Ebert Reclassifies Games as Sports 197
You may recall last year's spirited debate touched off by film critic Roger Ebert's assertion that games are not art. He's once again touching that nerve, this time stating that he was too loose with his words. He points out that 'a soup can' can be art; what he meant to say is that games cannot be 'high art'. Says Ebert: "How do I know this? How many games have I played? I know it by the definition of the vast majority of games. They tend to involve (1) point and shoot in many variations and plotlines, (2) treasure or scavenger hunts, as in Myst, and (3) player control of the outcome. I don't think these attributes have much to do with art; they have more in common with sports." The critic goes on to discuss comments from Clive Barker from last year, a gent who took great exception to Ebert's view.
Flawed argument (Score:5, Insightful)
He may be right that there are no games currently in existence that should be considered high art, but that does not preclude one from coming out in the future. There is nothing inherent to video games that would prevent this, especially given that what is and what is not "art" or "high art" is entirely subjective.
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So, while neither side will "win" the argument, we can learn something from the argument itself and gain greater insight as long as we're op
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Re:Flawed argument (Score:5, Interesting)
That sounds like (Score:3, Informative)
Planescape Torment. No matter what choices you make, no matter how good or evil you play, you can't escape your fate.
Re:That sounds like (Score:5, Interesting)
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Basically I'm saying that almost every game ever made follows the model that you're tal
Re:Flawed argument (Score:5, Insightful)
I've never seen a video game that was -that- malleable. They only ever allow what the game authors put into the game that you could do. It was like when I was describing computer RPGs to my roomate, who is familiar with pen and paper RPGs but not CRPGs, and I was describing the bit in the NWN expansion where you get turned to stone by a surprise encounter with a medusa.
"How do they make sure you get to that point instead of running off somewhere else?" he asked, thinking like a game master whose players can ruin their plans.
"Uh, by making that the only thing in the area that you can interact with in any way" was the answer. If they don't give you the option to do something else, then you can't do anything else but stand there and not do what they want.
The fact is that games only offer the illusion of malleability to varying degrees. The ways in which the game designer both gives you choices and constrains the outcomes seems to me to be the very place where "art" can be created in a way unique to video games.
Interactive Theatre (Score:2)
I actually just finished up a senior (undergrad) project involving just that. It was, literally, a Choose Your Own Adventure-style play*, with the audience presented with multiple choices along the way. E
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The only way to call it "bad" would be in reference to the lost opportunity to also include pirate moneys, pirate ninjas, ninja ghosts, and ninja monkey robot ghosts.
But seriously, sounds awesome. I didn't really think that my idea of a choose-your-own-play was original or anyt
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While there weren't any monkeys, ninjas, robots, or the combination thereof, there were some great (by which I mean, ridiculous, slow motion, drawn out) swordfights and every character had the possibility of dying on at least on path. =)
-Trillian
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What would be really nice would be to listen to a debate between Will Wright and this Ebert fellow.
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A hallmark of much great art is that it can be appreciated on many different levels by many different people, often in ways the creator of the work never intended. A truly great game could very well do the sa
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Hey, Aeris always dies in FF7! ART!
One might argue that modern RPGs full of cut scenes should be considered as art with a bit of sport as a diversion between the cut scenes. Even when there are choices that affect the outcome, such games still have a limited number of outcomes.
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In all seriousness, in jazz, the performance is the art more than the sheet music (if there would be any) or some other abstraction of the music. For games, the performance is what the player does in the game, not what the game developer does. Playing the game is the art, like the performances of chess grandmasters that are praise
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The bottom line, the video game is never the optimal way to get across your artistic point, or a story. The only advantage videogames have over film or theatre is
Re:Flawed argument (Score:5, Insightful)
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Art does not have to evoke an emotional response. Ebert is biased because he specializes in a narrative art form. Art can evoke a purely intellectual response. It can evoke other kinds of responses for which we have no name.
Abstract art evokes a response on a level for which I'm not sure there is a precise name: above the level of perception, but not exactly thought. A kind of perceptual kin to the body's sense of proprioception (positional awareness of t
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In fact, I'd say interactivity on some level is what differentiates the fine arts from the practical arts, although there is some overlap. The shapes of the cams in an automobile engine have a certain aesthetic appeal, but since they aren'
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Which it would be; specifically, it would be a derived work. Would it be good art is another question. In any case, since Rome and Juliet is a theatrical play, and since it is impossible to make each performance exactly like any other, this particular argument is void - Romeo and Juliet is already a dy
Life rule: Always ignore critics and snobs (Score:2)
He may be right that there are no games currently in existence that should be considered high art, but that does not preclude one from coming out in the future.
flOw is art (a product of human activity, made with the intention of stimulating the human senses as well as the human mind [wikipedia.org];).
He might not call it high art, but that's because high art is by definition not consumed by the masses, its appreciation is an affectation of the higher classes.
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But in using the word "consuming" you pointed your finger right at the flaw of his arguments: all he talked about was the act of _consuming_ a video game (playing it), which is certainly not an act of art. Just as little as staring at pieces of high art in an exposition is an act of art. He seems to give a little mention to the interactivity of games, but that's also not an argument against video games as art, since big parts of the last decades were dominated by the
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But in using the word "consuming" you pointed your finger right at the flaw of his arguments
But seriously, it's a clear case of "old man doesn't like new fangled contraptions, film at 11"
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He probably percieves movie making to be threatened more by the video game generation than any thing else he has seen in the past. This is probably the driving force behind his terribly flawed arguments. Games are the enemy (to him).
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Since there is no consencus on the definition of art, it is just one man's opinion.
I've read many arguments why games cannot be considered art, but none of them valid.
- Games are interactivity. Plays are performed (interacted) by actors, does this mean that games can be art as long as you're only watching and somebody else is playing?
- Games have restrictions. Paint has
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In fact, I think that several thousand years from now (assuming a social trajectory without massive direction shifts) people may be arguing that a simple flat static painting cannot possibly be considered 'art' because of the lack of full sensory immersion.
Even IF art NEED be a static form, many games are static forms. Play Doom again, the monsters will still be where t
Okay. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Okay. (Score:5, Interesting)
I personally believe that he's wrong, but it's for more complex reasons dealing with what art is; at its core, that's what all the hubub is about, the lack of a definition of art.
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for the record, i am convinced some existing video games are great works of art, but pointing to great graphics or cutscenes is a dead-end argument. (these are just the helmets)
video games ascend when all the peices -- the art, the story, the mechanics, the interface, the potential actions offered and engaged in -- work towards the same compelling whole and remove the player from the chair he sits in, take him inside the game,
who cares, who thinks he's an expert? (Score:4, Funny)
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Ebert doesn't get it, but neither do most gamers (Score:5, Insightful)
To speak of games as (high) art, we must explore the foundation of the form, and that isn't the plot or music or story, though a great story can be told in a game's context. The art in games is in the experience that they create for the player; the feeling of doing something or being something that you're really not. This isn't a traditional emotional experience that you might get from literature, but that doesn't mean its value is less. We have literature to make us sad or happy or lonely -- games are something different, and that's why this new form is such a treasure.
Re:Ebert doesn't get it, but neither do most gamer (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ebert doesn't get it, but neither do most gamer (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Ebert doesn't get it, but neither do most gamer (Score:2)
simstim
though certainly not art.
Applying this argument to movies... (Score:2)
Play Planescape: Torment. (Score:2)
Ryan Fenton
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And now for a counterexample:
Just because "oops I did it again" sang by britney is both music and a load of crap, that doesn't mean all music is a load of crap, does it?
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So by his definition... (Score:2)
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Thanks, man. I was only 50 pages away from the end of the book.
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No, they don't. They may choose from a number of predefined outcomes, but in the end, the outcomes are controlled by the writer.
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The only thing that generally seems to define what is art and what isn't is that it seems to always be a man-made somehow (not always). I think this attachment of a human ego as a creator/author/manipulator of the piece is important distinction -- you don't see too man
Lazy Art? (Score:2)
The problem with 'games as art' is that tree plot lines are much harder to write then linear ones. But there are artists out there who can do it,... I think some of the backlash from people like Ebert is he represents artists who can not do this and are thus feel threatened.
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Then is a videogame more like a performance? Much of the traditional folklore of every culture was preserved by bards and storytellers. These people would tell their tales, and would expand parts and gloss over others to suit their audience, gauging their reaction as they went through the story. Yet certainly their performance is a work of art, never qu
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Unfortunately, it is also an possible example of why games would have a hard time being considered 'high art'. Folklore, performance art, etc, are generally considered 'low art' since they tend to be 'pessent oriented' rather then aristocratic in origin.
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Look at a painting for example, it is 2D and shows one thing only from the perspective of the artist. Ebert would presumably argue this is art. OK I can agree with him.
Now look at sculpture, it is 3D and shows what the artist wants from different views. Still art? I think so.
Finally look at games, they are 3 dimensional in the sense that they can be approached from different angles and perspectives much the same as a
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I think the big thing is... people who are being creative and consider themselves artistic want their particular mode of expression treated with respect like other modes. So it is less the players and more the creators that really feel this.
I prefer Kojima's approach. (Score:5, Interesting)
Games are more like an art gallery. The story is art, the music is art, the graphics are art...
But the game is the package that they all come together in.
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But the game is the package that they all come together in.
Then by Kokima's definition, cinema is not art. However... cinema is widely considered the 7th art.
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Ever seen a musical? It's got lighting, singing, dancing, acting, scenery, costumes... all art by themselves, and they combine into..
There's all sorts of art projects and installations that involve technology and mixed media. There's interactive art that is experienced in different ways, and that experience/interpretation is considered an important element of that art. Games are no different. Ebert is just using an arbitrarily narrow definition of a
Art is like beauty (Score:2)
Definition of Art (Score:2, Informative)
From the Article:
Barker: "I think that Roger Ebert's problem is that he thinks you can't have art if there is that amount of malleability in the narrative. In other words, Shakespeare could not have written 'Romeo and Juliet' as a game because it could have had a happy ending, you know? If only she hadn't taken the damn poison. If only he'd have gotten there quicker."
Ebert: He is right again about me. I believe art is created by an artist. If you change it, you become the artist. Would "Romeo and Juliet" have been better with a different ending? Rewritten versions of the play were actually produced with happy endings. "King Lear" was also subjected to rewrites; it's such a downer. At this point, taste comes into play. Which version of "Romeo and Juliet," Shakespeare's or Barker's, is superior, deeper, more moving, more "artistic"?
Barker: "We should be stretching the imaginations of our players and ourselves. Let's invent a world where the player gets to go through every emotional journey available. That is art. Offering that to people is art."
Ebert: If you can go through "every emotional journey available," doesn't that devalue each and every one of them? Art seeks to lead you to an inevitable conclusion, not a smorgasbord of choices. If next time, I have Romeo and Juliet go through the story naked and standing on their hands, would that be way cool, or what?
That said, let me confess I enjoy entertainments, but I think it important to know what they are. I like the circus as much as the ballet. I like crime novels. (I just finished an advance copy of Henry Kisor's Cache of Corpses, about GPS geo-caching gamesters and a macabre murder conspiracy. Couldn't put it down.) And I like horror stories, where Edgar Allen Poe in particular represents art. I think I know what Stan Brakhage meant when he said Poe invented the cinema, lacking only film.
I treasure escapism in the movies. I tirelessly quote Pauline Kael: The movies are so rarely great art, that if we cannot appreciate great trash, we have no reason to go. I admired "Spiderman II," "Superman," and many of the "Star Wars," Indiana Jones, James Bond and Harry Potter films. The idea, I think, is to value what is good at whatever level you find it. "Spiderman II" is one of the great comic superhero movies but it is not great art.
In other words... (Score:2)
I nearly cried when Ico's credits were playing (Score:2)
Ebert: If you can go through "every emotional journey available," doesn't that devalue each and every one of them? Art seeks to lead you to an inevitable conclusion, not a smorgasbord of choices. If next time, I have Romeo and Juliet go through the story naked and standing on their hands, would that be way cool, or what?
Dear Mr. Ebert,
The world has passed you by, say hello to the old men who were decrying the depravity of the waltz on your way to the special hell reserved for snobs and creationists.
If games aren't art... (Score:4, Funny)
He's got a point... (Score:5, Insightful)
people like pinball games for the ART work in them (Score:2)
Interactivity and Art (Score:3, Insightful)
For someone who reviews countless action movie sequels and buddy cop movies, he sure has a poor grasp of how most great works of art are rare "diamonds in the rough." He has listed 2 (?) genres, FPS and point and click adventures. He has never seen the level of detail Bioware put into the characters for their many games. He has never experienced the emotional story of a FF6. He has never tried to see a dynamic artificial world created by the likes of Civilization.
I think Barker is wrong in calling Ebert prejudiced towards games. I think he's just ignorant towards them.
Duchamp and Fountain (Score:3, Insightful)
If a urinal is the most influential piece of art in a century, do we really care about "high art" anymore?
I have this recollection of a man standing in front of something really stupid and screaming "ART!!!" at it. I don't remember what it was from (I'm sure someone will tell me), but it reinforces the point that "artists" will insist everything is art, just because they made it.
Re:Duchamp and Fountain (Score:4, Insightful)
But the thing that turned it around for me was when they showed the young modern artist who had successfully sold a shoe polish tin filled to the brim with his own feces for several grand. And after thinking about that little old lady trying to justify the deep meaning behind the pile of hershey's kisses and how she had to spend $10k on it instead of going to CostCo and spending $20 on her own kisses to pile in the corner... it clicked.
A shoe polish tin filled with shit is not art. The act of getting someone to pay you thousands of dollars for your shit in a tin is a stinging criticism of the modern art world, the sycophants who desperately pretend to understand it in order to seem cultured, and is a magnificent piece of "high" art.
One Word: (Score:2)
I nearly wept in at least two of their games.
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Trinity as well come to think of it. Also Zork III at the very end. I don't think I've enjoyed any media as much.
Flag boy (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's a quick list for what Ebert should have "played" instead to get a grip:
* A Mind Forever Voyaging, by Steve Meretzky from Infocom
* Shadow of the Colossus, by Sony
* Savoir-Faire, by Emily Short
* The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, by Nintendo
* Deus Ex, by Ion Storm
* Anchorhead, by Mike Gentry
* Super Metroid, by Nintendo
* Spider and Web, by Andrew Plotkin
* Half-Life, by Valve
* Metal Gear Solid, by Konami
and so on...
Interactive art is here to stay! The original author of a work of art does not mean his audience to sit there passively reading/watching the plot unfold, but to activelly participate and change the outcome in ways he could not see. We're still not quite there, but eventually this goal will be reached...
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Metal Gear Solid- Could be included, but driven almost entirely by cutscenes and codec conversations, with intermittent periods of interactivity. Dangerously close to watching a movie.
Half Life- Equivilant to an action movie with no characters, and all run and gun action. The sequel adds one deminsional characters. Hardly a good story.
Super Metroid- The opposite of metal gear solid. Pretty much
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We need some true AI, not just for better NPCs than the manually scripted of today but for a host of other goals.
We need NPCs with motives, goals, thirst for knowledge and power and awareness of what is going on in that simulated world and how they can act upon it in a way to benefit them. AI is needed too for the so-called drama managers who should build the plot accordingly to the player's actions. As well as for
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The moody setting doesn't come from the cinematics, it comes from the feeling of attachment to the main character and the knowledge that any false movement and you're toast. It comes from interactivity with the simulated world. I remember vividly such varied interactive moments that are about as startling as the cinematic presentations: trying to hit a hitman (hitwoman) and feeling you're too "nervous" so that you should find a way to
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What is a game? (Score:3, Insightful)
However, there is a worthy point to discuss left: When a game gets closer to a movie by using cutscenes, it can be art like a movie. And a game that relies heavily on text dialog can get very close to a book and so be art like a book. But what about the actual gameplay itself? Most games that evoke emotions do so by using non-interactive cutscenes, not gameplay. Can a game evoke emotions in via gameplay itself? I think the answer would be 'yes', but there are only very few games around that ever tried that, let alone succeeded at it in the same way a non-interactive book, movie or cutscene can.
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Then it's not a game. But thanks for remembering Shakespeare: his plays were mere popular entertainment in his days. Now they are high-art.
That's it: bury a copy of Super Mario Bros. for a few centuries and unfold as critics in the future bow to its superior intelectual challenges as an early interactive art example...
Non-interactive cut scenes... (Score:2)
I think just about every player was inspired to emotion by their first interaction with the Norbert character in Nashkel in Baldur's Gate. In most cases Norbert probably didn't survive the experience, despite the fact that he never did anything to threaten the player. He really was that annoying.
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True, but the set of emotions that they invoke is quite a different one then a movie can do. Joy and frustration are easily accomplished in gameplay and can get more powerful then anything you get out of a book or movie, but have you ever grieved because your game character died? Normally you just hit "Retry" and continue as usual.
### The life of the protaganist is directly in your hands, something books and movies cannot do.
Right, but that actually doesn
hmm (Score:2)
Painting is not art (Score:2)
How do I know this? How many paintings have I looked at? I know it by the definition of the vast majority of paintings. They tend to involve (1)
Art or High art? Set a definition first. (Score:2)
Art [google.com]
Fine Art [google.com]. Yes, I know he said 'High Art', but there was no such definition so I used the next best thing I could find.
Looking at the two definitions, Ebert's statements seem a little soft. The first bullet point for 'Art' seems to support video games of at least qualifying for consideration inside its ranks. Using the first two bullet points for 'Fine Art', the incredibly controversial Super C [columbinegame.com]
Games not art? (Score:2)
Depends on the game. (Score:2)
Obviously a film reviewer, albeit a superlative one, is not the best person to make the call, not being aware of the breath of the genre. Not every film is Transformers, not every video game is Doom.
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Ebert is grossly mistaken.... (Score:2)
When he states that the player is actually in control to the same degree as in sports.
In fact, the appearance that the player is actually appearing to affect anything at all is just an example of masterful illusion at work. Ideally, the programmers design a game in such a way that it _appears_ that the player's actions and choices are in control, and for all intents and purposes they can be considered to be, but in reality, the programmer determines what will and what will not happen in a game. In actu
arguing about art is like arguing about genre (Score:2)
I don't care if something is art or not. I don't care if Star Wars is a Western or not. All I care about is if I like them and find them worthwhile or not. The terms you apply to them won't change that.
Most people don't seem to get it (Score:3, Interesting)
There. Get it now?
disappointing (Score:2)
I don't know if he's right, but if he's taking the time to write that article and we're taking the time to read it, I expected a little bit more.
Games = paint and canvas (Score:2)
I wish games were art. They're not (Score:2, Insightful)
The closest I think you could come is a game like Half Life 2. It is both unambiguously playing by the rules of games (no cutscenes
don't blanket statement (Score:2)
High Art? (Score:2)
huh? (Score:2)
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Hmm. I'm going to disagree with you there. Maybe "art games" wouldn't be blockbusters, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't be made. Would you say the same thing about movies? Should directors making art movies switch to making summer blockbuster style crap? No thanks.
Sometimes I want to check my brain at the door [penny-arcade.com] and just blast some ba