You may remember that a few years ago, film critic Roger Ebert irked more than a few people in the games industry by commenting on the games as art debate. Now, on his official blog for the Chicago Sun-Times, Ebert has decided to revisit and expand upon his viewpoint that games are not and never will be art. It seems Ebert was prompted by thatgamecompany's Kellee Santiago who gave an interesting speech on the topic last year at TED.
Ebert admits that saying never might be going too far, but he seems confident that none of us will see the day that games are classified as art. "Perhaps it is foolish of me to say 'never,' because never, as Rick Wakeman informs us, is a long, long time. Let me just say that no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form," he noted.
Ebert continued, "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 a 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."
In her presentation, Santiago pointed to Waco Resurrection, Braid and Flower as three examples of games that "cross the boundary into artistic expression," but Ebert remains unconvinced: "The three games she chooses as examples do not raise my hopes for a video game that will deserve my attention long enough to play it. They are, I regret to say, pathetic. I repeat: 'No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets.'"
But Mr. Ebert, if you haven't played any of these games, how can you truly comment on their artistic nature, or lack thereof?
7 Comments
April 19, 2010
The only reason Messers Ebert comments on the games industry is because he realizes that the golden era of film as art as he so fondly remembers it, is coming to abrupt end. Film and Games share the same space in these 'modern times', please stop embarrassing yourself by desperately clinging onto the glory days and do the decent thing and bow out gracefully as the respected critic you once were and stop commenting on the new movement you clearly do not understand.
April 19, 2010
He seems to try and make an argument of definition here for games as art, and that's at least a somewhat legitimate argument. Still, it all seems to be framed by his contempt for the medium.
April 19, 2010
Exactly!
April 19, 2010
I don't think he has the right to fairly comment on games if he literally hasn't played any of them. I think a game like Flower certainly could be considered art, and what about all of the brilliant art and animation that goes into amazing games like God of War III, Uncharted 2, Shadow of the Colossus, etc. Why doesn't he tell the amazing artists working on these games that the art they're creating isn't art.
April 19, 2010
@David, could you elaborate on your comment? What does a game have to have in order to easily say it`s official (academic?) art?
April 19, 2010
It seems like a bit of a cheat to declare that as soon as a Game no longer adheres to the core principles of a Game (winning, etc.) then its no longer a Game.
That's like saying a Film can never be art because as soon as it deviates from the three act structure its no longer a Film.
Clearly you have to push against the conventions of anything to achieve Art.
April 19, 2010
Ebert is an idiot. Games are and have been art for years. I'm also going to end this argument once and for all. In 2012 the Smithsonian Art Museum(the most famous art museum in the world) is having a video game art exhibit. If games were not art then they wouldn't be displayed in the most prominent art house of them all. Here's the link: http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/701168/smithsonian-american-art-museum-opening-video-games-exhibit-in-2012.html