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

[UberNoodle]

It saddens me how on even forums like this one, which I have been reading for years, people still have to resort to juvenile name calling and over-emotionality when they disagree with someone. I respect Ebert a lot. He is a smart and thoughtful man. However I don't always agree with him, and this case is an example. However, I don't see that as any reason to get as emotional and personal as people in this thread are becoming.

If I don't agree, I say so and give my reasons. To belittle and insult anyone for having their own point of view is anti-learning. It is anti-communication. We should collect opinions because all are valuable. They serve a great purpose to strengthen, open and widen our understanding. When I read all the nasty remarks and emotionality here, it exasperates me.

 

[UberNoodle]

Ebert chooses to classify as art: beautiful visual media such as paintings, well written stories, and well crafted music. Any argument that these media, when combined, cannot be art is invalid because he accepts movies as art. So by his own definition of what he accepts as art, regardless of what he set out to say, video games are art. What he means to say, is that he does not like video games, nor understand them. Fair enough. I don't like his opinion as a critic. Does this mean he's not a critic? No, it just means he's a bad one.

He's a bad critic because you disagree with him? What's the point of being a critic if a 'good one' is one that agrees with common consensus? A good critic expresses themselves well about what they examine, from their own point of view. Whether or not you agree is not their concern. Once they have said what they have to say, you are free to input your own thoughts. Yet, to say that he is a 'bad critic' only shows that people today are illequipped to handle subjectivity unless it is their own, which in that case, is 'truth'. There is a misconception today that reviews and critics are somehow based on empirical or universal measurements. That is simply not the case and never has been.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

What I don't get is that drawing, music and writing are considered art, but suddenly, when you put them together with a little dose of interactivity, they're not art anymore. The concept arts, musics and scenarios can be considered art in their own right so why don't we treat video games as little interactive museums? Why all the hate?

Because they are not museums. They are games. The graphics and storyline are like the logo on this website or pictures on a brochure.

The fact that so many play up the aspects of a game that are apart from the mechanics is helping to prove RE's point.

We've had lots of computer games with great graphics before people even started banding around the term art. It seems that striving for "art" has little positie value.

 

[shemoanscazrex3]

seemed to me that he just doesn't like video games. that kind of bias kind of makes for a poor judge of their artistic merit.

I don't like rap but I certainly don't go around claiming to be an authority on raps artistic value.

it's like asking a racist for objectivity on the subject of other cultures.

This.

 

[shemoanscazrex3]

What I don't get is that drawing, music and writing are considered art, but suddenly, when you put them together with a little dose of interactivity, they're not art anymore. The concept arts, musics and scenarios can be considered art in their own right so why don't we treat video games as little interactive museums? Why all the hate?

Because they are not museums. They are games. The graphics and storyline are like the logo on this website or pictures on a brochure.

The fact that so many play up the aspects of a game that are apart from the mechanics is helping to prove RE's point.

We've had lots of computer games with great graphics before people even started banding around the term art. It seems that striving for "art" has little positie value.

A logo on a website could be made by a graphic artist which would then in turn make it art hazaa!

 

[UberNoodle]

What I don't get is that drawing, music and writing are considered art, but suddenly, when you put them together with a little dose of interactivity, they're not art anymore. The concept arts, musics and scenarios can be considered art in their own right so why don't we treat video games as little interactive museums? Why all the hate?

Because they are not museums. They are games. The graphics and storyline are like the logo on this website or pictures on a brochure.

The fact that so many play up the aspects of a game that are apart from the mechanics is helping to prove RE's point.

We've had lots of computer games with great graphics before people even started banding around the term art. It seems that striving for "art" has little positie value.

Well people appear to be only considering the technical nature of art. That is not all that art is and means to most people. The problem is that in language we throw the word 'art' around erroneously, and like giving out a bunch of trophies and then snatching them back again, when someone uses the word art as perhaps it is meant to be used, people get upset! 'I'm an artist!' they say, and they would be correct, but there is art and there is Art.

Someone brought up cavepaintings, and how 'if they can be art' then games can. That's a strange argument. Such paintings weren't done for entertainment. Maybe far too many people today see things only in aesthetic ways. Those paintings were for sacred rites, spiritual matters and expressing the divine and trancendent soul, of people, animals, earth and the gods. Even a mordern portrait is not done with the practicality of record keeping. It seeks to capture the soulful essence of the subject and at the same time perhaps say something about the viewers themselves.

By the definition of art used by many posters here, which is commercial meaning to the word (I used to be a commercial artist, I will defend the artistry found in any commercial work), games are certainly art, and if NOT, they contain art and require artistry. However, from the point of view that (as I said in a post earlier) art is soulful, expressive and can change hearts, minds, cultures and even the course of history, can we really say that games stack up?

This whole 'debate', of which I have seen very little here, hinges on a definition of a word, and the associated meanings and value attached it. NO game has ever made me cry for its sheer beauty or how it spoke to my soul. No game has ever changed the course of a war or inspired revolution. No game has mystified and so enamoured people that they dedicate their lives to studying its intricasies. Certainly, Ebert says that film is art, but that doesn't mean that he holds every film in the same artistic regard. Not at all. Games certainly have potential for this kind of cultural power, and I hope that they one day acheive it.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

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?

Essays, speeches and nuclear missiles must be the best medium for art then. The finest art would include diplomatic documents, state constitutions, mathematical equations, incriminating pictures of politicians, and acts of extreme violence.

Actually that definition is probably vauge enough to include European dictators.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

What I don't get is that drawing, music and writing are considered art, but suddenly, when you put them together with a little dose of interactivity, they're not art anymore. The concept arts, musics and scenarios can be considered art in their own right so why don't we treat video games as little interactive museums? Why all the hate?

Because they are not museums. They are games. The graphics and storyline are like the logo on this website or pictures on a brochure.

The fact that so many play up the aspects of a game that are apart from the mechanics is helping to prove RE's point.

We've had lots of computer games with great graphics before people even started banding around the term art. It seems that striving for "art" has little positie value.

A logo on a website could be made by a graphic artist which would then in turn make it art hazaa!

That doesn't make the actual website art.

/Double post.

 

[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?

Essays, speeches and nuclear missiles must be the best medium for art then. The finest art would include diplomatic documents, state constitutions, mathematical equations, incriminating pictures of politicians, and acts of extreme violence.

Actually that definition is probably vauge enough to include European dictators.

*sigh*
It wasn't a definition, and you are putting words in my mouth. Regardless, you have made it clear to me that you would rather be sarcastic and obnoxious than discuss this topic in any productive way. Fine then. Ebert is wrong. Games are art. Finished.

 

[likalaruku]

I will never agree with Ebert on anything.

1)In the 90s, when he gave a movie a thumbs up, I saw it & hated it, only liking the ones Siskal gaves thumbs up to when he & Ebert didn;t agree.

2)Movies can scaresy be concidered art anymore. As someone who is only enticed to see 2 movies a year & is disappointed by most of them & everything on TV, I can say that I've seen better art in trash cans then in theaters.

3)Video games suit the dictionary deffinition of art.

 

[Halo Fanboy]

*sigh*
It wasn't a definition, and you are putting words in my mouth. Regardless, you have made it clear to me that you would rather be sarcastic and obnoxious than discuss this topic in any productive way. Fine then. Ebert is wrong. Games are art. Finished.

Well if art has the practical application of changing the world then I don't see why we can't compare it to the Magna Carta. Obviously if an art isn't starting a revolution it isn't trying hard enough.

Also bombing the heck out of people is sooo totally art. A woman once told people to watch her get raped and it was art.Hiroshima was great art. Lots of people got worked up about it and it had a clear message.

"The U.S. does not fuck around."

 

[haruvister]

This argument always makes me think of Gollum. A beautiful creation, flawlessly rendered. Yet the reason we feel for him isn't because of his pixels, but because of the soulful human performance underneath.

Though I think Mr Ebert is harsh on games as far as their unpretentious qualities are concerned, he is right insofar as there isn't a single game which approaches the pyschological or philosophical depth of a great film or novel. But then very, very few make this claim. In fact, I wonder if the only people who do consider games as art are A) those who spend too long playing them to actually pick up a Dickens novel or watch a Stanley Kubrick movie, and B) spokespeople like Ms Santiago who are appealing to their business peers to target new demographics.

 

[UberNoodle]

*sigh*
It wasn't a definition, and you are putting words in my mouth. Regardless, you have made it clear to me that you would rather be sarcastic and obnoxious than discuss this topic in any productive way. Fine then. Ebert is wrong. Games are art. Finished.

Well if art has the practical application of changing the world then I don't see why we can't compare it to the Magna Carta. Obviously if an art isn't starting a revolution it isn't trying hard enough.

Also bombing the heck out of people is sooo totally art. A woman once told people to watch her get raped and it was art.Hiroshima was great art. Lots of people got worked up about it and it had a clear message.

"The U.S. does not fuck around."

Sorry, but you are being ludicrous. Idiotic in fact. I never said any of that or implied it. And I already told you so, yet you continue again along the same mistaken line of 'rebuttle', and purposefully so. You seem to find glee in mistaking sarcasm for wit. I say this because really, you are being an ass. How about adressing what I actually wrote. If you can't decode my meaning and intent from my numerous posts in this thread, then the problem lies somewhere within you, not in how I expressed myself.

 

[-Datura-]

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. They are, I regret to say, pathetic. I repeat: "No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets."

FUCK YOU [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Life_2], Mr Ebert. Fuck you [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassins_creed] fuck you [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeworld] fuck you [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starcraft].

 

[UberNoodle]

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. They are, I regret to say, pathetic. I repeat: "No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets."

FUCK YOU [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Life_2], Mr Ebert. Fuck you [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassins_creed] fuck you [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeworld] fuck you [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starcraft].

Yeah .. that's really productive. In those links, what does it say about the emotional, spiritual and philosophical worth of those games? How do those games affect us in ways that trancend the medium on which they are rendered? Besides looking awesome and kicking ass, and of course being technically acomplished, what is their cultural, emotional and spiritual value? What do they communicate about the people that made them and view them, and the worlds in which they live?

Art essentially comes from a word that referred to the result of a 'learned skill or craft'. In this sense, there is artistry in anything that we create. That is why we say 'commerical artist'. That is why we use the word when speaking of any craft, traditional or emmergent.

It seems that I am pissing in the wind in this thread, but 'art' also is used to describe works created with deep intent and of value that trancend the physical limitations of their craft. Art in this sense has its true value in what veiewers and participants TAKE AWAY from it, and which then lives on in their hearts and souls.

This introduces a sticky definition, so I say that it isn't a definition. I don't believe that such subjective concepts can be defined so readily, but instead of just saying that games are art because other people say it and grammatically it fits quite well, spend some time to examine what the word 'art' can mean in our culture, what it can be used for, and what affect it can have. Look at its immortal, trancendent nature and how the true beauty in art is apart from the medium it is presented on.

After doing this, you might not feel the need for another rebuttle as eloquent as the one you wrote above.

"Supreme art is a traditional statement of certain heroic and religious truths, passed on from age to age, modified by individual genius, but never abandoned. The revolt of individualism came because the tradition had become degraded, or rather because a spurious copy had been accepted in its stead." [William Butler Yeats]

 

[Halo Fanboy]

^^^ " The higher purpose to which art can aspire to? Art can help change the world, break governments, start revolutions and end them, evolve culture. "

 

[shadow skill]

He doesn't know what he is talking about. Manipulating human behavior to achieve desired results is an art, and most software that accepts user input qualifies. He really needs to quit while he is ahead.

 

[-Datura-]

FUCK YOU [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Life_2], Mr Ebert. Fuck you [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassins_creed] fuck you [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeworld] fuck you [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starcraft].

Yeah .. that's really productive. In those links, what does it say about the emotional, spiritual and philosophical worth of those games? How do those games affect us in ways that trancend the medium on which they are rendered? Besides looking awesome and kicking ass, and of course being technically acomplished, what is their cultural, emotional and spiritual value? What do they communicate about the people that made them and view them, and the worlds in which they live?

If you've played those games, you'll know the answers. But I'm not gonna waste my time explaining colours to blind people. If the "art" designation entails spending more time navel-gazing than playing the games in question, you can fucking keep it.

 

[UberNoodle]

He doesn't know what he is talking about. Manipulating human behavior to achieve desired results is an art, and most software that accepts user input qualifies. He really needs to quit while he is ahead.

The issue is all in the definition of that word. There is 'art' that is the result of a skill or craft, and hence we talk about artistry in anything from baking to carving, and perhaps even programming. But there is also the the 'art' that refers to a much higher concept, in which value is usually very very very subjective, and not based on any measurable skill or technique. By this definition, art trancends the medium in ways that craft cannot. The debate here it isn't about Ebert 'not knowing what he's talking about' but what 'art' means and whether we can all agree on that.