[Martial Loh]

Ok, so now that I've hopefully got your collective attentions, he didn't actually say this. I just got back from a preview screening of The Science of Sleep and he was there for a post-screening Q&A session. In one of his answers he said that he banned his son from playing videogames, because they weren't rewarding - or rather - the sense of achievement after ploughing through levels & quests was not very fulfilling, say compared to finishing making a film or a painting.

On the tube journey home, I realised I should have asked him "but what about wasting time watching films?". Although the mediums and the experiences that you receive are rather different - I personally wouldn't be able to say one was more fulfilling than the other. Stories, emotion and ideas are conveyed successfully - and I guess its all personal and subjective, making it all very hard to quantify in the end!

Looking at what he said from a slightly skewed angle, creating stuff is definitely something which makes you feel proud. Without an audience though...what would be the point of it all? The circular nature of the argument annoys me greatly..

Anyway, I just felt the need to post this. I guess my question to you is - do you feel that games are a relative waste of time?

I enjoyed the film a lot - though his next project sounds even more awesome....i've darkened the text in case you'd rather be surprised..(spoiler tag? how? lolkthxbai)

2 guys - jack black & mos def work in a video store... one of them accidentally gets magnetised, whilst trying to sabotage a powerplant and ends up erasing all the tapes in the store. As a coverup, they refilm all the movies they wiped by themselves. Apparently Robocop was one of them. Awesome.

[firenze]

Ignortant game playing American not giving a fuck about some French director ITT.

EDIT: I take joy in the fact that I couldn't even be bothered to spell ignorant correctly.

[Shapermc]

[firenze]

Oh, and I guess I could answer the question. I don't think games are any more a waste of time than anything else. No different than watching movies, playing a guitar, fly fishing, bowling, knitting, baking, jogging, or whatever else people do with their spare time.

Posting to a video game message board is a far bigger waste of time. I'm not being sarcastic here, and I'm plenty guilty too. It's interesting, engaging, whatever... but on the scale of wastefulness, selectbutton > playing Zelda.

[haze]

well, it's his own kid!

[icycalm]

[Martial Loh]

[Predator Goose]

From an artistic standpoint I do think that games are a bigger waste of time than movies. But mostly because movies are, on average, only an hour and a half long.
_________________
I can no longer shop happily.

[Intentionally Wrong]

I agree with Pikachu, Predator Goose, and this:

[klj5j6li]

guys i don't think dancing is art so i guess art is pretty subjective, huh

[aderack]

I agree with Intentionally Wrong.

[Shapermc]

[JamesE]

if you don't think dancing is art then you're some kind of awful honkey fyi

Eating is an art. There is an art to shitting, showering, jizzing and fucking. I guess I agree with dada totally kneeing the art scene in the balls and letting it bleed out into every day life. I sort of half-remember staying up to watch a Gondry-centric episode of Glitterball and I'm sure he used some videogame imagery in it. He's being a responsible dad, though - kids waste too much time playing videogames. I wish I hadn't got hooked so young.

[Mr. Mechanical]

I agree with Eric-Jon.
_________________

[JamesE]

[Intentionally Wrong]

I agree with Mr. Mechanical. NOW THE VORTEX OF AGREEMENT WILL PULL THIS THREAD TO DAVEY JONES'S LOCKER.

James, you have a point. I really wonder how different the universe is where I'd never owned a game console until I'd graduated from college.
_________________
JSNLV is frequently and intentionally wrong.

[showka]

With all activities, whether or not something is a waste of time has less to do with what that thing is than what you get out of it at the end.

Generally, doing anything that requires little or no effort is a waste of time. So there I'd have to disagree with Firenze. Playing the guitar or jogging takes more effort than games. People who are good at games can play games without exerting any effort or even paying attention, just like people who constantly watch television.

However, some games - just like movies, books, or other forms of media - can engage your mind or give you new ideas that shape how you see things. Media can also give you a great deal of enjoyment if you properly invest yourself in it (even good films require that you pay attention to completely enjoy them). So maybe playing games isn't always meaningless.

Many people I know complain that they don't often read because of how shallow or dissapointing they find books. If reading isn't something you do naturually, the book's pay off has to be great enough to justify the effort, and many books are boring or have unsatisfying conclusions. I can see how a layman who finds games difficult to complete could find the experience less rewarding than a hardcore gamer who has to exert less effort to get to the end.

With non-media related activities such as jogging, you're exercising your body. So on top of the enjoyment you might feel with jogging, you get better health. In the real world.

Same thing with building a skill, like playing an instrument. On top of how much you enjoy the training or studying, at the end you have that skill and the sense of gratification you have from earning it.

Really, its all too subjective to say anything definitive, but I can sympathize with someone who doesn't want their kids being emerged in media. Experiencing media requires no effort and most people do it naturually, but things you have to put real work into come harder for everyone.

As for the whole "art" bit... pft.

[option]

[JamesE]

OK Wikipedia claims NiGHTs is a recurring motif in the science of sleep

Gondry you two-faced cunting shit (swearing on behalf of true NGJ warriors the world over HIYAH)

[Felix]

compare science of sleep to eternal sunshine

gondry's a cunt

[Ebrey]

I find it strange that he's giving his kid tools to make movies but it hasn't occured to him that his kid could make video games. I made my first videogame mod when I was 12, which was many years before I ever made a movie. Movie cameras are expensive!

That being said, we can't be creative all the time. It's fun to sit back and watch someone else's movie, or play their game, or view their painting.

[Levi]

"I've wasted time. Now time wastes me."

[haze]

most people playing videogames treat it more like a sport than enjoying art anyway.

[Mr Mustache]

Eternal Sunshine was terrible.
_________________
The people are like wool to me

[Balzac]

[Intentionally Wrong]

[Leau]

No I agree. Eternal Sunshine was terrible. to get any enjoyment out of it you have to buy the premise of true love and there being only one person for everyone which is Disney-esque nonsense. Imaginitive though. And cold! So few movies film cold.
_________________

[Ebrey]

[sethsez]

[PianoMap]

[Mr. Apol]

you know.

he's completely and utterly right.
_________________

[Adilegian]

I have been asked to participate in a podcast debate on whether or not games are art. This thread has helped me remember the main threads of argument! Thanks!
_________________

[Martial Loh]

[SplashBeats]

I enjoyed Eternal Sunshine. It's very pretty.

Gondry is right though. I waste just as much time watching one of his movies as I do playing Killer7!

[Gin]

As much as it would be wonderful to always spend time on productive and rewarding activities, there's no way I could ever keep that up. No matter who you are you're eventually going to want to go into a phase of inactivity or mental rest, and playing a game is just as good as as watching a movie or listening to music. A videogame has the advantage of actually being a game too, and people tend to need to fuck around with things like that occasionally.

Who really cares if it's a serious artistic medium. It really isn't, I mean, the categorization here would be that art is it's purpose, it's not. Entertainment and recreation are it's purpose, videogames in general, are not art.

Not that that precludes them from being art sometimes.

[aderack]

Best solution, if you're a concerned film director: tell your kid that, on a daily basis, he can't play a game for longer than the length of an average movie. Then he has to go do something constructive for an equal length of time. Perhaps analyze what he got out of the experience, in some medium or another.

And there we go.

[Predator Goose]

[Shapermc]

I think that everyone here is both giving too much validity to the inital statement, and spending too much time on this argument.

Games are art. It's not a statement about which is more artistic, or less a waste of time. Now how important they are as art or how much thought, passion, and time went into the art's creation are something possibly looking into.
_________________


The bad sleep well at The Gamer's Quarter

[IceTyger]

[aerisdead]

I have met Michel Gondry

I didn't ask him about videogames

He told me he was missing his kid

But someone told me later he spent the rest of the party sleazing on women
_________________
"Did you read that mr. ignorant new games journalist? YOU JUST DON'T FUCKING GET IT. "
-Alex Kierkegaard, better known as "Pikachu", irrationally responding to the wonderful gentleman who wrote the post you just read.

[Toto]

aerisdead that is called perks ok