Roger Ebert: Games are an inferior medium

[Azarkon]

From another thread -

 

There is art here, despite what many would say isn't possible with games, from Roger Ebert to game designers like Hideo Kojima. But it's in BioShock--it's in the gorgeously realized, watery halls of Rapture. It's in a Little Sister's expression of thanks when you choose to save her, or the utter silence if you harvest instead. It's in the way the characters develop, in the testimonials of the recording boxes you pick up along the way. It's in the way the narrative is structured, and the way it blends so seamlessly with the action. Irrational had a clear vision with this game, something pulled off with remarkable precision in every department. They didn't just deliver something that's fun to play, a criterion so often cited as the benchmark of what makes a game worthwhile. BioShock stands as a monolithic example of the convergence of entertaining gameplay and an irresistibly sinister, engrossing storyline that encompasses a host of multifaceted characters. This is an essential gaming experience.

- IGN

 

The release of Bioshock has rekindled an age-old debate (some say a shouting match) of whether electronic games as a medium will ever approah the aesthetic level of film and literature. For those not familiar with the debate and why Penny Arcade writer Tycho expressed the desire to sodomize Rogert Ebert with a copy of Bioshock, peruse the following exchange between the well-known film critic and a gaming enthusiast:

 

Gaming Enthusiast: I was saddened to read that you consider video games an inherently inferior medium to film and literature, despite your admitted lack of familiarity with the great works of the medium. This strikes me as especially perplexing, given how receptive you have been in the past to other oft-maligned media such as comic books and animation. Was not film itself once a new field of art? Did it not also take decades for its academic respectability to be recognized?

 

There are already countless serious studies on game theory and criticism available, including Mark S. Meadows' Pause & Effect: The Art of Interactive Narrative, Nick Montfort's Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction, Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan's First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game, and Mark J.P. Wolf's The Medium of the Video Game, to name a few.

 

I hold out hope that you will take the time to broaden your experience with games beyond the trashy, artless "adaptations" that pollute our movie theaters, and let you discover the true wonder of this emerging medium, just as you have so passionately helped me to appreciate the greatness of many wonderful films.

 

Andrew Davis, St. Cloud, Minn.

 

Roger Ebert. Yours is the most civil of countless messages I have received after writing that I did indeed consider video games inherently inferior to film and literature. There is a structural reason for that: Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control.

 

I am prepared to believe that video games can be elegant, subtle, sophisticated, challenging and visually wonderful. But I believe the nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art. To my knowledge, no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers. That a game can aspire to artistic importance as a visual experience, I accept. But for most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic.

 

(By the way, the reason I don't mention Hideo Kojima is because I consider his argument against "games as art" more of a semantics disjunction than anything else; his definition of "art" is very different than is commonly used by people like Ebert above, so much so as to make his contribution irrelevant to the discussion at hand.).

 

Of course, there are countless counter-arguments by gaming enthusiasts, academics, and developers alike as to why games do have equivalent aesthetic worth, but I am not interested in repeating the party line on why games should be considered art, particularly because a good deal of those who support the "games is art" view actually don't articulate very convincing arguments. In fact, most of the arguments I've read were simple exercises in faith-by-abstraction - ie someone would say, "Ebert is wrong because the player is the director and this element of involvement makes it possible for games to create player-driven narratives that are every bit as aesthetically involving as books and films." If you read that line carefully, you'll notice that it says absolutely nothing - all it does is reiterate the advantages of games over other mediums and stipulate that these advantages give games aesthetic appeal. But this does not answer Ebert's challenge, nor does it prove that games are art. In fact, no such proof exists because as Ebert said - no game in existence today is held in equivalence to the crowning achivements of, say, Shakespeare or Spielberg. Sure, game enthusiasts might make the comparison, and Spielberg himself might even support it given his own developer aspirations, but the bottomline is that the best games we have to offer - ie works like Planescape: Torment, ICO, and yes even Bioshock - have not been received with the same level of intellectual and aesthetic scrutiny as great works from other mediums. Perhaps time will make the difference, as it did for Shakespeare (whose works were considered popular entertainment, not timeless literature, back when he wrote his plays), but what about Ebert's structural argument?

 

Can player-driven mediums ever aspire to art? Let me be more concrete - part of what makes literature and, indeed, films meaningful as mediums is that they are dictatorial: you see what the writer/director wants you to see, and through that point of view mundane events are imbued with authorial depth and thus become art. For those who subscribe to the definition of art as anything that's visually pleasing and man-made, this is probably a large jump in semantic differences, but such is the frame in which Ebert is arguing: that which makes a medium "art" is authorial intent, which transcends craftsmanship through imbuing experience with personal meaning (in a way that simple "craft" lacks), which is then interpreted by the viewer in various ways. Thus, greatness in art lies in self-expression, which games lack because they play down the designers' ability to self-express in favor of player choice. In fact, the more choices the player has, the less capable the designer is of self-expression, because less is in his control. Note that the player's ability to self-express is irrelevant in this argument, because the relationship we're looking at is between creator and creation (as is typically what is looked at in criticism). What the player does - interpret and/or change the creation - does not belong to the work itself, much as you wouldn't consider Harry Potter fanfic in evaluating Harry Potter. That should give a good introduction to what I think is a viable interpretation of Ebert's argument.

 

How would one begin to contradict this rhetoric? There are many avenues, but I'm going to give some support to Ebert so this doesn't become too one-sided. Take a game like Torment, which is best compared to a work of literature. Now, as a book Planescape Torment would choose a single path through TNO's journey - it would hit all the important plot points, explore all the significant themes, and come to the famous climatic conclusion by a one-way route. In the process the developers have alot of freedom in what perspectives they depict, what nuances they explore, what metaphors, symbols, etc. they utilize. If their skills are up to par, Torment might become an acclaimed fantasy novel.

 

Now consider it as a game. MCA can be the greatest writer alive, but if the player of the game chooses to take a INT 3 kill-them-all path through the game, and chooses moreover to avoid all the nuances and themes and plot points MCA puts in (ie don't do any of the side-quests, choose "kill" every time possible, end every conversation before it begins, etc.), the game experience will not be anywhere close to being meaningful. Moreover, even if the player does not actively ignore the game's best moments, he might come to them by paths that de-emphasize their significance. For example, if the player had to spend ten reloads to figure out how to kill TTO at the end, he's not likely to be in the same emotional state as someone who just read Torment as a book. Thus, variability in choices removes control from the developer and puts it into the hands of the player, who, not being an artist/writer/director, will not create for himself the same profound experience as was intended. Thus Ebert is right to say that without authorial control games have a hard time conveying the personal perspectives of the designers, which in turn constitute the aesthetic worth of their works; instead, what we get is reduction to the lowest common denominator - the game experience is only as good as the player playing it, and if the person playing it follows a uncultured path then a uncultured experience is what he will receive. Where, then, is the art?

 

Discuss.

[Kaftan Barlast]

Im with Ebert all the way on this one. Even though I am one year of university shy of making game development my career in life, there is no denying that even the most ambitious games only contain about the same 'depth' as your average pulp-paperback. Critical path or multiple path doesnt matter, games will remain pure entertainment until there's a big enough market for 'art games' to cover the costs and effort of making them.

[Tale]

Im with Ebert all the way on this one. Even though I am one year of university shy of making game development my career in life, there is no denying that even the most ambitious games only contain about the same 'depth' as your average pulp-paperback. Critical path or multiple path doesnt matter, games will remain pure entertainment until there's a big enough market for 'art games' to cover the costs and effort of making them.

That same claim could could just as easily apply to movies or comic books as to games.

 

Hell, more "fine art" generally can't be seen to be very 'deep.' What's so 'deep' about the Mona Lisa?

Edited August 17, 2007 by Tale

[Guard Dog]

Actually, when you look at all of the broad field of video games, I agree with Ebert. As far a quality is concerned at least. Video games are just simple trashy fun. Playing them will not make you smarter, more cultured and they will not broaden your mind or experience. Reading good books can do those things. Even seeing good movies I guess. Video games are just a simple, fun, and unusually engrossing distraction and sometimes even stress reliever.

 

I think comparing video games to more classical forms of entertainment does them a disservice anyway. It really is a very different form of entertainment produced by a very different industry. You can hold up Torment as an example of great writing (as every other poster does in another thread on this same forum) but it really is the exception. There are flashes of brilliance in a few games from time to time but by and large, the work of game writers cannot be credibly compared with Hemingway, Jack London, Tolstoy, Martin, Matheson, Kipling (all my favs) or the like. But all of those writers only had to write one story at a time from one perspective. When they were writing NWN2 they had to write 3-4 different responses for the player, some of which altered available choices and writing later in the game. You end up writing the same story four or five different ways simultaneously when you are a game writer. That is not a level playing field to be on and be compared to a great fiction writer.

 

A video game cannot shock you like Tarentino can, of move you like Ron Maxwell can, or thrill you like Spielberg can. But those guys all have a lot bigger budgets to work with too. Give Josh and Chris a Spielberg-esqe budget, staff, and creative authority over a title of his own design and maybe he could give the great directors a run for their money in quality.

 

In terms of "quality" it is unfair to compare movies to books. It is equally unfair to compare video games to either. In terms of entertainment value, I have spent several hundred happy hours playing Baldur's Gate and all of it's expansions and sequels. I've never spent so long or gotten so much enjoyment from a book or a movie.

[Tigranes]

I aint' arguing 'games are awesome and they are art too' in the traditional sense here; I am rather saying that the dichotomy is ill-bred and I can be proud in my pastime without having to try and equate it to a book or film. Several disjunctive points:

 

Thus, greatness in art lies in self-expression, which games lack because they play down the designers' ability to self-express in favor of player choice.

 

In its space, games create an ability for meaning to be expressed not primarily by a single agent, but from that interchange itself between author and reader. While such a mechanism has thus far been superficially realised at best, especially because it is much more difficult a mechanism to control, there is potential there. But potential for what? Well, let's see:

 

Ebert is arguing: that which makes a medium "art" is authorial intent, which transcends craftsmanship

 

But art is craftsmanship. Art just as much as video games is dependent on certain reactions of the reader, the interpretive schema within which art is able to place a reader. I detest looking at Picasso. I'm not a stranger to avant-garde film or postmodernism or other wacky things, but when I want to see art I want to see good looking art and to me Picasso is just pointless. One could argue that were I to actually read up about Picasso, or were I in the company of a beautiful woman who asserted that men who like Picasso are romantic and have large ding-dongs, I may revise my opinion quite sincerely. This is the same as the argument about playing Torment with 3-INT. Art is an act of communication and its meaning is dependent on communication just as much as video games are. You have people analysing literature and reading it in ways the original author never even thought of; in this case, is the book great because of the author, or because of the reader? Both and neither, it's the interchange between them that is generative of 'meaning' as we know it. In this perspective, then, video games *aren't* fundamentally different from traditional art; they are different in their methods but they are the same in their fundamentals, as they are all communicative texts. I don't think Ebert deals with the question in this perspective, but I think we should realise this.

 

the game experience will not be anywhere close to being meaningful

 

You (and all of us) make conscious and unconscious judgments about what meaning is 'worthy' and what meaning is not. When you say a INT-3 torment experience is not meaningful, well.. it *is* meaningful; its just filled with meaning that most of us would consider vacuous. I won't be an insufferable postmodernist and argue that even vacuous critter-bashing is 'meaningful' and 'arty', though. What I would argue, however, in this issue, is two things:

1. Games like Torment show us the potential there is - though it may never be realised - for a level of 'meaning' that is indeed quite 'art'-like. This will be more the case once people start to take games seriously, which will happen gradually as generations grow up on video games. Games like Indigo Prophecy could continue to become more sophisticated and take on their own style as opposed to a cheap imitation of cinema; and players could gradually take the NPCs less as "meatsacks" and more like characters in a 'proper' book or film.

2. The meaning you take from a text, such as a game, is not wholly dependent on the text itself. This is a major major flaw in most arguments about the 'meaning' in games. The social and personal context in which you play a game changes the meaning you derive from it. Shakespeare in his time as popular entertainment was consumed differently from it is now in high school English classes. Games as texts will find that the meaning they try to transmit to their audiences is highly influenced by the context of that audience; whether they are playing alone or together, with or without cheats, and so forth. There is a high level of subversion to the original meaning possible, but this does not necessarily mean that the original meaning is 'defiled'; it's not necessarily that. Hell, as the easiest example, the high quality of some of the fanfiction for RPGs out there greatly enrich the emotional involvement one can have with the characters.

 

--------

 

Wow, sorry. First day of holidays so I can't stand organising that into a big master argument. But perhaps you get the gist. The interactivity of games does not fundamentally change the systems of meaning; the existing systems of meaning in 'art' is already dependdent on a certain level of interactivity. Video games are simply using a different path to do the same thing. Once the social and personal contexts become more favourable and naturalised to video games, and thus people start consuming video games in a different manner, this mechanism will be able to take on a more unique form, and we will have 'meaning' we find 'meaningful' in games - perhaps, never, for some, to the level of 'great traditional art', but then some people still think books are superior to films, and that's not the end of the world for films as art.

 

Of course, this is a highly theoretical argument I'm proposing; I am perfectly aware that practically, most games are 'trashy' and the contexts which I speak of could never really be realised before the demise of the medium's popularity. But the potential is there.

Edited August 18, 2007 by Tigranes

[Tale]

Actually, when you look at all of the broad field of video games, I agree with Ebert. As far a quality is concerned at least. Video games are just simple trashy fun. Playing them will not make you smarter, more cultured and they will not broaden your mind or experience. Reading good books can do those things. Even seeing good movies I guess. Video games are just a simple, fun, and unusually engrossing distraction and sometimes even stress reliever.

 

You qualify your books among the "good", but you speak only of the broad field of video games. I can find for you plenty of trashy books that will fail to make you smarter, more cultured, or broaden your experience.

 

Is it even remotely fair to compare the likes of GTA to Gone With the Wind?

 

A video game cannot shock you like Tarentino can, of move you like Ron Maxwell can, or thrill you like Spielberg can

You've played a poor selection of videogames, then.

[Guard Dog]

You qualify your books among the "good", but you speak only of the broad field of video games. I can find for you plenty of trashy books that will fail to make you smarter, more cultured, or broaden your experience.

 

Good point!

 

You've played a poor selection of videogames, then.

 

Thats probably a fair assesment too. I have pretty narrow tastes when it comes to games.

Edited August 18, 2007 by Guard Dog

[thepixiesrock]

A video game cannot shock you like Tarentino can, of move you like Ron Maxwell can, or thrill you like Spielberg can. But those guys all have a lot bigger budgets to work with too. Give Josh and Chris a Spielberg-esqe budget, staff, and creative authority over a title of his own design and maybe he could give the great directors a run for their money in quality.

 

I disagree with what you've said, but mostly this part. You really don't feel a video game can thrill you or shock you, or move you? That's in the writing. Big budgets don't bring you feeling. The writing does. I think it's completely possible for a game to do all of that. I think the difference is that movies have real actors that you see, and books you imagine real people. Maybe video games are just harder to get those feelings from, because they dont feel as real. But I certainly think you can get feeling from them.

 

I think the idea that you can compare or critique any art to be disgusting. Who's to say what is what? It's all completely opinion, where some peoples opinions are based on different things than others. For example, who is to say a movie with great special effects is better than one with great story? Most people prefer a good story over great special effects, but that's just most people's opinion. Why should movies be based on story? Why can't it be based on visual stimulation like paintings? Why should a book be more art than a video game because you will get more cultured from it? What makes art? What defines it? Couldn't the simple fact that a person created it make it art? Food can be art. Gardening can be art. Pottery can be art. Dancing is art. Art is such a broad topic, there is certainly room for video games.

[Tale]

I think the problem with Ebert's acceptance of games is that his exposure to them is pretty narrow. We have our widely publicized titles, such as the GTAs, Halos, and the like. But blatantly ignored publicly are the more narrative efforts. I've discussed at length on multiple forums "games that have made you cried" and "villains you actually hated." Emotional reactions I've seen come far more often and powerfully than I've ever heard of from books or movies.

[Tigranes]

My post is predictably tl;dr'd, so:

 

You really don't feel a video game can thrill you or shock you, or move you? That's in the writing.

 

It's more than the writing, it's also visuals, sound, context in which you watch it, hell even interactivity I guess. It supports your point though.

[thepixiesrock]

Yeah, you're right. I was just focused on writing because I wanted to draw a parallel from Movies and Games to books.

[Krookie]

I've always thought that a video game is art simply because someone created it. Let's look at it this way:

 

Black Square, by Malevich

 

Pong, by Atari

 

I think that pretty much says it. If Black Square is considered art, why the heck isn't a black square with some white squares considered arts?

Edited August 18, 2007 by Krookie

[Azarkon]

Because one was made to be interpreted while the other was made to be played?

 

Yeah, pretty shallow argument, but look - Ebert is saying that games is an inferior medium because structurally games are not authorial in nature. Players decide what happens in games - ie whether to go into that building, from what angle to view that scene, what paths to take in the story, etc. - and Ebert is saying that games are all the less art because of it. That's not necessarily an argument as to the entertainment value of games, but rather one relevant towards the potential artistic value of games. Sure, if you stare at that image of Pong you can interpret it in as many ways as the black square, but such an interpretation never occurs to the player, whereas it does to the painting purveyor, because of the structural differences between the mediums. Art is made to be looked at, watched, read, heard, whatever - games are made to be played, and in that act of playing Ebert is saying that games become less art and more entertainment for the sake of amusement. Kind of like how Chess will never be art even though it's one of the oldest and most classic games in the world.

 

As fans of RPGs we tend to challenge this basic notion because RPGs are the closest thing gaming has got to films and, especially as of late, the trend has been towards making RPGs as near of a "cinematic" experiences as possible. Would it still hold true if we were talking about FPS games? Here, let me go one step further - yes, games like Torment are often argued to be art, but is it because they're games? Or is it because they have elements within them (ie the writing, the cutscenes, the graphics) that have aesthetic value in and of themselves, irregardless of whether they're part of a game? Is that why as the industry adopts more cinematic practices, more people start claiming that games are art - ie because it's not games they're judging but essentially ghetto 3D movies?

 

That, to me, is the critical question that Ebert raises.

 

Can the gaming medium, which is to say the sum of all its parts, ever be considered art?

[MLMarkland]

Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control.

 

Ebert's argument is flawed because the foundation of his argument is that consumer choice usurps authorial control and authorial control is a necessary condition for the classification of a thing as art.

 

Ebert claims:

 

1) Films can qualify as art.

2) video games do not qualify as art because of a lack of authorial control.

 

Ebert cannot make these two claims and maintain logical consistency. Why?

 

Because films, generally, are not the creative product of a single authorial controller, but rather the product of a group of individuals working towards a common end.

 

Therefore, Ebert can only claim, with logical consistency, that either films & games cannot be considered art due to a lack of authorial control, or admit that authorial control is not a precondition for the classification of a thing as art.

 

Thus, authorial control can not be said to be a precondition for the categorization of a creation as art; or, films are not art by Ebert's definition.

 

Since it is highly unlikely, nigh impossible, that Ebert will agree that films cannot be art, he therefore must accept that games could possibly be art, subject to other criteria. However, authorial control is clearly -not- one of those criteria, if some films can be considered art.

 

Furthermore, Ebert's argument will find no recourse in an examination of the comparative level of authorial control. Such an examination would rapidly run afoul of Zeno's paradox. To argue that the comparative level of authorial control is a determining factor in the classification of something as art would require a comparison of whether those individuals infringing upon original authorial control were 1) co-local to the original production; 2) paid to do so, or volunteers; 3) actively infringed upon authorial control (e.g. the acting choices made by an actor -interpreting- the writing of Shakespeare or Bob Towne); 4) whether passive infringement upon authorial control actually degrades authorial control (e.g. an art professor claiming the Mona Lisa is actually a painting of a man); ad infinitum.

 

The claim that video games are not art because authorial control is ceded to a consumer is a poor claim indeed, because authorial control is -always- ceded to the consumer, and is often ceded to co-producers as well. Does Hemingway's work become less his work because an editor made changes? How many changes can an editor make, before the work ceases to possess requisite authorial control to qualify as art?

[MLMarkland]

In the interests of logical consistency, the word "film" in my post above should be replaced with the phrase "films made by at least two or more individuals". Thus, according to Ebert's definition of art, which includes "authorial control" as a necessary condition, your home movies are more likely to be qualified as art than the works of Michelangelo Antonioni or Wes Anderson or Roman Polanski.

Edited August 18, 2007 by MLMarkland

[Calax]

Because one was made to be interpreted while the other was made to be played?

 

Yeah, pretty shallow argument, but look - Ebert is saying that games is an inferior medium because structurally games are not authorial in nature. Players decide what happens in games - ie whether to go into that building, from what angle to view that scene, what paths to take in the story, etc. - and Ebert is saying that games are all the less art because of it.

actually if you look at most games the only difference between the game portraying the story and a movie is that in the game there is usually a need to have conflict appear once every... 5-10 minutes so that the gamer remains entranced, and the fact that instead of watching the character make his way through the story, you lead the character through it.

 

An example would be Sam and Max, you never actually were able to progress beyond a certain point without doing something, so that whole scene was you just watching and reediting the proverbial film in a way that you choose, Halflife is even better because for the most part, barring a cheat you MUST go in ONE way and down ONE path at ONE time, Admittedly the watching a guy in the corner of the screen who's barely in the shot do all the talking is gone and instead you can either look at the guy or do something else while the script runs it's course.

 

Another quick thing, if the difference between a game and a movie is that a director controls what you see rather than the viewer/player, then why are books considered art? after all, all an author does is describe the situation and location and have you fill in the gaps as a reader. which is essentially what you do as a gamer in a game.

[Pop]

Ebert would argue that even though 2001: A Space Odyssey had key grips and screenwriters and second unit directors involved in its creation, it was still a Stanley Kubrick film. We're talking auteurism. Even with people like Warren Spector and Will Wright and Hideo Kojima out there, people who have immense control over their product, an auteur theory of games is rarely argued for.

 

Has a game ever really made me reflect upon myself? Not really. Games to me at best are the greatest airport novels you can read combined with the best rollercoasters you can ride. There's no The Catcher in the Rye in gaming. But then again, I've never felt the need, as many have, to justify my love of gaming by prescribing it as art.

Edited August 18, 2007 by Pop

[MLMarkland]

Ebert would argue that even though 2001: A Space Odyssey had key grips and screenwriters and second unit directors involved in its creation, it was still a Stanley Kubrick film. We're talking auteurism. Even with people like Warren Spector and Will Wright and Hideo Kojima out there, people who have immense control over their product, an auteur theory of games is rarely argued for.

 

How much collaboration is too much for something to be art? How many people? How many hours?

Edited August 18, 2007 by MLMarkland

[Wombat]

*Shrugs* What should I say? The argument represents a rather common view of modern arts. The author seems to be ignorant of postmodern art discussions. However, I am sure that not many but some game designers, especially some of those ex-Orign and/or Looking Glass Studios are conscious of postmodernism.

[Calax]

Ebert would argue that even though 2001: A Space Odyssey had key grips and screenwriters and second unit directors involved in its creation, it was still a Stanley Kubrick film. We're talking auteurism. Even with people like Warren Spector and Will Wright and Hideo Kojima out there, people who have immense control over their product, an auteur theory of games is rarely argued for.

 

Has a game ever really made me reflect upon myself? Not really. Games to me at best are the greatest airport novels you can read combined with the best rollercoasters you can ride. There's no The Catcher in the Rye in gaming. But then again, I've never felt the need, as many have, to justify my love of gaming by prescribing it as art.

theres certainly a Bible for games, Half life 1, now give games what 1943 (ish) years to get itself a catcher in the rye.

[Morgoth]

After you've played Bioshock, you'll want wo hang this Roger Ebert on a tree!

 

Games can involve meaningful content, thus if done right, should be considered as art as well. I don't consider Doom3 as art because it's dull and meaningless, but I consider Thief or System Shock2 as art. People can fall in a picture or a sculpture or a movie or some music piece into love, talk about it, criticize it, analyze it, praise it's artist, consider it as art. It's eactly the same with some games, too!

[Slowtrain]

I see no reason why a game could not be "art".

 

I totally disagree with Ebert on the requirement of authorial control as a requirement for something achieving the state of being "art". I would say that art develops in the play between artist, medium, and viewer, and in fact requires the participation and interpretion(s) of a viewer. IMO, the ability of the gamer to interact with a game raises the potential for art rather than detracts from it. Ebert seems to be postulating a rather primitive notion of art.

 

However, as if this point in time, having been playing computer ganes since the late 70s, I've never played a computer game that had any sort of impact on me that was powerful enough I could classify it as art. That of course is my own personal definition of art: something that has an impact that goes beyond fun or amusement. Other people's definitions of what constitutes art are sure to vary, the world being as large and varied as it is.

 

But to blandly state that computer games could never be art, never develop and achieve, is pretty lame.

[Tigranes]

*Shrugs* What should I say? The argument represents a rather common view of modern arts. The author seems to be ignorant of postmodern art discussions. However, I am sure that not many but some game designers, especially some of those ex-Orign and/or Looking Glass Studios are conscious of postmodernism.

 

One of the issues is that game-makers themselves usually don't see what they do as 'art'; at best they see it as 'art-istic', and subscribe to a dichotomy between entertainment and art - one that really doesnt' stand up to any kind of prolonged examination.

 

Pop, it's not about 'justifying' love for games by calling it art. I don't give a crap what other people think games are, art or not, in terms of my playing it; they could call it the worst thing since goat porn and well, who cares? I like 'em, I play 'em. Some avant garde films are great for me, some I find stupid and horrible. It doesn't matter if someone calls me a barbarian for disliking Picasso, or a pretentious git for reading Thomas Pynchon. I argue stuff in this topic because of 1/ intellectual curiosity and 2/ I do believe games can occupy a different and more expansive space than it currently does now.

 

By the way, whoever talked about the structural argument? No way. Markland's argument can be somewhat debunked by the point that games don't often have 'auteurs', sure, but even with auteurs, no text has a unidirectional communicative process. Even if it's Spielberg or some other great auteur, that makes the film or book or painting all by himself, the meaning of that work will always be dependent on who the audience is, when and where they are looking at it, and what they think it is (do they treat it as art or not? games or book?), and so forth. So that's the reason Ebert's argument is completely superficial. He doesn't recognise this. He thinks that if an auteur makes the text and it has no itneractivity, people will, have various degrees of understanding of the 'true meaning' behind this text. Yeah, right. The meaning in the Mona Lisa is dependent as much on the creator as the reader; so theres no fundamental difference from video games, and thus games are not disqualified.

[Istima Loke]

Yours is the most civil of countless messages I have received after writing that I did indeed consider video games inherently inferior to film and literature. There is a structural reason for that: Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control.

 

Actually, I consider this, one of the worst argument I have ever encountered. Saying that the game designer does not have authorial control over the game is totally (and obviously) wrong. When a team makes an rpg game (for example) don't they choose exactly what the game will contain and what not? They know all the side-quests and the main quests, they are aware of all the encounters all the choices of the player and the whole presentation of the world. The only difference is that they give the player more than one paths, showing the plot from different perspectives. But they choose what these will be and they choose how they will be presented. If they want to make a horror game they won't add funny encounters or relaxing moments in a local inn and so on.

 

Also, playing Torment without paying attention to the main plot points is no different from going to the most thought provoking, deep movie and laugh all the time because the nose of the actor is big or eat the popcorn so loudly that you can't hear the lines.

 

I always have the impression that they search for arguments just to support what they want to support and they don't even care if they make any sense.

[Llyranor]

Regardless of whether the argument actually holds any water or not, does Ebert-dawg even know the first thing about games?