Roger Ebert says video games can never be art

[famousringo]

Grahamhsu said:

famousringo said:

Grahamhsu said:

Gnac said:
Any medium that expects your constant attention before showing you more of itself is not art; it's a woman.

this!

There is art involved with games; graphics, story, etc. But at the sum of it all a game is still just a game.

I disagree. If you change the gameplay mechanics, you change the experience.

Take Silent Hill: Shattered Memories as an example. The game designers wanted to create a sense of fear and helplessness in the player, so instead of empowering the player with weapons and making it a fight for survival, they provide the player with escape routes and make enemy encounters a flight for survival.

You change the rules, and you change the emotional content of the game. The rules of interaction are what differentiate games from other media, and they are a tool of expression and subject to different interpretations just like music or imagery.

You are speaking of Level design (I consider it art), not gameplay. In music we take away all the unimportant notes in a chord to understand it's function and meaning. Same idea applies in this, strip silent hill of music, level design, graphics, and story. By doing so we enter the core of the game, which is essentially killing monsters with a knife/pistol/whatever weapon exists in such game. So are you telling me killing monsters can be considered "art"?

There are no knives or pistols in Silent Hill: Shattered Memories. Their exclusion is a choice made by the game designers, not by the level desginers. The core of the game alternates between exploration of the environment (as a metaphor for exploring ones own internal self) and fleeing the monsters (I'll leave the symbolic interpretation of this up to you ).

If Silent Hill: SM had included killing monsters, that wouldn't invalidate it as art, either. That would simply feed the fantasy that the player is a powerful force of righteousness rather than a confused and terrified lost soul. Just because a theme is hackneyed, cliche, or derivative doesn't mean it isn't art anymore.