t waste our time. To repeat myself, play games you enjoy and give others the same courtesy.
Jay

Derek, I’d feel a lot better if you’d said, “Good games will always have a place here on the TIGSource front page.” My problem is that TIGSource is supposed to be the mecca for good independent games. It’s coming off as if TIGSource is the place for art games, period. If a game is art, or indie for that matter, and it isn’t good, I couldn’t give two shits. I like games that are good and happen to be art or indie, not the other way around. I may not know art, but I know what I like. ;)
Robosaur

I agree with your statements.
also, cocks.
kongming

Well now I’m not sure how to feel about this dumb old Internet fight, because I hate Edmund but I also hate Internet teenagers who think they know shit about art.
kongming

I’m not a fan of “art games” by any means but why would anyone want to be associated with the dumb cheerleading comments at Destructoid calling for an electronic Bonfire of the Vanities.
JoGr

Jim Sterling is a terrible writer and a hypocrite. I might agree with some of his points (particularly regarding The Path), he makes some statements that are outright insane.

“The Path is everything terrible about art games, and perfectly encapsulates the reason why most indie developers still live hand to mouth, working on their “art” in a basement somewhere in a bad part of town.”

Wait, what?

The reason Indie game devs work in their basement is because their games aren’t enjoyed by Jim Sterling? that doesn’t make any sense. Also, and this might seem like pointing out the obvious, if people stay in their basements, does it matter how bad their part of town is?

When Jim Sterling was challenged over his review of Assassins Creed 2 he justified himself by saying he would quit when the Destructoid community no longer supported him. He should be around for a good while then, much to my distaste.
Lyxar

“1. Art games are a relatively new concept, and like anything new, they are primitive by default.”

Translation: It’s new, therefore flaws, even if they follow a repeating pattern, and coincidentelly are similiar to centuries old cliches about art, don’t matter.

—

“2. People do genuinely enjoy these games, and find meaning in them. Even if a player is simply filling in whatâ€™s intentionally vague or abstract about the game, thatâ€™s valuable. By analogy, thereâ€™s value in a cup or a bowl.”

Translation: But SOME people enjoy them! Plus, if you do enough IMAGINATION yourself, regardless of how efficient that “game” ASSISTS in this, then the GAME is valuable, rather than YOUR ability to imagine something out of nothing. Horray, a blank piece of paper is valuable, if *I* am just inventive enough to imagine something on it.

—

“3. Jim, you tore apart Edmund and The Marriage, calling them â€œboringâ€, â€œhorribleâ€, and â€œintellectually lazyâ€. These are free games made as experiments, as prototypes â€“ the video game equivalents of doodles or sketches, and just as necessary to making games as to making paintings. You railed on two little experimental games for half a dozen paragraphs, and failed to mention that Edmundâ€™s creator, Paul Greasley, also made Zompocalpyse and The Marriageâ€™s creator, Rod Humble, is the executive producer for The Sims (the lazy bastard)!”

Translation: But…but they ALSO made other games! Therefore the mentioned flaws are invalid. These scetches don’t count – they’re not the “real thing” – therefore, one is not allowed to rate their merit. They have some kind of amnesty.

—

“4. Your argument is the same argument people have used for centuries against artists trying to do new things. Here is what art critic Louis Leroy wrote of one of Claude Monetâ€™s paintings around the dawn of Impressionism (1874):”

Translation: That argument has been used before, therefore it must be invalid.

—

Welcome to tigsource, please leave your selfhonesty, common sense and capability of individual thought in the garbage bin at the entrance, and enjoy your visit in the collective.
jb

I pretty much agree.
Art games suck, are usually pretentious, boring and, uh, well – artsy.

Indie games shouldn’t try to be indy, they should try to be GOOD.

Bleh.
Nillo

I don’t think art games are very fun or interesting, so I don’t play them…

Don’t really understand why you’d need to bash a genre like that, though. Some people like strategy games, some people like RPGs and some others like “art games”.
chrknudsen

If Jim’s basic position is that so-called “art games” should be more fun, then that’s a flawed premise. How many art movies are comedies? Very few. That’s because laughter and comedy has an inherent distancing effect on its subject, thus making it more difficult for it to have what can be termed a transcendental or lasting emotional effect on the viewer/player. That’s why pretty much all comedies become less funny in their third acts, because the creators want to get the viewer emotionally involved in the third act and the climax — something that’s very much hindered by comedy and laughter. To ask for art games to be less serious is in some ways like asking for horror games to be less scary.
Matt

Geez, finally someone spoke about this. Its ridiculous what has become of the indie “industry” where if you dont make something that doesnt fit…such as stupid artistic games, or games that are so freaking odd or ugly, to the point when people make real beautiful games, they get no attention because it does not look like pixel art from the 80s shit.
chrknudsen

I just re-read Jim’s second article. It’s actually a lot more level-headed than the comments here would have me believe. All he’s saying is that games shouldn’t get a free pass on account of them being “art games” or “innovative”. I can agree with that. I’m not really sure these games are getting a free pass on account of these traits, though…
Matt

Jay said it too!

“Derek, Iâ€™d feel a lot better if youâ€™d said, â€œGood games will always have a place here on the TIGSource front page.â€ My problem is that TIGSource is supposed to be the mecca for good independent games. Itâ€™s coming off as if TIGSource is the place for art games, period.”

If a game does not fit within this “click” that this “industry” wants, it wont get 1 minute of attention. Its become ridiculous and it often feels like I am back in High School, I must do some pixel junk so I can get the attention I deserve!
Dan

I think the problem is when artists respond to criticism about their gameplay with the famous, “Working as intended.” When really they just simply did not put enough time into fixing all the glitches/annoyances.
http://www.g4g.it Firesword

It’s like shit. An artist goes to toilet and do shit, since he produced it the shit becomes art.. but still remains shit..

Some example of good Art imo..

http://bulk2.destructoid.com/ul/163465-ass.jpg
Dinsdale

I am sick and tired of reading fat people’s internet opinions.
Advancedcaveman

This man is nothing but another member of the dullard land whale brigade that makes up about half of all games journalism today. If you enjoy art games, and therefore need something more out of your video games than spending millions of hours harvesting numbers and little thumbnail images on Xbox Live in a never-ending retard nerd quest of pointless grinding idiocy, then donâ€™t bother listening to this talking blood blisterâ€™s imbecilic opinions.
jon schubbe

i think by fun he means engaging. if a game is just so vague that the interactive purposes drop to near zero, the game will not hold the attention it may deserve because the player has no idea whats going on. but really, if a new gameplay concept and message are being put out there, you should really explain it until the masses understand or you’re not going to get recognition you may deserve.

the same thing goes for movies. it’s taken decades for people to become akin to certain types of films. you can’t just expect everyone to like a game and take ‘abstract artistic value’ to merit if they have no idea wtf is going on in the game
Dodger

@jon schubbe,

I think by definition a video game is interactive, otherwise it isn’t a game at all, it’s either a trailer or a tech demo. If a person cannot interact with it than it is not a video game. That doesn’t mean a game has to be complicated to be engaging. A game can be made up of one basic mechanic alone and still be engaging or perhaps not, but I think it’s obvious that interactivity is a given otherwise it’s got nothing to do with a video game aside from the fact that it may be a preview and a look at what someone is working towards. Even art games have to have some sort of interactivity, no matter how simple, mundane, flawed, or even misinterpreted they are, before they can be called a game… otherwise, they’re pieces of digital art and cannot be mistaken for games.

That’s why games are so different from movies, music, and art. Without the end product being an interactive experience it is not a game at all, it’s just something that somebody just wanted you to either watch, listen to, or look at but NOT interact with.

So, as long as “Art Games” do provide an interactive experience in some shape or form they can safely be called games, whether they are fun or not, or or bad, or perhaps even understood, it is up for the user to decide and that’s partially why they should be criticized the same as all other games but that criticism should also be based on and for its merits within that genre. They should not be compared to games outside their genre because doing that sort of thing would make less sense than a game that is itself incomprehensible.

In other words, you can’t compare Super Mario Brothers to Call of Duty to Blueberry Garden to World of Goo to Fable to Half-Life to Machinarium to The Path to VVVVVV. (I just rhymed off a bunch of titles that people would recognize, but I think you understand what I mean).

You don’t have to be a Fag-tard-h4rdc0r3-G-Un1t-Playa to enjoy, like, dislike or simply not appreciate a game, but a game has to be played before it can be criticized and in my opinion a “real” gamer (a person who love playing video games) wouldn’t make a criticism without trying the game first while coming to their own conclusions, only then can they come up with a thoughtful comment, because to insult a group of people who might like what you otherwise do not like without any sort of thought is not making a comment as a gamer, it’s more like coming off as a hot headed asshat who has problems with people who do not like what they like which has little to do with video games if anything at all, that’s more a problem with oneself.