Anyone else suddenly "Get" Roger Ebert's opinion?

[SimuLord]

I've been saying this for HOW long now? And I'll say it again.

Roger Ebert is still right.

Games contain art elements. Those art elements (backgrounds, character models, story, and the like) are art. Games, however, are not art any more than a collection of paintings hanging in a room is itself art. An art gallery, maybe. Perhaps even an art museum. But not art per se.

 

[Sir Thomas Sean Connery]

honestly I don't care about whether or not gaming is art and I care even less about Ebert's opinions (his movie reviews? please, retirement called decades ago)

1. the gaming community doesn't owe him an apology, and he doesn't need to say anymore about it either
2. everything is art nowadays...

I was going to post, but it would have been an exact copy of your post.

Why should we care if they are art anyway?

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

I've been saying this for HOW long now? And I'll say it again.

Roger Ebert is still right.

Games contain art elements. Those art elements (backgrounds, character models, story, and the like) are art. Games, however, are not art any more than a collection of paintings hanging in a room is itself art. An art gallery, maybe. Perhaps even an art museum. But not art per se.

Except these admittedly artistic elements aren't simply hanging in a room or a museum. They are presented in meaningful combination and progression. The overarching design that defines the organization and order of the otherwise disparate elements is art. It's the exact same principle at work in film. I'm not sure why that's so hard for people to understand.

 

[Cody211282]

Who cares if games are art? Games are the best entertainment there is.

Myself I don't use the word "art" for anything that isn't useless and hideously overpriced.

Yeay someone who thinks like me, honestly I don't know why people are so for this "games are art" think, who cares, they are fun and that's all you should care about.

 

[Straz]

OP just seems like a fag.
Art is defined by its audience.
See.
That is all that needs to be said.
ALL MEDIUMS CAN CONTAIN FUCKING ART. Get the fuck over it.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

Even sitting, as I do, in the camp that supports gaming's artistic merits, I am infuriated by the catch-all defense of "subjectivity". It is simple, correct, and completely fucking pointless. If your sole contribution to this or any other discussion takes the form of such a useless non-starter, feel free to punch yourself in the head.

 

[jacobkosh]

Chess is not art.

The balls it isn't. Chess is a representation of war - one of the fundamental realities of life in almost any era - that is accurate enough that it's been taught in war colleges for centuries, while at the same time being abstract and fluid enough that it has yet to be made obsolete.

Chess is a system that represents reality, much as a painting represents a bowl of fruit, and that system was designed by a man and that man had something to say through his medium. Do you think the fact that the game requires you to sacrifice waves of your men to win is a lucky coincidence? The game's rules are a human being - some person or persons who has been dead for over a millennium - telling you something about the way he or see sees the world. That sure sounds like art to me.

And if chess, then anything else.

There is so much nonsense and misinformation flying around this thread it's staggering. "Art" is not a word that means "wow, this is extra-good!" It's not a gold star you stick on the cover of a book. It is also not some endlessly malleable, endlessly subjective term. It is, simply put, a category of human expression to which other categories of things either belong or don't: you don't have a movie over here that's art, and a movie over there that isn't. It doesn't work like that. If a movie or a book or a video game is bad, it's bad art, but it's still art.

See, the judgment of whether something is good or bad is the subjective part; if you don't like the color blue, I can't talk you out of that. Questions of classification are not subjective - if you say that a screwdriver is not a tool, either you're wrong or you are using a definition of the word "tool" that is not shared by almost any other human being. And if a person declares something "not art" in public fora, I am within my rights to find out exactly what they do consider art, examine the rationales behind their judgments, and see if those premises have led that person into logical error.

What I find immensely disturbing is that, while some gamers are appropriately incensed that Ebert fell into this sort of logical error - which Ebert even later admitted - other gamers, including posters in this thread, are going HERP DERP WHO NEEDS ART ANYWAYS. That's fucking sickening. You need art - and you're getting it, because you almost certainly watch movies and play games and listen to music and read webcomics and so on. Appreciating art isn't something that other people do...it's what you're doing, probably right now, and you just don't even know it because you've been trained by this dumbass reactionary internet culture to hiss at "art" like vampires hiss at sunlight.

Stop right now, take your hands off the mouse, and think about this: if the stuff you like is art, then maybe art is stuff you could like. It's not for other people. It's for you, and I guarantee you there's more out there for you to love than you could ever experience in a single human lifetime. You just need to get out there and look.

 

[FieryTrainwreck]

Chess is not art.

The balls it isn't. Chess is a representation of war - one of the fundamental realities of life in almost any era - that is accurate enough that it's been taught in war colleges for centuries, while at the same time being abstract and fluid enough that it has yet to be made obsolete.

Chess is a system that represents reality, much as a painting represents a bowl of fruit, and that system was designed by a man and that man had something to say through his medium. Do you think the fact that the game requires you to sacrifice waves of your men to win is a lucky coincidence? The game's rules are a human being - some person or persons who has been dead for over a millennium - telling you something about the way he or see sees the world. That sure sounds like art to me.

And if chess, then anything else.

There is so much nonsense and misinformation flying around this thread it's staggering. "Art" is not a word that means "wow, this is extra-good!" It's not a gold star you stick on the cover of a book. It is also not some endlessly malleable, endlessly subjective term. It is, simply put, a category of human expression to which other categories of things either belong or don't: you don't have a movie over here that's art, and a movie over there that isn't. It doesn't work like that. If a movie or a book or a video game is bad, it's bad art, but it's still art.

See, the judgment of whether something is good or bad is the subjective part; if you don't like the color blue, I can't talk you out of that. Questions of classification are not subjective - if you say that a screwdriver is not a tool, either you're wrong or you are using a definition of the word "tool" that is not shared by almost any other human being. And if a person declares something "not art" in public fora, I am within my rights to find out exactly what they do consider art, examine the rationales behind their judgments, and see if those premises have led that person into logical error.

What I find immensely disturbing is that, while some gamers are appropriately incensed that Ebert fell into this sort of logical error - which Ebert even later admitted - other gamers, including posters in this thread, are going HERP DERP WHO NEEDS ART ANYWAYS. That's fucking sickening. You need art - and you're getting it, because you almost certainly watch movies and play games and listen to music and read webcomics and so on. Appreciating art isn't something that other people do...it's what you're doing, probably right now, and you just don't even know it because you've been trained by this dumbass reactionary internet culture to hiss at "art" like vampires hiss at sunlight.

Stop right now, take your hands off the mouse, and think about this: if the stuff you like is art, then maybe art is stuff you could like. It's not for other people. It's for you, and I guarantee you there's more out there for you to love than you could ever experience in a single human lifetime. You just need to get out there and look.

I liked this post, so I quoted the whole thing.

I think the sticking point for Ebert, and a lot of the naysayers, is the indisputable fact that very few games qualify as good art. It's a medium that trades on player interaction first and foremost, so there's a tendency for developers to focus strictly on the "game" - which is how you get Madden, Gran Tourismo, etc. Technical achievements, those, but they aren't inspiring emotions in people the way that great art typically might.

When devs make it a priority to provide compelling stories and/or aesthetic design, they've made a conscious decision to elevate the artistic merit of their products. On rare occasions, an extremely talented/dedicated dev will attempt to weave narrative impact directly into gameplay, transforming the player audience into the authors of their own emotional reactions. That is the highest level of videogames as art, and I'm not sure more than a small handful of titles have ventured into that realm.

 

[Jumplion]

First of all: no. You've got me all wrong. Calm down. Just because you're somehow deeply offended by my own opinion doesnt give you the right to pull out lies out your butt.
Did i mention anything along the lines that 'video games arent art because they dont have meaning?'
No.
Stop twisting my words and raging, seriously. I can see how angry you are just reading that. It just made me roll my eyes to be perfectly honest.
You've got it all wrong.
Im not saying video games 'arent meaningful'. Im not 'brushing away games as fun'. Im not a 'movie snob' or one of 'those stupid artistic bullshitters'.
Come on, really? If i was, why would i be on a video game forum? Dont be so paranoid.
Whats wrong with video games not being art? You seem to have a problem with that. I just dont understand it. Video games can be a whole media of their own.
You shouldnt bother replying because nothing will change my OPINION.
Youre making me out as some kind of 'anti video games'. Just stop, seriously. ¬¬

Whoa whoa whoa, wait a second, hold on a minute, stay tuned next week, next month at the Megadome (okay, I don't know where I went with that) I wasn't trying to rage on you at all, I promise. I'm really sorry if I came off like I was being rude or arrogant to you, but I wasn't trying to do that at all. I was genuinely trying to state my opinion on what you had said on "Video Games are fun, isn't that enough?" that's all, I never intended to insult you and I apologize if I came off that way.

 

[aDFP]

There are two different arguments here, and almost everybody is confusing them.

Firstly, GAMES CONTAIN ART, just as the set design in a movie can be art, or the costumes, or the photography. A director of photography is as artist, just as a 3D modeller is an artist.

Secondly, GAMEPLAY IS A FORM OF ART. This one is harder to understand. To me, 'Art' is simply that which can communicate something between the artist and the audience that is not contained in the work. A writer can use words to express ideas that transcend language, and the author of a game can do the same thing with gameplay, graphics and sound.

A video game can be a movie, a book, a painting, a sculpture and a symphony all at the same time. It can also be a game, or a sport, which are completely different things, but it could be those as well. This is another aspect of videogames which is confusing people.

As for the interactive nature of games, I think that makes them more of an artform, not less. It just makes them harder to quantify, and therefore write about.

 

[TrogzTheTroll]

Well, the pretty lights and sounds of videogames cause me to drool and look cross-eyed like a regular pretty painting makes me(Sooo colorfull....). So im going to say that Video games are art.

 

[Jumplion]

Snip of Pure Epicness

I love you right now, I wish I didn't have to condense your quote so the thread won't go crazy long and I wish I could quote you for everyone here.

Here's where I think the misunderstanding comes from the gamers side. Games have lots of art in them so they must be art right? Not necessarily. The core of a game for the most part is still just that; a game. It just looks really nice. Other mediums have their own methods and techniques to produce emotion. Games have just copied them. All the creepy and fantastic moments you would define as art in a game are things you could find in a painting or a movie. Take a screenshot of a game and you see art all over the place. But is the game itself art? Isn't it just a bunch of mechanics with art plastered all over it? Maybe for now. Gaming hasn't developed into it's own specific niche art-wise yet. But it's starting to.

The problem here is that you're breaking down games way too simply, which leads me to believe that you're looking at them in the wrong perspective like with Limbo. You cannot judge a video game's "artistic" merits on film's artistic merits. You can easily break down Movies to "Isn't a movie just a bunch of moving pictures with art plastered all over it?" and books and music the same way, but here's the thing;

They are greater than the sum of their parts.

You cannot say that one medium is "just a bunch of mechanics" and switch over to another medium and not say the same thing when it is easily applicable to it. It's the collection of all those mechanics that create the supposed "art". You can look at Shadow of the Collosus and say "It's just a guy going around killing stuff," but that's looking at it from the wrong perspective. You can look at "A Clockwork Orange" and say "It's just a guy going crazy and juvinile porn" but again, that's missing the point and not looking at it with an open eye.

Here's where the argument is right now at it's core as I see it.

Ebert: "Games are something you win. Hence, not art."
Gamers: "Just because it's something you win, doesn't mean it's not art." and "You haven't played games so we won't listen to you."

That second one is the most dangerous one. You have to understand him before you try to make him understand you. Otherwise this won't go anywhere but circles because neither side really understands the point the other is making.

The problem with Ebert's opinion, like I said before, is that he's never played a video game in his life. If a high official said that "Movies are just moving picutres!" you bet your sexy ass that Ebert will be going all over the guy with his thoughts on the matter.

But Ebert is a movie critic, not a video game critic. It'd be like if Ice-T criticized video games for being juvinile and playing for sex appeal, he may be a respected composer in the Music industry (at least I think he is), but his whole opinion is just invalidated because he's not one of us. Again, that's not to say that Ebert/Ice-T doesn't/wouldn't have some points, but what I get from Ebert is that he's so high up on his haughtiness of being a respected Movie critic that he thinks he can transfer the same criticisms to video games when, again, he's never played a video game.

I respect Ebert's opinion and the fact that he's a respected film critic. But he's just not a man that I can take seriously with video game debates.

While I agree with the gamer side of the argument, I believe it's important to look deeply into Ebert's side in order to better understand what kind of art games actually are. It was this Clive Barker quote in Ebert's semi-apology that got me thinking.

"I think that Roger Ebert's problem is that he thinks you can't have art if there is that amount of malleability in the narrative. In other words, Shakespeare could not have written 'Romeo and Juliet' as a game because it could have had a happy ending, you know? If only she hadn't taken the damn poison. If only he'd have gotten there quicker."

But again, he's just not the type of person to be arguing on video games' potential as an artful medium. He can certainly state it as a bystander, or just as part of the general public, but he, at least to me, came off as highly arrogant just because he's a respect movie critic that somehow that will transfer over to the video game industry.

Again, I respect the man and his opinion, but he just can't state his highly narrow view of an industry he barely understands and expect people to roll over for him just because he's Ebert.

"You can lose a game." or "What happens to the characters is up to you" are not valid points at all.

However, what are valid points are these. "Games are not games anymore. They are experiences." and "Art is something purposefully created to induce an emotion. Hence games=art."

The first two arguments are valid points. Video games cannot be held at the same "artistic" standard as movies, they insert the characteristics and features completely differently. The fact that you can always try again in a video game doesn't detter the fact that I'm hanging on the edge of my seat praying to the gaming gods that I'll KO my opponent before I die.

But these points are just the beginning of our understanding of the medium as an art form. This supports arguments that have been made before that games are art in it's infancy. Games like SotC and Bioshock are glimpses into what Ebert believes is art.

That is completely true, I agree completely, games still are in their infancy as an artistic medium. That is why we care about Ebert's opinion, that is why we should debate what is a true "artistic" showing of video games, that is why we need to stand up for our medium...

But until games like that are more common I don't think or want him to change his opinion.

...but that's complete bullshit (just being honest here). You're assuming that the same isn't true for movies, books, music, or any other medium. No medium has a majority abundance of "art", just look at the Twilight franchise, the stupid hackneyed comedies out in theatres, the standard fantasy/sci-fi/drama books, the tired and sadly still popular "Bitchz n' Hoes!" rap songs and Justin Beiber.

It's unfair to say "Video Games need to have more artistic/artsy games like movies!" when not even movies have a good amount of artistic/artsy movies, and those that are usually come off as pretentious or are indie-films that think they're going to revolutionize the world with their brilliance.

 

[Treefingers]

Chess is not art.

The balls it isn't.

-snip-

For one, you misunderstand me completely. I'm not trying to degrade chess or anything. It's a beautiful game. I'm not an idiot, i understand that art isn't another word for super amazing awesome.

But under my definition of art, i don't think that chess qualifies. I also don't think that Monopoly is art, even though it represents the ruthless business world. Risk isn't art, despite representing empires and wars throughout history.

The day we have all the Grandmasters band together and launch a 'Chess is art' campaign is the day that i begin to reconsider my stance on that. Stop raging and don't take me for a fool.

But anyway, we're getting sidetracked... i believe we were talking about videogames, which are a totally different issue.

 

[qbanknight]

So, I saw that Limbo had been released the other day and against my better (cheapskate) judgement...But until games like that are more common I don't think or want him to change his opinion.

Hey man, just thought you should know that Roger Ebert himself has tweeted about this article 11 hours ago: "Gamer said I'm not right about videogames, but I'm not as wrong as he thought I was."

http://twitter.com/ebertchicago

Congrats.

Anyways, I thought your article was spot on. Especially the whole point about "beating the game" is what's keeping games from art. But isn't Bioshock very similar to Limbo? You respawn only a few feet away with NO penalty so things stop being scary once you realize this.

 

[Proteus214]

The way you put it, I think I kind of do understand where he's coming from, but as time goes on it becomes harder to see his opinion as being valid.

When you ask someone, "Why would you watch a movie?" the reason they'll give is because they want to experience something. They want to be wow'd by visual effects and a great soundtrack, or they want to laugh or cry at a great story and characters. The point is that film provides an experience and it serves that purpose to its audience quite well. You don't watch a movie because you JUST want to see it from beginning to end without caring about what is actually on the screen, you watch it to experience something.

A game is not necessarily the same way. A game has an objective and when you sit down to play it, your purpose here is either to win or to have fun with your friends. The experience here isn't coming from an appreciation of aesthetics, but from a sense of competition and a need for social interaction, aka the steps above and below aesthetic appreciation on Maslow's hierarchy.

Now by this definition of games, Ebert's argument holds some pretty serious water, but at the same time, his argument generated mass outrage in favor of the contrary. Here's where Ebert's argument starts to fall apart. More and more the industry is moving away from designing "games" and is moving towards designing "experiences." It's what saved the industry in the 80's and made it huge in the late 90's, however not all developers design games like that. The industry will never be 100% "experience-based" and there will always be "game" games.

Summary and TL;DR version:
Ebert is right that a "game" cannot be art and much of the gaming industry does not fit the bill as "art," HOWEVER there is definitely a sector of games that has been gaining momentum for years now that Ebert has unjustly wrote off that is truly working to create something really beautiful.

A not all games are art, but some are. All games shouldn't just be lumped into the same category and given the same label.

 

[ZombieGenesis]

I got his opinion from the start.
I semi-agree with it, but mostly because the argument he uses for why games can't be high art is also the reason critics used to say that films weren't. So it's rather self-defeating.

But even he said that gamers shouldn't care what he thinks, because he doesn't play or like computer games.

 

[Void(null)]

When did all art have to be good?

I have read bad books, watched bad movies, seen bad plays and seen some really horrifically bad artwork in museums.

If Jackson Pollok can be considered not just art, but important art, why not Silent Hill?

 

[Shynobee]

Ebert: "Games are something you win. Hence, not art."
Gamers: "Just because it's something you win, doesn't mean it's not art." and "You haven't played games so we won't listen to you."

That second one is the most dangerous one. You have to understand him before you try to make him understand you.

I have to disagree with you here. I find it actually impossible to see this argument from Ebert's standpoint. To see things his way, I would have to be able to remove all gaming experiences from my mind, which I simply cannot do.

Ebert's point of view is from someone who has never played a video game before, and thus, his argument is pretty much moot. It would be like me trying to critique the movie industry based solely on hearing what other people have to say about movies, and me never having seen a movie before.

Basically, why should we have to understand his point of view, if he isn't willing to see things from our perspective?

 

[Booze Zombie]

Games are something you win, but is that what really matters?
All movies "end", we know this going in otherwise we wouldn't drink or eat whilst watching them, but is it not the journey, the characters and the experience that actually matter?

I don't watch movies to reach the end, I don't play games to reach the end, I don't read a book to reach the end.
I'm there to enjoy myself, view a world and to be interested.
All the process of ending tells me is "you've completed the experience", well, in books and movies at least, in games you can continue on, but I digress.

The point in writing a sentence is not getting to a punctuation mark, it's saying something, the point of playing a game is having fun, not reaching an end.
Also I apologise if I have addressed something that's been dealt with, but quite frankly this argument is beginning to wear thin, so I decided to get the gist of the OT and post my reply quickly.