Roger Ebert Backs Down On Video Games As Art 265
Jhyrryl writes "Roger Ebert has again posted about video games. It's an apology of sorts, for having publicly said that games are not art. He wrote, 'I should not have written that entry without being more familiar with the actual experience of video games. ... My error in the first place was to think I could make a convincing argument on purely theoretical grounds. What I was saying is that video games could not in principle be Art. That was a foolish position to take, particularly as it seemed to apply to the entire unseen future of games. This was pointed out to me maybe hundreds of times.'"
Early failure leads to later triumph (Score:5, Interesting)
Given that the man is 68 years old, has been doing movie reviews for a long time and probably one of his first experiences with video games as E.T. for the Atari 2600. I can't say I blame him for having his opinion set in stone for a while. Good to see that he's come around.
Re:He Did No Such Thing (Score:4, Interesting)
"Unseen Future of Games" (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:He Did No Such Thing (Score:4, Interesting)
Roger Ebert is a brilliant man. Going to have to disagree with that one. Given his loony statements about children in the US wearing US flag t-shirts on cinco de mayo ...
People can still be brilliant and yet get other things so painfully wrong you think they're Kim Peek or an idiot savant. Although I find his stances in other realms loathsome, his movie reviews and books on movies nearly mandatory reading for enhancing your appreciation of movies. If ever there were a finer or more well known movie critic, name them. I'm not going to deny this and it's not like this is the only case where this happens. I have Orson Scott Card spouting idiot political drivel in some sort of LDS worshipping context yet I really enjoyed his novels as a kid. This has happened for a long time with perhaps the most extreme case being Knut Hamsun [wikipedia.org]. Yeah it makes me think less of them and their opinions on matters unrelated to their work but it doesn't entirely remove the acknowledgment they deserve in their field.
Re:He Did No Such Thing (Score:3, Interesting)
Ebert's definition of art is (still) more restricted than mine. But it's more expansive and inclusive than others' (especially of his generation). The real debate is not whether video games are art (which is mostly a pissing contest about whether they're "good" enough), but whether "art" is open-ended enough to include interactive works like video games. Given the fact that I did an analysis of Riven as a work of new-media art my senior year at art school, I rather strongly feel that is. But there are plenty of people who'd dispute that what John Cage and Kazimir Malevich have created is art, because their definition of "art" is not so broad. On that, all we can do is agree to disagree, which is what Ebert seems to be trying to do with his apology-which-is-not-a-retraction. He's sticking to his beliefs, and I respect that even though I disagree with his position.
P.S. I haven't played many more games than he has; Myst and Riven were the last two.
Re:Since when did "good enough" matter? (Score:1, Interesting)
"Since when did something have to be "good enough" to be art?"
It doesn't, but that's what this increasingly infantile debate quickly turns into.
"A flickering TV in an empty room can be called art."
And some people object to that claim. It's just as close-minded on your part to dismiss them peremptorily as it is for them dismiss the original claim.
Re:He Did No Such Thing (Score:3, Interesting)
Really, it all comes down to the definition of "art". In my opinion, art is any created work that evokes a thoughtful and emotional response in me, the viewer/listener. I exclude anything that simply tries for a shock or knee-jerk reaction (for example, dropping a crucifix into a jar of urine isn't art in my book, it's an attempt to offend, and in bad taste). There are plenty of games that have done that for me. There are BUILDINGS that have done that for me. The fact that you can interact with it doesn't mean it's not art.
Regarding the title of the article, "Ok, kids, play on my lawn": I'm less than half a year away from 40, and an avid gamer. While I'm not as old as Ebert is, there is no way I qualify as a "kid". In fact, the title of the article gives away a lot more of the rationale behind the original statement about the artistic merits of games than he's probably aware of. To him, it seems games = kid's stuff, and kid's stuff can't be art.
In this, Ebert is guilty of the same elitist, condescending attitude that I often see from self-proclaimed artists towards what they see as non-artists. It's a self-righteously smug attitude where he is convinced that he somehow sees and feels more deeply than the common man. Quite often, Ebert's statements (and not just about games) give the impression that he almost-but-not-quite-really pities us mundane kludges who don't see the world the same way he does. He may be much older than I am, but I'd say he's got some emotional maturing to do, at least in that regard.
weak arguments (Score:5, Interesting)
I think Ebert's arguments here are very weak, for example:
A game is clearly a form of expression, and a media container. I don't see how you can argue that the container can never contain art.
Re:IS art, or CONTAINS art? (Score:3, Interesting)
A picture doesn't actually = Art.
Of course, people have come to call the practice of the fundamentals of what you need 'art'. IN other words, art has no meaning anymore.
Re:He Did No Such Thing (Score:3, Interesting)
Someone needs to show Roger Ebert Final Fantasy 10. Ya know, just play it in front of him for a few hours. I did that with my mom and she got hooked into the story, and asked me to show her the ending. Modern videogames are basically 30-40 hour long movies, but interactive.
Roger doesn't seem to realize this because he probably still thinks of games like PacMan. He's living in the past and not knowledgeable about the present state of gaming.
Re:He Did No Such Thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:He Did No Such Thing (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem is that not only is he aware that he is not knowledgeable, but when presented with the opportunity, he balks and admits that he has better things to do than play video games.
The blog post basically outlines a fellow Critic arranging with Sony to have a PS3, loaded with games, lent to him, if he would just pick it up, which he doesn't.
He further admits that he still feels Video Games are not "Art", and that he should not have made the comment without knowing more, but that he doesn't want to learn more.
The ONLY concession he makes is that he admits it is possible for a video game to be made in the future that might be art.
Its akin to Grandpa deciding that he'd rather read a book than go to the movies because those Nickelodeon things are okay, but they never really liked Organ music and, its just a a waste of time, and its not really Art.
Re:He Did No Such Thing (Score:2, Interesting)
O/T, but regarding your sig, does VLC not do the job? On Linux it plays at 2x and the audio is sped up but the pitch is compensated. I'm pretty sure the Windows version is the same. I haven't tried it on Mac OS.