Topic: Video games can never be art

Personally, I don't care. I play games to have fun for the most part. I think there are games that have artistic merit (Bit.Trip Beat and World of Goo come to mind; the latter in particular). Some of the trends in gaming are heading in the direction of interactive/performance art, as the game changes based on the decisions made by the player. Some games also force you to do things that are against your moral code. When I played God of War: Chains of Olympus, I was very uncomfortable with a lot of the things I had to do toward the end, from killing the people in chains to restore health to killing the innocents to do what Kratos had to do rather than what he wanted to do. There was some emotional stuff in there, and that's not half of what videogames can do and have done.

So I guess videogames can at least use other artistic media such as music and film (cut scenes) combined with interaction to create art. Personally, I'd rather play a game to have fun than get immersed in a story, but there is merit to both types of games.

Stupid article for a pointless debate.

One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome. Santiago might cite a immersive game without points or rules, but I would say then it ceases to be a game and becomes a representation of a story, a novel, a play, dance, a film. Those are things you cannot win; you can only experience them.

On the one hand, he seems to argue using art as a definition, art as a type of thing.

She quotes Robert McKee's definition of good writing as "being motivated by a desire to touch the audience." This is not a useful definition, because a great deal of bad writing is also motivated by the same desire. I might argue that the novels of Cormac McCarthy are so motivated, and Nicholas Sparks would argue that his novels are so motivated. But when I say McCarthy is "better" than Sparks and that his novels are artworks, that is a subjective judgment, made on the basis of my taste (which I would argue is better than the taste of anyone who prefers Sparks).

On the other hand, he tries to argue using art as a qualifier, art as a degree of quality of a thing.

Well, which is it? If we can't even settle what art means, there isn't a central argument.

Not only this, but he hasn't even played the games he picks apart. He mentions Braid and Flower and writes them off without having played them, made obvious by asking such simplistic questions about the games which would be made obvious the moment you begin to play. He's clearly a movie critic if he thinks he can just watch a game and know all there is to know about it. Newsflash: the defining characteristic of games is that you play them.

Then there's the old comparison he comes back to: "No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets." Sure there have been people in and out of the field to make such citations. If your head wasn't in the clouds, you'd realize this. But no, he has established himself as judge and jury, so he, in the great wisdom he has attained from not playing the games he has put on trial, has deemed all games not worthy of comparison, thus overruling all such citations in order for his foolish blanket statement to work. Well, bravo. I highly doubt most would agree with his elitist assumptions about who are the "great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets" (good job counting poets twice -- perhaps he intended it as internal exact rhyme to highlight what a great professional writer he is), just as he disagrees with popular opinions on the quality of video games.

You'd think a professional critic would understand the basics of argument slightly better than this.

As for my personal opinion, who cares? I mean that both as in, who cares what my personal opinion is, and my personal opinion is "who cares?" When people debate whether games are art, it usually ends up being two disparate arguments over quality and definition. For those who consider art to be some sort of super quality work, that's completely pointless. You can't say someone is "wrong" like he says if they consider a work to be of an emotionally immersive and evocative quality.

As for the argument about games defined as an art form, rather than art as an indicator of quality, that's pointless, too. His comparison with sports only reinforces how utterly uninformed he is. Video games aren't sports and they aren't movies. Yes, they have rules to play by, winners and losers -- some similarities with sports and other games certainly are obvious. But they also can have literally everything a movie has (cinematics, narrative, dialog, soundtrack, etc. etc.) -- and more!

So clearly video games hang somewhere in the balance, and each game figures in its own place within that balance, some more cinematic than others, others more gamey than others. It is entirely impractical and pointless to lump in video games with either the arts or sports. What do we get out of this? Let it be a category unto itself but recognize that it is comprised of both game and art, but don't use "Video games aren't art" as a way of saying "Video games are of lesser quality than art." There is no ultimate authority on quality.

Overall I give this article two thumbs down because I resent the unabashed propagation of ignorance by respected writers.

Braid is such a beautiful video game, but its not something you can tell by just watching videos or seeing screens. The story really sucked me in, what there was of it. I'm kind of tempted to play threw it just to see the full ending, which I am usually not inclined to do with games. I'll never forget that last world... I don't call some "art" actual art (I do, I just don't see what is any good about it), but if someone can look at it, and call it perfection, beautiful, etc. It is art. Just like our loved ones (the non-related ones ), we call them beautiful (or whatever your word is) and sometimes you can really see the "art". Art is subjective, relative even; don't tell me what is or isn't art.

I've always respected Ebert as a movie critic. I love his reviews and I used to watch Siskel and Ebert religiously as a kid. But I think he is way off on his opinion of video games not being art, an opinion he has been defending for several years now. I really don't hold it against him either. He is from a different generation. He just doesn't "get it" so to speak. Oh well.

Those are not games, though. Those are snapshots of games, or a representation of the game's graphics, whatever it is you wish to show.

Ebert makes sense, and he's completely right in his statement that Santiago is mistaken. And isn't that just as well? I'm not playing video games to experience a work of art, and I doubt any of you are, either, so why get so annoying when someone points out they're NOT art? Just play fun games for their entertainment value.

It is art, because it takes artistically inclined person as much, as a technically inclined person to do make games, if people were to make videogames without paying attention to detail and having a love for art, games would just be a mess and wouldn't even make sense because lack of imagination in the writing of games that require scripts.

Oh yeah, Ebert is suffering from cancer, its no laughing matter but considering there might be a reason.

I remember back in highschool the book we used in art class considered video games art and more and more art universities all across the globe offer game-design classes.

Art is when someone creates something people can talk about and share opinions about. With sites like this, that certainly is the case for video games.

The writing by no means has any relation to a video game's art, but you are right. A video game scripter (codewise) can onlly be as good as the artist. But it simply comes down to what individuals call art. I myself call the Beat.Trip series art with the 8-bit trippyness and the accompanied music, but I also call Madworld art, with its post-modern art techniques.

At the same time, I like both digital and painted art, and I would think that those 4 mediums (Digital, psychical, video games & music) can all be put in a museum together.

The flower example was really telling. He mentioned it didn't have the points of a standard "game" (although, maybe it does, I haven't played it), such as scoring, winning and losing, etc. What he couldn't see was that that wasn't the POINT of said game. The game was designed to take the player on a journey with this flower. It's an extremely artistic way of expression.

Video games are different from regular games like chess, in the sense that they generally involve some sort of narrative, visual style, music, etc. Just like movies. Playing a board game is about interacting with other people within a set of rules. Playing a video game can have that aspect, but it also involves interacting with the game itself. Developers have specific emotions they want you to feel. Something like flower is probably more akin to higher art (a slow paced European film about nothing that's supposed to just make you feel some sort of emotion about life). Something like Mario...pop art for mass consumption, enjoyment, and fun.

What Adam said was spot on. You can't just watch a game and critique it; you need to play it yourself. Though he made some interesting points about the definition of art in and of itself, it seems like he's really just too afraid to dig deeper than a 15 minute conversation with some trailers, because maybe, just maybe, he might have to admit that he, like every other human at some point in their life, is wrong.

I completely agree with his opinion on how the speech falls apart. As for video games ever being "Art", I'm sure that won't happen either. Not only is "Art" the most debatable word in the history of the universe, comparing something like Super Mario Bros. to The Mona Lisa is completely useless. So let's say we come to the conclusion that video games are art. So what? Does it effect the world in any way? No, so what's the point?

Here's what I think
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Totally agree

Video games are pretty sometimes.

Clearly Ebert hasn't played Wind Waker or Shadow of Colossus.
(but really, that was a great article.)

Clearly he hasn't played Flower or Braid, the games he purports to critique -- or anything else for that matter, either.

Video games are art. If movies are art, then so are video games.

If movies, paintings, playwrites, and music, are forms of art, then so are videogames. Videogames can have beautiful imagery, touching stories, and captivating music. What sets videogames apart is that you can interact with the imagery, and be apart of the story.

Art's purpose has always been to draw you in. Now we have a medium that can do this better than ever before and it's become the foremost reason it's rejected as art. Art snobs are a funny bunch.

Yeah I think it's a pointless argument too, Adam. Although I do kind of get a sick satisfaction from posting something controversial and watching forum-goers vent about it. I'm glad I saw the article simply because there was a link to the "game" "Everyday the same dream" in the comments, which made me laugh. I don't care whether video games are recognized as art or not, but I would wager that anything that contains art is art.

Wow, that was great. The music made laugh, too. Pretty catchy.