Movie critic Roger Ebert has long held the position that "games can never be art." Despite the fact that he never played any video games, Ebert remained steadfast in his opinion of the gaming medium. Well, after five years of stubbornness and thousands upon thousands of messages from gamers, Ebert has relented... somewhat.
In his latest blog post, he noted, "I was a fool for mentioning video games in the first place. I would never express an opinion on a movie I hadn't seen. Yet I declared as an axiom that video games can never be Art. I still believe this, but I should never have said so. Some opinions are best kept to yourself... I should not have written that entry without being more familiar with the actual experience of video games."
He then continued, conceding that games could be considered art in the future. "My error in the first place was to think I could make a convincing argument on purely theoretical grounds. What I was saying is that video games could not in principle be Art. That was a foolish position to take, particularly as it seemed to apply to the entire unseen future of games. This was pointed out to me maybe hundreds of times. How could I disagree? It is quite possible a game could someday be great Art."
"Who was I to say video games didn't have the potential of becoming Art? Someday? There was no agreement among the thousands of posters about even one current game that was an unassailable masterpiece.Shadow of the Colossus came closest. I suppose that's the one I should begin with."
"I concluded without a definition [of art] that satisfied me. I had to be prepared to agree that gamers can have an experience that, for them, is Art," Ebert acknowledged. "I don't know what they can learn about another human being that way, no matter how much they learn about Human Nature. I don't know if they can be inspired to transcend themselves. Perhaps they can. How can I say? I may be wrong, but if 'm not willing to play a video game to find that out, I should say so. I have books to read and movies to see."
7 Comments
July 1, 2010
...and the games industry should care what Roger Ebert thinks because why? He and other "critics" are just another users review / opin. I would love to see his definition of Art and then apply that to movies, music and other forms of "art" and see what falls out.
July 1, 2010
"I was a fool for mentioning video games in the first place. I would never express an opinion on a movie I hadn't seen. Yet I declared as an axiom that video games can never be Art."
That pretty much says it all. It would be like a person who was born with lukemia(and who never had hair or wore a wig) giving his opinion of brushes and combs as an all-inclusive inarguable fact.
July 2, 2010
still with the spam
July 2, 2010
Anthony, yes the spam still comes, but before I didn't even have deletion powers, so my programmer set that up and I've been deleting wherever I see it. Not fun. Eventually we'll implement a solution to prevent spam posts altogether.
July 2, 2010
I don't understand how you can't consider video games being art. A game is a painting, movie, music and a novel/story all together in one entity.
The definition of art:
-the products of human creativity
-the creation of beautiful or significant things
-a superior skill that you can learn by study and practice and observation
-artwork: photographs or other visual representations
July 3, 2010
Malice, I would argue slightly against the definition of art you have provided: I would say that art should be defined not on how it is created, but on how it works on the user. I think that games have the potential to be art but I don't think that by definition a game is art. Mario, for example, would never be called "art" by me; it's entertainment. But the same can be said of any medium - I don't consider Britney Spears to be art, or National Treasure. Each of these falls more in line with entertainment. Where to draw the line is iffy, but I would say classical music, or movies like "Primer" are closer to art than the two previous examples.
To me, art requires the user to pay attention to details, to really soak it in and appreciate it's many facets, requires the user to give it their full attention, challenges the user and perhaps even changes their perspective. So some games are definitely art; but how that is defined should be from the users perspective, not the creator.
July 3, 2010
I just copied/pasted it from a dictionary site, not my definition. Your second paragraph is what I feel and experience in a game like Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age but not for all games tho it might be for someone else, its all a matter of perspective like most things in life. When I look at the scenery in a video game, I really don't see a difference compared to a painting other then the game version is immersive.