Roger Ebert still maintains that video games can't be art.

[saintchristopher]

That's a very selfish interpretation of what can be considered art, though. Consider that many developers throughout the years may very well have been trying to create an experience which causes the player to feel something. Does that intent alone not make them an artist? They are, after all, attempting to convey a message or feeling through their chosen medium. Even if you, the player, don't feel those feelings or understand the experience that the developer was trying to get through, the fact that they had a message to give at all should qualify them as an artist. Certainly as much so as any man drawing seemingly random lines on a canvas.

That does make them artists. Maybe I phrased this incorrectly. The point I was trying to convey is that no one can stand and say "That is art. All of you must view and respect this as art." or "That is not art. Anyone who considers it so is wrong."

Art is subjective. Anything which you, the audience, deems art, becomes art.

Will everything be art to everyone? No. But anything could be art to anyone.

 

[Ultra_Caboose]

I respect Ebert's opinion, but I can't agree with it. Not all games are art, not by a long shot, but there are many games like Final Fantasy VI, Shenmue or (SUBJECT'S FAVORITE GAME HERE) that can stand as an artistic statement on many levels.
I think that Ebert's opinion stems from him being much older than most gamers. In his review of The Wizard he was talking about playing a little bit of TMNT for the NES, and I can imagine that his time in the world of games never went very far past that. If he thinks anything like my grandparents do, video games aren't as blocky and bleepy-bloopy as they used to be, but they're still simple children's games that are too rediculous to be taken seriously. I certainly don't blame people like my grandparents and Ebert to this, I know the gamers know better and the world at large is beginning to as well. Just let the old guy say what he wants and brush it off.

 

[xHipaboo420x]

Just because one man says games aren't art doesn't mean it is so, regardless of his authority on the subject. Art, like all things that are good in life, is entirely subjective. One man's disheveled bed is another man's scathing commentary.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

This enrages me more than I can deal with. Its presumptuous, close minded insult to all who work so hard to create games.

No it doesn't. He never said their work was worthless or bad or anything like that. He said it wasn't art.

I would be hard pressed to call a firemans work art, or a brain surgeons work art, it doesn't mean I don't think it's good.

 

[lukemdizzle]

He is absolutely correct, games aren't art because they are interactive. They might contain elements of art, but they aren't art any more than a museum is art.

"Some of the earliest examples of interactive art were created as early as the 1920s. An example is Marcel Duchamp?s piece named Rotary Glass Plates. The artwork required the viewer to turn on the machine and stand at a distance of one meter.[4] The idea of interactive art began to flourish more in the 1960s for partly political reasons. At the time, many people found it inappropriate for artists to carry the only creative power within their works. Those artists who held this view wanted to give the audience their own part of this creative process. Aside from this ?political? view, it was also current wisdom that interaction and engagement had a positive part to play within the creative process.[5] In the 1970s artists began to use new technology such as video and satellites to experiment with live performances and interactions through the direct broadcast of video and audio.[6] Interactive art became a large phenomenon due to the advent of computer based interactivity in the 1990s . Along with this came a new kind of art-experience. Audience and machine were now able to more easily work together in dialogue in order to produce a unique artwork for each audience.[7] In the late 1990s, museums and galleries began increasingly incorporating the art form in their shows, some even dedicating entire exhibitions to it.[8] This continues today and is only expanding due to increased communications through digital media."

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

Yes. I don't give a crap what wikipedia says on this. I don't care much for the turner prize either, or calling a decomposing cow art.

I may not know what I like but I know a lot about art. Art is defined by the artist, not by the beholder. If it is interactive it isn't art. No matter what that site [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_while_John_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_a_better_effect_on_the_teacher] may say.

really. If Its interactive Its not art, why don't you tell that to Frank Lloyd Wright. One of the most renowned american artists of all time. O but wait, he was an architect he designed buildings. People interact with those so that cant be art. O I know why don't you go to a fashion design school and tell anybody who works there that if you interact with something it can't be art. they design cloths so they cant be artists. Actually Im applying to School of visual arts In NY city. One of my portfolio pieces was a mobile. I obviously won't get accepted thought because the mobile I spent two weeks balancing isn't art because people can interact with it.

 

[lukemdizzle]

This enrages me more than I can deal with. Its presumptuous, close minded insult to all who work so hard to create games.

No it doesn't. He never said their work was worthless or bad or anything like that. He said it wasn't art.

I would be hard pressed to call a firemans work art, or a brain surgeons work art, it doesn't mean I don't think it's good.

I see your point. I just know I personally would be insulted, especially if I worked on something like concept art.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

He is absolutely correct, games aren't art because they are interactive. They might contain elements of art, but they aren't art any more than a museum is art.

"Some of the earliest examples of interactive art were created as early as the 1920s. An example is Marcel Duchamp?s piece named Rotary Glass Plates. The artwork required the viewer to turn on the machine and stand at a distance of one meter.[4] The idea of interactive art began to flourish more in the 1960s for partly political reasons. At the time, many people found it inappropriate for artists to carry the only creative power within their works. Those artists who held this view wanted to give the audience their own part of this creative process. Aside from this ?political? view, it was also current wisdom that interaction and engagement had a positive part to play within the creative process.[5] In the 1970s artists began to use new technology such as video and satellites to experiment with live performances and interactions through the direct broadcast of video and audio.[6] Interactive art became a large phenomenon due to the advent of computer based interactivity in the 1990s . Along with this came a new kind of art-experience. Audience and machine were now able to more easily work together in dialogue in order to produce a unique artwork for each audience.[7] In the late 1990s, museums and galleries began increasingly incorporating the art form in their shows, some even dedicating entire exhibitions to it.[8] This continues today and is only expanding due to increased communications through digital media."

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

Yes. I don't give a crap what wikipedia says on this. I don't care much for the turner prize either, or calling a decomposing cow art.

I may not know what I like but I know a lot about art. Art is defined by the artist, not by the beholder. If it is interactive it isn't art. No matter what that site [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_while_John_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_had_a_better_effect_on_the_teacher] may say.

really. If Its interactive Its not art, why don't you tell that to Frank Lloyd Wright. One of the most renowned american artists of all time.

Because I don't know where he lives, I have never heard of him, and I couldn't be arsed even if I did.

O but wait, he was an architect he designed buildings. People interact with those so that cant be art. O I know why don't you go to a fashion design school and tell anybody who works there that if you interact with something it can't be art. they design cloths so they cant be artists. Actually Im applying to School of visual arts In NY city. One of my portfolio pieces was a mobile. I obviously won't get escaped thought because the mobile I spent two weeks balancing isn't art because people can interact with it.

No you don't interact with those things. When you get a building which you can move around to your whim, or when you get a dress you can alter while you are working it, then you will have an argument over whether that can be art or function. But until then you are missing the mark.

 

[Sunstrike]

I'd say that it's a problem of naming and perceptions. video GAME implies something that is has rules, gameplay, and is fun. While there does not necesarrily mean that it cannot be art, it only means that the medium has tight restrictions that very few games have managed to overcome and truly become art.

I'd personnally say bioshock was art, but off hand I can't think of any other game that truly encapsulates art and a expression into every corner of the expeirience. Maybe heavy rain (but I haven't actually played that yet). All games have elements of art inside of them, but very few are art throughout. Once we start seeing the definition of what constitutes a video game loosen up, we should start to see more and more games that express deep human emotion, and don't necessarily need to conform to any of the players expectations.

 

[lukemdizzle]

Because I don't know where he lives, I have never heard of him, and I couldn't be arsed even if I did.

google him. hes dead by the way It was simply an example of interactive art.

No you don't interact with those things. When you get a building which you can move around to your whim, or when you get a dress you can alter while you are working it, then you will have an argument over whether that can be art or function. But until then you are missing the mark.

when was the last time you could change the artistic direction, level design, and mechanics of a game while your playing. when you play a game you are interacting with a finished pice and playing within the boundaries set by the games designers. similarly to when you move around a building you are moving around the path it's designers intended. function can be and is often considered to be art, a subject you clearly have little knowledge of.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

I posted on my site [http://seventhcirclegaming.com/2009/12/11/video-games-art/] about this, so I'll just paraphrase that. I believe some games are art, yes, but others are not. Much the same as film. To be art, I believe the work needs to have themes and motifs behind it. Bioshock has various deep themes, as does Half-Life 2. But Battlefield 2 and Counterstrike? Not so much. Just like I wouldn't call "Couple's Retreat" a work of art, but "Der Untergang" is.

If you can't make up your own meaning in every game then you aren't thinking hard enough. Even youtube comments are brimming with meaning.

The problem with art is that its become associated with the nonsence that only leads to decadence in games. Computer games used to be based on other physical games or pen and paper games or board games. Now every game maker wants to by like a movie maker, hence Heavy Rain. I say scrapping the concept of art in games would be healthy. That way we can stop over valuing graphics and story.

 

[Therumancer]

Actually he does make some legitimate points, mostly when he comes down to the point about how one defines what is "art" and what is not. An arguement that has yet to be resolved and probably never will be. As he defines art (and it's a decent definition overall) I can see his point. Also to be honest most of the counter examples that were cited strike me almost universally as pretentious crap, all that was missing from the list was "The Path".

The bottom line is that I personally think art exists independant of any medium. I do not think that video gaming is a medium incapable of producing art. I do however think that the people as a whole define what is art and what is not, and generally speaking video gaming has yet to be able to gain any kind of recognition society wide, never mind from the global meta culture, of being art.

While it wasn't his intent in the statement, I think Roger Ebert was more or less correct when he said that if video games become recognized as art, we won't ever see it. In part because I think before such an acknowlegement could happen, something would have to stay in the public consciousness for longer than a human lifetime.

Strictly speaking I think this is a problem with art in general, and one of the issues with "modern art" where artists are recognized by a certain public and elevated to prominance within their lifetime. Simply put, even patronage and self promotion do not make art, I think part of what makes art what it is, is it's abillity to endure.

Generally speaking if a game like Braid or Portal was to remain in the public eye to the point of your children playing and appreciating these games on their own (without being lead) and then seeing their own children doing so even after your dead, and people saying that these games were in some way still as relevent then (with the technology being antiquidated) as they were when they first came out... well, then they would be art and open the door for the medium.

Ironically, I think the game "Pac Man" might have a chance of becoming art before anything because the game type has become iconic, and pretty much everyone even decades later plays or has played Pac man or an imitator. I think it might also do so by becoming a new type of art, differant from poetry and paintings and such in of the fact that it creates a simple, basic, intellectual exercise that nearly everyone will find at least vaguely entertaining. Somehow I expect Pac Man will survive in some form as a simple entertainment app in computers as long as computers exist. I guess what I'm trying to say is that Pac Man is almost zen-like in
both it's appeal and simplicity.

 

[vanillabeans320]

Games have taught me as much about life, ethics, choices, friendship and other topics as movies have. I was more moved by MGS3 than Million Dollar Baby, and I don't care about the mechanics as to why. It's hard to say what art is, nobody has a real definition, but if you go with the belief that it evokes an emotional response and communicates something important, I'd say games qualify. What matters is the content, not the medium. He makes some good points, but I disagree.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

This enrages me more than I can deal with. Its presumptuous, close minded insult to all who work so hard to create games.

No it doesn't. He never said their work was worthless or bad or anything like that. He said it wasn't art.

I would be hard pressed to call a firemans work art, or a brain surgeons work art, it doesn't mean I don't think it's good.

Yet that's the whole veiled message, is it not? He's basically saying that video games are not art, and movies are art, so, "my medium is better than your medium." It's rather childish for a man his age, if you ask me.

Still waiting on a response to my last post which counters your argument, BTW.

No, he isn't saying that. He is saying that games aren't art.

I never responded to your argument because I didn't see a need. Games are interactive therefore the artist doesn't have complete control over the media he is creating. Individual elements of the game may be art, but the game itself isn't. The closest thing to art in the gaming world would probably be something like Mass Effect 2.

So walking down a corridor, see badies, pause game while you pick powers and weapons, point gun and click click click right trigger, see pixels flail about on screen, walk down next corridor, walk around corner into more baddies, die.

reload.

Walking down a corridor, see badies, pause game while you pick powers and weapons, point gun and click click click right trigger, see pixels flail about on screen, walk down next corridor, walk around corner into more baddies, shoot baddies this time, walk up staircase, get stuck on bit of rubble, spin around endlessly trying to get down off rubble, give up.

reload.

Walking down a corridor, see badies, pause game while you pick powers and weapons, point gun and click click click right trigger, see pixels flail about on screen, walk down next corridor, walk around corner into more baddies, shoot baddies this time, walk up staircase, carefully avoid rubble, walk into room with someone in, cutscene starts, get interested, audio cuts out due to game bug and leaves all the characters with their mouths idly flapping while you guess what they were saying.

No, games aren't art.

 

[Giest118]

Working with the assumption that movies are art... what are movies?
I say they are a culmination of previous forms of expression, each of which is itself considered art: Writing, theatre, photography, and music. We have that a combination of previous forms of art makes another form of art.

Video games are a combination of writing, drawing, music, and movies.

To say that video games are not art is to hold the very concept of art to a double standard.

 

[lukemdizzle]

This enrages me more than I can deal with. Its presumptuous, close minded insult to all who work so hard to create games.

No it doesn't. He never said their work was worthless or bad or anything like that. He said it wasn't art.

I would be hard pressed to call a firemans work art, or a brain surgeons work art, it doesn't mean I don't think it's good.

Yet that's the whole veiled message, is it not? He's basically saying that video games are not art, and movies are art, so, "my medium is better than your medium." It's rather childish for a man his age, if you ask me.

Still waiting on a response to my last post which counters your argument, BTW.

No, he isn't saying that. He is saying that games aren't art.

I never responded to your argument because I didn't see a need. Games are interactive therefore the artist doesn't have complete control over the media he is creating. Individual elements of the game may be art, but the game itself isn't. The closest thing to art in the gaming world would probably be something like Mass Effect 2.

So walking down a corridor, see badies, pause game while you pick powers and weapons, point gun and click click click right trigger, see pixels flail about on screen, walk down next corridor, walk around corner into more baddies, die.

reload.

Walking down a corridor, see badies, pause game while you pick powers and weapons, point gun and click click click right trigger, see pixels flail about on screen, walk down next corridor, walk around corner into more baddies, shoot baddies this time, walk up staircase, get stuck on bit of rubble, spin around endlessly trying to get down off rubble, give up.

reload.

Walking down a corridor, see badies, pause game while you pick powers and weapons, point gun and click click click right trigger, see pixels flail about on screen, walk down next corridor, walk around corner into more baddies, shoot baddies this time, walk up staircase, carefully avoid rubble, walk into room with someone in, cutscene starts, get interested, audio cuts out due to game bug and leaves all the characters with their mouths idly flapping while you guess what they were saying.

No, games aren't art.

your argument is hollow because of the fact that no artist has absolute control of his/her medium. You argument also rules out any aspect of functional art. a person who designs a chair has no control of what somebody will do with that chair, they just set the guide lines through design, sitting. just as a game designer has no real control over a players actions they just set the guide lines.