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The Epic Ebert Videogame Debate
Via Kotaku, a column at Ebert.com going into some depth on the are-games-actually-art debate. Ebert engaged in a public debate on the subject at last week's Conference on World Affairs. From the article: "Going in to the videogame panel, I'd been hoping the audience (mostly students) would be fired up about the subject and challenge the panelists, but they were unfortunately pretty passive. Maybe they were intimidated by the rather formal (for Boulder) theater setting, I don't know. Ebert began by explaining why he felt a game (particularly the shoot-shoot, point-scoring kind) was not an experience equivalent to that of reading a great novel like, say, 'The Great Gatsby,' because games don't delve very deeply into what it means to be human."
For a second there, I thought the article was about a controversial game coming out on a future release of Ubuntu.
Why is this even a debate? One of the definitions from dictionary.com for art is listed as "The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium."
Going by that definition, videogames are MORE APTLY called art than a photograph, painting, sculpture, or anything else considered art by the mainstream. If you consider that a videogame combines the elements of sounds, colors, forms, movements, AND other elements for the production of the beautiful in a graphic medium, it seems logically sound to count at least some as art.
Of course all videogames aren't art. It's the same concept behind not considering a headshot art, or some jackass banging his hands on a piano as art.
This debate is asinine.
"...games don't delve very deeply into what it means to be human."
So Max Payne didn't delve into how people manage (or fail to manage) grief? And Deus Ex didn't force you to face the moral out come of your actions?
There are plenty of games out there that deal directly and indirectly with human emotions, ethics and morals. IMO, that is dealing with what it means to be human.
"Ebert began by explaining why he felt a game (particularly the shoot-shoot, point-scoring kind) was not an experience equivalent to that of reading a great novel like, say, 'The Great Gatsby,' because games don't delve very deeply into what it means to be human."
That's nice and all, but there are plenty of books that fail to delve very deeply into what it means to be human. Maybe not every game is art, but you cannot say all games AREN'T art.
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I just don't get it. Because your average game doesn't tackle the human condition the way a great novel does, games aren't art? By his standards, most movies aren't art, either.
Games are art. Odds are, if there's a serious discussion about whether something is art or not, it's art. It might not be some sort of highbrow art, or pure art, or even particularly good art, but it's art nonetheless.
Most games aren't very good artwork. Even your average "good" game isn't all that great art-wise--perhaps on par with advertising art.
This reminds me of the heated debates over whether rap was music or not. Now it's fully accepted as a form of music. I think the problem is that rap was a new form of music and there were people who couldn't grasp the idea that the current state of music is not to be taken as the totality of what can be music. The same here with art. Video games have expanded the categories of art. Now art is what art was before games, plus games. Just like music is now what music was before rap, plus rap.
Now, if he were to argue that, in the context of art, video games aren't particularly great (although a few are quite good), he'd have a better point. Just like rap isn't really, compared to other forms of music, all that great artfully speaking, even if it is highly entertaining.
I have to agree with the writer. The titular question is poor on its face. Video games form a medium. And just like paintings, movies, music, books, that medium is governed in part (if not overwhelmingly) by commercial forces. It isn't very useful to look at just video games as if similar things were not going in the aforementioned media as well. They have become highly derivative as well, and let's not forget the alienating properties that most post-modern artistic forms go for. Shooters (which is the standard apparently for these discussions) provide, for me, the same effect that most contemporary forms of "high art" do. So to ask if videogames are art, well, seems not futile but the wrong direction to take if you want to seriously consider the aesthetics of the videogames themselves.
And, let's face it, from the first Pong console, we all called it "playing a game", not "watching a (interactive) movie". We all used the word "playing" 'cause that's exactly what we knew were doing.
Where's the controversy here??
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Let's face it, Ebert is epic enough as it is.
This kind of debate is what I call a "definition debate". If you define your term, it is almost certain that your questions will be answered.
Are videogames "art"? To answer that, define "art". Once you do, you are almost certainly done.
We're getting this second hand, but Ebert offers up a definition to the effect of "art is something that deeply explores what it means to be human". By that definiton, I completely agree that truly artistic video games are rare. Even the examples I can think of that meet that definition are pretty thin on that front.
The reason I think it's important to remember we're in a definition debate is because there is an overwhelming temptation that most people experience to detach from the definition and start fighting as if the definition is obvious to everyone and the real question is whether the definition applies. Resist that, because it's backwards. If you clearly state a definition, it will be (relatively speaking) quite clear whether video games are art, are not art, or whether perhaps some are art.
At this point, you tend to realize that while it's interesting to compare and contrast the value of various definitions, you're not going to find The Definition Of Art. Therefore, you're not going to find The Answer. You should know going into the debate that you're not going to settle anything. You can't.
I enjoy this sort of thing in moderation if done with people who understand what's going on, but the people furiously arguing backwards tend to drown out the conversation pretty quickly, in my experience.
Some stuff I could get. Regular mainstream art like paintings or sculptures even if made out of trash. I am not a complete idiot and did not need to be told wich was the sculpture and wich the trashheap.
But performance art was too confusing. The only difference between performance art and a mental case on the street seemed to be location. Some "artist" would "perform" for an amazing amount of time and apparently it was all very meaningfull. When you are holding a heavy camera usually you don't think much about what you are actually filming since you are busy with your own work. But when the performer freezes or just twists a single limb for minutes on end you can't help but wonder what the fuck it is all about.
The most amazing thing is that these people all think it is extremely important what they are doing. Considering their efforts as worthy as hospitals. After all they want the same tax money to support them that could also be used to research cancer.
Not that I really mind. It keeps them off the street. Sure a less liberal goverment would force them to get a real day job but would you really want one them to be your co-worker? Jails for the criminals, mental hospitals for the insane and art centers for the totally useless.
I say it harsh but nonetheless that is how most people view "art". Useless crap that cost a lot of taxpayers money but does nothing.
Do we really want games to be like that?
It reminds me off a Yes Minister episode in wich the questions arises why opera (wich the masses do not want) receives subsidy but soccer (wich the masses do want) does not.
Games are not art. In the same way movies and indeed books are not. If it is popular and people freely spend their own money on it then it can't be art. Art does NOT sell.
Most REAL artists would agree. If you look at nearly all the great works of arts you would learn that all of them were commercial projects paid in advance. "De nachtwacht" by rembrandt. The "Mona Lisa" by Da Vinci. Great works of art yet made for no other reason then the money.
Perhaps there are two kinds of art. The artsy arts that survive only thanks to goverment subsidies that nobody gives a shit about and the kind that actually sells and can sustain it self. Offcourse that is not "real" art in the eyes of the first group but frankly I don't think that is bad at all.
Think of it like this. Do you know what local delicacy means? It means nobody else in the world wants to eat it. If a game truly became art would anyone really want to play it?
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...our story begins in the 1950s, a time when the world was terrified of communism, but "terrorist" was still a pretty obscure word. A time when society argued on whatever passed for slashdot at the time whether television would ever truly supplant radio in the minds of America's masses. Rollerskates were still a novelty.
Along came a man - a musician, some would say - named Elvis. His music was generally modified from the tunes of slaves. And oh was there ever an uproar. Roger Ebert, Sr.: "That certainly isn't music! Beethoven, Bach, Brahams - that is music! Elvis, why, his band doesn't even number in the dozens of people! It's even worse than the devil's jazz! Any man that would shake his-- his pelvis-- in such a way is hardly a man - a DEMON is he!". And Elvis sold millions of records and up until recently has been a household name (until the estate changed hands and tradition went buggery-up, at least)
The 50s gave rise to the 60s, and soon the Ebert Srs. of the world had a new demon to contend with - The Beatles! "At least Elvis was a nice boy. I mean, the haircut and everything. Perhaps the future shall look back upon him with a rosy eye, as they shall Warren Harding, and realize that he was merely a symptom of his troubled, communist-infected times. But these Beatles - their hair is the devil's work, and the noise they make is not Art! Four men playing those flash-in-the-pan electric instruments can never produce Art!". And yet the Beatles gathered a small following over the years, and are still remembered today.
The early 60s gave way to the mid 60s, and the Beatles were back in the center of controversy. Music critics declared that Sgt. Pepper's was hardly Art, that Art could not be made with the aid of a devil electronic synthesizer - it was hardly even Real Music! And lo, Frank Zappa came with his answer - "We're Only In It For the Money", being composed and performed entirely on natural instruments (albiet with crafty tape manipulation). And the masses winced - this was not Music! Music, Art, whatever you want to call it, was about how a Boy loved a Girl, or perhaps about how a Girl loved a Boy. Certainly, Music was not about how American Womanhood was phony, nor something that would attack the very institution of America's policemen - why, the police never shoot innocents in Art - and Music, Art, was absolutely nothing that contained such disgusting and wholly inappropriate bodily noises! Frank Zappa is currently looked on in musical circles as perhaps the single most "important" (whatever that means) American Composer to escape the 20th century, even if the original Mothers of Invention disbanded less than two years after We're Only In It For the Money's release.
And so on and so on the debate continued - the 60s became the 70s, and prog came out, but it was apparently too "pompous" to be Art, and the entire debate became less and less relevant as time went on. Hell, the critics of Shakesphere's time wouldn't call him "Art" -at the time, Shakesphere was the pulp disposable garbage of the common peasent - or at least, so I learned in my tax-funded primary education. Who knows for real. Anyway, basically something needs to be really dead and not relevant to current goings-on in the world before it will be called Art, because the way these art snobs throw the term around, it basically means History + Emotion - heck, the Sex Pistols will probably be considered Art in 500 years, assuming we don't nuke each other off the planet or DRM all the music to death by then.
Basically, Ebert (and most critics) seem to be bemoaning the lack of "innocence" in the industry. I relate to some degree - focus groups and deliberate manipulation have replaced the Happy Accident in the mainstream spotlight. But truly, it becomes an issue of Those Who Can Create Art, Create Art; Those Who Can't Create Art, Become an Art Critic - as so perfectly captured by Matt Groening in the Life Is Hell comic.
I really don't know where all this leads. Much as I per
I had written a LONG post, but Firefox crashed... Second and much shorter attempt:
I agree with him for most games (99% or so), but there are some notable exceptions. Planescape:Torment for instance, that whole game is centered around questions such as "Can anything change the nature of a man? Would you REALLY want to be immortal? What is a valid philosophy of life (Dustmen, Godsmen, Sensates)?"
When I was asked the question "What can change the nature of a man?", with along list of possible answers such as "love, death, faith, regret, nothing", I froze. I had to go for a long walk before I could answer that question.
That if anything goes deeply into what it means to be a human, and it did it in ways few other media or artform could.
Some other games that, while maybe not asking such big questions about life, have touched me emotionally:
Final Fantasy 7
Grim Fandango
Longest Journey
Fallout
Knights of the Old Republic 2 (would have been even better without the butchered ending(s)).
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Computer games are very much a potential basis for artistic expression, and are often used that way. Whether this be through music, sound, visuals, or their combinations, artistic expression unarguably exists there.
Mods and movies made using games, such as Red vs Blue also fall into the 'art' category. People have been expressing themselves artistically through this medium for so long now we barely consciously register it.
It takes moronic comments like Ebert's to remind us that games today are as foreign a country today as film was to theatre goers in 1908.
His comments are rather like saying film has no basis in art, using "Dumb and Dumber" as your sole basis for that argument.