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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)."
Pinball games are closer to art then pc / video games.
And a lot of work goes in to the play field in them.
Paper Mario isn't art? Silent Hill isn't art? Pikmin isn't art? Dead Space isn't art? Fable isn't art? There's so many games that have an amazing art direction. So, just because that art is placed in an environment that sets goals, it isn't art anymore? Pikmin would be the exact same experience if we replaced it with Atari graphics? Silent Hill would be just as scary if Pyramid Head was nothing more than a capital T chasing your character that looks like a Y?
Can the artifacts please either die or off or evolve? Please? It's really hindering the progress of the new generation when the old generation is brainwashing the current generation into believing crap like that. Sheesh.
Disclaimer: Yes, I know that many of you are in the current generation. I'm not talking about people who get it; I'm talking about the average 'Murican that believes whatever Fox News spits out.
The dude (Ebert, or whatever his real name is) is just playing king-on-a-hill. A hundred years ago, movies weren't considered art. At all. Neither was photography.
The crap he shills has gotten recognition as 'art' and he's just protecting it's turf.
He's just another old fuck who needs to die and get out of the way. Some people ossify and become human obstacles, some don't.
Now get off his lawn.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Wrong. Stupid, as well. I've experienced video games as art (multiple times) long before you made this ignorant comment. I guarantee most other gamers will say the same.
The Same Egotistical Blowhard says:
I could name quite a few, but the one classic that comes to mind is Final Fantasy 6. Good game, Roger. By the way, why did you mention poets twice in that quote? You must be going senile (hence your failed argument).
To be honest, I think Roger is just trolling... I mean, nobody can be that stupid and ignorant, right? Right?
Roger Ebert should lay off the fatty foods.
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.
See, now, I think what's really happening here is a terminological mismatch.
So, do you really not make any distinction between, say, the short stories I wrote in elementary school, and a work by Charles Dickens?