Recently, Roger Ebert managed to annoy the entire Internet by proclaiming that video games were not now, and would never be, serious art. For those of you who missed this kerfluffle, this was about as popular as proclaiming that Hitler wasn’t that bad of a guy. The blog entry got thousands of comments, most of which amounted to “ARE TOO ARE TOO ARE TOO!”
And now Ebert has admitted he made a mistake. He does still happen to think that video games aren’t art and never will be art. But he thinks he was making a bit of an ass of himself by saying it like it was a definitive statement. After all, as Ebert himself admits, nobody can really know the future, and gaming may make a huge leap artistically.
Here’s the problem: I don’t think Ebert is entirely off-base.
When I’m not stunning women with my Gamma Squad credentials, I’m a graduate student and a filmmaker, and one thing that annoys me about modern gaming is the insistence on storytelling and being “cinematic”. Games are terrible about telling stories. They’re just no good at it. How many times have you had to do something flagrantly stupid in a video game solely to advance the plot? Doesn’t it annoy you, every single time?
Most people argue “Shadow of the Colossus” as great gaming art, but as far as a demonstration of gaming as a storytelling medium, the best game is definitely “Portal”. Why? Because you learn about the story at your own pace, discovering clues and listening to dialogue as you play, instead of being interrupted by cutscenes or required to do something idiotic.
Although I guess running at a turret counts as “idiotic”. But you get the point.
[ via Kotaku ]
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I think the best example of art in video games is Mario Paint.
Duh.
“Postal” and anything by Brett Ratner nullifies any argument one could make for films being valid art and games not.
Also, “graduate student and filmmaker” sounds gayer than “Farthammer”.
What is more artful than beating a prostitute after services were rendered?
Half Life 2. Point made.
I never thought Shadow of the Colossus was artful in it’s storytelling because frankly there isn’t much a progressive storyline. My feelings about Shadow of the Colossus was that it was art in the form of the visual images themselves. When you sit back and look at this tiny man standing in front of and willing to take down the behemoth of a creature for love it’s kinda moving.
Windwaker, anyone? Okami? Beautiful games, both.
I must say I agree with Ebert, to an extent, if only because of the fact that video games don’t employ real actors.
While this may improve with the new technologies coming out with Rockstar’s LA Noire, the main difference I see between movies and games is control.
Movies tug at your emotions due to the fact that you are not in control of the characters and actions on the screen, thus making the situations much more like real life and therefore much more relatable on an emotional level.
As for the storytelling aspect, this will only improve over time, just as it did in the early days of Hollywood…everyone is still figuring this shit out and we are still a good decade or two from the video game’s version of Citizen Kane.
On the other hand, I don’t think video games have ever, or will ever, try to emulate movies. It’s two separate mediums with two very different goals for the consumer. To say one is art, and the other isn’t, is like saying music is art but painting isn’t
I hardly see how video games can’t be perceived as art. Photography suffered the same judgment at one point. Now photography is one of the most common art forms we see today. This, if anything, is just a sign that Roger Ebert is getting old.
Planescape Torment.
What does storytelling have to do with being art?
I mean, I agree that too many games have you doing stupid shit just to advance the plot. But that’s always been a part of storytelling in any other medium as well. Movies and literature are filled with exceedingly dumb and inane moves that serve only to get the plot moving in some way.
But either way, I don’t think storytelling really should enter into the discussion. When you consider the definition of art, storytelling isn’t at all a requisite element. It’s pretty ancillary.
Now, excuse me while I go flog myself for making a serious comment on an uproxx article.
Movies have been being made for 100 years now and it still hasn’t been perfected…video games less than half, they will eventually evolve and get better. The marriage of great effects with a great story is not easy in games or movies or on TV. Every game doesn’t rock…every game doesn’t suck…same for movies. It’ still an art form and a way of expression for some either way, good or bad.
Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 have better story telling, acting, and cinematography than most every film I’ve seen. It contains landscapes I wouldn’t mind having on my walls and better CGI in places (rendered real-time on a PC) than 2012 managed.
Oh, and how many movies have characters do things “flagrantly stupid” to advance the plot. Better yet, how many haven’t?
Pong. Is there anything more graceful?
*is graduate student and filmmaker*
*makes post about how games aren’t art because of their storytelling prowess, insinuating the story makes something art*
*goes back to admiring the Structuralism movement for how artistic it is, doesn’t realize the hypocrisy*
anyone foolish enough not to give the video game industry their due, should be shot. you have to remember that 90% of games contain both characters and entire worlds that down exist. if a simple painting of a bird is art, then surely a completely interactive universe full of characters that do not exist in reality, is art as well.
The argument is not, and never should be, about what “is” and “isn’t” art. There is art everywhere. To tell me that my BOSE speakers and coffe mug, here next to my laptop, aren’t art I’ll simply tell you to go talk to the teams of designers who work on these modest, mundane things and tell that to them. Like me, you’ll probably get a shrug of the shoulders.
There is simply “good” art, and “bad” art. My old roommate is a game designer, and has showed me two games in specific that were both unassuming, mysterious, told a story, and evoked emotional responses from me in under 5 minutes of playing. Those games are “Passage” and “Gravitation” by designer Jason Rohrer. Links here:
[hcsoftware.sourceforge.net]
[hcsoftware.sourceforge.net]
So the Prince of Persia movie wasn’t full of doing stupid stuff to advance the plot? Oh, I see… it was a movie (art) about a video game (not art).
Half Life 2, Mass Effect and Red Dead Redemption.
There’s art, and then there’s entertainment, and then there’s product, and then there are people like Jerry Bruckheimer and Lady Gaga, who manage to combine all three into an argument for hating them all. Video games are just video games.
the knights of the old republic games were considerably better story-wise than half of the ‘official’ star wars movies (you can decide which half), both mass effect games are very well done and dragon age: origins tells an epic story in a moving and believable fashion. all are better than at least 80% of the movies i’ve seen in the last 10 years.