Roger Ebert and the art of video games

He's completely right. I don't understand why people need to have their hobbies validated as art. Whatever happened to the days when people were content to enjoy vulgar, lowbrow things?

People used to say the same thing about movies.

Movies proved them wrong. In 20+ years, video games haven't come close, except as a form of visual arts - look at the pretty pictures and the like. As a narrative form? Not even close.

I'm a big video game fan (well, I used to be, not as much anymore), but I agree. Video games simply aren't elevated on the same level as movies or books. And I don't mean that in the valuations of individuals, since obviously some people disagree.

I'm not sure how to describe it. Something about what a video game itself is just doesn't elevate it to the same fulfillment that a book or movie can give. Video games are a more kind of base stimulation-not to put them down, since I still play them. Something about their form precludes them from being judged as highly as books and film, and I think that will always be true about them, no matter how advanced they get.

Art doesn't have to be narrative. It suggests interpretations and poses questions. Games can be art, whether or not most are. SHADOW OF THE COLOSSUS is art, absolutely.

It's visual art. That's different. Games present themselves, most of the time, as narrative.

That reply essentially means "anything is art," a stance I reject, having been around the New York City art scene.

I'm not talking about visual accomplishment. SHADOW tells players to go something common to many games -- kill things -- then asks why someone would kill something simply because they were told to. It suggests a severe complicity on the part of the player, and uses the game's visual accomplishment to draw out complex reactions to the simple gameplay of killing things.

Sounds like art to me, and something that does things plain ol' narrative art can't do, at that.

I Agree. While the scope of the visual aspect of games can be declared a form comparable to painting as an art form, the story lines do not even come close to that of literature, theater and film based on the requirement of including the player of the game as part of the narrative. This generally requires (in the more entertaining of the games) various threads of storyline to account for the players actions, losing the coherency of an interesting plot line.

That said, no other medium allows you to kill so many in so many interesting ways. It might be valid to call it a form of stress relief psychotherapy, as opposed to art.

I disagree. I think narrative art can - and does - create a complicity between the viewer/reader and the character doing things that are questionable.

Seems like there are an awful lot of generalizations going on here.

I think some videogames can definately be classified as art just as I can claim that some movies aren't art.

Let's look at intent.
Videogames exist for the same reason as chess and checkers. Mental stimulation, but not enlightenment.
Is chess art?

I think that while some games - perhaps Colossus might be one, I haven't played it - might aspire to challenge the player in a way that might be interpreted as challenging in an artistic way, there are many games - Grand Theft Auto, I'm looking at you - that are artistic merely in the sense that it takes an enormous amount of work on the part of fairly talented designers and artists to make blood look that pretty in splatter patterns.

I think a game could aspire to be more -- but the great majority of them don't - and one might argue, actually aspire to be less.

Hell, I don't think all movies are art either - some might be, but anyone who says House of the Dead is art should be - nay MUST BE - shot.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, no? Sometimes a games is just a fun way to expend stress and energy.

Just my own opinion - other's mileage may vary...

edited for typos that made the baby Jesus cry - and throw things..

"Some think it's a game. Some think it's a Science. But at it's core, it's heart, It is Art". - Bobby Fisher.

In reality, the same applies to the actual development of Video Games. While the mathematics of creating something like spacial movement is a combination of Boolean and Linear Algebra (toss in Matrix multiplication), the design and programming of any computer software can be an Art form unto itself. It's limited however to the development of the software code, not the end-user executable result.

You're right there. I'll back down on the 'plain ol narrative art can't do bit'. That was hasty.

Ebert's assertion was that games *can't* rise to the level of art. That they lack the potential. Refuting that takes only one example, and COLOSSUS is it.

While I think there are some artistic elements to video games (mainly involved in the design and creation), I don't think the game itself can be classified as art. In my opinion, the thing that makes art...well...art...is the fact that it lends itself to deeper thought and complex feelings. Art is designed to make you say "What does it all mean?" and then it leaves it up to you to form your own conclusions on that. Video Games do just the opposite. Everything is laid out in black and white. There's nothing to think about, there's nothing to decide on for yourself. The story is this, the objective is this, the ending is this and this is how you do it all. The lone fact that video games have rules is enough to keep them from being art.

But, that's just my thoughts on the subject.

In regard to the creation of video games, I think you're confusing art with craft.
As for chess, the argument made in the Bobby Fisher quote (which I don't neccesarily agree with) applies to the human interaction between two players, not the game itself.

I think this is the core argument. I am a movie guy over a video game guy, but I think it is being very short-sighted to discredit what could happen in the future.

Movies have been around since the early 1900's, and while the technology and story-telling aspects have vastly changed the core principal is still the same. You still have moving pictures on a screen, telling a story. Books and paintings (or any form of visual art - sculptures, drawings, etc.) are the same. Yes, there are profound difference between what and how you could create them hundreds of years ago, but the end product is still very similar.

Since the early seventies, look at how video games as evolved. The change is dramatic. I'm not saying that any one video game will ever be as good as the worst made for TV movie, especially when it comes to classifying it as "art". But I think seeing what very creative people have been able to do, how they have been able to re-invent the genre over and over again in barely thirty years, leaves the future open for... who knows what.

In some sense, videogames have always been art. The care and precision with which certain gameplay mechanics are created has to be considered an art. A game like Metroid Prime is a great example of this. I'm not talking visually, or narratively, but the actual gameplay itself and the way achievements are woven into its fabric.

In another sense, the sense in which we judge film as art, videogames have not yet climbed that high. A game like Shadow of the Colossus perhaps has made such an achievement, but for the most part videogame narratives are dog-shit even the good ones (Metal Gear Solid/Resident Evil anyone?). But I think the time will come, perhaps very soon, where videogames will stand side-by-side with film as one of our most enduring art forms.

Not to mention, that if you require a technical, black & white answer, to the question; based off the long definition of art - I say it classifies. Art, IMO, is very much what you find it to be. If Bobby Fisher finds chess to be an art form, it is his decision to make. It is almost impossible, and quite presumptuous, to tell someone what is or isn't "art".

As far as the games as art debate is concerned, I have yet to experience anything emotionally meaningful out of a game, video or otherwise. That doesn't suggest to me that it's an impossiblity. I think the mechanics of the specific control schemes and the reliance on the acheivement of objectives prevents, or at least stymies the player's emotional immursion.

I would state the craft of video games is as worthy of examination as the craft of filmmaking.

Not by classifying Art as something viewed as beautiful or of aesthetic value. It applies only to people in the software development profession, but creating an incredibly unique way of solving a complex problem is viewed by others in the same profession as very artistic.

That I'm not sure. Fisher viewed Chess from the game itself, and relied on beating the board, not the opponent. Whether it's art or not I agree is certainly up for debate.

Again, this is craft.
The same level of care and precision goes into making cars on an assembly line.
Surge-
Just because the guys making the games think it's an artform doesn't make it so.

Wrong. A better analogy would be to compare the guys designing the cars to those designing the games. Are they not artists?

I would hardly classify them as artists.
Creating something that must conform to safety standards, financial restraints,and basic physics constricts the artistic process. Their end products are as artistic as a hollywood blockbuster. Too many practical variables influence the creation.

Valid points but that doesn't deride the process from being artistic, it's just constricted. Are there not cars, real ones and concepts, which could be considered artful, even if in general this is not the case?

Architecture is constrained by these same factors, yet no one has an issue with calling that art. Perhaps architecture is a more apt comparison.

Don't know that I would go so far as to say traditional narrative is incapable of accomplishing what SHADOW does. I would argue that SHADOW's breakthrough is to evoke guilt in its audience, something that is very difficult to do through traditional narrative techniques. Possible, but you tend to lose your audience along the way as they disassociate themselves from the sympathetic characters.

That disassociation doesn't happen in video games, or at least not very easily, because the relationship between the audience and the sympathetic character(s) is fundamentally different. In video games you have the potential to break down the distinction between audience and performer.

I already retracted that way back in the epochal post #18.

What's bad about that?

Anyway, does anyone classify poker as art? Or a good game of hide-and-seek?

How is that relevant to videogames as a product? Is watching a movie art? No. So what's your point?

I think the final conclusion of this thread will end up looking something like this.

But, just to draw out the process some more, like movies, video games are really a combination of art forms. The irony is that usually, even at its utmost quality, it eludes the classification as art. The intent usually settles to a few hours' entertainment, and little more. RPG's, the genre which has the most potential for making the jump to pure art is still a genre currently stuck in emotional adolescence.

Thing is, I'd say Russ is completely right: Ico and Shadow of the Colossus are two games that most certainly qualify. These are two games that purposefully leaves its motivations, its intent, statement of purpose up for interpretation 90% of the time. What drives the games along is the emotional and human response of the player, not necessarily the emotional, human response of its characters.

Getting away from those two, I'd say Killer 7 comes really goddamned close. It's got a load of flaws as a gaming experience, but nobody can deny that the questions the game ends up raising for the player in terms of what you are forced to do and believe all fall under the realm of art. It's a primarily linear experience that brings up some truly non-linear lines of thinking in the player for doing what must be done to win. And that's to say nothing of the actual visual style, which is like watch A Touch of Evil on acid.

By their very nature, and intention, most games don't really achieve that, nor do they need to. But the fact is, they most certainly could. All three of those games prove Ebert 100% wrong.

I dont think games are Art necessarily but there is certainly a level of Artistry involved in making something like, say, Myst.
I play Snake a lot on my mobile phone and get some pretty intense and conflicted emotional reactions from doing so, often more pronounced ones than i get from watching some movies, but it sure as hell aint Art.

David Croneberg interviewed Salman Rushide when Rushide was still in exile, and they discussed this subject.

Cronenberg: Do you think there could ever be a computer game that could truly be art?
Rushdie: No.

There's a beautiful game called Myst. Have you seen that?
I haven't seen that.

They say this is democratic art, that is to say, the reader is equal to the creator. But this is really subverting what you want from art. You want to be taken over and you want to be-
Shown something.

Exactly. Why be limited by yourself? But they say, "No, it's a collaboration."
I like computer games. I haven't played many. At the Super Mario level I think they're great fun. They're like crosswords because once you've beaten the game, you've solved all its possibilities

There's nothing left.
Whereas this is not true of any work of art. You can experience it over and over.
And if you come back to it in five years it's a different work, it's a different thing.
There's a different thing between a puzzle and a book. These are just very clever puzzles and they are very enjoyable and they require certain skills which are quite clever, useful to develop. Sometimes they make you use your mind in very interesting ways because it requires natural steps. You have to think in ways you wouldn't expect in order to find the solution. But it's just a game.

You would say, then, that a game designer could never be an artist?
Never say never. Somebody could turn up who would be a genius. But if one thinks about non-computer games, there are many which people say have the beauty of an art form. People say that about cricket, people say about every game.
But actually, they're not art. You can have great artists playing games. You can think about a great sports figure as being equivalent to an artist. I could see that there could be an artist of a games player, a kind of Michael Jordan of the Nintendo.

They have those competitions internationally.
In the end, a work of art is something which comes out of somebody's imagination and takes a final form. It's offered and is then completed by the reader or the viewer or whoever it may be. Anything else is not what I would recognize as a work of art.

I think we need to separate the act of "playing" the game from the artistic qualities of the game itself.

For example, many games (as still pictures) are gorgeous works of art. I mean, just look at the landscape in numerous computer games, they represent 3-d, immersive works of art. Same thing with the score, many of them are quite good.

I think very, very few games could we even consider as being "art" in terms of the narrative or story-line. Maybe some aspects of KOTOR....maybe Shadow of the Colossus....there are a few others I could think of, but very, very few. I just do not think we've seen anywhere near the achievement in video games that we've seen in television and from movies. It might happen, though. I think the act of incorporating a user into almost every aspect of a vehicle of entertainment (something that does not happen with books, paintings, movies, etc.) really stunts and hampers any efforts to create what most consider art.

Is Shadow of the Colossus, or even Myst, a game? I mean, in the sense that cricket or chess is a game? Obviously there a some similarities, but aren't there salient differences as well? For instance, the lack of competition... and the strange rulesets...

For some reason, Rushdie playing Super Mario Brothers is a bizarre image.

I would agree that few games are art, but isn't it true that an extremely low percentage of movies fall into the realm of art as well? A painting is visual, music is audio, a book is a little more complicated because you have to consider the narrative and the prose, and a movie can combine a lot of these things even though the collaborative nature makes film a less pure form of art.

Video games can take all of that and add the actions of the player which can draw you much deeper into the work. A film keeps you at a distance and is a very static thing. I completely disagree with what Rushide said about art changing as you experience it over and over; a movie, a book, a song, they are always exactly the same for everyone who experiences them. Sure you can and will take something different away from it, but you can get that from a game as well and on top of that the game can itself change based on the player's actions.

I don't agree that art has to be presented with a passive medium, and I think that video games have the potential to become the most complex and the most important kind of art that there is. At the same time I don't really see that ever happening, but to say that the potential isn't there is just stupid.

"Games can't be art" is such a tired, fundamentally ignorant argument. The same criticism was once leveled at movies, television, comic books, animation, comic strips, stand-up comedy and pretty much anything else you care to name.

What does that have to do with anything? Just because some of those things have become recognized as art doesn't mean video games are art.

I get the impression that many of the people clamoring for video games to be art are the kind of people who would look at much of modern art as nonsense.

I've met more than a fair share of people heavy into modern art who'd declare any film made for over $1 million as nonsense.

That's not a statement of fact, that's a matter of personal taste.

I didn't say that games are art. I said the argument that they CAN'T be art is an ignorant generalization. Not unlike the people who say that modern art isn't art, for that matter.

Videogames aren't unpopular enough to be modern art.

The basic flaw in arguing whether something is art or not is that the criteria is strictly a matter of opinion. You can't quantify at which point something is art. I accept the defintion of art put forth in the copy of Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary: "the conscious use of skill and creative imagination esp. in the production of aesthetic objects; also works so produced.

By that basic criteria, I believe video games qualify as works of art. The visual, narrative, and design aspects of any game don't make themselves. It takes a human being to create them.

I agree.
Just because you can't imagine a game being art doesnt mean that one day someone wont be able to.

If the question is "are videogames an artform" then the answer is yes. Given that there are multiple games that tell a story, create characters and environments, then that qualifies them as "art" in the broadest sense.

That most of these stories and characters are crap doesn't change that. The existence of millions of shitty novels doesn't change the fact that writing is an artform. There are tens of thousands of movies that aspire to no more than the average game, yet making a movie is still an artistic endeavour.

Comparisons to chess or hide and seek are invalid. There's not one single videogame. There are thousands of them. Nobody is inventing new versions of chess every month.

Are videogames an artform? Yes. 99.9% of them make for very bad art, but that's beside the point. It's a narrative and interactive medium, that must be created by people with an audience reaction in mind. The potential for a great work of art is there. Remove the elements of commerce, technology and audience expectation and the medium itself is perfectly valid.

And this doesn't come from me needing games to be validated as "art" for me to enjoy them. People get too hung up on the idea that "art" has to mean something lofty, and get confused between an individual product being a work of art, and the medium itself being an artform.

Games are an artform just as novels, music, movies and comics are artforms. The relative aesthetic success of things produced in those mediums has nothing to do with whether the medium itself can be described as an artform.

See, this is just plain wrong. The work of art is exactly the same, it's the person's interation with the art that is different. Video games are the same way. Many people have revisited classic games on the Game Boy Advance. I'm sure they have different experiences with these games, but they still have fun with them.

My answer would have to be...I don't know. I think they certainly have the possibility to become great art, and maybe there are some already there that would fit this description. Most aren't though. Time will tell.