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

[SpaceCop]

The problem I have with the "video games are art" crowd, is the fact they always point to the story, the music or the artwork as a sign that video-games are art...how does that make them art? Those in themselves are not unique to video-games, I doubt you would compare an environment in a video game to a painting and claim the environment is a work of art...

The manner in which a story can be told is unique to games. There is no other medium that allows the audience to influence the characters, dialogue and events that take place within its narrative. And with the control of a protagonist can come a greater immersion within even a linear narrative. Aren't these significant enough contributions to the concept of a narrative in general?

I know it's been mentioned already, but why not compare the environment of a game to a painting? Does something stop being worthy of artistic critique if you change the manner in which it's viewed; if you can navigate it? Do the actions of the audience affect the value of the works around them? If we were playing laser tag in an art gallery, would the pieces around us be less worthy of critical acclaim than if we were there quietly viewing them?

Okay, the point that video games aren't art because they're interactive....

Has anyone ever BEEN to a museum, with constructions that encourage interaction. What about the Vietnam War Memorial - it was designed to be interacted with, and is considered a very popular piece of art by the artist Maya Lin.
As an animator for games, maybe I'm a little biased, but games can compel you just as much as a movie or well-written story - what about in Fallout when you FEEL BAD about killing an NPC? Or Fable? And those are just the obvious examples. That emotional play defines art - the game doesn't exist for a reason besides "entertainment" - the goal of art.

A sexually crazed rhinoceros bearing down on you can compel you, but it isn't art (unless you get caught with it on your computer and you need an excuse for the missus).

Games interactivity preclude them from being art because the interactivity is about entertainment, not about the message or emotion the game is trying to convey. Shoot-gunning people in Mass Effect is not art, or is the use of VATS in Fallout 3. Aspects of games certainly can be art, but a medium which is a conglomerate of art which seeks to do nothing more than entertain isn't art.

Although movies entertain some of them can be considered art because they are not interactive, thus the elements are arranged in the manner which the artist intended in order to make the statement. Games don't do this, they are arranged in the manner which makes the game possible to play.

But there are games that have tried to convey messages and emotions. Are they immediately banished to the kiddie table of Not Art because their primary purpose is entertainment?

Why is it specifically the non-interactiveness of a painting or film that allows them to be art? What is it about "making a game possible to play" that excludes any possibility of revelations into humanity, or emotional messages, or significant statements?

 

[UberNoodle]

So many poeple seem to be arguing art from purely aesthetic viewpoints. Do any of them care to examine the higher purpose to which art can aspire to? Art can help change the world, break governments, start revolutions and end them, evolve culture. Art can be used not to 'tell a story' or 'show something beautiful', but to communicate the deepest of emotions, and the communicate the profoundest of observations about us societally, philosophically and spiritually, etc. Now if this is the idea of Art, an ideal which is very often strived for by artists, how then do games fare?

I haven't read much of this thread but here is my definition of "art":

"Any sensory experience designed to manipulate the feelings of those who perceive it."

This is intentionally vague because just as no true way exists of objectively quantifying the value of a particular emotion, so there is no true way of quantifying artisticness. The only real restriction is the word "designed". The only universal characteristic of art to my mind is a thinking creator. All other qualifications are elitism.

Or just personal opinion. If personal thought can create art, then personal thought can refuse to recognise it. There is no need to inject elitism into the mix. WHether or not games can be art is a subject worth discussing however, with some games, even the staunchest advocate for such a cause would have to wonder, in the same way not all films are readily labled 'art'.

 

[Xanadu84]

Ebert makes a little more sense when you read his original perspective, that games can't be art because the authorship is in the hands of the observer, not the creator. However, I will argue that if that is the definition he is useing, VG aren't art because they are GREATER then normal art. The problems with VG as something classy is because creating a meaningful game is far more complicated and nuanced then a mere book or movie. He has points regarding authorship which are worty of consideration, but in the end, he is just too narrow minded.

 

[ragestreet]

Nobody's answered my question: Why should I care about anything this guy has to say?.

All I know about him is that he's some old guy with some kind of brain or mouth illness.

 

[Normalgamer]

You all should stop flaming him and read the damn article.

 

[CmdrGoob]

It's worthy noting just how flexible art can be. So, I'll make an example using a very famous work called Fountain, by Duchamp, made in 1917.

It's a urinal. He bought it, and put it on display. It's influential preciscely because it's an iconic rejection of narrow views of what is and isn't art. "...it reflects the dynamic nature of art today and the idea that the creative process that goes into a work of art is the most important thing - the work itself can be made of anything and can take any form" says art expert Simon Wilson.

Ebert is stupidly wrong about what art is.

 

[Timbydude]

What do emotions have to do with it? If ones dog dies that can move you more profoundly than any art you have ever seen, that doesn't mean that Fidos Corpse will be sold at an auction any time soon.

The latter has always been the case in my experience. Making the game as a whole, art. Because without all of the elements of the game's design working together, it may very well have not given you the same heightened sense of meaning, or specific emotion at all.

That just means that the game is well made, that doesn't make it art. People get very emotional and attached to their team, particularly if the team play well, that doesn't make it art either.

You're ignoring the most important parts of what I said. That no part of a game, interactive or otherwise, disqualifies it from being considered art according to my definition or the dictionary's definition. Now, you may have a definition of art that is different from the dictionary's, but you certainly can't presume to call your definition of art better than the dictionary's, now can you? If you don't, then games can indeed be art. If you do, well...then you are just as arrogant and/or self-important as Ebert, and your opinion can't be taken very seriously. Either way, I believe our debate has reached an impasse.

No because the game isn't the soundtrack or the environments or the voice acting.

It is like me calling you an organ because you have a liver or a spleen.

Just because the game contains art as part of its make up and structure does not make the game itself art, any more than my house is art because I have a few pictures stuck up on the wall.

But isn't the combination of individual elements still an art in itself? Just as a painting is a combination of different ideas/feelings, each which could be artful on their own, a game's value as "art" derives from its ability to synthesize those singular pieces. For example, it could be said that Bioshock integrates interactivity and story (the giant reveal halfway through) in a way that is very artful and expressive.

 

[chepenoyo]

The only way I could experience joy or ecstasy from her games would be through profit participation.

As much as I respect his criticism in other venues, Ebert shows his prejudice here. Braid wasn't one of my favorite games on most counts, but to dismiss it as "not art" is simply ignorant. And in this case, literally. Ebert hasn't played it and criticizes it without intent to ever give it a chance. Braid has complex emotional themes and a subplot that appears only on deeper exploration.The joy one gets exploring it resembles the joy of staring ever more closely at a fine painting, or rereading dense passages of a great novel.

 

[Arcanist]

You know, I seem to distinctly remember people saying similar things about another form of media around this time a century ago... What was that medium called again?

I seem to recall that it involved moving pictures... And people used these new-fangled contraptions called cameras to make them...

Huh. Beats the fuck out of me.

On topic, if Ebert still thinks that games can't have excellent writing or underlying themes, he clearly hasn't played Portal. Or Mass Effect. Or... Shit, damn near any game by a competent developer.

 

[Ldude893]

"Art, as I see it, is any human activity which doesn't grow out of either of our species' two basic instincts: survival and reproduction."
-Scott McCloud

 

[OmegaXzors]

All I have to say is:

Heavy Rain.

All answers about if video games can be artistic or an emotional experience is right there.

 

[jboking]

Art:

- the products of human creativity; works of art collectively; "an art exhibition"; "a fine collection of art"
- the creation of beautiful or significant things; "art does not need to be innovative to be good"; "I was never any good at art"; "he said that architecture is the art of wasting space beautifully"
- a superior skill that you can learn by study and practice and observation; "the art of conversation"; "it's quite an art"

Source: wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

By definition, video games are/have the potential to be art.

I'm sorry to tell Ebert, but his self-righteous opinion is no match for a dictionary.

 

[hydrahh]

He's just bitter because all the video game characters still have their lower jaws.

Yep. I went there.

 

[War Penguin]

Meh, I also don't think games are entirely art, not all of them at least, but it can never be art? That's a bit far.

I believe games can and will be art but their currently too mainstream to be considered as that.

 

[magikltrevr]

After reading his article and then watching the video of the girl, I find that Ebert quite blatantly misrepresents several things that she says. Reading it through, his definition of art shifts from paragraph to paragraph, each time to be certain that he doesn't include games as possible art. Even that, he doesn't do well. All I saw was an old man stuck in his ways. Just as it's likely been for a much longer time than there have been video games.

 

[Hurray Forums]

1. The definition of art is so damn vague and open to interpretation that arguing about what is or isn't art is completely pointless.

2. He clearly has next to no experience with video games so his opinion is speculation at best.

3. Many of the points that prove "not art" in his article show up in other forms of media that are widely regarded as art yet he's willing to ignore them there so he's obviously more than a little bias.

4. Video games are a mix of music in their sound tracks which is art, books in their dialogue, in game texts, manuals etc which is art, and visuals like movies, paintings, drawings etc which are art, yet somehow video games are not art and never will be? How does something that is entirely made of art somehow end up not being art? If the Mona Lisa had been a video game graphic instead of a painting would it suddenly be not art? The logic doesn't add up.

5. "The three games she chooses as examples do not raise my hopes for a video game that will deserve my attention long enough to play it." I mean come on, he might as well write "pretentious ass" on his forehead in big red letters. "None of the thousands of games in existence that millions of people have poured their heart and souls into is worth my precious time" Declaring video games not worth your time before PLAYING one is like declaring books not worth your time before learning how to read.

6. Ebert gets to have his meaningless, uneducated opinion that games aren't art while we get to enjoy the fantastic video games that are being made. Somehow, I think we're winning.

 

[Aptspire]

Then I suggest Portal, a game where you can see the Antagonist's final intents as being either justified or not, depending on the interpretation you make of the hints laid on your path to said-antagonist

Ah, see you've taken my point completely out on context - we were discussing a game environment - not a game storyline. The games storyline in of itself is not art.

But the game's environment supports the storyline, as demonstrated by the Rat Man's hideout. Also, if we go with the premise that theatre and cinema is art, then we must also remember that their storyline supports their artistic value as well.
and also, the game's colors and it's primary tool show a warped, rounded form of abstraction, which can be seen as a feminine value trying to pierce into a man's (ie: the research center, filled with straight angles and non-portal walls) limitations
...
a kind of commentary on gaming today, wouldn't you say?

 

[DistinctlyBenign]

Personally: I don't care if games are art.

Games are fun. That's all I need to know. I'll play them.

Art/Not Art has little to no impact on this.