Video Games Can Never Be Art
blogs.suntimes.com
blogs.suntimes.com
But what about a classic game like Super Mario Bros? It doesn't have a complex story told on wordy fortune cookies, it's not trying to force a particularly complex emotional experience, and it's not beautiful in the way of modern games. However, I'd still say that it's art. A different kind of art. One that's not comparable to film as so many examples here are.
Look at Mario himself: There are so few pixels to work with but not only is he clearly a human, he actually has character. From his overalls to his 3 pixel mustache. The world itself is a unique fantasy of plumbing, princesses, and mushrooms. The music, due to technical limitations, is a bunch of repetitive beeps and boops but is infectious and never gets annoying even after days, months, even years of playing. The shrubs and the clouds are the same -- something that went unnoticed by players for decades. The first 5 seconds of the game shows you, not tells you, everything you need to know to play it. It's beautifully designed. But it's not the same kind of art Ebert is critiquing here and it's not the kind of art that Santiago portrays either.
Really just a gesamtkunstwerk. The soundtrack, the choreography and the storyline really work well together. The game falls under a puzzle genre I believe.
The gameplay itself is creative; the player can solve levels in unintended ways. There are (sometimes surprising) interactions between various elements, and it is their arrangement that the game is based upon. The layout of various levels is subtly expressive; there's a sense in which the player is getting inside the level designer's head by playing their level (this is, IMO, an overlooked aspect of many video games. Level design is an expression of the designer's thoughts!)
There are some definitions of "art" this would not meet, and others that it would. At the very least, then, it's worthy of consideration.
Braid is better art than any movie that came out last year.
He's saying that video games are games, and that games are not artforms. You don't have to play hockey, or watch hockey games, to say that a hockey match is not a work of art.
Ebert seems to be saying that the artistic elements in a video game (the text, the graphics, etc.) are subsidiary to the over-riding purpose, which is game-play. So, while Braid may contain beautiful images, the primary purpose of those images is to further the game scenario; similarly, where the graceful moves of a Michael Jordan dunk may resemble choreography, and contain a certain beauty, his primary purpose was to put the ball through the hoop, not artistic expression.
I'd like to mention though, that when I finished through Braid I ended up with the feeling that it's primary goal was not to make me look at pretty images or listen to some music or even to make me read the puny bits of story. I don't think it's purpose was for me to finish it either.
The gameplay was original and highly enjoyable, but that might not have been the point still. It sure pulls you through the game, but the graphics and the music and the story contribute to that aspect in their own right.
I ended up thinking that the game's purpose was to communicate a feeling, a certain moment frozen in time when you realize for the first time that you've made a mistake, that what you have come to believe about the world is false or backward, and you're, in essence, a devastating force. This is the moment when you want to take it all back, to have made different choices.
And I think I'm not alone in feeling that. I also happen to think that these moments of direct communication are what art is about, and that they might be achieved with simpler means – a song, perhaps, or a poem.
Ebert hasn't had any exposure to this kind of experiences, it seems to me.
I believe it isn't. I appreciate Michael's summary because it shows where Ebert's blind spot is. (I think you get it though.) Games allow you to be pulled into stories better, or at least differently, than movies. More like novels than movies as you find yourself putting more into the story than you're given, or as in Bioshock you adopt the character as yourself and wonder what do I really think about Ryan? He seems okay to me, but I'm not sure about Atlas. The story is about as artistic as a sequel to Atlas Shrugged could be.
Then there is the idea some games contain art. Donkey Kong 2 isn't a game I would claim to be art, but Stickerbrush Symphony is one of the finest levels in any game I've played. The experience of bouncing from barrel to barrel with this beautiful music and environment... I'm not talented enough a writer to explain. The music and scene are the lines in those cave paintings.
Ebert's hung up on the word game and can't see those moments frozen in time. And without playing the games and giving himself over to them he won't be able to. The over riding purpose isn't the game play, it's those moments in time where you don't just understand the story, but you believe it.
Video games are the medium, and they contain many many pieces of art (these individual moments). The movie projector isn't art either, the canvas isn't art either. To say the game will never be art is moot, the art is already there, and it is it not the game itself.
I know exactly what you mean about DK. Awesome awesome games with a ton of art in them for sure.
A chess set can be art, but a chess set isn't a game, it's just a tool used to play a game. Chess is the game, but it's just a set of rules; it may be a great game but it's not "art" in any useful sense.
A computer game is both the set of rules and the tool you use to play it, which I think is where Ebert might be getting confused. There are a few exceptions; Nethack could be considered a game which is just a set of rules independent of the particular implementation you use to play it.
Hockey and computer games aren't particular comparable because no one is trying to make a new type of hockey every year to push the boundaries of what hockey can be. Hockey is a single instance of a game, and a (mostly) static one. The computer game industry is continually updating itself with several notions of design, some of which have artistic merit.
I also think that professional sports are a red herring as a comparison, because I doubt that multiplayer games have as much potential to be artistic. The artistic games tend to be tightly scripted and non-competitive, something that doesn't jive well with introducing a player-adversary. Unless you want to be one of those avant-garde artistes making a statement about how we objectify each other or something.
Ebert tries to set up definitions in a way such that games and art are mutually exclusive. That is, that the difference between art and games in the interactivity, the ability to affect the art itself. I disagree. Much like a tree falling in the woods, can a piece of art that is not seen, or not heard, or not read, or not watched, be considered an art? Therefore, it is necessary to concede at least the minimal level of interaction, between that of the person and the art. Then, why does further interaction, that of the participant being able to effect the world presented by the game, remove a game's ability to be art?
Second, the point has been made that the participant's interaction with the game is not that of one who wants to interact with it as 'art'. Well, if I were to use any famous painting, say, the Mona Lisa, as toilet paper, does that make it not art? (Well, maybe after I've made use of it...)
To conclude, here are some games that I consider to be art. There are the various art games that indie producers have made. Jason Rohrer has made many such games - in particular Passage and Gravitation. (I also saw Sleep is Death on the front page of HN a few days ago). No points, no rules, maybe an objective, so perhaps Ebert wouldn't consider those to be games. 'The Path' is another such art game, though again perhaps Ebert might not consider it to be a game. There are various RPGs that are particularly story intensive. In fact, a common complaint seems to be that there's too much cinematics and story and not enough gameplay. Finally, I consider the game 'Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time' to be art. Maybe not its sequels though.
In the end I think this is very much like the "comic books" vs. "graphic novels" debate, and his problem is that he (a) doesn't like video games and therefore (b) is very unlikely to be exposed to the vanishingly small number that are conceived of or executed as art.
A deeper complaint, however, is that the great masterworks of video games are incomparable to the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets because video games are an inherently different medium. If the plot of Heavy Rain were presented as a TV miniseries or a movie, it would be at best mediocre, but the plot is simple in the game precisely because it branches and reacts to your choices-- something no movie can do. Thus, the story expands in ways that a movie cannot, and it loses in a naive comparison.
As I've said elsewhere, the Metal Gear Solid series is a wonderful example of an artistic work, but it too would lose much if direct naively compared to a great novel-- its charm comes from (among other things) its delightful strangeness, its vibrancy and its interactivity. The story is dynamic and something to be explored, rather than experienced.
A better comparison may be to a written work like Lyra's Oxford, a companion to Phillip Pullman's excellent His Dark Materials trilogy that serves to show glimpses of what the protagonist's alternate England looks like, letting the reader explore a truly foreign land. How much more, though, can you explore the post-apocalyptic landscapes of Fallout or the dark urban fantasies of Final Fantasy VII? By leveraging interactivity, these games allow you to explore an environment in ways that books simply cannot. This isn't to say that books don't have their own strengths over games-- they definitely do!-- but rather to emphasize how different the media are.
A reply from a video game reviewer (me, for clarification):
Okay, let's get started: The Halo series, anything by BioWare, The Elder Scrolls series (excluding Oblivion, story out and out sucked monkey nuts as it didn't have a single plot twist or revelation in it anywhere), Fallout 1 and especially 2, anything by Tim Schafer (hello Grim Fandango?), Broken Sword 1 & 2, Space Quest (especially #6), the legend of Kyrandia, Kings Quest, The Longest Journey . . .
Here's the coupe de grace, The Dig. Spielberg gave the idea to Lucasarts because he knew it would take decades before the technology would be available to do the story justice. Written by Spielberg and Orson Scott Card.
I'm sorry, but Ebert has no fucking clue. There was a game out in 1995 written by the Steven Spielberg and the Orson Scott Card, that game alone quantified the video game medium as having great potential for artistic works.
There's a whole whack of games from the SCUMM era that have so much story it's still unbelievable by today's standards, even with BioWare.
Sorry Mr. Ebert you're now entering your second decade of being out of touch with the world, obviously we left you behind in 1995 when Spielberg, one of the greatest film directors alive, saw greater potential in video games than in film. If you were aware of this fact, I wouldn't doubt you would still hold a grudge against video games like newspapers hold a grudge against the internet and blogs. I know it must hurt that video games are know a bigger global entertainment resource than film, but that is a fact you will just have to live with. Don't worry, just like the inevitable death of newspapers, you'll probably still be so outdated that you won't notice the death of film before the world has forgotten your once relevance.
But I think you're unfairly judging (and berating) Ebert about much of the other stuff. He's actually remarkably on top of things considering both his age (67) and his status (can't talk, eat, or drink due to cancer surgery and the loss of his fucking jaw!). He has an active blog with some of the best writing out there, he's hyper-active on twitter, he knows about newspapers going down and is not living in the past there, he's starting a new online presence for himself and his readers, and he doesn't "hold a grudge against video games"; he just doesn't seem them as art.
Your angry rant only hurts your (mostly) valid points.
Don't tell me that the surreal landscapes of NiGHTS into Dreams weren't art-- I spent many hours as a kid exploring every nook and cranny of those levels all while trying to run away from the dreaded alarm clock. The start of the fourth level of NiGHTS forces you, the player, to make a choice that ultimately draws you into the game even more-- you must trust that you have enough control of your environment to jump off of that cliff and fly. Don't tell me that there isn't art in that beautiful moment when you realize that the rules of the game have changed so beautifully.
Anyone who has played Metal Gear Solid knows how Psycho Mantis' blurring of the fourth wall stretches how you think of playing the game. You, the player, have to make a physical action to get through the battle. Throughout the rest of the game, you are continually making choices about how you get through each challenge-- choices that other characters are aware of and will react to. The impact, ultimately, of such choices is that you empathize with Snake in ways that would not be possible in any other medium.
Others have given many other good examples, and will undoubtedly continue to do so. For my part, however, I will be content to share my 2¢ on the matter and to point attention to this important conversation.
Take board games or sports games, for example. They've been around since the earliest years of civilization. We have played them all that time, but never drew a comparison between them and art like what a painter or musician would produce.
Yet, suddenly it became a debate when we got to video games because we could start inserting all the other art mediums as desired, while still retaining the interactive, unpredictable nature of previous games. And so we go out on this mindless quest to find the most moving games we have ever played and show them to the critics.
I think that what this suggests is that we have to either expand our definition of art to include all the interactive forms(including toys, board games, and sports) or define two kinds of art - the interactive, and the authorial - and view them as complements to each other.
"Once upon a time there were good American novels and bad ones, but none was thought of as a work of art."
http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7197.html
Moby Dick, written in 1851, wasn't widely regarded as a work of art until after World War I.
To counter Ebert's summary: Why are the self-appointed guardians of the ramparts of canonized art always so jealous in protecting it from being invaded by newcomers? This story has been repeated over and over again with portrait paintings, Impressionism, architecture, novels, cinema, and everything in between. It's an old and tired plot, and one he should certainly be familiar enough with to disdain.
To answer a question he posed: why do gamers want games to be recognized as art? Because most of us have played some game, be it Shadow of the Colossus, Okami, Flower, or another game, and thought, "this game is beautiful." We think the developers of these games deserve accolades and they deserve to have the game recognized for what it is - a piece of art.
I don't wish to insult Ebert - he is a man I admire for many reasons, but I don't really care about his opinion in this case. One man's opinion about whether games are art or not is not of importance to me, especially since he does not appear to have experienced very many games - apart from Chess.
I wonder if he's willing to make the same statements about participatory theatre.
Ebert flirts with definitions of art, but never provides his own. This is the biggest problem by far with his essay. Maybe his definition really is something that flat-out can't include videogames. But when he simply says "videogames can't be art" without explaining what he means by art, we can only fill in the blanks with our own definitions. It's no wonder gamers get enraged by this. And they say, "Of course games are art, look at Bioshock/Braid/Flower/etc.!" And Ebert looks at these games not with the gamer's definition of art, but his own, and says, "Of course these are not art."
It's pointless and inflammatory and it can't possibly go anywhere constructive until Ebert defines his terms and explains just what he means when he claims videogames are not art.
Is the game scored? She doesn't say. Do you win if you're the first to find the balance between the urban and the natural? Can you control the flower? Does the game know what the ideal balance is?
Which really does show just how close-minded he is on video games. He's not even approaching looking at them as art, he's just looking for the Win.
I wonder if he judges art by the same standards. Is it scored? Does poking the painting make it change colors? No? I guess it's not art, then.
so opine the academics, but the video gamers probably beg to differ.
Anyone else reminded of Michael Jordan trying to play baseball?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/dec/11/charlie-bro...
"If you don't play games, you're not just missing out, you're wilfully ignoring the most rapidly evolving creative medium in human history."
It's a pity he didn't limit himself to the argument about whether any games which are "good" art currently exist, or else we could be having a much more interesting discussion. Personally I think that Half Life 2, say, is far better than many of the movies to which Ebert gives four stars, but not quite good enough to kick it into the stratosphere of what's truly great.
I guess that video games are probably the hardest medium in which to create great art. It used to be said that filmmaking was the hardest medium since it combined most of the others; music, writing, photography etc. Gamemaking is even harder since you have all those other elements plus the need for gameplay.
Roger Ebert on Braid.
A more expansive answer: the writer dwells a lot on the visual. But remember art is expansive; it is about evoking a reaction in people. I still recall a particular set piece battle in HL2:Ep2(the one in the tunnel with the Antlions) with the building music and tension - brilliant and evocative. Art.
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.
Ebert's opinion is rather polemical. I sat in on a panel he did a few years ago on this topic but this "points" thing seemed to be his ultimate sticking point. It looks like his opinion has changed much since then.
Now, that wouldn't be an improvement on the original (though now I've typed it I kinda want to play it) but is it enough to push it from "art" into "not art"? Let's assume this was the actual original form in which Hitchcock, in a fit of originality, decided to release Psycho in the first place.
You have to draw the distinction somewhere. Art isn't a plastic definition, and it is at least generally understood to describe things that translate into our minds, and expand into something more.
The thing that makes a game a game are game mechanics. I don't call game mechanics art in the same way I don't call reality art. Now, I do believe the music in a game can be artful and the story too... but not the thing that makes a game a game. A game is like an enclosure for a lot of wonderful experiences, but I don't see why people are so personally caught up trying to see the enclosure for more than it is. A simulation.
That being said, I do believe that video games are a valid medium to spend your time with. A game functions best when the environment plays a large role, something like an archaeological dig. Exploration games like Myst or Shadow of the Colossus use the medium to it's best potential. There is an awe that those games animate through something like osmosis. You absorb the things in games in a way you simply cannot in any other medium. This has value.
I'd nominate Alpha Centauri -- it profoundly affected me, and linked me to a much greater exploration of human philosophy and scholarship than I might otherwise have encountered.
At one point early in the game, your soon-to-be-wife is kidnapped by the son of the lord of the town outside which the ghetto in which you live is located. He is going to rape her and several other young elven girls he has kidnapped. You break in to his castle and confront him. He offers you a ridiculous amount of money(especially to an elf to whom any money is an enormous amount due to their poverty) to just leave. A friend that was watching me play was wondering what happened if you took the money. I saved and tried it to see what would happen. I immediately felt as remorseful as if I had brutally tortured and murdered a dozen baby kittens. Even my friend was similarly horrified. I was absolutely incapable of continuing to play past the end of the conversation. The moment I was able to, I loaded the save from before the conversation and saved the young women. Even now as I type this, I feel physically nauseated just remembering it. I'm not crying(although I have before as a result of video games), but nonetheless, just a beginning of Dragon Age had more emotional effect on me than any film I have ever seen.
This argument seems a bit light too - why does being able to win at something stop it from being art? Is he saying that nothing interactive can be art? The argument that sports and board games can not be considered art is silly too... its like saying the Sistine Chapel ceiling is not art because my plainly painted ceiling isn't - a flawed analogy.
Arguing about definitions is stupid. If a word isn’t useful because we cannot agree on its meaning we should just drop the word.
All words are ambiguous. What we interpret them to mean is not some hard concept, but the sum of a range of lifetime experiences with that word, giving it subtle nuance between people that nominally agree, and often more significant differences that lead people to disagree. One of the easier examples are, for example, the words "geek", "nerd", and "dork". Another one is "hacker", which is part of the title of the very site we're talking on.
Yet calling something art is in my eyes only a nice shortcut, not much more. In what way is it even useful to answer the question “Is it art?” when you know so much about the object in question? In know how I feel when I look at Guernica. I can describe shapes, color and texture. I can read all about the history of the painting. Does calling it art or refusing to call it art change any of that?
This discussion reminds me of this really great text by Eliezer Yudkowsky called “How An Algorithm Feels From Inside”[1].
[1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/no/how_an_algorithm_feels_from_insid...
It is different from sculpture in that the artist does not have a free hand, much like the video game creators don't have a free hand compared to novelists or even cinematographers (who are limited compare to novelists and painters but not as much). Limitations are the bane of choice, and choice is the fundamental aspect of art.
I would argue that limitations are part of what creates truly great art. Specifically, transcending the limitations to create something altogether other, evoking an unexpected reaction. For example, a painting that evokes the feeling of motion is far more impressive than a short clip of an object in motion. We want things that are more than the sum of their parts.