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Blow-Back From Ebert's Latest Games Assertion
Last week's new diatribe from Roger Ebert on the merits of games had some people up in arms. Commentary ranged from the respectful at Ars Technica, to the dismissive statements at GameCritics. N'Gai Croal, of Newsweek's LevelUp, has a lengthy and thoughtful look at the issue from both sides. From his comments: "It's the right of someone with the maturity of an honest and articulate four-year-old to forget the history of his own favored art form and close his mind to the potential of another. In the meantime, those of us who care about the possibilities inherent in this medium will have to rely upon ourselves and one another to keep doing the heavy lifting necessary to suss out where the art of videogames lies; to determine how the craft can enhance that art; and to continue the fight to push this young medium from squalling infancy into graceful adulthood. Let's get cracking."
Why should we (gamers and game creators) care what Roger Ebert says?
Good point. I would add that gaming in general is a competing factor to movies. The average person might not care what Ebert has to say about some artsy-fartsy sundance film (Full Disclosure: I like artsy-fartsy), but they sure care what he has to say about Contrived Dribble 2: More Dribbles!
As games get more cinematic and more (I might as well say it) important, from an entertainment standpoint, it stands as a barrier to an industry that literally butters his bread. His, and his bretheren, rely on the public-at-large to continually be interested in movies. No interest in movies = no interest in movie critics. Then they'll be relegated to the snooty obscurity where today one might find, say, indie rock critics and fanfiction reviewers.
He's just trying to protect his own. Ain't gonna work, but, hey, those buried alive also tried clawing out of their sealed coffins.
More Twoson than Cupertino
As a lover of video games and cinema, and as someone who can understand the very close and deep relationship of the two artforms, I'm very interested in what Roger Ebert has to say about video games.
Cinema was seen as a medium for serious art from its very birth. The mercantile value of cinema developed subsequently, though quickly. Today, video games are primarily mercantile, yet they have enormous potential as an art form, a potential that goes largely unexplored.
Critical theory is a field with which I am well acquainted, and the attention of a first-rate critic like Ebert can only help video gaming. As fans we just have to love the medium enough to see that there is much work to be done and not feel challenged and wet ourselves just because someone says, quite correctly, that video games have not developed artistically as far or as fast as they could have. Nor will they as long as our fandom supersedes our ability to think critically about them. (Fanbois take note)
You are welcome on my lawn.
The only point I deemed even somewhat worthy from Ebert was exactly his concern over interactivity. Essentially, it's what differentiates the film medium from the video game medium. There is plenty to debate in that area, considering that this is the first medium that allows the actual audience to play a part, versus how many people participate in recreating the work (as in a play or movie).
The funny thing is, however, that a large portion of the "high art" contemporary art world is actively exploring audience interaction. The catch there is though, is that an awful lot of contemporary critics refuse to believe that anything that became a part of popular culture could no longer be considered art, as it was something else now. What else? They don't know, don't bother to know, don't care. Thus video games != art.
I actually wrote a lengthy paper for a Contemporary Art class debating whether or not video games could be considered art. The snag I ran into with my professor was pretty much the exact moot point I found Ebert stumbling on. What always got me laughing was that at some point or another in the history of art, there is a counter example for every point these contemporary critics believe prove A. is art but B. is not. Take when photography first began as a medium, for example. Walter Benjamin wrote that photographs could not be considered art, because they were reproductions of the work, and no longer had the "aura" that true art contained. But today, photographs can most certainly be considered art. This also kind of derides the argument that what exists in popular culture can not be art, because the only differentiating factor from that is the amount of people that acknowledge the work, due to mass copying. Film as well, was criticized because it incorporated new elements. Instead of just a stand still picture, there was sound, and a plot! But film today can be considered art (not to mention all of the basic elements within film can exist independently as an art form).
Basically, the argument by "true" art critics comes down to 2 points. They either refuse to acknowledge interactivity as a new element, or they believe that the video game medium is a mash-up of other art forms, but where the collected parts are not as great as the whole. Both of these arguments can be countered in the "true" art world, as I stated previously.
I do agree with you that art is a personal choice, and whatever a person chooses to consider art becomes art to themselves. But when you enter the "high" art culture, the argument becomes a whole nother ballgame, complete with flimsy logic and cloudy thoughts. At the end of my paper, I came down to these two points, disproving them (in a much more eloquent fashion however), but essentially ended on the point that ultimately, it becomes the artists' job to create something out of that medium that can be considered art by more than a few. And what happened in the end? My professor hated it. For him to even acknowledge I could be right, would essentially destroy his entire lifes' work as an artist. It would show that popular culture can produce mediums that are art worthy, and one doesn't not need to be in this exclusive circle in order to be a true artist.
But then again, those that we acknowledge today as great artists were more often than not, considered to be almost treasonous to their craft. Look at the history of Modern Art. From Manet, Van Gogh, Monet, Picasso...(it's a long list)..and I'll stop at Pollock since he springs most to mind as the most recent debate within the art world, well, every single one of them caused a great divide between "art" and "not art", but ultimately, they created the revolution that allowed art to progress.
I think Ebert's fundamental, and most interesting, assertion is that because there is an aspect of player choice in a game it is more similar to a sport where the outcome isn't determined (by the artist). Without the control over outcome, Ebert believes that you can't rise to the level of high art.
This is where his unfamiliarity with the medium really shows. The outcome of a game is usually one of a set of outcomes (win or lose being the most basic), and there are certainly designers that want to expand those choices and make them more meaningful. If the game includes any outcome (that has been carefully designed) that would make it high art then the game as a whole must be high art, even though there could be many outcomes that are not. At first this seems to make games a poorer medium for the expression of high art. However, there is little difference between the players that choose the "low art" paths through a game and an audience who "doesn't get" a high art film. Both will come away from the experience thinking that the game or film was low art (or worse). Games only allow the the audience to interact with their low art interpretation of the game if designers allow the player the freedom to do so (eg. shooting everything).*
Games are generally made to be replayed, so that they can be explored in full: choice doesn't turn it into a sport, choice only increases the re-playability, or in terms of other art, the re-experience-ability. Like coming back to a complex and deep book or film and understanding it "better" because of insights learnt from the last time you experienced it, games hide part of their content purposefully. The choice of which content you experience is just more obvious in a game, but the knowledge and experience that allows you to make those choices to see that content is not very different from being able to "see more" in your other art.
Just like someone who can't understand the high art film, Ebert's ignorance of games prevents him from seeing if there are high art games. I'm not sure there are any myself - I'd say there are many that we will look back on and recognize as the precursors and inspiration to those that eventually get acknowledged as the first high art games.
* Note: much of the art of game design can be found in the options or available actions given to players. How the designers restrict the players into particular outcomes is the essence of the art. That Ebert doesn't understand this, or believes that multiple options is somehow incompatible with high art is testament to Ebert's unwillingness (or laziness) to think about games seriously.
Complexity Happens
Within Ebert's definition of "high art", it is not unreasonable to state that games do not pass muster. The way he defines high art, it precludes the kind of interactivity that is in most games. Nothing wrong wit that.
But what about the individual elements that go into a game -- like the textures, or background images, or cutscenes, or level designs, or soundtrack -- can those be "high art", even if the game as a whole is not?
The Mona Lisa is, unquestionably, High Art. Would it still be High Art if I used it as a texture for my "Louvre Deathmatch" game mod?
What if I made an original painting of equal artistic merit as the Mona Lisa, but instead of exhibiting it in a hoighty-toighty gallery I used it in a game -- would my choice of context instantly make my painting become Not Art?
If a famous composer wrote a symphonic work specifically for a game, would it still be High Art? Why (not)?
/* "Specialization is for insects." -Heinlein */
Thanks for the thoughtful response!
For me, and I am certainly no authority on the subject, for something to be art it must be something man-made that causes me to stop and appreciate it, forces me to evaluate it, and makes me consider a topic from a new perspective. This evaluation is interactive. Art cannot be consumed without initiative from the consumer.
I find video games doubly artistic because the player is challenged to evaluate the universe as himself and simultaneously as his avatar. This becomes even more complex when a game is presented in the first person perspective, as the player must work even harder to validate this duality.
Another interesting aspect to consider is the fact that video games are usually spawned from the ideas of a lead designer and actualised by many teams working under him over many months. This is similar to movies, but whereas movies strive to present the universe from a limited perspective (e.g., cardboard cutouts from the front) games must allow for exploration. The lead designer's vision must be much clearer and "realer" to be brought to fruition; so much so that, in my opinion, media like movies and paintings are flat in comparison.
I'm all over the map here, I know. This is a tricky subject I suppose, but then again it isn't. In the end, who's got the right to tell me what is or isn't art? Isn't that up to me? In truth, video games are so important to me that it's a sort of religion. The concept of a man-made reality is pretty astounding and makes me wonder what's so special about this world if man can create his own.
What all these media have in common is that they are man-made using limited tools and all convey a scene or story or mood or all three. If an end table can be art, why not Katamari Damacy?
You hit the nail on the head there. The idea that there is this level of interaction deemed appropriate never sat well with me. Problem is when you head into that territory, I guarantee someone is going to pull some metaphysical BS (Does art need an audience in order to be considered art? Or is it just...Art.), which of course, tends to either end the argument completely, or deviate into a place that inevitably gets nowhere. I can't tell you how many times I wanted to slam my head into a desk every time I heard that.
There are certain contemporary groups that would only consider small, non-plot oriented movies art, and anything that comes out of the cinema is just...garbage to them. The belief held there is that today's movies are created through very generic steps used to manipulate the viewer. Which somehow to them, proves mass culture to not be a part of art. Ridiculous, I know, it's like saying that a certain genre of literature can not be considered a great work of art, simply because there are so many others like it.
But believe me, debating art will bring you back and forth to topics you never even considered to be a part of the culture. Art has always been the one thing I can run to when all else fails, and I'll be damned if anyone is going to call my work "not art" because it doesn't fit into their current box. (Kinda restrictive for something that's celebrated for it's innovation, too...). But every time I've seriously been asked to define art, I leave that choice completely up to the individual. It is not my place to define what art is to them, or to even believe I could understand beyond an empathetic level.
And Katamari Damacy is totally art...to me at least. =D Royal Rainbow!
Ebert is a smart guy, but even smart people can be wrong. What he labels "sport" is just the playing of the game. A movie is considered art, but the act of watching a movie is not. In the same way, a game could be considered art even if the act of playing it is not.
There are also games where the "result" could also be considered art (like Spore's creature creation, for example).
Isn't it remotely possible in your mind that this actually might be his opinion?
Honestly.. From all he's done in his career I'd say Ebert deserves some credibility. The guy's a physical wreck (recovering from cancer) and he's certainly made his fortune. If money was his only motivation he could have retired long ago but he continues to write because he genuinely loves writing about movies. Nothing I've read of his indicates that he writes from anything other than a love of cinema, and if you look back at his career he seems to be anything but a sell out or a shill.
That's not to say you have to respect his opinion, not at all. Whether you agree or not is irrelevant, he has a forum to express his opinion and did so. You should feel free to disagree but perhaps refuting his points would be a much better way than calling him a blowhard. Write a thoughtfu. essay on the merits and possiblities of gaming as an art forum. If it's good, and enough people do so, then it will be taken seriously. Lashing out and yelling names just makes gamers look like crybabies.
I'd also add that if legitimate criticism by "gamers" (criticism in a literary sense) is going to be taken seriously then it needs to take itself seriously. Every new medium has this battle. Even movies; they were held in the same light games are today back in the early 20th century. No matter what the medium is, the old guard never takes the young turks seriously.
Here is just a personal anecdote:
The game was Black and White, you're a God, with incarnate consciousnesses, created by some villagers in a desperate cry for help. From there you progress through the game by winning the faith of other peoples. Your choice in actions defines your good/evil alignment. In retrospect, it was a set up, if you didn't go into the game intending to be a certain alignment, you would almost certainly be good, it was natural, you wanted to be kind.
I was at the beginning of a map many levels in, I had many powers and the little angel spoke frequently, the little devil was gone. My tower was ivory and my voice angelic. On this map, the second village was a particularly difficult convertion. I slaved over them, did everything I could to show them my benevolent worth, I aided them in every endeavor, and through hours of painstaking effort I won them over. It was a stunning relief to finally convert them, the worst hurdle overcome. A few moments later the enemy God retaliated, sending a pack of wolves to punish the villagers. I destroyed many of the wolves, but I don't think they were really stoppable. The village turned on me, setting me back to a condition far worse than I had started the map.
I sat there, staring at the screen in disbelief. I was angry beyond reason. At which point, a little evil voice, no animation, just a soft voice of evil said: "Go on boss, do it, do the bad thing." (It sounds cheesy, but it was the kicker for my already trembling hand.)
By the end, I had created an ever-burning pit into which I cast those who denied me. I took the land in a display of brutal rage, right down to destroying my enemy while listening to his pleas for mercy. I was the God of fire and brimstone. I drifted back toward the light after passing beyond that map, but it wasn't the same, I wasn't the same. I was a darker, more vengeful God from there on.
It was an emotional event, it was like stepping into Lucifers shoes, just before the fall. It was a lesson about absolute power and corruption. It was awesome. It's left an impression. It was art.
Lack of complete narrative control doesn't preclude success, much as possessing narrative control doe not ensure it.
In a video game, when they have achieved a level high art, you have to be willing and/or lucky enough, to be led where they are trying to take you. That is certainly true of music, movies, painting, photography, and other artistic mediums I have experienced. (Joshua Bell performed in a busy Metro station, to minimal acclaim, it was not the art that was lacking.)
-- Res
Not to say that this doesn't expose Ebert as a whiney old coot. His decision to rail on Clive Barker (read: easy target) is especially telling. But that doesn't change the fact that the most a video game will make you contemplate what it means to be a person or what a person is capable of being is a quick glance at a STAT menu.
Peter Molyneux really should've released "The Room" for these reasons. A surreal playground like that would open a lot of people's eyes to just how affecting a "game" can be.
If GameCritics.com is "smart reviews for serious gamers" they are using a different definition of "smart" than I am. In just the first couple of paragraphs the writing is enough to make one shudder, and includes such gems as "The problem is simply that "art", and it's even more pretentious sibling "high art", are definited so vaguely,"
Honestly, I think GameCritics.com would do gamers a service not to enter into this discussion.
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