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

[Silk_Sk]

So, I saw that Limbo had been released the other day and against my better (cheapskate) judgement, I bought it. As I played it I realized something. Roger Ebert was right. Or at least, he wasn't nearly as wrong as I thought he was. I'm going to end this on a good note so bear with me. I haven't abandoned the "games are art" cause just yet.

Firstly I'd like to say that I am not applying this to all games. It's just that Limbo, possibly the most "artistic" game to come out recently, was exactly the kind of non-art he was talking about. The reason? I beat the game and that was it. Not only that, I knew I was going to beat it from the very beginning. As sure as a movie has an ending, it would be literally impossible not to beat Limbo if I kept playing. I thought he was just being ignorant when he said they weren't art because "Games are something you win." But now I've got to say he's got a good point.

I know this is true of most games, but for some reason this realization sucked all of the tension out of the Limbo for me. Every time I died and respawned barely three steps back I became more discouraged. Why should I care about this character if he can't die? Why should I care about his sister? Why should I care about any of it? Ohh, look it's all pretty and creepy and yes its kind of funny impaling him on some random object again and again until I complete the task. But that's not art. That's crossword puzzle or a lego project. All it takes is time.

Then I booted up the SC2 campaign. Same reaction. Everyone in the story seemed soooo impressed that Raynor and his crew could triumph over all those impossible odds. Not me, I knew he could do it. What kind of game would it be if the missions were un-beatable? And if I lost, I could just try again.

This was simply me realizing that I was not fighting the cause I thought I was by tooting the games=art horn. But it also made me realize something else. I still think they are art. But trying to put them in the same art category as movies is a mistake. I wouldn't argue that they are their own category of art either. That just alienates them from the rest of society even more than they already are. So what kind of art are they?

Well, with all the work that is put into making them look nice I'd say they belong more in the paintings category. A painting can generate emotion in a purely visual fashion the same way video games are now attempting to do. There's no real need for plot. Often with games it's just there to make sense out of what it's showing you. Until the writing in video games gets better (as it's starting to do I hope) that's the kind of art I'd describe them as. At least for now.

As for Roger Ebert, I think the gaming community owes him an apology. He was definitely on to something and unless we all realize it games aren't going to get any better.

EDIT: For those who won't bother reading further into the thread.

These were basically the responses I expected. And I don't really disagree with them. They all state true facts and are perfectly logical from the perspective of a gamer. As a gamer myself I entirely agree. But I also believe a shift in perspective is necessary.

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.

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.

I'll reiterate. This

Spoiler

The problem with Roger Ebert's opinion is that he's never played a video game in his life, much less the ones we consider "art".

He was juging Video Game's "art" merits among "Movie Art" merits, but that is downright impossible. While games that we consider "art" and movies people consider "art" do have some similarities (mainly evoking an emotion of some kind), the way the two mediums interact with their audience, how they reward them, how the audience participates with it, etc... are completely different.

This is why Ebert should have kept his mouth shut. As a movie critic, Ebert can certainly vouch for Movies as art. But his opinions are invalidadted when he starts talking about Video Games as art becase he's never played them. I'm not saying his opinion is worthless, or that it doesn't have merit, but it's like if Ice-T criticized Mozart's operas because "They dun have them jankiness to dem!", they're two different genres/mediums and you cannot compare them the same way.

I personally think that Video Games can be art, whether you can "win" them or not. I absolutely adored Shadow of the Collosus, I teared up at the end. And to an extent, Elite Beat Agents is "art" to me, though that explanation is left for another time I suppose. Movies always have to end, that doesn't invalidate their artistic merits. You can apply many tropes to video games that are used in movies, but it's very limited to which ones you can compare.

Spoiler

This guy nailed it perfectly. The whole reason his opinion drew so much ire was the fact that;
1) He had done no research at all on the subject
2) Film critics are not qualified to discuss the merits of gaming artistry, just like literary critics cannot criticize film artistry.

All in all his opinion was incredibly ignorant; the fact he has never even played a game before makes it all the worse.

is entirely the wrong attitude to take.

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."

"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."

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

 

[Typhusoid]

Its called the willing suspension of disbeleif. In order to truelly immerse yourself in art, you sometimes have to "forget" things. A good game/film will make you do this. A bad one won't. The critiscism that "the good guys will always win can be easily applied to films aswell.

Also, why isn't gaming its own style of art? Some of my favourite games I hold as art (e.g Silent Hill 2) cannot be compared to any other art form.

 

[migo]

You're just looking at the wrong game. Look at Echochrome instead. Yeah there's no concern that you won't finish the game, but the point is to be playing with perspective. It's MC Escher in a new medium, and that's a game that was really art first and game second.

You've also got Final Fantasy X - yes you play through it, but like you know you can try again in FFX if you die, you know in any movie the protagonists will make it through, so that's a completely moot point you're bringing up. FFX is an interactive movie with bonus content where you can control the fights. It's as much art as any movie is.

As for Limbo, the entire level design and imagery is art. I can't speak for the gameplay itself having only played the demo, but that's at least as much art as some of the random lumps of metal.

 

[Silk_Sk]

Its called the willing suspension of disbeleif. In order to truelly immerse yourself in art, you sometimes have to "forget" things. A good game/film will make you do this. A bad one won't. The critiscism that "the good guys will always win can be easily applied to films aswell.

Also, why isn't gaming its own style of art? Some of my favourite games I hold as art (e.g Silent Hill 2) cannot be compared to any other art form.

Willing suspension of disbelief is just plain ignorance. A blissful poison. It should either be unnecessary like in Shadow of the Colossus or openly defied like in Bayonetta.

You're just looking at the wrong game. Look at Echochrome instead. Yeah there's no concern that you won't finish the game, but the point is to be playing with perspective. It's MC Escher in a new medium, and that's a game that was really art first and game second.

You've also got Final Fantasy X - yes you play through it, but like you know you can try again in FFX if you die, you know in any movie the protagonists will make it through, so that's a completely moot point you're bringing up. FFX is an interactive movie with bonus content where you can control the fights. It's as much art as any movie is.

As for Limbo, the entire level design and imagery is art. I can't speak for the gameplay itself having only played the demo, but that's at least as much art as some of the random lumps of metal.

Did you read the whole post? That's the kind of visual art I consider games to be.

 

[Meggiepants]

Okay, first, the whole idea of something not being art because you "win it" is odd. Movies shouldn't be art because they end, yet Ebert believes there are movies that are art. A painting can't be art because it can be contained in a museum. Choosing a random reason something can't be art isn't a particularly strong argument.

The second problem with your statement is that you base it on your reaction to the game Limbo. Not everyone is affected the same way by art. Art by it's very nature is subjective.

Take Jackson Pollack for example. I look at his stuff and think, "Dude spilled his paint on his canvas, thought it looked cool, did it some more." But some people look at Pollack and say, "Look at the incredible amount of emotion in this painting!"

Just because you, or Ebert if he every actually did, played a game and decided it wasn't art, doesn't mean it isn't. Just because I play a game and decide it is art, doesn't mean it is. Over the years, "art" has been defined by culture as a whole. One man's opinion doesn't make something art to the whole world, it just makes something art to that one man.

So whether or not you think Limbo is art doesn't really support Ebert's opinion. It supports your opinion. Just because Ebert doesn't think something is art, that doesn't support your opinion. Art is in the eye of the beholder, to use a cliché phrase.

Over time, what culture as a whole considers art changes dramatically. Shakespeare is considered a master playwright now, one of the great Western artists, but when he was alive, his plays were considered, by certain influential people, as trashy works of populist sentiment. He was disregarded by elite commentators like Ben Jonson. Not so unlike the way commentators like Ebert scoff at certain things today.

Many artists were failures while they were alive. Artists like Vincent Van Gogh only gained fame after they died and people looked at their works in retrospect. Many artists are disregarded if they have a style that is before their time.

Whether or not video games will be defined as art by society as whole is not something I am interested in predicting. I play games because I like playing them, whether or not they are art. Something doesn't have to be described as art by society as a whole for me to enjoy it as such.

 

[JuryNelson]

As sure as a movie has an ending, it would be literally impossible not to beat Limbo if I kept playing. I thought he was just being ignorant when he said they weren't art because "Games are something you win." But now I've got to say he's got a good point.

I feel like you're just looking at it in the same wrong way. Games are not something you win, because if that's the kind of game you were looking at, you would look at the Gears of War multiplayer.

This argument might be applied to anything, really. "I'm going to get to the end of this book no matter what, so why even turn the page?" "Nothing I do will affect the outcome of this film, so can it really be art?"

In the end the question is essentially silly because if games are art or not doesn't matter. Who cares if films suddenly stopped being classified as "art"? We'll still go see them and love them and write about them. This argument is silly.

But you do make another point, I think, accidentally. Are games something you win? Or are they something you experience? And that has been changing toward the latter I would say.

Put a contemporary arty game up to, say, Castlevania. Now I don't think anyone will argue with me when I say that Castlevania was your opponent. The game wants you to die and you want to NOT die. You win Castlevania by "beating" the game.

But in, say, Braid, in my experience at least, people tend to say they "got to the end." or they "Finished" it. Like a book. Or a movie. Put THAT in your brain and think it.

tl;dr - Who cares if games are art? / You and Ebert are both wrong about what games are for / The interesting question is "Are games something you win?" / I don't think they are anymore.

 

[veloper]

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.

 

[Jumplion]

The problem with Roger Ebert's opinion is that he's never played a video game in his life, much less the ones we consider "art".

He was juging Video Game's "art" merits among "Movie Art" merits, but that is downright impossible. While games that we consider "art" and movies people consider "art" do have some similarities (mainly evoking an emotion of some kind), the way the two mediums interact with their audience, how they reward them, how the audience participates with it, etc... are completely different.

This is why Ebert should have kept his mouth shut. As a movie critic, Ebert can certainly vouch for Movies as art. But his opinions are invalidadted when he starts talking about Video Games as art becase he's never played them. I'm not saying his opinion is worthless, or that it doesn't have merit, but it's like if Ice-T criticized Mozart's operas because "They dun have them jankiness to dem!", they're two different genres/mediums and you cannot compare them the same way.

I personally think that Video Games can be art, whether you can "win" them or not. I absolutely adored Shadow of the Collosus, I teared up at the end. And to an extent, Elite Beat Agents is "art" to me, though that explanation is left for another time I suppose. Movies always have to end, that doesn't invalidate their artistic merits. You can apply many tropes to video games that are used in movies, but it's very limited to which ones you can compare.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Uh, what?

No I don't suddenly 'get' Ebert's point because it was nonsensical to start with. And not just because he was applying the 'art' label to gamings. You are in fact falling into the same trap that he did, the trap that art can be defined, and that that definition stays continuous.

Films were once derided on the grounds that they would never be art. They would only be momentary distractions for people. The same was said of fictional books, paintings, sculptures. Anything which at the time was seen to have no purpose and is now revered as art. Ebert's opinion struck me as just not being very clever really, which disappointed me because I always thought he was a clever man.

'Art' is not something you can define. Art is something which is always in flux and change, and throughout the years has meant many things to many people and this will always be the case. Of course games are art, in exactly the same way that they are not art, in the same way that films are both art and not art.

Until Ebert (or anyone really) can offer me a definition of art that i accept as true and unarguable, I won't even begin to classify things as 'art' or not.

That's why he's wrong, not because he's misunderstood games, but because he was arrogant and stupid enough to misunderstand the very basis from which he was arguing.

 

[fun-with-a-gun]

As it has been said before, it IS subjective, and therefore each person must make the decision that something is art or not.

Books can be art but many books are not art to most people. You can say that Lord of the Rings is not art but you will probably have an entire sub-culture hating you (you would also be wrong). if books can be art based on their quality then why not games. Writers write books. Writers also write game plots and dialogue.

Paintings are art and nobody will fight you on that point (whether you made it or not) and you can probably compare a painting to the works of environment developers. they both create something that is used to express themselves or the world around them.

Music is another artistic industry that is central to our culture in this time. have you ever seen a movie or played a game that didn't have any music in it? neither have I. (silent movies don't count, and they usually had music too)

Finally movies. Oh yes, a reply to a thread about Ebert that involves a comparison of games to movies. games have cutscenes, plot-lines, characters and dialogue. So do movies.

The first definition of art according to thefreedictionary.com is: "1. Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature." have you ever seen a game that uses elements of nature or fill in the blanks as they will? yes you have if your game has a setting a focus or anything that is alive, or that seeks order.

Really the art argument is really old. stop making new threads about it.

(P.S. don't make a thread saying that games aren't art because you can "win". That doesn't make sense.)

 

[Cinnamonfloss]

Why are we so desperate to convince people video games are art?
I dont think theyre art. There, i said it.
Sheesh, i really dont care what they are, I just like playing them.
Isnt that what they're supposed to be used for? For playing and fun?

 

[Volafortis]

snip

In addition to what's been said... Look at games like Mass Effect 2, where the fate of your crew DOES rest in your hands. There is no guarantee that they or you will survive, even if you do put in time to "beat" the game.

 

[Jumplion]

Why are we so desperate to convince people video games are art?
I dont think theyre art. There, i said it.
Sheesh, i really dont care what they are, I just like playing them.
Isnt that what they're supposed to be used for? For playing and fun?

I know that you're just trying to restate that "Video games are fun, why bother with anything else?" and it's an innocent enough statement, but it's complete ignorance to put it bluntly.

Just because you play video games for "fun", like many other people including myself, does not mean that video games should just stay "fun". It's the same argument with movies, "If I wanted a dark drama with conflict I'd read a book!" and then goes to "If I wanted a realistic portrayal of today's society in satire, I'd watch a play!" and eventually down to "If I wanted a deep, intellectual viewpoint on the violence of men, I'd just talk with my professor!" You can't just brush off video games as just "fun" because they can be so much more than that.

Now, look, I love fun games, everyone does, you'd be one of those cinema snobs that doesn't like anything without a "meaning" or those stupid artistic bullshitters claiming that a picture with a woman with bannanas on her head is "pure artistic amazingness!". But video games have a huge amount of untapped potential just lying in wait for someone to utilize it correctly. And when that happens, that can in turn make games better and more fun and more meaningful instead of the same FPS that we are currently forced to endure now.

 

[UnrealCanine]

I know I'll probably get flamed for this, but Limbo just didn't seem like it had a soul for me