Roger Ebert: VIDYA GAEMS CAN'T BE ART!!1

[-=DarlSephiroth666=-]

I thought you were an English major or something, SMA. I'm disappoint.

 

[ScottishMartialArts]

I thought you were an English major or something, SMA. I'm disappoint.

Classics, which is actually the better field for budding grammar nazis, since you actually study grammar in Latin and Greek, where as such "restrictive rules" have long since fallen out of instructional fashion in English departments.

At any rate, I shall forever hang my head in shame for not catching that typo fast enough.

 

[HanoverF]

Art Critic is probably the single biggest bullshit job in the world. Film critic is up there in the vicinity, and while I usually agree with Ebert's views on films he's got his head up his ass on this one.

His final point seems to be that Games are too much about business. There's an old saying 'They don't call it ShowArt.' but would anyone argue films aren't/will never be art?

 

[Robot]

Of course video games can be art, which is the technically proficient combined with a certain ineffable something we'll call "inspiration". There's no real rubric to evaluate what sets apart the truly excellent video games is the problem, so you get people like SMA trying to compare them to literature or films, which is about as wrong as evaluating literature by the standards of classical music. I mean, even a well written algorithm or a beautiful mathematical proof is bordering on art, so to suggest that video games couldn't be is absurd. Whether they're there yet or not is another question, but I'd submit Betrayal at Krondor as having come the closest.

 

[-=DarlSephiroth666=-]

Video games are centered around gameplay. The graphics, music, etc are just that, eye/ear candy. You can remove/simplify them, and the gameplay will still be the same.

Gameplay, however, means player skills, competition, etc. Can soccer be art? No, it can't, no matter how pretty the soccer field where it's played is.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Meh, I agree with him.

 

[Zed]

roger ebert thought The Knowing was good so what the fuck does he know

 

[Robot]

Video games are centered around gameplay. The graphics, music, etc are just that, eye/ear candy. You can remove/simplify them, and the gameplay will still be the same.

Gameplay, however, means player skills, competition, etc. Can soccer be art? No, it can't, no matter how pretty the soccer field where it's played is.

Soccer has no aspect that allows it to communicate something beyond the confines of that gameplay, or something "more than itself". Video games do. Poor analogy.

 

[Beautiful Clown Painting]

Egbert, as a film critic, is the most bland, spineless film critic there ever was. I dread reading what he has to say about video-games, in fact I don't give a shit about it.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

roger ebert thought The Knowing was good so what the fuck does he know

But did he think it was art?

 

[-=DarlSephiroth666=-]

Soccer has no aspect that allows it to communicate something beyond the confines of that gameplay, or something "more than itself".

Such as? Watching a cut-scene?

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

roger ebert thought The Knowing was good so what the fuck does he know

He also liked the Phantom Menace.

Anyway...

Personally, I view the video game as a medium of art in a similar fashion to comic books. I wholeheartedly agree with what Alan Moore said that comics are the combination of the best elements of multiple mediums, most notably film and literature.

With video games, I think we can look to it as a proto-film where the element of interaction and total connection is added to a visual and textual narrative, combined with things like architecture, for what else would be a comparison point for the actual game design? It's not so much a "separate" art form, but one that combines a lot of others and makes a few additions of its own.

But what I also think is that games are not a very fertile ground for creating art. The industry is driven by such vast consumerism, design-by-executive and giant publishers that most games will always be equivalent of Michael Bay movies. And then we have pretentious shit like Heavy Rain that tries to be artsy at all costs but misses the point. Games are like Hollywood, essentially.

I myself think that games have the most potential as art when they're used a narrative platform, as demonstrated by PS:T, Grim Fandango, the Monkey Island trilogy, Legacy of Kain series, KotOR2 and MotB. It's not even limited to linearity and non-linearity, which is something only games can truly do among all mediums, but rather the interactivity and connection. If we look at the action scene, a video game takes it to a different direction by placing it in the hands of the player. RPGs and adventure games take it a step further by involving the player more with the narrative through extended gameplay.

And of course, some games can be considered great art purely by their craftmanship. Though I don't believe such a game yet exists.

 

[Robot]

Soccer has no aspect that allows it to communicate something beyond the confines of that gameplay, or something "more than itself".

Such as? Watching a cut-scene?

Yes, but more obviously any writing or even just the narrative arc or arcs themselves. I understand why "gameplay" might hamper someone's ability to see it as potentially artistic, but I think this just arises from the fundamental difference in creator/audience distinction of video games and you could swallow the idea a little bit easier if you think of the technical challenges a musician faces in playing a piece or, again in analogy to math, the intermediate steps taken in proving a theorem.

 

[Lumpy]

Seriously. By and large, gamers spend their time playing games instead of reading great literature.

Pretty much. I can't help but roll my eyes whenever somebody recommends playing a game "for the story" - I have yet to see any game rise to the quality of some books I've read, and I'm hardly a well-read person.
On the other hand, I strongly disagree - video games can be art, in so far as any form of media can be art. It implies a coherent usage of the medium that immerses the audience and causes emotion. In my opinion, at least, for what it's worth - it's hard to accurately debate something when the terms themselves are vague.
In the case of gaming, for a game to be "art", I think it should be as non-mechanistic as possible. And RPG can't be art, because character sheet upon character sheet detracts from the experience. A game like Braid, on the other hand, I would call artsy, because the simplicity of the mechanics, plus the coherence of the gameplay, music, art and story (note, not integration, but coherence) create a unique emotional experience.

I myself think that games have the most potential as art when they're used a narrative platform, as demonstrated by PS:T, Grim Fandango, the Monkey Island trilogy, Legacy of Kain series, KotOR2 and MotB.

Also, guys, if a game has a good story that might make a good novel, it isn't necessarily art - much like a kindergarten interpretation of Romeo and Juliet won't be art, even though the source material is.

 

[Radisshu]

He's not qualified to make such statements, really. I think his fault lies in how he thinks the category "art" must have anything at all to do with the quality of the product. Are awful paintings not art, while beautiful paintings are? I don't think he would agree with that statement. But he seems to argue that awful paintings are art by virtue of beautiful paintings, which makes no sense.

 

[relootz]

What is Robert Egbert?

 

[Grunker]

Meh, I agree with him.

son/daughter i am disapoint

people have this notion that "art" means "good art", just like "rpg" means "good rpg"

Art is connected to aesthetics, it has to evoke some kind of emotions, be it rapture or disgust. That's why dull things can't be art.

Ah. So video games are dull not only by product but by definition.

Erp Erp.

CK is absolutely right.

 

[-=DarlSephiroth666=-]

Soccer has no aspect that allows it to communicate something beyond the confines of that gameplay, or something "more than itself".

Such as? Watching a cut-scene?

Yes, but more obviously any writing or even just the narrative arc or arcs themselves.

But isn't writing/narrative arc a different medium? It's only complementary to gameplay. Video games are based around gameplay, the story is just flavor. Unless you're talking about "interactive movies", of course.

 

[Radisshu]

The problem with defining art is that many pretentious asshats refuse to include disciplines they think of as ugly or in some other way unpleasant, conveniently forgetting the subjective nature of such things.

If theater is art, then sitcoms are art. If Michelangelo is art, so are the drawings I made as a child. If Bach is art, so is My Chemical Romance. "Is it art?" is a redundant and unnecessary question, and is similar to people claiming that musical genres they dislike "isn't music", even though it would be defined as music objectively.

Video games normally consist of graphics, prose, and music, how couldn't they be art?

 

[-=DarlSephiroth666=-]

If theater is art, then sitcoms are art. If Michelangelo is art, so are the drawings I made as a child. If Bach is art, so is My Chemical Romance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics

What a pleb.

 

[Higher Game]

Classics, which is actually the better field for budding grammar nazis, since you actually study grammar in Latin and Greek, where as such "restrictive rules" have long since fallen out of instructional fashion in English departments.

I don't think so. Many English departments in even average state schools will flunk you if you have more than 2 serious grammar errors in a paper. The standards are even higher in private colleges.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

art = art

See, no adjectives or anything that implies a minimum standard of quality

good art = good art

bad art = bad art

See, now we can determine which is what, and let's not even take personal taste into account

 

[Radisshu]

If theater is art, then sitcoms are art. If Michelangelo is art, so are the drawings I made as a child. If Bach is art, so is My Chemical Romance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aesthetics

What a pleb.

I know of the subject. Could you please explain, though, why some people prefer sitcoms to theater, or My Chemical Romance to Bach, if certain things simply are better on an objective level? The philosophy behind aesthetics likes to pretend it isn't at all affected by culture.

 

[Vaarna_Aarne]

I myself think that games have the most potential as art when they're used a narrative platform, as demonstrated by PS:T, Grim Fandango, the Monkey Island trilogy, Legacy of Kain series, KotOR2 and MotB.

Also, guys, if a game has a good story that might make a good novel, it isn't necessarily art - much like a kindergarten interpretation of Romeo and Juliet won't be art, even though the source material is.

However, all of my examples also possessed good execution (writing) of the said story, and many instances of excellent presentation by voice acting as well. This alone sets it apart from a kindergarten play. The thing is, these games are on the same line as good novels and movies, but they also do things differently.

Let us look at KotOR2, for example. It is a good example of a story that would actually be diminished if adopted to a different medium. It depends on the use of different protagonists, choices and interaction with characters. It is half-way between a movie and a book, but also to a direction that a game can go to.

But what it also elaborates is that games are a fledgling medium. The techniques of combining the visual and textual storytelling are still rudimentary, even if we have moved on from our old hero @. KotOR2 highlights what can be done with the textual and vocal elements of game narrative, but also how much further we could take it by greater possibility craftmanship of a gameworld and development of visual storytelling (choreography in dialogue). In a way, Mass Effect did take games forward as an artistic medium with the visual presentation of dialogues.

Nonetheless, I hold that the narrative is the most important aspect for a game in terms of artistic merit. All the games I listed tell good stories and present their stories well, and do so as games.

But now, for the actual and simple counter-argument:

You assume that there is a ghost barrier for something to qualify as art. Why is a kindergarten play less of art than a professional play in a theatre? Quite simple. It isn't. Both contain all the elements we associate with the artform of theatre. What they differ in is quality. And all this means is that we need to define that to be good art, the content must be good. And since the example games do so, they are good pieces of game art, albeit still rough-cut.

To say something is not art because of its quality is only prepostrious. Does a chair cease to be a chair just because it's made from inferior wood by inferior hands?

 

[Damned Registrations]

Soccer has no aspect that allows it to communicate something beyond the confines of that gameplay, or something "more than itself".

Such as? Watching a cut-scene?

Yes, but more obviously any writing or even just the narrative arc or arcs themselves.

But isn't writing/narrative arc a different medium? It's only complementary to gameplay. Video games are based around gameplay, the story is just flavor. Unless you're talking about "interactive movies", of course.

Why is it based on gameplay? Because pong was? I can guarantee the first uses of any other type of medium wouldn't be classified as art either.

One can easily make a game primarily about the narrative, with the gameplay there for 'flavour', as a way of conveying a concept differently to individual people (To go for a terrible example, whether you go for clean head snipes or multiple body shots in a first person shooter, the game is conveying the deaths of whatever you killed- but their manner of death is attuned to how YOU thought they should be killed.)

Currently gameplay and narrative are blended in very clumsy ways, like the FPS example above, or branching paths and dialogue options in a crpg. However, just because the narrative is clumsy and simple, it hardly disqualifies the genre. It's not like the raw stupidity of something like Crank 3 prevents other films from being art. I've played at least a few games that evoked significantly more emotion and thought than the average movie does.