The Epic Ebert Videogame Debate

Via Kotaku, a column at Ebert.com going into some depth on the are-games-actually-art debate. Ebert engaged in a public debate on the subject at last week's Conference on World Affairs. From the article: "Going in to the videogame panel, I'd been hoping the audience (mostly students) would be fired up about the subject and challenge the panelists, but they were unfortunately pretty passive. Maybe they were intimidated by the rather formal (for Boulder) theater setting, I don't know. Ebert began by explaining why he felt a game (particularly the shoot-shoot, point-scoring kind) was not an experience equivalent to that of reading a great novel like, say, 'The Great Gatsby,' because games don't delve very deeply into what it means to be human."

Dealing with the Humans

[Monkeys!!!]

"...games don't delve very deeply into what it means to be human."

So Max Payne didn't delve into how people manage (or fail to manage) grief? And Deus Ex didn't force you to face the moral out come of your actions?

There are plenty of games out there that deal directly and indirectly with human emotions, ethics and morals. IMO, that is dealing with what it means to be human.

Okay

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"Ebert began by explaining why he felt a game (particularly the shoot-shoot, point-scoring kind) was not an experience equivalent to that of reading a great novel like, say, 'The Great Gatsby,' because games don't delve very deeply into what it means to be human."

That's nice and all, but there are plenty of books that fail to delve very deeply into what it means to be human. Maybe not every game is art, but you cannot say all games AREN'T art.

Deep = art?

[azmaveth]

From the article:

Ebert began by explaining why he felt a game (particularly the shoot-shoot, point-scoring kind) was not an experience equivalent to that of reading a great novel like, say, "The Great Gatsby," because games don't delve very deeply into what it means to be human.

Who says art has to be deep? If my niece draws me a picture of a very lopsided horse, is that not considered art? What if the horse is perfectly proportioned and exquisitely detailed? It still doesn't "delve very deeply into what it means to be human."

I say art is simply an expression of human emotion onto a medium of some sort. Games are definitely an expression of the designers/artists/programmers, intended to communicate "fun".

This is silly...

[node 3]

I just don't get it. Because your average game doesn't tackle the human condition the way a great novel does, games aren't art? By his standards, most movies aren't art, either.

Games are art. Odds are, if there's a serious discussion about whether something is art or not, it's art. It might not be some sort of highbrow art, or pure art, or even particularly good art, but it's art nonetheless.

Most games aren't very good artwork. Even your average "good" game isn't all that great art-wise--perhaps on par with advertising art.

This reminds me of the heated debates over whether rap was music or not. Now it's fully accepted as a form of music. I think the problem is that rap was a new form of music and there were people who couldn't grasp the idea that the current state of music is not to be taken as the totality of what can be music. The same here with art. Video games have expanded the categories of art. Now art is what art was before games, plus games. Just like music is now what music was before rap, plus rap.

Now, if he were to argue that, in the context of art, video games aren't particularly great (although a few are quite good), he'd have a better point. Just like rap isn't really, compared to other forms of music, all that great artfully speaking, even if it is highly entertaining.

N/A

[ucaledek]

I have to agree with the writer. The titular question is poor on its face. Video games form a medium. And just like paintings, movies, music, books, that medium is governed in part (if not overwhelmingly) by commercial forces. It isn't very useful to look at just video games as if similar things were not going in the aforementioned media as well. They have become highly derivative as well, and let's not forget the alienating properties that most post-modern artistic forms go for. Shooters (which is the standard apparently for these discussions) provide, for me, the same effect that most contemporary forms of "high art" do. So to ask if videogames are art, well, seems not futile but the wrong direction to take if you want to seriously consider the aesthetics of the videogames themselves.

Movies

[Unsus]

game (particularly the shoot-shoot, point-scoring kind) was not an experience equivalent to that of reading a great novel like, say, 'The Great Gatsby,' because games don't delve very deeply into what it means to be human.

Movies (particularly the shoot-shoot, killing kind) are not an experience equivalent to that of reading a great novel like, say, 'The Great Gatsby,' because movies don't delve very deeply into what it means to be human.

As regards FPS's...

[kclittle]

... Ebert has a point. If FPSs are 'art', then so is paintball, or playing army when you're 10, or playing army when you're 40 (ever see a "Civil War re-enactment"?) . FPSs are closer to sport, IMHO, especially multiplayer. Single player, welllll.... RtCW did have a bit of a plot and a wicked sense of humor, but "Dune" or LotR it was not.

And, let's face it, from the first Pong console, we all called it "playing a game", not "watching a (interactive) movie". We all used the word "playing" 'cause that's exactly what we knew were doing.

Where's the controversy here??

Re:What the fuck?

[Planesdragon]

Going by that definition, videogames are MORE APTLY called art than a photograph, painting, sculpture, or anything else considered art by the mainstream.

There really should be a latin term for "arguing by looking through the dictionary for a definition that supports your side."

Generally speaking, we can divide any piece of entertainment into one of three groups: Art, Game, and Spectacle. Most of what we do is Game, and most of what we "don't do" (because we watch or listen or read or whatever) is Spectacle. Historically, only a relatively small area of Spectacle could be considered Art--something that goes beyond merely entertaining us, to actually touching on something fundamental in the common nature of the artist and the audience.

Video Games are interesting because, from time to time, they jump from being Game to being Art. Since at least the NES days Video Games have included Spectacle (cut-scenes and ending sequences), and occasionally this Spectacle jumps to the level of Art. Now, anyone could reason that out with a high school understanding of statistics, but the reason why video games are interesting isn't that their adjacent Spectacle becomes Art--it's because the game itself borders on and occasionally crosses over into Art.

This is what Ebert apparantly doesn't get. Sometimes, Video Games are art even without Spectacle. Myst is a good example of this--it's certainly game with only minor spectacle, but the game itself is executed in a way gripping enough to make us think.

If you're inclined to argue with Ebert's ilk about this, I would advice putting down the dictionary and going [back] to a College English Department. The argument for Video Games as art is easy enough to make, especailly if you can address the "game pieces as art" complaint and make a solid case for some other forms of "interactive art."

Re:What the fuck?

[mozumder]

I'd actually go further and state that all forms of design by human is art.

Just right now I see the art in the things on my desk, not the least of which is the desk itself. The clothes people wear, the font used on a car's speedometer, the color of the vinyl wrapping on a cable, the Galois-field math of CDMA, the shape of the can of soda, the selection of grain on a wooden counter, the sounds of a keyboard click... some guy spent a long time figuring out the beauty of each one of those things.

Really, everything is art, and the people that only say a painting, or a movie, or a song, are the ONLY art forms, are seriously lacking in any creativity - they could very well be the LEAST artistic of the people around.

You'll also find that people with actual 'artist' personality types tend to be creative about everything. That's why you see fashion designers also design homes and cars and paint colors and computers. Same with ancient artists such as Da Vinci: they did it all, from paintings to designing helicopters. Artists generally perceive everything to be art, and are certainly not limited to small-scale conservative definitions of what 'art' is.

I hate these debates.

[Jerf]

This kind of debate is what I call a "definition debate". If you define your term, it is almost certain that your questions will be answered.

Are videogames "art"? To answer that, define "art". Once you do, you are almost certainly done.

We're getting this second hand, but Ebert offers up a definition to the effect of "art is something that deeply explores what it means to be human". By that definiton, I completely agree that truly artistic video games are rare. Even the examples I can think of that meet that definition are pretty thin on that front.

The reason I think it's important to remember we're in a definition debate is because there is an overwhelming temptation that most people experience to detach from the definition and start fighting as if the definition is obvious to everyone and the real question is whether the definition applies. Resist that, because it's backwards. If you clearly state a definition, it will be (relatively speaking) quite clear whether video games are art, are not art, or whether perhaps some are art.

At this point, you tend to realize that while it's interesting to compare and contrast the value of various definitions, you're not going to find The Definition Of Art. Therefore, you're not going to find The Answer. You should know going into the debate that you're not going to settle anything. You can't.

I enjoy this sort of thing in moderation if done with people who understand what's going on, but the people furiously arguing backwards tend to drown out the conversation pretty quickly, in my experience.

Re:As regards FPS's...

[TomHandy]

It depends on the FPS though. Take Bungie's Marathon trilogy of FPS's; they were undoubtedly FPS's and games, but they also told a very deep and complex story, almost entirely via text in computer terminals. Now, were these games art? They certainly fit the "explore the human condition" that has been laid out, and I would venture to say that if you stripped out the text from the game and printed it as a book, it would unquestionably be considered a work of literature like anything else.

But does the medium that this text was presented in somehow make it less worthy? Why would it be "art" if it was bound in a paperback book, but somehow not art when it is wrapped into a game?

In the FPS genre, System Shock would probably be another obvious challenge.

As another example, take Funcom's Longest Journey (and it's sequel, Dreamfall). Now, these are another genre (Ebert's original point was that no videogame was art, I don't think he limited it to genre.). The story alone would make it a work of art, but you also have beautiful art that makes up the game's visuals, wonderful voice acting and an incredible score. Many of these are the elements that would make a movie art, and I don't think anyone would question it's artistic merits if you took the elements of the Longest Journey and presented them as a movie.... and any of the individual elements (artwork, music, script, voice acting, etc.) would be considered art if taken alone. So why do they cease to be "art" because they are a game?

I think one of the cruxes of Ebert's point in the original column where this came up was that the experience of a game was inherently more interactive, and the fact that the player could experience it in numerous ways meant it was something other than art, because the creator didn't have the same control over their experience that an artist, musician or writer has.

But I don't buy that either. An artist might not have any choice about how viewers end up seeing their work (especially when their work enters the pop culture). And how much control does a writer have over how someone reads their book? The reader can skip to the end if they like, or skip through parts they find boring..... they could decide to read the entire book all in one sitting, or stretch it out over years. How different is this really from a game? And I would argue that the creators of a game know that someone could experience their game in many ways, which only makes it even more interesting as an art form.

I am not artistic

[SmallFurryCreature]

Yet a couple of years ago I did volunteer work at a local tv station as a cameraman. It was very intresting as offcourse a lot of the stuff was about art. Filming local artist during exhibitions and such.

Some stuff I could get. Regular mainstream art like paintings or sculptures even if made out of trash. I am not a complete idiot and did not need to be told wich was the sculpture and wich the trashheap.

But performance art was too confusing. The only difference between performance art and a mental case on the street seemed to be location. Some "artist" would "perform" for an amazing amount of time and apparently it was all very meaningfull. When you are holding a heavy camera usually you don't think much about what you are actually filming since you are busy with your own work. But when the performer freezes or just twists a single limb for minutes on end you can't help but wonder what the fuck it is all about.

The most amazing thing is that these people all think it is extremely important what they are doing. Considering their efforts as worthy as hospitals. After all they want the same tax money to support them that could also be used to research cancer.

Not that I really mind. It keeps them off the street. Sure a less liberal goverment would force them to get a real day job but would you really want one them to be your co-worker? Jails for the criminals, mental hospitals for the insane and art centers for the totally useless.

I say it harsh but nonetheless that is how most people view "art". Useless crap that cost a lot of taxpayers money but does nothing.

Do we really want games to be like that?

It reminds me off a Yes Minister episode in wich the questions arises why opera (wich the masses do not want) receives subsidy but soccer (wich the masses do want) does not.

Games are not art. In the same way movies and indeed books are not. If it is popular and people freely spend their own money on it then it can't be art. Art does NOT sell.

Most REAL artists would agree. If you look at nearly all the great works of arts you would learn that all of them were commercial projects paid in advance. "De nachtwacht" by rembrandt. The "Mona Lisa" by Da Vinci. Great works of art yet made for no other reason then the money.

Perhaps there are two kinds of art. The artsy arts that survive only thanks to goverment subsidies that nobody gives a shit about and the kind that actually sells and can sustain it self. Offcourse that is not "real" art in the eyes of the first group but frankly I don't think that is bad at all.

Think of it like this. Do you know what local delicacy means? It means nobody else in the world wants to eat it. If a game truly became art would anyone really want to play it?

Re:I hate these debates.

[LaurenBC]

You've summed it up well, Ebert chose a definition that suited his preferred medium much more than games. There are a myriad of definitions for art out there, and the most important (IMHO) would be the definitions given by the artists themselves. I guess the real question would be whether the makers of various video games consider themselves artists in any capacity.

Just my 2 as a musician and visual artist of 10+ years.

Re:As regards FPS's...

[RedWizzard]

If FPSs are 'art', then so is paintball, or playing army when you're 10, or playing army when you're 40 (ever see a "Civil War re-enactment"?)

The game is art, not the act of playing it.

Once upon a time...

[nugneant]

...our story begins in the 1950s, a time when the world was terrified of communism, but "terrorist" was still a pretty obscure word. A time when society argued on whatever passed for slashdot at the time whether television would ever truly supplant radio in the minds of America's masses. Rollerskates were still a novelty.

Along came a man - a musician, some would say - named Elvis. His music was generally modified from the tunes of slaves. And oh was there ever an uproar. Roger Ebert, Sr.: "That certainly isn't music! Beethoven, Bach, Brahams - that is music! Elvis, why, his band doesn't even number in the dozens of people! It's even worse than the devil's jazz! Any man that would shake his-- his pelvis-- in such a way is hardly a man - a DEMON is he!". And Elvis sold millions of records and up until recently has been a household name (until the estate changed hands and tradition went buggery-up, at least)

The 50s gave rise to the 60s, and soon the Ebert Srs. of the world had a new demon to contend with - The Beatles! "At least Elvis was a nice boy. I mean, the haircut and everything. Perhaps the future shall look back upon him with a rosy eye, as they shall Warren Harding, and realize that he was merely a symptom of his troubled, communist-infected times. But these Beatles - their hair is the devil's work, and the noise they make is not Art! Four men playing those flash-in-the-pan electric instruments can never produce Art!". And yet the Beatles gathered a small following over the years, and are still remembered today.

The early 60s gave way to the mid 60s, and the Beatles were back in the center of controversy. Music critics declared that Sgt. Pepper's was hardly Art, that Art could not be made with the aid of a devil electronic synthesizer - it was hardly even Real Music! And lo, Frank Zappa came with his answer - "We're Only In It For the Money", being composed and performed entirely on natural instruments (albiet with crafty tape manipulation). And the masses winced - this was not Music! Music, Art, whatever you want to call it, was about how a Boy loved a Girl, or perhaps about how a Girl loved a Boy. Certainly, Music was not about how American Womanhood was phony, nor something that would attack the very institution of America's policemen - why, the police never shoot innocents in Art - and Music, Art, was absolutely nothing that contained such disgusting and wholly inappropriate bodily noises! Frank Zappa is currently looked on in musical circles as perhaps the single most "important" (whatever that means) American Composer to escape the 20th century, even if the original Mothers of Invention disbanded less than two years after We're Only In It For the Money's release.

And so on and so on the debate continued - the 60s became the 70s, and prog came out, but it was apparently too "pompous" to be Art, and the entire debate became less and less relevant as time went on. Hell, the critics of Shakesphere's time wouldn't call him "Art" -at the time, Shakesphere was the pulp disposable garbage of the common peasent - or at least, so I learned in my tax-funded primary education. Who knows for real. Anyway, basically something needs to be really dead and not relevant to current goings-on in the world before it will be called Art, because the way these art snobs throw the term around, it basically means History + Emotion - heck, the Sex Pistols will probably be considered Art in 500 years, assuming we don't nuke each other off the planet or DRM all the music to death by then.

Basically, Ebert (and most critics) seem to be bemoaning the lack of "innocence" in the industry. I relate to some degree - focus groups and deliberate manipulation have replaced the Happy Accident in the mainstream spotlight. But truly, it becomes an issue of Those Who Can Create Art, Create Art; Those Who Can't Create Art, Become an Art Critic - as so perfectly captured by Matt Groening in the Life Is Hell comic.

I really don't know where all this leads. Much as I per

Re:What the fuck?

[ultranova]

No. Everything is not art. A bolt, for example, is not a piece of art. It is useful for securing screws, but the creator of the bolt did not design it with art in mind. The purpose of art is for an artist to share his view about some aspect of the world. The bolt-creator may have wanted to express the idea that bolts are useful for fastening, but that is not an artistic idea, just a useful one.

Then why are cave paintings considered art ? After all, they were meant for a practical purpose - ensuring good hunting luck by magick - and not to express the painters view of the world. For that matter, if I draw a picture of an orc, it can't be art by your definition since orcs don't exist, and my drawing therefore doesn't show any aspect of the world.

But tell me, if the bolt-creator polishes his bolts to a mirror finish, is he an artist then ? After all, the shine doesn't help the bolts fastening power any, it just looks good.

I don't think that art can be defined. Any definition leads to conflicts and nonsensical results. It's simply too subjective matter.

Re:Dealing with the Humans

[Das Modell]

And what about roleplaying games, where you must make moral choices, instead of watching someone else do so? In Oblivion (spoilers follow), you work for the Dark Brotherhood and interact with several of their members while performing missions of dubious morality, until you are told that there's a traitor in the Brotherhood, and now you must kill all your friends just to be safe. To be sure, they're a bunch of murderers and psychos, and so are you, but they're your friends, and now you're going to kill them all.

When you're playing a roleplaying game, you actually have to think about the choices you're facing, and what they mean. Alright, so maybe most of the problems are a clear case of good vs. evil, but not always.

One of the problems with this "can video games be art" discussion is that the people participating in it have a very limited grasp of the history of games. You can't argue about the subject when all you've played or seen are Doom and Grand Theft Auto. I mean, has Ebert ever seen Grim Fandango, for instance?

Try harder Ebert - use thinking next time

[lorelorn]

So a primitive simplistic game is not art? Well so what? If I write "lorelorn woz ere" on a random wall that's not art either. But neither the pen nor the wall lose their potential as a basis for artistic expression by my doing that.

Computer games are very much a potential basis for artistic expression, and are often used that way. Whether this be through music, sound, visuals, or their combinations, artistic expression unarguably exists there.

Mods and movies made using games, such as Red vs Blue also fall into the 'art' category. People have been expressing themselves artistically through this medium for so long now we barely consciously register it.

It takes moronic comments like Ebert's to remind us that games today are as foreign a country today as film was to theatre goers in 1908.

His comments are rather like saying film has no basis in art, using "Dumb and Dumber" as your sole basis for that argument.

But is it art?

[StrawberryFrog]

Ah, the good old "I played a 3-d shooter and it wasn't art, therefore all games ever cannot be art." bilge.

Eh, I read a paperback novel and it wasn't art, therefore books aren't art.
I saw "Home Alone 2" and it wasn't art, therefore films aren't art.
I watched "Extreme makeover home edition" and it wasn't art, therefore TV programs can't be art.

Slashdotters reply with variations on "what about the $EMOTION in $FAVOURITE_GAME". Correct but predictable.

Re:Dealing with the Humans

[Anonymous Coward]

Except you could remove all the story from Max Payne and Deus Ex and still have the same gameplay. Yes, video games can contain art, but the art is not part of the game, it's "extra".

Except you could remove all paint from the Sistine Chapel and The Last Supper and still have the same building/canvas. Yes, buildings/canvas can contain art, but the art is not part of the building/canvas, it's "extra". Sounds kinda of silly to me.

Games AS Art vs. Games CONTAINING Art

[7Prime]

I think that most of us can at least point to at least a few games and draw parallels to other works traditionally recognized as being "art". I've heard examples such as FF7s "death of Aris" evoking similar emotional responses to parts of other traditionally dramatic narratives, Oblivion exploring the human condition, Max Payne exploring what it means to be human, Myst retains a similar high level of visual artistry to most traditional paintings... the list goes on.

The question I pose is that 95% of the examples given by Slashdot posters are examples of games that CONTAIN art, not games that ARE art. This is because a lot of the rudimentary definitions of art contain specific criteria to be met by individual mediums. I have heard the arguement that a game has art, but if you took away all the cut scenes from that RPG, it would scene to contain art. I have two problems with that... for one, you've just defined art out of games, as cut scenes are movies, not games. In a cut scene, all gameplay stops, more often than not, the player puts down the controller, and watches events unfold on the screen for a couple of minutes, this is not a game, this is a movie. Now, I love cut scenes, and I love movies, but if you require cut scenes in a game in order to qualify as "art", you've just defined art out of the GAME altogether.

Even before we need to define "what is art", we must, then, ask "what is a game?" Many games are an extension of traditional narrative forms. RPGs are mostly a combination of cinema and literature, with an interactive element thrown into the mix. Myst could be considered a series of paintings, all of which may exude the same criteria as those in an art gallery. Is Myst, then, in its artistic definition, no more than a simple art gallery? What about if we were to remove all of these elements? If Myst was played as a text based adventure, could we begin to look at its puzzle elements as having artistic qualities? The real meat of the definition of gaming is in the process of which the player progresses through the game world. IE: Myst could be a game without the imagery, but it would simply be a gallery without its interactive puzzle elements.

The problem is, from a medium standpoint, no game explores any medium that isn't already included in the definition of another art form: still visuals, moving picturess, music, literature, even skulpture are all represented in games, yet you can break almost any game into a collection of these pre-defined elements. The only constant that breaks the mould is interactivity. Is interactivity, in of itself, then, a separate medium? (let is keep in mind that games are not the only interactive form out there) Can it in itself contain artistic qualities?

These are the REAL questions we should be restling with... not whether FF7s cutscenes are good enough to qualify as "high art" or "good art". Most of the statements I've heard are entirely subjective in nature, and betray the writer's opinion of the work at hand. Art should be more than that, is possible to dislike a work of art while still realizing that it is, in fact, artistic. One must come to terms with the fact that a harliquin dime novel fits the definition of art as much as a Shakesperian tragedy, although its quality and value may be up for speculation. Let's not get sidetracked by these personal value judgements if we are to truly define the artistic elements of a medium.