Roger Ebert Admits Games Aren't So Shabby

[Keane Ng]

Roger Ebert Admits Games Aren't So Shabby

The preeminent film critic [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/frontpage]and thumb-extender who once said that "games could not be art" is admitting that games aren't so bad, though he'd still prefer other pastimes.

Responding to a "year in gaming" remarked [http://www.slate.com/id/2206243/entry/2206300/] in the comments section of his blog that though he remains wary of elevating games to any cultural status of import, he's not as adamant about it as before. "I am still not sure video games can be 'art' in the sense that we use it in this thread, but I am convinced they are getting a lot better," Ebert said. "However, if I had at the beginning of my career been told I would spend the next 41 years playing video games, I would have taken up professional knitting."

Why the sudden change in heart, though? It was a couple years ago when Ebert made his exchange of opinions [http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=ANSWERMAN&date=20051127] with Clive Barker, who argued the opposite. For most gamers, Ebert wrote, "video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic." He also defined all games as involving primarily either 1) shooting things, 2) fetch quests or 3) player control, and said that "I don't think these attributes have much to do with art; they have much more in common with sports."

So, what did Roger Ebert play in the last year that moved him enough to make him say that "games are getting a lot better?"

I'm guessing it wasn't Gears of War 2 [http://gearsofwar.xbox.com/AgeGate.htm].

[Via MTV Multiplayer [http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/12/12/roger-ebert-says-games-are-getting-better/]]

Permalink

 

[L.B. Jeffries]

A person whose spent their entire life studying linear narratives and having all of his media be broadcasted at him with absolutely no input from the audience can hardly be expected to ever appreciate video games. He's always going to judge it like he's watching a movie and he's always going to miss the point when he does so.

 

[Skrapt]

Why would you aspire to be art? Art on the whole is classified as not interactive and having no real purpose. And while pretty graphics help, most of us gamers are playing games for the interactivity and fun value. Which contradicts the art tag a little, to be honest when a game claims to be art I run a mile in the other direction and you know why? I hate art. It's seemingly confined to the upper class and stale, morbid galleries and I hope that's not where games are headed.

I'm not saying art can't be enjoyed, I'm simply saying that games as art is the wrong thing the industry should be aspiring to, I'd much prefer they put their effort into compelling, fun and original gameplay. It all boils down to what you think art is, and in my mind art is boring and unintuitive, which is something I want games to avoid.

 

[Lvl 64 Klutz]

Movies actually suffer from being considered art, suddenly directors can't make a movie simply with the purpose of allowing a bunch of friends to get together, eat popcorn, and watch flashy special effects without being called out for making a "bad" movie.

 

[KarmicToast]

I once had an employee who went to art school. She asked me if she could come to work with her best friend in what can only be described as a purple shiny version of the gimp suit from Pulp Fiction for a month. After I obviously said no, she changed her senior project to one in which she and her best friend each shaved each other's head with the intention of bagging the hair and eating one strand of the other's hair each morning with breakfast for three years. As far as I know, she is still doing it. That being said, she spent (or more apt, her parent's spent) approximately $190,000 for the four year education which led her to that final piece of "art." So I guess I don't know what art is, but there a lot of things MUCH farther away from that word than video games. Oh, and Ebert can suck it.

 

[Echolocating]

It all boils down to what you think art is, and in my mind art is boring and unintuitive, which is something I want games to avoid.

To each his own, I suppose. But there is good and bad art though, just so you know. ;-)

 

[Skrapt]

I completely agree, I take art as an A level, but personally I can't stand the more 'traditional' approach to art. Problem is that's where all the marks come from... SO we have very little opportunity to explore the better (in my view) ways of creating 'art'.

 

[PedroSteckecilo]

Took him long enough.

 

[crowTrobot]

Roger Ebert's assessments of film can be dubious at best anyway, so take that with a grain of salt.

 

[stompy]

For most gamers, Ebert wrote, "video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic." He also defined all games as involving primarily either 1) shooting things, 2) fetch quests or 3) player control, and said that "I don't think these attributes have much to do with art; they have much more in common with sports."

I fail to see how 'player control' is a negative to art. Perhaps it's my definition of art, but I've always seen that anything that conveys an idea or explores an issue should be considered art. In my eyes, player control allows greater empathy and a more personalised experience with the subject matter, since we as the player experience the event 'first-hand', something other forms of art cannot compete with.

Then again, I may have gotten the idea of art muddled up with something else...

 

[Joeshie]

Roger Ebert is a great film critic but can't seem to get past his ignorant generational bias.

Too bad, I thought he would have been smart enough to realize his bias.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

I fail to see how 'player control' is a negative to art. Perhaps it's my definition of art, but I've always seen that anything that conveys an idea or explores an issue should be considered art. In my eyes, player control allows greater empathy and a more personalised experience with the subject matter, since we as the player experience the event 'first-hand', something other forms of art cannot compete with.

Then again, I may have gotten the idea of art muddled up with something else...

Ebert subscribes to the "auteur" theory of art; that art is something created by an artist, so anything that transfers the creative initiative away from the artist to the audience means it's no longer art. (His argument is a bit more involved in that, and perhaps in my boiling it down I've lost some nuances, but since I don't agree with it I don't care too much.)

-- Steve

 

[stompy]

Ebert subscribes to the "auteur" theory of art; that art is something created by an artist, so anything that transfers the creative initiative away from the artist to the audience means it's no longer art. (His argument is a bit more involved in that, and perhaps in my boiling it down I've lost some nuances, but since I don't agree with it I don't care too much.)

-- Steve

That explains it... meh, then he and I have incompatible views on art, something that I suppose I'll just live with it.

 

[Sylocat]

*sigh* This is the same school of thought that says that any movie that doesn't have ten-minute static shots of a guy herding sheep can't be art because it's too geared towards the masses. That any movies with science fiction or fantasy can't be art because art is supposed to be completely realistic. That any movie made before 1950 is automatically superior to every film made after. And that the standards of art are ridiculously high for movies with happy endings, but ridiculously low for movies with tragic endings.

Earth to "high art" critics everywhere: Fiction was invented to help people escape from reality, not to constantly remind us why we want to escape from it in the first place!

Which reminds me, I added a quote from Action, one of the greatest prematurely-canceled shows of all time, to the Tropes Are Not Bad [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TropesAreNotBad] page at TV Tropes, and I think it's worth mentioning here:

"I'll tell you exactly what they want, Senator. They want chase scenes and car crashes. They want firm breasts and tight-assed Latino men. They want their cowboys to be strong and silent. They want their cops to bend the rules to get the job done. They want the boy to get the girl. They want the alien to be killed, unless he's cute. They want the good guy to win, they want the bad guy to die, hopefully in the biggest explosion the budget will allow. But most importantly, Senator, they want to walk into a theater and for ninety minutes be able to forget about the fucking mess you have left of this nation."

Think about it.

 

[Aardvark Soup]

Ah well, the very definition of art is very subjective and because of that you can hardly say he is wrong. He doesn't think video games can be art (or at least aren't art at the moment) and that's his opinion, why should you care?

 

[Dectilon]

So he's not a fan of installation art then? XD

Artists, even bad ones, have to take pride in what they do so it's easy to understand why they'd get defensive when uneducated people claim they could do just as well as they. It's as if someone would tell a programmer they could do just as well since they also can type on a keyboard.

 

[The Random One]

I like how he keeps mentioning that games aren't art because they are more like sports. I'm Brazilian. People here are crazy about football. (Or soccer, how Americans call it to tell it apart from that game that barely uses feet and doesn't have a ball.) And let me tell you, if you ask a big fan of the sport whether or not it's art, they won't hesitate to say it is. They'll mention the plays done by old great players, mostly Pelé and Garrincha, as proof. And yet, to Ebert, sports are the yardstick by which he defines non-art.

I say this not to say he is wrong but to say the discussion is futile. Art is too subjective to have a real, defined value. That's why discussions about censorship can be so polarizing, because the crossing point for one person is the average for another. I think that if you think you're doing art, you are. If others disagree, it's bad art, but it's art. If an artist can fill a table with hard candy and put a plaque asking people to taste it and say it's art, he can program a videogame to interact with passersby and say the same. Who's to say it isn't?

 

[Orange Monkey]

He probably played Bioshock or something