Ebert Re-Emphasizes That Games Will Never Be Art

[Burst6]

Who is this Ebert guy anyways, And why should i care what he thinks? Isnt he the guy that gives movies 2 thumbs up with his friend roeper? I dont even like movies, i cant stand to sit around and just watch unless I'm laughing.

If Wikipedia is right, "Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way to affect the senses or emotions". I'm going to go with the website that has helped me for years, not some "famous" man i never heard of outside of movie commercials for his thumbs.

 

[SMOKEMNHALO2001]

"Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art?"
Why should I care about a guy who isn't involved in the videogame industry and doesn't play videogames. I mean common he mentions that videogames are about getting points? Really?! High scores have been dead for quite some time, I'm sorry but if your definition of a videogame comes back from you seeing a pinball machine or frogger you need to stop right there and realize that you are no expert on the subject. It would be like me saying that I don't like movies because the black and white bothers me and I wish we could hear the actors voices instead of reading the text on the screen.

What are talking about? High scores are still being used, they're not dead at all.
Besides, Erbert has become jaded towards mainstream movies, I don't care much for games being called art I think it's stupid.

 

[HT_Black]

Wow. I seriously can't believe you were evil enough to embed that video. That crosses the line from 'rickroll funny' and goes straight into 'AIDS jokes' funny. Shame on you, Mr. Goldman. Shame.

Also, Ebert is provably wrong and a bigot, as I expressed earlier.

 

[johnman]

While Ebert comes across as a pretentious twat, he has a point, I really dont care if games are art or not, they are still fun.

 

[Acton Hank]

Oh Fuck, here we go again...
"Games can never be art" By Roger Ebert.
Quick Pop question: What is art?!
Give me the definition of the word art.
If you look at the dictionary it'll say:"a medium that arranges elements in a way that effects the senses or emotions." So by that definition almost everything, if not everything, is art to somebody.
Films started out as just mindless playthings but have evolved and matured into something great and meaningful. And if you look closely you'll see that games are slowly evolving into something meaningful too.
I don't know why everyone is trying to prove him wrong. What exactly makes him qualified to state that games aren't art?
Does he have 13 years of gaming under his belt like myself?
Or all of you for that matter?

 

[Chunko]

Does anyone have this guys email address? I've always hated this guy but now he's really ticked me off.

 

[MasterMongoose0]

Isn't a movie just a visual representation of a story found in novels, usually?

How does adding interactivity diminish that idea? Looking at something like Super Mario Galaxy, and the work-of-art that is its crafting shows the expresses the ideas of many incredibly creative people, and that's completely discounting the gorgeous beauty in its visuals.

Then there's the obvious Shadow of the Colossus, and I'd even mention God of War for its ability to create an epic hero. There's so many aspects of games that trying to generalize them is idiotic. Madden might not be Shakespeare, but I'll defend (almost) anything by Shigeru Miyamoto or Tim Schafer or Hideo Kojima. To say they aren't creating art is just closed-minded and does not represent the bigger picture.

 

[Rednog]

"Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art?"
Why should I care about a guy who isn't involved in the videogame industry and doesn't play videogames. I mean common he mentions that videogames are about getting points? Really?! High scores have been dead for quite some time, I'm sorry but if your definition of a videogame comes back from you seeing a pinball machine or frogger you need to stop right there and realize that you are no expert on the subject. It would be like me saying that I don't like movies because the black and white bothers me and I wish we could hear the actors voices instead of reading the text on the screen.

What are talking about? High scores are still being used, they're not dead at all.
Besides, Erbert has become jaded towards mainstream movies, I don't care much for games being called art I think it's stupid.

In your average single player game (which is really what could be considered "art") there rarely are high scores. Sure they exist in multiplayer and such but when you're arguing things like Heavy Rain they don't have a scoring system. Score systems really are an old system for games where you run around and get bs points for collecting items and such.

 

[Dannyboy1186]

I sappose anything can become art, its just a matter of people excepting it as art or at least something fancy. There are people who a willing to except games as art. I'd rather believe game are art than that laymens prize art gallery thing.

 

[TheMadJack]

Although I have great respect toward Roger Ebert as a movie critic, he has absolutely no support on which to stand on on that subject. That's only his view, nothing else.

Let the games's audience pass judgment on games, not movie critics. Those self-appointed defenders of the "arts" have no knowledge whatsoever of games, its audience and the story-telling of that media. They can argument until the end of time, it doesn't make them expert in games and its multiple incarnations.

Personally, some paintings, a couple of Picasso come to mind, don't qualify as art, but I'm no expert on painting. So, in the end, it all comes down to the eye of the beholder, or the consumer of said media.

Mr Ebert, stick to movies. We, gamers, will decide which game qualifies as art.

 

[Chunko]

Personally in my opinion I've thought that since movies aren't interactive they are a more primitive and inferior form of art when compared to videogames. Since you can never become immersed in a film the same way you can be immersed in a game, videogames are clearly the superior art form.

 

[Citrus]

Well, I think all his credibility when out the window when he suggested that a videogame without "points" is not a videogame, but a representation of another medium. I honestly don't think he's touched a game since the 1990s.

I think he just likes the attention.

 

[Abedeus]

And what does that make stuff like Okami, Psychonauts, Cave Story, Braid, Flower, Flow, Heavy Rain, and even Bayonetta?

Every one of them except for Psychonauts?

"Presumptions, pompous and over-thought, over-the-hill, too colorful/too tired (Heavy Rain)/weird (Bayonetta) monstrosity trying to look artsy". Like those Bollywood movies that always have a dance scene with stupid music and no plot advancement.

As for Psychonauts - overly colorful, fun but not that awesome as people make it look platforming game. If you wanted a more "artsy" game as an example, you could've used Beyond Good and Evil. That game is beautiful, plays like a wonder and is full of charm. That's the closest thing to "art" without moving into canvas.

Oh, and I'm not sure what Heavy Rain is. It seems to me like it's a clever way of creating an interactive movie and making people pay 5-10 times the price of a movie ticket.

 

[ShadowKirby]

Personally in my opinion I've thought that since movies aren't interactive they are a more primitive and inferior form of art when compared to videogames. Since you can never become immersed in a film the same way you can be immersed in a game, videogames are clearly the superior art form.

Wow, I disagree with Ebert but that is even a worst argument supporting video game as art.

 

[Chunko]

Personally in my opinion I've thought that since movies aren't interactive they are a more primitive and inferior form of art when compared to videogames. Since you can never become immersed in a film the same way you can be immersed in a game, videogames are clearly the superior art form.

Wow, I disagree with Ebert but that is even a worst argument supporting video game as art.

It wasn't an argument saying that videogames were art, I was saying that they were superior to movies.

EDIT: I would agree with you if that was my argument for why videogames are art.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

And what does that make stuff like Okami, Psychonauts, Cave Story, Braid, Flower, Flow, Heavy Rain, and even Bayonetta?

Every one of them except for Psychonauts?

"Presumptions, pompous and over-thought, over-the-hill, too colorful/too tired (Heavy Rain)/weird (Bayonetta) monstrosity trying to look artsy". Like those Bollywood movies that always have a dance scene with stupid music and no plot advancement.

As for Psychonauts - overly colorful, fun but not that awesome as people make it look platforming game. If you wanted a more "artsy" game as an example, you could've used Beyond Good and Evil. That game is beautiful, plays like a wonder and is full of charm. That's the closest thing to "art" without moving into canvas.

Oh, and I'm not sure what Heavy Rain is. It seems to me like it's a clever way of creating an interactive movie and making people pay 5-10 times the price of a movie ticket.

Okami...not art...

YOU IS WRONG SIR!

 

[kotorfan04]

I don't know, I don't think I can say that video games are art. I think some of them are art, like Shadow of The Colossus, but I think that fewer and fewer will actually be in that art zone. Of course developers today aren't creating games either, I say that they are creating worlds, places for us to explore, to do with as we please, to provide brief escapes from our reality and spend a few hours in theirs. World of Warcraft may not be art, but then I don't think it is a game either. The developers created a world (of warcraft) and gave us teh ability to play around in it, to do what we want within reason, and more and more games are following this pattern. Obvious candidates include the Fallout series, and Elder Scrolls but even more linear games fall into this list such as Mass Effect and BioShock. Yes BioShock has an epic story, but it is still part of its world, we come back to it because we wish to explore Rapture yet again, to see all it has. We want to frolic in Fort Frolic, to fight in Fontaine Fisheries. So maybe Ebert is right and games aren't aren't, but then I don't think video games are games either, a work of art is finite, solid and rigid, video games will never be like that, and while some try to ape cinema at their best they give us whole worlds to explore, entire universes even. So that is what I'd argue that video games are: Worlds.

 

[tetron]

From the perspective of a gamer what this guy says is pointless. But from the perspective of an artist, to say that anything is outside the realm of art is the rantings of a fool. Art is what you make of it, so to say that something can't be art is to say that you don't believe everything can be art. And if you think there's a single thing in this world that can't be viewed as an art form then all your opinions on the matter fall on deaf ears here.