
Video Games are already art, Mr Ebert - nikgregory
http://nikgregory.com/2010/04/video-games-are-already-art-mr-ebert/
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gizmo
I agree with the premise (video games can be art), but I find his arguments
unconvincing.

Some games I consider art because of the story, the immersion, and so on. From
the top of my head: _PlaneScape: Torment_ , and perhaps _The Longest Journey_.
These games are great because they are great novels, and _more_.

Other games, such as _Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis_ (the one by
LucasArts) and _Grim Fandango_ I consider art because they are _great movies_
and more. It's really more of an interactive movie than a game. Watching
somebody play games like this is almost as much fun as playing it yourself.

Some games I consider art because they make me stop and think. _Sanatarium_
for instance.

On the other end of the spectrum you can have a game like _Super Mario_. Mario
is reductionist. Everything that can be left out, is left out. You walk, you
run, you jump. There is no story, you don't need one. I imagine people will
still play and enjoy Super Mario 30 years from now, perhaps a 100 years from
now. If a game stands the test of time like that, it almost _must_ be art by
definition.

A great game, when you pick it up, can immediately blow you away because it's
_just that good_. In the same way a painting can take your breath away or keep
you captivated for hours. Music can do this to you too. Paintings, Music and
Games can be art because the artists can decide what to leave in and what to
take away. They completely own the medium, and so the artist owns the
experience.

With movies, this isn't the case. They're clumsy because there are too many
details, too many uncontrollable factors, too many budgetary issues. Movies
are never _perfect_. No matter how great a movie is, there are always jarring
imperfections. But if there is a perfect movie, a movie that can't be improved
upon, that can be _really_ considered art... you'd probably end up with a
movie from Pixar.

~~~
Radix
I think yours will be the best comment on this article.

The trouble with this discussion is people keep attempting to define objective
attributes of art. But art doesn't have objective attributes; they are all
subjective. Art is a feeling we get when we look at something others call art.
We see three paintings, all "art", and two of them give you a certain feeling,
so you call it "art" and suppose they feel the same about the third painting.
And there it is. You now have an idea called "art" to develop.

It is in this way that our idea of art overlaps with each others, appearing to
be the same from a distance, but irreconcilable at proximity. This is why this
concept is so fuzzy and difficult to sketch out. We really do need to
experience art before we can believe it as art. So, Mr. Ebert's right. Video
games aren't art - _to him_.

~~~
gizmo
Thank you. I was thinking about deleting the comment because it's so
disjointed and a bit of a braindump, but now I'll leave it up.

I don't agree that art is _just_ in the eye of the beholder, but this probably
isn't the place to get into that whole argument. In short, some things _must_
be art because they're truly timeless, other things _cannot_ be art because
they're strictly worse than something else. If you have X, and X' an
uninspired derivative of X, then X' cannot be art. So I'm pretty sure there
are a bunch of necessary attributes for art. I don't think you (plural you) do
art justice by saying it's all subjective.

~~~
Radix
When you put it that way I agree with you. But I don't believe art is _just_
in the eye of the beholder. I believe there is a web of definitions for art
that all overlap. Great Art is art that mostly agreed by everyone that it is
great art. People the world over converge to believe a certain symmetry and
proportion makes the most beautiful face. In the same way I believe there is a
shared inclination for what is Great Art [1]. But I don't know what it is, and
challenge you to define it, because it's a little different for everyone,
particularly subject to their perspective.

Let's consider person A and person B. Both A and B see and consider derivative
art X' separately. A thinks: there's nothing original here. She's already seen
art X. B thinks: wow, how interesting. B has not seen art X and so the
uninspired derivation is still interesting.

Similarly, I think the Mona Lisa is a reasonably accurate painting of an
unattractive woman. There is nothing beautiful or intrinsically interesting
about it. It's due to POV. In fact, each of your examples in the OP is a
different perspective. A different reason to consider something art. If you
had a stricter definition I don't see how you could change perspective so
easily.

I actually reduced all words defined on emotions to being subjective. I don't
think this causes a problem. I don't see this as doing art injustice. Saying
it is _just_ subjective just gives us a spot to start from.

(Oi, now I don't know if I made sense.) [1] There was a PBS like program on
the BBC one night that discussed some research about this.

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tumult
I love video games, and have been playing them my entire life (beyond as far
back as my memory goes), and I would not consider the majority of games to be
art.

"Is it art or not" is a stupid debate. What is art? You cannot even have this
argument, because two opposing viewpoints will not have the same definition of
art.

Great essay on this matter:
<http://johnhenrylambert.com/essays/bad_words.html>

Are video games fine art? No. Are they art like you might find at a modern art
museum? Sometimes, but very rarely. Almost never, for the sort of game you can
buy for a console from the store. Are they art like industrial design,
transportation, bridges, etc? Probably not, since the games themselves are
usually only software. Is software art? Sometimes, probably. Then are games
art like software is art? Could be, but most people think of the game as the
entire package itself, not just the code that powers the engine.

Are the in-game assets art? The characters, scenery, etc? Individually,
certainly. As a whole? Debatable. Individually, the assets have no purpose
other than their form. Collectively, they take the form as fulfilling part of
an exchange the consumer (who paid money with the understanding that he or she
will receive a minimum amount of stimulation and entertainment) has made with
the producer of the game. Few people expect to pay $60, put a disc into their
console, and look at pictures of chairs nailed to a wall and read a marker-
felted diatribe about the uselessness of progressing fashionable design
standards if the functional form does not change over time. If you pay $60 to
go through a museum of modern art and don't like it, well, too fucking bad.

Most commercially produced games, just like with most commercially produced
movies, the consumer pays money with the expectation that their purchase will
be fulfilled.

So by that definition, most Hollywood movies are not art, either. Which I
would also agree with.

Entertainment is not exactly the same thing as many of the more formal
definitions of art.

~~~
danieldon
I liked the part where you called it a "stupid debate" and said "You cannot
even have this argument" and then wrote a long post doing exactly what you
criticized.

Also, "[x] is not art" statements are a tremendous bore.

~~~
tumult
Stupid debates can be fun

------
hzzn
Games are mechanisms for play. Play is not art. Play is dynamic, art is
static. Play engages, art coerces.

I think Ebert is mostly right, but we shouldn't give much serious attention to
someone who has had so little experience with games. That's like arguing about
Hermann Hesse with someone who staunchly refuses to read anything longer than
a road sign. We should be _proud_ of the distinction between play and art. If
we're going to argue at all, our position should be that play is _potentially_
as important as art, if not more so.

\---

(Emphasis on "potentially". Game developers still have a lot of ground to
cover. The linked article was praising games like Dragon Age and Mass Effect
as positive examples of storytelling in games. Yikes.)

    
    
        BioWare has got lost in the dense tangle of what it was trying to
        accomplish. It hasn't been able to see the wood for the trees. It
        has summoned an entire world into existence in the most meticulous
        detail, but failed to give it an identity beyond the blandest
        cliché. It has created living characters that respond like humans,
        but speak like dictionaries and move like mannequins. It has
        engineered solidly absorbing RPG gameplay and character progression
        and stranded them in a succession of hackneyed and hide-bound
        scenarios.
        
        http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/dragon-age-origins-review

~~~
InclinedPlane
Play is not art... why?

Art is static? So fountains, kinetic sculptures, improvisational comedy, and
rose gardens are not art? I find your definitions lacking.

~~~
nikgregory
Fine art is (generally) static, but film and theatre are not, they're the
performing arts and this is where I believe video games fall. Where is the
difference between Titanic and Avatar? Is Avatar not art or is it excluded
because of graphics? Is Shreck not art because it's even more computerised?
Where is the line? There isn't one, people insist there is a line somewhere
yet they, like Ebert, fail to define where and why that line is.

As I said, there are many things I wouldn't consider art, but I know for a
fact 90% of people disagree with me.

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zupatol
This argument is all about what's good enough to be art.

If the first film ever made was boring, film was not yet art. If the second
film was good, film suddenly became art. Including the first film?

Is a really really good film art, or must it be at least really really really
really good?

There is no film everyone likes, so the only way to recognize a good film is
by majority. Must it be filibuster-proof?

This debate makes no sense.

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philk
Why do we care what Ebert thinks?

~~~
ktf
This was my reaction too, at first.

But Ebert is a hugely influential cultural figure, spreading ill-informed
opinions to a public who would rather listen to what he says than think for
themselves. Willful ignorance is a metavirus.

------
tman
Very few films are "art". Who's the video game equivalent of Kubrick or
Kurosawa or Bergman?

Penny Arcade's comment on this is wonderfully wrong: "If a hundred artists
create art for five years, how could the result not be art?"

Interestingly, that's exactly the sort of film that fails to be art. Great
films are, without exception, products of a single driving vision, not
designed by committee.

The only way to really claim that video games are art is to say, "Here, this
game _X_ is the equivalent to _The Seven Samurai_." Only that's not going to
happen, because it doesn't exist. And because it doesn't exist, Ebert gets
pummeled with long screeds of gamer angst rather than the only answer that
would matter: "Game _X_ is art."

~~~
jasonlotito
Half Life is the equivalent to The Seven Samurai.

I have Half Life. Yes, I have The Seven Samurai, in its black and white
goodness. They both helped define in their respective areas the future. Half
Life was that game for me. I still remember the feeling of finally seeing the
soldiers, and then coming to a firm realization in horror that they were
trying to kill me as well. The entire pulled me in at the time.

Art is, at it's core, something someone creates to experience. A painting is
art because you experience it with your eyes. A song is art because you
experience it with your ears. Both were creations intended to be experienced.

Architecture is art, not just because you can see it, but because you can
actually feel it, move through it, use it. Beautiful architecture can be
functional, and usually is. It solves a problem while being beautiful.

So, why does a game not become art? Winning, as described by Ebert?
Architecture's goal isn't being art, it's to be a structure. The purpose of
the art doesn't dictate whether it's art. The Mona Lisa isn't less art because
it was commissioned. The goal of the Mona Lisa was in celebration of a birth,
but does this diminish it's artistic value? The 'players' here used the
painting for another purpose.

So, it can't be the goal. Winning isn't why I played Half Life. The story was
why I played, the emotions it pulled on.

You make the argument that great films are driven by a single vision. But The
Seven Samurai was not driven by a single person. So, if a game is designed by
a single vision, can it become art?

The argument against games as an art is not new. Movies weren't art. Pictures
weren't art. So many things weren't art before their time, and had to become
art, evolve to art.

No. Discounting games as art diminishes all other forms of art.

