Khuutra on 18 April 2010
I'm not concerned with the question of whether or not games are considered art. I consider the craft of gameplay to be art, but that could not be less relevant until I'm in a position to influence the critical discourse. I'm not going to change the mind of Roger Ebert and I'm not going to inifluence academia sitting here on the internet. Not yet.
The question he asks at the end, though, is important, and I left a comment to try to answer it:
Mr. Ebert:
I understand that chances are that you will never read this comment, and in all likelihood you will not even know that it exists. That's fine: I'm posting this in hopes that someone, anyone, will read it, and it might help them understand their own reactions to this issue and your statements. If you read it, so much the better.
You pose the question "Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art?" That's a good question, and it deserves an answer, though I suspect you may already know what that answer is.
You've acknowledged (if I recall correctly) that games are at least in theory able to elicit strong emotional responses from players, often thanks to those same elements that necessarily preclude them from fitting under the academic definition of art. I think you will also agree that there are sets of criteria by which a video game can be "good" or "bad", and that these sets of values are as varied as those that can be applied to cinema. Similarly, based on the absolute deluge of commentary that this journal entry has received, I'm sure you would probably agree that people have an emotional investment in their favorite video games which is comparable with the investment that some people have for certain works of cinema.
When you say, "Games cannot be art," many gamers do not hear "there are qualities intrinsic to games that preclude them being considered art according to current academic and critical standards." What they hear is "Games are not art because they are not good enough."
People take their emotional responses and erroneously equate this with art because, for many people, that's the only element of art that they can understand. Some games elicit very powerful emotional responses for some players, owing to elements found in other media: I'm sure you've gotten messages about the "Metal Gear Solid" games and people crying over the death of a character in "Final Fantasy VII" or countless other things. I don't think you would argue that their emotional responses are any less real, or that the methods by which these responses are elicited are somehow less genuine, but that's what some gamers hear: when you say "Games are not art," they hear you taking away from the genuine emotional responses they have to games. They're paranoid about the idea of their infant medium never being taken "seriously" in the sense that cinema is taken seriously, and seek some kind of validation for the emotional reactions they have to these games.
Yes, that is immensely petty and they should not need to have their responses validated by anyone, much less someone who professes not to play games at all. But, to my understanding, that is how it is: you are a big, famous film critic whose word carries enough weight in critical circles that you must be either reflective of general attitudes or influential on those attitudes. When you say "Games can never be art" they imagine a world where they can't dissect the themes explored in "Shadow of the Colossus", or can't talk about the effect of the design of the first level in "Super Mario Bros."
None of these are true, of course. But that's what some gamers are afraid of: that their emotional responses won't be taken seriously, and that the general view of video games will continue to be reductive to the point that it's not treated as a legitimate way to spend one's time.
I suppose that's what it comes down to: you say "games can never be art," they hear their parents saying "why are you wasting your time with that garbage?"
For some people, it's not enough to just have fun.
I understand that chances are that you will never read this comment, and in all likelihood you will not even know that it exists. That's fine: I'm posting this in hopes that someone, anyone, will read it, and it might help them understand their own reactions to this issue and your statements. If you read it, so much the better.
You pose the question "Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art?" That's a good question, and it deserves an answer, though I suspect you may already know what that answer is.
You've acknowledged (if I recall correctly) that games are at least in theory able to elicit strong emotional responses from players, often thanks to those same elements that necessarily preclude them from fitting under the academic definition of art. I think you will also agree that there are sets of criteria by which a video game can be "good" or "bad", and that these sets of values are as varied as those that can be applied to cinema. Similarly, based on the absolute deluge of commentary that this journal entry has received, I'm sure you would probably agree that people have an emotional investment in their favorite video games which is comparable with the investment that some people have for certain works of cinema.
When you say, "Games cannot be art," many gamers do not hear "there are qualities intrinsic to games that preclude them being considered art according to current academic and critical standards." What they hear is "Games are not art because they are not good enough."
People take their emotional responses and erroneously equate this with art because, for many people, that's the only element of art that they can understand. Some games elicit very powerful emotional responses for some players, owing to elements found in other media: I'm sure you've gotten messages about the "Metal Gear Solid" games and people crying over the death of a character in "Final Fantasy VII" or countless other things. I don't think you would argue that their emotional responses are any less real, or that the methods by which these responses are elicited are somehow less genuine, but that's what some gamers hear: when you say "Games are not art," they hear you taking away from the genuine emotional responses they have to games. They're paranoid about the idea of their infant medium never being taken "seriously" in the sense that cinema is taken seriously, and seek some kind of validation for the emotional reactions they have to these games.
Yes, that is immensely petty and they should not need to have their responses validated by anyone, much less someone who professes not to play games at all. But, to my understanding, that is how it is: you are a big, famous film critic whose word carries enough weight in critical circles that you must be either reflective of general attitudes or influential on those attitudes. When you say "Games can never be art" they imagine a world where they can't dissect the themes explored in "Shadow of the Colossus", or can't talk about the effect of the design of the first level in "Super Mario Bros."
None of these are true, of course. But that's what some gamers are afraid of: that their emotional responses won't be taken seriously, and that the general view of video games will continue to be reductive to the point that it's not treated as a legitimate way to spend one's time.
I suppose that's what it comes down to: you say "games can never be art," they hear their parents saying "why are you wasting your time with that garbage?"
For some people, it's not enough to just have fun.
