One Other Thing... (Destiny)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Friday, January 06, 2017, 18:21 (2860 days ago) @ Cody Miller

Games are art. Art is made by humans. Many many people place value in knowing about the artist, and the artists process. Art is expression, so to understand the artist is to better understand the expression. The fact that you find that unusual is kind of puzzling.

Understanding the artist is NOT the same thing as understanding how the artist works (and more, how the artist's work is occasionally difficult and requires hard choices). I'm actually puzzled that you don't realize this.

I think it is the same thing. The process is as much a part of the work as the work itself. Art is not just coming up with an idea and voila. The actual mechanisms of creation are hugely important. Anyone can have an idea, but the method by which you make that idea into art is often not so ubiquitous. Video games are highly dependent on technology, therefore the technological nitty gritty is very important in the process and not to be discounted.

As for your flu comment, I point you to the scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark where he shoots the guy with the sword. A funny scene, but it's made even cooler knowing there was a long fight planned, but Ford was so sick he came up with this idea to shoot it more easily because he was vomiting and shitting that day.

That's a very meta approach to appreciating art. If the art requires that approach for its ideas to be communicated effectively, I bet dollars to doughnuts it's pretentious bullshit.

There's another approach to art which is basically that the artist is dead. I don't buy into that myself because I'm interested in history and context. Sometimes I may even be interested in process (especially from the perspective of learning the craft), but not to the point where it distracts me from the quality of the art. And much of that kind of background information is trivial to the art itself. I might find it interesting, but it doesn't increase my appreciation or understanding of Cormac McCarthy's work to know that he wrote it on a Olivetti typewriter.