Roger Ebert says video games can never be art

[Metallicube]

Khuutra said:

Metallicube said:

Khuutra said:

You haven't actually said why games are not art, outside of "games are not art". That's not actually reasoning for the point.

I agree that cetain directors need to be broken of this mentality, not beause gams aren't art but beause trying to mimic art from other media makes games less fun, which ruins the whole point of the art in the first place.

Nobody plays games because they are art - few people do anything solely for the sake of experiencing art. But they do do things - including meaningfully consume art - for the sake of experience. Therein lies the important thing: Pac-Man is still art because the essential experience of it has not changed and has not been diluted over time.

Games are not art.. because games are games. I know that sounds simplified but I really don't know how to explain it beyond that. You can INCORPORATE art INTO games, but games themselves are not art.

I guess what it boils down to, it just depends on your perspective of the very definition of art, and that is something that cannot be definitly answered.. But art from my view cannot BE games. Only used IN games. It's like saying porn is art. I suppose you can say you can make "artul" porn, or incoroprate artistic features into porn, but I think we can agree porn itself is not art, and its primary purpose is not to be art.

I think if you start blending the term art with games, it begins to be a slippery slope, because then nearly everything could be considered a form of art. I think you have to draw the boundaries somewhere, or the term art loses all its meaning and its value.

It's fine that you think that, as long as you acknowledge that it's not an argument and cannot be the backbone for discourse concerning the subject.

Sex has been used as performance art before, actually! It's funny you say that.

Here is the thing: you are commiting two problems here.

1. You are transforming "art" into some kind of sacred cow which cannot be touched. It isn't. Art comes from everywhere and can belong to anybody. You know Shakespeare's plays weren't art back then, right? They were derided for being full of nothing but murder and dick jokes. Now he's considered the bacbone of the entire canon of English literature. Art is changing, ever changing, based on what people find appealing and meaningful.

2. You are saying games cannot be good enough to be art. This is fallacious ou of reflex, and I dismiss it ou of hand: games have always been better at illiciting emotion for me personally than cinema, and that says a lot. In terms of conveying experience, the very itneractivity which you decry is what makes games so powerful. Yes, they are games, but games are never "just" games, even when fun is the only stated design goal of said games.

I understand that the term art is loosely defined and somewhat relative. But then what ISN'T art, by your description? At that point art ceases to lose all its meaning, and where then is the value of art, if merely anything can be interpruted as art? At what point does the term "art" become so diluted that it loses all power and value in society?

I'm not saying games are not good enough to be art, I'm simply saying they are separate entities, thus games are not art. Games are games.