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Roger Ebert On Why Video Games Can Never Be Art
Roger Ebert has long held the opinion that video games are not and can never be considered an art form. After having this opinion challenged in a TED talk last year, Ebert has now taken the opportunity to thoughtfully respond and explain why he maintains this belief. Quoting:
"One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome. Santiago might cite an immersive game without points or rules, but I would say then it ceases to be a game and becomes a representation of a story, a novel, a play, dance, a film. Those are things you cannot win; you can only experience them. She quotes Robert McKee's definition of good writing as 'being motivated by a desire to touch the audience.' This is not a useful definition, because a great deal of bad writing is also motivated by the same desire. I might argue that the novels of Cormac McCarthy are so motivated, and Nicholas Sparks would argue that his novels are so motivated. But when I say McCarthy is 'better' than Sparks and that his novels are artworks, that is a subjective judgment, made on the basis of my taste (which I would argue is better than the taste of anyone who prefers Sparks)."
If art is something at which you cannot "win," than that nixes almost every reality show out of the pond right there.
I am OK with this.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
You may not be able to win at Nintendogs, but if you're playing it at all you've already lost.
Oh really, mister Tzu?
In fact, he starts his post saying just that: he doesn't want to discuss it:
Having once made the statement above, I have declined all opportunities to enlarge upon it or defend it.
He shouldn't have changed his mind.
You know how it is in reasoned and intelligent debate. Make an unsupportable statement, then when someone calls you on it, you say "I don't want to talk about it!" and run from the room with your fingers in your ears. Then, once everyone's moved on and you want to rant more, you run back into the room, rant, and then run away again before they can call you on the piles of BS you keep leaving all over their nice room.
At least, that's my definition of reasoned debate, and I'm going to close this debate by stating that I politely and gracefully decline all invitations to enlarge upon my statement or defend it.
- Proud graduate of the Roger Ebert school of winning fights on the Internet.