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Ebert Reclassifies Games as Sports
You may recall last year's spirited debate touched off by film critic Roger Ebert's assertion that games are not art. He's once again touching that nerve, this time stating that he was too loose with his words. He points out that 'a soup can' can be art; what he meant to say is that games cannot be 'high art'. Says Ebert: "How do I know this? How many games have I played? I know it by the definition of the vast majority of games. They tend to involve (1) point and shoot in many variations and plotlines, (2) treasure or scavenger hunts, as in Myst, and (3) player control of the outcome. I don't think these attributes have much to do with art; they have more in common with sports." The critic goes on to discuss comments from Clive Barker from last year, a gent who took great exception to Ebert's view.
Stating that games cannot be high art, and backing up this assertion by giving examples of games that aren't (anecdotal evidence) is logically flawed.
He may be right that there are no games currently in existence that should be considered high art, but that does not preclude one from coming out in the future. There is nothing inherent to video games that would prevent this, especially given that what is and what is not "art" or "high art" is entirely subjective.
Suppose first-person-shooters are sports. Sports are played in arenas and FPSs are played in designed levels. If architecture can be considered art, then the levels of First-Person-Shooter "sports" can be considered art as well. Since the levels of FPSs are an integral part of the sport, by extension the game as a whole is art.
You only need look at Ebert to realize that he understands even less about sports than he does about gaming.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
It's not surprising that Ebert would miss the point of games, as it seems that everybody else does. Whenever this discussion comes up, we'll get pages and pages that go on about the plot or characters or music or whatever, but this isn't the answer; these are mere accidents, non-game art that's attached to a game.
To speak of games as (high) art, we must explore the foundation of the form, and that isn't the plot or music or story, though a great story can be told in a game's context. The art in games is in the experience that they create for the player; the feeling of doing something or being something that you're really not. This isn't a traditional emotional experience that you might get from literature, but that doesn't mean its value is less. We have literature to make us sad or happy or lonely -- games are something different, and that's why this new form is such a treasure.
I have seen the future, and it is inconvenient.
Games are not art.
Games are more like an art gallery. The story is art, the music is art, the graphics are art...
But the game is the package that they all come together in.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
From the Article:
Barker: "I think that Roger Ebert's problem is that he thinks you can't have art if there is that amount of malleability in the narrative. In other words, Shakespeare could not have written 'Romeo and Juliet' as a game because it could have had a happy ending, you know? If only she hadn't taken the damn poison. If only he'd have gotten there quicker."
Ebert: He is right again about me. I believe art is created by an artist. If you change it, you become the artist. Would "Romeo and Juliet" have been better with a different ending? Rewritten versions of the play were actually produced with happy endings. "King Lear" was also subjected to rewrites; it's such a downer. At this point, taste comes into play. Which version of "Romeo and Juliet," Shakespeare's or Barker's, is superior, deeper, more moving, more "artistic"?
Barker: "We should be stretching the imaginations of our players and ourselves. Let's invent a world where the player gets to go through every emotional journey available. That is art. Offering that to people is art."
Ebert: If you can go through "every emotional journey available," doesn't that devalue each and every one of them? Art seeks to lead you to an inevitable conclusion, not a smorgasbord of choices. If next time, I have Romeo and Juliet go through the story naked and standing on their hands, would that be way cool, or what?
That said, let me confess I enjoy entertainments, but I think it important to know what they are. I like the circus as much as the ballet. I like crime novels. (I just finished an advance copy of Henry Kisor's Cache of Corpses, about GPS geo-caching gamesters and a macabre murder conspiracy. Couldn't put it down.) And I like horror stories, where Edgar Allen Poe in particular represents art. I think I know what Stan Brakhage meant when he said Poe invented the cinema, lacking only film.
I treasure escapism in the movies. I tirelessly quote Pauline Kael: The movies are so rarely great art, that if we cannot appreciate great trash, we have no reason to go. I admired "Spiderman II," "Superman," and many of the "Star Wars," Indiana Jones, James Bond and Harry Potter films. The idea, I think, is to value what is good at whatever level you find it. "Spiderman II" is one of the great comic superhero movies but it is not great art.
"To surrender to ignorance and call it God has always been premature, and it remains premature today." -Isaac Asimov
...where does Mario Paint fit in?!
That's right. For example, most online FPS games make me feel lame and inadequate most the time and then, when someone's connection dies or they have to go feed their cat and I finally manage to kill someone, it aides my ability to delude myself into thinking I might be getting better.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Also, movies can't be high art because I've seen YouTube and its just a bunch of drunk teenagers and kittens falling asleep. Furthermore, painting can't be high art because its just a bunch of kindergarteners spreading color on paper with their fingers. I've seen both of these, and it outweighs any other knowledge I lack.
Games, like other art forms, follow the characteristics laid out in Aristotle's Poetics. Specifically, games raise and lower dramatic tension by posing and answering questions. Ebert misunderstands the basis of art. It is as if I were to say that paintings and theater both can't be art, because their characteristics are so different. Yet paintings too ask and answer questions. We even talk about tension and motion in paintings. We say the eye is drawn this way or that. Why? Because the painting poses a question with it's structure that makes you want to look here as opposed to there. I think dramatic tension is a key component of art. But then, looked at that way, sports are art too, because they raise and lower dramatic tension the same way.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
"What I should have said is that games could not be high art, as I understand it. How do I know this? How many games have I played? I know it by the definition of the vast majority of games. They tend to involve (1) point and shoot in many variations and plotlines, (2) treasure or scavenger hunts, as in "Myst," and (3) player control of the outcome. I don't think these attributes have much to do with art; they have more in common with sports."
For someone who reviews countless action movie sequels and buddy cop movies, he sure has a poor grasp of how most great works of art are rare "diamonds in the rough." He has listed 2 (?) genres, FPS and point and click adventures. He has never seen the level of detail Bioware put into the characters for their many games. He has never experienced the emotional story of a FF6. He has never tried to see a dynamic artificial world created by the likes of Civilization.
I think Barker is wrong in calling Ebert prejudiced towards games. I think he's just ignorant towards them.
However, were he to encounter a game where you play as Romeo, and no matter what you try you and juliet both die, then is it not art?
Planescape Torment. No matter what choices you make, no matter how good or evil you play, you can't escape your fate.
Every time I read arguments like this, the first thing to mind is Fountain . Note: voted the most influential artwork of the 20th century.
If a urinal is the most influential piece of art in a century, do we really care about "high art" anymore?
I have this recollection of a man standing in front of something really stupid and screaming "ART!!!" at it. I don't remember what it was from (I'm sure someone will tell me), but it reinforces the point that "artists" will insist everything is art, just because they made it.
This sig was generated randomly by one million monkeys with Speak 'n Spells. . .
Hollywood is scared of the games industry eating their lunch, which undoubtly will occur in the coming years. They put a high respected puppet to deride games as not being art by taking lame examples of games as art. As if most of Hollywood's output is art!
Here's a quick list for what Ebert should have "played" instead to get a grip:
* A Mind Forever Voyaging, by Steve Meretzky from Infocom
* Shadow of the Colossus, by Sony
* Savoir-Faire, by Emily Short
* The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, by Nintendo
* Deus Ex, by Ion Storm
* Anchorhead, by Mike Gentry
* Super Metroid, by Nintendo
* Spider and Web, by Andrew Plotkin
* Half-Life, by Valve
* Metal Gear Solid, by Konami
and so on...
Interactive art is here to stay! The original author of a work of art does not mean his audience to sit there passively reading/watching the plot unfold, but to activelly participate and change the outcome in ways he could not see. We're still not quite there, but eventually this goal will be reached...
I don't feel like it...
What happens if my games allows only two interactions, 'previous page' and 'next page' and while doing so it is showing some writing of Shakespeare? Is Shakespeare displayed on a TV (in text form) less art then printed on paper? Is there even a difference? Now, true, most games allow some more interaction then 'previous/next page', but many are really not that far away. Many games don't have much freedom, the story they present is predefined and linear, the only real difference is that the 'next page' trigger is a little harder to reach, hidden in some piece of action sequence or NPC dialog or whatever, that however doesn't really change the story they tell. A game simply can express the same stuff as a movie or a book, since when the interaction is striped down, its really almost the same thing.
However, there is a worthy point to discuss left: When a game gets closer to a movie by using cutscenes, it can be art like a movie. And a game that relies heavily on text dialog can get very close to a book and so be art like a book. But what about the actual gameplay itself? Most games that evoke emotions do so by using non-interactive cutscenes, not gameplay. Can a game evoke emotions in via gameplay itself? I think the answer would be 'yes', but there are only very few games around that ever tried that, let alone succeeded at it in the same way a non-interactive book, movie or cutscene can.
Then is a videogame more like a performance? Much of the traditional folklore of every culture was preserved by bards and storytellers. These people would tell their tales, and would expand parts and gloss over others to suit their audience, gauging their reaction as they went through the story. Yet certainly their performance is a work of art, never quite the same twice but certainly there is a core routine, and a repertoire of common variations around it that the bard will use as the circumstances of the performance require.
You'll see it also in contemporary performances. Watch several shows by the same comedian - say, Bill Hicks or perhaps Eddie Izzard, someone who tends to revisit themes. You'll see the same joke, the same routine performed in different times and places. Certainly the joke is a work of art which that comedian has created and polished during his career. But each performance of it will be different, because the comedian will react to his audience and adjust what he does accordingly. Watch enough shows and you'll come to recognise the extras the comedian bolts on to the joke if he has time or if he thinks a longer build-up will make the audience appreciate the punchline more. Or watch rock performances, and see how each time they'll put together a different setlist dependent on the type of show, where they are on the bill, whether they're pushing a new album, and whether the crowd have started throwing bottles at them.
There are plenty of artforms which are interactive. I think the chief difference is that the typical videogame is one-to-one - it's only your input that determines how the game unfolds - while a performance would be an artist responding to the aggregate reaction of a large audience. But I don't think that's enough to disqualify games as an artform.
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
I'm sure someone has said this here before, but it's very simple. A painting can be art. Not even Roger Ebert would disagree with that, right? But the act of looking at a painting is not art. Music can be art. The act of listening to music is not art. Movies can be art. The act of watching a movie is not art. Games can be art. The act of playing a game is not art.
There. Get it now?
meh
The closest I think you could come is a game like Half Life 2. It is both unambiguously playing by the rules of games (no cutscenes that take you away from control of the character), yet stays on rails enough for the developers to give a controlled and interesting experience to the player. If that's the best we can do, it's time to give up the crusade.
For some of the greatest games (in my opinion) it would be impossible to make a strong case for being art, because they allow for experiences largely in the control of the gamer. The best are strong enough that they turn the player into an artist of sorts. SimCity isn't art, but many user-created cities could be.
Ebert is speaking from ignorance here, but he's still right. As much as it gives games a dignity they surely deserve to lump them in with "art," there's no way to make them art without stripping them of what makes them interesting as games.