Tom Bissell Quotes

I mostly associated video game storytelling with unforgivable clumsiness, irredeemable incompetence - and suddenly, I was finding the aesthetic and formal concerns I'd always associated with fiction: storytelling, form, the medium, character. That kind of shocked me.

I know it's become an ongoing thing about whether videogames are art, and I think there's plenty of examples of things that use the form in a fascinating way. Things that are more surreal or artistic, like 'Katamari Damacy' or 'Vib-Ribbon.'

I mean, of course there's art in video games - duh.

So, I'm always around video games but I've always been interested in them from a visual perspective, with the graphic design and that whole thing. I don't know if that comes from my love of photography or what but that's always what's held my interest about them.

Every age has its storytelling form, and video gaming is a huge part of our culture. You can ignore or embrace video games and imbue them with the best artistic quality. People are enthralled with video games in the same way as other people love the cinema or theatre.

I'm a video game fan, and I always thought it would be cool to be able to control a character.

I don't know why a computer game can't be an art form just as a puppet show or an opera is. I'm still interested in computer games as something I would like to work on someday.

When I started, I wanted probably to make games that were inspired by films that I liked.

Computer games can be works of art and literature - they're still developing. The stories they can tell, and the experiences they provide, are increasingly sophisticated and glorious.

Games get a bad press compared with, say, opera - even though they're obviously better, because no opera has ever compelled an audience member to collect a giant mushroom and jump across some clouds.

Even though Raster Blaster was only a video game, I was learning about designing stuff. I got good at drawing.

Ninety percent of video game AI really is pretty damn bad. I think that's actually why it's so much fun to shoot things. Because the AI is so bad and the characters are so annoying.

I realize that every picture isn't a work of art.

If you look at the game and everything, it's not quite like looking at an animated film, because that's total character. This, this is really movement, but it's got funny little things if you look for the humor. They're actually getting to the character.

It's incredible, but I think a lot of people it shot over their heads 'cause they're used to just getting images and messing around with them, and for us to do something quite so 'designed' was a bit of a shock.

I have never collected an object or figure from Africa or Oceania because of anything curious about it or because of its utility or historic interest. Everything has been chosen entirely because of its aesthetic significance; its form, feeling, structure, and plastic values.

I love design-based stuff. I dug it in 'Pleasantville' and dug it in 'Seabiscuit.'

There is a definite argument to be made that videogames are becoming an art form put together by artists of different types.

There are many museums dedicated to technology, artistic endeavors, music, and that sort of thing. From that perspective, I think games really do have a place as a kind of collaborative art or a synthesis of all these various aspects into a whole, and that, in itself, can be perceived as art.

I tend not to be so attracted to films that force me into an intellectual place over an emotional one.

There must be some one quality without which a work of art cannot exist; possessing which, in the least degree, no work is altogether worthless.

As a visual person, I love a creative resume. Putting in a little effort on the design side will show that you care about making things look good.

Tolstoy may be right about happy and unhappy families, but in ballet, it works the opposite way: All good ballets are different from each other and all bad ones are alike, at least in one crucial respect - they're all empty.

Doing graphic novels is cool! It's fun! You get to write something, and then see it visually page by page, panel by panel, working with the artist, you get to see it fleshed out.

What I want to give in the theatre is beauty, that's what I want to give.