i am laughing at least, and that's all that matters

Collage cannot be art? What a strange argument.

That's because it wasn't my argument. My argument is that glue isn't art. A collage transcends its pieces and is its own representation. You remove all art from a game that can exist as its own medium and the engine offers nothing artistic. The art in video games aren't scraps, they are their own art. The engine is a monetized vehicle to the art, and merely offers a simulated space for storing and consuming real art. The art could exist outside the medium in many ways without changing its representations.

It seemed like a better time than arguing about hipsters!

so many reasons to 1 star!

lol @ final fantasy being mentioned

When I think of great works of collage I think of the old Bomb Squad beats done for Public Enemy. Before Grand Upright Music Ltd v Warner Brothers, sampling was a much freer art. The Bombsquad would sample things from like 20 different pieces to create their own song. It's amazing how all those pieces would make a completely different song of their own.

No, I get what meme's trying to say. He's drawing a distinction between the physical medium, and what that medium is being used to represent - i.e. between the signifier and the signified. To do this, he has to get pretty pedantic over the contextual meaning of both "video games" and "art" - which is great! Far be it from me to fault meme for being too pedantic. The only counterargument I would raise is that, within the context of the statement "video games are art", I believe most people would understand "video games" to mean something more akin to "paintings" than to "paint", i.e. to be the sign in totality rather than the signifier alone i.e. they aren't referring to the medium, but rather to the sum of the medium AND the message. But meme's point is certainly a fair one!

One thing I do have to ask, Mr Dumpster: what's your opinion on artists like Pollock? After all, with Pollock, the medium WAS the message. Do you view that approach - of having little or no meaning besides "this is paint, this is what it does" - as legitimate art? And, I guess that leads to a even bigger question: what is your opinion on MOMA, and "modern art" in general?

Also, do you consider the giant Louisville Slugger to be art?

Hipsters.

I watched to the 1:00 mark, and the absence of a functioning Tempest cabinet in the collection is telling.

What?

I can't state it any clearer than I have. It's still not what you're implying I'm saying.

A scrap of paper on a collage is a lot different than a complete song or art asset. I can't state the canvas is not the painting more clearly than I have, no matter how many times I get "but you're removing the lines of paint" every time I say "canvas."

Or how about this.

When you make a video game, there is the copyrightable shit, and the patentable shit. Patentable shit ain't art.

If you take all the props, actors, script, and everything that goes into making a movie and remove it from the film (digital blargity blarg whatever) you can make a play and leave the blank film in the roll.

The blank film is neither the movie nor the play.

Why am I even typing this? Go outside, memedumpster...

But you can, however, patent the camera, aspect ratio, and projector technology, also not art, no matter how many parts it has or what it projects.

But IS it, though? What if I take the blank film, place it in a MOMA exhibit, and say: "this is art". How would you respond?

You're assuming that art is something "more" than it's medium, more than a work's physical expression - a deeper narrative structure composed of elements like actors, objects, emotion, story. And in most cases, you'd be correct! But what about purely conceptual art? What about art that says, "I have no message outside of my medium. The medium is the message."

I think maybe the problem is, you are not avant-garde enough.

I still don't see a video game engine as a canvas. The programming provides the context, the lighting, the music and sound effect cues, the interaction between the hardware and the results images and sounds. More like a choose your own adventure pop up book crossed with a singing birthday card.

And that is even assuming that when someone is saying video games are art they are even referencing game engines or data stored on a disc. It's like arguing the semantics of word definitions with opponents of marriage equality, except that same sex marriage has meaning and consequence in the real world, whereas this topic does not.

That's a valid point, kamlem! I don't think meme's analogy is very strong - the video game is more like the painting, whereas the canvas would simply be the television screen or computer monitor.

However, I think what meme is trying to say is that art - that is, the thing we *call* art - is an abstract concept which goes deeper than the tangible, material manifestation of the artwork in question. If I am understanding him correctly, Mr Dumpster is arguing that neither the canvas, nor the paints, nor even the patterns of paint arranged on the canvas, "are" "the art". Rather, "the art" is something else; an immaterial pattern of emotions and ideas, hinted at, but separate from, the object before us.

Glad I'm not the only one.