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."

Comments

What the fuck?

[Spazntwich]

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.

Re:What the fuck?

[Planesdragon]

Going by that definition, videogames are MORE APTLY called art than a photograph, painting, sculpture, or anything else considered art by the mainstream.

There really should be a latin term for "arguing by looking through the dictionary for a definition that supports your side."

Generally speaking, we can divide any piece of entertainment into one of three groups: Art, Game, and Spectacle. Most of what we do is Game, and most of what we "don't do" (because we watch or listen or read or whatever) is Spectacle. Historically, only a relatively small area of Spectacle could be considered Art--something that goes beyond merely entertaining us, to actually touching on something fundamental in the common nature of the artist and the audience.

Video Games are interesting because, from time to time, they jump from being Game to being Art. Since at least the NES days Video Games have included Spectacle (cut-scenes and ending sequences), and occasionally this Spectacle jumps to the level of Art. Now, anyone could reason that out with a high school understanding of statistics, but the reason why video games are interesting isn't that their adjacent Spectacle becomes Art--it's because the game itself borders on and occasionally crosses over into Art.

This is what Ebert apparantly doesn't get. Sometimes, Video Games are art even without Spectacle. Myst is a good example of this--it's certainly game with only minor spectacle, but the game itself is executed in a way gripping enough to make us think.

If you're inclined to argue with Ebert's ilk about this, I would advice putting down the dictionary and going [back] to a College English Department. The argument for Video Games as art is easy enough to make, especailly if you can address the "game pieces as art" complaint and make a solid case for some other forms of "interactive art."

Dealing with the Humans

[Monkeys!!!]

"...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.

Okay

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"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.

This is silly...

[node 3]

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.

N/A

[ucaledek]

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.

As regards FPS's...

[kclittle]

... Ebert has a point. If FPSs are 'art', then so is paintball, or playing army when you're 10, or playing army when you're 40 (ever see a "Civil War re-enactment"?) . FPSs are closer to sport, IMHO, especially multiplayer. Single player, welllll.... RtCW did have a bit of a plot and a wicked sense of humor, but "Dune" or LotR it was not.

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??

I am not artistic

[SmallFurryCreature]

Yet a couple of years ago I did volunteer work at a local tv station as a cameraman. It was very intresting as offcourse a lot of the stuff was about art. Filming local artist during exhibitions and such.

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?