Roger Ebert - Videogames "Inherently Inferior" to Film [Archive]

Nuggsy

11-30-2005, 10:58 AM

While I believe that gaming is, to an extent, an artform, I think that Mr. Ebert is correct in some of his assumptions. I refute the statement that films aren't an inherent artform outright, anybody who agrees with that needs to take sometime to research filmmaking; but remember, not all art agrees with the observer. Likewise with games. I agree with the sentiment that gaming has not fully matured as an artform. I think that ten or twenty years from now it will be different.

What saddens me is that, like him or not, Ebert knows his shit when it comes to film. Regardless of where his tastes reside, the guy is a wellspring of knowledge when it comes to film. What bothers me is that he can't see video games as, almost, antithetical in stature, although still and art form, to movies. He's correct when he says that films are about authorial control and manipulation and that video games are more about participant choice. I don't see these as being mutually exclusive but, almost, two sides of the same coin.

Also, I'm a gamer, have a full-time job, married, bills to pay, I'm graduating with a second bachelor's (in film production, no less) and I still find time to read and become a more "cultured and civilized" person.

BleedTheFreak

11-30-2005, 11:00 AM

Heh. This coming from someone that gave Shark Boy and Lava Girl a thumbs up.

Except you have to look at the target audience. My kids loved that movie, and watched it several times over the weekend I rented it. So, if you're a good movie reviewer (and generally I think Ebert is) then you look at that target audience and decide if *they* would like the movie.

On topic, I've never really gotten much out of "story" from movies, but even LESS so from games. The only good stories are on paper and thus, in my head as I read them. Nothing beats a good book.

Citizen Philip

11-30-2005, 11:00 AM

In 1952, A.S. Douglas wrote his PhD degree at the University of Cambridge on Human-Computer interraction. Douglas created the first graphical computer game - a version of Tic-Tac-Toe. The game was programmed on an EDSAC vaccuum-tube computer, which had a cathode ray tube display.

I still don't get your point, though. :)

His point is that the infastructure around movies has been around for a century: ergo the industries that profit from movie making have had plenty of time to market their product as a "thing that really culutured, sensitive, intelligent people can appreciate.. and IT'S AFFORDABLE TO JOE AVERAGE!" while computer games are still a main-stream niche market.

Given enough time games will have their own infastructure to promote how socially acceptable and affordable for everyone to do.

Ergo: Roger Ebert is a talking head of the movie industry, and doesn't want to share the media pie with newcomers.

An asshat.

Serapth

11-30-2005, 11:01 AM

I guess it all depends on how you define art. Keep in mind there still exists a fair share of high soceity folk who scoff at the idea of films being art. Then within the film crowd, there is a group of people that consider anything mainstream as not being art.

But if you look upon art as a thing of beauty, there are a number of great game examples.
Kameo
Zelda
Psychonauts
Eco

The all have an artistic flair

If you look at art, as having the ability to illicit emotions.
System Shock ( the game had me frikkin wired more then any horror movie ive ever seen )
I have no Mouth and I must scream.

Those are two games I can say actually moved me.

The only definition of art I can think of that precludes video games, would be if you consider art to be non-interactive, which is frankly a stupid category.

doyama

11-30-2005, 11:01 AM

And what is 'art' really. Art itself is so fickle and transitory. Many of the greatest artists in time died paupers, never having been recognized as 'great artists' in their time. Pieces considered art today are museum trash tomorrow.

To quote Python "I don't know much about art, but I know what I like"

ruprect

11-30-2005, 11:03 AM

I think he has a point. The experience of playing a game has never changed me the way some books and films have.

When I was a kid (this is really gonna date me) I remember spending hundreds of hours playing Ultima 4 and 5, Dungeon Master, and many other games. Some of the great gaming experiences of my life, but none of them affected me the way some books I read during that same period did("The Catcher in they Rye", "The Narnia Cronicles").

"Game experiences" as they are called have never changed me, just relaxed, entertained, and even given me some good memories . . . just like some (most) movies and books.

Leto K

11-30-2005, 11:04 AM

I don't really feel like wearing out my fingers trying to discuss and argue the definition of "art", but I can tell you this:

I've enjoyed and been awed by games alot more then I have by movies, at least in recent years. (kinda hard to be awed by stuff back in the old pixel ages, although super mario world did leave me floored when I first turned it on)

fitbabits

11-30-2005, 11:04 AM

On topic, I've never really gotten much out of "story" from movies, but even LESS so from games. The only good stories are on paper and thus, in my head as I read them. Nothing beats a good book.
But for a game like Shadow of the Colossus, which has no real 'story', you could conceivably make up your own story to suit.

anclunn

11-30-2005, 11:06 AM

_ Many games have come close to art, but the inflated lengths and use of filler really keep them from accending to that next level. Much like movies can be an art, but televsion shows really can't be because of their format and having to appeal to a mass audience in a pre-defined tiemframe are not. Games are as close to art as television shows. A game that is made to be truely art might not end up being a very good game in fact. Much like Arrested Development has recieved praise and awards, but ti's ratings are crap. A game that is art, will not bind itself by the traditional concept of video games.

_ Katamari? Not art. Final Fantasy? Not art. The closest thing that I have seen to art in video games are the short storybook games, like Radical Dreamers. A more modern storybook game would be Indigo Prophecy. However Indigo Prophecy is not art. I think we can all agree that it ALMOST tries to be. It coems closer than most games do, but it certainly is not, and if it tried to be any more art, and any less game, than it really couldn't even be considered a game. if you want the games that come closest to being art, go play an old fashion text adventure game.

see colon

11-30-2005, 11:10 AM

so what does mr ebert think of the works of tom zito?

bean19

11-30-2005, 11:10 AM

Wow... It's been my experience that gamers have a more active mind than most hardcore movie watchers. Most hardcore movie freaks are couch potatos who radiate fat and junk food.

What a wonderful counterpoint to Ebert's indirect stereotype. You make an even less reasoned and direct stereotype. Fantastic!

On the main topic, I can't make much of an argument for "games as art" if you include all of the crap games as examples either, but I can make a decent argument for both games and movies as art by showing the finest examples. However, the movie industry does produce a much greater quantity of "intellectual" and "cultural" films. So his point, if elaborated, might be valid. With just this snippet, it just shows ignorance of videogames.

What is really going on behind all this is that movies are suffering in sales, and a major reason for this is that people are preferring to stay home and play videogames or watch cable TV rather than to go out to theaters. So people in the film industry understandably feel threatened.

They aren't going to hurt their competitors enough to get back that market share, but they could work to make the theater experience more pleasant. I'd probably go to theaters more often if they had recliners so that the kid behind wouldn't kick my chair to put his feet up, some healthier choices for food (as well as making it reasonably expensive instead of laughably expensive), and started enforcing rules about cellphones, talking in movies, or bringing babies to movies.

Jazzercide

11-30-2005, 11:20 AM

Games are inherently interactive; no more, no less. Ebert is inherently a big fatass; more.

edit- art doesn't mean good art.

Nuggsy

11-30-2005, 11:21 AM

I have always believed that one of the main drives of art is to elicit a response from the viewer. In other words, art is a participatory event. One has to engage a piece of art in order for it to elicit any type of reaction.

Hollywood has been in a downswing recently but I don't see Ebert as really being a figurehead for that industry. If he was he would probably tell us that every movie was worth seeing. He's a critic. It is his job to criticize the film industry and since, IMO, video games are becoming more and more intimate with film all of the time, he feels that he can be critical of those as well. I'm not sure that's a very good approach though.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: people who don't play video games are welcome to their opinions, but unless you are a gamer, your criticisms and attempts at legislation or regulation are, very much, less valid than that of the gamer.

Serapth

11-30-2005, 11:21 AM

_ Many games have come close to art, but the inflated lengths and use of filler really keep them from accending to that next level.

Play "I have no Mouth and I Must Scream", "Sanitarium" or "Planescape:Torement". None of those games use filler, everyone one of them is excellent, and IMHO all three are art. In all three games, I had as much attachment to game characters then I have to any movie characters ive seen. There are many other games along these veins, but those are the ones that pop into my mind right now.

Reanimated

11-30-2005, 11:22 AM

Yes, and Burger King cheeseburgers prevent Roger Ebert from being skinny.

bean19

11-30-2005, 11:24 AM

annclunn - I think you are burdened by a vary narrow view of art. Instead of using the label of "art" that is so esoteric, let's look at whether or not the games have the impact of art.

Do they make the audience feel something? Do they captivate the audience?

Under my less obstinate definition of art, I would include a ton of titles, but here are a few off the top of my head. Some of them are examples of "not art" that you mentioned. Keep in mind that these games answer the above criteria of 1) making me feel something; and 2) captivating me.

God of War
Psychonauts
Every Zelda Game
Most of the Final Fantasy games
Max Payne 1 & 2
Indigo Prophecy
Shadow Hearts 1 & 2
Space Channel 5
KOTOR I & II
Half-Life 1 and 2

I could go on and on. Basically, if a game makes me feel for the characters in some way and captivates me then it is art.

Btw, you don't have to make people feel terribly sad like Schindler's List, or have an indy budget to create art, or pay homage to a culture. That is so much bullshit, and don't let any intelligentsia tell you differently. I don't feel ANYTHING when I see a Native American painting of a coyote howling at the moon, or when looking at one of Georgia O'Keefe's pussy flowers. An artist's job is to captivate an audience, and to make them feel something. . . hopefully through the use of truth, but the artist doesn't get to decide what is truth because we all experience it differently.

Kamalot

11-30-2005, 11:26 AM

Video Games don't make very good movies.

Shockingly, Movies don't make good games either.

Film at 11:00!

The Iron Weasel

11-30-2005, 11:41 AM

He is way out of his element here, I doubt he has ever played a game.

TheKeck

11-30-2005, 11:45 AM

edit- art doesn't mean good art.

Seriously. It's completely subjective. And if I learned anything from Art History 202, people can and will label ANYTHING as art. Arguing the point is a mindnumbing and futile proposition (to me anyway).

EDIT: Looking back at the article, I see that Ebert doesn't say that games aren't art, but that they are inherently inferior forms of art to film and literature. I take some offense at that, as well, but my argument doesn't really apply to it.

earthworm48

11-30-2005, 11:51 AM

" See this?"

"What the hell man! That's your PENIS!"

"No no, its my ART."

"Sure whatever."

"I have to go leak some art juice now. My art is overflowing with it."

The Iron Weasel

11-30-2005, 12:01 PM

Apparently I can't be civil because I play video games. Well if Ebert says it then it must be true. I'm gonna go hang out in my living room naked now.

Mac

11-30-2005, 12:14 PM

Heh. This coming from someone that gave Shark Boy and Lava Girl a thumbs up.

There are different demographics other than yourself. I didn't see it, but maybe it was a good child's movie. Did you see it?

Personally, I think he makes a good point.

MosBen

11-30-2005, 12:20 PM

Sorry if this has been mentioned. I'm in class and want to pay at least a modicum of attention. Anyhow, an important thing to note is that what counts as "culture" is based entirely on what society views as "important". It didn't count as "cultured" if you really like Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus in the seventeenth century. It was that era's Bruckheimer film with all kind of fighting and gore and whatnot. Over time, however, western societies have place cultural value in being fluent in Shakespeare's works, so suddenly what was pop culture is "culture". Similarly, motion pictures were a pretty base form of entertainment until certain works gathered a particular level of respect and the medium became something in which works of cultural value were produced. Same story for TV. At first just a boob tube for mass consumption, now we have "critically acclaimed" programs that have been invested with cultural worth.

Something to keep in mind is that when we talk about art of cultural worth we're talking about two things: 1) Art that makes us better people, and (to a slightly lesser degree) 2) Art that increases our fluency in society. Truely "great" art makes people ponder some issue or appreciate some intellectually interesting aesthetic form and we're better for it. Now, whether a particular piece does this is, of course, contentious. As for the second, I say it's important to a slightly lesser degree because while there is a value in shared metaphors or aesthetics (say, understanding the reference and meaning if some says, "To be, or not to be.") this also overlaps a bit with pop culture.

So, with video games we're just getting an industry of great enough size to have social fluency value and though we have a few notable exceptions (which I am sure will be "rediscoved" ten or twenty years down the road) most games don't really push us intellectually. It's only recently that you could be at an average workplace (that is, not at a game store or something similarly geeky) and make some offhand reference to a game, like GTA, and have that be both recognized by your co-workers and have its use/meaning add to the conversation. As games permeate society however, through generations of gamers getting older and new ones being created, this will increase. Also, as the industry grows and creates space for its version of the indy movie scene there will be more "important" games produced that make us work as the audience.

MosBen

11-30-2005, 12:21 PM

Of course, after mentioning that I can't read through all of the previous posts because I want to pay attention I write a long ass post. <sigh>

rein

11-30-2005, 12:25 PM

Movies don't have filler?

Thenetcase

11-30-2005, 12:28 PM

Your mom goes to college!

Exodus

11-30-2005, 12:29 PM

*shrugs* Ebert said himself his knowledge/experience of video games is limited. That means he only knows what he's seen from game to movies, and ones that get press, aka, any rockstar game, anything jack thompson runs around with his hair in flames about, and any game that parents have tried to sue about, also any game that any korean/malaysian/asian kid died playing to death.

Another thing is you have to give ebert interest. This is a guy who LIVES through others and tries to experiece, not actually be. Maybe he does want to ponder the what if I were in control what would I do scenario but few games allow that type of scenario. I say, give the man call of cthulu, a myst game, oblivion, and play those games through. If he doesn't like him, tell him to go blow a goat.

Malovech

11-30-2005, 12:34 PM

Stop this silly discussion! Ebert is a hack of a film critic and not even worth listening to. In fact Ebert is the original Troll and as we can see, 5 post levels deep we are succumbing to him.

jacktion

11-30-2005, 12:36 PM

While I believe that gaming is, to an extent, an artform, I think that Mr. Ebert is correct in some of his assumptions.

If literature is art. If sculpture is art. If movies are art. If singing is art, then games are art.
I've got news for some people, anything can be art!

Exodus

11-30-2005, 12:40 PM

If literature is art. If sculpture is art. If movies are art. If singing is art, then games are art.
I've got news for some people, anything can be art!

Exactly. Though I think rap's a lil tiresome. I still think it's art. 1million ways to describe how great it is to be a gansta. Idiocy to an art form.

ElPresidente

11-30-2005, 12:40 PM

I think Ebert is right simply on percentages, unfortunately he thinks he is covering the entire field with his comments but there are a number of games out there that do aspire to be something more than a mere game, that do try and leave the gamer with something beyond the transitory experience of play.

The first to come to mind is almost a cliche in discussions like this, but you simply can't ignore Planescape: Torment (in particular Chris Avellone's writing on that title) when looking for examples of when gaming attempts to move beyond the realms of mere diversion.

When you finish Planescape: Torment you are left with a million and one mental ponderings as to the origins of identity, you think on things a little differently, you get all philosophical.

Myst is something else that goes beyond the realm of mere game, this is visual art. Sure the story is not going to win awards but the purpose of Myst was the evocation of emotion and the creation of a real sense of place in spite of its fantastique settings.

To criticise Eberts point regarding time spent gaming is time away from developing culture, empathy and the like is relatively easy though it is understandable he would not be familiar with some titles that do increase our knowledge and sense of the world around us.

Shenmue fans are often possessed of a greater understanding of Chinese and Japanese culture than others with little contact with the nations or their people. The tale told by Yu Suziki could almost be considered a very dense crash course in martial culture and asian custom.

Ultimately the distinction that one is art and the other isn't is frankly a bit on the nose conceptually. Cut scenes and their existance neatly side steps Ebert's argument as there is very little difference structually between tales told through cut scenes and movies (the difference is in the quality of what is being displayed). The addition of extra elements like gaming does not negate the existance of the other.

MosBen

11-30-2005, 12:42 PM

There is, however, a difference between something qualifying as "art" and something qualifying as "significant" or "important" art and I think Ebert's obviously talking about the latter. Similarly, I think he'd grant that Armageddon is art but might argue about whether it reaches that latter category.

Royal Fool

11-30-2005, 12:42 PM

Never been a fan of Ebert.

Although I do understand what he's getting at, his claims about games being inferior and films or books being "inherently superior" are rather flawed. He says that because it requires input from the viewer it cannot be art. THAT'S STUPID!

I suppose Ebert has never been to an art exhibit in his life. Interactive art is not a new trend by a long shot...

Stop this silly discussion! Ebert is a hack of a film critic and not even worth listening to. In fact Ebert is the original Troll and as we can see, 5 post levels deep we are succumbing to him.

Quoted for truth.

Nite_Moogle

11-30-2005, 12:48 PM

I want to know how sitting on my ass watching horrible movies can possibly be considered any better than sitting on my ass playing horrible video games. You can point to past decades of great movies, but how many more horrible Hollywood monstrosities get put out every year?

I think this guy needs to be sat down with a really good, powerful game that can evoke some real emotion like System Shock 2, or some choice sequences like the Opera from Final Fantasy 6.

aversion2k

11-30-2005, 12:49 PM

Does it really matter, Who cares. We like games, we enjoy games, Who gives a crap.
I KNOW that games are art. But even if they werent it doesnt matter.

fitbabits

11-30-2005, 12:53 PM

One last thing for Ebert to consider before I go remove the lint from my navel:

If movies are art by definition, then what the hell is Gigli? Before you answer, I say to you - "gobble, gobble".

MosBen

11-30-2005, 12:59 PM

I think that while Ebert is obviously ignorant of some of the really great games out there, is is likewise not saying that all movies are of cultural worth. I think he's saying that all games are akin to Reindeer Games, not that Reindeer Games has much/any cultural worth.

As to why we should care, we should care to the same degree that we care about any cultural discussions. Looking at our culture tells us a lot about ourselves and the people we live with. It tells us where we are and where we're going. Culture is important because we *are* our culture and video games are becoming a part of that culture. I think that, as Ebert recognizes, a great majority of those games are occupying lower spots on the cultural totem right now both because a minority of people are fluent in them and because reletively few of them are aspiring to be more than mindless entertainment.

Not all plays need be intellectual or challenging in some way, but that doesn't make Hamlet any less important for us to know and talk about. Gaming needs its Hamlet, Godfather, or Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

OUX

11-30-2005, 01:05 PM

Whether or not you feel like it is art isn't important the important things is that someone thinks it is. The only thing worse than agruing what is art is saying that something isn't art because art is itself an abstract label that only has meaning equal to what someone wants to give it. One thing that art always does is envoke an emotional response on some level. If something does that than you can probably make a good case that it is art.

Zeal

11-30-2005, 01:06 PM

Uh yeah, thanks Dr. Phil.

Anyway, Ebert's right.

Conner Dain

11-30-2005, 01:10 PM

What do you expect from a film critic? A critic (a real one) is a person who has extensive and inordinate experience and knowledge of their preferred medium at the expense of every other medium. An effective and knowledgeable film critic, by defininition, can't be an effective and knowledgeble game critic. The very nature of gaming prohibits true criticism. You can fully experience a movie with one or two viewings...four hours out of your life. Most games will take you at least 10 hours to play through one time.

And that doesn't even speak to the positive bias he has towards film. If he was honest with himself, he'd have to say he feels that way (specifically that they don't measure up to film) about most other art forms. Or at least, that's the feeling I get from reading his reviews.

Conner Dain

11-30-2005, 01:14 PM

The very idea that any one person can say a thing or a medium isn't art is simply ridiculous. It's a purely subjective evaluation. I'd guess that Ebert would argue that "Last Tango In Paris" is art and not pornography. Another critic would call it porn and not very good porn. They are both right and both wrong. At the same time. When it comes to art, there are no absolutes.

fitbabits

11-30-2005, 01:17 PM

When it comes to art, there are no absolutes.
Not even for Gigli? You're either too kind or you have a crush on Bennifer. :rolleyes:

OUX

11-30-2005, 01:20 PM

Not even for Gigli? You're either too kind or you have a crush on Bennifer. :rolleyes:

There can be exceptions to every rule just don't mention Gigli again because if you say Gigli three times in a thread Ben will jump out of your....OMG ................... :eek: ...

Nuggsy

11-30-2005, 01:22 PM

Ebert is a hack of a film critic and not even worth listening to.

Have you ever read any of the books that he has written? I'll grant you that his column and reviews get a little vapid at times but the guy knows film better than any of us on this forum. You can disagree with him but this guy has spent decades studying and criticizing film. I would say that this qualifies him as much more in the know than the majority of people who comment on film. He's not above humility either as he consistently revisits old movies which he first viewed poorly and then found something to change his mind. Perhaps, given time, he'll change his mind about this.

Also, I disagree with the opinion that, "if sculpture is art...video games are art". That seems errant. "A" does not always equal "B" regardless of how it is stated. As most of us have mentioned, "art" is in the eye of the beholder, and it requires someone to engage it in order to elicit any kind of reaction. If "art", regardless of what some people consider it, requires participation to evoke that reaction, then, yes, video games are "art". In a sense, I guess, they would be considered a higher art form because they are contingent upon participation. Personally I think that, beside this, the expression of the code as game is part and parcel of this; the process of that code being interpreted by the machine into the game is important. Are video games then process art? If that's the case then all Ebert is saying is that, in his limited experience, (and I agree with him to an extent), that we simply haven't seen a Jackson Pollock, or Mark Rothko of the electronic age.

I'm interested in seeing what some industry professionals would have to say about this.

Nuggsy

11-30-2005, 01:29 PM

You can fully experience a movie with one or two viewings...four hours out of your life.

That's a crock. If that was the case then films such as Gone with the Wind , Battleship Potemkin , Chinatown , hell, even Ghostbusters wouldn't be enjoyed on subsequent viewings, or even been tackled repeatedly in film criticism or even genre criticism.

If you really think that this is the case, then you should take one of Ebert's seminars where he breaks a film down frame by frame. Something that meticulous can't be accomplished with one or two viewings, and even if you think that you can do that, who is to say that you might not watch the film twenty years later and discover something completely different about it.

Something that has been touched upon briefly is how the culture, and the experience and maturity of its citizens, alter the interpretation of "art" at any given time. Watching Pee Wee's Big Adventure twenty years ago was funny or stupid for different reasons than it is now.

Karmakaze

11-30-2005, 01:29 PM

But if you look upon art as a thing of beauty, there are a number of great game examples.
Kameo
Zelda
Psychonauts
Eco

Eco the Dolphin was art?

Xerxes

11-30-2005, 01:34 PM

I recall having the gall to criticize Roger Ebert on here some time ago and got dragged over the metaphoric coals for my troubles. :(

Yeah, you can't talk bad about critics here... I think I saw you on those same coals...

fitbabits

11-30-2005, 01:39 PM

Yeah, you can't talk bad about critics here... I think I saw you on those same coals...
Ah, but it appears you can when they are criticizing videogames. :rolleyes:

And those coals were toasty. I wondered who I kept bumping into.

Gil

11-30-2005, 01:48 PM

From Roger Ebert's latest Answer Man Column....

Q. I was saddened to read that you consider video games an inherently inferior medium to film and literature, despite your admitted lack of familiarity with the great works of the medium. This strikes me as especially perplexing, given how receptive you have been in the past to other oft-maligned media such as comic books and animation. Was not film itself once a new field of art? Did it not also take decades for its academic respectability to be recognized?

There are already countless serious studies on game theory and criticism available, including Mark S. Meadows' Pause & Effect: The Art of Interactive Narrative, Nick Montfort's Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction, Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan's First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game, and Mark J.P. Wolf's The Medium of the Video Game, to name a few.

I hold out hope that you will take the time to broaden your experience with games beyond the trashy, artless "adaptations" that pollute our movie theaters, and let you discover the true wonder of this emerging medium, just as you have so passionately helped me to appreciate the greatness of many wonderful films.

Andrew Davis, St. Cloud, Minn.

A. Yours is the most civil of countless messages I have received after writing that I did indeed consider video games inherently inferior to film and literature. There is a structural reason for that: Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control.

I am prepared to believe that video games can be elegant, subtle, sophisticated, challenging and visually wonderful. But I believe the nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art. To my knowledge, no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers. That a game can aspire to artistic importance as a visual experience, I accept. But for most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic.

fitbabits

11-30-2005, 01:52 PM

From Roger Ebert's latest Answer Man Column....

Why quote what was already available by following the links in the news post? Unless you were attempting to make some sort of point...

Gil

11-30-2005, 01:59 PM

GrinR

11-30-2005, 02:03 PM

I wonder if that makes film "inherently inferior" to literature.

fitbabits

11-30-2005, 02:04 PM

A lot of people have a habit of just reading the quotes on the main page and not actually clicking on the link. That kind of gives a distorted point of view on his statements. I wanted to just make sure people knew exactly what he said. Then, if they still don't agree, that's fine. Simple as that.
I like to think that if someone is interested in the headline or quotes, then they'll find out more by clicking the links. True, some people won't, but these people will often get found out when they try to argue a point that's already covered in the news piece.

Xerxes

11-30-2005, 02:06 PM

Not really. Remember Greg Kassivan or whatever... I made one comment about him being biased and *BAM* toasted.

Also these are different types of media. I mean hell, a book reviewer can tell the movie industry are ass. It's just fluff talk.

COMICS, BOOKS, GAMES, FILM, all are media that can tell stories, BUT THEY AREN'T THE SAME... No matter how many licenses EA buys.

GrinR

11-30-2005, 02:06 PM

oh one other thing:
"To my knowledge, no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers. That a game can aspire to artistic importance as a visual experience, I accept."

No other art form has influenced my life as much as the virtue system from Ultima IV. To this day if I walk by a beggar and don't give money I feel a small part of my ankh disappear.

Gil

11-30-2005, 02:06 PM

Hey man, I'd like to think so too, but you never know. Just thought it would be helpful to have to whole thing at hand.

MasterKwan

11-30-2005, 02:06 PM

Good job Gil, and I mean that too. It's made me change my own mind on the topic. I agree with Ebert that at this point in time, games don't stand up to some forms of art. I'm not sure I'd include film as art though...

Thenetcase

11-30-2005, 02:07 PM

I love lamp!

The Iron Weasel

11-30-2005, 02:10 PM

Testcase

11-30-2005, 02:15 PM

EBERT ATE SISKEL!

Information wants to free, yo.

Xerxes

11-30-2005, 02:17 PM

Exactly. Though I think rap's a lil tiresome. I still think it's art. 1million ways to describe how great it is to be a gansta. Idiocy to an art form.

Woe is the world of hip hop, as the media has bestowed it upon a lesser pedestal. :(

Rap isn't a tiresome art. Anybody into "rap" doenst really jam gangsta rap. Probably never did. I don't know anybody who digs 50. And with good reason... http://www.thesuperficial.com/archives/2005/11/29/50_cent_totally_sells_out.html

Liquidize105

11-30-2005, 02:19 PM

Let's just say that Quake 4 is not art.

A musical conductor once told me: "There's a lot of garbage in the classical genre as well as a lot of really good music in the pop genre."

I think it flys here as well. Only, very few games that are out now can be considered an artistic experience.

GrinR

11-30-2005, 02:21 PM

Citizen Philip

11-30-2005, 02:23 PM

The Letter 3

11-30-2005, 02:32 PM

Planescape: Torment.

I enjoyed the part where "you have a choice" is considered a negative impact on the creation of art. I mean, choice is absolutely absurd, especially in art. I don't read my own experience into art when I view it, nor do I edit a book I read by only remebering the parts I really enjoy, ohno! I remeber everything, every brush stroke, every dazzling sentence.

Bollocks.

Citizen Philip you bastard! You just beat me to this startling revelation! Oh wait, maybe you beat me to this because this isn't a startling revelation. Maybe this happens to be the obvious truth that anyone with a sense of logic can deduce.

"Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control."
-Ebert

And the author of film, literature, music, drama, paintings, sculptures, etc. can somehow have "authorial control" over how people interpret the work? What makes "art" great is that people have great revelations because of it. In other words, the viewer makes a choice of interpretations that leads to a new understanding about life.

Hmm, so wouldn't that make video games a wonderful form of art? Since choice is inherently necessary in a game, then doesn't this format require that a viewer make a choice of interpretations? As for "authorial control," how much more could you get in video games? The developers design a game, effectively choosing what you do and do not see.

While this is all off the top of my head, I find it to be rather sound logic. Alas, I'm not paid as much as Ebert, what could I know?

Xerxes

11-30-2005, 02:32 PM

KOTOR for instance had all the damn near feelings and expierence the first trilogy had. And maybe I'm oblivious but finding out about Reven through me off.

The Letter 3

11-30-2005, 02:36 PM

KOTOR for instance had all the damn near feelings and expierence the first trilogy had. And maybe I'm oblivious but finding out about Reven through me off.
Yeah, it was plenty artsy for me. KOTOR had the message that you can't trust even your best friends, but (assuming you played the light side) you should always trust that they are still good at heart.

Shit, if that doesn't qualify that game as art, then I say, in the words of Citizen Philip, "bullocks."

Balthasar

11-30-2005, 02:45 PM

You guys can be so tiresome. Please, read the quote in context:

I am prepared to believe that video games can be elegant, subtle, sophisticated, challenging and visually wonderful. But I believe the nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art. To my knowledge, no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers. That a game can aspire to artistic importance as a visual experience, I accept. But for most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=ANSWERMAN

What he says is not only fair, it's acurate. Your best comparisons to the highest exemplars of litterature, film, or music will always fall short of the mark. The best cases that can be made for videogames being of the level of those mediums are those that involve citing the lowest examples of those mediums against the best of videogames. Hardly a strong argument. I understand you guys like videogames. All of us here do. But it's not necessary that everything important to our individual lives be justified by the opinions of others to be worthy of being enjoyed. The X-box 360 doesn't have to be considered the best next-gen console for you to enjoy what you get out of it, and videogames don't have to be a superior art form for it to be entertaining.

XxSATANxX

11-30-2005, 02:46 PM

Ebert is jacking off to all the web chatter on this subject. Be looking for more games suck propaganda from Hollystupids bitch boy. Ebert has had to face the fact that he is largely irrelevant. The target audience for movies don't buy papers. Gamers are walking away from theaters in droves. Why? Cause well get the DVD stupid or we'll download it. He used to bitch that folks were reading his reviews online. FOR FREE.

Fuck you ya fat limp lipped loser!

OUX

11-30-2005, 02:53 PM

Balthasar I don't think anyone requires that it has to be recognized as a "superior" artform, but it is an artform.

EDIT: There is no such things as a superior artform only superior artists

Citizen Philip

11-30-2005, 02:59 PM

You guys can be so tiresome. Please, read the quote in context:

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=ANSWERMAN

What he says is not only fair, it's acurate. Your best comparisons to the highest exemplars of litterature, film, or music will always fall short of the mark. The best cases that can be made for videogames being of the level of those mediums are those that involve citing the lowest examples of those mediums against the best of videogames. Hardly a strong argument. I understand you guys like videogames. All of us here do. But it's not necessary that everything important to our individual lives be justified by the opinions of others to be worthy of being enjoyed. The X-box 360 doesn't have to be considered the best next-gen console for you to enjoy what you get out of it, and videogames don't have to be a superior art form for it to be entertaining.

How much credit are you giving to videogames, a genre that was created in garages, not 20 years ago compared to: movie industry created almost 100 years ago, worth billions, music and literature creates thousands of years ago and are considered a part of culture with various related industries?

Welcome to the ground floor. There are no guides, hintbooks or help, critics or perpetuating media outlets to confirm social standing/status related to this new emerging industry.

nonchalance

11-30-2005, 03:00 PM

Go the tribalism! How dare he attack our sacred cow!

For fuck's sake.
Where is gaming's Shakespeare? Our Mozart? Hell, we've barely even got a Spielberg.

Xerxes

11-30-2005, 03:05 PM

Go the tribalism! How dare he attack our sacred cow!

For fuck's sake.
Where is gaming's Shakespeare? Our Mozart? Hell, we've barely even got a Spielberg.

We have them... You just aren't looking...
And to Phillip, last I check the game industry was a billion dollar industry as well.

Citizen Philip

11-30-2005, 03:08 PM

We have them... You just aren't looking...
And to Phillip, last I check the game industry was a billion dollar industry as well.

And how long has the gaming industry been a billion dollar industry compared to its accepted forerunners?

Xerxes

11-30-2005, 03:14 PM

True true... Probably only a few years before the xbox came swinging wildly. But Ebert acts like films is good gift to media. Film maybe a grat media but its not like games in no way and no form. Video Games is a interactive media unlike the others. I argued with my theatre prof in a theatre intro class cause he was talking about it's a interactive art. And it's like not really. I don't get to tell the actors what to do. They don't ask me anything. Sure the are performing live but I can't effect what's scripted to happen in noway. Aside from throwing a juice box on stage and being a jackass. At least comedians will make funny of you and you can heckle.

Wander

11-30-2005, 03:27 PM

Just to add some more errant fanboyism to the thread... Shadow of the Colossus!

For fuck's sake.
Where is gaming's Shakespeare? Our Mozart? Hell, we've barely even got a Spielberg.
You just know someone's going to mention Sakaguchi.

We have them... You just aren't looking...
So, I assume you can tell us, then? Or, are you not looking, either?

MasterKwan

11-30-2005, 03:32 PM

nonchalance

11-30-2005, 03:41 PM

We have them... You just aren't looking...

Where?

As I said, we have Spielberg, Lucas, that sort of guy in Wright, Miyamoto and Meier.
We do not have a Shakespeare, a Kubrick, a Tarantino even.

I don't think that's a limitation of the medium, though, and to suggest that art requires non-interactivity is a notion I consider abhorrent.

GrinR

11-30-2005, 03:46 PM

What he says is not only fair, it's acurate. Your best comparisons to the highest exemplars of litterature, film, or music will always fall short of the mark. The best cases that can be made for videogames being of the level of those mediums are those that involve citing the lowest examples of those mediums against the best of videogames. Hardly a strong argument.

This is hogwash. Art is something that conveys meaning and/or emotion to the one experiencing it. I just made that up, feel free to screw with it. Paintings in the museum are there so people can view them and be changed. Same with music - they listen and are changed for it. Same with Dance - watch and feel the movements and be changed. There's high art and pop art. Classy art and trash art. Games are no different.

To compare the best of gaming, where you walk away seeing odd-shaped bricks everywhere you look, or consider the virtues of the Avatar when facing a moral dilemna in real life, or dive out of your chair to avoid a mutant in System Shock 2, or understand the workings of a municipal area from the sewers to the roadways... These are things that educate, exhilarate, affect and impress equally, if not moreso, as any other art form.

Just because Ebert, or a fan of any other art, is disinterested in discovering what is to be offered by the gaming arts, doesn't mean there is nothing there . How many people go to the opera, or ballet, or art exhibits, or symphonies? Not many. How many of those who go really appreciate the intricacies of what MAKES the art great? Even less. Does that mean it is not art? Does the quantity of terrible "fine arts" make the best of it any less?

Games -are- art. And I've got the sweat and tears and ruined back of one who knows it.

GrinR

11-30-2005, 03:53 PM

Where?

As I said, we have Spielberg, Lucas, that sort of guy in Wright, Miyamoto and Meier.
We do not have a Shakespeare, a Kubrick, a Tarantino even.

I don't think that's a limitation of the medium, though, and to suggest that art requires non-interactivity is a notion I consider abhorrent.

Bullshit. We have Garriott, Spector, Reiche III, Romero (yes, Romero), Meyer, Shelley, Rand & Robyn Miller, and many others. Hell, I haven't even mentioned foreign developers. Like a rube, you're mistaking fame for talent.

Citizen Philip

11-30-2005, 03:56 PM

Bullshit. We have Garriott, Spector, Reiche III, Romero (yes, Romero), Meyer, Shelley, Rand & Robyn Miller, and many others. Hell, I haven't even mentioned foreign developers. Like a rube, you're mistaking fame for talent.

Reiche III. SC2 <3. You can get it free now too.

http://sc2.sourceforge.net/

nonchalance

11-30-2005, 04:10 PM

Bullshit. We have Garriott, Spector, Reiche III, Romero (yes, Romero), Meyer, Shelley, Rand & Robyn Miller, and many others. Hell, I haven't even mentioned foreign developers. Like a rube, you're mistaking fame for talent.

And any of those is comparable in their total mastery of the medium to Kubrick, Shakespeare or Tarantino?

Balthasar

11-30-2005, 04:14 PM

Balthasar I don't think anyone requires that it has to be recognized as a "superior" artform, but it is an artform.

EDIT: There is no such things as a superior artform only superior artists

I don't think it even needs to be recognized as an art form for one to justify their enjoyment in it. It is what it is. This is very analgous to the porn industry and the way they constantly try to line themselves up against Hollywood and justfy themselves as "actors." I'm a gamer, and most of these arguments are flat out embarassing.

Serapth

11-30-2005, 04:19 PM

And any of those is comparable in their total mastery of the medium to Kubrick, Shakespeare or Tarantino?

Mastery?

Shakespeare. Who actually likes to read this shit anymore. Hell, who would actually read it if it wasnt forced on us in school. Hate to tell you, but John Grisham is as close the masses get to a literary master. ( Dont read anything into that, I hate Grisham )

Tarantino ( I know I spelt that wrong )? Kinda a one trick poney wouldnt you say. Resevour Dogs was awesome, then downhill from there. Kill Bill was the first really redeaming thing he did since. Dust till Dawn was ok as far as campy B movies go.

Kubrick. I love Stanely Kubrick. Of your list he would be the closest to a master of his craft, but even still. Dr Strangelove, Clockwork Orange, The Shining, Spartacus, Lolita, great films. 2001 and Eyes Wide Shut, pure dogshit films. Most of his earliest stuff, pure garbage aswell.

*** I know someone is going to sit back and tell me how 2001 was such an amazing film. HOW?!?! WHY?!?! Ive tried like 6 times to watch this damned film in one sitting and simply cant do it. Its boring, its wierd and it actually hurts my eyes to watch.

GrinR

11-30-2005, 04:21 PM

And any of those is comparable in their total mastery of the medium to Kubrick, Shakespeare or Tarantino?

Yes. If you want to nitpick, throw in all art is imitation and you have a more realistic gauge of how much mastery is possible considering the age of electronic gaming. Kubrick and Tarantino both had plenty of predecessors backs to stand on. As did Mozart, Monet, Barishnikov, Warhol, Dickens, and most other "masters" of their art.

nonchalance

11-30-2005, 04:29 PM

Yes. If you want to nitpick, throw in all art is imitation and you have a more realistic gauge of how much mastery is possible considering the age of electronic gaming. Kubrick and Tarantino both had plenty of predecessors backs to stand on. As did Mozart, Monet, Barishnikov, Warhol, Dickens, and most other "masters" of their art.

Exactly my point.

We don't have masters, yet.
The artform isn't mature enough, yet.

These guys are more Charlie Chaplin than Stanley Kubrick.

GrinR

11-30-2005, 04:33 PM

Exactly my point.

We don't have masters, yet.
The artform isn't mature enough, yet.

These guys are more Charlie Chaplin than Stanley Kubrick.

It seems to me you just disproved yourself. You believe Stanley Kubrick to be more of a master of cinema than Charlie Chaplin? What about Buster Keaton?

jc77777

11-30-2005, 04:37 PM

nonchalance

11-30-2005, 04:37 PM

It seems to me you just disproved yourself. You believe Stanley Kubrick to be more of a master of cinema than Charlie Chaplin? What about Buster Keaton?

Yes.
I do.

Does Charlie Chaplin do more artistically for you than Kubrick?

Serapth

11-30-2005, 04:38 PM

Exactly my point.

We don't have masters, yet.
The artform isn't mature enough, yet.

These guys are more Charlie Chaplin than Stanley Kubrick.
Bad analogy swapping an actor for a director. Additionally, many alive would still consider Charlie Chaplin to be an incredible actor.

A closer example ( so far as maturity goes ) would be to compare to Fritz Lang ( Metropolis, 1927 ) or the director of many pioneering films like King Kong or Dracula. Many of whom are still studied in school and often still imitated to this day. Although they were in the infancy of the movies, they still were artists.

Conner Dain

11-30-2005, 04:42 PM

Bad analogy swapping an actor for a director. Additionally, many alive would still consider Charlie Chaplin to be an incredible actor.

Umm Charlie Chaplin WAS a director. As was Buster Keaton. As was Harold Lloyd. You may not be familiar with their work (or you may not be as familiar with their work as you think.) but they all made huge contributions to the film medium. Chaplin and Keaton were intrumental in bringing a great deal of depth to slapstick. Lloyd virtually created his own style of "dangerous" slapstick. Kubrick was a talented director, perhaps a genius. But most film historians would certainly choose Chaplain as a much greater overall influence to film.

Serapth

11-30-2005, 04:43 PM

IMO... Personally, i always thought that the reason games were not recognized as being art or legitimate (and are just starting to be seen as that now) was because they are the only (i can't recall any others.") form of media to be described as interactive entertainment.

The creator still has "authorial control" when they design the game, they put in constraints and a script (ex: scripted events,dialouge,etc.) just as a director/scriptwriter puts these things in a movie. The main difference is audience input, which is not present in any forms of media besides videogames. In a movie, the role that the audience is to embrace is portrayed to them where as in a video game the part the audience is to embrace is portrayed by them.

I think it is this interactivity that ebert scolds (besides real world factors like the decline of the movie industry), because like many people who are unaccepting and close-minded of videogames (in my experience), he is ignorant of those things he does not know or have interest in.

Ebert can say that the ability to interact with videogames excludes it from being considered as art. But it is entirely possible that it is just the next step in the evolution of art and how it relates to humans.

I think it is an evolution in entertainment and art, as it invokes a response in the audience (physically and emotionally) as well as directly involves them. In comparison, many people read books or see movies and wonder what it would be like to be a part of the story and setting. Videogames are one step closer to that IMO...

I would say the biggest problem with games being accepted as art is the lack of exposure of the artist. Films are made with hundreds or thousands of people, yet in the end you always know who directed it. Games are very similar, but with only a few exceptions, its a group that is credited, not an individual artist.

If games had more rockstars ( Like Sid ) and didnt set people up as rockstars that failed miserably ( Like John Romero ), you would probrably start seeing these people accepted as artists.

Put it this way... today everyone regards Mozzart or Wagner as genius, but do you remember the bands(?) that actually performed the operas? If the same music was credit by a group, even if it was just as loved, it wouldnt gain the noteriety of a "master". Thus, not being regarded today as art.

GrinR

11-30-2005, 04:43 PM

Yes.
I do.
Does Charlie Chaplin do more artistically for you than Kubrick?

My measure is not my own opinion. It is a combination of technical understanding, observation of others opinions, and the degree of reaction the art form draws from me. This applies to all art.

Charlie Chaplin was a cinematic master, and this is absolutely undisputed (except perhaps by you). Kubrick is also a cinematic master. Were they to attempt to create what the other created, both would fail (no matter how entertaining we might find the results).

Serapth

11-30-2005, 04:44 PM

[QUOTE=Serapth]Bad analogy swapping an actor for a director. Additionally, many alive would still consider Charlie Chaplin to be an incredible actor./QUOTE]

Umm Charlie Chaplin WAS a director. As was Buster Keaton.

True, but he is acknowledge as an actor. Technically Quenten Tarrentino is an actor, but he is acknowledged as a director.

Conner Dain

11-30-2005, 04:51 PM

[QUOTE=Conner Dain]

True, but he is acknowledge as an actor. Technically Quenten Tarrentino is an actor, but he is acknowledged as a director.

I don't want to be mean here, but you really don't know what you are talking about. Chaplain may be thought of as an actor by people who are not really familiar with his work. But to anyone how has seen his work, who has read anything about the history of film during that time, he is most certainly known as a director. Your ignorance does not change the facts.

nonchalance

11-30-2005, 04:52 PM

Charlie Chaplin was a cinematic master, and this is absolutely undisputed (except perhaps by you). Kubrick is also a cinematic master. Were they to attempt to create what the other created, both would fail (no matter how entertaining we might find the results).

This is a measure of my lack of education on the field. The Chaplin-directed films I've seen seemed clumsy, uninteresting and entirely lacking in interest.

My analogy is bad. I can accept that. My education in film is severly lacking. I can accept that too. Can we get past that and talk about the actual point?

My point is that we have no Art Gods. Even the big names, Wright, Meier and Miyamoto being the major ones, are more recognised for their blockbuster status than their artistic abilities, and that's the Spielberg/Lucas point I was trying to make.
We have no big artistic successes, no 2001, no Apocalypse Now, no Reservoir Dogs. The successful games that the public sees lack artistic merit, (note the difference between craft and art) and the artistic games are too indie to be publically known.

GrinR

11-30-2005, 04:53 PM

[QUOTE=Conner Dain]

True, but he is acknowledge as an actor. Technically Quenten Tarrentino is an actor, but he is acknowledged as a director.
Read and learn about Charlie. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Chaplin)

He was an absolute master of Cinema, in a way that makes comparing him with Tarantino seem insulting.

Balthasar

11-30-2005, 05:01 PM

This is hogwash. Art is something that conveys meaning and/or emotion to the one experiencing it. I just made that up, feel free to screw with it.

Not to nitpick too much, but language brings meaning to everything that we can generate a word for. This green leather couch that I'm sitting on has pleanty of meaning for me, and certainly generates an emotion when I do sit in it, but it is certainly not art (unless, of course, you want to argue everything is art to some degree, which renders that word devoid of any meaning).

Paintings in the museum are there so people can view them and be changed. Same with music - they listen and are changed for it. Same with Dance - watch and feel the movements and be changed. There's high art and pop art. Classy art and trash art. Games are no different.

I disagree that art needs to be affecting enough to change. Not all art is good, as you indicated, and not all art is effective. Not to meantion the subjective nature of experience and change in the first place.

To compare the best of gaming, where you walk away seeing odd-shaped bricks everywhere you look, or consider the virtues of the Avatar when facing a moral dilemna in real life, or dive out of your chair to avoid a mutant in System Shock 2, or understand the workings of a municipal area from the sewers to the roadways... These are things that educate, exhilarate, affect and impress equally, if not moreso, as any other art form.

If you want education or lessons in morality, the far superior examples all lie in litterature, bar-none. KOTOR cannot sniff the shit of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. You'll hardly find a better discussion of the morality of being an Ubermensch in any other medium, let alone video games. The limitation, as Ebert states, is directly in it's form as it exists now. Video Games are tools, plain and simple. The hammer that rises to the level of art is rarely a useful hammer. Look at the way games like Metal Gear are received by the greater gaming populace (and certainly the majority of readers here). The more substance a designer tries to pack into a game, the more gamers feel as though that game loses the essence of what it should be. Recall Tycho's comments on both Killer7 and Shadow of the Colossus, for those who are big Penny Arcade fans. There is a discernable disconnect between what it is to be art and what it is to be a videogame, right from a guy who is pretty well respected and plays games for a living. Ico to date feels like one of the best examples I have seen of a videogame approaching art, but that is precisely because of how obsessively minimalistic it is. What it does relative to other games of this era makes it feel almost like a meditation on loneliness. I would consider Ico art for this alone, but that does not raise the whole medium to the status of art. It's akin to Warhol's picture of a Campbell's Soup can. Ico is art because of what it says about other video games, not because of what it does in an imaginary vacuum devoid of context.

jc77777

11-30-2005, 05:04 PM

What he said is not that bad, most of the people i know that hate on video games say stupid things like they are just for little kids... because like ebert, they don't understand the emotion that a video game can invoke.. this is a result of their ignorance of the value of video games and therefore, their unwillingness to participate in them or give them a try.

>>true serapth, that should be considered..

i saw eberts comments more as an interpretation of the medium but... what he thinks doesn't matter until someone tries to use it legitimately in an argument i suppose...

GrinR

11-30-2005, 05:11 PM

This is a measure of my lack of education on the field. The Chaplin-directed films I've seen seemed clumsy, uninteresting and entirely lacking in interest.

Rent Modern Times, or Limelight, or The Kid. It's an acquired taste, if you're used to modern movies, but consider what was available at the time and consider whether or not with all the power and industry of Hollywood today - does it really compare? They used PANCAKE POWDER on their faces! LOL

My analogy is bad. I can accept that. My education in film is severly lacking. I can accept that too. Can we get past that and talk about the actual point?

Forgive me, I didn't mean to insinuate that you were stupid or anything. Hell, my knowledge is only personal - I'm sure a film student would clown me.

My point is that we have no Art Gods. Even the big names, Wright, Meier and Miyamoto being the major ones, are more recognised for their blockbuster status than their artistic abilities, and that's the Spielberg/Lucas point I was trying to make.

And my point is that you are mistaking fame for talent. Are there no Kabuki "gods"? Are there no masters of swordmaking? Are there no fiddling geniuses? The lack of people to appreciate the art doesn't denote a lack of it. The converse is equally true; millions saw the new Star Wars movies - does that make them masterpieces?

We have no big artistic successes, no 2001, no Apocalypse Now, no Reservoir Dogs. The successful games that the public sees lack artistic merit, (note the difference between craft and art) and the artistic games are too indie to be publically known.

We have Tetris. Ultima IV (and VII for that matter). Doom. MYST. Star Control II. Civilization. Final Fantasy III (or VII or pick your favorite). X-Wing. We have Super Mario World (what's the theme music? gotcha.) We have Planetfall, Zork, Suspect, Lurking Horror, and A Mind Forever Voyaging. We have System Shock, Deus Ex, and Thief. We have Carmageddon. Archon, and Archon II: Adept. Baldurs Gate, Planescape: Torment, and mother fucking Fallout.

Don't tell me we don't have artistic successes in the vein of 2001 or *spit* Reservoir Dogs. We have a huge library of compelling masterpieces - and there's not a soul reading this (or this far, rather) who hasn't felt a tug at their heart by now that surpasses these "film greats" in emotional weight.

Royal Fool

11-30-2005, 05:12 PM

Well, I thought "2001: A Space Odyssey" was crap. Slow, boring and nonsensical. Maybe if I'd read the book first, I'd have gotten something out of it. Certainly not one of Kubrick's better works. Dr Strangelove was far better. In fact, of the Kubrick movies I remember, 2001 was the worst of the lot. I never did see his last movie, other then snippets of nudity.

The book and movie differ on some points, and since the movie came before the book it's not really that helpful... although it does explain some things in more detail like the ending. Plus it's Arthur C. Clarke...

2001 still has one of the most realistic interpretations of space travel to this day, and the subtle ways the story is told through silent scenes and little details is why I think the movie is so awesome.

The final parts of the movie in particular are what would definitely define the movie as art; it's all open to interpretation.

Conner Dain

11-30-2005, 05:16 PM

My point is that we have no Art Gods. Even the big names, Wright, Meier and Miyamoto being the major ones, are more recognised for their blockbuster status than their artistic abilities, and that's the Spielberg/Lucas point I was trying to make.
We have no big artistic successes, no 2001, no Apocalypse Now, no Reservoir Dogs. The successful games that the public sees lack artistic merit, (note the difference between craft and art) and the artistic games are too indie to be publically known.

It will take the perspective that only time can provide to allow history to determine whether computer\video games are considered great art. I don't believe any art form was considered worthy when in it's infancy. The origins of oil painting were probably cave drawings.

GrinR

11-30-2005, 05:28 PM

Not to nitpick too much, but language brings meaning to everything that we can generate a word for. This green leather couch that I'm sitting on has pleanty of meaning for me, and certainly generates an emotion when I do sit in it, but it is certainly not art (unless, of course, you want to argue everything is art to some degree, which renders that word devoid of any meaning).

This is nitpicking too much. Obviously art requires a creator. Your couch may not be art now - but it was when it was designed. Artisan? Artifice? And so on. And leave the relativism back in the college dorm where it belongs, we're all adults now and don't need silly logic gimmicks to get our points across.

I disagree that art needs to be affecting enough to change. Not all art is good, as you indicated, and not all art is effective. Not to meantion the subjective nature of experience and change in the first place.

I don't know what art needs. I know that art is an expression, and it can be affecting, and if it succeeds it can be good or bad or funny and so on. As such, games are very often art - but art that requires participation to experience. Similar to the Russian Dolls thing, where there is another doll inside the first doll, and so on - that requires interactivity to see the whole of it. Or Tryptichs (sp?) that require the viewer to open them. Or statues, which require movement around them to see their full scope.

If you want education or lessons in morality, the far superior examples all lie in litterature, bar-none. KOTOR cannot sniff the shit of Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment. You'll hardly find a better discussion of the morality of being an Ubermensch in any other medium, let alone video games. The limitation, as Ebert states, is directly in it's form as it exists now. Video Games are tools, plain and simple. The hammer that rises to the level of art is rarely a useful hammer.

I read Crime and Punishment 4 times. Once in my teens, and three times through my 20s. I found it an object lesson. To someone who is of a mind to abstract themselves and reflect their nature to that of Raskolnikov (is that his name?), it may be a compelling read. To me, it was a long and drawn out affair poring over endless paranoia and guilt. A Russian book, indeed. No thanks. I'll take my guilt in the form of sending poor floyd to his death in Planetfall. I shed tears over that. Tears.

I do not begrudge the intelligencia their idols, but my whole point in writing all this is that there is no need for them to shit on mine.

Balthasar

11-30-2005, 05:30 PM

The creator still has "authorial control" when they design the game, they put in constraints and a script (ex: scripted events,dialouge,etc.) just as a director/scriptwriter puts these things in a movie. The main difference is audience input, which is not present in any forms of media besides videogames.

Actually, theater can be fairly interactive. Not to the level of Video Games, but some shows are enjoyed specifically because of their level of audience interaction.

In a movie, the role that the audience is to embrace is portrayed to them where as in a video game the part the audience is to embrace is portrayed by them.

I think it is this interactivity that ebert scolds (besides real world factors like the decline of the movie industry), because like many people who are unaccepting and close-minded of videogames (in my experience), he is ignorant of those things he does not know or have interest in.

Ebert can say that the ability to interact with videogames excludes it from being considered as art. But it is entirely possible that it is just the next step in the evolution of art and how it relates to humans.

Um, no. The problem is that because what games are at their essence prevents them from having a voice, so to speak. The closer to "pure" video game a game is, the more the game is going to be reliant on your decisions, which then necessarily limits the creator's ability to project and develop a message. The message of "purer" games tends to be whatever choose to make of it, which is not a message at all. On the other hand, you can develop 100 different meanings for Guernica (famous Picasso painting, for those that don't know), but most of them are going to be flat-out wrong. Consider, for you Splinter Cell fans out there, how much better the series got as events became <i>less</i> scripted and allowed for more freedom (though not complete freedom) to get through an area as you see fit. If a medium as a matter of purpose does not like to develop meaning, it is difficult to argue it as Art. As I said before, one can pluck exceptions to the rule and find games that are indeed art, but they end up being art only because of what they do unlike the rest of the medium.

nonchalance

11-30-2005, 05:31 PM

Rent Modern Times, or Limelight, or The Kid. It's an acquired taste, if you're used to modern movies, but consider what was available at the time and consider whether or not with all the power and industry of Hollywood today - does it really compare? They used PANCAKE POWDER on their faces! LOL

Okay. I will attempt to rectify my faults.

Forgive me, I didn't mean to insinuate that you were stupid or anything. Hell, my knowledge is only personal - I'm sure a film student would clown me.

Understood. I don't feel stupid, merely uneducated ;)

And my point is that you are mistaking fame for talent. Are there no Kabuki "gods"? Are there no masters of swordmaking? Are there no fiddling geniuses? The lack of people to appreciate the art doesn't denote a lack of it. The converse is equally true; millions saw the new Star Wars movies - does that make them masterpieces?

That's not what I'm saying at all.
I'm saying that these things are unrecognised as art, not that they are not art. Art is defined by the critics, it seems.

Tetris. Craft. What does it say? What's the message?
Ultima IV (and VII for that matter). Most of my memories out of the Ultima games are dungeoncrawling.
Doom. Entertainment, pulp.
MYST. Visually amazing, sure. Ebert addressed that.
Star Control II. Didn't play that one.
Civilization. Has little message behind it. Sure, it's entertaining, and educational, but not art.
Final Fantasy III (or VII or pick your favorite). Fifty-five hours of dungeon crawl, five hours of art.
X-Wing. Craft.
We have Super Mario World (what's the theme music? gotcha.) No message, again. Just entertainment.
We have Planetfall, Zork, Suspect, Lurking Horror, and A Mind Forever Voyaging. We have System Shock, Deus Ex, and Thief. We have Carmageddon. Archon, and Archon II: Adept. Baldurs Gate, Planescape: Torment, and mother fucking Fallout.

I missed most of these, but the ones I did play (Carmageddon, Deus Ex, Thief, BG, PS:T and Fallout) can have the same comment as Final Fantasy. There's so much filler, so little thought (other than reflex or tactics) in so much of it.
Planescape and Fallout are the best arguments in this list, and both of those were fifty-odd hours of bullshit in among the greatness.
Remember that bit in PS:T where you just ran back and forth between three or four locations doing random fetch-things? Or all that random fighting time?

Great art does not spend ninety percent of its time on crowd-pleasing fight sequences.

Don't tell me we don't have artistic successes in the vein of 2001 or *spit* Reservoir Dogs. We have a huge library of compelling masterpieces - and there's not a soul reading this (or this far, rather) who hasn't felt a tug at their heart by now that surpasses these "film greats" in emotional weight.

That's subjective, which you're discounting - but honestly, while I loved PS:T and Fallout, Reservoir Dogs hit me harder. Kill Bill did much more in my heart than Final Fantasy.
1984 is a much stronger argument about identity than PS:T could have hoped to be.

GrinR

11-30-2005, 05:51 PM

Art is defined by the critics, it seems.

I suppose if you let them, it could for you personally. I think what I said about technical facts, others opinions, and personal impact in combination is a better off-the-cuff gauge. But who knows? Fuck the critics, I've never heard or read a critic's opinion on graffiti pieces or breakdancing, but that doesn't strip the art from them.

Tetris. Craft. What does it say? What's the message?
Ultima IV (and VII for that matter). Most of my memories out of the Ultima games are dungeoncrawling.
Doom. Entertainment, pulp.
MYST. Visually amazing, sure. Ebert addressed that.
Star Control II. Didn't play that one.
Civilization. Has little message behind it. Sure, it's entertaining, and educational, but not art.
Final Fantasy III (or VII or pick your favorite). Fifty-five hours of dungeon crawl, five hours of art.
X-Wing. Craft.
We have Super Mario World (what's the theme music? gotcha.) No message, again. Just entertainment.

I don't want to be overly simplistic, but you seem to think that art must have a message. I feel patronizing spelling this out, but what is the message of the Mona Lisa, or the message of the Cistine Chapel, or the message of Beethoven's Symphony #9? One may -derive- meaning from it, but it's not implicitly spelled out. Re-read your commentary of these games and it simply doesn't apply. The Cistine Chapel is thousands of tons of stone and wood, with only a veneer of art - does that make it not art??

Xerxes

11-30-2005, 06:05 PM

Where?

As I said, we have Spielberg, Lucas, that sort of guy in Wright, Miyamoto and Meier.
We do not have a Shakespeare, a Kubrick, a Tarantino even.

I don't think that's a limitation of the medium, though, and to suggest that art requires non-interactivity is a notion I consider abhorrent.

Who the hell in this day and age is getting a stiffy over Shakespear. AND TARANTINO IS A HACK... Yeah I said it. :mad:

Balthasar

11-30-2005, 06:14 PM

This is nitpicking too much. Obviously art requires a creator. Your couch may not be art now - but it was when it was designed. Artisan? Artifice? And so on. And leave the relativism back in the college dorm where it belongs, we're all adults now and don't need silly logic gimmicks to get our points across.

Gimmicks? I have no idea what you are talking about. My point is your definition is too loose to be of any real meaning. It applies to too many things to be useful.

I don't know what art needs. I know that art is an expression, and it can be affecting, and if it succeeds it can be good or bad or funny and so on. As such, games are very often art - but art that requires participation to experience. Similar to the Russian Dolls thing, where there is another doll inside the first doll, and so on - that requires interactivity to see the whole of it. Or Tryptichs (sp?) that require the viewer to open them. Or statues, which require movement around them to see their full scope.

Art is an expression...of something. This is the major difference you are missing between these and, say, Madden 2005 or Halo 2. Whereas a game like Half life 2 or Metroid Prime focus on trying to immerse us in the experience of being in a world that does not or cannot exist, literature and cinema have moved way beyond the obsession with simply bringing us to a place (we expect this from books, at the very least). Instead, literature and cinema try to make us understand the place we have been put in (real or imagined) and why being there is relevant to us as humans, as well as the characters. Animal Farm and Watership Down would be nothing if not for their ability to teach us about ourselves, despite the fact that they are populated by animals. I am not saying that all art needs to necessarily teach us something about human nature; it is merely an example of what is completely commonplace in those media.

I read Crime and Punishment 4 times. Once in my teens, and three times through my 20s. I found it an object lesson. To someone who is of a mind to abstract themselves and reflect their nature to that of Raskolnikov (is that his name?), it may be a compelling read. To me, it was a long and drawn out affair poring over endless paranoia and guilt. A Russian book, indeed. No thanks.

Hardly sounds like the comments of someone who read that book with a great deal of coherent analytical response. Saying you read the book 4 times doesn't make your argument any more valid. That would be a cheap (and fallacious) logic gimmick.

I do not begrudge the intelligencia their idols, but my whole point in writing all this is that there is no need for them to shit on mine.

My whole point is your idols need not be like the others for them to be of personal value.

nonchalance

11-30-2005, 06:16 PM

I don't want to be overly simplistic, but you seem to think that art must have a message. I think it does. It needs to express something, it needs to say something.
I feel patronizing spelling this out, but what is the message of the Mona Lisa, or the message of the Cistine Chapel, or the message of Beethoven's Symphony #9? One may -derive- meaning from it, but it's not implicitly spelled out. Re-read your commentary of these games and it simply doesn't apply. The Cistine Chapel is thousands of tons of stone and wood, with only a veneer of art - does that make it not art??

Symphony #9 and the Sistine Chapel's message is 'Glory to God in the Highest'.
That's the purpose, that's the meaning.

The message of the Mona Lisa is 'people are beautiful', or more specifically, 'this person is beautiful'. At least, I think so.
A significant part of the art of the Mona Lisa is that the meaning is so hard to discern. Why is she smiling like that?

Balthasar

11-30-2005, 06:29 PM

I don't want to be overly simplistic, but you seem to think that art must have a message. I feel patronizing spelling this out, but what is the message of the Mona Lisa, or the message of the Cistine Chapel, or the message of Beethoven's Symphony #9? One may -derive- meaning from it, but it's not implicitly spelled out.

It doesn't need to be implicitly spelled out. It's pretty rare that art is good when it's messages are implicit. Didactic art can work in some circumstances, but for the most part comes off as simplistic because of its bluntness. Subtlety adds to art.

Re-read your commentary of these games and it simply doesn't apply. The Cistine Chapel is thousands of tons of stone and wood, with only a veneer of art - does that make it not art??

Personally, I have no idea what your question is with that wonky syntax. Are you saying the so-called "veneer" of art makes the whole structure art? Or that, by those definitions you disagree with, it should not make it art?

Xerxes

11-30-2005, 06:33 PM

Warcraft 3? Not art?

nonchalance

11-30-2005, 06:34 PM

Warcraft 3? Not art?

Nope. Not art.

Xerxes

11-30-2005, 06:43 PM

And why not.

Xerxes

11-30-2005, 06:49 PM

And you saying art is something that makes you feel something. Blood Omen 2 made me feel something. Why can't that be art?

nonchalance

11-30-2005, 06:53 PM

And why not.
Because it doesn't express anything. It's just a game.
Like chess is not art. Like football is not art.
To be sure, it's pretty, it has pretty music, but it's not saying anything.

Xerxes

11-30-2005, 07:10 PM

I think you are wrong. But fucking wrong. Warcraft 3 was damn near like LOTR with a bunch of extra boring battle but some some that served purposed. I mean from the meeting of other races and alliances and the countless atrocities commited by Arthas. The game uses several battles to propel you through the story. And all of it wasn't battles like the make to this point safely, use the ghost things to spy. It's interactive and damn good quality as far as stories go in games.

Lint of Death

11-30-2005, 07:35 PM

I mean from the meating or other races...

The story I saw was pretty good, but was this in a secret level? Is this how they metaphorically demonstrate the difficult yet necessary...erm...union of all to defend against evil?

Nuggsy

11-30-2005, 07:38 PM

I think that something a lot of us are missing is that art can be looked at in terms of what events, personal or historical or technological or cultural, influenced and created them. There is much meaning there that takes time to dissect and absorb.

Xerxes

11-30-2005, 07:39 PM

When the Orcs saved then joined with the Taurens, it was more of a brotherhood of like minded heros. It was necessary for survival in a foreign land.

Balthasar

11-30-2005, 07:45 PM

When the Orcs saved then joined with the Taurens, it was more of a brotherhood of like minded heros. It was necessary for survival in a foreign land.

You're funny. Good troll there. Cheers to that.

Xerxes

11-30-2005, 07:48 PM

You're funny. Good troll there. Cheers to that.

Meh I don't know about trolling(do you know what that even means) but yeah I did pull that line out my ass. But for some maybe that is what that represented there. Nonetheless the game had good storytelling elements for a interactive media. I'm not here to right no thesis on the subject.

nonchalance

11-30-2005, 07:50 PM

the game had good storytelling elements for a interactive media.

Is that an argument for games as art?

Xerxes

11-30-2005, 07:53 PM

The whole production could quallify as art so yeah if that's what you want sure. Demantle it. Isn't the storytelling aspect throughout the different media types what's being used as the basis.

nonchalance

11-30-2005, 07:58 PM

The whole production could quallify as art so yeah if that's what you want sure. Demantle it. Isn't the storytelling aspect throughout the different media types what's being used as the basis.

It's not what I'm using as a basis, no.
What is the point of Warcraft 3?
What does it say to humanity, and what does it express?

To me, it says "this is a fun game, lots of entertainment here". The story serves the game, the game is a game.

Xerxes

11-30-2005, 08:10 PM

nonchalance

11-30-2005, 08:16 PM

I didn't analyze it as much. LOTR, with the harping on wanting the ring am I suppose to be this is deep, greed in humanity is blah blah blah. You can analyze anything into something. It's the best relative example I have that seems to be well done. A1 music, acting, story, and visuals. It had several real world humane elements like treachery, faith and desire.
Art has, as it's primary purpose, a message, or an expression.
Warcraft 3 is, primarily, and entirely, a game. It's purpose is entertainment, and it's story is tacked on. The story itself is a vehicle for battle scenes. The battle scenes are not there to serve the story, it's the other way around.

For the record, I don't believe LotR is art either. You can read art into it, but Tolkien has gone on the record as saying it's not expressing anything, it's a story for entertainment purposes.

But you were spouting Tarintinos name early. What does Kill Bill say?

"Hell hath no fury like a mother who has lost her child".

I think the thing is you only want to see games. You don't want to feel games are any more than games.

I'd love to see games that are art. I just haven't seen any yet.

Xerxes

11-30-2005, 08:23 PM

"Hell hath no fury like a mother who has lost her child".

Is that an argument for Kill Bill as art?

Liquidize105

11-30-2005, 08:43 PM

This is hogwash. Art is something that conveys meaning and/or emotion to the one experiencing it. I just made that up, feel free to screw with it. Paintings in the museum are there so people can view them and be changed. Same with music - they listen and are changed for it. Same with Dance - watch and feel the movements and be changed. There's high art and pop art. Classy art and trash art. Games are no different.

To compare the best of gaming, where you walk away seeing odd-shaped bricks everywhere you look, or consider the virtues of the Avatar when facing a moral dilemna in real life, or dive out of your chair to avoid a mutant in System Shock 2, or understand the workings of a municipal area from the sewers to the roadways... These are things that educate, exhilarate, affect and impress equally, if not moreso, as any other art form.

Just because Ebert, or a fan of any other art, is disinterested in discovering what is to be offered by the gaming arts, doesn't mean there is nothing there . How many people go to the opera, or ballet, or art exhibits, or symphonies? Not many. How many of those who go really appreciate the intricacies of what MAKES the art great? Even less. Does that mean it is not art? Does the quantity of terrible "fine arts" make the best of it any less?

Games -are- art. And I've got the sweat and tears and ruined back of one who knows it.

Games typically focus on the primal emotions of fear and anger, and the gameplay actually GETS IN THE WAY of expressing those emotions. Ebert's right in that it's still not there yet, he is saying (maybe not, but still) that there has to be more than that.

nonchalance

11-30-2005, 08:46 PM

Is that an argument for Kill Bill as art?

Clever.
Oh wait.

No, it's not.

Look.
The primary purpose of art is to convey a message.
What is the primary purpose of Warcraft 3?

Xerxes

11-30-2005, 08:53 PM

I didn't analyze it or even get a chance to complete it for that matter but I ask the same of Kill Bill.

nonchalance

11-30-2005, 08:57 PM

Man, I'm not going to sit here repeating myself over and over and over to somebody who's just proclaiming, against all comers, that a game he didn't analyse nor finish is art.

Xerxes

11-30-2005, 09:01 PM

I completed Kill Bill and some broad going around killing folks cause some dude she loved try to kill her and her baby doesn't seem much like art. More like plot devices.

nonchalance

11-30-2005, 09:06 PM

*throws up hands and stomps off muttering*

Xerxes

11-30-2005, 09:12 PM

*throws up hands and stomps off muttering*

UH OH... :D

It's peanut butter jelly time...
Peanut butter jelly time...
Peanut butter jelly time...

Citizen Philip

11-30-2005, 10:34 PM

Man, I'm not going to sit here repeating myself over and over and over to somebody who's just proclaiming, against all comers, that a game he didn't analyse nor finish is art.

Games can be art. Please deal with this concept, art doesn't have to have any specific meaning. You should perhaps check what post-modern art is all about.

And as I said pages ago, this medium has been around for less than 20 years and 100s of years of art and literature have been used to criticize the idea of it being proper. It's the ground floor, either get on board and accept new things or put on whatever blinders you prefer and wait for someone you respect to tell you it's art, and you can agree with them.

Your argument, which hasn't changed is: Art needs a meaning, I have seen no meaning in computer games, therefore it cannot be art.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/straw-man.html

OrangePulp

11-30-2005, 11:38 PM

After reading this site for so long, I finally had to register just to point this out:
I think we're forgetting The Bouncer. Come on people, Play the Action Movie!

Last of the Red Hot Mamas

12-01-2005, 01:16 AM

Roger Ebert "Inherently Fat"

Yes, it's another fat joke. What of it?

Mason

12-01-2005, 01:42 AM

Art has to lack function beyond the evocation of thought and emotion. Put a foot massager on the wall of the MoMA and it is art. Take it down, plug it in, and let people get their feet massaged and it is no longer art. Function provides a confining, limited context, and the whole point of art is to communicate in a universal context.

A game (not just video, any) and art are, on a conceptual level, mutually exclusive. Game-based behavior is all about function. You aren't thinking about what the behavior means in any sort of universal context, because it fits entirely within the context of the game and its rules.

Now, here's the tricky part, so don't flake out on me. Only part of the experience we label a "video game" is in fact gameplay. The same technology and controllers can be used to do many non-game things, and every video game is a composite of game and non-game parts. Dump the player in a HL2 level with no enemies or exits, and there's no contextual framework of gameplay, yet they'd still be part of a video-game medium. This seems to be tripping lots of people up.

One could take the framework of a conflict-less and undirected HL2 level and do artistic things with it. The possibilities would be endless. But as soon as you imposed any actual gameplay on the experience, the artistic possibilities would collapse. You'd have a rule-based context that requires no pondering: shoot the bad guys, move in a single direction. You can have art between the shooting, or tangential to the shooting experience, but no form of pure gameplay counts as art.

Lots of people seem to be mentioning SotC. It has some artistic potential in spite of its (already minimalist in many ways) gameplay, not because of it. I mean, it is undeniably a very literate work (hint: spell things backwards), and I like it a lot, but the things about it that make you ponder and emote have nothing to do with its platforming. And when you're doing the platforming is the time in which you're probably pondering it the least, since at those points you have a simple goal: kill the big black thing.

Commercial games aren't very fertile for art, for a ton of obvious reasons. And there will always have to be some tradeoff between art and gameplay, and any serious art made with game technology almost certainly wouldn't be considered a game by people like us. It would lack direction and rules.

I disagree with Ebert's latent assumption that film is somehow better suited to be art than games are, though. The world isn't exactly drowning in films of artistic merit, and the majority of films which are critically acclaimed are so lauded for being very well-made movies, which is certainly a good thing but by no means qualify them as art.

Personally, I think that both film and video games are crappy at representing narratives of artistic note when compared to the novel. Film just has a 70 year head start on games. Were it inverted, pompous old game critics would be casting aspersions on the artistic possibilities of such a non-interactive medium.

Balthasar

12-01-2005, 06:15 AM

Games can be art. Please deal with this concept, art doesn't have to have any specific meaning. You should perhaps check what post-modern art is all about.

Without even getting into what post-modernism is and isn't about, one could not say it is about anything if it did not carry meaning. The approach itself carries tremendous meaning. Video Games are tools. No inherent meaning.

[QUOTE=Citizen Philip]And as I said pages ago, this medium has been around for less than 20 years and 100s of years of art and literature have been used to criticize the idea of it being proper.

That video games have not been around for very long and have not matured very much does not make it exempt from the requirements of Art. This is why I think in its current form, games as a medium are not art.

MosBen

12-01-2005, 06:15 AM

I missed the last six or so pages, so sorry if this already came up.

How does interactive art fit into your conception of art? And why is it that some item cannot be both art and function? Something like a building can be a work of art yet retain function. An artist could make something you can sit on and which could therefore function as both a piece of art and a functional chair.

Balthasar

12-01-2005, 07:11 AM

Personally, I think that both film and video games are crappy at representing narratives of artistic note when compared to the novel. Film just has a 70 year head start on games. Were it inverted, pompous old game critics would be casting aspersions on the artistic possibilities of such a non-interactive medium.

I would agree that when discussing narative storytelling, nothing surpasses the art of prose, but film has come a very, very long way. I tend to think it's not fair to compare the two media because they do very different things well. I also can't even fathom video games possibly coming before film--technological limitations aside--because video game makers are so obsessed over Hollywood that they ape films and their narrative approach far too often to stand apart from the medium the way the others do.

Xerxes

12-01-2005, 09:01 AM

Art is in the eye of the beholder with games. No two gamers feel a hundred percent the same about another game. The creator probably has the same feel in a whole different context. As you are the hero or villian, you feel what's going on differently. I mentioned Blood Omen 2, maybe it was just me but I felt blood killing the peseants shakled up, but it was them or my survival. But I also liked it, sucking them dry. I watched Interview with a Vampire and the Blade movies differently. They go on about the thirst. But Blood Omen 2 made me feel like yeah, you got to get it if yall gonna live, drink up. You can't progress without feeding your gift and your curse. Now neither on of those movies are art and I can't think of a artsy vampire movie but when they need blood, I get it. I was also wondering why Kain(I) was even following these orders, I'm still greater than Vampires who saved me. But that was about self(character) discovery. Others probably didn't feel a damn thing about it one way or another but I did and maybe other did as well.

I really swear Video Games is a whole new arena, and we really can't compare to the other medias. I mean aside from video games which of those media ARE interactive. NONE.

MosBen

12-01-2005, 09:04 AM

Exodus

12-01-2005, 09:15 AM

Totally agree, the story of the legacy of kain/blood omen series and soul reaver is a great one imo, I love it. Too bad crappy camera angles, repetitive gameplay that was tiresome invaded its greatness.

if they made a cg movie of that with the voice actors I'd go nuts over it.

aside..

MAKE A NEW SHADOWRUN GAME.

Balthasar

12-01-2005, 09:45 AM

I think the point that prose and film shouldn't really be compared is a very important point. I mean, which is more *truly* art, prose or painting? Painting or sculpture? Film or photography? All of those art forms have very different goals and seek to affect their audiences in very different ways. Similarly, video games work as an art form in a different way than any of those other forms and it's no more fair to compare video games and films than it is to compare films and haiku.

The status of video games as art is not being decided based on how they are similar or differ from other forms of Art, but rather how they actually are in-and-of themselves Art. And the simple fact of the matter is that the goals and ideals of videogames are at complete odds with the process of art. Those few games that have even approached art have questionable to bad gameplay. There is a very good reason why.

And no, none of the games in the Legacy of Kain series can be considered Art. Just because it affects you doesn't make it art. Going to Rotten.com affects me. Rotten.com is not Art.

Citizen Philip

12-01-2005, 10:26 AM

[QUOTE=Citizen Philip]Games can be art. Please deal with this concept, art doesn't have to have any specific meaning. You should perhaps check what post-modern art is all about.

Without even getting into what post-modernism is and isn't about, one could not say it is about anything if it did not carry meaning. The approach itself carries tremendous meaning. Video Games are tools. No inherent meaning.

That video games have not been around for very long and have not matured very much does not make it exempt from the requirements of Art. This is why I think in its current form, games as a medium are not art.

Prove that games are not art. Performance art sometimes require audience participation to achieve any conculsion and multi-media artists have created interactive works that are changed and effected by the actions, direct and in-direct by the audience. An entire game doesn't have to be art, as the gallery does not have to be a part of the artwork itself: the game is the gallery that the art is in, it's the context and the method required to create it. I vastly prefer games over movies, and books over games. I prefer life drawing over painting and sculpture over drawing.

Games are fully capable of having segments that can be easily interpreted as art, 50 years down the road where the medium is no longer considered a pariah among it's counterparts it will not be an issue. I am also not implying that any art derived from a game format is to be considered "high art" (which in itself is a by-product of modernity), but is sufficient to be considered art. Games are the first medium to possess both the qualities of artwork and literature, besides film.

Assume I generated a level of Half-life 2, filled with various items. I spent weeks using my grav gun to arrange these objects into a work of art, let's say I have created a very large two dimensional portrait by placing the objects of varying colour and shape, that when seen from a distance create a greater whole. My medium was Half-life 2, I used game tools and generated a piece of digital art using found objects.

Let's assume I also don't want you to just see my hardwork from the passive position of an observer in a gallery, and I require you to play challenging puzzles in Half-life 2: these puzzles reveal things about the artist, and the eventual work - that can be suggested and hinted at during the entire puzzle solving process. Piece by piece more of the work is revealed.

Let's say I have created 8 hours worth of puzzles and challenges, including narrative. Your final reward is to view the work.

Now, assume my final work is the end-game cut scene and the the narrative and puzzles is all about the avatar you have been playing the last 8 hours. It's called a friggen computer game. Some of the puzzles and challenges were boring and you didn't like them, but you were after the prize: the conclusion.

And let's make it even more fun: Your avatar is the artist, and the way you interact with the 8 hours of puzzles effects the final piece of art, allowing you to change the content and meaning. Oh wait. That could be Fallout, couldn't it? Sure, killing the rats in a cave with a pistol wasn't fun, but it was part of the journey: the ending is still bittersweet, but it can be altered.

I don't really like quoting other people, but as Marshall McLuhan said: "The medium is the message."

Xerxes

12-01-2005, 10:56 AM

Like I said. Some people just don't want it to be a art. I but naked man walking around in a play pen is art but Blood Omen isn't? A whole gallery smelling like shit cause some dude thought it was cool to play with his crap on canvas is art, but Warcraft 3 isn't. I mean i think you guys are making up your own definition of art to make sure Games can't qualify as a form of art. In and of themselves yes there are works of art there. It's not the Godfather which didn't do much for me but other love it. But the Godfather ain't exactly the Mona Lisa. And the Mona Lisa ain't exactly the Statue of David. And that exactly Shakespear. And that's going off classics. I mean we call the crap folks sell on the side of the street art. Dog's playing poker is art. Maybe games don't have it's "masterpiece" but I say it does have art. Hell even karate is art. Film and VGs are alike in the since they are multimedia productions. There is sound and visual along with what is embedded in the product. The differ between how you interact with them. One you sit down and give whats fed to you. The other you are involved you are part of the creation as much as the head designer on a more limited scale.

What if someone drew this scene. How would that be more art then playing it.
http://gr.bolt.com/oldsite/previews/screens/ps2/shadow_of_the_colossus/shadow_of_the_colossus2b.jpg

Gamasutra's moniker is the Art and Business of Making Games.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Art
http://m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary/art

Shifteh

12-01-2005, 11:22 AM

Nothing cultures a man more than a good sitdown with Dude, Where's My Car?

Balthasar

12-01-2005, 01:42 PM

Prove that games are not art.

I don't need to prove games aren't art. You need to prove games are art. Though, for the record, I have presented my argument against that more than once in this thread. Look for it yourself, I don't feel like repeating.

Performance art sometimes require audience participation to achieve any conculsion and multi-media artists have created interactive works that are changed and effected by the actions, direct and in-direct by the audience. An entire game doesn't have to be art, as the gallery does not have to be a part of the artwork itself: the game is the gallery that the art is in, it's the context and the method required to create it. I vastly prefer games over movies, and books over games. I prefer life drawing over painting and sculpture over drawing.

None of what you said has anything to do with the definition of art. A photograph of a tree is not art on its own. The most basic premise behind art is its intent. Video Games current intent is to place you into a world, real or imagined, where you do stuff. It's a device, or tool, no different from a hammer or a guitar. A simulartor. A means to an end (being escapism/immersion/role-playing in the basic sense of the word). As I also said before, there are games which do manage to approach art or arguably even be art, but in doing so they have difficulty in accomplishing themselves as actual games. Killer7 has been mentioned as a game which really comes off as Art. But it is terrible as a game. This is no coincidence. The more structured/intentful a game is, the more restrictive/linear its elements become.

As for the the comparison between a game and a gallery, it's apt in the sense that it is certainly possible for a game to contain art. But for a game to actually be art, it cannot merely contain art. The form/function of the game itself must be art. Quite difficult when the aesthetics of gameplay go in the complete opposite direction.

Assume I generated a level of Half-life 2, filled with various items. I spent weeks using my grav gun to arrange these objects into a work of art, let's say I have created a very large two dimensional portrait by placing the objects of varying colour and shape, that when seen from a distance create a greater whole. My medium was Half-life 2, I used game tools and generated a piece of digital art using found objects.

Assuming whatever you created was actually art, your medium would be the graphics engine, not the game. The game is object-oriented. Move here, go here, kill this, buy that. What you are manipulating is the environment generated by the engine/toolset. That is not the game itself.

Let's assume I also don't want you to just see my hardwork from the passive position of an observer in a gallery, and I require you to play challenging puzzles in Half-life 2: these puzzles reveal things about the artist, and the eventual work - that can be suggested and hinted at during the entire puzzle solving process. Piece by piece more of the work is revealed.

Is a Rubix Cube art? Not really.

Now, assume my final work is the end-game cut scene and the the narrative and puzzles is all about the avatar you have been playing the last 8 hours. It's called a friggen computer game. Some of the puzzles and challenges were boring and you didn't like them, but you were after the prize: the conclusion.

Skipping ahead a bit. No, it's not art. Your metaphor fell apart quite a bit, but had you sustained it, it still would not have been video game art, because you would have ceased to be discussing a video game. That you even mention the term "cut scene" makes your argument more problematic, because cut scenes are non-interactive enough that they tend to be outside of the experience of playing the game. If all the art in the game is the end result, i.e. the cut scene, and that is what the Art is, then the cut scene is the art, not the game. But we already know 3-d animation is art. It's almost art by default.

I don't really like quoting other people, but as Marshall McLuhan said: "The medium is the message."

That quote sounds wildly out of context. A paintbrush or a canvas or oil is not inherently art.

TheKeck

12-01-2005, 01:58 PM

To simply state, flat out, that video games are not and cannot be art, is ridiculous. At least, it's a very narrow view of art. If somebody calls something art, it's frickin' art!!

Balthasar

12-01-2005, 02:09 PM

To simply state, flat out, that video games are not and cannot be art, is ridiculous. At least, it's a very narrow view of art. If somebody calls something art, it's frickin' art!!

I'm not sure who stated video games cannot be art, but if all a work requires to be art is someone saying "that is art," then art as a word has no value because anything can be and is art. This is not a valid argument.

TheKeck

12-01-2005, 02:17 PM

I'm not sure who stated video games cannot be art, but if all a work requires to be art is someone saying "that is art," then art as a word has no value because anything can be and is art. This is not a valid argument.

And I say that anything can be art. And I'm pretty sure there a lot of people in the "art world" who would agree with me.

That's just the problem. "Art" is about the most nebulous subjective topic out there.

There are countless examples of the strangest things that the random passerby would not consider art, yet are acclaimed works that show up in art classes. And something doesn't have to be acclaimed art, to be art. If my little sister draws a picture in art class in school, it's art.

What would give anybody the nerve to say that something is not art when its creator is telling you it is, is beyond me.

Exodus

12-01-2005, 02:34 PM

IMO, art is culture. It's an experience that individuals can criticize, appreciate, be awe inspired by.

Games like tetris for example, you could find art in the coding of it if you were a programmer and appreciated that in the time it was made, it was ingenious and demands appreciation. You then proceed onto other games, other genres. Some percieve these all as art because they appreciate the amount of work put into these things that developer put on display that proudly place their name(or shame facedly) on in the credits.

Of course Roger Ebert doesn't appreciate game development, of course he doesn't appreciate games, he doesn't give a damn about Morrowind Oblivion, whether the revolution keep up with the 360 or ps3, he doesn't give a shit if Nintendo all of a sudden was in financial trouble and Microsoft bought them.

I love my role playing games, they, I most definitely consider art. They contain literature, a storyline, a script, characters, music, graphics, wow does this sound like a movie to you?
There are games that do not have this, puzzle games, DDR, fighting games and god if anyone thinks those storylines are art they can go suck a big fatty, they're only good enough to make a hentai out of.

The art of video games is how developers are able to come up with an idea, take something from imagination.. and create it, present it to you in the way they want you to experience it. There is art in the craftsmanship, "This game has the polish of a Blizzard game", or "This game has more bugs than Morrowind when it was first released". There ARE obvious games that are total prostitutes out for money, but then again the movie industry has more than its fair share.

Video games are art, they have meaning, they have symbolism, they can be appreciated, they contain a LOT of work and if you don't appreciate that you can just shut the fuck up.

Xerxes

12-01-2005, 03:00 PM

All movies have flubs like games has bugs. There is a website dedicated to finding all the follies and misplacements and color issues of every damn movie. IMDBs small factoids are a small slice of the cake. What goes into movie is damn near the same for games. Really, aside from the static presentation movies provide how are they so great. Aside from the poor voice actors we have out there mind you.

Lint of Death

12-01-2005, 03:30 PM

Games are amazing art because of the way they can combine all of the major forms of art in the most advanced way presently possible (digitally). It can have the texts, narratives, and descriptions found in a book; the still images that form drawings and paintings; the three dimensional environments of sculptures; the animation of film; and, most importantly, almost the same freedom as an actor or audience participant on stage. A game can have just about any degree of all of these, making it an extremely versatile art form. A game can do almost anything any other major art form can, with the only major limitations being our technology and the frequent necessity of using digital representations.

Psychonauts is a great example, with which I intend to demonstrate the power these theatrical qualities provide. Without any necessary acting talent, prior experience, or grueling auditions, you get to play the role of Razputin. From the opening cinematic, it is suggested that Raz is brave, humorous, independent, and maybe a little crazy.

Like making a play with action figures, the characters have limits; for example, Raz cannot use guns or drive cars and, unlike playing with action figures, the limits have a point: such things would detract from any message the game wants to communicate, including ones based around the basic idea for the character of Raz and his role in their story. While it seems like a silly thing to add to a game, the ability to use pyrokinesis on birds or toss squirrels with your mind is not pointless; the game has clearly been designed to make this a part of Raz's character, based on the resulting one-liners.

Like a disgruntled actor or a rowdy audience member, you can try and mess with the story; for example, in many games, you can get killed. Perhaps it is one story to tell, the abrupt and anticlimactic death of the hero. Psychonauts cleverly deals with this issue: most of your time is spent as a psychic projection of Raz. When Raz's projection is defeated, he can re-enter the mind and try again. It keeps Raz in character and does not destroy any story. If you do a bad job as an actor for the role given to you, it is much like a bad show in theatre, but without the risk of being fired. The game simply lets you pick up the controller and try again, and do so anytime you want.

This sort of "death" system strangely applies to Raz in "real world" environments, too. Perhaps this can be seen as a subtle reminder that Raz's story is little more than fantasy? Maybe it is, as the cliché goes, all a dream? Even if this was not an intended interpretation, that is the beauty of art: while the designer has some ideas they wish to convey through the medium, they do not have to be all the ideas that may be derived therein. The allowable actions and the way the interface, whether it is a HUD or keyboard or mouse, is used can only multiply the number of things we can get out of the art. Clearly the way Raz can only use his psychic powers to achieve victory is a demonstration of this.

For this post, I have mostly focused on what makes a game such a unique art form; there are many other things that games can do that I have not mentioned, but I fear my post is many miles long already. Before I end this thesis, I wish to provide an example from Psychonauts of how a game can be as great (or maybe better) than other art forms in how it meshes with culture and deals with current events. I was up a little later than usual last night thinking about possible interpretations of the game or even the individual mental landscapes Raz explores.

The one that I thought of first was the brain of the paranoid Boyd, a security guard culled from the worst of the Asylum. This sequence might be seen as a commentary on how certain government figures, and others, perceive the world of gaming. It is completely satirized, of course. The game is a cute, cartoony place inhabited by the Rainbow Squirts. The place is invaded by spies and Censors, turning every lawn ornament, garbage can, and civil worker into a tool in search of the Milkman. The Milkman is Boyd's repressed self, who is left dormant and closely guarded by the Rainbow Squirts, who are fiercely (albeit incompetently) opposed by Boyd's security and the unwitting Raz. The odd thing here is that Boyd's security seems to be seeking to free or capture the Milkman; also, it seems critical to remember that Boyd is a complete nutcase. What might be the significance of these elements? My interpretation is not completely fleshed out, I'll admit, but my point is that games are in no way an inferior art form; it just so happens that blending all the other art forms is its current specialty.

EDIT: Man, I was thinking I would have the longest or second longest post, and I am trounced by two others on the same page.

Citizen Philip

12-01-2005, 03:47 PM

I don't need to prove games aren't art. You need to prove games are art. Though, for the record, I have presented my argument against that more than once in this thread. Look for it yourself, I don't feel like repeating.

You have made an argument as to why you don't think it can be art, are you an authority on the subject, or stating your opinion? You can, be all means, continue claiming it does not meet your critera for art. Gamers have had and continue to have insightul experiences provoked by games, akin to traditional artworks: whether through story, ambience, environment, sound or interaction.

Video Games current intent is to place you into a world, real or imagined, where you do stuff. It's a device, or tool, no different from a hammer or a guitar. A simulartor. A means to an end (being escapism/immersion/role-playing in the basic sense of the word).

And a painting is what? A tool to provoke you to thing about a particular subject, but the painting itself is the tool and my thoughts are the art?

As I also said before, there are games which do manage to approach art or arguably even be art, but in doing so they have difficulty in accomplishing themselves as actual games. Killer7 has been mentioned as a game which really comes off as Art. But it is terrible as a game. This is no coincidence. The more structured/intentful a game is, the more restrictive/linear its elements become.

In your experience, you have not encountered a game you think is art: your agreeing it's possible, but you have not a had a first hand encounter with any title that has a meaning to you. Others have said, they met through their own experience, art. Because you have not, they are wrong?

As for the the comparison between a game and a gallery, it's apt in the sense that it is certainly possible for a game to contain art. But for a game to actually be art, it cannot merely contain art. The form/function of the game itself must be art. Quite difficult when the aesthetics of gameplay go in the complete opposite direction.

I'm trying to understand your thoughts here: a game and a gallery have a similar value to artworks: they are in essence, a method of displaying pieces. Different galleries go to different extremes when displaying art, sometimes changing the viewing area from exhibit to exhibit: most of the changing involves the use of negative space, lighting, occlusions and colour. Can it not be safe to say that a game is a self-contained gallery that uses story, plot, levels, etc. to change the mood and experiences of the viewer as they progress from moment to moment/piece to piece?

Assuming whatever you created was actually art, your medium would be the graphics engine, not the game. The game is object-oriented. Move here, go here, kill this, buy that. What you are manipulating is the environment generated by the engine/toolset. That is not the game itself.

Your statement is(?): A game is about moving, killing and buying, not about making art: because you are not "making art" moving, killing and buying cannot be associated or involved with the process of making art? An interactive piece, limited by the design, programming and player avatar: no matter how you interact with the piece the events unfold as it was designed (i.e. you a reminded that dying is not acceptable, killing that guy is wrong, etc).

Would not keeping your scultping tools clean and well-repaired, replacing brushes and mixing your paint, stretching your canvas a burden in the process of art that the viewer is usually excluded from: but as the medium of an interactive work you both enjoy the excitment and tedium of it's creation, by performing these mundance but nesscary tasks? You can always cheat, but that ruins the experience, doesn't it?

Skipping ahead a bit. No, it's not art. Your metaphor fell apart quite a bit, but had you sustained it, it still would not have been video game art, because you would have ceased to be discussing a video game. That you even mention the term "cut scene" makes your argument more problematic, because cut scenes are non-interactive enough that they tend to be outside of the experience of playing the game. If all the art in the game is the end result, i.e. the cut scene, and that is what the Art is, then the cut scene is the art, not the game. But we already know 3-d animation is art. It's almost art by default.

A cut-scene is a valid part of game experience, as 2 works are required for a diptych installment, or paint in a painting. A cut-scene is not interactive, and neither is any other work of traditional art: like traditional art the background behind the piece is what makes it relevent, not just the craftmanship of the work itself. We can all appreciate the ending of Fallout from an artistc point: it is rendered nicely, the animation is good; as the character walks to out to the desert: but its the game that makes the moment emotional, its the experiences, the motivations that make that final scene both beautiful and tragic: its because of the game we know that this is a hero cast out into the wastes by her/his master, we have lived through all their trials and tribulations.

That quote sounds wildly out of context. A paintbrush or a canvas or oil is not inherently art.

Indeed that is true, those tools you mentioned can be used to create art: as the character, the music, design, the story, the artwork, the cutscenes can make art too.

Xerxes

12-01-2005, 03:58 PM

In WoW, when i come to the huge statues. Is my observations of them in vain? Walking upon Ironforge. Is that not a beauty to foresee?

nonchalance

12-01-2005, 04:53 PM

If the primary purpose of something is to be art, then it is art.
Art is for art's sake, it's an expression of the soul of the artist.

I come at this from the position of someone who, some would say, creates art every day. I'm a graphic designer, I do some writing, and none of that work is art.
It's craft. When I create a great poster, or brochure, or whatever, they're not art. It doesn't come from the soul, it doesn't mean shit.
The best of them are effective, they make people want things or feel things, but they're not art, because they don't come from the soul. They're made to serve a purpose that is not art. They sell something, they try to convince people of something, they communicate something, but they're not art.

(and neither is a lot of music, films, novels or plays. That's not the poitn)

I expressed this poorly earlier, but art must have meaning.

I don't think anyone, other than Ebert, is arguing that interactive media (or games) cannot be art. Just that nobody's done it well yet.

Lint of Death

12-01-2005, 05:31 PM

I don't think anyone, other than Ebert, is arguing that interactive media (or games) cannot be art. Just that nobody's done it well yet.

Two things.

One: Ebert technically did not say that games are not art, but instead inherently inferior art when compared to other, more prevalent forms.

Two: While perhaps you have not played Psychonauts, as even a lot of gamers haven't, I would suggest that this game is a fine example of art and is remarkably well done art at that. I have given some of my reasons in a post on the previous page. If you have played (nay, experienced ;) ) Psychonauts, could you please explain why you feel it is not well done art (or not well done at all)? If you are unable to discuss this particular game, I might be able to think of another, but, to be frank, I've spent most of my time thinking about arguments to support that one.

nonchalance

12-01-2005, 05:48 PM

One: Ebert technically did not say that games are not art, but instead inherently inferior art when compared to other, more prevalent forms.

He said that art requires authorial control and that interactivity more or less cancelled art - or at least that's how I read it.
Either way, I think that's bullshit.

Two: While perhaps you have not played Psychonauts, as even a lot of gamers haven't, I would suggest that this game is a fine example of art and is remarkably well done art at that.

I haven't played it. Sorry.
But just because a game is particularly well done, innovative, pretty, bugless and interesting doesn't make it art. It makes ia very good game. Planescape: Torment has within it an exploration of identity and self - but that's a sideline to it's essential nature - it is, first and foremost, a test of intelligence and tactical thinking.
Is Psychonauts is a platform/shooter, yeah? Is it first a platformer/shooter, or is it first an exploration into the nature of reality?

Lint of Death

12-01-2005, 06:53 PM

This may sound strange, but, at least with Psychonauts, the answer is both. To continue what I mentioned earlier about the importance of the player as an actor, there is one major difference that also merges the player with some qualities of an audience member who is invited to participate. While it is clear that you do have a role to play, like an actor, you do not know where it will take you, like a participant from the audience. Other differences are the lack of serious consequences if you fail, and that what you imagine your character to be doing (as displayed on the screen) differs from what you are doing, even if many of the playable character's actions are governed by you.

For this discussion, I assume live theatre to be an art form. The individual actor, from his perspective, might not see art, but he is certainly a participant in a larger event that, when experienced from the perspective of an audience member, is art. This is a place where games make themselves unique. In a weird way, you get both perspectives: that of the actor and of the passive audience member.

As for Psychonauts in specific: you definately need to input commands in order to progress, hence the game aspect. However, if you were able to simply watch as the game was played through, you do not really see themes, continuity, or characters break down if you do something that does not "advance" the game, such as falling off a cliff or leaving someone's mind; I explained this in my original post. The only place where this might not be the case is if you "fail" and must retry a certain event towards the end that I will not spoil. I do not see this participation as an inhibitor to Psychonauts's message and other, more traditional, artistic elements for the reasons explained above.

As for the "reality exploration" element that you mentioned, I feel that it is equally important. Each mind is incredibly unique and provides numerous creative ways of expressing this through visuals and metaphor. I explained to nowhere near the full extent of the loony, surreal, brain of Boyd in a previous post, but I'll use another environment as an example this time.

Fred Bonaparte is one of the other crazies locked up in the Asylum. Before he went nuts, he used to play a certain hex game with one of the inmates. Fred played countless games and never won. Because of this, he apparently gained a very silly version of the Napolean complex. Fred's mind and body become slaves to an alternate personality, who is convinced he is Napolean; The Napolean personality explains to Raz that he took over because Fred was always a loser and, that Fred could never regain control until he could prove he possessed any semblence of confidence (and competence) to do so. In Fred's mind, you help Fred play that same hex game (which, in itself, serves a a great parody of actual hex games) against his alter ego.

As you can see, much of Psychonauts revolves around what goes on in people's minds with a heavy dose of metaphor, comedy, and, as is the staple of many brilliant stories, opportunities for you to discern your own meanings and interpretations that are hidden underneath the more obvious messages (There is an overarching story that is similarly deep, too). I do not work with Double Fine and few people really analyze games like Ebert does for film, so I do not know of any underlying meanings that are supposed to be there. However, that definately does not mean that they are not present. Like my incomplete interpretation of Boyd's "episode," there is plenty more to be found in Psychonauts and playing a role in it does not detract from the artistic value.

Unless you get stuck on a hard part, in which case I really can't help you there :) . I would say that even that cannot really detract from its artistic value. That sort of issue might be comparable to failing to finish the first page of Finnegans Wake; that does not really diminish its artistic value (or when classical music requires an insane amount of education in the field to "understand" or even, if you're really awesome, enjoy; then again this might just be what snobs tell me)

Balthasar

12-01-2005, 06:57 PM

You have made an argument as to why you don't think it can be art, are you an authority on the subject, or stating your opinion? You can, be all means, continue claiming it does not meet your critera for art. Gamers have had and continue to have insightul experiences provoked by games, akin to traditional artworks: whether through story, ambience, environment, sound or interaction.

That's a fallacious argument, in the first place. Making a valid argument is not contingent on authority/status, it is based on knowledge/logic. I'm a college educated writer, but I don't see how that changes anything I've said. I have been very exposed to art (and practice a form of it), but my arguments are either valid or they aren't. Thus far, I've yet to see anyone refute them without resorting to contradiction.

Anyway, the criteria I put forth (which is hardly stringent) is not simply my criteria for art; it is founded on the basic definition of art and what runs throughout anything that is legitimately considered art. Art always has meaning (of course, that meaning is not always clear). Insightful experience has nothing to do with art. Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil and Freud's The Interpretation of Dreams and Beyond the Pleasure Principle are extremely insightful (as was my AP U.S. History textbook), but none of these are Art.

And a painting is what? A tool to provoke you to thing about a particular subject, but the painting itself is the tool and my thoughts are the art?

A painting is not a tool. Paintings are art when they present meaning beyond what is immediately present. That is, is that painting of a stream just a painting of a stream, or does it mean something more? How it is interpreted is going to be based on multiple factors, such as lighting, shape, brushstrokes (hard, soft, sharp, etc), angle, and so on. My point is, there is more to the painting than what it blatantly displays. Can we say the same about most video games? Do they strive, on a visual level, to be more than what we can see? No. The direction of the industry has been to be more representative and more realistic. It's not interpretation, it's emulation.

In your experience, you have not encountered a game you think is art: your agreeing it's possible, but you have not a had a first hand encounter with any title that has a meaning to you. Others have said, they met through their own experience, art. Because you have not, they are wrong?

I never said that. In fact, if you had been following the whole thread (which is probably hard at this point), you would know that I use Ico as an example of a game which manages to approach or even be art. But I think it is art because of its context--that is, in juxtuposing it to videogames of this era, it is so starkly different in its minimalism to be suggestive of a message beyond the immediate gameplay. Its almost a commentary on the industry. I have heard (but not confirmed) that Shadow of the Colossus has a similar effect. Do you see the distinction I am making?

Can it not be safe to say that a game is a self-contained gallery that uses story, plot, levels, etc. to change the mood and experiences of the viewer as they progress from moment to moment/piece to piece?

Sure, but I don't think that makes it art. What was Eidos trying to say when, in the first Laura Croft, they designed all those wolves to come at you in the cavern?

Shoot. Nothing more, nothing less. It's time to shoot.

Your statement is(?): A game is about moving, killing and buying, not about making art: because you are not "making art" moving, killing and buying cannot be associated or involved with the process of making art? An interactive piece, limited by the design, programming and player avatar: no matter how you interact with the piece the events unfold as it was designed (i.e. you a reminded that dying is not acceptable, killing that guy is wrong, etc).

I never said murder or commerce or action cannot be associated with the process of making art? Furthermore, let's not pretend 99% of games are even vague morality plays. In fact, a majority of games encourage violence, from the most simple (space invaders, mario bros) to the most complex (any fps, rpg).

...but as the medium of an interactive work you both enjoy the excitment and tedium of it's creation, by performing these mundance but nesscary tasks? You can always cheat, but that ruins the experience, doesn't it?

I don't really know what you are trying to say in relation to the comment of mine you quoted.

A cut-scene is a valid part of game experience, as 2 works are required for a diptych installment, or paint in a painting. A cut-scene is not interactive, and neither is any other work of traditional art: like traditional art the background behind the piece is what makes it relevent, not just the craftmanship of the work itself.

A few things here: I love cut scenes, which may be related to my enjoyment of all three Metal Gear Solid games and the Final Fantasy franchise, but the idea that cut scenes are valid and even necessary is highly questionable, if not disputed not only by gamers but by makers of games themselves. When you're putting your controller down, sitting back, and watching game footage, you are not playing a game. Cut scenes are interruptions of gameplay, as anathema to the experience (some might argue) as commercials to a television show. I'm not saying cut scenes are analagus to commercials (or I wouldn't love them), but they stand apart from what a game actually is. It reminds you that you are player 1, not Sora or Solid Snake. That litterature or cinema is non-interactive is besides the point, because they are different media and have different goals. The goals of videogames, presently, are just at odds with art.

Lint of Death

12-01-2005, 07:00 PM

I might add that the medium's ability to make references to other works (whether book, movie, game, or otherwise) or cultural/historical/personal stuff, whether the form of the reference is parody or some other element necessary to understanding the game's "message," is a quality that helps ensure that it is at least no worse than any other art form. A lot of people already thought of this, I'm sure, but it hasn't been brought up and I felt that it was one of the essential qualities of any art form, if not necessarily for an individual product of that form.

Citizen Philip

12-01-2005, 07:00 PM

He said that art requires authorial control and that interactivity more or less cancelled art - or at least that's how I read it.
Either way, I think that's bullshit.

I think Ebert's lack of experience is limiting his ability to understand this concept in games, personally. You maybe able to "interact" in a game, but your interactions are always limited by the game, and you are limited by authorial control. For example, there is no wrong place to look at a painting, or exact locations to view a sculpture: there are places you are expected to view it from, and less than ideal places: but it doesn't mean you can't appreciate it.

I haven't played it. Sorry.
But just because a game is particularly well done, innovative, pretty, bugless and interesting doesn't make it art. It makes ia very good game. Planescape: Torment has within it an exploration of identity and self - but that's a sideline to it's essential nature - it is, first and foremost, a test of intelligence and tactical thinking.
Is Psychonauts is a platform/shooter, yeah? Is it first a platformer/shooter, or is it first an exploration into the nature of reality?

Because a game is well done, innovative, pretty and bugless could mean it's art as well, as making a well done, innovative, pretty and bugless game is apparently a monumental undertaking for a game ;) No game is particuarlly hard, unless you alter the difficulty or have no experience playing a game: genre's of games all have their nuance to play them. I'm not saying sometimes you aren't sure what you are suppose to do and are wandering, or parts of it are tedious, or are hard to get by.

The beauty of some works of art require you to acquire a lexicon, or a context in which to understand the work, namely: why was it created, how was it created, what was the original context/new context of the piece, etc? In some cases you don't need the lexicon because it's so seemless with the culture, their is no seperation or context needed. Learning how to play a game is akin to learning it's lexicon.

I like using the mouse and keyboard for an example: Ask an FPS gamer to use his M&KB in free-look mode to emulate a camera or plane: it can be done almost flawlessly and look very good. Ask a person who doesn't play FPS or games in general and ask them to do the same thing in free-look mode: not pretty. If appreciating a created landscape was augmented by your ability to move through the terrain/environment, whether or not you walk into walls, know how to operate objects could severely impact your opinion.

Lint of Death

12-01-2005, 07:21 PM

Do [video games] strive, on a visual level, to be more than what we can see? No.

While I do not have the time to fully debate all the points you have contributed to your dialogue, I felt I just had to submit that the above, quoted statement is completely wrong. Psychonauts is an excellent example as proof to support my claim.

Alright, I'm in the mood and I'll supply another counterpoint: though you may perceive the majority of the "industry" to be heading towards "emulation" and "realism," how does that support your claim that games are not art? If we consider Europe for a very long period of time that ended around when the 20th century began, for example, art was generally intended to be an imitation of life. The vast majority of works strove to make realistic images with paint, and the artists kept getting better and better at it. Often times they would paint people or landscapes, and many artists still do today. This does not necessarily present an image that strives to be more than what we can see; does that prevent it from being art?

Of course, there is the slightest possibility you wished me to read the statement I quoted literally. If that is the case, then your comment is exceedingly ridiculous. Nearly every artwork of any form (music aside) strives, on a visual level, to be more than what we see. We see a large number of still images that flicker past and work in tandem with a shutter to create a presentation that we perceive as the fluid movement of a two-dimensional display on a screen; is that all a movie strives to have us perceive? Definately not. It wants us to envision a car blowing up or something else that we can relate to reality.

Xerxes

12-01-2005, 07:29 PM

If games aren't art, how are movies any better?

Lint of Death

12-01-2005, 07:48 PM

The beauty of some works of art require you to acquire a lexicon, or a context in which to understand the work, namely: why was it created, how was it created, what was the original context/new context of the piece, etc? In some cases you don't need the lexicon because it's so seemless with the culture, their is no seperation or context needed. Learning how to play a game is akin to learning it's lexicon.

I like using the mouse and keyboard for an example...

This adds to some points I mentioned earlier and brings up some great ones, too. I mentioned earlier, though Citizen Philip explains it much more thuroughly, that references are one of the keys to an art form. It seems almost a paradox, then, that new art forms can take shape. Really, more for the fun of it, I'll give a "nerdy" example of how context is one of the main components of an art form.

Let's use the soundtrack for Star Wars Episode III. Of course the music has a style that is supposed to both affect the emotions of the audience and maintain "continuity" with music from other Star Wars films, but the extent to which it stresses this continuity is what helps give it depth that goes far beyond the nice sound. There are, too, some blatant examples of this, such as mixing in the Empire theme, and there are the more incredible and important ones that are very subtle. Sometimes they use only a couple notes (or just one!), but with them they can reference the music that is commonly associated with an event in another movie (one example is the very last note of the track called Anakin vs. Obi-wan. With just one note they can hint that viewers might want to relate that duel to the one between Qui-Gon and Darth Maul). Maybe these references have even deeper meanings, but, again, I am no expert in the matter.

How does this relate to games? I'll admit this whole bit might be straying from Ebert's original point, but I feel that the ability to include references like these truly adds to the artistic merit of an art form. It is not a completely necessary component for an individual work, but an art form is not an art form without it. As I feel that games are truly an art form, this can only assert that belief.

I could talk in depth about how simulation itself is a form of reference that is crucial to an something being an art form, but that's a whole nother essay ;)

Lint of Death

12-01-2005, 07:55 PM

If games aren't art, how are movies any better?

I think the only real argument for why games are inherently less "art" than movies is the one presented by Ebert himself. While I feel that I have adequately countered Ebert's reason, there are about 19 pages of forum debate now that discuss both sides of the argument and I'm not really able to argue for Ebert's position. Read up, buddy ;)

EDIT: Okay, Xerxes, I know you've been following the whole thing; I just found it silly that you asked the question that sparked the whole debate so far into the discussion. I thought Ebert explained his reasoning, though, that the sort of audience involvement is what makes it incapable of reaching the heights of an art form like film.

Xerxes

12-01-2005, 08:00 PM

Ebert doesn't say and nobody gave no perfect example of why movies are that much better. You may have over looked my posts but I been on this thread damn near the whole way. :-P

Balthasar

12-01-2005, 08:03 PM

While I do not have the time to fully debate all the points you have contributed to your dialogue, I felt I just had to submit that the above, quoted statement is completely wrong. Psychonauts is an excellent example as proof to support my claim.

I have yet to see how Psychonauts is about anything more than what it presents itself to be. If you notice, I have avoided talking about narrative entirely in games because, quite frankly, story-telling is not a video game's strong point. As much as I love Final Fantasy 7 and Xenogears, that stuff would make a terrible read. Video games are not what they are because they can tell great stories. I don't think video games that rise to the level of art need to be great storytellers either (though it would certainly be nice).

Alright, I'm in the mood and I'll supply another counterpoint: though you may perceive the majority of the "industry" to be heading towards "emulation" and "realism," how does that support your claim that games are not art? If we consider Europe for a very long period of time that ended around when the 20th century began, for example, art was generally intended to be an imitation of life.

Not very long at all, actually. Romanticism lasted around one century, from the late 1700's to the late 1800's. Unless you mean Neoclassism, which was far more rigid and lasted a much shorter period of time than Romanticism. I can't really think of any period of art where the primary goal was to "look realistic." To "find Truth," maybe (Truth in the philosophical sense), but even the idea of Truth is pretty advanced for a video game. Are we talking about the Rennaisance? That was definitely not about "realism." Much of it was about the ecstatic glory of Divinity. Perhaps you can be more specific?

Of course, there is the slightest possibility you wished me to read the statement I quoted literally.

Zero possibility.

Lint of Death

12-01-2005, 08:57 PM

I have yet to see how Psychonauts is about anything more than what it presents itself to be.

Well, to be frank, if you look a couple pages back I gave some in depth stuff about how Psychonauts is certainly more than what it presents itself to be. Lack of familiarty with the material might make it a little harder for you to understand or appreciate my points, but I think I explained myself well enough.

If you notice, I have avoided talking about narrative entirely in games because, quite frankly, story-telling is not a video game's strong point.

While a video game certainly doesn't need to provide a narrative or story of its own in the traditional sense (you can still derive your own story based on what happens in the game), I think it would be more correct to say that story-telling is not a unique element of a video game. Like I said in my first post a few pages back, one of the great things about games as an artistic medium is that you can have just about any degree of any other art form mixed in. For example, if you wanted to emphasize the more theater-like qualities, you can increase the number of "actors" via co-op or other multiplayer; or you can effectively trap the player character and force the player to simply witness scripted events in order to emphasize more movie-like qualities.

As much as I love Final Fantasy 7 and Xenogears, that stuff would make a terrible read.

I might just be going after a point that need not be attacked (I think I understand what you mean), but translating the product of one art form into another often does not work out, and it does not have to. There are certainly movies that require the medium to have brilliance (if you just look at the script the movie is based on, it might even be terrible). The Star Wars prequels, for example, I felt had a great framework for a story (the bare essentials of the plot, I mean), even if the dialogue that carried it was often poor.

Not very long at all, actually. Romanticism lasted around one century, from the late 1700's to the late 1800's. Unless you mean Neoclassism, which was far more rigid and lasted ... Perhaps you can be more specific?

Sorry about being so inaccurate about the time period. The point I was trying to get across was that games that prefer "realistic" appearences and game mechanics aren't any worse from an artistic standpoint. A game simply cannot be objective because it cannot display or represent everything; the decision of what to mirror, even if the mirror is a perfect mimic, demonstrates an act of selection. Clearly, there is significance in what is chosen, much like one might say the only photograph that is not art is the one with a lens cap on. (Some people might say that even that would be art, which is a possibility. If the sensory level or literal content of a piece cannot stand on their own, it's the context that makes them art.)

Zero possibility.

Okay.

______________________________________
There is another point worth pondering that ties in with some of my statements. In Childhood's End, a sci-fi novel by Arthur C. Clarke, it is suggested that the final, perfect art form is one that takes advantage of your senses so, for example, you can really feel what it is like to be a dandelion in a grassy field with a warm summer breeze. Maybe such an ultimate device could emulate the feeling of death. This idea for a final art form sounds like a smart and perhaps correct prediction, and it would seem that games are a step in that direction with their characteristic quality of personal immersion and involvement.

Citizen Philip

12-01-2005, 08:58 PM

That's a ... The goals of videogames, presently, are just at odds with art.

I see no point in trying to convince someone who has no interest in allowing the idea of games as a valid form of art; I will only comment on my personal experience, and I will leave it at that.

I spent 6 years in total in an academic and professional (but not commerical) art environment. The specifics are immaterial. Modern art is generally made in two ways: traditional and commerical. Commerical art is created for a purpose, usually to sell something. Traditional art is made to say something, but cannot or is not capable of being sold, sometimes.

Either form, qualifies as art. Some modern traditional art is absolute shit and has no place to be sold as art, and some commerical art is beautiful and should be treasured.

The term art has expanded geometrically since the founding of the post-modern movement: I would say to the point that the mere word "art" has taken an almost surreal ability to absorb any and all, given a context in which to apply it.

Attempting to give a stock value and base-line critera for what can and cannot be art today is something best left for the future generation.

However, PM me your info. I will contact you personally when I walk into a gallery and see a game sitting there, I will tell you "I told you so."

For the record, if you consider the Academy Awards for Film, the equvilent cultural requirement for something to be considered art, let me know. I exclude the Academy, myself; as the modern population doesn't care what the art world of Picasso's time had to say him.

Balthasar

12-01-2005, 09:52 PM

I see no point in trying to convince someone who has no interest in allowing the idea of games as a valid form of art; I will only comment on my personal experience, and I will leave it at that.

It is not up to me to make video games be art. They are what they are.

I spent 6 years in total in an academic and professional (but not commerical) art environment. The specifics are immaterial.

That you spent any time in an art environment are equally immaterial. Either you can argue your point or you can't.

Modern art is generally made in two ways: traditional and commerical. Commerical art is created for a purpose, usually to sell something. Traditional art is made to say something, but cannot or is not capable of being sold, sometimes. Either form, qualifies as art.

I agree. Except that I think commercial art is able to sell by embracing some of the simpler values of "traditional" art because of its requirement to say a lot at just a glance. A billboard for perfume cannot be a paragraph explaining why you need to get that new fragrance. It must convey all the emotions that would lead to buying it in the time it takes for you to drive by. It's "low" art, but it is still art. I don't see this being related to video games, though.

For the record, if you consider the Academy Awards for Film, the equvilent cultural requirement for something to be considered art, let me know.

I think the Oscars are important but I have never felt it even attempted to dictate to the field what movies produced for that year should be considered Art. The award ceremony is, firstly, dominated by big studios, who are not always interested in selling art as they are in making a boatload of cash; secondly, not all art is entertaining, and sometimes it is not even enjoyable, so I would not expect the Oscars to recognize all of those films. You'll likely never see a film like Irreversable win a statue. The Oscars, to me, usually represent a middle ground between what is entertaining and what has artistic value.

Oh, a comment on your video-game-in-a-gallery comment: much like when Warhol put the toilet bowl in a gallery, taking a video game out of its context and into a gallery is, intentionally or not, attaching a message to it. The video game less so than a toilet bowl, because a toilet bowl in the middle of a gallery is obscenely out of place. I'm not sure what it says to stick a video game in an art gallery, though. Perhaps nothing, in which case even with the intent to create art, on its own it would still not be art. I have said this before, but I guess it bears repeating: I think there have been instances of art in games in part or in whole (I am talking about gameplay here, not cutscenes). I thought the sequence in MGS 2 where Raiden is in Metal Gear Arsenal and the game starts going wonky and becomes aware of it being a game was, for a game, extemely original and creative. No surprise a lot of gamers, even MGS fans, hated that entire sequence (why is Raiden naked???? He's so gayyyyyyyy, this doesn't make sense, this is too unrealistic, etc). And I've mentioned Ico as a game I think could probably be considered art. But these games (or sequences) do not represent the medium at all and are probably a small enough minority to be counted on one hand.

Citizen Philip

12-01-2005, 10:38 PM

It is not up to me to make video games be art. They are what they are.

That you spent any time in an art environment are equally immaterial. Either you can argue your point or you can't.

I've validated my point, you don't agree. We agree to disagree as your argument is not convincing either.

I agree. Except that I think commercial art is able to sell by embracing some of the simpler values of "traditional" art because of its requirement to say a lot at just a glance. A billboard for perfume cannot be a paragraph explaining why you need to get that new fragrance. It must convey all the emotions that would lead to buying it in the time it takes for you to drive by. It's "low" art, but it is still art. I don't see this being related to video games, though.

I believe the point is, is something commerical or traditional art? A billboard is created to sell something, but the art itself can have value long after it's intended commerical value has ceased to exsist, as traditional art can likewise to be used commerically, long after its original message has become obscure. As my statement includes games as a a valid art medium, I would count it as a form of commerical art, as you do not consider it to be so, I understand why you don't see it being a related subject.

Oh, a comment on your video-game-in-a-gallery comment: much like when Warhol put the toilet bowl in a gallery, taking a video game out of its context and into a gallery is, intentionally or not, attaching a message to it. The video game less so than a toilet bowl, because a toilet bowl in the middle of a gallery is obscenely out of place. I'm not sure what it says to stick a video game in an art gallery, though. Perhaps nothing, in which case even with the intent to create art, on its own it would still not be art. I have said this before, but I guess it bears repeating: I think there have been instances of art in games in part or in whole (I am talking about gameplay here, not cutscenes). I thought the sequence in MGS 2 where Raiden is in Metal Gear Arsenal and the game starts going wonky and becomes aware of it being a game was, for a game, extemely original and creative. No surprise a lot of gamers, even MGS fans, hated that entire sequence (why is Raiden naked???? He's so gayyyyyyyy, this doesn't make sense, this is too unrealistic, etc). And I've mentioned Ico as a game I think could probably be considered art. But these games (or sequences) do not represent the medium at all and are probably a small enough minority to be counted on one hand.

Indeed, perhaps a computer(s) with a game setup in an art gallery would be a mockery of art: as it would be totally obtuse and out of place, and doing so would attach a message to it, intended or otherwise. I'm glad you've had the chance to experience art in games, part or whole, as it means you are at willing to enjoy, more artful titles as they are released in the future: I myself might go and pickup Psychonauts on a console. I would point out, my original thought was that a computer game and its required articles (a computer) are themselves the gallery, the medium and the art, where you plug it in would be unimportant as long as it where you plug it in is not disruptive to the experience. (sidebar: playing Doom at night, alone, with the volume up was terrifying when it first came out. end sidebar)

Those few precious games that don't represent the medium and instead represent something greater are the important ones. They are the gems to be remembered, acknowledged and held high to demonstrate what games can be, cutscenes or no cutscenes.

I wish the bar was reached more often, but don't we all. Like all art, you'll like and accept some forms of it, but not all of it. I am likewise not a judge of what future audiences will consider art, I am however confident a new art has emerged and is in it's infancy.

I consider Fallout and Planescape Torment to be great works. I truly enjoy the entire Alpha Centauri experience, the characters and their ideologies, the stories weaved into the technology and the cutscenes: Santiago being my favorite character and the Hunter-Seeker Algorithim to be the best cutscene.

Don't agree? Okay.

fitbabits

12-02-2005, 01:37 PM

As a final footnote to this debate, I offer you the following, courtesy of Gamasutra (http://www.gamasutra.com)'s 'Creating Modular Game Art For Fast Level Design' (http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=7380) feature:

Today's main Gamasutra feature, written by a long-time artist and FPS level-designer, explains how to speed video game level creation by creating modular art assets for building fast, clean, and easy large 3D environments.

As author Paul Mader explains in his introduction to the article:

"Most artists know how to make art look good, while staying within limits of texture size and polygon count but it is also important to make it easy to use, modular, and seamless. The key to achieve this, and empower the level designers to make the best game possible, is through use of the grid and pivot points."
The highlighting was done by me to show how people who create games view themselves. Kameo's vistas are art, as are Mario 64's locations. Art design is crucial in games, so does that not make them art in and of itself?

Balthasar

12-02-2005, 02:16 PM

Art design is crucial in games, so does that not make them art in and of itself?

No. The game is not the art. What happens to a movie when I add a sound score to it? Does it become a symphony?

Xerxes

12-02-2005, 03:50 PM

Movies aren't art.

Nuggsy

12-02-2005, 09:16 PM

Movies aren't art.

That qualifies you as having very little experience with cinema.

I would challenge you to watch anything by Stan Brakhage, Maya Deren, Norman McLaren, or anything, for that matter, from the avant garde or that is considered experimental film and tell me that you don't consider it art.

Do you consider dance art? Have you ever seen a dance for the camera?

Have you ever considered that editing is an art? That it's the juxtaposition of the images that imparts most or all of the meaning within a cinematic work? Are comic books art? They're just juxtaposed static images that may or may not convey motion or affect, right? Is a movie the same thing?

I can't remember if you mentioned that you liked reading or not but, if you do, I've got plenty of suggestions for you that might change your opinion.

Xerxes

12-02-2005, 09:42 PM

That qualifies you as having very little experience with cinema.

I would challenge you to watch anything by Stan Brakhage, Maya Deren, Norman McLaren, or anything, for that matter, from the avant garde or that is considered experimental film and tell me that you don't consider it art.

Do you consider dance art? Have you ever seen a dance for the camera?

Have you ever considered that editing is an art? That it's the juxtaposition of the images that imparts most or all of the meaning within a cinematic work? Are comic books art? They're just juxtaposed static images that may or may not convey motion or affect, right? Is a movie the same thing?

I can't remember if you mentioned that you liked reading or not but, if you do, I've got plenty of suggestions for you that might change your opinion.

:(
Maybe I need to sing peanut butter jelly to myself and leave for good.

Movies aren't art, was a straight forward bold yet baseless statement. It's like if games can't be art cause we enjoy them then it's like am I not to enjoy movies. I mean not all movies can be considered art can it? Can't programming something be art? Couldn't the labor of the construction be art? No? Because it's only a game and nothing more? If it ain't art and can't be art is it just games and they will never ever be anything more than a point of entertainment? Since you can over analyze damn near anything can't anything be art? Can't we say that some games do qualify as art just not the human proclaimed masterpieces that you guys try to keep naming?