Roger Ebert On Why Video Games Can Never Be Art 733
Roger Ebert has long held the opinion that video games are not and can never be considered an art form. After having this opinion challenged in a TED talk last year, Ebert has now taken the opportunity to thoughtfully respond and explain why he maintains this belief. Quoting:
"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 an 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. She quotes Robert McKee's definition of good writing as 'being motivated by a desire to touch the audience.' This is not a useful definition, because a great deal of bad writing is also motivated by the same desire. I might argue that the novels of Cormac McCarthy are so motivated, and Nicholas Sparks would argue that his novels are so motivated. But when I say McCarthy is 'better' than Sparks and that his novels are artworks, that is a subjective judgment, made on the basis of my taste (which I would argue is better than the taste of anyone who prefers Sparks)."
Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:4, Informative)
At this point it's almost like he's desperately trying to find some way of defining "art" in a way that excludes video games purely because he, for some reason, NEEDS them to not be art.
No kidding. I don't care what anyone says, Portal was art by any sane definition.
Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:3, Informative)
Yes, I exclude things like figure skating from 'sports'. That doesn't mean I have any sort of problem with it...it's just not a sport. It's competitive performance art.
Wait, it can't be art, since you can win at it.... Now I'm really confused, Perhaps we need a new word here..... NotArtNotSport? nans? So figure skating is nans....
Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:3, Informative)
Pretty sure GlaDOS says something along the line that you were "created" by Aperture to help them test their tech in one of the voice sequences in the lab. But it's been some times since I last played it through.
Nope, sorry. :) Like I say, it's a *really* common misapprehension, partly because she makes mention of androids during the first "live fire course". But that's because the course was meant to test military androids, not that you're one yourself.
Like I say, play it again. Or do a little googling. Chell is most certainly human.
The fact that GlaDOS was able to go nuts is the what I meant about the "Evil of Technology". I never said it particularly profound, but then, if you need a certain perceived *depth* for something to be "Art", where do you set the universal threshold that fits everybody?
Now you get it. I do believe art must have depth. Otherwise the term has no meaning. If there isn't some "threshold" for what is and isn't "art", then every silly short story I wrote in elementary school creative writing was "art". And while I find that flattering, it's also pretty ridiculous, don't you think?
As for the threshold, yup, I agree, that probably comes down to personal taste as much as anything else. And in my mind, as compared to an actual PKD novel, Portal's narrative truly pales in comparison, and doesn't pass that threshold in my mind.
And meanwhile, I have yet to see a compelling argument for why *Portal* is art. What about it is artful? The narrative is shallow. Well executed and entertaining, sure, but it's just simple entertainment. The gameplay is certainly cool, but I have trouble ascribing the term "art" to a clever physics engine and a neat technology trick. The artwork is certainly well done, but again, I don't see anything that I would consider terribly transcendent.
So what is it? *Why* do you think Portal is art?
Interesting that you didn't react on your aledged contradiction though
Actually, that was just an oversight on my part, I certainly intended do.
TBH, I don't see the contradiction. I said this:
I just don't think those things, in and of themselves, are enough to qualify something as a piece of art. Hell, Ghostbusters is hilarious, clever, and a bit chilling at times, but I'm not willing to call it a work of art. It's just well-executed entertainment. I'd say the same is true of Portal.