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)."
Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that he's officially passed into hinging his entire worldview in relation to videogames as art on a "No True Scotsman" fallacy.
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:5, Insightful)
Portal, as any other video game is art. Whether it's ~good~ art or not is extremely subjective (which, actually, makes it even more "artful"). I think the reason why portal is mentioned that often is that it was one of the few commercially successful games in the last years which involved the player emotionally (through its story, setting and overall atmosphere).
How is a completely blue canvas art? How is a multicolored photocopy (I know .. not photocopy at all, butyou get the gist) of Marilyn Monroe's face art? Why are anatomically and perspectivically incorrect pictures of madonnas with big boobiçes, painted in the middle age, art? what about crude stick drawings of what could possibly be elefants on a cave side? ... and that's just paintings. If it's the fact that the audience is not participating, then I urge you to consider theater plays living off audience participation, or even concerts relying to a big part on the participation of the audience (Frank Zappa was known for it, so is Bobby Mc Ferrin).
Egbert is just old and grumpy if you ask me ... and quite full of himself.
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Correct.
Art has a pretty clear definition, in that it's symbols of things that bring to mind other things, often emotions, but they don't have to be.
I.e., anything where you're supposed to experience it and get something beyond the actual symbols is 'art'. Be it cave drawings trying to show a good outcome and thus bring one about, or a photograph that makes you feel sorry for the person, or a video game where you're feeling excitement, or a French farce where people are running in and out of bedrooms maki
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"What it does do is entertain, and in a unique, interesting way. It's incredibly fun. Hilarious, clever, and a bit chilling at times."
there is your answer (even though you contrasted that with "evokes no emotion" which, to me, sounds like you are contradicting yourself.)
Personally, I loved the look of Portal, but that aside, let me indulge in some far fetched theory : Portal is about the evil of technology used without concience, about corporate ruthlessness, about de-humanized procedures.
In parts, it links to P.K.Dick'ian themes, as you play an android with whom, in the best of cases, you'll mentally associate with while playing the gam
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Portal is about the evil of technology used without concience, about corporate ruthlessness, about de-humanized procedures.
Weird, I'd say Portal is the usual "evil creature run amok" narrative. It's clear from the game that GlaDOS was created to facilitate Aperture Science's perfectly normal experiments in portal technology, but then went, well... nuts. It's really just that simple. As a narrative, it's actually incredibly shallow.
In parts, it links to P.K.Dick'ian themes, as you play an android ...
Err..
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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. 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?
Interesting that you didn't r
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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.
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Well .. I guess you can feel yourself, flattered : the silly short stories you wrote WERE art. If you had writen a phone book, I might think otherwise. A phone book is generally not a work of art (unless someone uses it in ANY artistic way, like putting it on a pedestal and saying "that's a piece of art") It's not ridiculous, it's just what art is. Some art is subjectively ~better~ than other, but that's very dependent on the context and the person judging. Even though, it's still art. As for portal, we can
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Of course I do, but it's not a distinction between "art" and "non-art". The distinction happens on a purely subjective level as to what I prefer. I'd take a PKD short story over Portal's story anyday, but a video game generally isn't limited to its narrative (grafic and soudn design, the way the story is told), nor are books for that matter (writing style, even presentation plays a part in the way book impacts on the reader). Anyway, I'm really not trying to say that Portal is a masterfull art piece, just t
Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:5, Interesting)
has no deeper meaning,
Taking apart GlaDOS at the end, piece by piece, suggests a deconstruction of an artificial psyche.
evokes no emotion,
The companion cube evoked no emotion? How about the cake? You yourself admitted to loving Portal -- is that love not an emotion?
teaches no lesson.
Aside from the lessons of the portal physics themselves, it teaches that games are meant to be fun, and that you can have a fun, innovative game with solid production values.
But of course, is art required to teach a moral lesson? I sure don't think so.
It certainly isn't abstractly beautiful or otherwise uniquely aesthetically pleasing (well, any more so than an average, technically competent game).
"More so than the average" isn't required. And the gameplay itself is abstractly beautiful.
But is it art? I sure don't think so.
I think it's unequivocally art. You seem to ask whether it's better than the average art, and it's certainly possible to say it's bad art, but I don't see how you can say it's not art.
Look at Dada for an example. If "found art" is legit, then someone can certainly take a urinal, declare it "found art", and erect it as a statue in a public park -- which I think I remember someone doing as an exercise in Dada. If Dada is legit, it doesn't seem like there's much you can say is not art.
More relevantly, though, it's aesthetically pleasing, humorous, entertaining... It contains all the elements required to call it "art" in the same way that any movie deserves to be called art. You clearly enjoy it, so you think it's good art, you just might not think it's particularly highbrow art, which is fine.
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You say it's "chilling", and at the same time you claim it evokes no emotion?
If it's chilling at times, then it evokes more emotions than most the novels I've read or movies I've seen -- and yet nobody would argue that a novelist or moviewriter isn't doing art.
The whole argument about "videogames aren't be art" is merely an old elite claiming that *any* new and popular form of art isn't art. Theater wasn't true art for the first ancient Greeks, and movies weren't true art in the early 20th century, and some
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Art is subjective, down to its very definition. I can no more convince you that Portal is art than you can convince me that some hideous postmodern ar
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How was Portal art? It was just a fun, quirky first-person puzzle game. People have stretched the word art to far that it now includes anything they think is clever or memorable. I saw someone call Braid a work of art. No, it's just a side-scrolling puzzle game with piano music and pretentious level transitions.
I feel like you could say that about any work of art. For instance
How is the Mona Lisa art? It's just a nice looking painting of a smiling chick. People have stretch the word art to far that it now includes anything they think is clever or memorable. I saw someone call "The Scream" a work of art. No, it's just an expressionist painting with a lot of orange, pretentious people fawning over it, and people trying to steal it.
a lot of people here are just attacking him because they're gamers and want to attach some kind of significant meaning to their World of Warcraft characters or something.
Again to turn that around, a lot of artists and art critics are writing off games a
Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think Ebert is right, and a lot of people here are just attacking him because they're gamers and want to attach some kind of significant meaning to their World of Warcraft characters or something.
Ebert loves movies. It's his job as well as his hobby I imagine, so naturally he can't imagine anything else being as good.
An avid ready may tell him that movies can never be art the way books are and even try to rationally explain this belief.
An admirer of the art of story telling might tell the avid reader that books can never be as artistic as true and honest story telling.
A synthesizer can never be used to create fine art the way a grand piano can.
A piano is just a crude, blunt instrument compared to the ancient dulcimer.
Electrically amplified instruments can't really make music.
Black Metal can never be true metal the way death metal is.
I see no point in attacking Ebert for his opinion, it's just the result of being passionate about something, but the fact that he's plainly wrong requires no explanation, just some anecdotal evidence will do to show that he's hardly the first or the last to dismiss a new artistic expression as not being up to the standard of the old thing.
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I haven't been a gamer for years, plus I studied art in college, and I say he's wrong, too. I haven't played Portal, but more than likely it IS art. Maybe bad art, but art nonetheless, just as a bad B movie is art, just bad art.
Schopenhauer (Score:5, Insightful)
There are much older definitions of art, like Schopenhauer's. He argues that artistic judgment is the disinterested contemplation of beauty or the sublime. That is a technical definition, but it basically means that art is free from your will, or desire.
If Schopenhauer is right and art is free from the will, then Ebert's idea is not so stupid, and has some intellectual pedigree. For, a game is the embodiment of the will, in that you want to triumph.
Re:Schopenhauer (Score:5, Insightful)
Would that suggest, then, that if an observer and not player of such game - with no interest in victory for the player - appreciates it, that it is then art?
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Would that suggest, then, that if an observer and not player of such game - with no interest in victory for the player - appreciates it, that it is then art?
Art is whatever I say it is! *smack* Obey my authority!
Re:Schopenhauer (Score:5, Interesting)
That might have value as a definition of artistic judgement, but seems lacking as a definition for art itself. Otherwise any artist that creates with passion would have his works disqualified as art, and that doesn't seem to accord with the way we understand art.
I suppose if you consider the game creator as the artist and the player as the appreciator, then I can see your point. But suppose you see the player as artist, and the game as his canvas? A good run through a Far Cry level can surely be considered art, at least as much as an improvisational dancer can.
Or maybe we need to look at game playing as an artistic collaboration between the game creator, and the player, producing performance art that arises uniquely from that combination.
Interesting.
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Then I would argue that while a Video Game itself is probably not a piece of Art, the story and expression of it very well might be.
Case in point, Final Fantasy XIII.
Separate and apart from wining the game, the world of the game, and the story that takes place over the course of the game, (in the form of written descriptions and backstory in the Datapad, and in the cut-scenes, both pre-compiled and in-game) most certainly IS a work of art.
The ability to "finish or win" a game disqualifying it as a work of
Re:Schopenhauer (Score:4, Insightful)
Art is anything you can get away with.
-- Marshall McLuhan
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That definition also excludes a great deal of the artwork of history: anything dealing with religion, lust, beautiful women, political statement - and so on.
Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Art doesn't seem to have a good objective definition. It's always defined in terms of the things people consider to BE art. Any definition that doesn't use specific works seems to be an attempt at finding a common thread among the works that person considers to be art. Those themes can vary from person to person.
For some, emotional impact is key. A "sterile", though accurate drawing can never be art to them.
For some, technical skill is important. I know I've refused to call a lot of abstract works "art".
For others, social commentary or message is important. A pop singer is mere entertainment (the horror), but replace her lyrics about her boyfriend with ones about the hardships of poverty and she becomes an artist.
I've played video games that could pass muster in any of these categories, and some arguably in all three.
Wth Mr. Ebert, though, a work of art needs to be static. Interactivity, open-endedness, and an ability to win means it's not art. If you make a video game that is missing these pieces, he neatly claims it's no longer a video game. A very nice circular definition if you ask me.
Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:5, Interesting)
No. He's managed to trick you.
Art has a perfectly good objective definition.
Humans use symbols and representations of things. Normal, straight usage, such as saying 'I'm going to the store', or a map, or a whatever, is not art.
Art is when, in addition to the actual standard representation, the creator is attempting to convey another meaning. For example, 'beauty'. Or 'excitement'. Or whatever.
Art is simply what we call symbols and representations that are 'two deep'...the normal literal one, and one on top of that.
Anything else, any quibbling beyond that, is not trying to define 'art'...it's trying to define good art.
Now, there's an argument to be made that art has to be able to convey some primary meaning or some secondary meaning to least some of the viewers, and hence some non-representational art (What you called abstract, although that just means 'deliberately incorrect'...Picasso paintings are abstract.) actually fails the 'art test', as it's often not possible for people to grasp the second meaning without being told it, and there isn't any 'first meaning' beyond 'blobs of stuff'.
But that's a very very very small subset of things that are 'art', and have an amount of attention paid to them that is way out of proportion with their actual experience.
Likewise, a technically good drawing that doesn't (try to) convey anything beyond the drawing, is not in fact art, in much the same way a security camera recording is not art.
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So sexual innuendo is art?
Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:4, Insightful)
Gee, I don't know. Is "Modest Proposal" trolling? "Divine Comedy" (where most of Dante's enemies, even those still alive at the time, turned out to be burning in Hell)? "Piss Christ"? Speaking of Jesus, what would you consider most conversations between him and the Pharisees in New Testament?
Basically, if you get people to react, you touched something in them, so I'd say that every instant of successfull trolling is necessarily art.
Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:5, Interesting)
Google for "Lance Armstrong is not an athlete". Seems about 8 years ago, some wanker of a sports reporter wrote this long idiotic oped piece that Lance Armstrong is not an athlete, because cycling is not a true sport. A true sport, like baseball, involves several motions, like running *and* throwing. Cycling does not; ergo cycling is not a sport and Lance is not an athlete. (At least according to this idiot, cycling only requires pedaling.)
So boxing (which this idiot covered) *is* a sport because it involves punching *and* falling down.
This is in the same vein; start out with a personal dislike of something or other, then write convoluted logic justifying your personal prejudice.
And this crap gets published because you are a member of the press, not because it makes any sense.
Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, to be fair, I think people try to exclude motorsport because, they think, it doesn't take any physical activity.
They're wrong, of course, which is why it is a sport. A very equipment-dependent sport, but a sport. (A sport I personally find rather stupid, but whatever.)
I have no idea under what logic people would exclude golf. It's pretty close, logistics-wise, to half of baseball. Perhaps because it has no defense in it? But that excludes things like running. Although, for all I know, they exclude that anyway.
A sport, in my universe, is when people, using physical skill, compete using a set of rules, with an objective physical measurement of their score, like getting a ball in a hole or being the first over a line. (And, yes, motorsports requires a hell of a lot of physical skills.)
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.
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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....
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I'm also a little bothered by the emphasis on winning. Particularly in single-player RPGs, you are usually trying to complete the main plot of the story. You don't win or lose, you simply end. For instance, in Planescape: Torment, it was extremely hard to "lose" (that is, die permanently before reaching the end of the game). Even if you died, with very rare exceptions you would simply wake up in a morgue or an alleyway as your immortal body knitted itself back together. When you eventually reach the end of
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But that's the trick to his "No True Scottsman" fallacy. If you present Ebert with a videogame that fits his definition of art then he simply claims it's not a videogame and that you've proven his point for him.
Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes.
Roger Ebert is a very talented and erudite film critic and scholar. His first-hand experience in the movie business gives him an insight beyond that of many other great film critics.
However, he's succumbed to something that is common to people who have succeeded in one area: they start to believe their expertise in one thing makes then expert in all things. There are talented engineers who believe their success at engineering makes their opinions about climate change valuable. There are chemists who decide late in life to write a "Theory of Everything" that includes quantum mechanics and astrophysics. Bono made hit records and believed that qualifies him to solve great world problems. It comes with success in an age of celebrity.
Roger Ebert has been through a lot in the past years. He's battled an extremely aggressive disease that has left him deformed and disabled. The pain alone was probably enough to have made him borderline insane. I'm going to give him a pass on this idiotic statement for two reasons. Number One is because he's written brilliantly about film. There are only a handful of film critics who have worked at such a high level for so long. Number Two is because he's had some medical issues that would have warped anyone's better judgment. I give him credit for trying so hard to continue his career and I wish him the best.
But video games, though not yet there, are certainly capable of being great art.
Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:4, Insightful)
Naw, playa, I'm just saying that I like Ebert, and think he's done a lot of good work, but he's wrong about this.
You want patronizing, try this:
"You haven't been around here long enough to say what is and what is not patronizing "even for slashdot", and I don't normally respond to anyone who has a 7-digit UID. This one's on the house, though. Consider it a gift".
Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, it sounds a lot like gamers (note: I game, a lot) are desperate to associate games as art. He has a point, at the end of his article: why exactly are people insisting games are art? Does it make them better? Does it make you feel like less of a nerd, if it's artistic? Why is an aimless, goal-less pretty-picture-and-motion collection more art than something engaging and fun like Deus Ex (picked from a hat, replace with your game of choice.)
It seems like gamers & developers are creating a kind of cargo cult art. We don't know what art is, but if we make something kind of weird and meandering and clumsily insert some emotive cues, that's art, right? Lots of movies are odd, abstract explorations of who-knows-what, so if we do that, we're doing art.
I don't think it works like that.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Art is any creative work which is designed to offer a unique perspective on the world. Stories, novels, paintings, scultpures etc all hopefully offer something to the listener, viewer or player new ideas or ways of feeling about the world in which we live.
Art is important because it can deeply affect those who are enriched by it. I find films in particular important to my own life because they've expanded my perspective on the world and my place in it.
To deny that video games are Art is to say that all th
Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:4, Interesting)
In the actual essay he somewhat backed away from the firmness of his argument "video games can never be art" and restated it as, "no video game now is art, and I don't see how video games can be art." He is addressing the arguments of one person, and he found them lacking, but he is open to hearing new arguments if they come along.
And frankly I don't think she presented her case very well. She used the case of a video game portraying Waco Texas, and he presents a movie that does a much better job. She shows a game that has pretty visuals, and he rightly points out that the visuals aren't that much better than what you would find on a postcard.
I think the biggest problem is he doesn't understand how emotionally captivating it is to play a video game, how it makes you 'become' the character. He would probably say that movies do this too, and that movies have better graphics, better scripts, and better camera work (and he is definitely right), but he misses the fact that games succeed even without all that. The fact that you personally have to save your partner is incredibly engaging, even without a decent script, realistic graphics, or decent camera work. Imagine what someone could do with all those elements. It could be something truly great.
Incidentally I also disagree with him that chess cannot be art. The rules themselves are not art, but some of the games that have been played are extremely beautiful dances between two minds.
Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Without question there is art in video games, but the question is is the video game itself a piece of art? While the various character models, backgrounds, and even cinema clips are art, is the game as a whole? I'd argue that it is, because the design of the gameplay and the storyline, alterable by the user or not, is art in much the same way the architectural design of a building can be art. Additionally, there is such a thing as "interactive art" in which the observer is invited to interact with the art work in various ways. How is this different from a video game?
Of course, ultimately what is and isn't art is in the eye of the beholder. Ebert is entitled to his opinion as to what he considers art, as am I. It just so happens that he's wrong
Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:5, Interesting)
If that's his argument, then how does he argue that movies are art? They're just a container for art, writing, stageplay, and audio. It could be strongly argued that camera movements (cinematography) are just mechanics placed on art, not art itself.
Arguing that game rules applied to art isn't art is just as absurd a line of argument - it doesn't matter if it's a game, if the content is art, the product itself is artistic.
Ryan Fenton
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On a more sinister note, if you can get games declared "not art", then you could perhaps convince people that they shouldn't be protected under 1st Amendment or other applicable rules. Artistic fre
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I don't think that's necessarily a conclusive argument. I can draw a beautiful picture on page 874 of my personal copy of the federal tax code [blogspot.com], but that doesn't make the tax code art.
It does if Art Spiegelman does it ;^)
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Drawing a beautiful picture on your personal copy of the tax code does indeed make that copy of the tax code "art". Not the tax code in general, only that copy of it (and really only that page, though separating the page from the rest of the book might not be a good idea if it gets ripped).
The whole problem here is, why is this even an argument?
What constitutes "art" really isn't a black-and-white thing. Some things are simply gray areas, just like what constitutes a "game". For example, is "Second Life"
Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:4, Interesting)
I doubt, at this point, Ebert is going to go out and play a bunch of videogames and have a change of heart.
In any event, I always sort of suspected he didn't watch some of the movies he critiqued, so the fact that he's knocking games from a position of ignorance doesn't surprise me.
Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Your problem is that you think that "art" automatically means "good art" or "deep art". You think that calling something art automatically makes it a compliment. No. There can exist shallow art, and there can exist bad art.
"Some films aren't art. Some music isn't art. Some books aren't art. Some plays aren't art. "
Sure, those few books and films that are designed without any thought whatsoever given to artistic criteria, aren't art.
But all music and all plays are art - I can't think of any example of such t
Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:4, Insightful)
Additionally, there is such a thing as "interactive art" in which the observer is invited to interact with the art work in various ways. How is this different from a video game?
Exactly!!!
We had a story mode in MK vs DC Univers where we have authored two separate entwined plots spanning hundreds of pages of original written material. We have story boards, cinematic capture, 3D modeling, texture art, sound and music generation, voice actors, etc that are all rendered into the final movies. Pretty much everything that goes into making a movie like "Toy Story". The only difference is that at the points in the story where the characters fight, you fight as one of the characters and need to win to continue.
By Ebert's definition of a movie being "art", our game would qualify as "art" if you took out the interactive fighting and just watched our movies back to back.
But does that mean adding interactivity to "art" means it is no longer "art". The way he describes "art", a Choose-your-own-adventure book is not "art" either. Neither would be an exhibit at a museum where you could interact with it.
I think he's mistaken in his definition. When you interact with art, you are not necessarily destroying the artistic value of the original work -- rather you are creating new art with your input or even adding your personal value to existing art.
Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:5, Insightful)
By this definition, yes, art can be a pencil, but a pencil is not by itself art.
The bit that I don't think Ebert gets, is that he is saying that the pencil can never be art.
This is a false argument, in exactly the same way that a video game can never be art.
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Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:4, Insightful)
Interactive art doesn't let you "win." There's no boss and often there's no story. And if you bring up non-games, or games that are made to be experienced rather than progress or win, then Ebert argues that you're not making a game anymore, but rather simply making interactive art. I think Ebert's definition is that art can be video games, but video games are not art.
The "winnable" criteria seems completely arbitrary. How does winning a game make it not art? Example:Grand theft auto. You can finish all the missions and say you won, but then the game goes back to you running around in a violent virtual world filled with crime with no goal beyond what you set for yourself. Would you argue that grand theft auto is only a game when you're playing the missions, and when you're not progressing through it, it's "interactive art" instead of a game?
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The "winnable" criteria seems completely arbitrary.
Some art is a riddle, and you "win" when you "get" it.
Once there was an AMAZING part of an art installation I only got when I was walking out: In the middle of a large installation, they had a vampire-mirror! It reflected the room but not the people in it (they had half the room with a mirror and the other with half the room replicated in reverse on the other side of where the mirror was on the "wall", and it was a very messy room, lots of stuff strewn about, a very intricate trick). I watched quite a few p
Yes. (Score:4, Insightful)
Art is any conscious creation that adds beauty or significance to our otherwise empty existence. (That's my own personal definition).
To quote Nietzsche, "Art is the proper task of life."
Games, much like the opera, are a combination of many distinct forms of art (imagery, music, storytelling, etc), and also constitute a form of art unto themselves.
Ebert can stuff it.
Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:5, Insightful)
So instead of arguing over the definition, you should just step back and argue about the characteristics of the things itself. ("Regardless of whether this is technically censorship or not, let's discuss whether this action is a net positive or negative, whether it is immoral, and whether it should be illegal." "Regardless of whether this product is 'natural' or not, let's study whether it is a net positive or negative with respect to human health." Etc.)
In this case, I don't know exactly what ground he thinks he is defending by excluding video games from the "art" category. When he says things like:
I can only guess that he comparing all would-be art to some theoretical perfect art (Platonic ideal?) that any person would be immediately moved by. And by his reckoning, video games don't comes close enough to qualify. I disagree with his implication that we can all agree so objectively on what makes "good art" versus "bad art". I think it's quite obvious that video games have an impact on many people--oftentimes a real emotional impact or one that produces thought and reflection. Again, regardless of whether or not you are willing to call that "art" is of little importance to me: video games have cultural impact.
Robert Ebert, former arbiter of art (Score:5, Insightful)
I think if he were to admit that video games are art, that would make him the definitive critic of the SECOND most prevalent/biggest/whatever 'art form' industry on earth, since I recall reading that video games have eclipsed movies in global sales/profits/whatever.
To me it sounds like a semantic argument based off of pure ego.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Certainly, a financial component doesn't assess the success of art qua art, but it does have some indication of how distributed an artwork
Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's deeper than that. In his arguments, he cites "bad writing" in a way that it sounds like not being art, as if art for him implies being "good".
I get the impression that that's his problem. He focuses on "good art" as if that was the only kind of "art", when the "good" part of it carries a huge amount of personal opinion.
But see, he explicitly says that he doesn't care if gamers want to say that their games are art. It just means that he emitted his opinion and he's not willing to discuss it. In fact, he starts his post saying just that: he doesn't want to discuss it:
Having once made the statement above, I have declined all opportunities to enlarge upon it or defend it.
He shouldn't have changed his mind.
Re:Is it me or is he sounding more desperate? (Score:5, Funny)
In fact, he starts his post saying just that: he doesn't want to discuss it:
Having once made the statement above, I have declined all opportunities to enlarge upon it or defend it.
He shouldn't have changed his mind.
You know how it is in reasoned and intelligent debate. Make an unsupportable statement, then when someone calls you on it, you say "I don't want to talk about it!" and run from the room with your fingers in your ears. Then, once everyone's moved on and you want to rant more, you run back into the room, rant, and then run away again before they can call you on the piles of BS you keep leaving all over their nice room.
At least, that's my definition of reasoned debate, and I'm going to close this debate by stating that I politely and gracefully decline all invitations to enlarge upon my statement or defend it.
- Proud graduate of the Roger Ebert school of winning fights on the Internet.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
So I agree with you, when we start defining what something is then we need to re-fr
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
So wait... (Score:2)
Games aren't art because you can -win-? That's a rather bleak and pessimistic view on art. If you aren't allowed to win... I guess you aren't allowed to lose either. The only winning move is not to play... curious.
They can be art (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Art is anything that has the ability to inspire emotions in people.
Then war is art.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
this has been understood for thousands of years [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
No. Not war itself. War is ugly, not beautiful. Killing people and destroying things is not in itself an art form and is certainly not beautiful to anyone but a psychotic. The aim of any really good commander is to win the battle or the war with the minimum of casualties and destruction - on both sides.
I think what Tzu was referring to was strategy and tactics - the methodology used to prosecute the war, and I agree with him there - a well-crafted and executed battle plan can have an elega
Re:They can be art (Score:5, Funny)
Oh really, mister Tzu?
Didn't the end... (Score:4, Interesting)
Didn't the end of that quote just become "I know it when I see it"?
You can experience a game (Score:2)
"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."
Tic Tac Toe? Generic FPS? Perhaps. But there are plenty of games that have either a unique artistic approach or interesting story that you can
Sony should mail him a copy of ICO. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nuff said.
ICO is art.
Shadow of the Colossus, was also incredible but it did not have the emotional impact of ICO. However Shadow of the Colossus remains one of the most visually epic games to date, with a very insightful story... it misses the mark a bit but its there if you break it all down. Its an incredible game.
Re:Sony should mail him a copy of ICO. (Score:4, Insightful)
In a more general way of saying what I think you're saying, we might guess that he thinks games aren't art because he hasn't played enough games.
I think this betrays a lack of understanding:
Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art? Bobby Fischer, Michael Jordan and Dick Butkus never said they thought their games were an art form. Nor did Shi Hua Chen, winner of the $500,000 World Series of Mah Jong in 2009.
He seems to be saying (though I may be misinterpreting) that people at the top of their game (e.g. Bobby Fischer) didn't think their game-playing abilities made them artists, but I don't think game-players want to claim to be artists. Your ability to appreciate the art isn't determined by your skill at the game.
If sculpting is an art, then making 3D models should be an art. If writing music or a story for a movie is art, then why should it be different for a video game? Essentially, video games can contain all the audio/visual artistic expression that a movie contains. Creating an animation in a game doesn't take less skill than creating the same animation for a movie. The only difference is that, in addition to what a movie has, games have interactivity. Deciding how/when to blend that interactivity into audio/visual expressions is itself a creative process. The effect might not be obvious to non-gamers, but placing you into the role of a character or placing you in the action can have a significant dramatic effect.
I'm sure there are better examples, but "Portal" comes to mind (warning: possible spoilers if you haven't played the game). The fact that it was set up to appear as a simple puzzle game with discrete levels set you up to have a certain set of expectations. You believe you're in a well defined world with rules, and that the world is "working the way it's supposed to." As the game progresses, you begin to see signs that the in-game world is not what it appears, and therefor the game itself is not what it appears. This is an artistic progression that the audience experiences somewhat passively, but it wouldn't be possible in a non-interactive medium.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
There are a few games that are really good, and would certainly be art if video games can be. But I can see what he's saying.
While ICO was great, it was, you followed along the path the game designer gave you, stopping off and on to fight the shadow things. While you do have to fight them (for there to be any conflict in the game), you don't need to fight them as much as you do. The fights are basically padding, and the shear number of times you do it isn't necessary for the story. Shadow of the Colossus f
I'll give him this... (Score:5, Funny)
I am OK with this.
Art is art (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone who knows art will tell you that something is art if people who know art say it is.
Seriously, there's nothing more to it.
Wrong! (Score:2)
Oh, Grandpa! (Score:5, Insightful)
Are the rules of games art? Perhaps not.
Are games themselves generally composed of art? Yes.
Does applying rules of games to the art in games negate the artistry? No.
Is Ebert being a curmudgeon again? Yeah.
The average first-rate game contain a good book worth of creative written material, galleries of fascinating and provocative artistic images, and a couple albums worth of creative sound. These things are art - they give the game rules context that creates a story the player enacts... they are a play with a branching script, performed with audience participation.
If that's not art, your definition is flawed.
Ryan Fenton
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Are building codes art? Definitely not.
Are buildings generally composed of art (called "architecture")? Frequently, yes.
Does applying building codes to the buildings designed by architects negate the artistry? No.
Re:Oh, Grandpa! (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd argue that the rules of a game can be art themselves. Especially when the rules themselves are simple, but the gameplay is complex and dynamic. Games like the SimCity series, Civilization series, and Starcraft. They all involve a fairly simple set of rules: gather resources to build infrastructure that then allows you to gather more resources. But through repeated gameplay and exploring the different methods of balancing the various methods available you can ferret out some subtleties of cause and effect, decisions and consequences. You can also start asking questions about how well a game mimics reality. How does the balance of funding on research vs. military affect the outcome? Is it universal or context dependent? I.e., is research more valuable if your opponent is Protoss instead of Zerg? And how is that not a commentary on how the game creator perceives the world?
One of the most fascinating aspects of Civilization I've found is the effects of isolation on your empire. Try playing two games with the same overall style and choices, but one where you're very removed from the rest of the empires and one where you're surrounded by others. In isolation, your growth will lag and you very quickly lose any hope at winning, but when surrounded your growth is very rapid. Trade and competition with your neighbors is very important for a strong and wealthy empire.
How many of these interactions where intended by the game creators? I'm not sure, but that leads to other questions. How many of those effects are secondary consequences of the system the designers tried to create?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Another example is Shadow of the Colossus. The game, much like Braid, takes the basic preconceptions gamers have of 'games', then use and twist them to provoke a reaction, to make you question yourself, your actions and motivations. A more minor one is Metal Gear Solid 3's ending, where you have to mercy kill your own mentor yourself, by pressing the button. Many gamers and reviewers alike have stated that it's far more moving than it'd have been had it been a regular, non-interactive cutscene.
The genre is
Art For Whom? (Score:5, Interesting)
Okay, so it's not art because you can "win". That's fine if you're the player. What if you're watching someone else play a videogame? It's kind of like watching a movie, and you can't "win" at it. So, then is it art? And if not, then why is a movie art?
Re:Art For Whom? (Score:4, Interesting)
Okay, so it's not art because you can "win".
I'll be damned if the people who walk off the podium after accepting an academy don't "act" like winners. Would appear to be that those stupid awards appear to gauge winners and losers, as well as the constant report of ticket sales every week with regard to new box office draws. I do respect Ebert, I've been a long time fan of his show going way back before Gene Siskel passed on and Richard Roeper came on board (the new show by the way with Scott and Philips is schytte, the producers have ruined it with their game show-like nonsense), but he's sounding a bit like Grandpa. Art is a changing canvas, technology advances everything, even the definition of art. If you live in the Age of Technology and are stuck in static definitions for every day life experiences, your pretty much screwed. Movies will probably evolve to include more and more viewer interaction anyway, its inevitable. Then where will ya be, old man Ebert??
Re:Art For Whom? (Score:4, Insightful)
What's so fundamentally different about finishing a game or finishing a book?
Ballroom Dancing (Score:5, Insightful)
It's dance, and an art. And yet, you can win at it.
Making a game and PLAYING a game are NOT the same (Score:5, Insightful)
Is Roger Ebert really that dense?
It's like making the argument that a movie isn't art because you're sitting on your ass while watching it, whereas a painting you have to stand up for.
Art is not about the person VIEWING or EXPERIENCING - it is about the creator.
Clearly WATCHING a movie or PLAYING a video game is not art.
MAKING one, on the other hand, can be.
Depends on how you define art. (Score:3, Insightful)
I would say art is any beautiful act of creation.
So is a piece of music a work of art or is a performance of the work a piece of art?
Or are both examples of art.
What about the Golden Gate Bridge, the Handcock building, or the Parthenon?
To me the Saturn V, Supermarine Spitfire, and the Lockheed SR-71 are all works of art but I know an artist that disagrees because as she said, "their form is dictated by their function". I tend to see that as just working within the limitations of your medium.
Now I will say that I do not classify most video games as great art. In fact I would put 99.999% of them in the classification of commercial art but yes they are still art.
Now the big question is can any video game reach the level of what we call high art? So far the closest I feel we have come would would be maybe Myst for visuals, the works of Infocom in for writing quality, and honestly Tetris. As far and an abstract construct that really seems to resonate with everybody on the planet Tetris has got to be a stand out. If nothing else it has become a classic that I wouldn't shocked to see people playing 100 years from now.
Heavy Rain (Score:5, Insightful)
You don't "win" or "lose" Heavy Rain. You experience it. It's even less of a game than Flower. I suppose Ebert could say that it has passed through being a video game, and gone on to being an interactive movie (hello Fahrenheit 451) -- but your skill, lack thereof, or intentional supression of it determines how the narrative unfolds. It's unlike most any other "game" you have played, and very moving.
That said, I fundamentally disagree with him. Art evokes an emotional response -- and video games do that in spades. From becoming an avatar in Ultima, to avoiding zombies in Resident Evil, losing Arith in FF VII, exploring your coldwar inner child in post-apocalyptic DC in Fallout 3 and discovering who GladOS is in Portal, video games do that. Denying such is just being snobbish.
Of course you can "win" in a movie. (Score:3, Insightful)
Come on. Who does not share the sense of elation at the end of something like Rocky, or when the Ring falls into Mt. Doom? How is that not winning, it's giving you the same feeling of relief and finality that closing out a good game does.
Movies are all about immersion. Books are all about immersion. Games are just giving you another way to get immersed in the story. Even games that theoretically have no story, have one created just by the act of you playing it - a million small triumphs (and thus stories) accumulated on the path to victory. You swap stories about games just as you would really profound or exciting scenes in movies, the only difference is that you had an even more personal experience with the game.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Consider the source. (Score:5, Insightful)
Ebert is a movie critic. As such he has a vested interest in keeping people interested in spending their eyeball time on movies rather than "diverting" it to other passtimes, such as video games. This constitutes a conflict of interest whenever he attempts to analyze those passtimes.
Again, Ebert is a movie critic. This means he thinks movies are something more worthy of his attention than other passtimes. This can be expected to produce a subjective bias whenever he attempts to analyze other passtimes.
While this may be his actual honest and informed opinion, rather than a conscious attempt to promote his own subject matter (and thus his career as a critic) or an unconscious bias manifesting as a denigration of other art(or not)forms, I am inclined to take what he says about video-games-as-art with a large salt lick. (The same one I used in the '50s through now when blithely ignoring the mainstream literature establishment's constant criticism of both science fiction - which has an opposing ideology - and graphic novels / "comic books" - which bear the same relationship to written literature as theater does to storytelling.)
I am reminded of the TV show episodes during the rise of various things perceived as competition to network TV - cable, internet-based conferencing (netnews, blogs, ...), and again video games - which attempted to tie video games to crime, drugs, death, etc. (For example I recall one particularly pathetic (and low budget) cop show (involving "The San Diego Chicken" as a major character and witness) where the murder was committed by an executive of one of two cable companies involved in a bidding war.)
I hope Ebert is not sinking to this level.
Just listen to his counterarguments... (Score:5, Insightful)
He's arguing with someone who is actually correct that games are art. Here's how he handles this debate:
"Santiago now supplies samples of a video game named "Waco Resurrection" (above), in which the player, as David Koresh, defends his Branch Davidian compound against FBI agents. The graphics show the protagonist exchanging gunfire with agents according to the rules of the game. Although the player must don a Koresh mask and inspire his followers to play, the game looks from her samples like one more brainless shooting-gallery."
Ok, note the important thing: because games require you to actually play them to appreciate them, he's essentially describing a painting that *he has never even seen*. He's making the conclusion that the game is not art *based on screenshots*.
Really. Super really. He's as qualified to judge whether or not this game is art as my damned dog is to preside over the works of Michelangelo- meaning, he'll ignore that which is on the ceiling, and he'll pee on whatever he can reach.
"Her next example is a game named "Braid" (above). This is a game "that explores our own relationship with our past...you encounter enemies and collect puzzle pieces, but there's one key difference...you can't die." You can go back in time and correct your mistakes. In chess, this is known as taking back a move, and negates the whole discipline of the game."
For the unfamiliar, we have " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braid_(video_game) [wikipedia.org] ".
Firstly, in chess, if you are practicing or playing by yourself, taking back a move is one of the things you do to explore the gamespace more thoroughly. Only in a competitive multiplayer environment does time manipulation become something different entirely. He's suddenly gone from exploring a world into cheating. Not related. Plus, the game isn't just a regular game that has time manipulation, as he would again discovered *if only he could type it into google*. Seriously, here's from wikipedia:
"Time and Mystery introduces objects surrounded by a green glow that are unaffected by time manipulation; for example, switches will remain flipped even if time is rewound to before the action occurred. Rewinding can thus be used to change the synchronization between objects that can and cannot be rewound, the basis of many puzzles in this section.[15] This theme is also used in later worlds to denote objects unaffected by the player's time manipulation."
Ok, so, he doesn't know what he's talking about. This isn't "taking back a move" at all. This is something he has never heard of and doesn't understand.
And his third:
"We come to Example 3, "Flower" (above). A run-down city apartment has a single flower on the sill, which leads the player into a natural landscape. The game is "about trying to find a balance between elements of urban and the natural." Nothing she shows from this game seemed of more than decorative interest on the level of a greeting card. Is the game scored? She doesn't say. Do you win if you're the first to find the balance between the urban and the natural? Can you control the flower? Does the game know what the ideal balance is? "
I don't know man DO YOU? You haven't even TRIED this game out.
What a tool. Seriously, this is like refusing to acknowledge sculpture as art because all you have seen are pictures, or dismissing photography because you heard someone describe how a camera worked and then you were like, wait, does the exposure speed matter? WHY DO YOU NOT SAY NOT ART LOL. Or as I mentioned before, dismissing paintings having never viewed them.
Old man is old.
who is this ebert guy again? (Score:5, Insightful)
Now i'm going to play the part of the snob. Even if he did, he's unqualified to judge them. Roger Ebert does not understand the vocabulary of gaming. He hasn't played enough FPS to judge the waco game as an experience beyond you run and shoot people.
Not that i'm defending the waco game as art. i've never played it myself. I don't go into it thinking the point of the experience is to shoot people however. shooting people is common place to gamers. to someone who has played a number of FPS games, they are likely not paying much attention to the fact that they are shooting people. Someone who doesn't instinctively control an fps is likely to spend more time trying to figure out how to move, how to shoot, than to absorb any kind of message or mood the game is trying to convey.
Having gone to art school, i know that art snobs think the knowledge you bring to viewing the art is important in critiquing it. Having a thorough knowledge of principles of design and color theory is essential to being an art snob. Games have their own vocabulary and history, and if you don't posess it, you are just a schmoe saying, "i could have put a red square on a black canvas."
The medium does not determine art (Score:4, Insightful)
Mr. Ebert is incorrect for the very reason that the medium does not determine art.
Writing is often used with an objective - to communicate inventory, describe an actual scene, give orders.
Rhythm and rhyming may be used to aid in memorization, to aid in oral recollection.
Pictures, video are used for documentation, recorded evidence.
Wood, marble, steel is shaped to create buildings, stairs, chairs, eating utensils or religious relics.
Bodies move with precision in order to build, cook, or fight.
Interactive computer programs and simulations exist to educate, train, provide guided assistance on tasks, or obtain information.
At some point we get art out of all these mediums. We decorate the urn, make our religious icons more elaborate, tweak our oral histories to make them more fun to listen to, arrange our photo shots, play with the beats, create a more elaborate melody. The medium changes from straight functionality more and more to creation for aesthetics, to elicit an emotional response rather than a strict material/practical goal.
For me this point in video games (interactive computer programs and simulations), was definitely reached when playing "Planescape: Torment" back in the early 2000's. Yes, ostensibly you have a clear goal, and you can win the game. But the dialog and overall plot elements are such that I was immersed in thought, absorbed by the characterization and concepts. For others in my rough age group (cutting our teeth in the mid 80's to 90's) it may be games like "Myst" or "Psychonauts", Infocom's "Trinity", "Grim Fandango", or even a silly satire like Mystery Science Theater 3000 Presents "Detective" (http://www.wurb.com/if/game/146); more modern might be Katamari Damacy. Yes, please get off my lawn all you newfangled Xbox360 and Nintendo DS gamers.
If someone's never had an aesthetic moment with a video game it simply means that they haven't found that game yet.
Ebert (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Nintendogs (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Then (Score:4, Insightful)
Any sport without an objective scoring method isn't. It's merely performance art.
Re:Then (Score:5, Insightful)
and take gymnastics and diving and figure skating out of the olympics then?
Yes, please.
Re:Shadow of the Colossus (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Shadow of the Colossus (Score:4, Insightful)
Apart from them, what other examples of games that could count as art are there?
Doesn't matter! At this point, we've already advanced "games" to the same position as "novels" in his own example. Once you show that some games are definitely art, it becomes a matter of subjective tastes what constitutes "art" in a game. Ebert's real problem is that he doesn't understand that the aspects of interactivity and free will within a game are only slightly less constrained than someone watching a movie. You can't go read a newspaper in a Full Metal Super Warrior 2 FPS game. The creators of games already have a path in mind for you--- they just don't lead you by the nose down it like a movie writer does.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Art has a deeper meaning than what it directly presents. Art uses its medium to make a subtler point that is separate from the medium.
I often have the conversation with a friend, an abstract sculptor and painter, about What Art Is. Some artists do not have a "deeper meaning", they are simply making art for art's sake - an aesthetic pulled from purpose for the sake of the pleasure of seeing it. So then What Is Art?
We generally end up back at the conclusion that the only reasonable definition of art is its impact on the viewer. Taking that perspective to the extreme, there is no such thing as "bad art", because the viewer just discounts as
Re:Shadow of the Colossus (Score:5, Insightful)
However, Tetris does not. Tetris has a single obvious purpose, and no underlying message.
Are you kidding? If a douchebag can frame an untouched piece of engineering graph paper and claim it as art (saw it hanging in a gallery in Santa Fe) then you certainly can't say Tetris isn't art. The definition of art is completely subjective. Art merely has to evoke something that the materials alone do not. Your suggestion that it has to be a "message" is incorrect. It need only be a feeling... and it doesn't even have to be the feeling the artist intended. If something on a computer makes someone feel something that the mere flipping of bits doesn't normally make them feel, then it's art. If you're going to suggest that you know how Tetris makes everyone else feel, you're a fool.