Couldn't help myself. Took the plunge.
Roger's my favorite film critic, you're my favorite video game critic. So it's by some compulsive need for symmetrical satisfaction that I share my message to Mr. Thumbs-Up/Thumbs-down:
Hey, Rog. Longtime listener, first time caller. Fan of your work, actually.
I'd truly love to break down your arguments and compliment all those thoughtful witticisms with my own brand of empirical gymnastics, but as a lifelong gamer and enormous fan of all artistic mediums I have to say that this blog entry pisses me the fuck off.
You don't play games! You don't play them. So how in God's Green Earth can you ever expect to make a rational argument against their merit?!
Attempting to judge video games without playing them is like attempting to review a film without a goddamn head! Interactivity is the whole point of the exercise, it's the genius stroke that raises the bar on the emotional experience. Identifying with a character you see on the screen is one thing. Being that character on the screen is something exponentially more effective.
I feel honored that I have been around long enough to witness the full evolution of video games, and am humbled by its remarkable, practically geometric growth. The modern production of a really good game--the design, the music, the writing, the acting... the out-and-out, dare-I-say ARTISTRY of the undertaking, should be enough to put the whole claim to bed before it's even an issue. But I won't start there. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Pac Man is art. Donkey Kong is art. Robotron 2084 is art. Space Invaders is art. They were art straight out of the gate, because they were able to draw the attention, interest, and psychological stake of several generations straight into the heart of the machine with a few well-placed pixels and some primitive bloops and bleeps. I can't understand how somebody can give Tron a four-star rating and not know this already.
Of the thousands of games created during the 80's boom, only a relative handful really stood out. Already, there is the implication that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, and that designers, still scraping off the afterbirth of their medium, had to innovate far beyond the technical limitations of the hardware.
And even if I was to smooth down my bristling hairs and accept that every single game from that period was nothing but a timewaster, and mindless, and not worthy of whosie-whatsit even if they stimulate several senses simultaneously in practically the exact same way as have long-accepted artforms, my jaw just has to drop at the head-exploding gall it takes to completely ignore the incontestable progress games have made in every single conceivable way since.
You're a fuddy-duddy! A few drops of the quarter, a few involuntary "aww-shucks" jerks of the arm at the decimation of your player, and you not only gave up on playing, you gave up on an entire medium, and I can't think of anything sadder for someone who has based his entire existence on critical thought. You had made up your mind about video games back at their inception, back when you could truly boil down the tenants of each individual experience to a--at best--five-to-ten minute slice. But they have grown, my friend, they have improved, and they are wonderful in ways I truly don't think you are capable of imagining.
Yes, the truth is that both video games and Roger Ebert do not need each other to continue, as I'm sure you both will, with relative success. But it pains me to think that we lost a possible ally so early in this battle for respectability, especially considering how much video-games have increasingly emulated older-brother cinema over the years. I'm sure you had to defend film against the poetry-sculpture-ballet-Shakesperian snuffheads from time to time, and many of those arguments would be transferrable to electronic entertainment. I can give you a personal assurance that the appreciation of either one of these mediums need not be mutually exclusive. I have no doubt that a majority of the video game fans you are alienating with your comments are in fact loyal fans of film.
But you're caught in this paradoxical bubble, from which it would require an incredible amount of effort and will on your part to escape: games are not worth your time because they are not art, but in order for you to harness the potential to appreciate them, you have to play them.
And that would be fine, but you were the one who made your claim, you were the one who decided to re-open this can of worms, to base your entire thesis on a single fifteen-minute lecture, designating that speaker as the unofficial emissary of the millions of dedicated gamers out there.
I don't think it is our desire for validity that is the driving force behind the cavalcades of dissenting opinions you've invited into your life. Speaking of my own frustration with your take (it's not the first time I've come across it amongst non-gamers) is the utter bafflement that stems from the blind-sided double standards. You're telling us that a work of art comes from the collaboration of a bunch of artists. And like our beloved film, we know that the games today are not merely the products of programmers and technicians but writers, directors, set designers, composers, actors--basically anything you can get an Oscar for and more. But it's not art, because you can win the game... That's pretty arbitrary. That's crazy arbitrary, and is about as reasonable as claiming a poem ain't a poem if it don't rhyme.
"Winning" is only part of it--albeit a sweet part--and it is the covenant the collective makes with the game designer to ensure the full experience of the title is fulfilled. Victory, yes, overcoming the intrinsic challenge, yes--but the whole point of "winning" is to let us know that we've actually finished the fucking game. Metaphorically, it's turning to that last page of a book, and realizing, having no more words to absorb, that you are finally in a position to reflect upon and perhaps judge the individual work. Not before. You quit before you finish, you may judge the experience, the slice, but you are opening yourself to the cinematic equivalent of a mere trailer.
Exactly how far did you get with Braid before you deemed it "pathetic?" Please, in the name of all that is just and holy don't tell me that you based your conclusions on the two minutes worth of footage on your blog. If it's true, we'll work around that, but don't tell me that--because it would utterly destroy any hope that you were truly considering the evidence. You would never judge a painting by only looking at the bottom left corner. You wouldn't judge a Shakespearean play by any one of its monologues. And you hopefully wouldn't walk out on a film before it even got through its opening credits. Braid is art, a true achievement in game design, you need only not ask the people that refuse to play it. And I don't believe I'm ruining anything by saying that the nothing-short-of life-altering ending to that game can Usual Suspects, Sixth Sense, Rose-fucking-bud it with the best of them.
I'm not exactly sure why you abandoned your earlier claim within the Clive Barker Beat-down of 2007 that video games were art, just not high art. That's somewhat reasonable, that at least keeps you on the playing field. But now you are staking your reputation on your indomitable clairvoyance that a medium you have made no reasonable attempt to understand will fail to evolve to your standard of worthiness for at least another century. If you are that sure about your opinion, why stop there? Make the jump into eternity, we won't fault you for being off by a few millennia.
But the question in every gamers mind is, "What would it take?" What would it take for you to decide that video games were indeed art, and that it's never too late for you be suddenly right about something you were too stubborn to admit?
My humble answer to you: play Portal. Beginning to end. Think of it as a Stanley Kubrick companion piece. It's relatively short: you can finish that sucker in about three hours. Keep a veteran gamer around, perhaps a family member, just to get you through the tough patches. We are legion, and any gamer worth his salt would be willing to hold your hand throughout the process, for the good of artistic integrity, even amongst the indignity of finishing a game we've already played. That's sort of what makes us what we are.
There are choices--there are in fact innumerable ways to accomplish your goals, but why should that be a setback? The ending is the same no matter what you do. Just like you or any member of a movie-going audience will experience the film by identifying with different characters, different perspectives. It's all the same ride. You're allowed to sit wherever you want.
We love our games, we love our movies. That the two artforms continue to influence one another is undeniable. We want games to be considered works of art, because it provides the opportunity for game designers to create great games. What we need is an exceptional movie to be made from a video game. It hasn't happened quite yet, admittedly. John Logan (Gladiator, The Aviator, Sweeney Todd) is said to be developing a script for BioShock.
Fingers crossed...
