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Roger Ebert Backs Down On Video Games As Art
Jhyrryl writes "Roger Ebert has again posted about video games. It's an apology of sorts, for having publicly said that games are not art. He wrote, 'I should not have written that entry without being more familiar with the actual experience of video games. ... My error in the first place was to think I could make a convincing argument on purely theoretical grounds. What I was saying is that video games could not in principle be Art. That was a foolish position to take, particularly as it seemed to apply to the entire unseen future of games. This was pointed out to me maybe hundreds of times.'"
Yet I declared as an axiom that video games can never be Art. I still believe this, but I should never have said so.
Then he goes on to say that there were 4,547 comments left with ~300 supporting his view. He claims it's longer than Anna Karenina, David Copperfield and The Brothers Karamazov.
... and of his dismissal of this he says, "I was too damned bull-headed."
... permanently.
What he said is that he shouldn't have said it. That he should have been more informed of video games before making that statement. But, in the end, he's still saying that video games can never be art. Ebert is bull headed. I've seen the footage where he breaks down into a fight with Siskel. A decent argument is one thing but Ebert's harder to sway than a dead mule. So he made a statement. And what you're going to get is the definition of the word 'art.' He even admits Sony bent over backwards to give him the chance to play a beautiful non-combat oriented game
Roger Ebert is a brilliant man. However, as oft occurs with brilliance, he will not admit a mistake, a misstep or that he was flat out wrong. You've squeezed all you can squeeze out of him which is basically that he regrets saying it but he still believes it is true.
We call movies art. We call literature art. We call silence art. We call a single color art. Hell, we even call graffiti art. The crudest symbols our kind could muster gets to be called art. But, goddammit, for some strange reason the second you express yourself through a series of complexly arrange ones and zeros interacting with the viewer, you can't call it art.
Mr. Ebert, I may be far younger than you and I may be far less informed than you but I cannot understand what possesses you to reserve the word art from being applied to games. I can only take solace in knowing that future generations will see it differently
My work here is dung.
Given that the man is 68 years old, has been doing movie reviews for a long time and probably one of his first experiences with video games as E.T. for the Atari 2600. I can't say I blame him for having his opinion set in stone for a while. Good to see that he's come around.
Criticizing movies is not art. Nor even a nice profession :)
Summary:
Ebert explains never played video games, refuses to play them, and bashed them based only based on his own theories. He then slightly apologizes for being an ass and confesses he does not know what art is.
http://www.object404.com
If Shadow of the Colossus isn't art I don't know what is...
Really? Is it still 1985? I mean wtf... please get in touch with the rest of human kind. http://games.slashdot.org/games/04/12/19/2350234.shtml?tid=98&tid=10
"Tell Roger to have a Coke and a smile and shut the fuck up."
Ebert admits he was foolish to reveal his opinion but maintains the opinion that video games can not be art. What he should have realized is developing an opinion without proper experience was the mistake. And he still won't invest a few hours to check out a video game. How many hours has he wasted on shitty movies? Ebert just doesn't want to be wrong so he's not going to allow himself to justify his own opinion. Still a jerk.
There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Roger Ebert has never actually played any games. And he's too stubborn now to admit he was completely wrong after probably friends exposed him to modern games.
I have two arcade machines, and I bought both because not only did I like the game play, but also the art of the game. Both are color vector graphic machines (Tempest & Star Trek), and both have beautiful displays. IMHO, the display on Tempest still can't be outdone with an LCD or plasma system. I've also studied the schematics and there is considerable art in the way the designers pushed their extremely limited systems.
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
The only two games he played were a DOS based virtual tour of Japan and a game made in Hypercard. Also that boxing game with the Sega Activator.
What is the definition of art? I once heard it described as:
Art is anything you are willing to exhibit
If I want to exhibit a turd on a stick - well that's art. You might not like it, but that does not change the facts.
If you ask me, sport games are not art.
How many artfull Madden games are there?
Video games will be recognized as art when they are displayed in a museum where retired baby boomers can be led around by a guide specializing in the art history of digital post-modernism. Oh, of course after glowing reviews in the appropriate sections of the NYT et al.
He'd do just about anything to avoid getting hit on the chin in this fight.
Art is in the eye of the beholder and I is right.
What things constitute art has always been fiercely debated. No one has definitively defined what is art and what is not. At one time there was debate whether photographs could be art. Then it was whether something generated on a computer could be art. As these things gained greater acceptance it was more accepted that they could be considered art. Roger Ebert may be a bit outdated in his interpretation of art, but there isn't any "right" answer.
Since when did something have to be "good enough" to be art? I think that would come as a surprise to Duchamp and the whole modern art establishment he had spawned.
For whoever doesn't know the story, the whole modern art phenomenon started in 1917 with a guy called Marcel Duchamp, who signed an urinal and sent it to an art gallery under the title "Fountain."
It was not the first of Duchamp's "readymades", basically just objects he found and signed, but otherwise didn't even make or anything. The first was a found bicycle wheel he signed and displayed under the name "Bicycle Wheel" in 1913. Sometimes he at least used funny names for them, like titling a shovel "Prelude To A Broken Arm" in 1915, others were like that Bicycle Wheel. But the urinal is what became famous and redefined art.
The funny thing is that Duchamp spells it out in interviews, some even much much later, that he just wanted to destroy "art". He found the whole establishment to be little more than a circle-jerk clique (not his exact words, but the general gist of it) and obsessed with form above and beyond anything else. He wanted to destroy it all. His urinal was supposed to convey the message, basically, "your work is worth as much as this urinal to me."
But funnily that's not what the art world understood. The art world suddenly found itself trying to imitate the unconventionalism and shock value of that urinal. And it's been in that rut ever since.
And funnily enough everyone seems to still don't get what Duchamp actually did there, even if you show them an interview where he says it himself. E.g., I remember an interview with Michael Craig where he explains that Duchamp actually wanted to show that even everyday objects can be beautiful and art. (No, he didn't.)
In the meantime we have a fine arts establishment where a stack of bricks is called art. A tent made of PVC tubes is art. A set of 4 folded and straightened sheets of paper is called art. (No, really, I've actually seen exactly and literally that in someone's private collection.) A glass of water on a shelf is art. Or a hack like Hirst can pay someone else to put a grid of random coloured dots on a rectangle, sign it and not only get it called art, but be acclaimed for it. (Here's one sample of his 300+ pictures made of dots: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/08/Hirst-LSD.jpg.) A rectangular box made of sheet metal can be called art. A flickering TV in an empty room can be called art. A crucifix in a jar of piss can be called art.
We're in a world where calling someone's work "pretty" is the most grievous insult you can get away with in front of a professor, in some arts colleges. But it is an insult and use it only if you want to make an enemy. Nowadays you don't want "pretty", you want "thought provoking", and "original", and such.
So Ebert is, what, telling me that it isn't art because it's completely unlike what he calls art? Has he checked with the aforementioned modern art establishment? Because it seems to me like that being different is exactly what would make it "art" there.
(And I've played plenty of games which fit the "thought provoking" criterion too. But then I'm the kind of guy easily provoked in that aspect. E.g., Chucky Egg provoked much thought about the struggle of the working class against the oppressor chickens.;))
Heck, probably the best example is another painting I've seen in someone's private collection. Essentially it looked like a screenshot of Tetris. No, literally. I'm not exaggerating. Yes, I know what "literally" means. I mean it. It looked not just sorta like Tetris, but exactly like a screenshot of Tetris. Well, except for the part that in actual Tetris two rows should have been removed because they were full, but obviously on the painting they hadn't been. I wonder if it was supposed to be symbolic of the unfairness of life or something ;)
So basically, let me get that straight: _that_ is art, or so I'm told, but Ebert tells me that if it were actually animated as a game of Tetris, it wouldn't be art any more? Why? It's the same image.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"Maybe they're art, just not great art. You seem to be looking for absolutes where there should be none."
Countless works of art has been created, most of them do not measure up to Shakespeare, and a great majority of that art can't be properly compared because they are in a different medium (would you compare The David to MacBeth?). All because they can't measure up or can't be compared does not mean games are not art.
...this time he's way wrong, IMHO. I still haven't found any game that can be considered art per se, but, ultimately, you can make art out of everything. As John Lennon better said it, "I'm an artist, and if you give me a tuba, I'll bring you something out of it."
I could make the argument that not all games are automatically "art". Soccer is not art. But with video games, they almost have to contain art. Your avatar is art. The background is art. I could probably find more individual pieces of art in the WoW universe than in the Louvre.
I just can't see anyone saying that an avatar is not a work of art, to some degree. Yes I realize that this means the doodles in the back of your notebook are technically art too, but I'm okay with that.
I am currently attending grad school at a school of art & design (don't worry--I am on the design side of things). I take a lot of classes with game design majors, so I've heard plenty of grumbling about Ebert in regards to this. In almost all my classes, the 'what is art?' conversation comes up at least once during the semester.
I agree with the game design folk on the core issue that games can be art. In general, i find it to be a matter of shooting oneself in the foot to claim that any genre or craft or ______ has not the potential for being understood/criticized/viewed as art---even if you disdain it. (note: you still ar entitled to call it bad/unsuccessful art).
BUT HERE IS MY REAL POINT... This debate is often not held incorrectly in a vacuum when it is usually in the context of someone defending or arguing their craft/skill/trade as art. But, what is is so great about art or being an artist? Why does every comic book illustrator, game designer, sandwhich-maker desire so deeply to be called an artist or an architect? I think this is a really integral part of the larger conversation that gets passed over and we jump too quickly into the 'what is art?' debate.
Frankly, I think there is way too much cultural value invested in the title of 'art' or 'artist'. It's just another practice/profession. It is no more noble than others.
And, really, the word has become pretty cheap in the past fifty years due to overuse and incorrect application. Even the high/conceptual/modern/gallery version of the word/title has become so all-encompassing that it risks obliteration.
I also see this problem cropping up with the title of 'designer', but that is another conversation.
Games aren't art. Games are an experience. The interaction between you and a controller responding to onscreen actions isn't art. If you play in a graceful or elegant way, one might say you did it in an artful way, but that has nothing to do with the game itself.
The game might have art surrounding it as window dressing to the actual game experience -- graphics, music, etc. But they aren't technically part of the game -- if I made a modern art piece out of a Monopoly board, the game of Monopoly still wouldn't be art, it would be *a game*.
Again, it all comes down to modern gamers being confused about exactly what games are. The graphics have nothing to do with the actual gameplay. And gameplay is not art.
I would love to post this under my name, but I know it will be torn to shreds by everyone and modded down to hell, so there's little point. It's sad that people can't take a point of view and respect it for what it is rather than attack it because it threatens their precious little worldview.
Controversy, bemusement, repudiation: the three stages of a classic troll.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
So he still thinks all video games up until now are NOT art. Rubbish.
The idea that it might make sense to differentiate between "interactive" things and "non-interactive" things and define this line as the line between art and non-art strikes me as odd. There is no non-interactive art. If you read a book, it is your own mind that paints the picture described by the author's word. If you watch a movie, it's your mind that creates the interpretation that gives the work meaning. Art is always interactive; you interact with a piece of art. This is what gives art its meaning. Without interaction, any piece of art would be utterly dead and meaningless.
He wrote the screenplay for the masterpiece Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
He's saying something much more honest, insightful, and true than he's getting credit for.
He seems to be saying that he not only could be wrong, but that he really isn't qualified to comment. He's admitting that he's not willing to get the required experience (play enough games) to be able to comment and be taken seriously. Given these two things, he's bowing out.
Now, it does seem like it took a lot to get it here. It seems he's acknowledging that he was "bull-headed" and that he's mostly writing this because of the barrage of criticism he's received. But what he's actually said is right on -- he isn't qualified to comment, and if he really wants to, he'd have to both solidly define art and play some games, which he's not prepared to do.
I don't have a problem with "backpedaling". I don't like that it took him this long, and I do wish he was a bit more explicit and humble in his wording. But he's realized exactly what he should have, given his experience, and he's said so. I wouldn't expect more.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
There are millions of gamers have played many great games that are obviously art. If photographs, paintings, novels and movies can be art then obviously video games can be art too. Anybody who thinks otherwise (such as Ebert) either doesn't know what art is, doesn't know what videogames are, or both.
WE THE GAMERS, say that games can be art. Its not our problem if Ebert is not able to recognize the art in them. I'm not able to recognize the art in most paintings either, but when it comes to art in video games, I know it when I see it.
Here's my challenge. Find at least a dozen people who have played most of the way through at least two of the following games:
ICO
Planescape: Torment
Flower
Portal
System Shock
Katamari Damacy
World of Goo
Osmos
Now ask those people if they believe that games can be art. I bet at least 10 out of 12 will say YES. Its impossible to thoroughly play games like these and not be altered at least a little bit by the experience.
The emotional impact of ICO, the clever writing and puzzles of Planescape, the zen relaxation of Flower or Osmos, the smooth dissonance of Portal, the quirky and unique mechanics of World of Goo and Katamari (not to mention the latter's very colorful environments and wacky soundtrack)... these are things that all gamers should experience. These things are ART!
Captcha: "playing"
pac man is a form of absurdist art. the dadaists would have loved it
you can't tell me otherwise
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I think Ebert's arguments here are very weak, for example:
A game is clearly a form of expression, and a media container. I don't see how you can argue that the container can never contain art.
Small tangent, but reading Ebert's musings on video games reminds me of how my family sees computers; a "computer" is a series of refrigerator-sized cabinets with spinning tape drives, output on green-bar paper, etc. No amount of evidence will convince them that anything smaller is anything other than a "toy", as if there was no progression from the 70s homebrew era. Ironically they have no problems keeping a contradictory thought that the machines they *do* use (Macs, PCs, other devices, etc.) are extremely useful, have made their lives much better, etc., but they are still toys in their eyes.
Maybe it really is a generational thing; if you know just enough about the history of computers, but without the proper context, you can draw the wrong conclusion that there has essentially been no progress in computers or games, regardless of what you see in front of you. I coined the phrase to describe my family as having "Escher's Syndrome", where you can see the endless winding staircase, but because it doesn't make sense to you, the brain just stops dealing with it.
I have been to a museum, and I did not like it. I have seen art on the TV, and I did not like it. I have read art debates in the new papers, and I did not enjoy their meaningless bickering over made up issues. Art is a pointless zero-sum game, where people compete for social status in a closed community.
Please let games be games. Something which can entertain, teach and move, without the silly social trickeries of the art world.
Posting to undo unintended mod.
I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
I don't know what art is...or so I used to believe but now I have come to two firm conclusions, one serious and one humorous.
If it invokes an emotional response within the observer it is art.
This makes art relative to the observer, and that's the way it really should be.
If it's in colour it's pornography, if it's in black and white it's art
I once saw life sized prints of Helmet Newton's work in the Barbican, but thankfully they were all black and white; a museum is no place to be staring at 6" tall blonde bombshells in the nude with a pair of viscous dogs straining against their leashes.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Most are cookie-cutter Hollywood trash designed to extract as much cash from the public as possible, while indoctrinating us with glorifying images of war that is.
Even the "best" all-time classics and Oscar winning films are usually based on books.
Why exactly is a for-profit business model seen as art?
Science : Proprietary , Knowledge : Open Source
Silence is music. Which is art.
A single colour is painting. Which is art.
Grafitti is painting. Which is art.
And if the symbols of our early ancestors are crude that does not mean one can not find the artistic meroit ont them.
Now games.
The problem for games is that nobody treat them as art. And thus, they aren't. It is that simple really.
Games are rated, criticized, valued or derided based on many criteria like playability, graphics etc. But pretty much nobody judges them on artistic terms (and how could you? There is no plot or character development if we want to consider them akin to opera, theatre or cinema, there is minimal aesthetic exploration if we want to think about them in plastic terms).
For games to be considered art, the people interested in games would need to be the first to judge them base on aesthetic terms.
As long as the best judgement that can be offered about games is "WHOA! Look at the resolution! And how many zombies I killed in level 2356!" then they will continu to be weigthed as the light diversion they are.
Now that that is settled, I have to say, there is no way games are or will ever be art.
Thank you.
I suspect when movies first came out, some book critics said they could never be art. I also read where Aristotle said books (reading) would spell the death of civilization.
Ebert ought to play Grand Theft Auto IV all the way through and then sit through all 3 of the Godfather movies (which are considered examples of movie art) and then critique both. He might learn something.
P.S. Rap isn't really music according to musicians. Shoot. Realism wasn't even considered art when it first started. Neither was photography.
I love cracked.com, but that article is wrong.
I could list 100's of games not target to 17 year olds.
There happens to be a popular market for those games, but that doesn't mean all game are built for them.
Nintendo as an excellent line of games not designed for 17 year olds.
BTW: people 15 to 14 general like those types of games.
Action movies make a lot of money and are very popular. That doesn't mean there are only action movies.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The game Portal was excellent and creative. I speculate that it is also an allegory to abortion.
...who gives a mad f*ck what he has to say about anything? Let him say whatever he wants. He has the same right to say whatever he wants about anything, just like everyone else in the country. Why in the world should it cause such a ruckus? My reaction to his comments were "Ok Grandad, go back to bed now..." I'm just kind of wondering why any one really cares about anything he has to say about technology or current trends or video games. The man obviously pines for the days when people went to the "theater" to view a "cinema" and then he can go write about it in his "news paper column" and then enjoy drinks at the writer's lounge of the Sun Times. These new-fangled gizmos and internets and what not simply aren't for him.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
but since my opinion has collided with your unquestionable authority, i am crushed at the complete and utter reversal of my opinion
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
In other words... he collapsed under the pressure of a hundred thousand rabid fan boys.
/* No Comment */
Artistic merit has to do with far more things than personal preferences.
When thos people in Altamira painted all those wonderful animals all those many thousands of years ago, they had far more than plain superficial contenment with the prittiness of their paintings, and most importantly, we can sense that the paintings represent far more that the mere representation of a scene.
Several animal in nature do build remarkable beautiful contraptions (corals, or some bird hideouts as examples) but we know they are no art. Intentionality and context should give us our clue.
The Sistine Chappel paintings, Rodin's "Embrace" or Picasso's Guernica are other kind of fish entirely, and is not difficult to argue why.
So with all due respect, games' aesthetics have not reached those levels of sophistication, and it may very well be they never will, given that the aims of games are entirely utilitarian (gameplay, profeetiering) and normally unconcerned with aesthetic and artistic considerations of any consequence.
Maybe it is not his definition of art is less the issue. It's his definition of computer games. It does not have to be a first person shooter or jump and run to be a computer game.
Blinkenlights is partly a computer game and is widely considered art.
There are James Bond Movies that Ebert considers to be art in which a computer game plays a central role to the plot and therefore the game is an integral part of that work of art.
There numerous installations in museums that are interactive and based on a computer which essentially are computer games.
We should have a stage four, barbaric victory rituals. We have after all, fended off this fearsome beast. I think a Mortal Combat "flawless victory" ripoff with a Roger Ebert spine in there somewhere, would be appropriate for the occasion.
While that certainly has merits, and we could discuss artistic currents more in depth for the rest of the afternoon, I think it doesn't change my main points. If deviating from prescribed art forms to paint a prostitute for pure erotic value is still art (and nobody would call Manet non-art), surely deviating to include an interactive element wouldn't be any worse.
That said, though:
1. I don't think Duchamp intended even that, judging by his actual interviews. He didn't try to question what is art and what isn't, and test boundaries, or whatever. He literally says that he wanted to destroy it all. His message was basically, "art is crap".
2. Well, for better or worse, that has become the dominant current in modern art. While technically dadaism is not _all_ of it, it has at least influenced all the other aspects of it in the graphical arts.
3. Well, I've been in teams in MMOs or generally online games which would qualify as dadaism, and made me question what is a raid, after all :p
E.g., the blaster (mage) pulls with an area-effect spell, and gets insta-killed, then complains that the tank should have gotten them off him in the about 0.5 seconds it took him to faceplant. The main healer appears bunnyhopping from a side corridor (WTF was she doing in another direction than the rest of the team?), screaming "help!" and pursued by an angry mob of NPCs. The secondary healer is busy pretending he's a mage and doing pitiful damage with his attacks, and never even heals himself. Seriously, having to bandage a "healer" when I'm one of the melee DPS-ers, is enough to make me question a lot of things. Another guy is running against a wall. And after the wipe is complete, the tank suddenly pipes up with, "soz, was afk. back now." :p
If that's not dadaism, I don't know what is ;)
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
" And what you're going to get is the definition of the word 'art.' "
That's really the whole point. This isn't an argument about videogames - it's an argument about art. Ebert has a defintion of art that isn't well encapsulated by videogames, that art is about the artist giving the viewer a specific narrative. I'm sure Mr. Ebert has nothing against videogames per se, he just has a limited view of art like lots of other argumentative art students.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
Duchamp was basically a troll in the art world. He wasn't out to make art - he was out to fuck with people. And many of his art submissions (including "Fountain") were done under psuedonyms, where he would then write letters to the editor stating, "Oh, I thought that guy's Fountain thing was great!" So you could basically say that Duchamp was a member of Anonymous.
Libertarians somehow believe that private businesses should be stronger than governments but weaker than individuals.
...that he was at least annoyed by everyone declaring him irrelevant. I do agree that his age doesn't have anything to do with it, except that it leads some people to excuse his inexcusable behavior.
he should send out Another email apologizing for pretending now, and that he didn't realize people who read his words understand them... as we ot to.
He should have just prepended "The vast majority of "
"Were I called on to define, very briefly, the term Art, I should call it 'the reproduction of what the Senses perceive in Nature through the veil of the soul.' The mere imitation, however accurate, of what is in Nature, entitles no man the sacred name of 'Artist'"
So, does Hans Memling's Last Judgment Triptych look like art to him? After all, it's got nasty stuff like demons throwing some people into fire. Or all the other medieval and renaissance depictions of hell? Some make Doom or Painkiller seem tame by comparison.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Name one? Barry Norman. And without the asshattery.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Norman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Film_programme
Art defined by historians isn't any more useful of a definition than what Ebert provided or quoted in his article. But for that matter, of what use is a definition of art? It seems primarily to serve the purpose of separating groups of works into different categories so that critics and buyers can focus on some works while blatantly dismiss others.
Take Andy Warhol for example. Many of his works are no more art than what your kid drew or what game Sony made. Nonetheless his work is considered some of the greatest and controversial to grace the world of art. When you call someone's works art you give them more power and credibility.
Art is a word of power and not of meaning. Much like the words "terrorist" or "savages" give power to the accusers without providing any more useful information about the accused.
I the video game C.R.U.S.H isn't art, then no game is art.
Ebert really should have varied his example pictures to include things other than medieval RPGs.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
I won't touch your "or something" statement. :)
Some of the most engrossing and emotional stories, or parts of stories, I've encountered have been through video games. Sure, many video games don't aim to do that, but many do. Here are some examples that I experienced.
In Rainbow Six (and some of it's sequels), I worked hard to save hostages; I know they're only pixels and yet, the emotional depths of my failure when hostages ran into my line of fire as I was shooting their remaining captor was more memorable than any other failure (or success) in the story. Perhaps it wasn't the intent of the developers to make that, but their quest for "realism" in reactions and ballistics made it possible in a way I'd never seen before. I suppose this doesn't count as art, as it was not deliberate.
In Aliens vs Predator, I crept huddled in the Alien-infested tunnels of a wrecked outpost, listening with ever-increasing panic to the movement tracker, and eyeing my ever-decreasing ammunition count. I was screwed. Those missions conveyed superbly the emotion of being prey. You think a horror movie is bad? Imagine thinking you have control over where the protagonist goes, and he's going to die anyways. With a movie, I can stop watching, or fast forward past a scene, or cover my eyes until that part is over. In AvP, only I could progress the plot, and I had to fight through my fears, drowning in my fear, sweat trickling coldly down my back, or else I would never see the rest of the story. The direct interaction I had with it meant that it was impossible for me to completely escape those feelings. With lights on and after having taken a week-long break from the game, the cold panic gripped me within minutes (seconds?) the next time I started playing it.
In Call of Duty 4, I clung desperately to my harness as our helicopter raced to escape ground zero of an impending nuclear device's explosion. Then, one of our escorts, who had saved my ass several times not ten minutes before, was critically damaged, and her helicopter went down. Marines leave no one behind. (I don't want to die! Get us the hell out of here! We'll never make it! We can't leave her to die here.) So, we fought our way to her copter, dragged her out of it, and got the hell out of dodge. Almost. Sweet victory has rarely soured so quickly. I get choked up about it now. A fictional character, and I'm emotionally invested in my failure to save her, despite knowing that it was scripted, that I could not save her (or myself). In my Rainbow Six example, my victory soured much more sharply, but this was deliberate. This was a Kobayashi Maru which I cannot forget, which the developers gave me. How is that not artful storytelling? It ranks up there on its emotional impact with some of the more gut-wrenching parts of Saving Private Ryan. (Players of ALL of the Call of Duty single player campaigns will likely have memorable stories like this.)
In World of Warcraft, I helped a father rekindle a relationship with his son. His son was trapped in a crusade which no longer was heroic, believing (from a young age) that his father was exiled as a traitor. After I helped him see the truth, he forsook the corrupted Scarlet Crusade, and we made our way to a reunion with his father. When Taelan Fordring was caught and murdered at his father's feet, just at the moment of his redemption, I was witness to an epic event. With his son lying dead before him, Tirion proceeded to exact vengeance, and then rekindled his vows of heroism (and his connection with the Light). It was ... awesome. To watch him do what any father would want to do when facing his child's murders was very emotional for me - perhaps because I was holding my newborn baby close to my chest at the time and prayin
Video games are not as avant garde as monochrome paintings but games like katamari damacy and shadow of the colossus must be classified as strange or at the very least - artistic.
Can't say a movie about video games isn't / wasn't art.
Personally I think the first one from 1982 looks more artistic than what appears in the trailer for Tron Legacy.
Ebert is just holding the video game wrong.
Shadow of the Colossus.
At last someone in the younger generation reacting to the stasis of State art in the west. Duchamp has been the blanket excuse for the work of many hundreds of talentless jerks for the past twenty years, most of whom produce interesting entertainment such as the Victorian natural history specimen collector and curate Damien Hirst! Most of them are incapable of creating and handling aesthetic meaning and are paranoid to boot.
%thingsyouenjoy% are art. Or, %thingsyoucandowell% are art.
A mountain climber says that's an art.
An auto mechanic says that's an art.
A librarian says that's art...and on ad nauesum.