Ebert: "Video games can never be art"

[looneymoon]

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/04/video_games_can_never_be_art.html

basically, Roger Ebert is full of crap
Pretty much every point he makes against video games can simlarly be made against film as a medium.

Also, four words: Shadow of the Colossus.

 

[DrakeClawfang]

Robert Ebert is an idiot. Nothing more needs to be said.

 

[Cat Rage Room]

Some old white dude says stuff that I see absolutely nothing in common with.

BIG SHOCKER THERE

 

[Max Payne]

I've been following this argument on a few gaming boards, the most tense being on NEOGAF.

Honestly, I think it's a bit of a ridiculous claim coming from some bugger who himself said he doesn't play games. Also, a lot of the stuff he's saying is similar to complaints leveled against movies when they were still young.

IROOOOOOOOOONY.

 

[DrakeClawfang]

One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome. Santiago might cite a immersive game without points or rules, but I would say then it ceases to be a game and becomes a representation of a story, a novel, a play, dance, a film. Those are things you cannot win; you can only experience them.

Except when you *win* a video game, its just the end of the story.

 

[Max Payne]

Except when you *win* a video game, its just the end of the story.

BUT BECAUSE YOU'RE PLAYING THE STORY IT'S NOT A REAL STORY DERP

 

[Max Payne]

BOOKS ARE NOT ART BECAUSE THEY ARE INTERACTIVE. YOU HAVE TO TURN THE PAGE TO CONTINUE THE STORY.

 

[null]

So basically he claims that games can never be art, then proceeds to admit there's no true definition of art. All the while using Wikipedia and WACO the Video Game as proof.

All he "proved" is that he's closed-minded.

 

[LicoriceAllsorts]

I see no grounds on which FFVII (for example) cannot be defined as art. By any criterion by which art is defined or evaluated, it's a hell of a lot more artful than, say, a dead calf sawn in half and suspended in formaldehyde, or a series of retouched photographs of Marilyn Monroe.

Just because something is in the set of 'games', does that exclude it from the set of 'art'? Isn't there, or can't there be, a place where the two sets intersect, where games can also be art? The problem is that video games are still a comparatively new form of art, an art that does what art should do - break boundaries and challenge preconceptions. The medium is the message! The definition of art just hasn't caught up with the medium yet.

 

[looneymoon]

BOOKS ARE NOT ART BECAUSE THEY ARE INTERACTIVE. YOU HAVE TO TURN THE PAGE TO CONTINUE THE STORY.

Serious addition to this: reading is definitely interactive because the reader can set his or her pace to the story. They can stop or speed up the story at any time he/she wishes.

I'd argue that all art by nature is interactive.

derp.

 

[Max Payne]

So basically he claims that games can never be art, then proceeds to admit there's no true definition of art. All the while using Wikipedia and WACO the Video Game as proof.

All he "proved" is that he's closed-minded.

Narrow minded to boot.

 

[Alessa Gillespie]

Ookami. Thread over.

 

[Alex Strife]

Art's a tricky business, but pretty much everything can be justified as "art" today, so let him shut up and leave us in peace.

 

[ForceStealer]

Games that are considered to be art come along with the same frequency that "artistic" movies come along as far as I'm concerned.

Why do movies get the distinction of being art when 98% of them are mindless while video games are denied "art" status with what I expect is a very similar ratio.

Spielberg said games will be considered art when someone admits to crying over one. First of all that's already narrow minded as it exemplifies what bothers me - the perception that for something to be artistic is has to be depressing - but plenty of people have now been brought to tears by several games.

 

[Strangelove]

IIT: old guy continues to cries some more about a medium he doesn't even like and how inferior it is.

I'm not sure about the examples Santiago selected (having never played them). But the idea that a game couldn't be art just because you can 'win' at it is dumb.

 

[Max Payne]

When I managed to read all of Great Expectations without dying of boredom I felt like I had won something for sure.

 

[Alessa Gillespie]

When I had managed to finish Jane Eyre without killing myself, I also felt like I had won something.

 

[looneymoon]

;___; I thoroughly enjoyed both those books...

I do feel the same way for the film "La Dolce Vita" though.

This thread also reminds how I haven't seen TresDias around in a while.

 

[Strangelove]

I don't think books are art because you can use a cheat to get to the end by skipping the other chapters.

Or films if they're on video.

 

[Mariketsu]

Wtffffffff- is he serious? "Games will never be art", yeah right. Hell, game models and CG renders THEMSELVES are art in itself, because it takes a helluva lot of time to create them and shit (depending on your adeptness). How the fuck can games "not be art"?? Ebert's a moron

~ SoS

 

[Max Payne]

;___; I thoroughly enjoyed both those books...

I do feel the same way for the film "La Dolce Vita" though.

This thread also reminds how I haven't seen TresDias around in a while.

Great expectations is a good book, it just drones on a bit too much for me.

 

[Hisako]

'I've seen much more artless films' is all I really need to say.

 

[Interslicery]

I fail to see how something like Shadow of the Colossus cant be accepted as maybe being art when a starving dog in a corner of an art exhibit is.

Art is anything that moves you, or raises questions beyond the face value of the "art" in question. Video games are still a baby in media terms and faces all the stigmas everything else did when it first came out. All it needs is time before people will shut up about it.

And Ebert is a joke. There's no denying the effect he's had, but theres no reason to listen to him anymore.

 

[Max Payne]

I fail to see how something like Shadow of the Colossus cant be accepted as maybe being art when a starving dog in a corner of an art exhibit is.

Geez you had to remind me of that.

I'd also add that, if garbage like Epic Movie is art, then who the fuck can say a game like Ico, or Okami isn't?

 

[DLPB]

Games are an art form in their own right, denying that is just very ignorant. It is like when I tell a random person that I listen to game music, they actually laugh at you thinking you mean blips and blops from some old crap Atari 2600 game.

It is all ignorance. Sure, games that try to be too graphical and emulate cinema are losing their identity as games but if we take art to mean drawings, there are sometimes no finer example of brilliance than some of the stuff in computer games, if we mean writing, then some games also have a great story.

Games are actually a step up on movies, in that you can interact with your environment and hear music according to the area and that you actually control the main character. You are experiencing multiple art forms in massive amounts in just 1 game. I despair of this kind of ignorance.

There are many types of art forms in the world, some are better than others but to suggest that games do not qualify when they actually contain multiple examples is laughable.