Also, be sure to post his reply (if you get one, that is).
Lucas Paakh
@Kajenx
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Comments
They are most definitely art.
Anything that can be composed in varying ways based off the creativity of the creator, and then furthermore enjoyed by viewers of it is art.
Even if a game has no story to it there's still art, the visual art of the models in the game, the gameplay mechanics are their own kind of art.
To me, games are just paintings I can interact with.
It pains me that people think it's not even art, but I suppose you can't force your own stuff onto others. Also, Mr. Ebert is an old timer so this is a pretty natural thing for him to feel.
Your message is really well constructed and brings up points excellently, if his mind CAN be changed on the subject, this is the message I would want to show him.
I was really surprised when I read his arguments because he just seemed to write the idea of it off completely without even thinking about it, which was strange seeing as the so called "world of high art" wouldn't even consider most of cinema relevant and you'd think that would make him more accepting.
Art is about expression - a layer of abstraction (the medium) wrapped around an idea that the observer can experience indirectly. Video games can and usually do contain text, images, and sounds, so if games CAN'T be art, then neither can poetry, prose, paintings, sculptures, movies, or music. My empirical evidence is Lun Calsari's 'The Way', whose plot, characters, and storytelling are far deeper than can be found in the vast majority of films released today.
In fact, video games have even more (and unprecedented) potential as an artistic medium than most conventional art forms because the observer is involved in creating the experience. A well designed game has its players use their given degree of control imaginatively - the one and only reflective art form.
I can see where Mr. Ebert would make the error he did, though. Most video games released today (especially on consoles with fat price tags) are clearly not art. The shallow, generic repetition of an MMORPG (or an MMO-styled single player RPG, which is becoming disturbingly common) or the dickwaving of a modern competitive FPS fails to inspire. However, I've played enough games and seen enough art to know (and Roger Ebert hasn't) that, when done right, games are the penultimate expressive medium.
Your first paragraph gave me a bit of a start, because just yesterday I wrote this on a scrap of paper:
"Art is an indirect way of describing abstract ideas."
I don't see how video games could not be considered art. Really, what exactly is the difference?
Let's go to one of the earliest video games, Zork, and let's compare that to a written story. Compare and contrast. A written story is experienced by seeing the words and reading them. The words express something, usually through telling a story, though they can express other things simply through arrangement. The idea is get the reader to experience something through reading the expressed thing. Zork is the same on all points. The only difference is that the reader is engaged in the story directly by making him/her a part of it - the reader must act in order to progress. It shares all of the artistic elements of a book, but it layers interaction on top of it. Art with stuff added to it is still art. Ergo, Zork, one of the most basic of video games, is art. If books are art, so is Zork.
Same with movies. Movies express something to the viewer through visual and aural means. This is often in the form of a story, but visual and aural elements can express things in and of themselves. Graphical games do the same, but they layer interactivity on top of it, requiring the player to interact in order to progress. Games add an additional artistic element not present in non-interactive art: player choice. The player can be made to choose among options. This choice is another method of creative expression, another method by which to evoke response, emotional, psychological, or otherwise, from the player. So, again, we have art with stuff added, and again, adding stuff to art cannot make it stop being art. If movies are art, so are all graphical video games.
I can understand some comparisons to sports. Sports are sets of rules, detailing what participants may and may not do and what the end objective is. This is not art, because there is no creative expression. Nothing is presented to the participants other than the rules and the equipment. There is nothing created, nothing presented to the participants, no creative content. However, sports are not video games. While video games have systems of rules that determine what the participant may and may not do, and may also have objectives (but may not), there is a game world, music, people, places, creative content that is presented to the participant. That the participant is doing stuff doesn't stop this creative content from being art.
If interactivity stops something from being art, then there can be no such thing as interactive art pieces. And yet, I have seen a number of exhibitions of interactive art pieces in museums and art galleries. Obviously, some people in the art community do not consider interactivity to prevent something from being art. Think about it like this: if you put the Mona Lisa in a big brass frame, and then mount the frame on a Lazy Susan, does it stop being art, simply because you can rotate the painting? Is a movie on a DVD not art, simply because I can pause and change places at will? It makes no sense. Video games are art with interactivity, which is still art. It's really as simple as that.
Your argument about Zork doesn't stand all that firm for me. Ebert argued that even a coke bottle can be considered "art". What he's really arguing is whether it's possible for something interactive to be considered a major form of expression. His sports argument was a very good one, because most games today don't consider expression all that important, they're much more interested in game mechanics, which would mean they aren't art.
<a href="http://www.destructoid.com/indie-games-don-t-have-to-act-like-indie-games-162789.phtml">http://www.destructoid.com/indie-game s-don-t-have-to-act-like-indie-games-
162789.phtml</a>
<a href="http://www.destructoid.com/art-games-aren-t-innovative-and-innovation-isn-t-good-163912.phtml">http://www.destructoid.com/art-games-
aren-t-innovative-and-innovation-isn-
t-good-163912.phtml</a>
I'm not sure where you're going with this. I agree with those articles, definitely, but part of the problem is what is actually fun to people. I really only enjoy games that are fun, and when I stop having fun I stop playing them. Yet, there are some games that people love and I've loathed to the core of my soul. WoW is a good example, pretty much everyone I've talked to who's played it has a hard on for it and I can only look at them in disbelief. So you can try to make something fun, but you really only know what you find fun, and you have to hope other people find it fun too.
This is why innovation is a tricky subject. The genres have been proven to work, so anyone who works within them knows people will find it fun. If you try to do something new, you might enjoy it, but other people might hate you for making it.
I was JUST gonna reccomend those what Starogre just said.
DE-NIED!!
pretty sure mega64's got it covered
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq3bXwVPChQ&feature=player_embedded">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tq3bXw VPChQ&feature=player_embedded</a>
haha i think i'm about to stop arguing of such things due to tigsource. i have seen too many points of view to be able to even imagine coming to some sort of real definition of what a 'game' is and its requirements to be accepted into an 'artistic' community.
but in my opinion, as long as there is a personal touch of style to any part of the game, it is indeed an art, even though the player is the one controlling.
I think for something to be art, it has to add to your understanding of the world. Good art is close to philosophy, it's contemplative and visceral. I think even a genre game can do this, but it has to look beyond the mechanics of the game and add something more to it that draws you in. Of course, this is incredibly difficult to do, because making a game fun is hard enough. But for a game to be art, it has to have both.
Tetris is an amazing game for its gameplay, but I wouldn't call it art. It's the same way many painters are good at mechanically reproducing what they see, but their paintings hold little other value, and I wouldn't call them art.
Referring to Starogre's post: Every medium has unenjoyable arthouse crap, as well as interesting intellectual stuff. You can't really compare The Path with, say, Braid or McMillen's games.
See, and I'd put some of McMillen's newer games into the pretentious category.
You make some really good points, it'd be hard for him to refute you I'd think. You should post his response if you get one!
Old
also Roger Evert is a fucken idiot and a fool who cant think of himself
I dont know why do people take his opinion so seriously
Actually his opinion was well founded, I thought. That's why I wrote him back.
Cool man you think really similar to the way I think in this world of so many views on video gaming as art. I agree with mostly all of what you said and I fully support it thumbs up brother ;D
: D
idiot-monarch
Pretty nice read. People can't seem to get it through their skulls that games shouldn't be emulating film storytelling, but rather telling a story (or conveying an emotion) through the game play. Though I'm sure Ebert gets a million of these every day.
Also, kudos for nor bringing up Braid or Shadow of the Colossus ;)
Kajenx
Lol, I was going to bring up SotC, but then I realized he's probably never played video games and it's a moot point anyway.