Who Framed Roger Ebert?

By Rich Stanton Published 18 January, 2012

Press A to Art.

Are videogames art? What's your reaction to that question? For me it's always a weary groan of resignation, followed by skipping the rest of the article. Perhaps that's arrogance, because for a sizeable chunk of the gaming audience it is a very big deal indeed, and a topic that won't go away. When there's a flashpoint, such as a couple of articles by the film critic Roger Ebert, no one could miss the storm. But whether games are art is not a question that needs answering, and these pieces are a useful tool for explaining why.

I'm not going to spend this article arguing with Ebert, but it's worth briefly reminding ourselves of what was said and done. The first salvo came after a review of the execrable movie version of Doom. In response to a comment from a reader, Ebert said "As long as there is a great movie unseen or a great book unread, I will continue to be unable to find the time to play video games."

Pretty cranky stuff, but each to their own. By March 2010 Kelee Santiago of thatgamecompany was delivering a talk at Ted in direct response to Ebert: 'Stop the Debate: Videogames are art, so what's next?' Santiago showed Waco Resurrection, Braid, and Flower while offering reasons for why games like these should be considered as art.

'Who Framed Roger Ebert?' Screenshot 1

Duchamp's Fountain was one of what he called 'readymades', ie objects he found and placed in a gallery setting. It was first shown in 1917, though amusingly the original was accidentally thrown away.

Ebert's most flammable statements came in his reply to this talk: "Perhaps it is foolish of me to say 'never,' because never, as Rick Wakeman informs us, is a long, long time. Let me just say that no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form."

And by the way, when games get close to 'art' they cease to be games: "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." At this point it should be clear that Ebert doesn't know anything about games and is pretty much making up points or rules as he goes along.

His final piece was in July 2010: 'Okay, kids, play on my lawn'. "There are many, many things I believe many members of our society don't 'get,' but I don't think they're too old or too young to 'get' them, only differently evolved." If you don't get the things Ebert does, you're 'differently evolved'. Despite that, "I had to be prepared to agree that gamers can have an experience that, for them, is Art. I don't know what they can learn about another human being that way, no matter how much they learn about Human Nature."

The idea that 'art' now depends on learning about another human being is tossed in to keep games out, but the concept is not precise - it's another arbitrary line in the sand, another hoop to jump through after which there will be another. The argument is circular, resting on assumptions about shared values and the existence of art with a capital A that seem positively quaint. It's bunk - Ebert doesn't know about games, which is fine, and there this should have ended.

'Who Framed Roger Ebert?' Screenshot 2

Stuff like Passage is held up as an example of an arty game because it ticks the 'big theme' box. It is often described as profound, but whether it's a good treatment of its subject or even engaging to play is rarely dealt with. I don't think it's either.

Instead, everyone had a reaction: the Guardian was the coolest head in the crowd; Cracked took it head-on; and every popular specialist site from 1Up to Gamasutra addressed it in their own style. There are many hundreds more examples; Twitter at the time was swamped with it, and a quick google found a blog about it from as recently as last month. Nearly every response includes examples of games that the authors believe deserve recognition as art.

Responses to Ebert were everywhere. People found the topic irresistible - Ebert's two blog posts have around 6,600 comments total at the time of writing. Perhaps the fullest was Professor Brian Moriarty's talk at GDC 2011 'An Apology for Roger Ebert'. It's an interesting and witty take, and fully aware of how swampy an issue 'art' is - but despite this, falls into a nasty trap extremely common among the responses. It does down games. Moriarty's talk posits that games may one day be art, but that there are no games yet that fit the bill. His reasoning comes down to a distinction between mass culture (what games are now) and high art (what they may one day achieve) - in this talk, the terms are 'Kitsch' and 'Sublime Art':

"Kitsch is fundamentally standard, and when standards change, it becomes first irrelevant, then corny, and finally the subject of nostalgia. Sublime art is either always relevant, or not at all. It is never the subject of nostalgia, but often the subject of discovery."

These definitions make so many assumptions they mean nothing. Whose and what standards? Who defines relevance, and in relation to whom? Trends are different everywhere, they come and go and no single creator or medium is independent of them. You may as well say "sublime art is either always here, or there."

'Who Framed Roger Ebert?' Screenshot 3

A bizarre response to Ebert was Kotaku's post about government funding for an exhibition of videogame 'artists'. The post was called 'National Endowment for the Arts makes Roger Ebert eat his words.' Elegant.

This is what high art versus mass culture always comes down to, an indefinable quality that the former possesses which is discernible only to a few. This mystical knowledge confers an unquestioned authority, and is 'profound', 'transcendent', 'sacred' and other such absolutes. In Moriarty's case, "Sublime art is the still evocation of the inexpressible." Or to put it another way - I don't know much about art, but I know what I like.

None of this should be news in the 21st century - the idea of art as something that can be defined objectively began to crumble almost 100 years ago when Marcel Duchamp exhibited a urinal titled 'Fountain'. My favourite example of this is an exhibition held in 1958 by Yves Klein where the Parisian gallery was left entirely empty. Not because I like the idea of attending, but because it's fun watching defenders of art fit it into their schema - clearly, Klein's exhibition is a special type of nothing.

I'm not here to bash modern art - I love all this stuff. But it's important to distinguish our appreciation of any work from a term that is meaningless. Art is a word that denotes exclusivity, but in the current day its meaning can only ever be inclusive. What is art? Art is what any single person considers to be art. There is no such thing as an objective definition, because all that anyone can ever truly know of something is their own experience. When the only possible judgements are subjective, a belief in the existence of a category of things that are 'art' is absurd.

Yet the term still has power. The history of art when we're talking of literature or music or painting is an invented one - those works deemed by this or that critic to be worthy of exalted status. The canon in any medium is the product of remarkably few minds. I think this is why games writers were drawn to Ebert's remarks. It is often a navel-gazing profession, and one whose practitioners agonise over the question of their own importance.

People want to feel special, like their impressions and understanding of a work somehow mean more. Not only does this make the traditionally weighty topic of art appealing, but as a subject it binds criticism into a reassuring loop of self-aggrandisement. The only reason Ebert's remarks acquired any traction whatsoever is because he is seen as an embodiment of taste - a Real Critic who knows about Real Art.

'Who Framed Roger Ebert?' Screenshot 4

The foregrounding of interpretation over the work itself found its most gaudy and famous expression in Oscar Wilde's 'The Critic as Artist'. You can see from the title why this theory is very attractive to critics.

But writers aren't the only culprits here. That old fox Ebert saw our glowing weak spot a mile off. "Why aren't gamers content to play their games and simply enjoy themselves? They have my blessing, not that they care. Do they require validation? In defending their gaming against parents, spouses, children, partners, co-workers or other critics, do they want to be able to look up from the screen and explain, 'I'm studying a great form of art?' Then let them say it, if it makes them happy."

This is it. In arguing for 'games as art' we betray a desire for approval - for the wise words and nodding head of an arbiter. Everyone knows several people, young and old, who don't get games and regard them as children's amusements. I know many more than that. So the thought of describing them as art is comforting, it's authoritative, and a salve to the nagging feeling you're wasting your time. Don Quixote tilts at the windmills, and the windmills tilt back. No one breaks the spell.

We're at the forefront of the only medium in history in which the defining characteristic is interactivity. Is that not enough? I never feel like I'm wasting my time playing a game. Roger Ebert doesn't play videogames and doesn't know anything about them - so why did his argument become a focal point, taken seriously enough to be the subject of so many talks, comments, and even articles like this? The fact is that we framed Roger Ebert, contextualising his words with a jabber of conferences, blogs, and click-throughs. Yet the problem was never his opinion, or indeed any other ad hominem attack on videogames.

The problem is that in engaging with the question we put art on a pedestal - and 'art' just doesn't exist. It's a confidence trick, a way of putting things down. No critic can quite pin art down, but plenty will assure you it is a very grand thing, and they have the refined sensibilities to identify it. Who is the greater fool? The next time someone questions games, remember Yves Klein and his exhibition of thin air. There's never been a more perfect image of art, and just how empty defining it is.

Picture of Rich.

About Rich Stanton

Rich Stanton has been writing for Eurogamer since 2011, and also contributes to places like Edge, Nintendo Gamer, and PC Gamer. He lives in Bath, and is Terran for life.

Read more articles from Rich by visiting the Rich Stanton archive page.

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Comments (197) Latest comment 4 weeks ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Brownstudy #1 1 month ago

    Great piece. Are games art? Depends on your definition of 'art'. Are games fun? Depends on your definition of 'fun'. End of.

  • Mox #2 1 month ago

    Interesting review of the discussion points so far, but I have to ask ...

    What happened to make March 2011 topical? Or did this essay slip down the back of the EuroGamer desk, and was found by the cleaners last night?

  • Frybird #3 1 month ago

    Given that i didn't ever find a true exact definition of "art" ("The conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic medium." comes close until you consider that some artists are deliberately create works opposing "beauty" ), i think just EVERYONE should shut up about whether or not something is art.
    Edited by 1 at 18/01/12 @ 08:36

  • onesandzeros #4 1 month ago

    Devin Faraci, back when he was writing for C.H.U.D. I believe, and who does happen to play games, wrote a pretty comprehensive case against games as art. Anybody with a mind to hear a better case than Ebert's, for what its worth, I encourage to check it out.

  • Brownstudy #5 1 month ago

    My comment above looks sarcastic and appears to be undermining the piece. That's not intentional. I genuinely enjoyed the essay.

  • benfresh76 #6 1 month ago

    I can't understand why anyone cares.

  • Cowbomb #7 1 month ago

    'Art' is a silly word made up by pompous people who want to make their hobbies sound more important than they actually are.

  • MrBeast #8 1 month ago

    An interesting and thoughtful piece. Good work, EG!

  • goldbug #9 1 month ago

    At the moment, games are too literal to be considered as art. There is very little ambiguity, even in a game like Flower, to allow for the subjective response true art demands. But let's not forget that cinema is the newest artform on the block and it started out as essentially a cheap entertainment.

  • deez #10 1 month ago

    Stopped reading as the article has a black blob obscuring a couple of paragraphs generated by those bloody ads. get rid!

  • talhamid #11 1 month ago

    ALl I know is this:

    1) A circle of random splotches on an art gallery wall qualifies as 'Art'.
    2) "Waterworld" qualifies as art.
    3) A urinal placed on a corner in an gallery qualifies as 'Art'.
    4) A bunch of random expletives, uttered at a fast pace over a drum beat, qualifies as 'music' and therefore 'Art'.
    5) An ordinary editing of a soda can qualifies as 'Art'.
    6) Scenes, naturally occurring, captured in form of digital data and reproduced on a computer screen, qualify as 'Art'.
    7) A bunch of random expletives spelled out on a city wall with a spray can qualifies as 'Art'.
    8) To say 'I am going to the loo' in a make-believe situation on an artificial representation of real life qualifies as 'dialogue' and therefore 'art'.

    Who in their right mind, then, can claim that something like Half Life 2 or Crysis or Call of Duty, or SimCity, or Shadow of the Collossus, which represent coherent sums of individual elements similar to those mentioned above, is not ART?

    Ebert, that's who. See the 'right mind' qualifier though.

  • FireMonkey #12 1 month ago

    Most art isn't 'art', so if games are not 'art' then they are probably art.

    Anyway, who gives a shit. In my mind games are NOT art as such, but some are so much more.
    Edited by 2 at 18/01/12 @ 08:59

  • BabylonForever #13 1 month ago

    Nice article, but -
    I never feel like I'm wasting my time playing a game.
    - try Amy!

  • Ternon #14 1 month ago

    Excellent article, I was also quite surprised that anyone would take seriously someone who never played video games so by default doesn't have the slightest clue as to what he is talking about.

    This sums up the whole thing:
    In arguing for 'games as art' we betray a desire for approval - for the wise words and nodding head of an arbiter.

  • Zomeguy #15 1 month ago

    There is no such thing as an objective definition, because all that anyone can ever truly know of something is their own experience.
    LOL, oh really? Please write about stuff you know.

  • ZizouFC #16 1 month ago

    But is it art?

  • RoOhDaMite #17 1 month ago

    I think the real question is not whether games are art, but whether games are just games. The medium really has grown out of this simple classification. In my opinion "games" should be called "interactives".
    Edited by 1 at 18/01/12 @ 09:54

  • Notorious_LRO #18 1 month ago

    Video games cease to be video games when becoming art.

    The truest statement of the article - but one that will change, if you will bear with me to the end of my argument. But for the moment: Even though a precise definition of art is difficult to find, it is not an excuse for everyone and their dog to define games as art.

    The art establishment is in reality the keepers of the keys to this particular world. They are not defining video games as art, and so it will not be art. At least not yet.

    The statement is not indicative of my personal views or wishes on the matter, but a description of how the system works.

    When projects like "The Artist is Present" from Pippin Barr enter the picture, the whole debate is illustrated and Eberts points proven: A game that becomes art, ceases to be art because the main project of the designer is not to entertain. The game designer, now artist, emphasizes reflection and a point of view that cannot be dilluted by chasing high scores or rescuing princesses (or your son in Heavy Rain).

    The game as art also ceases to be fun, thrilling, addictive or scary. This, by the way, is the same reason that most movies, music, paintings and books are not art. This last point is severely overlooked in this discussion.

    This point also makes it entirely possible for games to be art. The definition gamers use for games, however, needs to change. Most of us would not consider the works of Pippin Barr, i expect, to be games. If the consensus changes, and gamers embrace true art games - the critics such as Roger Ebert will follow.

    But first we have to realize that Ico, Flower and games like it, are not art. They are entertainment products first, with hints of art showing in the cracks.
    Edited by 1 at 18/01/12 @ 10:25

  • persus-9 #19 1 month ago

    The heart of the problem is definitely that we gamers frequently feel attacked for our hobby and indeed are attacked for our hobby, even by people who should know better. I'm sick to the back teeth of people telling me I play games too much when I play for a couple of hours when the same person is getting annoyed by their TV automatically turning off after four hours.

    I think the 'art' thing is a red herring, I think games are art but I say that on the basis of my experience of them and couldn't demonstrate it to anyone. What I'd say to someone who was attacking my hobby but hadn't played the art card is that games can be an interesting and intellectually stimulating form of entertainment and if you haven't played them you probably have a distorted view of them based on the limited range which are advertised in the mainstream media. If someone scoffs at games ask them if they've played the three most interesting games that spring to your mind and when they say they haven't heard of them then point that they really don't know what they are talking about, it'll be true and you'll both know it.
    Edited by 1 at 18/01/12 @ 09:26

  • craigy Verified Senior Developer, Eurogamer Network #20 1 month ago

    The designation of "art" is a purely personal thing. I think its should be allowed and accepted that Ebert doesn't see games as art, so long as he accepts that I might disagree with his designation of various things as art.

  • CaptainQuint #21 1 month ago

    Good article; superb finale paragraph.

  • Golgo #22 1 month ago

    "What is art? Art is what any single person considers to be art. There is no such thing as an objective definition, because all that anyone can ever truly know of something is their own experience."

    Sorry, Rick, but you are wrong. The history of aesthetics is full of definitive statements by experts. The 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' idea/everyone's idea is valid line that you gloss here is very much in the minority (Aristotle, Hume). You wouldn't say the same thing about everyone having equal rights to speak out on quantum mechanics. Art experts have and always will try to arrive at a total definition. This is what makes the topic interesting. Not the wishy-washy intellectual cop-out that you endorse here.

  • madgerald Verified Studio Head of PR & Marketing, Colossal Games LTD #23 1 month ago

    For me, video games are entertainment - they do just that, they entertain me.. The same as films.

    I do not look at a portrait at the national or the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson to be 'entertained'. The same as I don't go to museums to be entertained. I want the old noggin to be stimulated yes, but not in the same way as watching a film or playing Skyrim.

    I'm not a fan of modern art and despise the work of Emin and Hirst, but to others they are geniusss.

    However, the work that goes into the production of a video game could be called art - the design, the score, the concept art drawings.

    Just my opinion.

  • el_pollo_diablo #24 1 month ago

    "...though amusingly the original was accidentally thrown away."
    How is that amusing? Surely the destruction of any art, regardless of your own value judgement on it, is anything but? Or do you think that saying "I'm not here to bash modern art - I love all this stuff." gets you off the hook?

    edit: Otherwise a good read though.
    Edited by 1 at 18/01/12 @ 10:01

  • Brownstudy #25 1 month ago

    @Golgo

    So if there is an objective definition, what is it?

    Also when you talk about 'experts', who appointed them. How do they prove the veracity of their claims?

    Ask a quantum physicist to justify his claims, and he can point to a peer-reviewed paper containing evidence and logic. What does your 'expert' do, other than referring to authority as you have done?

  • FireMonkey #26 1 month ago

    @Notorious_LRO - "Video games cease to be video games when becoming art."

    I disagree with that, but then that probably also depends on your definition of a video game.

    Also, does art stop being art when it becomes a game?

  • Load_2.0 #27 1 month ago

    Trying to tag games as art comes accross as a desperate plea for validation.

    The only art in Video Games is my 4 hit daze to daze combo with guile back in 94.

  • Brownstudy #28 1 month ago

    I love the smell of postmodernism in the morning.

  • Sodding_Gamer #29 1 month ago

    Art can be any old tat these days. So in my opinion. Games full well can be. Such a massive grey area in terms of "Art". One of my favourite pieces of art I have seen recently is Deus Ex Human Revolution. The music and graphic style combined, is amazing art. Just my opinion!

  • Kostas #30 1 month ago

    They CAN be art, they CAN be fun. Can we for once leave gaming for what it is and what it offers? Sure there is an infinite ammount of improvement to be made but the potential is always there.

    Can anyone really watch Okami, Shadow of the colosus, Zelda wind waker, Demon/Dark souls and slew of other games and truly claim that video games are not art?

  • Brownstudy #31 1 month ago

    @ EddieMink

    Care to make a point?

  • Notorious_LRO #32 1 month ago

    @Kostas Yes. You are confusing art and entertainment. See my earlier (too long) post.

  • spongebob #33 1 month ago

    Rich Stanton does a fool's thing himself in the article's last paragraph when he dismisses the need to define art. He supposes it's possible to say that anything that is created by humans is art, regardless of it's purpose. Yes, you can do that, but using the same logic you can also say there's no such thing as beauty or at least you shouldn't debate about what it is.

    What people actually need to understand is that there's a difference between artful and art. I think many mix these two. So, a beautiful, technically superb painting about a landscape can be really artful, but at the same time it's not very deep or thought provoking experience.

    Same goes for most of the video games people keep on insisting are art. ICO, Shadow of the Colossus, Half-Life 2, Skyrim etc etc are very artful in many senses. They are technically brilliant and have great storytelling. They're even revolutionary as video games go. Are they art? Not really. They are entertainment.

  • Golgo #34 1 month ago

    @ Brownstudy: the arts/aesthetics have peer-reviewed journals containing arguments based on evidence (visual, textual, archival, etc.) and logic also, most of them seeking to arrive at 'the correct' reading of circumstances/phenomena as they see it - just like the physicist/scientific journals you respect, which also has its unimpeachable authorities and irrational tribalisms. But people seem more willing to overlook this body of work and indulge the 'anything goes' attitude when it comes to art, whereas they will maintain a respectful distance from the scientific journal and usually concede they don't know enough to speak on the subject.

    As for 'what is the objective definition'? They are dozens and dozens of them, often mutually exclusive and openly in combat with each other. The interesting thing is to read and bring those into play intellectually rather than lazily short-circuit the debate - which written records suggest is at least 2500 years old (in the western tradition, can't speak about any others I'm afraid) - by saying "ah well, fuck it all, my uninformed opinion is as good as anybody's". This I find irritating, primarily because I work in this field, sorry! :)

  • CloisterBlack #35 1 month ago

    Three, Two, Art

  • Baleoce #36 1 month ago

    I always think Art is better judged in retrospect. There have been many fine composers and artists in their respective eras that weren't fully appreciated, or sometimes appreciated at all. Then out of nowhere a spark of inspiration or a stylistic revolution occurs, and an entirely new sub-genre of art is dedicated to that very person.

    Take for instance the growing culture of indie games. A lot of these clearly take inspiration from early C64, NES and various other platforms. Partly due to budget, but undeniably due to inspiration and experience taken from games they hold in high regard. Whether that be on a conscious or subconscious level.

    The one prerequisite I've always had for art, is that it should inspire one to create. Be it a painting, piece of music, a sculpture, or video-game. If it can provoke that kind of inspiration in you, then at the very least it makes a very good argument for it.

  • mr2ange #37 1 month ago

    IMO Games contain art, Some games are inherantly "arty", but games can be and often are, so much more than art.

  • sadakos_fury #38 1 month ago

    Games today = movies 100 years ago.
    The content is dictated by the technology available, for the most part.
    100 years ago, George Melies put a rocket on the moon because he could. It wasn't art, it didn't have a great story, but as a spectacle it was amazing. No one would say that film cannot be art today.
    Games are still in there infancy - their awkward teenage years, really. Comparisons to other media are useless and counterproductive.
    Are games art? My answer is, not yet, but soon.

  • kangarootoo #39 1 month ago

    @Golgo

    Sorry, Golgo, but you are wrong (can't believe you wrote that, especially when you actually failed to address the point made).


    The point made was that there is no objective definition of art. That is true. A history of "experts" making definitive statements does nothing to change a subjective definition into an objective one.

    You are confusing objectivity with consensus. Don't feel bad, everyone does it (that is the last patronising statement I shall make in this post). I shall explain.


    Note to self - I should write the following down somewhere for copy-and-paste use, to save myself time.


    An objective statement is one that can be measured and recorded regardless of context. A subjective statement is one that REQUIRES a viewpoint, that REQUIRES context.

    If I tell you the temperature is 25.45 degrees C rounded to 2 decimal places, that is an objective statement. Anybody accurately taking the same measurement would get the same result, every single time. It need no other context.

    If I told you it was cold, that would be a subjective statement. Anybody else giving me a gauge of the temp might come up with a different answer. They might say it is warm, they might say it is nippy, they might say it is tepid. They would all be right, insofar as a subjective statement can be right or wrong.


    So on the subject of art. We have no objective definition of art. It doesn't exist, it CANNOT exist, because "art" is a theoretical construct. It isn't a thing, it can't be measured, there is no bit of paper that turns purple in the presense of art. That we can even have the discussion is a clear indication of its subjectivity. If art was an objective definition, the discussion would be a short one - one side would be right, the other would be wrong, and if the explanation was given clearly those that were wrong would realise their error.



    So by all means discuss art, of course voice the opinions to which everyone apparently has a right. But don't call it objective. It simply isn't.

  • dadrester #40 1 month ago

    great article!





    sorry

  • spongebob #41 1 month ago

    @sadakos_fury is 100% correct. Games are now where movies were in their early years. It's mostly just pure entertainment. Thankfully the indie scene has finally erupted and started to experiment. We will definitely be seeing interesting progression in the near future. Art is achievable, of course :)

  • jonbwfc #42 1 month ago

    Are videogames art? What's your reaction to that question? For me it's always a weary groan of resignation, followed by skipping the rest of the article.
    Me too. You really didn't think this through, did you?

  • Brownstudy #43 1 month ago

    @Golgo

    How can it be possible to have dozens and dozens of objective definitions of the same thing? The whole point of an objective definition is that it doesn't change depending on your viewpoint.

    You seem to want it both ways. Is there an objective definition of art or not? If so, what is it? If not, how do we judge each claim to the true definition? Do we need an axiomatic starting point, such as the golden mean? How do we prove the golden mean is actually an aesthetic ideal?

    I studied English Lit at a good university. I slowly realized that the postmodernist emperor wears no clothes.

    Yes, science has its authorities. But they have earned their position by having their conclusions proven time and time again. Darwen is a hero not because Dawkins says he is, but because his astounding findings have been shown to be correct. Tribalisms, not so much. Of course scientists disagree with each other but given enough time, disagreements disappear. Scientists may argue about the exact age of the universe. They no longer argue about the speed of light.

    Nothing in art has been proven in this way, much less the definition of what art actually is.

  • Eoin #44 1 month ago

    My standard response to this kind of debate is relatively simple.

    Can anyone produce a definition of art that:

    1. Includes the things that the majority of people unquestioningly accept as art (paintings, music, literature, sculpture, theatre, etc).

    2. Excludes all video games.

    Limitation: the definition cannot just be declarative. Saying "art is theatre and poetry and sculpture etc but not video games" is not a definition.

    I am perfectly happy to accept that video games are not art. In fact, I suspect I'd probably prefer it that way. However, in ~10 years of occasionally asking this question in various places on the internet (and hundreds or perhaps thousands of people must have read it over those years), no one has produced even a slightly convincing answer. I therefore have to accept that there's a strong possibility that games are indeed art.

  • Golgo #45 1 month ago

    @ kangarotoo: "seeking to arrive at 'the correct'" definition, is what I said. Likewise, 'objective' in quote marks. I don't say art theoretical statements are truly objective (apologies if I gave that impression; how could there be so many in conflict if that were true?), but they aspire to be. No less than scientific judgments, which are likewise subjective judgments made upon observed/recorded phenomena. If the science we respect so much is truly objective, I'm guessing there must be absolute consensus in the scientific community on every point?

    Anyway, the thing that annoys me about this debate can be summed up as follows:

    A person experiences gravity every day, but wouldn't say he/she knows how it works. Same person experiences visual imagery every day, and does not hesitate to say what art is.

    Anyway, peace and love, peace and love.
    Edited by 1 at 18/01/12 @ 10:44

  • FireMonkey #46 1 month ago

    Previously I mentioned that games can be art and I am going to clarify this and back it up.

    People seem to think that the problem is with defining what art is, but there is another issue in that defining a game is actually pretty hard too.
    For instance, do games need to have a goal, a story or a score or can they simply be pointless fun? Do they even need to be fun or can they just be entertaining or a distraction from life (take Farmville for instance. I know many people that play that that would not call it fun)?

    Check out this video:
    http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=678EaXPekFo

    It is an 'art' installation where 'players' using a web interface can target and interact with real passers by. This 'is' deemed to be art, but at the same time for the web user isn't this a game? I think so. It also looks kinda fun, which disproves the idea that when a game becomes art is in no longer a game / fun.
    Edited by 1 at 18/01/12 @ 10:41

  • spongebob #47 1 month ago

    @kangarootoo most people who make the same argument as you don't care much for art and therefore it's so easy for them to say it's just a subjective thing and that everyone has a different opinion what it is. A bit like maybe it's so easy for Ebert to dismiss games as just entertainment because he doesn't follow them much.

    Science is always debatable and in constant move, even with things like physics. Rules are refined and sometimes even written again. Art is also science and can be studied and debated.

  • schachmatt #48 1 month ago

    What not only Ebert overlooks, but seemingly a lot of writers, is the intention. Wanting to make art ist the only thing that makes art.

    Most games, no matter how "beautiful" they are, are made purely for profit and/or entertainment, as are most books, films and other works, and therefore are not art.

    (It's a bit more complicated, because the recipient's experience does also count, but it never negates the intention)

    Also, Ebert doesn't understand any of that, because anyone giving points to something he sees as art makes himself a fool.

  • Widge #49 1 month ago

    There are very few games that are created with the purpose of demonstrating artistry within the mechanics of game. Most games are not designed with artistry in mind, the can be graphically spectacular in the same way as blockbuster FX is. Designed for the purpose of entertainment, Just in the same way that most films, pieces of popular music, books are.

  • Laythe_AD #50 1 month ago

    What defines something as art is relatively vague at best, though I would suggest that many games are not art, but contain many hundreds or thousands of pieces of art within them. That said, I do agree with a comment above, that stated that games have yet to learn to be ambiguous. They still know only how to be literal.

  • DDevil #51 1 month ago

    The question is no longer "are games art?" The question is now "at what point did art leave Roger Ebert behind?"

  • Brownstudy #52 1 month ago

    Golgo

    I can't believe how dismissive you sound when you write things like 'the science you respect so much.' Especially as you're using the Internet to make your point. There is a huge difference between science and art. Science is the search for objective truths; scientists may sometimes disagree about those truths, but after several independent tests, will either be vindicated or not. Art is, well, we still haven't decided have we?

    Are games art? Dunno. Are they science? Unquestionably.

  • greenllama88 #53 1 month ago

    I feel art is a broader category than people imagine. I have an MA which allows me to call myself Master of Arts yet my degree is in History, meaning that reconstructing the past in university terms at least is considered an art form. With this in mind, it seems unbalanced, to say that games, where a group of people either construct new worlds or reconstruct our own, are not art because they require interaction from a joystick or keyboard to experience them. All art requires some interaction, whether reading or simply viewing and all things which have being created for such interaction qualify in some way as art, even low budget zombie movies or trashy novels. With games, as with any other interactive media, maybe it should be more a question of which are high art. Most would not be, a select few may be candidates, yet this does little to devalue the medium as this is true of any art form. For every Shawshank Redemption there is Big Mama House 3 and for every Da Vinci there is a pornographic doodled post card.

  • repeater #54 1 month ago

    I was going to nitpick about some inconsistencies in this article, but on the whole it was quite insightful and stimulating, so I won't bother. :) I like these kinds of articles on Eurogamer, keep 'em coming!

  • Nevflinn #55 1 month ago

    Everyone, I know it's a stimulating topic, but I'd like it if we could avoid discussing whether or not games actually are art in this section. To do so would be to miss the point of Rich's article. We know what it is, let's be more secure about it.

    The best response I've heard was, again, from Kellee Santiago, or at least a Kotaku article on her, "The Year She Stopped Arguing Whether Video Games Are Art".
    http://kotaku.com/5716090/the- year-she-stopped-arguing-whether-video-games-are-art

    Simply because not only does she have her belief, but she ends it with the more important aspect - acting on it. I think that's what we as a community can do more for those of us who follow games as an artform can do - talk about what we find emotionally engaging, and what we've experienced from games that we've learned from.

  • beep #56 1 month ago

    Nobody needs to hear another persons opinion on whether something is art or not. Formulate your own conclusions and keep them to yourselves. That includes the Roger Ebert's of the world too.

  • MattEdWithCheese #57 1 month ago

    I believe games can be art, I don't care what Ebert thinks; he's a film critic, his opinion isn't relevant and I'm confident enough in my convictions that I don't need someone else to agree with me.

    Plus it's difficult taking the medium seriously when the people who most push the "Games as art" idea are mentalists (albeit lovable mentalists) like Cage David and Pete Mollynoir...

  • nuanimal #58 1 month ago

    Last two paragraphs are excellent. Moar plz?

  • Kostas #59 1 month ago

    @Notorious_LRO I have mate and i do not agree. Art is supposed to be something to evoke feelings out of you. Whether its something you look at, listen to, imagining about or all of those things together then we have something that we can call art. Video games can be medium which can do all of those things at the same time despite it being made primarily for entertaintment reasons.

  • sega #60 1 month ago

    I'm not even going to answer the question if games are art because art is anything that is creative, so it answers itself.

    However I buy games for their artistic merit - fun games too, but the biggest draw for me is something unique and interesting. Recently that game has been Rayman Origins - a beautiful game for so many reasons, including gameplay.

    I often buy a lot of modern retro games too - new games with that old look to them. That style of game has long since moved on, but the 8-bit graphics inspire the imagination and creativity based on limitations, which is why it lives on today.

    I also look back at games like Another World, Shadow of the Beast and the original Sonic The Hedgehog. Let's face it, a blue hedgehog running and spinning around a checked tropical island is something that looks amazing but can only be seen in a video game. Do you think that'd work as a book or a film in the same way? Not a chance.

    EDIT: I forgot to point out, this isn't me defending games as an art form, I'm pointing out some unique artistic advantages games have that you don't find elsewhere. Usually art is limited only by imagination, but the limitations found in making games have created some truly unique designs. If it wasn't for limitations, we wouldn't even have Mario like he is today.
    Edited by 1 at 18/01/12 @ 11:36

  • Batfink #61 1 month ago

    Excellent article, thanks :)

  • Jonny5Alive7 #62 1 month ago

    Why does it even matter if games or art or not? Who cares?

    "Are videogames art? What's your reaction to that question? For me it's always a weary groan of resignation, followed by skipping the rest of the article."

    Sorry but thats exactly what I did after about half way. I'm not bothered if they're art.

  • Uncompetative #63 1 month ago

    I agree with Roger Ebert.

    I am a video-games developer working on middleware (i.e. production tools) who did a degree in Fine Art and I can say with some confidence that games are not art.

    The main problem as I see it is that many video-game designers are actually frustrated film directors and have tried to make their medium rival or even surpass Cinema.

    This is arrogant and pretentious of them - also absurd.

    The reason for this is that the more a game is made to assert a dramatic and cathartic emotional story the less freedom the player has to explore the world in which the story is set and the more apparently contrived choices for character development have to become. Modern 'cinematic' games tend to limit (and blatantly signpost) strategic or moral choice as the number of alternative scripts increases with each one (although, some of them can be rendered inconsequential by merging back in to one path), eventually leaving the story with only a handful of endings if not just two - a "Good" and an "Evil" consequence for your behaviour.

    Shamefully, most games requiring high production values need all of their content to be seen on the first play-through. For some reason, publishers seem to fear giving their consumers value for money through replayable adventures and market Campaigns that can be completed in a weekend even though the sequel is several years away.

    Strangely, old games (like Robotron 64) are different every time you play them. So the question that needs to be asked is "Where did it go awry?"

    Personally, I feel that it has been a mistake to put fixed scripts into an interactive medium. It is stultifying. If games were funfair attractions then the big-budget 'cinematic' campaigns would be The Ghost Train and the primitive pixelated arcade games would be the Bumper Cars - more fun.

    Yet, is there a way games could have evolved to look as impressive as Grand Theft Auto IV and aspire to be considered as art without having to suppress player choice in order for them to "progress" through the linear pre-scripted Story?

    Well, I think there is. Story is a shortcut to conveying an underlying theme. Obviously, art has themes rather than the mere presence of a theme automatically promoting that medium to art - it all depends upon the execution, pacing, and appropriateness of technique... but most art worth our aesthetic appreciation has some kind of message behind it. So, when people argue that Graphic Design isn't Art it is because the only message it is trying to convey is in support of selling some product and its aspiration to Fine Art is revealed to have impure motives. In a sense it is comparatively crass.

    Games can never be purely about Art with a Capital 'A' so they come off looking tainted the more they try to ape the conventions of Cinema. Yet, a compromise position can be made where the need for a pre-scripted Story can be bypassed and the player's freedom of choice is enhanced all whilst the underlying theme is preserved...

    What is required for this to work is for the player to work not for score, kills, or even survival until the final cut-scene, but for 'kudos' - i.e. how well you played the role you were given in the unfolding drama. It may be that you "win" through heroic self-sacrifice as that fits the theme, or it could be that you seek redemption, or Faustian corruption all of which depend on your 'avatar' successfully completing procedurally-generated thematically-consistent objectives - usually involving other autonomous, simulated (artificially intelligent), non-player character roles. The game is far more layered and subtle, far more 'analog' than 'digital' (you try your best to convince another character to do something, they leave and you are not sure if you succeeded until you see evidence of the repercussions in the world and characters around you (that they have interacted with "off-camera" as it were), rather than you get a nice head-shot and they are stone dead (or you miss and they live).

    Even this wouldn't be Art, but at least it would be progress towards it.

    Comment originally posted on Roger Ebert's blog.

  • Genji #64 1 month ago

    Weird that this is being brought up again. I read Ebert pretty much every day, and he hasn't even mentioned it for months.

    I did, and still do, disagree with him. My thoughts:

    a) Games can be art, but
    b) most of them aren't, and
    c) this is not a problem, because games don't *have* to be art

    Fin.

  • Stoatboy #65 1 month ago

    @el_pollo_diablo It's amusing because clearly no-one would throw away something that was obviously "art". An old urinal however is just an old urinal. It only became "art" because somebody said it was.

    It doesn't matter if someone throws it away tbh, because they could go into any pub toilet and find several similar items to declare as "art" instead.

  • Lemming81 #66 1 month ago

    Games can be artistic. Not all games are art. I think we can leave it at that.

    EDIT: I have to admit I only initially clicked on the article because of nostalgia for the GC joypad...
    Edited by 1 at 18/01/12 @ 12:23

  • spongebob #67 1 month ago

    @greenllama88 hit the nail in the head. What we are discussing here, and what Ebert was also most likely talking about, is not art broadly, but it's higher definitions.

    @schachmatt also makes a great point. Indeed it takes an artist with an intention to create art. Usually the intention is not to just make art for the sake of it, but because the artist feels the need to do it.

    Come to think of it, someone should ask gamers what they think is art, what is art in games, what are the games that they think qualify as art and do they even think games should be considered art in the first place. The result would make a great article and I think after this we could discuss the topic again.

  • DrStrangelove #68 1 month ago

    Oh yes, discussion about what is art. In the end, it comes down to "what you like isn't art, because it's not this, or well ok, maybe in a sense it is this, but still it's not that" followed by wanking off to your own superior art understanding skills. I always had great fun at university student parties annoying the shit out of bumptious hoity-toity twats who like to enlighten everyone what true art or philosophy is (most of whom were French, interestingly). If Dali took a shit in a SNES cartridge slot, suddenly everyone would say "oh video games can be art, no they are art. They're the shit!" while Dali would be amused why people would then pay half a million for that piece of... art. Now if I did the same and posted it on ratemypoo, the very same people would be hesitant about acknowledging it's a work of art.

    Sorry for talking so much shit. It was a great article, and it was the best I ever read about this matter (granted it was the second I've read). More of this EG.

  • DrStrangelove #69 1 month ago

    Also, the EG comment section is a magnificent gallery of contemporary art.

  • gandhimaster #70 1 month ago

    What i very much get annoyed at, is the notion that gamers always jump to defend themselves too quickly and aggressively. The reason we are perceived to do this, is because critics/mp's etc routinely attack our beloved hobby and so we get progressively more pissed off. Roger can say we should just enjoy gaming and leave it at that, but it's alright for him as his love is not mocked daily. Granted it has had it's share of blame for crimes, but that was before video games became the scapegoat.

  • gandhimaster #71 1 month ago

    ps, Art is what hangs in galleries. Everything else is entertainment.

  • Uncompetative #72 1 month ago

    Incidentally, 'The Fountain' is not Art.

    Despite Marcel Duchamp being an established artist:


    "Nude descending a staircase"

    The placement of a found object into a gallery is not sufficient to recontextualise it as Art as there is no truthful assertion of an Artist in effect saying "This is Art" as the signature is not Marcel Duchamp but R. Mutt.

    I would have no problem accepting this object as being Fine Art if he hadn't been such a coward.
    Edited by 2 at 18/01/12 @ 12:35

  • sirtacos #73 1 month ago

    The question is misleading and unanswerable, I think, though it does lead to interesting discussions. Any medium is amenable to artistic expression. To dismiss one out of hand, or qualify one as 'art' wholesale, is crap.

  • spongebob #74 1 month ago

    By the way, just wanted to say that I think discussions about what games are and what they could be is more than welcome. Everytime someone talks about the issue people start to think and reflect what they think games are. This can only lead to better or at least more imaginative games in the future.

    So, kudos to Rich Stanton and EG. Hopefully next time we don't need Ebert as the basis for the article.

  • sonicyoda #75 1 month ago

    I enjoyed this article a lot. Well played for talking about this 'issue' as an adult and not talking down to your audience.

  • sonicyoda #76 1 month ago

    @beep Missed the point somewhat?

  • BlitzwingHaz #77 1 month ago

    To me Ebert is a bit of a relic of a previous generation who can't get his head around computer games and never will. The guy gave Die Hard 2 stars, so I don't value his opinion to be honest.
    I reckon perhaps you have to be born into these things to appreciate them, I'm pretty sure movies weren't considered art at first either.

  • Atolm #78 1 month ago

    These pompous fools who are against anything being "art" are, in a way, frightened of us commoners invading on their special and privileged space.

  • 32768Colours #79 1 month ago

    A superb article and nails the problem exactly.

    I'm quite happy for games not to be considered art; its an expression which has become entirely meaningless ever since the Dada movement (essentially anti-art) became accepted into the art critics' canon.

    Labelling something as "art" is nothing more than the creative establishment giving something a slap on the back and saying "welcome to the club!"

    Frankly, I'm at a loss as to why anyone would want to be a part of it, artists included!
    Edited by 1 at 18/01/12 @ 12:53

  • FireMonkey #80 1 month ago

    @beep - "Nobody needs to hear another persons opinion on whether something is art or not. Formulate your own conclusions and keep them to yourselves."

    Nobody needs to hear your opinions on whether anybody needs to hear the opinions of someone else, so maybe you should keep your opinions to yourself too. ;)

    Hmm.. I guess nobody needs to hear that either, so I shouldn't have posted it.... damn!
    Edited by 1 at 18/01/12 @ 12:59

  • beatwolf #81 1 month ago

    skipped.

  • Brownstudy #82 1 month ago

    @firemonkey

    Nobody needs to hear your opinion on whether anybody needs to hear the opinions of someone else about whether anybody needs to hear the opinion of someone else.

    Sorry, couldn't resist ;)

  • Brownstudy #83 1 month ago

    Firemonkey

    Bugger! Just spotted the edit you crafty devil!

  • benfresh76 #84 1 month ago

    @Uncompetative He wasn't being a coward, he was poking fun at the art establishment. Sadly, we have had to endure the same joke endlessly repeated ever since.

  • Ternon #85 1 month ago

    Imagine a person talking about movies without ever seeing one, this is what Roger Ebert has done when he talked about video games.

    And people took that incoherent twaddle seriously..

  • Brownstudy #86 1 month ago

    Halol.

    Read like an 8.

    8urogamer.

    Sorry, the fact that we're having an interesting discussion made me want to get back to the good old days.

  • Gecks #87 1 month ago

    @talhamid most of your bullet-pointed examples are as reductive as ebert was. the main problem here is respect - respect of a medium to know that there is probably more to it than meets the eye. modern art as "random splotches" - come now.

    i think we have to be mindful that to the non-gamer, 'our' industry seems to be focused largely on elaborate toys and pretending to shoot people. i know that games have artistic qualities, but i can't really blame others for not knowing that.

  • DrStrangelove #88 1 month ago

    @Brownstudy

    lol let's all complain that EG doesn't give everything 8/10 anymore.

    Sellouts!
    Edited by 1 at 18/01/12 @ 13:26

  • kangarootoo #89 1 month ago

    @Golgo

    I wouldn't say science as a whole is objective. An observation or measurement can be objective, but much of science is as you say theorising.

    Also, something being objective doesn't necessarily mean that everyone measuring or otherwise stating it will be correct (though I realise my previous post did kind of state the opposite - my bad choice of words). There may be (in fact, its almost certain) that there are certain rules we use in physics that one day turn out to be wrong, but that doesn't make them less objective when they are in use.

    Perhaps a better way of describing objectivity is, put the same number in, always get the same answer out of the other side (even if the machinery inside giving you the wrong answer).

    Good example with gravity and art. I think tbh we agree on much - I was just irked by the way you stated "you are wrong" to another poster, before going on to talk about something else :)

  • Dirtbox #90 1 month ago

    Ebert himself has gone back on this and admitted that he was wrong, albeit with a minor caveat. Some games are art.

  • kangarootoo #91 1 month ago

    @spongebob

    Whoah there. I love "art". I am also just a collosal pedant for semantics, as has probably become clear over the years :)

    The difference between discussions about science and art is that the debate in science revolves around the things that we don't know, and that theories we use to fill those spaces in order to "get stuff done". The greater the hole in our knowledge, the less consensus exists. Crucially, science is concerned with observing "the world" and working out how it ticks.

    Art is entirely a creation of the human species. We defined ALL the rules, and so of course we can change any of the rules as we see fit with only a moment's notice. Consensus may be widespread at times - "that painting of flowers is pretty" and so on - but that doesn't bring an objective rule of "flowers are pretty" into being. No SI unit exists for quantifying pretty :)

    On that basis, I can't accept that art is a science. Maybe another way of seeing it is the "is a tree falls and nobody hears it, does it make a sound". Science is concerned with things that definitely "make a sound", and art is concerned with things that definitely don't if no listener is present (I'm not sure that actually makes anything clearer at all... but I still like it).

  • guernican #92 1 month ago

    @Cowbomb

    Bobbins.

    There's absolutely nothing wrong with having a concept of art, as long as you bring with it the understanding that it's your conception, and that lots of people may disagree with you.

  • Golgo #93 1 month ago

    Fair points Kangarootoo. And I did commence a bit arrogantly, I must admit. :)

  • geeza2020 #94 1 month ago

    You lost me at:
    "Are videogames art? What's your reaction to that question?"
    ZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.........

  • Farzlepot #95 1 month ago

    Games aren't art. Art is a passive medium. You sit there and look at / listen to somebody else's imaginings.

    In games, we actually interact with what's going on. To really piss off pompous old gits like Ebert, I suggest to you that games are more than art.

  • kangarootoo #96 1 month ago

    @Dirtbox

    "Ebert himself has gone back on this and admitted that he was wrong"

    Well frankly that was inevitable, unless he just wanted to look stubborn and stupid (I'm pretty certain he isn't the latter, but the former plays crazy tricks with peoples' heads).

  • kangarootoo #97 1 month ago

    @geeza2020

    I was nearly the same, but it all got interesting after that :) Read on.

  • Brownstudy #98 1 month ago

    @kangerootoo

    Totally. My problem is that people like to give certain ideas in art the same objective status as proven scientific facts. They want these ideas to be as untouchable as the theory of evolution and that will never be the case.

    I agree that science gets things wrong sometimes and certain theories turn out to be rubbish. But the beauty of science is that it contains the apparatus for us to discover that (empirical testing). Yes, two different thermometers may give slightly different results, but their readings are approximations of a single objective truth.

    I'm not against art. I love music and literature. But I think there are those who are jealous of science's unique role as the best way to understand the world around us. Postmodern arty types want everyone to think that art is as difficult to understand, as deep, as quantum mechanics, but it's not. I've been subject to the obfuscation of a university literature department and once you learn the code words, it's all pretty simple.

  • rprince #99 1 month ago

    Cracking piece. However, I have to disagree that "at this point it should be clear that Ebert doesn't know anything about games". I personally think he is spot on that the interactive experiences which eschew mechanics (rules, and perhaps, but probably not, goals), can be art, but are not games.

    Just because something is on a computer and is interactive and has graphics, doesn't make it a game. A game has rules, mechanics and strategies (and occasionally an end goal). I'm not sure any one whole game is Art, because a game tends to be so much larger in scope (to consume) than a film, play, album, painting or sculpture.

    However, many of the greatest games have portions of Art in them. A particular level, a certain encounter or a perfectly balanced mechanic. The first piece of game Art will no doubt be an indie minigame.

    Is this necessarily bad? No! Art films are not non-stop, back-to-back Art-in-your-face, so why should games? And how can games compete with painting or sculptures, a thing that can be consumed with one glance and a whole lot of consideration. They become Art because of what they make you think or feel, which games can definitely compete with.

  • v.profane #100 1 month ago

    Christ, have you had this sitting around in a word doc for 18 months? I think Ebert is a terrific hack and his moronic writing on games should serve as Exhibit A; however he is probably the most famous living film critic so it was inevitable people would respond. Ebert makes his living giving Katherine Heigl movies 3/4 stars so for him to dismiss video games as beneath him speaks to the pomposity of the man.

    I read quite a lot of the 'serious' gaming blogs and it's quite clear that there are a lot of people out there who are extremely insecure and even embarrassed by their association with video games. Some of them are even honest enough to explicitly say that they don't want to have to say "I write about video games" or "I develop video games" when somebody asks them what they do (especially when a girl asks).

    This insecurity leads to a mediocre game like Bioshock being hailed as the best thing since Citizen Kane because it superficially deals with 'grown up' ideas about politics and morality, so people can try to use it as a 'worthy' example of how games really are a suitable pursuit for adults. Same reason people desperately want to argue that games are art, despite the fact they otherwise don't pay much attention to the art world.

    People working in and around the film industry can spend their entire career working on nothing but direct to DVD teen sex comedies and SuperMegaShark vs Santa Claus, but by association with a handful works by other people, mostly from decades ago, and because the 'right' people decided that Citizen Kane, The Godfather, Metropolis etc are all sophisticated works of art as well as being entertainment, the entire medium of film gets a pass.

    Personally, I'm fine with games as entertainment. If ignorant people want to look down on me as a life long gamer at 29, fine. I suggest they go back to their 6 hours of trash TV a night and barely literate paperbacks, or more often these days, their Wii dancing games and Farmville.
    Edited by 1 at 18/01/12 @ 14:10

  • kangarootoo #101 1 month ago

    @Brownstudy

    Totally agree.

    And..
    "I agree that science gets things wrong sometimes and certain theories turn out to be rubbish. But the beauty of science is that it contains the apparatus for us to discover that (empirical testing)."
    ...that is really neat. I'm going to pinch it :)

  • kangarootoo #102 1 month ago

    @v.profane

    "and SuperMegaShark vs Santa Claus"

    Shit, I thought I'd seen all the MegaShark films.

    Another great post btw. Where have you all been lurking?

  • chiptoon #103 1 month ago

    I don't have the time to read all of this now. Will read later.

    But I see this as a non issue. I am a practicing artist with 3 solo shows (soon 4) under my belt. I have worked as a curator and exhibition designer for over 10 years. I have always loved games and am now developing games as my main source of income alongside my fine art production.

    I find it very hard to differentiate between either the production of any of these things, nor the experience of enjoying them.

    Ebert is doing it wrong.

  • memeroot #104 1 month ago

    Can football be art? Can a shoe be art,can a turd be art... oddly the latter won an award

  • KopparbergDave #105 1 month ago

    The word art doesn't mean very much to me so this whole issue is a bit of a moot point. If I need to say anything it's that if art is something tangible then it must either make you think, elicit an emotion or feeling or generally give you enjoyment of some kind. Anything can do this from a picture, a piece of writing, a film, music and yes, a video game. To discredit gaming on the basis it's interactive seems ridiculous. For one how many art installations of one kind or another are art because they're interactive... and well basically as a viewer or consumer of any form of art you are inherently interacting with it, maybe not physically, but emotionally. Just like different people can get different things from a video game, people can take different readings from one piece of 'art'. The simple fact is playing something like Braid, combining the music, the artwork and yes the clever level design all combined into being a very pleasurable experience to me personally, and I'd class that as a form of art. So screw Ebert, film critics are notorious for the pompous nonsense, like that Mark Kermode who's another twat 99% of the time.

  • miiiguel #106 1 month ago

    Games aren't art. Art is a passive medium. You sit there and look at / listen to somebody else's imaginings.

    That's not true. There are plenty of artist who do interactive instalations, for example.

  • Porcupine_I #107 1 month ago

    i go with Scott McCloud's Definition:

    “Art, as I see it, is any human activity which doesn’t grow out of either of our species’ two basic instincts: survival and reproduction.”

  • JumpinJackFlash #108 1 month ago

    Games aren't Art, they are entertainment.

  • digitalash #109 1 month ago

    I love the title of this piece, a very good multi-layered pun. The actual writing is good too, but the title is brillogs.

    I think we can call an end to this debate, surely, and move on to discussing what is a far more important question - Beyond The Valley of the Dolls: is it Art?

  • miiiguel #110 1 month ago

    Games aren't Art, they are entertainment.

    There are some art forms which entertain me, I don't think this is the borderline. Anyway, great article, and while I couldn't care less with the inclusion or exclusion of video games in the "Art" VIP club, I admit the fact that I don't talk often about my hobby with some of my collegues and not so close friends.
    Edited by 1 at 18/01/12 @ 15:02

  • kangarootoo #111 1 month ago

    @KopparbergDave

    "like that Mark Kermode who's another twat 99% of the time."

    I do quite like the film review show he does with Simon Mayo, but by christ the man himself can be annoying and petulant at times. His hatred of 3D had moved well beyond all reason and into some kind of reigious dogma territory (the interview they did with Martin Scorsese, who quite likes 3D, was silently comical - I could almost picture the "does not compute" tape coming out of Kermode's ears as his idol explained why 3D can be good, in terms Kermode had blinkeredly not even considered).
    Edited by 2 at 18/01/12 @ 15:04

  • geeza2020 #112 1 month ago

    @Kangarootoo

    You're right, it was actually quite an interesting piece. Kind of sums up the thoughts I've had about art all my life, even before this "games as art" nonsense started up. Its almost entirely subjective; one man might be moved by a cubist painting, while another man would find it utterly boring and devoid of merit, but that doesnt stop the first mans opinion being just as valid as the second.

    It really is a pointless discussion in the end.

  • spongebob #113 1 month ago

    Hey there, I hope people don't read this whole thing, and also what Ebert has said, as games suck if they are not art and everyone who likes games is an idiot. Because that is definitely not the case.

    Actually Ebert is a great example of a great critic who is not a pompous high art lover. I don't agree with many of his reviews on films, but I love the fact that he gives every movie a fair chance, be it by Michael Bay or Peter Greenaway. He actually likes entertainment as well as art and is able to review films in their own genre, style and who they are made for. Still, he and I have a really different tastes in movies often.

    It's also good to point out that at the moment there are a couple of big trends in making video games. On the other end of the spectrum is cinematic games, which try hard to be artistic and deep by copying movies, just the way @Uncompatitive wrote in his long comment. On the other end are indie games, which play with the medium and are often not that interested in conventions.

    Currently to me it looks like indie games have a much better shot at making video games high art. Of course, that goal might not be even interesting to anyone, like many people here have expressed.

  • GreyBeard #114 1 month ago

    What if a developer hired a noted fine artist to create a digital image that was used in a game. If it appeared in the game placed in situ inside a frame within a digital gallery would it still be art?

    What if the same work was used as the background/skybox to the digital city within which the painting was displayed. Would this reduce its artistic validity?

  • -cerberus- #115 1 month ago

    Art: the original Silent Hill trilogy, ICO, Shadow of the Colossus, Grim Fandango, Bioshock, Deadly Premonition, Limbo ...

  • kirinnokoshin #116 1 month ago

    So, to pose a question to the forum as someone who was bored to death with the 'are games art' conundrum many years ago:

    If I pause a game and gaze at the on-screen image, might I be gazing at art?

    If so; games may not be art, but they may contain a whole heap of art.

    No?

  • FireMonkey #117 1 month ago

    @rprince - "Just because something is on a computer and is interactive and has graphics, doesn't make it a game. A game has rules, mechanics and strategies (and occasionally an end goal)."

    I disagree. A game does not need any of those.
    In my opinion it is fine for a game just to be meaningless and pointless.

    What is a game is as subjective as what is art, so by trying to answer 'are games art', you are trying to compare 2 completely subjective things and so in somebodies mind you will always be wrong.

  • FireMonkey #118 1 month ago

    @JumpinJackFlash - "Games aren't Art, they are entertainment."

    If that's true, then we have a problem as I am entertained by 'art', therefore art can not be 'art'. Slight paradox there.
    Edited by 1 at 18/01/12 @ 15:58

  • AdamAsunder #119 1 month ago

    Ebert slated Blade Runner on release so I'm not going to take anything he says that seriously.

    Whether games are art or not now does not mean that the potential isn't there. Anyone that fails to see that is a luddite, pure and simple.

  • FireMonkey #120 1 month ago

    @kirinnokoshin - "If I pause a game and gaze at the on-screen image, might I be gazing at art?

    If so; games may not be art, but they may contain a whole heap of art."

    So games are an art gallery! ;)

  • Vaarna #121 1 month ago

    What is art? Baby don't hirst me, don't hirst me, no more.

    /gets coat

  • Bander #122 1 month ago

    But is there any reason to label something as art? Oh yeah, this kind of nonsense justifies the income of critics.

  • v.profane #123 1 month ago

    @AdamAsunder Do you like the original release of Blade Runner with the voice over and the happy ending?

  • Astro-Creature #124 1 month ago

    Epic title lol

  • TazerFan #125 1 month ago

    Damn. I was ready to roll my eyes because I'm bored to death of this topic, but that was quite an elegant examination. Well done, Rich.

  • kirinnokoshin #126 1 month ago

    @FireMonkey

    Indeed

    Now we can start a whole new debate on which games' collection/gallery would fetch the most at auction!

  • JeroenZM #127 1 month ago

    I always like reading Ebert's movie reviews, as they're informative and full of dry humor. He's shockingly close-minded when it comes to game design though.

  • Sunyavadin #128 1 month ago

    These "Paintings" will never be art. Where's the flint chiseling? And how come you can't get cool shades by burning it? No, they lack the core fundmentals all art requires!

  • Demiath #129 1 month ago

    While "art" needs to be an essentially empty term (meaning that everyone should be allowed to use "art" to describe just about anything), I don't think it's satisfactory to be quite as relativist about the distinction between kitsch and high art as Rich Stanton appears to be. Quality in art is perhaps even more difficult than the idea of art itself, but we really need to be able to debate the qualities of specific works of art and come to some conclusions, however tentative.

    Stanton dismisses any consistent and collctive set of value judgements about large categories of art as inherently suspect, elitist and vacuous. On the contrary, I believe "assumptions of shared values" is as important to the functioning of a democractic society as the right to speak one's mind.
    Edited by 1 at 18/01/12 @ 17:37

  • JumpinJackFlash #130 1 month ago

    @FireMonkey

    But games aren't "art" there's a difference. A lot of people on here seem to be confused by the differences between art and entertainment.

  • KingFunkIII #131 1 month ago

    The word 'art' isn't subjective, it's a word. And it doesn't have a capital. Of course it has connotations, but that's irrelevant in my book. The actual meaning of the word, as handed down by our friends the Romans, is more akin to something created with skill - a product of some craft or other, effectively. So games are art. It's that simple. And no I don't need validation, I'm just a pedant with a Classics degree.

  • mrharvest #132 1 month ago

    Mr. Stanton should read some books on aesthetics. Maybe then things would make more sense.

  • toa_boa #133 1 month ago

    Any creation that can envoke emotions and help us reflect on the human condition is art - be it architecture, books, movies, painting, music or even games.

    So a lot of games, books, movies etc. aren't art, but simple entertainment or pass-time, but hey that's also plenty cool :-)

  • stryker1121 #134 1 month ago

    I think the gaming community defended itself in such a manner against Ebert exactly because we're embarrassed that just maybe we're wasting our time w/ a kids' hobby. Does the average citizen know that the average age of a gamer is about 28? No. So let's take Ebert's advice and just sit back and enjoy our games w/o worries of who thinks what about the slippery, no-answer debate of whether or not games can be art.

  • -cerberus- #135 1 month ago

    @JumpinJackFlash: Are all movies entertainment? No, some are art. Are all games art? No, but some are.

  • You_shlaaaag #136 1 month ago

    One of the best articles on gaming culture I think I have read in a long time. Fabulous work.

  • GeanaWQ #137 1 month ago

    Art as defined by (it's primary) definition in the Oxford dictionary is
    the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power
    The first time somene said 'that's pretty' when talking about a video game, it became art. The first time someone cried at a video game, it became art. The first time someone screamed in pure frustration that they just couldn't get past that bit, games became art.
    Edited by 1 at 18/01/12 @ 18:38

  • frod. #138 1 month ago

    You can have a REALLY PRETTY chair.

    The second you interact with it, it stopped being art and became a chair. And so it is with games. You alter its state by interacting with it.

    Other things that are not art: board games, really nice looking chess sets, musical instruments, meals by chefs.

    Even if you remove most of the gameplay (like the ironically named "thatgamecompany" try to do) it's still just a game.

  • frod. #139 1 month ago

    Also, this article says practically nothing.

  • Lucodeath #140 1 month ago

    I got dragged around Tate modern and a lot of what was there was no way "art".
    And contemporary art is another word for crap to me.
    Edited by 1 at 18/01/12 @ 19:31

  • IvorB #141 1 month ago

    Wait. Are people still being trolled by this old geezer?

  • Brownstudy #142 1 month ago

    The comments section involved discussion earlier about art v science. I argued that science holds the monopoly on objective truths about the universe. Art doesn't equal science in that regard and nor should it attempt to.

    The power of art is to document and share ideas about 'the human condition'. Art records subjective human beliefs and emotions. The most powerful and effective art teaches us about other peoples' response to the world around them, responses which resonate with many of us. It can teach us how people react to the world and society now, as well as in history. Art deals in subjective truths. These matter to us. As a highly social species, we need to compare our experience with our fellow humans. Art is our method of doing this.

    Subjective truths matter to us as much as objective truths. When I ask my girlfriend if she's cold, I'm interested in how comfortable the ambient temperature makes her feel, not in her skin temperature in degrees centigrade. Art gives us (admittedly more poignant) truths of just such subjectivity.

    I can't get away from my belief about art having a subjective definition. The Mona Lisa tells me nothing about anyone, though some people are still very interested in the subjective truths (and mysteries) she divulges. I don't appreciate that masterpiece as art though I respect the fact that others do. I learn so much more from a Radiohead song than I ever will from The Mona Lisa. But that's just me.

    I adore gaming but I can't think of a game that has taught me about, or really encouraged me to consider The Human Condition (hate that phrase but it's useful shorthand when typing on an iPhone). To me, games are not art, but to somebody using a different definition or with a different experience of games, they may well be.

    So, to conclude: I've got a girlfriend and an iPhone.

  • dr_faulk #143 1 month ago

    Jesus, you just transcended an argument by Roger Ebert! Gee-knee-us!

  • Lukey__b #144 1 month ago

    I just don't see the point of the discussion really.

    Well, I can in some circles, but for Joe Public I don't really see what the fuss is whether it is or isn't. It's as if the term 'art' suddenly changes what you are labelling, making it better.

    Under most definitions of 'art', people like Katy Perry are considered artists who make art. With that in mind, and the fact I like curry, I propose we class games as curry.

  • RoOhDaMite #145 1 month ago

    I see there no reason why books, films, pictures or music can be considered art, while videogames can not.
    Videogames are superior to all other forms of media, for they are able to include all of their content plus adding interactivity.

    The Game-Designers creativity, technologie and budget are the only restrictions.

  • Ryze #146 1 month ago

    Why Kellee Santiago didn't end the debate with Shadow of the Colossus, is beyond me.

  • Rajin #147 1 month ago

    @Brownstudy

    While i love radiohead and their lyrics, i'd never ''learn'' anything from their songs. More people besides you seem to learn from them though and i wonder on what level?

    I would love to have some kind of seperate forum section for these kind of discussions(i was once a moderator for the art and gallery section for the website ''the evil empire'') Beause the whole overflooded comment section doesn't do anything to improve a discussion.
    Edited by 3 at 19/01/12 @ 13:35

  • CrumpetBoy #148 1 month ago

    I don't know what art is (I did Chemistry at Uni, and I failed that), but I've always assumed that it was the communication of some feeling, sense, idea or emotion. I get that from Rothko, from Far Cry 2, from Doctor Who, from Vermeer, even from Guinness adverts. Maybe I'm being stupid, but the communication of anything more than a mere fact seems to me to be (a) art at its purest and (b) totally subjective. Nothing is art unless you feel it. Ebert doesn't feel it from a game, so it isn't art for Ebert... doesn't mean it isn't art for anyone else.

    Is everyone so cross about it because they know they're right, or because Ebert won't say he's wrong?

  • Notorious_LRO #149 1 month ago

    @Kostas Nothing wrong with disagreeing. We just have different definitions of art. The important thing, perhaps, is that the art establishment - the part that Ebert belongs to - has the power to define art. The are right now choosing to not include games into their world.

  • FerrisBueller #150 1 month ago

    Eurogamer, I'm disappointed in your lack of comment on this. This story could, on the basis of the YouTube video in CloisterBlack's comment, lead to Eurogamer being banned in the US, blocked from search engines, and blocked from getting any advertising revenue, if SOPA/PIPA passes in the US. In other words, this story could lead to the demise of Eurogamer.

    Think I'm exaggerating? I'm really not. This is what the legislation is designed to do, because the YouTube footage hasn't had explicit approval to be posted here, so technically it is a copyright infringement. What I listed above is the reprecussions SOPA/PIPA sets up, and they can be enforced without any due process, but on a right's holder's demand. Even to websites outside the US. They hit the website as a whole, not the commenter. Stop SOPA/PIPA. Keep the internet for us.

    http://blacklists.eff.org/

  • BigJonno #151 1 month ago

    The point is that it really doesn't matter whether you/society/Ebert think videogames are art or not. Games, of all kinds, are just as important to humanity as art is. Videogames don't need to be art to be worthwhile.

  • alcides #152 1 month ago

    "Kitsch is fundamentally standard, and when standards change, it becomes first irrelevant, then corny, and finally the subject of nostalgia. Sublime art is either always relevant, or not at all. It is never the subject of nostalgia, but often the subject of discovery."

    These definitions make so many assumptions they mean nothing.


    I think this man knows an thing or two about art, judging by the very quote you're using against him. If you were half as well informed as you think you are, you'd know it has now been argued in academic pieces that the sublime always has a nihilistic subtext and anti-nihilists breathing down its neck.

    "It could mean everything, and that is sublime", says the beholder of art

    "It could mean nothing, and that is sublime" says the respectable nihilist

    "It's just crap since I don't know whats going on, it's nothing, it's valueless, meaningless, I'm even tempted to destroy it to prove my point, this makes me angry that people should not see eye-to-eye with me, and the best economy of words can't possibly hold the more meaning, since what is contained cannot surpass in size what contains it. I could talk about the sublime and whine that it's nothing without ever getting the hint that if it's constantly and repeatedly called nothing, then that nothing must be something, and even then, I'm missing the fact that I'm talking about a kind of nothing that is something, which is the very definition of the sublime the latter which I have been wasting my breath to censure but of which I have given a working, living definition by the amusing paradox of my unending speech, thus nailing that which can't be nailed, that is, art is IRONY" blathers the anti-nihilist blogger.

  • CloudXIV #153 1 month ago

    Wow, that's one of the best articles I've read on Eurogamer. I can only agree. I was looking for "artsy" shit when I was a kid, but I've realised years ago that the only important thing is whether I like something or not. Be it a game, a film, a painting or music.

  • alcides #154 1 month ago

    I have to say though I don't agree with the writer's dismissal of art as art since critics won't allow games to be art....
    That Ebert guy should look up the notion of "play" in relation with the sublime, nihilism and postmodernism, and rather wonder why critics don't allow art to be just a game, not the other way around.
    There's extensive work on "play", I've seen it.

    I think Braid was art in all the senses of the word I have ever thought of or read about (in academic pieces, that is).

    It's a piece of fiction based on fictional recollections, which prove to be innacurate themselves, therefore it is a self-conscious piece about self-consciousness which makes a statement that the very thing it's dealing with is a utopia. Though it's right there (sublime!)
    It's a striking example of intertextuality (it plays with VG staples and makes direct references to other titles)
    It establishes rules only to break them every now and then, thus it is repetition through variation.
    It has a voice of its own telling something about something
    It holds within its own structure the potential to outdo itself, and the BIG SPOILER proves that perpective is everything.
    It tackles time as a sense-making power. Time, which is the basis for making sense out of the levels you go through

    AND it looks artsy and it even has a single auteur

    BRAID is truly a piece of art.

  • Slipstream #155 1 month ago

    Life, and its endless conquests for creation and knowledge are the very essence of art, art itself is but a speckle in said conquests.

  • ilmaestro #156 1 month ago

    I don't 100% agree with some of the content, but this is the sort of article that would make me actually read stuff on the front page more often.

  • ChanceSplinter #157 1 month ago

    My favorite, briefest of arguments came from Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade - paraphrased:

    "If a hundred artists work on a project for three years, how can the resulting product not be art?"

  • Sunyavadin #158 1 month ago

    @JumpinJackFlash

    Indeed, there's no way you could ever claim that something like the ceiling of the sistine Chapel could ever be considered art, it is a work of entertainment, telling the story of a jolly, fanciful tale, spun as part of the religious entertainment experience of 16th century catholic Rome. A something which exists to entertain, it lacks any artistic merit whatsoever.


    </sarcasm>

  • Asur11 #159 1 month ago

    A painting may be or may not be art. A book may be or may not be art. A game may be or may not be art. Etc.

    BTW: the urinal was not supposed to be art. Duchamp: "I threw the bottlerack and the urinal in their faces and now they admire them for their aesthetic beauty." And Yves Klein was just a poseur.

  • drSchiwago #160 1 month ago

    My opinion on "games are art" is split into three areas:
    1) Producing a game can be an art, if my definition of "art"* is used: Creativity and esp. the skills to realize it.
    2) Consuming "art" itself is never art: Not games, movies nor books; so why being arrogant about consuming the "real" art?
    3) Computer games are not an art form itself, simply because no game qualifies as art. For example, who would consider board and card games as an art form?

    As a consequence, I don't think that computer games need the art label, but it seems important to a lot of game producers and gamers alike. It's difficult for gamers not to be seen as "connoisseurs of the true arts", but being discriminated as a group of freaks instead. To make it worse, judging computer gaming as trivial and useless is already the most positive conception of our hobby so far, even by the most average person. In Germany (maybe the home country of "true art" issues), computer games range between damaging, sick and a kind of child pornography.

    This situation could be the main reason that producers and gamers are so much into games that try to imitate movies, even more than the technical advancements in hard- and software.

    The real, deeper irony (or "tragedy", as Doc Zhivago would put it) is that the gaming industry tries to achieve the art status by applying non-gaming techniques like videos, fully-scripted set-pieces, dialogs, predetermined stories & character developments. If they achieve it (which I doubt) computer games will probably stop being games.

    At the end of the day the whole thing is probably about social acceptance.

    *
    I know that especially with "modern arts" people have an opposite understanding of art. The "vision" and personality of the artist is practically the only factor for "true art", but in my opinion there's no art without major craftsmanship and even engineering.

  • Pwnsweet #161 1 month ago

    What is Art? Seriously.

  • f3r613 #162 1 month ago

    My carefully considered opinion is that games can be art. Not all games are art and most AAA titles fall into the not art side. But the indi movement is a little different. These games are a manifestation of a few minds desire to engage with an audience through a medium of their choice, just because they choose to pick up a bitmap editor and a compiler is that any less important than if they picked up a paint brush. They are taking you on a journey through their imagination providing a window to a world that otherwise would only exist in someone's head. And if that is not art then i think we should abandon the concept of art altogether.

    Of course i could just be seeking validation, but a whole lot less than someone who claims to be an 'art'ist because they are a bit handy with a 2B pencil or can string 3 chords together. Developers have never asked to be called artists and will never label themselves as artists. It's just a rather poor show when a self titled artist unprovoked, attacks someone else's chosen medium of expression. When last did you see a game developer in the news saying "paintings are a bit crap why do people waste their time looking at them" it just doesn't happen.

  • jogyourmind #163 1 month ago

    @Pwnsweet

    Learn to google, seriously.

  • dshooker #164 1 month ago

    Post deleted at 06:50:46 19-01-2012

  • dshooker #165 1 month ago

    When one considers a piece of art, it's usually compared within its own medium. "This is a great piece of Literature, or a great Painting, etc; therefore, it's a great piece of art." I find it interesting how this is not the case with games. That games, for whatever reason, must not only be compared to other mediums, but must rival other mediums in order to be considered "art;" this notion being quite arbitrary. When does anyone ever compare a painting to a novel, and then conclude that one is more legitimate than the other? It doesn't happen, because the conclusion is that the two are different, exceeding within the parameters of their respective mediums. For whatever reason, we neglect games this intellectual benefit.
    Edited by 2 at 19/01/12 @ 06:59

  • Brownstudy #166 1 month ago

    Alcides

    That is fucking ridiculous.

    Please keep your literary theory away from our beloved Braid. I studied that shit at uni and, for anyone who hasn't seen that sort of writing before, and thinks they're thick because they can't understand it: don't worry, it's largely meaningless drivel.

    I mentioned postmodernist code words earlier; the words you need to understand in order to join the postmodernist club. One of the main ones is 'intertextuality'. If anyones interested (and I certainly hope they're not), they can google it to discover how pointless a word it really is.

    The Emperor is stark bollock naked.

  • strange_powers #167 1 month ago

    I am rather surprised that they let Professor Moriarty talk at GDC after all the naughty things he's done.

  • benfresh76 #168 1 month ago

    @memeroot only a turn produced by an artist can be art...do you see?

  • FireMonkey #169 1 month ago

    @JumpinJackFlash - Games in general are NOT art. That is true, but then films & books in general are NOT art either. Some games can be considered art in the same way as some films & books can be.

    I think the problem is really that a lot of people arguing that they can not be art are actually confused about what a 'game' is. Not all games are like MW3.

    I already posted a link to Access (but will mention again as many people seem to be not reading previous posts) which is an interactive art installation that is controlled via a web connection. The user could be said to be participating in a 'game': http://www .youtube.com/watch?v=678EaXPekFo

    Also, take a look at this (My fav bit is at 4:40):
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsHOPvGpqDM&f eature=player_embedded#!
    There are a number of interactive instalations here that could easily be described as art, but look at the kids. They are playing on them. They have seen the game that lies within the art and are playing it. No rules, no goals just fun.

    Kids can make a game out of anything even cracks in a pavement. If that is possible kids can make games out of art. If that is possible art can be a game. If that is possible games can be art.
    Edited by 1 at 19/01/12 @ 09:26

  • FireMonkey #170 1 month ago

    @frod. "The second you interact with it, it stopped being art and became a chair. And so it is with games. You alter its state by interacting with it."

    So what is with all this interactive art they have in some of the top art galleries then?

    I think I'm going to go to an art gallery an interact with all the sculptures, so that it suddenly all stops being art and stops having any meaning! Oh, no actually, that won't work because what you said is crap!

  • kangarootoo #171 1 month ago

    @KingFunkIII

    /can't help myself

    Oh come on. You say that art isn't subjective, but then go on to describe a definition that contains the words "skill" and "craft", both of which have subjective definitions. Who is say that something I create is a result of skill rather than cack handed random experimentation? And if I take some random event (like me dropping a plate and it smashing), stick it in a box and put it on display where people look at it and gain pleasure from the experience, is that not art?


    I'm sorry, classics degree or not, you can't start titting about with the difference between subjective and objective just 'cos the Romans wrote something down. I just won't stand for it! ;)

  • kangarootoo #172 1 month ago

    @Brownstudy

    "So, to conclude: I've got a girlfriend and an iPhone."

    Aww, I was so close to writing "stealth 'I've got a girlfriend' post", but at the very last moment you stole my thunder. Dammit.

  • Brownstudy #173 1 month ago

    Kangarootoo

    Sorry. I realized that someone might make that response so thought I'd better preempt it!

    The conversation continues; I hope you've got a lenient boss.

  • kangarootoo #174 1 month ago

    @alcides

    I have to say, I do appreciate what you are trying to get across, but you are far too fond of syllables.

    Writing concisely is a skill that should be valued. Communicate an idea in the shortest possible time with the greatest clarity. Unless your goal is not to communicate an idea, but to show off... ;)


    (not saying I always take the shortest route myself, but I should).

  • kangarootoo #175 1 month ago

    @Brownstudy

    I was surprised to find the discussion still rattling along too. Pleasantly so. Its one of the best discussions I've seen on here in ages. Everyone is so... calm.. and... interested. Its like I've walked into the wrong meeting :)

  • Brownstudy #176 1 month ago

    @kangarootoo

    I know what you mean. Loved your reply to Alcides. I couldn't have put it better myself (though I did try to).

  • SG #177 1 month ago

    You can't hold a valid opinion on something you don't know about. Simple.

  • Gecks #178 1 month ago

    @alcides well, i thought your analysis of braid was right on the nose! whilst games like ico and sotc are aesthetically lovely, with their impossible chiroco architectures and ambient-fairytale storytelling, i think braid is one of the few games that is a sort of 'total-art', whilst playing well at the same time.

    i'm with the author on passage; it's a novel idea and evokes a feeling with much artistry through the gameplay itself, but it's ultimately a shitty game.

  • KingFunkIII #179 1 month ago

    @kangarootoo Basically, I was just saying that as a word, it has a definition which isn't subjective (as long as you accept the OED) and I thought I'd throw in some etymology. Words in themselves can't be subjective - it's only context that changes that. So skill and craft on their own also have specific definitions, not the stuff we associate with them or our opinions on examples of them. Essentially, unless you're choosing to deconstruct the English language (for artistic reasons? ;-) ) then definitions are not subjective.

    I could follow a logical definition chain from art through to skill or craft and proceed to explain my point of view, but so as not to labour the point I'll just point out that I am in fact God and therefore infallible.

  • kangarootoo #180 1 month ago

    @KingFunkIII

    Summary time :) When I say art is subjective, I am talking about the 'thing' that we are describing. Not the word 'art', or its definition, but the piece of work we are calling art (though I may have sometimes talked about the definition of art being subjective, which tbh I also believe is true).


    The definition of art might be established and consensus may exist (lets presume we are all fine with the OEM definition of the word, even if we aren't), but somehow that doesn't allow is to easily file all items as art or not art. If the subject is objective, that should not be the case.


    If I look up the word cow in the OEM, I can see an definition of an objective subject that clearly allows me to examine any mammal on the planet (assuming I am able, have the skills, etc) and say that it is beyond all shadow of a doubt, or is not, a cow. So when I say the definition is objective, I suppose I really mean the subject can be objectively measured and declared as fitting or not fitting the definition (on that basis, definitions themselves are neither objective nor subjective).


    To get back to your original point, the definition of the word skill can be agreed upon. But to define something as skillful cannot be done objectively (there will always be someone able to state with certainty "that is a bit rubbish imo, actually";).
    Edited by 2 at 19/01/12 @ 14:28

  • kangarootoo #181 1 month ago

    Related - I am one of these people that doesn't believe a dictionary tells us "what words mean" (in a timeless empirical sense). Rather they are a current record of the use of language. Which is why dictionaries differ, and are updated as language naturally changes.

    Consensus is how every evolving language works - it doesn't really matter what a word means, it just matters that we all agree in the moment so we are able to communicate our thoughts, and we have enough words to get the job done (by the shortest route).

  • KingFunkIII #182 1 month ago

    @kangarootoo Be honest - was it you who liked both your comments? ;-)

    You make some good points and I honestly can't believed how civilised a thread about Roger Ebert has remained. I agree that classifying objects certainly would be more difficult with art than a cow. But maybe we can start a new debate: is a yak a cow? Maybe I could confuse a yak for a cow based on the OED definition.

    As for believing in dictionaries (in your sense) I find myself torn between a 'laissez faire' attitude as long as meaning is conveyed and my natural born pedant. That is, I like to mess around with words, but if I were to write them down, I like them to be RIGHT. Quick check of spelling.

    And if someone makes something, even if someone else thinks it's rubbish, I would argue that it still requires skill, just not very much. If there was no skill involved, then it would not have been made. Although that's open for debate as well.

    What I'm trying to say is that I wish I wasn't in work and this debate was happening in the pub :-)

  • KingFunkIII #183 1 month ago

    P.S. I think it's your round...

  • TheDarkFurie #184 1 month ago

    A team, sometimes as large as five hundred people and sometimes as small as six, can create a moving story with exquisite mechanics that perfectly match the style and turn the story into a deeply personal experience for a vast majority of players. Depending on the resulting game there may be artistic moments in the cinematography or the music, the voice acting may be sublime, the controls may even be so unobtrusive as to enhance the play session to the point that one can really lose themselves in a video game. In some very rare cases, the entire game may well count as a masterpiece; being something that affects you so as to hit your core emotions in all the right places. To reduce that work and ability to "it's a game if you can win at it and not a game if it counts as art" is ridiculous and the sign of someone trying to assemble the facts in such a way that his viewpoint is seen as understandable rather than uneducated.

    Given the choice between spending Ł8 to Ł15 on I Am Alive, which incidentally may well teach a thing or two about human nature before the credits roll, or thousands on a bed that someone has defecated into and deigned to call the result art rather than a sign of mental illness, I'm sure that the former would offer much more enjoyment to me as a connoisseur of the efforts of true artists. If that makes me differently evolved to Roger Ebert then all the better as I'm not sure I'd be happy knowing that I'm of the same genus as someone whose views of art are so far skewed.

    Art may be a very personal thing but when one calls themselves a critic of such things, they become part of the public eye. They cannot be closed to new forms of art in the same way as someones personal preference may force them to be (for example, my personal preference not to have shite in my living room). He should be open to the idea of video games as art and give examples of the medium as much a chance as he would give films or books, or not voice an opinion on such things as he simply hasn't the background to do so. Even if he would explain that he hasn't the history with and knowledge of games to form a full opinion of the medium as an artform before giving that opinion, the opinion he gave would have been met with a lot less bile than it has been.

  • kangarootoo #185 1 month ago

    @KingFunkIII

    If I could like my own comments, I would honestly resist the urge with all my might :)

    In answer to the yak and/or cow quandary, that has been challenging mankind since time eternal... its time for a visit to a dictionary...

    So I went to dictionary.com, not because its better than OEM but because its quicker to type (the OEM url is obfuscated and I can never remember it).

    A yak is along haired wild ox. An ox is any member of the bovine group of animals. A cow is a female bovine, though slang allows for a bovine of any gender. Bivone refers to a specific genus (bovinae). So the answer is yes, because cow and ox are essentially interchangeable and occupy the same position on the ladder above yak.


    Regards dictionaries, although I believe they should be malleable, I am still frequently a pedant for incorrect use. It is one thing to accept that the meaning of a word can change - it is another to confuse two words and use one of them incorrectly (i.e. to have a meaning that has never been recorded or agreed). Its a tricky area (which is a cop out, and another way of saying "I dunno, and I can't decide";).


    "just not very much"

    Again, a subjective measurement :) One person's 'not very much' is another person's 'loads and loads'. I think I said something way back in this thread about "pretty" not having an SI unit, and the same applies here. Skill, craft, much, they are all terms that can't be measured in an agreed consistent way. We can only measure them with other subjective terms (perhaps with the aim of increasing the common understanding, eventually either finding consesus or better understanding the specific disagreement).


    I have no actual question to leave you with. I am at that point where I am just responding to specifics with no real plan. Give it till tomorrow, someone will chip with another "of course games are at because XYZ" and it will all start over :)

  • kangarootoo #186 1 month ago

    I have also noticed that if you use an emoticon that ends with a ), and then follow it with another ) as part of your sentence, the emoticon eats the last ) and leaves your sentence looking untidy (adding a blank space between the two brackets sorts this).

    Fix this EG, or I won't be able to sleep.

  • Brownstudy #187 1 month ago

    @kangarootoo & KingFunkIII

    Using the OED (or any other mutually agreed reference) is a useful starting point for agreeing on our definitions. I agree with King in that, at some point, we've got to try and nail our definitions down. If we don't, we end up in a self indulgent deconstruction of language, rather than getting on with the conversation at hand. There are problems here though.

    Take the yak/cow example. OK, using only our agreed reference point, OED, there is room for confusion and before you know it, we've established a new dairy farm producing thousands of gallons of milk we can't sell. But there does exist, somewhere, in biology textbooks, an absolute definition of cows and yaks. Biologists do not disagree about these definitions. 'cow' is a label which describes an animal with a particular genome; different genome? Different animal.

    What about art though? Looking at our trusty OED we find a fairly vague non-exclusive definition containing terms like (to paraphrase) 'usually refers to', 'can include' etc. Not to worry, we'll turn to the textbooks, like we did with the cow. Except we can't. No-one absolutely agrees, certainly not the leading lights in the art world. We find infinite overlapping definitions and have no way of determining which one is right. There'll all equally valid.

    And this is why, nearly 200 comments in, we're still debating the definition of art. Imagine if we were to consider, 'are games cows?'; the thread would have ended straight after the obligatory 'slow news day' comments.

  • michael.eddie.t #188 1 month ago

    I don't happen to like abstract art, but I wouldn't say it isn't art.

    Just because Ebert doesn't care for games, doesn't mean he has the right to say it isn't art. In fact, it gives him less authority.

    I don't know how somebody can look at Shadow of the Colossus and say it isn't art. I don't know how somebody could experience the tragic story of Ezio in Assassin's Creed II and say it isn't art.

    Hell, there are some artists that emulate 8-bit era graphics in their art. How is that art, and the original works not!

  • Brownstudy #189 1 month ago

    @ kangarootoo

    Sorry, I didn't see your post containing definitions of yaks and cows. If we substitute horses for yaks my post will hopefully make more sense.

  • ericroe51 #190 1 month ago

    Actually the distinction between mass culture and high art was first introduced by marxist philosopher Theodor Adorno. He distinguished between the two in terms of the response of the person encountering the art, and the political ramifications of the art, i.e. whether or not it contributes to a more marxist or a more capitalist society.
    So it's not all as subjective or relative as it first seems, check out this article about Theodor Adorno and the implications his ideas have for video games:
    Description_here

  • Puim #191 1 month ago

    I think that for a game to be art it would have to be something that would be experienced by everyone in the exact same way. As in an installation at a gallery, playing a never ending level like the ghost river in Metal Gear 3, or that indie game where you live and die inevitably in a couple of minutes ( can't remember the name ). That would be interactive art.

  • kangarootoo #192 1 month ago

    "'are games cows?"

    Some of them definitely are :D

  • kangarootoo #193 1 month ago

    @ericroe51

    I cannot prevent myself defending the difference between subjective and objective. I just CANNOT! :)

    Firstly, art did not become less subjective just because a philosopher wrote down a definition that lots of people agreed with. Again, that is "consensus", and no amount of consensus turns subjectivity into objectivity.

    But to even use the words less and more is misleading. Something isn't less or more subjective, it either is or it isn't. If it isn't objective, it is subjective. No other two states exist and there is no middle ground.



    I've just had a thought. It is of course possible to create an objective definition of art, but I doubt very much anyone else would agree with it. I could boldly state "art is any object that contains cells from a specific range of plant life genus - specifically wood" (I'm not a biologist, so some of that is lacking). So according to me, anything that contains wood is art. That is an objective definition, can be objecitvely measured, and all items everywhere can be categorised accordingly. But I doubt many people on earth would accept my definition....

    So maybe the issue isn't that art is subjective, it is just that none of us can agree. It is therefore perhaps just coincidence that all the current definitions are subjective in nature (if I was feeling cynical, I might suggest that people choose wooly subjective definitions in order to get more people "on board";).

    So in summary, if we could all just accept my new "its got wood in it" definition of art, although loads of current "art" won't be art anymore, at least order will be restored. Yay.
    Edited by 1 at 20/01/12 @ 10:00

  • Camilitus #194 1 month ago

    My favourite example of the mass-medium art etc, lies with the novel, especially during the late 19th century. Dickens and his episodic serials (DLC anyone?) or Austen and her, who or will i get married, novels, or even the birth of gothic and horror, were seen in contemporary circles, as 'not art', now we teach them to our children as part of the cannon of English literature (defiantly 'art'). Reading novels was often cited as a sign/source of moral deficiency and an excuse used to avoid character building healthy exercise. (how times change). However, IMHO, games can learn from themselves and from art such as Dickens/austen/almost anybody, is that games like the sims, sports simulations, even gta, simcity, bully, sell, and sell well. Novels that reflect their social times and the concerns about them resonate with readers. Real life sells. The early days of cinema had its epics, but soon found room for the romance, the domestic drama, the thriller set in everyday places. More contemporary games please, and less dragons, spaceships and angry birds. Ask CCP, makers of MMO EVE Online, their slogan atm is "EVE is real". The best art, imitates life.

    (also someone re-release Republic: The Revolution(2003) as Republic: Occupy! or Republic: Egypt, just for me, pls!);)

  • Matthew_Hornet #195 1 month ago

    Listen: people who will spend two hours watching 'The Change-Up' tell me I should waste less time on video games after I play a half hour of Portal 2. If forcing games to be Art will stop this ridiculous shit from happening, then I say bring on the Art! Before I pull all my hair out.

  • jaguarwong #196 1 month ago

    Okay, what's going on...

    Almost identical article on CVG today.

  • racecondition #197 4 weeks ago

    There is no such thing as an objective definition, because all that anyone can ever truly know of something is their own experience.
    The problem with this statement is that it is like the joke about Microsoft support: 100% correct and utterly useless. Carried to its logical conclusion, it means that there is no objective definition of "lunch" either, but people don't meander aimlessly around at mid-day waiting for someone to tell them what they should be doing. They go and eat, sometimes even together, which probably means they came to some common agreement about what "lunch" means. A definition doesn't have to be objective to be useful. Everything apart from the last 6 paragraphs of this article seems to be an exegesis of this trivial assertion, so, basically, mostly content-free.

    The last 6 paragraphs made a very good point, though. ;)

    I would suggest that the art world actively resists definition, because adoption of the most obvious definition of art (the one centered around intent) would make a lot of modern artists frauds and their buyers fools.