# Video games as art.

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-as-art/788908>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [June 14, 2017, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-as-art/788908 "2017-06-14T00:01:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2017, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-as-art/788908/41 "2017-06-15T13:05:45Z")

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> [@Mijin](#):
>
> As I say, I worked in the industry for 10 years and worked on AAA games for the PS2 and PS3. I never heard anyone refer to an “art team”. Even when we subdivided the team (e.g. into scrum teams) each team had X artists, Y programmers etc.

Huh. I’ve heard it often enough, including from developers on their own forums when talking about how the game was coming along, updates and the always popular “The art team is a separate entity from the people working on balancing Panda Knights so, no, you don’t have to complain that these new character models mean that Panda Knight balancing isn’t happening.”

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**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\
**Post date:** [June 15, 2017, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-as-art/788908/42 "2017-06-15T17:13:42Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> Quoth **Left Hand of Dorkness** :
> 
> Portal is full of sly moments, and one is mentioned upthread. Another involves the Weighted Companion Cube.  
> …

And yet another dimension to that is that, even if you’ve completely internalized that the Companion Cube is just a dumb meaningless box, you might still spend some time trying to figure out a way to get past that point without incinerating the Cube, just because the antagonist has told you that you can’t, and you want to give her the metaphorical finger.

And even once you’ve finished that level, the game still doesn’t let it go, because there’s a subtle but definite indication later on that the Cube wasn’t and couldn’t be destroyed by incineration, anyway.

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**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\
**Post date:** [June 16, 2017, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-as-art/788908/43 "2017-06-16T03:05:44Z")

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> [@Jophiel](#):
>
> Huh. I’ve heard it often enough, including from developers on their own forums when talking about how the game was coming along, updates and the always popular “The art team is a separate entity from the people working on balancing Panda Knights so, no, you don’t have to complain that these new character models mean that Panda Knight balancing isn’t happening.”

Well the final balancing of the game \*could \*be done by an external team. Indeed sometimes it’s done at least partially by volunteers during beta.  
Because balancing can be done by just tweaking various parameters and doesn’t necessarily need to be done by a developer.

But more likely, that person was just trying to say “3D modelling and balancing are implemented by different people, so can be completed in parallel” and just expressed it in a misleading way.

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