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)."

Comments

Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[Shadow of Eternity]

At this point it's almost like he's desperately trying to find some way of defining "art" in a way that excludes video games purely because he, for some reason, NEEDS them to not be art.

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that he's officially passed into hinging his entire worldview in relation to videogames as art on a "No True Scotsman" fallacy.

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[eln]

I don't think that's necessarily a conclusive argument. I can draw a beautiful picture on page 874 of my personal copy of the federal tax code, but that doesn't make the tax code art.

Without question there is art in video games, but the question is is the video game itself a piece of art? While the various character models, backgrounds, and even cinema clips are art, is the game as a whole? I'd argue that it is, because the design of the gameplay and the storyline, alterable by the user or not, is art in much the same way the architectural design of a building can be art. Additionally, there is such a thing as "interactive art" in which the observer is invited to interact with the art work in various ways. How is this different from a video game?

Of course, ultimately what is and isn't art is in the eye of the beholder. Ebert is entitled to his opinion as to what he considers art, as am I. It just so happens that he's wrong ;).

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[JustinOpinion]

To expand upon this. In any argument if you start really arguing about whether something "really is" something (i.e. arguing over definitions) then you need to take a step back and ask why either side cares about that particular definition (whether it be "art" or "censorship" or "natural" or whatever). You will typically find that the reason both sides are trying to fight for a particular definition is because that word carries with it a whole slew of additional meaning/emotional-baggage/etc. ("art is deep and important", "censorship is bad", "natural is good", etc.).

So instead of arguing over the definition, you should just step back and argue about the characteristics of the things itself. ("Regardless of whether this is technically censorship or not, let's discuss whether this action is a net positive or negative, whether it is immoral, and whether it should be illegal." "Regardless of whether this product is 'natural' or not, let's study whether it is a net positive or negative with respect to human health." Etc.)

In this case, I don't know exactly what ground he thinks he is defending by excluding video games from the "art" category. When he says things like:

"No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets."

I can only guess that he comparing all would-be art to some theoretical perfect art (Platonic ideal?) that any person would be immediately moved by. And by his reckoning, video games don't comes close enough to qualify. I disagree with his implication that we can all agree so objectively on what makes "good art" versus "bad art". I think it's quite obvious that video games have an impact on many people--oftentimes a real emotional impact or one that produces thought and reflection. Again, regardless of whether or not you are willing to call that "art" is of little importance to me: video games have cultural impact.

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[tool462]

Art doesn't seem to have a good objective definition. It's always defined in terms of the things people consider to BE art. Any definition that doesn't use specific works seems to be an attempt at finding a common thread among the works that person considers to be art. Those themes can vary from person to person.

For some, emotional impact is key. A "sterile", though accurate drawing can never be art to them.
For some, technical skill is important. I know I've refused to call a lot of abstract works "art".
For others, social commentary or message is important. A pop singer is mere entertainment (the horror), but replace her lyrics about her boyfriend with ones about the hardships of poverty and she becomes an artist.

I've played video games that could pass muster in any of these categories, and some arguably in all three.

Wth Mr. Ebert, though, a work of art needs to be static. Interactivity, open-endedness, and an ability to win means it's not art. If you make a video game that is missing these pieces, he neatly claims it's no longer a video game. A very nice circular definition if you ask me.

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[dishpig]

His "definition" of art is pretty naive.

Melies seems to me vastly more advanced than her three modern video games. He has limited technical resources, but superior artistry and imagination

So he's predicating entry into the category of art on appeal. Art is neither a positive nor negative designation (thus, bad art exists). The definition and evaluation are not the same.

And the idea that participating / winning negates its ability to be considered art is completely arbitrary. There are different genres with different expectations that expand all the time. Most art I can think of already requires participation (also known as viewing, reading, listening, etc) - why should objectives disqualify anything? He gives no answer for that. Pretty weak stuff.

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[ShadowRangerRIT]

I'm also a little bothered by the emphasis on winning. Particularly in single-player RPGs, you are usually trying to complete the main plot of the story. You don't win or lose, you simply end. For instance, in Planescape: Torment, it was extremely hard to "lose" (that is, die permanently before reaching the end of the game). Even if you died, with very rare exceptions you would simply wake up in a morgue or an alleyway as your immortal body knitted itself back together. When you eventually reach the end of the game, there were a dozen ways to "win", some of which were more or less satisfying than others; the primary difference was how much they revealed about the mysterious background of your character, and how much of the "solution" was due to intelligence or brute force.

For games like that, you aren't "winning" any more than watching the end of a movie is "winning". Yes, you made choices that changed the course of the story, but it was about discovery, not victory. So even if you use an overly restrictive definition that precludes "winning" from art, you still haven't prevented all video games from being art.

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[longhairedgnome]

I don't think that's necessarily a conclusive argument. I can draw a beautiful picture on page 874 of my personal copy of the federal tax code, but that doesn't make the tax code art.

It does if Art Spiegelman does it ;^)

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[sammyF70]

Portal, as any other video game is art. Whether it's ~good~ art or not is extremely subjective (which, actually, makes it even more "artful"). I think the reason why portal is mentioned that often is that it was one of the few commercially successful games in the last years which involved the player emotionally (through its story, setting and overall atmosphere).

How is a completely blue canvas art? How is a multicolored photocopy (I know .. not photocopy at all, butyou get the gist) of Marilyn Monroe's face art? Why are anatomically and perspectivically incorrect pictures of madonnas with big boobiçes, painted in the middle age, art? what about crude stick drawings of what could possibly be elefants on a cave side? ... and that's just paintings. If it's the fact that the audience is not participating, then I urge you to consider theater plays living off audience participation, or even concerts relying to a big part on the participation of the audience (Frank Zappa was known for it, so is Bobby Mc Ferrin).

Egbert is just old and grumpy if you ask me ... and quite full of himself.

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[Shadow of Eternity]

But that's the trick to his "No True Scottsman" fallacy. If you present Ebert with a videogame that fits his definition of art then he simply claims it's not a videogame and that you've proven his point for him.

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[PopeRatzo]

At this point it's almost like he's desperately trying

Yes.

Roger Ebert is a very talented and erudite film critic and scholar. His first-hand experience in the movie business gives him an insight beyond that of many other great film critics.

However, he's succumbed to something that is common to people who have succeeded in one area: they start to believe their expertise in one thing makes then expert in all things. There are talented engineers who believe their success at engineering makes their opinions about climate change valuable. There are chemists who decide late in life to write a "Theory of Everything" that includes quantum mechanics and astrophysics. Bono made hit records and believed that qualifies him to solve great world problems. It comes with success in an age of celebrity.

Roger Ebert has been through a lot in the past years. He's battled an extremely aggressive disease that has left him deformed and disabled. The pain alone was probably enough to have made him borderline insane. I'm going to give him a pass on this idiotic statement for two reasons. Number One is because he's written brilliantly about film. There are only a handful of film critics who have worked at such a high level for so long. Number Two is because he's had some medical issues that would have warped anyone's better judgment. I give him credit for trying so hard to continue his career and I wish him the best.

But video games, though not yet there, are certainly capable of being great art.

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[Douchey]

Something becomes art when the artist presents it as such. In designating a work as 'art' the artist asks the public to judge it in that context. It is then the publics duty to judge the work on its merits (is this good art or bad art) and to fit it into a larger social or historical context (what questions or ideas arise from engaging with this piece). That's not to say that some video games aren't beautiful, they are. Or that they don't contain artful elements, they do. In the end though I would say 99.999% of video games are being presented with the expectation that they be judged as video games, not as pieces of art. It's the same reason Duchamp could hang a urinal on the wall and call it art. Up until the moment he asked the public to judge his piece as art, it was just a urinal. When you think about it, the artist has an almost supernatural ability to transform objects merely by willing them. Another fun question, who is an artist? Anyone who says they are.

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[hrimhari]

It's deeper than that. In his arguments, he cites "bad writing" in a way that it sounds like not being art, as if art for him implies being "good".

I get the impression that that's his problem. He focuses on "good art" as if that was the only kind of "art", when the "good" part of it carries a huge amount of personal opinion.

But see, he explicitly says that he doesn't care if gamers want to say that their games are art. It just means that he emitted his opinion and he's not willing to discuss it. 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.

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[Asclepius99]

I'd also be curious to know what games he's played. He does (as you quoted) make a comparison to film and I think it's pretty clear some games (Metal Gear Solid 3&4, FFXIII) are moving towards being more interactive movies than other video games (say, Tetris or Counter Strike). How much different is a video game from a choose your own adventure book? Is that considered no longer a book now but a text adventure game?

So I agree with you, when we start defining what something is then we need to re-frame the discussion.

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[aafiske]

Actually, it sounds a lot like gamers (note: I game, a lot) are desperate to associate games as art. He has a point, at the end of his article: why exactly are people insisting games are art? Does it make them better? Does it make you feel like less of a nerd, if it's artistic? Why is an aimless, goal-less pretty-picture-and-motion collection more art than something engaging and fun like Deus Ex (picked from a hat, replace with your game of choice.)

It seems like gamers & developers are creating a kind of cargo cult art. We don't know what art is, but if we make something kind of weird and meandering and clumsily insert some emotive cues, that's art, right? Lots of movies are odd, abstract explorations of who-knows-what, so if we do that, we're doing art.

I don't think it works like that.

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[Cryacin]

I think his definition when applied to art and any medium makes sense. A pencil itself is not art, but a pencil jabbed sideways into a watermelon is art.

By this definition, yes, art can be a pencil, but a pencil is not by itself art.

The bit that I don't think Ebert gets, is that he is saying that the pencil can never be art.

This is a false argument, in exactly the same way that a video game can never be art.

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[Dalambertian]

After reading the article, it is apparent that EBERT HAS NOT PLAYED ANY OF THE GAMES HE IS CRITICIZING! This would be like saying A Clockwork Orange isn't art while refusing to watch it. Worse than that, it is like claiming that all of film cannot be art because some TEDster can't prove it from stills of Kubrick's films. And for crying out loud, if you want to give good examples of videogames-as-art, the terrorism scene in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 spoke volumes to millions of people around the world, more so than that POS Waco Resurrection. Or, sit down with GTA IV for five minutes. Don't do any of the missions, just walk around and experience an entire world devoted to critiquing post 9-11 American consumerism, paranoia, and even health care. Ebert shall shit his pants when he realizes that not only are videogames art, they are capable of expressing the artist's intent in deeper ways than film ever could.

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[adisakp]

Additionally, there is such a thing as "interactive art" in which the observer is invited to interact with the art work in various ways. How is this different from a video game?

Exactly!!!

We had a story mode in MK vs DC Univers where we have authored two separate entwined plots spanning hundreds of pages of original written material. We have story boards, cinematic capture, 3D modeling, texture art, sound and music generation, voice actors, etc that are all rendered into the final movies. Pretty much everything that goes into making a movie like "Toy Story". The only difference is that at the points in the story where the characters fight, you fight as one of the characters and need to win to continue.

By Ebert's definition of a movie being "art", our game would qualify as "art" if you took out the interactive fighting and just watched our movies back to back.

But does that mean adding interactivity to "art" means it is no longer "art". The way he describes "art", a Choose-your-own-adventure book is not "art" either. Neither would be an exhibit at a museum where you could interact with it.

I think he's mistaken in his definition. When you interact with art, you are not necessarily destroying the artistic value of the original work -- rather you are creating new art with your input or even adding your personal value to existing art.

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[interkin3tic]

Interactive art doesn't let you "win." There's no boss and often there's no story. And if you bring up non-games, or games that are made to be experienced rather than progress or win, then Ebert argues that you're not making a game anymore, but rather simply making interactive art. I think Ebert's definition is that art can be video games, but video games are not art.

The "winnable" criteria seems completely arbitrary. How does winning a game make it not art? Example:Grand theft auto. You can finish all the missions and say you won, but then the game goes back to you running around in a violent virtual world filled with crime with no goal beyond what you set for yourself. Would you argue that grand theft auto is only a game when you're playing the missions, and when you're not progressing through it, it's "interactive art" instead of a game?

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[DavidTC]

Well, to be fair, I think people try to exclude motorsport because, they think, it doesn't take any physical activity.

They're wrong, of course, which is why it is a sport. A very equipment-dependent sport, but a sport. (A sport I personally find rather stupid, but whatever.)

I have no idea under what logic people would exclude golf. It's pretty close, logistics-wise, to half of baseball. Perhaps because it has no defense in it? But that excludes things like running. Although, for all I know, they exclude that anyway.

A sport, in my universe, is when people, using physical skill, compete using a set of rules, with an objective physical measurement of their score, like getting a ball in a hole or being the first over a line. (And, yes, motorsports requires a hell of a lot of physical skills.)

Yes, I exclude things like figure skating from 'sports'. That doesn't mean I have any sort of problem with it...it's just not a sport. It's competitive performance art.

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[Gravatron]

a game is the sum of all it's parts though. Just like a movie is. a move has music, set design, acting, script, etc, all individual art forms that come together to form a separate art form in itself. A video game is the same way.

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[DaedylusSL]

There is a difference between art and entertainment, in that there is art that simply isn't entertaining. This applies to sculpture, paintings, movies and even video games. Movies are an art form. And I've seen some that were simply no good. This doesn't mean they weren't art. They were simply bad art. I've seen sculptures that were the same. Someone thought that a piece of barbed wire wrapped around a tree trunk deserved a place in the Guggenheim museum. They must have thought it was art. I thought it was something that should have been thrown away. I'm not saying that GTA IV is good art. I've never played it. But I do think that any game that makes you feel some real emotion or makes you think is artistic at some level. It's not the Mona Lisa, but it's something.

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[PopeRatzo]

Naw, playa, I'm just saying that I like Ebert, and think he's done a lot of good work, but he's wrong about this.

You want patronizing, try this:

"You haven't been around here long enough to say what is and what is not patronizing "even for slashdot", and I don't normally respond to anyone who has a 7-digit UID. This one's on the house, though. Consider it a gift".

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[rdwulfe]

Only because we agree it is. Art is what we say it is, we, the collective mind of our culture. If we say that rocks embedded in walls is art, then they are. If we say video games are a form of art, they are. There is no universal rule as to what is or is not art. There may be works in the past that help us define what we feel art is, building on the perceptions of our forefathers... But when presented with a new media (such as recorded music, which isn't very different from live music), or photography, which is merely a way for someone to show you his perception of something, perhaps through his own mind's eye... but with the touch of stark reality. Is it art? Someone's snapping a picture of something.

Are movies and video games inherently art? Only if we agree, as a culture, that they are. For whatever reason, old-school Ebert has decided, and has decided not to be swayed, that video games CAN NOT be art, for whatever reason... perhaps because he doesn't like them, doesn't want to play them, or because one frightened him as a child, for all I know. It doesn't matter. If the rest of our culture says 'Uhh, you're an idiot, this is art'... then it is.

/rant

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[Abcd1234]

Portal, as any other video game is art.

It is? Why?

I mean, I *love* Portal. It was the first game in a decade that got me excited about gaming again. But art? Please. It has no deeper meaning, evokes no emotion, teaches no lesson. It provides neither insight nor reflection. It certainly isn't abstractly beautiful or otherwise uniquely aesthetically pleasing (well, any more so than an average, technically competent game).

What it does do is entertain, and in a unique, interesting way. It's incredibly fun. Hilarious, clever, and a bit chilling at times. But is it art? I sure don't think so.

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[rve]

I think Ebert is right, and a lot of people here are just attacking him because they're gamers and want to attach some kind of significant meaning to their World of Warcraft characters or something.

Ebert loves movies. It's his job as well as his hobby I imagine, so naturally he can't imagine anything else being as good.
An avid ready may tell him that movies can never be art the way books are and even try to rationally explain this belief.
An admirer of the art of story telling might tell the avid reader that books can never be as artistic as true and honest story telling.
A synthesizer can never be used to create fine art the way a grand piano can.
A piano is just a crude, blunt instrument compared to the ancient dulcimer.
Electrically amplified instruments can't really make music.
Black Metal can never be true metal the way death metal is.

I see no point in attacking Ebert for his opinion, it's just the result of being passionate about something, but the fact that he's plainly wrong requires no explanation, just some anecdotal evidence will do to show that he's hardly the first or the last to dismiss a new artistic expression as not being up to the standard of the old thing.

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[sammyF70]

"What it does do is entertain, and in a unique, interesting way. It's incredibly fun. Hilarious, clever, and a bit chilling at times."

there is your answer (even though you contrasted that with "evokes no emotion" which, to me, sounds like you are contradicting yourself.)

Personally, I loved the look of Portal, but that aside, let me indulge in some far fetched theory : Portal is about the evil of technology used without concience, about corporate ruthlessness, about de-humanized procedures.
In parts, it links to P.K.Dick'ian themes, as you play an android with whom, in the best of cases, you'll mentally associate with while playing the game, thus bringing up the question "what makes a human human and why shouldn't the piece of tech you play avoid destruction" .. Why, in heaven's name, do you escape the furnace and actively go looking for that all-alusive piece of cake. After all, you really just play a toaster with springy legs and a pair of tits.

Now I guess you'll say it's a load of bollock, and you're entitled to that opinion. Myself, I never could get the hang of Beuys' work, yet it's still considered Art. I wouldn't go as far as saying that Portal should be displayed in MOMA, unless they have a special exhibition about "Art In Computer Games", it doesn't lessen the fact that, for all it matters, "Portal" can be considered Art. If it can be considered Art it IS Art ... qed.

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[ultranova]

Roger Ebert seems to have bound himself deeply to his personal definition of what art should be and is desperately grasping at straws to try and convince others that he is right. Creating, and trying to enforce rules, for what constitute art is the goal of a pedantic bureaucrat without the capacity to just enjoy.

On a more sinister note, if you can get games declared "not art", then you could perhaps convince people that they shouldn't be protected under 1st Amendment or other applicable rules. Artistic freedom is a time-honored argument against censorship, so if you want to censor games, the first thing you need to do is make sure they're not regarded as art. This is especially important now that increasingly complex games can be made by pretty anyone who cares to try, making "official" rating systems increasingly worthless. Add the fact that even mainstream games are including more mature themes - sure, for now it's mostly just gore, but in a few years there might even be *gasp* sex - and of course the "games are for kids" -crowd would go on the offensive.

So maybe Ebert is just a weirdo who gets his kicks on arguing pointless things, or maybe he's preparing for the coming censorship attack by trying to frame games as unworthy of protection. And even if he's not going to make that argument, someone will.

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[ultranova]

What about trolling? Is trolling a art?

Gee, I don't know. Is "Modest Proposal" trolling? "Divine Comedy" (where most of Dante's enemies, even those still alive at the time, turned out to be burning in Hell)? "Piss Christ"? Speaking of Jesus, what would you consider most conversations between him and the Pharisees in New Testament?

Basically, if you get people to react, you touched something in them, so I'd say that every instant of successfull trolling is necessarily art.

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[shadowfaxcrx]

To a point.

I remember reading a story several years back about a guy in NYC who would defecate into tin cans, clinch them shut, and sell them as art. Another woman made what she called "piss flowers" by urinating into snow, having a male helper urinate a squiggly circle around hers, then make a mold of that and bronze it.

Was it art? The second, maybe (though it was stupid art.) The first? No, I don't think so. Some may disagree, but I think it's just shit in a can.

There was another incident in which abstract paintings from an unknown artist started making waves amongst critics, who were saying critic-y things like "such expression! Such emotional power" and other such nonsense. They were somewhat embarrassed when it got out that the paintings had actually been painted by a donkey who's owner had dipped its tail in some paint and backed it up to an easel.

Was THAT art?

The point in all this is that art itself is indeed subjective. I don't think crapping into a can is art. Some people apparently do, as the guy was selling his "art" for a hefty sum of money. Which of us is right?

Once you boil the video-game-as-art issue down to the point where you realize it's a subjective judgement, Ebert's writings become meaningless. It would be as though I wrote essay after essay explaining why hot days suck. Eventually people would start to wonder "Why the hell doesn't he shut up? Who cares whether or not he likes hot days?"

And that's pretty much where I am with Ebert. He's a good movie critic. In fact he was one of the few critics back in the 70's that didn't jump on the "Pan Star Wars" bandwagon. He'd be better off spending his time writing about what he knows, which is film, and not about a genre of (art?) which I'm guessing he's never, or very rarely, been exposed to on a firsthand basis.

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[sammyF70]

Well .. I guess you can feel yourself, flattered : the silly short stories you wrote WERE art. If you had writen a phone book, I might think otherwise. A phone book is generally not a work of art (unless someone uses it in ANY artistic way, like putting it on a pedestal and saying "that's a piece of art") It's not ridiculous, it's just what art is. Some art is subjectively ~better~ than other, but that's very dependent on the context and the person judging. Even though, it's still art. As for portal, we can have this discussion endlessly. The game in itself is art. It's not about single pieces but about the whole thing. (as I said, I don't pass any judgement about it's actual artistic value, just about it's quality as an art piece). If you MUST have an example : the use of "Still Alive" for the end credit (along with the end-credit ASCII art clip) as counterpoint to the frenetic and rather dramatic action leading to it was quite artful.

"just simple entertainment" is in no way an indication that something is NOT art. Actually, it's a pretty good one that it IS art.

The contradiction was between "hillarious, clever and a bit chilling at times" and "evokes no emotion".

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[Aris Katsaris]

Your problem is that you think that "art" automatically means "good art" or "deep art". You think that calling something art automatically makes it a compliment. No. There can exist shallow art, and there can exist bad art.

"Some films aren't art. Some music isn't art. Some books aren't art. Some plays aren't art. "

Sure, those few books and films that are designed without any thought whatsoever given to artistic criteria, aren't art.

But all music and all plays are art - I can't think of any example of such that's not designed with artistic criteria. Music indeed is probably the purest form of art there can be, and I doubt any example of it (even humming to oneself) can be considered non-art.

"Do you also believe that a pinball machine is art "

Yes. It's not *primarily* art (it's primarily a exercise for reflexes instead) and it's an extremely shallow kind of art (bright colors! loud sounds!), but to that limited extent it's still art.

"Heck, just as you claim that video games are art, some people also defend that football is art."

I don't see the rules of the game having been designed with artistic criteria in mind, so I'd disagree with that assessment.

Mascots and cheerleaders do perform art, however (comedy, dancing, etc).

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[Aris Katsaris]

You say it's "chilling", and at the same time you claim it evokes no emotion?

If it's chilling at times, then it evokes more emotions than most the novels I've read or movies I've seen -- and yet nobody would argue that a novelist or moviewriter isn't doing art.

The whole argument about "videogames aren't be art" is merely an old elite claiming that *any* new and popular form of art isn't art. Theater wasn't true art for the first ancient Greeks, and movies weren't true art in the early 20th century, and some people argue nowadays that videogames and comics aren't true art.

Here's a bet: I'm guessing that most of the people objecting to videogames being called art also objects to comics being called art.

All they mean by it is "it's relatively new, and popular enough that there's lot of shitty samples of such as well, so I don't like using the same word to describe it as the pieces of art that have survived centuries and millenia"

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[Anonymous Coward]

why exactly are people insisting games are art?

It provides certain legal protections against censorship, for one.

Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate?

[mcgrew]

I haven't been a gamer for years, plus I studied art in college, and I say he's wrong, too. I haven't played Portal, but more than likely it IS art. Maybe bad art, but art nonetheless, just as a bad B movie is art, just bad art.

Sony should mail him a copy of ICO.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Nuff said.

ICO is art.

Shadow of the Colossus, was also incredible but it did not have the emotional impact of ICO. However Shadow of the Colossus remains one of the most visually epic games to date, with a very insightful story... it misses the mark a bit but its there if you break it all down. Its an incredible game.

Re:Sony should mail him a copy of ICO.

[nine-times]

In a more general way of saying what I think you're saying, we might guess that he thinks games aren't art because he hasn't played enough games.

I think this betrays a lack of understanding:

Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art? Bobby Fischer, Michael Jordan and Dick Butkus never said they thought their games were an art form. Nor did Shi Hua Chen, winner of the $500,000 World Series of Mah Jong in 2009.

He seems to be saying (though I may be misinterpreting) that people at the top of their game (e.g. Bobby Fischer) didn't think their game-playing abilities made them artists, but I don't think game-players want to claim to be artists. Your ability to appreciate the art isn't determined by your skill at the game.

If sculpting is an art, then making 3D models should be an art. If writing music or a story for a movie is art, then why should it be different for a video game? Essentially, video games can contain all the audio/visual artistic expression that a movie contains. Creating an animation in a game doesn't take less skill than creating the same animation for a movie. The only difference is that, in addition to what a movie has, games have interactivity. Deciding how/when to blend that interactivity into audio/visual expressions is itself a creative process. The effect might not be obvious to non-gamers, but placing you into the role of a character or placing you in the action can have a significant dramatic effect.

I'm sure there are better examples, but "Portal" comes to mind (warning: possible spoilers if you haven't played the game). The fact that it was set up to appear as a simple puzzle game with discrete levels set you up to have a certain set of expectations. You believe you're in a well defined world with rules, and that the world is "working the way it's supposed to." As the game progresses, you begin to see signs that the in-game world is not what it appears, and therefor the game itself is not what it appears. This is an artistic progression that the audience experiences somewhat passively, but it wouldn't be possible in a non-interactive medium.

Re:Sony should mail him a copy of ICO.

[MBCook]

There are a few games that are really good, and would certainly be art if video games can be. But I can see what he's saying.

While ICO was great, it was, you followed along the path the game designer gave you, stopping off and on to fight the shadow things. While you do have to fight them (for there to be any conflict in the game), you don't need to fight them as much as you do. The fights are basically padding, and the shear number of times you do it isn't necessary for the story. Shadow of the Colossus fixed that in that there were only 12 fights, all necessary to the story.

Other games have had great mechanics. The fighting in God of War is fantastic, and just "feels" right. Kratos does what you want. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time had the best explanation of death I've ever seen in a game. The entire game was a story the prince was telling the princess, and when you would die, he would say something like "No, that's not right" or "That's not how it happened, let me back up". Instead of having arbitrary deaths that didn't exist for the purpose of the story the game was telling, it weaved them in as reminders of how the game was being narrated. PoP also had great controls in the platforming puzzle sections.

I've been playing Heavy Rain and it's pretty impressive. But I think Ebert's right that I'm just doing what I'm told. You see each scene, and play through it. You have choices and consequences to actions (the story changes some depending on how well you do in QTE sequences), but the overall story is the same. It can still easily be seen as a miniseries or long movie with "press button here to continue plot" actions inserted. It's a "choose your own adventure" miniseries, since you can effect the story, but there is something of a sense that it's unnecessary.

Games are just stories that could be told in other mediums, with activities tacked on. A book lets you experience things the way you visualize it, and when you want (music is how you play it). A play gives you the experience the actors and directors think you should have (music performances are how that artist think you should hear it). A movie (or TV series) is like a play but the artist can do things that aren't possible on a physical set. A photograph lets you see a moment in time that no longer exists, and a painting or drawing lets you see an artists perception of that moment, even if it never existed in the first place.

What do video games do that other mediums can't? You can interact, but basically all games we have now are pre-told stories. The gameplay isn't especially necessary to get the story. You can't tell your own story in GTA 4. Sure Niko can go take a 5 day period off to play darts if you want, but the story just sits there waiting for you.

The only games where the story really is yours is in The Sims or other simulation games, but that's the equivalent of playing with blocks. Bioshock let you see and peer into a world that didn't exist anywhere else, studying whatever parts you wanted. But that wasn't the gameplay, the gameplay was standard FPS affair, and you could choose to just ignore Andrew Ryan's world, to a certain degree.

I have played many great games that I won't forget. If making an impact on the player/viewer is the measure of art, games can do that. But other than using button presses to immerse someone more than reading a printed word may do... what stories have games told that other media couldn't?

Psychonauts had a great imaginative world and story, but fighting with hundreds of little enemies wasn't strictly necessary to tell the story. Maybe the problem is that such a game could be made, but it probably sell well. If you just walk around looking at things, is it really a game? Maybe that commercial constraint is causing problems here, and we should be looking at flash games where it's easier for people to have a singular vision and not have to worry about making money if they don't want to.

I'm sure games that do something that can't be done elsewhere exis

Art is art

[audunr]

Anyone who knows art will tell you that something is art if people who know art say it is.

Seriously, there's nothing more to it.

Re:They can be art

[CannonballHead]

Art is anything that has the ability to inspire emotions in people.

Then war is art.

Oh, Grandpa!

[RyanFenton]

Are the rules of games art? Perhaps not.

Are games themselves generally composed of art? Yes.

Does applying rules of games to the art in games negate the artistry? No.

Is Ebert being a curmudgeon again? Yeah.

The average first-rate game contain a good book worth of creative written material, galleries of fascinating and provocative artistic images, and a couple albums worth of creative sound. These things are art - they give the game rules context that creates a story the player enacts... they are a play with a branching script, performed with audience participation.

If that's not art, your definition is flawed.

Ryan Fenton

Re:Oh, Grandpa!

[Grishnakh]

Are building codes art? Definitely not.

Are buildings generally composed of art (called "architecture")? Frequently, yes.

Does applying building codes to the buildings designed by architects negate the artistry? No.

Re:Oh, Grandpa!

[tool462]

I'd argue that the rules of a game can be art themselves. Especially when the rules themselves are simple, but the gameplay is complex and dynamic. Games like the SimCity series, Civilization series, and Starcraft. They all involve a fairly simple set of rules: gather resources to build infrastructure that then allows you to gather more resources. But through repeated gameplay and exploring the different methods of balancing the various methods available you can ferret out some subtleties of cause and effect, decisions and consequences. You can also start asking questions about how well a game mimics reality. How does the balance of funding on research vs. military affect the outcome? Is it universal or context dependent? I.e., is research more valuable if your opponent is Protoss instead of Zerg? And how is that not a commentary on how the game creator perceives the world?

One of the most fascinating aspects of Civilization I've found is the effects of isolation on your empire. Try playing two games with the same overall style and choices, but one where you're very removed from the rest of the empires and one where you're surrounded by others. In isolation, your growth will lag and you very quickly lose any hope at winning, but when surrounded your growth is very rapid. Trade and competition with your neighbors is very important for a strong and wealthy empire.

How many of these interactions where intended by the game creators? I'm not sure, but that leads to other questions. How many of those effects are secondary consequences of the system the designers tried to create?

Re:Oh, Grandpa!

[Draek]

Another example is Shadow of the Colossus. The game, much like Braid, takes the basic preconceptions gamers have of 'games', then use and twist them to provoke a reaction, to make you question yourself, your actions and motivations. A more minor one is Metal Gear Solid 3's ending, where you have to mercy kill your own mentor yourself, by pressing the button. Many gamers and reviewers alike have stated that it's far more moving than it'd have been had it been a regular, non-interactive cutscene.

The genre is still new, so there's a lot of experimentation around and many who simply relegate themselves to mimicking other genres such as movies and books, but video games *are* maturing and becoming its own particular genre, and anyone who cannot see this simply hasn't examined the field too closely.

Re:They can be art

[Anonymous Coward]

this has been understood for thousands of years

Re:They can be art

[bigstrat2003]

War certainly can be artful.

Teddy Roosevelt said it best

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

Ballroom Dancing

[Noexit]

It's dance, and an art. And yet, you can win at it.

Making a game and PLAYING a game are NOT the same

[marquinhocb]

Is Roger Ebert really that dense?

It's like making the argument that a movie isn't art because you're sitting on your ass while watching it, whereas a painting you have to stand up for.

Art is not about the person VIEWING or EXPERIENCING - it is about the creator.

Clearly WATCHING a movie or PLAYING a video game is not art.

MAKING one, on the other hand, can be.

Apparently, change must be resisted!

[MoriT]

Considering his panning of Kick Ass because it was too comic book-ish and not chauvinistic enough, I think it is fair to say that Ebert has moved into Get Off My Lawn territory.

I'll hand him an example: Bioshock. Just because Bioshock has an end and ways to loose along the way doesn't mean it's not also an insightful, interactive exploration of Rand's philosophy.

The idea that there is Great Art and then everything else is a product of a limited view of culture that silences most people for the benefit of a few privileged voices. Video games explicitly acknowledge that the viewer contributes to the value of artwork, which challenges the view of Art as Universal Value, transcending the opinion of mere plebes. Since Ebert has vested his life in the idea that some people's opinions of art matter more than other people, specifically his, it makes sense that the idea of participatory art would be incompatible with his world view.

I don't care.

[mibe]

Seriously, what does it matter? It's all semantics anyway; it all hinges on how you define "art." Mr. Ebert has apparently defined art in such a way as to exclude games. He may as well have posted "Games aren't art because you can win games and you can't win art. Ergo, games aren't art because they are games."

Depends on how you define art.

[LWATCDR]

I would say art is any beautiful act of creation.
So is a piece of music a work of art or is a performance of the work a piece of art?
Or are both examples of art.
What about the Golden Gate Bridge, the Handcock building, or the Parthenon?
To me the Saturn V, Supermarine Spitfire, and the Lockheed SR-71 are all works of art but I know an artist that disagrees because as she said, "their form is dictated by their function". I tend to see that as just working within the limitations of your medium.

Now I will say that I do not classify most video games as great art. In fact I would put 99.999% of them in the classification of commercial art but yes they are still art.

Now the big question is can any video game reach the level of what we call high art? So far the closest I feel we have come would would be maybe Myst for visuals, the works of Infocom in for writing quality, and honestly Tetris. As far and an abstract construct that really seems to resonate with everybody on the planet Tetris has got to be a stand out. If nothing else it has become a classic that I wouldn't shocked to see people playing 100 years from now.

Schopenhauer

[Potor]

There are much older definitions of art, like Schopenhauer's. He argues that artistic judgment is the disinterested contemplation of beauty or the sublime. That is a technical definition, but it basically means that art is free from your will, or desire.

If Schopenhauer is right and art is free from the will, then Ebert's idea is not so stupid, and has some intellectual pedigree. For, a game is the embodiment of the will, in that you want to triumph.

Re:Schopenhauer

[Necreia]

Would that suggest, then, that if an observer and not player of such game - with no interest in victory for the player - appreciates it, that it is then art?

Re:Schopenhauer

[powerlord]

Then I would argue that while a Video Game itself is probably not a piece of Art, the story and expression of it very well might be.

Case in point, Final Fantasy XIII.

Separate and apart from wining the game, the world of the game, and the story that takes place over the course of the game, (in the form of written descriptions and backstory in the Datapad, and in the cut-scenes, both pre-compiled and in-game) most certainly IS a work of art.

The ability to "finish or win" a game disqualifying it as a work of art though is as absurd as saying that the act of wanting to read a book "till the end" disqualifies written works from being art.

Certainly there are those who play games without caring about the story, but there are people who go to see works of art for no reason than to say that "they saw X", without any regard for the work of art itself.

Re:Schopenhauer

[ClickOnThis]

Art is anything you can get away with.
-- Marshall McLuhan

Re:Schopenhauer

[Anonymous Coward]

Would that suggest, then, that if an observer and not player of such game - with no interest in victory for the player - appreciates it, that it is then art?

As I've aged (a whopping 33yo at the moment) I've found that I am more content watching my friends play some of the new games than I am playing them. I think it has something to do with the suspension of my disbelief. Once I play the game, and feel it's undoubtedly shitty controls, the magic inevitably fades.

As an aside, I'm often surprised at how many more "secrets" or "hidden" crap in the games I find; not by playing them, but watching people play them...

Re:Schopenhauer

[CAIMLAS]

That definition also excludes a great deal of the artwork of history: anything dealing with religion, lust, beautiful women, political statement - and so on.

Re:Schopenhauer

[10101001 10101001]

That sounds about right. One rarely calls a violin/game a work of art. But, the music/game play that the artist/player creates can be called art. Look no further than Tool-Assisted Speed runs for an example.

Of course, as I hinted out earlier, while one rarely calls a violin a work of art, that doesn't mean they could never be considered works of art. Most games don't qualify because they're designed to facilitate art production. Others (Animal Crossing, Farm Ville) are meant to facilitate communication and community. But, clearly some games are meant as works of art and would qualify.

The interesting thing, then, is that while virtually all games include art, very few are art. In other words, a video game is less than the some of its parts in that regard. In fact, most things in reality would qualify under that point.

Heavy Rain

[ink]

You don't "win" or "lose" Heavy Rain. You experience it. It's even less of a game than Flower. I suppose Ebert could say that it has passed through being a video game, and gone on to being an interactive movie (hello Fahrenheit 451) -- but your skill, lack thereof, or intentional supression of it determines how the narrative unfolds. It's unlike most any other "game" you have played, and very moving.

That said, I fundamentally disagree with him. Art evokes an emotional response -- and video games do that in spades. From becoming an avatar in Ultima, to avoiding zombies in Resident Evil, losing Arith in FF VII, exploring your coldwar inner child in post-apocalyptic DC in Fallout 3 and discovering who GladOS is in Portal, video games do that. Denying such is just being snobbish.

Re:Then

[ravenshrike]

Any sport without an objective scoring method isn't. It's merely performance art.

Of course you can "win" in a movie.

[SuperKendall]

Come on. Who does not share the sense of elation at the end of something like Rocky, or when the Ring falls into Mt. Doom? How is that not winning, it's giving you the same feeling of relief and finality that closing out a good game does.

Movies are all about immersion. Books are all about immersion. Games are just giving you another way to get immersed in the story. Even games that theoretically have no story, have one created just by the act of you playing it - a million small triumphs (and thus stories) accumulated on the path to victory. You swap stories about games just as you would really profound or exciting scenes in movies, the only difference is that you had an even more personal experience with the game.

Consider the source.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Ebert is a movie critic. As such he has a vested interest in keeping people interested in spending their eyeball time on movies rather than "diverting" it to other passtimes, such as video games. This constitutes a conflict of interest whenever he attempts to analyze those passtimes.

Again, Ebert is a movie critic. This means he thinks movies are something more worthy of his attention than other passtimes. This can be expected to produce a subjective bias whenever he attempts to analyze other passtimes.

While this may be his actual honest and informed opinion, rather than a conscious attempt to promote his own subject matter (and thus his career as a critic) or an unconscious bias manifesting as a denigration of other art(or not)forms, I am inclined to take what he says about video-games-as-art with a large salt lick. (The same one I used in the '50s through now when blithely ignoring the mainstream literature establishment's constant criticism of both science fiction - which has an opposing ideology - and graphic novels / "comic books" - which bear the same relationship to written literature as theater does to storytelling.)

I am reminded of the TV show episodes during the rise of various things perceived as competition to network TV - cable, internet-based conferencing (netnews, blogs, ...), and again video games - which attempted to tie video games to crime, drugs, death, etc. (For example I recall one particularly pathetic (and low budget) cop show (involving "The San Diego Chicken" as a major character and witness) where the murder was committed by an executive of one of two cable companies involved in a bidding war.)

I hope Ebert is not sinking to this level.

Just listen to his counterarguments...

[cfalcon]

He's arguing with someone who is actually correct that games are art. Here's how he handles this debate:

"Santiago now supplies samples of a video game named "Waco Resurrection" (above), in which the player, as David Koresh, defends his Branch Davidian compound against FBI agents. The graphics show the protagonist exchanging gunfire with agents according to the rules of the game. Although the player must don a Koresh mask and inspire his followers to play, the game looks from her samples like one more brainless shooting-gallery."

Ok, note the important thing: because games require you to actually play them to appreciate them, he's essentially describing a painting that *he has never even seen*. He's making the conclusion that the game is not art *based on screenshots*.

Really. Super really. He's as qualified to judge whether or not this game is art as my damned dog is to preside over the works of Michelangelo- meaning, he'll ignore that which is on the ceiling, and he'll pee on whatever he can reach.

"Her next example is a game named "Braid" (above). This is a game "that explores our own relationship with our past...you encounter enemies and collect puzzle pieces, but there's one key difference...you can't die." You can go back in time and correct your mistakes. In chess, this is known as taking back a move, and negates the whole discipline of the game."

For the unfamiliar, we have " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braid_(video_game) ".

Firstly, in chess, if you are practicing or playing by yourself, taking back a move is one of the things you do to explore the gamespace more thoroughly. Only in a competitive multiplayer environment does time manipulation become something different entirely. He's suddenly gone from exploring a world into cheating. Not related. Plus, the game isn't just a regular game that has time manipulation, as he would again discovered *if only he could type it into google*. Seriously, here's from wikipedia:

"Time and Mystery introduces objects surrounded by a green glow that are unaffected by time manipulation; for example, switches will remain flipped even if time is rewound to before the action occurred. Rewinding can thus be used to change the synchronization between objects that can and cannot be rewound, the basis of many puzzles in this section.[15] This theme is also used in later worlds to denote objects unaffected by the player's time manipulation."

Ok, so, he doesn't know what he's talking about. This isn't "taking back a move" at all. This is something he has never heard of and doesn't understand.

And his third:

"We come to Example 3, "Flower" (above). A run-down city apartment has a single flower on the sill, which leads the player into a natural landscape. The game is "about trying to find a balance between elements of urban and the natural." Nothing she shows from this game seemed of more than decorative interest on the level of a greeting card. Is the game scored? She doesn't say. Do you win if you're the first to find the balance between the urban and the natural? Can you control the flower? Does the game know what the ideal balance is? "

I don't know man DO YOU? You haven't even TRIED this game out.

What a tool. Seriously, this is like refusing to acknowledge sculpture as art because all you have seen are pictures, or dismissing photography because you heard someone describe how a camera worked and then you were like, wait, does the exposure speed matter? WHY DO YOU NOT SAY NOT ART LOL. Or as I mentioned before, dismissing paintings having never viewed them.

Old man is old.

Robert Ebert, former arbiter of art

[TiggertheMad]

Well put.

I think if he were to admit that video games are art, that would make him the definitive critic of the SECOND most prevalent/biggest/whatever 'art form' industry on earth, since I recall reading that video games have eclipsed movies in global sales/profits/whatever.

To me it sounds like a semantic argument based off of pure ego.

Re:Robert Ebert, former arbiter of art

[Nasajin]

Arts have been profitable for centuries - in early forms it was often through commission, later it was through "traditional" production, and recently it has been through mass media and new media industrial production levels. If the costs of producing art were less than the return, then we'd either have a lot of artists starve to death, or no art. Clearly not the case.

Certainly, a financial component doesn't assess the success of art qua art, but it does have some indication of how distributed an artwork may be, which may be an indication of some degree of comparitive success within a particular media format.

who is this ebert guy again?

[shadowrat]

He's not a game critic. He's a MOVIE critic. He's watched trailers of games and commented on them with the perspective of a movie critic. Did he play portal? Did he play Braid? Did he play bioshock? Did he play WACO? No.

Now i'm going to play the part of the snob. Even if he did, he's unqualified to judge them. Roger Ebert does not understand the vocabulary of gaming. He hasn't played enough FPS to judge the waco game as an experience beyond you run and shoot people.

Not that i'm defending the waco game as art. i've never played it myself. I don't go into it thinking the point of the experience is to shoot people however. shooting people is common place to gamers. to someone who has played a number of FPS games, they are likely not paying much attention to the fact that they are shooting people. Someone who doesn't instinctively control an fps is likely to spend more time trying to figure out how to move, how to shoot, than to absorb any kind of message or mood the game is trying to convey.

Having gone to art school, i know that art snobs think the knowledge you bring to viewing the art is important in critiquing it. Having a thorough knowledge of principles of design and color theory is essential to being an art snob. Games have their own vocabulary and history, and if you don't posess it, you are just a schmoe saying, "i could have put a red square on a black canvas."

Re:Then

[MrMarket]

and take gymnastics and diving and figure skating out of the olympics then?

Yes, please.

Re:They can be art

[shadowbearer]

  No. Not war itself. War is ugly, not beautiful. Killing people and destroying things is not in itself an art form and is certainly not beautiful to anyone but a psychotic. The aim of any really good commander is to win the battle or the war with the minimum of casualties and destruction - on both sides.

  I think what Tzu was referring to was strategy and tactics - the methodology used to prosecute the war, and I agree with him there - a well-crafted and executed battle plan can have an elegance and beauty all it's own, especially if it achieves it's intended result with the least amount of mayhem possible. ...and yes, I've read it. Several times. The man was a genius.

SB

 

Re:Art For Whom?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention, many games are very linear, i.e. like a movie you follow a set path through the story to a predetermined conclusion. There's merely interactivity and the chance that you'll fail at executing what in a movie is already determined circumstances and have to restart from a previous point. Some games are more open-ended, and move towards multiple outcomes(alternate endings, anyone?)

Successfully navigating the game from beginning to end is little different from a movie plot. Even more open-ended games can be thought of as movies with deleted scenes or alternate imaginings of scenes. I think Mr. Ebert the Waterboy is mad because Gatorade not only refreshes your body with lost electrolytes, it tastes better, too. Gaaaaaatooorrraaaaaaaadddee... :D

Re:Art For Whom?

[mqduck]

What's so fundamentally different about finishing a game or finishing a book?

Re:Shadow of the Colossus

[EdZ]

He's Begging the Question. He defines 'games' as 'interactive stories that aren't art', then uses this to prove that games aren't art.

Yes.

[Brain-Fu]

Art is any conscious creation that adds beauty or significance to our otherwise empty existence. (That's my own personal definition).

To quote Nietzsche, "Art is the proper task of life."

Games, much like the opera, are a combination of many distinct forms of art (imagery, music, storytelling, etc), and also constitute a form of art unto themselves.

Ebert can stuff it.

The medium does not determine art

[aricusmaximus]

Mr. Ebert is incorrect for the very reason that the medium does not determine art.

Writing is often used with an objective - to communicate inventory, describe an actual scene, give orders.

Rhythm and rhyming may be used to aid in memorization, to aid in oral recollection.

Pictures, video are used for documentation, recorded evidence.

Wood, marble, steel is shaped to create buildings, stairs, chairs, eating utensils or religious relics.

Bodies move with precision in order to build, cook, or fight.

Interactive computer programs and simulations exist to educate, train, provide guided assistance on tasks, or obtain information.

At some point we get art out of all these mediums. We decorate the urn, make our religious icons more elaborate, tweak our oral histories to make them more fun to listen to, arrange our photo shots, play with the beats, create a more elaborate melody. The medium changes from straight functionality more and more to creation for aesthetics, to elicit an emotional response rather than a strict material/practical goal.

For me this point in video games (interactive computer programs and simulations), was definitely reached when playing "Planescape: Torment" back in the early 2000's. Yes, ostensibly you have a clear goal, and you can win the game. But the dialog and overall plot elements are such that I was immersed in thought, absorbed by the characterization and concepts. For others in my rough age group (cutting our teeth in the mid 80's to 90's) it may be games like "Myst" or "Psychonauts", Infocom's "Trinity", "Grim Fandango", or even a silly satire like Mystery Science Theater 3000 Presents "Detective" (http://www.wurb.com/if/game/146); more modern might be Katamari Damacy. Yes, please get off my lawn all you newfangled Xbox360 and Nintendo DS gamers.

If someone's never had an aesthetic moment with a video game it simply means that they haven't found that game yet.

The most artistic game I've played...

[lumbricus]

and one that I think does not fall to Ebert's "games are goal directed" criticisms: Jason Rohrer's "Passage" http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/ I highly recommend it!

Re:Shadow of the Colossus

[AlamedaStone]

Art has a deeper meaning than what it directly presents. Art uses its medium to make a subtler point that is separate from the medium.

I often have the conversation with a friend, an abstract sculptor and painter, about What Art Is. Some artists do not have a "deeper meaning", they are simply making art for art's sake - an aesthetic pulled from purpose for the sake of the pleasure of seeing it. So then What Is Art?

We generally end up back at the conclusion that the only reasonable definition of art is its impact on the viewer. Taking that perspective to the extreme, there is no such thing as "bad art", because the viewer just discounts as art that which does not move him. Some might even view a sunset as art, drawn by a divine being. Bearing that in mind, it is patently absurd that games could never be an artistic form of expression.

I believe this decision rests with the viewer. I suppose the viewer could choose to see something as "bad art", rather than "not art". It seems to me that such a viewer is choosing to put someone else's definition of art before his own, though - and I don't believe that is reasonable. Still, if that is his choice, then it is bad art for him - and therefore it is bad art in at least one instance, and so it can be called bad art. (So I lied, there is bad art, but it exists only as a result of poor self-worth.)

Ultimately, though, What Art Is seems as useful as a debate over Does God Exist. You buy it or you don't, but such conclusions are drawn from personal experience and reflection, not debate.

Re:Shadow of the Colossus

[Dun Malg]

Apart from them, what other examples of games that could count as art are there?

Doesn't matter! At this point, we've already advanced "games" to the same position as "novels" in his own example. Once you show that some games are definitely art, it becomes a matter of subjective tastes what constitutes "art" in a game. Ebert's real problem is that he doesn't understand that the aspects of interactivity and free will within a game are only slightly less constrained than someone watching a movie. You can't go read a newspaper in a Full Metal Super Warrior 2 FPS game. The creators of games already have a path in mind for you--- they just don't lead you by the nose down it like a movie writer does.

Re:Shadow of the Colossus

[Dun Malg]

However, Tetris does not. Tetris has a single obvious purpose, and no underlying message.

Are you kidding? If a douchebag can frame an untouched piece of engineering graph paper and claim it as art (saw it hanging in a gallery in Santa Fe) then you certainly can't say Tetris isn't art. The definition of art is completely subjective. Art merely has to evoke something that the materials alone do not. Your suggestion that it has to be a "message" is incorrect. It need only be a feeling... and it doesn't even have to be the feeling the artist intended. If something on a computer makes someone feel something that the mere flipping of bits doesn't normally make them feel, then it's art. If you're going to suggest that you know how Tetris makes everyone else feel, you're a fool.

Ebert

[amoeba1911]

Ebert commenting on games is like deaf person commenting on music or a blind person commenting on paintings. Just like you need to hear to understand music and you need to see to understand painting, you need to be able to play it to understand a game.