Roger Ebert says video games can never be art

[Reasonable]

bdbdbd said:
Since this thread is still going and Reasonable brought up Ratatouille, i thought i should get back to this. As Khuutra pointed out, kraftmanship and artistic skills aren't exclusive to each other and one could argue whether Remys talent was because of his craftmanship - though, the analogy still works since the talent relied on his nose.

Then again, Reasonable pointed out that he consideres some games being art, or close to it. The problem? He was pointing out that games can't be art, because the art relies on non-game element, or to put it in another way games can't be art before they cease being games. If games can be art, they are art because of their own right, not by imitating something else. And this is why Ebert owned Santiago, who suggested that games are art because of the ability to imitate something else - or to become non-games.

Instead of looking at what is art, we should look at what art isn't, as liar's paradox suggests.

Art is non-business. Everywhere in the business world there's the clash between the creative guys and the business guys. The business guys wants the product to sell, while the creative guys just wants to create something "cool".

Art is non-entainment. In every medium there is, every time someone manages to put out something entertaining - whether it be Harry Potter, Britney Spears, Wii Sports, an action movie - it's always dissed as non-art.

Obviously, Ebert acknowleges this, and Santiago was just a sitting duck for his to shoot, since all Santiago did was to point out games with commercial success.

Where Ebert failed badly was with the rules. If you make movie, music or book, you need to have rules in it. Without the rules, your creation is a complete mess.
Then again, winning the game is only getting to end of the game and the whole "winning" was only saying that playing a game isn't art, while watching a movie or reading a book is.

In the end, i do agree with Ebert that games aren't art, but where i likely disagree him is, that movies, music and books aren't art either.

Interesting take.  One point on the rules, which also interests me.  The tip top best artists (whatever the medium) are those I believe who literally change the rules by being so talented or good or creative or however you want to view it.  An analogy I believe is an anecdote (not sure if it's true or not but it converys they idea) regarding Citizen Kane.

Apparently the initial day of filming did not go well.  Orson Wells simply didn't know the basic rules of cinema.  Luckily, some of the seasoned hands on the shoot offered to give him some pointers, and he reviewed with them the basic rules of cinema at the time, where someone should enter a shot, etc. etc.

Now Wells understood cinema (at that point).  But when he returned to shoot, he went beyond those rules because now he understood them, he also saw how he could create new rules to better deliver the artistic package he wanted.

Kubrick clearly did this, too.  And say a Picasso.

But again we're talking about the best, really.

Liked reading your post, though.