Pajiba

Very well said. You are really getting good at this.

I usually agree with most of what Roger Ebert says, but in this instance he's just flat-out wrong. And your piece brilliantly illustrates why.

I still hold that The Legend of Zelda: The Windwaker is one of the most beautifully animated games I've ever seen. How can you take one look at that game and say it's not art? That hundreds of hours were spent by artists creating this gorgeously detailed world? And the best part? you can play around in that world and manipulate it. You're playing around with art and in art.

So I call bullshit on Mr. Ebert. I love him but he's just wrong.

Do not forget Ico, TK.

Well of course you couldn't win if you were playing Donkey Kong. Unless you got a killscreen. If that is the case, I will bow to your nerd supremacy, my liege.

Excellently put, SLW. I was really quite disappointed reading Ebert's article and reading how he steadfastly refuses to even try the medium.

I certainly would disagree that video games are a DEEPER form of art than film or literature (I'd say they are on even ground overall regardless of any differences or similarities)... but, to each their own truths, quite obviously.

Shadow of the Colossus is the greatest video game in the history of the world. Period.

Every single moment in that video game is so absorbing and amazing. While I was playing that game, the Zombiepocalypse could have been at DEFCON O-Fuck, or Megan Fox could've been clawing at my door with a BLT and fluffy handcuffs and I would've been completely oblivious. Video games are just like movies; the medium itself does not define whether or not something is art, it is the intended result, the creative process, and a completely undefinable measurement of deeper meaning to the piece in question.

To those of us who have basked in it's glory; what are your *swoon* moments from SotC?

I remember fighting the cow/bull boss early in the game, wondering "wait, why I am I really killing all these massive Gods?" And a little later with the bird boss at the lake I had the feeling that I really just didn't want to kill it...

Christ, SotC may have stunted my ability to enjoy most video games on permanent basis.

Top notch.

You should send this to Ebert.

Great article! Great argument! It's a shame, I really like Roger Ebert. I was defending his view on Kiss-Ass. Now, I don't know what to think. Roger Ebert have a right to voice his view. But, sometime he need to know when to shut-up.

He's worse than everybody's aunt, Mr. Rhyme.

BOOYAH!

I think that the phenomenon of movie critics denigrating the video game as an art form is analogous to the phenomenon of african-americans successfully voting for the ban on gay marriage in California in the 2008 election.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2008/11/70-of-african-a.html

You'd think people who have had to struggle for their civil rights would be more sympathetic to others in the same plight, just like you'd think the Film people, whose art was so recently called non-art by so many, would be more open to the art of the Games people.

Maybe the cause is some weird psychological thing, a "Winning-Team Syndrome" if you will, wherein the last people to join the succesful or respected group then turn around and try to keep out other people who are now in the position that they were just in. I've seen it before; the second-to-last kid picked for the team gives the last kid hell, far too often.

What an awesome side of human nature, eh?

Someone should ask Ebert (a very intelligent man) if he considers The Beatles art. Because there were many people who did not consider them much more than noise while young Roger was picking up Rubber Soul and Revolver and having his mind expanded. James Bond himself even says so in Goldfinger, remember?

Art is subjective. It's what moves you. I can tell you from experience that games like Bioshock or Mass Effect or Legend of Zelda are art.

Has someone emailed this to Mr. Ebert yet? I love the man as a film critic (we disagree at times, but that's the nature of criticism), but his stance on video games has always confused and disappointed me.

As for other artful games, the Metal Gear series (especially the Solid variety), Heavy Rain (new to the game but already revolutionizing gameplay and plot elements in the medium), and of course Half-Life 2, which left me breathless.

And yeah, I fucking cried too. When the Nameless One gets that flood of regret after absorbing all his past selves, and the regret is somehow healing to him, that made me cry. Changed my life and helped me work through my own guilt and regret. I had never before considered the possibility that regret could be something healthy, something healing. But the very fact that I regret anything means that I'm better than I was, that I want to be better.

Beautifully written, as always Steven, but I have to disagree with your conclusion anyway. Why? Well, I guess we have to begin with discussing what art is. There are some people - almost always the people on the 'video games are art' side of the coin - who say anything is art. They're right and they're wrong. Anything can be used as art, but that doesn't mean anything is art. Andy Warhol painted Campbell soup cans, but that doesn't mean Campbell soup cans are art, any more than all those apples you've seen in still lifes are art. This is an incredibly important point to make because with this point we can say a video game is art without allowing the statement 'video games are art.' An artist can use a video game the same way he may use a toilet, as part of an installation. But we still haven't defined art. And honestly, we're not going to do so here, though I do think it's important to have some definition of art, simply because the idea that anything is art is so reductive that it renders art utterly without meaning.

So what's art? Let's say it's something purposefully created or presented with the intention of communicating an idea or feeling. That's really broad, probably broader than I actually feel comfortable with, but it'll do for our purposes here. It's also value neutral, which is very important. The thing doesn't have to be created or presented well in order to be art, just purposefully. Well gosh, you say. I can make video games fit in that definition. Not so fast, hoss.

With that definition I believe we can say games are not art. They may be artistic - having beauty, or carrying subtextual meaning (you can see sports as metaphors for many things) - and they may be used as art objects - an exquisitely hand painted Monopoly board, for instance - but games are not art. The carved chess pieces are art, the actual playing of the game of chess is not (although, and this is really only going to serve to confuse the matter, but I have to be fair, a film of that chess game would be). The moves of a baseball pitcher as recreated by a dancer are art; on the mound they're simply artful. But in the end a game is simply a series of rules that the players follow. Those rules are not intended to communicate ideas or feelings, but simply to facilitate play. If rules themselves were art, the US Congress would be the most prolific artists of our time.

But you'll point out that there is more to video games than just the game. The game aspect is simply one portion. There's music. There's a visual arts aspect. There's animation. There's voice acting. There's a narrative. And you're right! The music in a video game - even the cheesiest 8 bit stuff - is art. As are the visual design elements. Even the terrible voice acting is acting, and even the most miserable dialog is writing. But just putting all of these arts together does not create more art. I can throw an arts festival that has painters and musicians and dancers and a theater troupe, but that doesn't mean festivals are art. Just that the festival aggregates all of these arts.

I have a crossword puzzle app on my iPhone, and a sudoku app as well. Are they games? Yes, of course. Are they art? They may be artful in design, but is sudoku art? Ever? How about Tetris? Or Rock Band? Or Geometry Wars Evolved? All of these games have artful design, and they will each contain elements of the arts. The visual arts are represented, as are the musical arts. But what is it that makes these games their own art form? As far as I can tell they're just really pretty, really well done games. And that's not a value judgment. Each of the games cited has cost me hours of time, hours I have loved giving up. But, are games art? The answer I have for that is no.

Even at the time Ebert wrote the original version of his argument, it was invalid. I even wrote Ebert at the time and pointed this out, but he declined to respond (or was simply too busy, completely understandable).

This was the age of bleeps and bloops, fuzzy blobs on a screen that if you squinted and applied liberal imagination to, might possibly in some very bizarre fashion be considered a person.

It was also the time when text adventures were still not uncommon (since replaced by graphical adventures, but the idea was the same, just less fancy).

There is one of those games called Planetfall by Steve Meretzky - a man so recognized for his ability to craft a story, he was later inducted into the Science Fiction Writers of America. In Planetfall he tells the comical story of a low-grade janitor who walks the hero's journey and becomes the savior of mankind etc. Fantastical and very silly (Meretzky is a deliberate joyously silly writer).

What follows are major spoilers for a game you should have played 27 years ago (yes, THAT long) were you so inclined, so stop reading if you need. In the story, you as the janitor have a sidekick, a faithful and blundering robot named Floyd. Floyd is lovingly imbued with personality that is pretty much impossible to dislike. And at one point, to proceed in the game and save the world, the player is required to ask Floyd to sacrifice himself completely. You must kill Floyd for the greater good.

This dilemma was so emotionally charged that at the time I knew people who refused to finish the game. They just couldn't bring themselves to end such a cheery and helpful little helper. Others were extremely conflicted with the result, as Floyd literally dies in your hands, with you as the player trying to comfort the little guy as he basically bleeds out.

Yes, this is just "one example". But other games have asked moral choices of the player; other games have created that kind of suspension of disbelief and involvement. I am not sure there is a universally agreed upon definition of art; but something that tells a story, which is a depiction of a plausible reality, and causes an emotional response on the part of the viewer/participant that can be remembered and discussed for years (decades!) later, that sounds a hell of a lot like art to me.

Now, if Ebert were to say that the ratio of games that are crap to having some expression of true art is very high, that the "signal to noise" ratio so to speak of gaming was extremely bad in comparison to say; classical literature, I wouldn't argue with him. But to overgeneralize it is a silly position from such a clever thinker and accomplished writer.

-Frob

@mr friendly

Of course, tetris, sudoku, etc. aren't art. They were never intended to be art. The point is that there are games, like Planescape, Iko, Braid, most every Final Fantasy game, that ARE intended to be art.

In your festival example, you accept theater as art but not the festival. Theater is art which is a combination of music, narrative, and visuals. Just like an artistic video game. A festival is composed of artistic expressions that are meant to be seen separately. It's the separation that makes video games and theater art and festivals just a festival.

Anyways, there's no decent argument that all games aren't art. Sure, maybe some are failed art, but isn't art about intentions? Duchamp made art out of a urinal 100 years ago, haven't we matured enough to accept art as intentions?

Anyone who says video games can't really qualify as art need to take a good look at something like Bioshock. Funny thing is, there are plenty of games out there with better stories than Twilight some novels released in recent times.

Shawn, with respect, though video games, and especially narrative games, combine various arts like music, story, etc they still are, at heart, games. And as I said before, "in the end a game is simply a series of rules that the players follow. Those rules are not intended to communicate ideas or feelings, but simply to facilitate play. If rules themselves were art, the US Congress would be the most prolific artists of our time...but what is it that makes these games their own art form? As far as I can tell they're just really pretty, really well done games."

The most interesting argument in favor of games as art that I've seen posits (narrative) video games as a form of cinema with an interactive game gimmick, much like audience interaction at an improve comedy event, or a choose your own adventure book. But even this argument leaves video games lacking because should Narrative Game X reach the level of 'high art,' it's doing so as a movie, not as a game. The more purely a game a video game is - ie, where the game elements are the whole point, not the key to unlocking further narrative; you solve the sudoku to solve the sudoku, not to find out who killed the sudoku's mother - the less it is a bastardized form of cinema and the less it is art. But the less purely a game it is, the less it's really a video game and just a kind of movie that requires your interaction to watch.

Finally, I'll interject my value judgment here on narrative games as cinema. I think they're all various levels of bad art. I've never played a video game that was as good as even a mediocre movie, or a fairly readable book. The examples I've seen given - BioShock, Braid, etc - seem to me like holding up a Danielle Steele book as the paragon of literature. These may be pretty, possibly even involving, but they're all essentially stupid (and using Braid because of its art design and classical sounding music is like holding up a romance novel because of its gothic title lettering). I don't think there's been a narrative game that's exceeded the level of depth and emotion that you get in an average Nic Cage science fiction thriller, for instance. Even the deepest are shallow, feature paper thin characters, uninvolving storylines and often rotten dialogue. I'll be honest: in my opinion the last two Grand Theft Auto games are the ones that come closest to be decent cinema.

In any event, I'm sure we'll agree to disagree. I have to say though that I don't understand why so many people get so wound up about the idea that video games are not art. Is the reason simply that there's a need to validate one's hobbies? Like the way certain comic book readers always try to convince you this one comic book is so much better than what you think a comic book is, for instance. again, I don't fully understand this. I like lots of things that I don't need validated. I watch tons of truly awful, creepy and gross exploitation films and while I may want to celebrate them, I've never really tried to argue for them as anything but awful, creepy and gross. For the people so hung up on getting video games recognized as art, I have to ask: why? Why does it matter to you that your hobby is validated in that way? If you're having fun, isn't that enough?

Its Ebert's opinion. If he doesn't feel video games are art...that is his right and prerogative. Hell...I hope when I am his age...and have gone through half of what he has physically and mentally, I am able to interact with a younger generation as well as him.

"Shadow of the Colossus
Argument = over."

This game kept flashing through my head reading each of the arguments against video games as art. I wasn't even playing it, my friend was, I was just watching. And it was beautiful, and interesting, and engaging, and to echo other sentiments, when a game makes me cringe because I have to make a moral choice, it is affecting me on a level that only art can.

BTW, we keep throwing out the name Bioshock...well, here's the 4 possible endings to Bioshock 2. It goes without saying but MASSIVE SPOILERS to those who are playing it or have yet to go through each possible iteration of the game.

This is something video games give you that no other art form can provide -- namely the ability to recreate how things turn out so that the outcome can be different.

mr friendly: You make a good argument, with a lot of interesting points, but I don't agree. The game ICO, mentioned by myself and a few others, is the clearest example I know of of a game that reaches the level of art because of the way in which it is interactive. The storyline of the game (if you don't know) involves a young boy (the player) named Ico who was born with horns. In his village they believe that children with horns are the reason floods and droughts and whatnot happen, so they take them to an old castle and lock them into these little cells to die. But something goes wrong when they lock Ico in and he is able to escape his cell (but is still stuck in the castle). He comes across a young girl, Yorda, who is also trapped there. She is able to open certain doors that they need to go through to escape, but she is also pursued by mysterious shadow monsters. Your task, then, is to protect her from them, and accomplish various physical feats to navigate the run-down castle, so she can get you both out.

The way this becomes art, at least for people who have the right mindset for this kind of thing, is that you become so committed to helping Yorda. It's what TV Tropes calls Video Game Caring Potential. You will want so damn hard for Yorda to be safe, and it's not the same as, say, wanting Indiana Jones to save Marian from the Nazis. THAT you are just watching happen. In ICO you are MAKING it happen, and in establishing this bond between Ico and Yorda so artfully, the creators achieved art.

The worst thing about this whole discussion is that Roger Ebert is usually a smart guy and his views on movies are very interesting, though I may disagree on ocassion. It's just sad to see that someone so smart is so close-minded to the point that he disregards a way of expression as art just because in his mind, videogames are only entertaining time-wasters, while there's a whole universe of great games that prove that, while still inmature, gaming is (very slowly) becoming art.