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Forums - Gaming - Roger Ebert says video games can never be art

Khuutra on 19 April 2010
Grahamhsu said:
Khuutra said:

It is impossible for a story to be visually stimulating without visuals. Or, if you prefer, to the blind. Any one aspet is always expendable, it just means that art is experience differently by different people.

And your perspective is a valid one, sure, but it's still needlessly narrow. My view of art comes from art in literature, and similarly I would not leave a bunch of literature students in the hands of someone whose entire concept of art is based around the whole of sensory inputs.

Jeesus I'm not trying to pick a fight with you khuutra I'll agree if you placed your lit students in my hands they would have no hope of pursuing their literary dreams. I am merely trying to say both our viewpoints are needed for our roles. As for visually stimulating without visuals, to me the second you imagine anything, whether you imagine a sound, picture, etc. your sensory inputs are stimulated, IE anything that occurs in our imagination is actually semi-real. Musicians before we play any piece of music must already know what the sound is in our head, which is why I say it need not exist in reality but only in our mind to already be stimulating. Same concept of getting a song stuck in our head except we mold the song in our head before we bring it to the physical realm.

I just realized I was probably coming across as rude or antagonistic, and that wasn't my intention. I'm sorry. That's my bad. I'm not trying to pick a fight either.

I understand what you are saying. I don't thinknn it's necessarily related to the question of whether or not games can be art: I mean, music is the same with or without actually seeing the orchestra, yes? When I go and see my sister-in-law perform in her orchestra, I often listen with my eyes closed because the images communicated to me are very different from the literal image of the music being played.



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Erisian on 19 April 2010

He makes a living on the sidelines of the Hollywood machine. Gamers prefer gaming to Hollywood dross, so box-office trends downward. Hollywood shill shows us how "inferior" gaming will always be. (hint hint.. go see a movie or two, keep the industry going)

Burn, Hollywood, Burn!



Khuutra on 19 April 2010
Erisian said:
He makes a living on the sidelines of the Hollywood machine. Gamers prefer gaming to Hollywood dross, so box-office trends downward. Hollywood shill shows us how "inferior" gaming will always be. (hint hint.. go see a movie or two, keep the industry going)

Burn, Hollywood, Burn!

This is neither representative nor fair. Mr. Ebert is a man of considerable integrity, regardless of whether or not we agree with him concerning the artistic merits of games.



Erisian on 19 April 2010

Neither Fair nor Representative? In the same way that it's neither fair nor representative for a movie-reviewer to dismiss all of gaming (including all future releases) as artless?



Grahamhsu on 19 April 2010
Khuutra said:
Grahamhsu said:
Khuutra said:

It is impossible for a story to be visually stimulating without visuals. Or, if you prefer, to the blind. Any one aspet is always expendable, it just means that art is experience differently by different people.

And your perspective is a valid one, sure, but it's still needlessly narrow. My view of art comes from art in literature, and similarly I would not leave a bunch of literature students in the hands of someone whose entire concept of art is based around the whole of sensory inputs.

Jeesus I'm not trying to pick a fight with you khuutra I'll agree if you placed your lit students in my hands they would have no hope of pursuing their literary dreams. I am merely trying to say both our viewpoints are needed for our roles. As for visually stimulating without visuals, to me the second you imagine anything, whether you imagine a sound, picture, etc. your sensory inputs are stimulated, IE anything that occurs in our imagination is actually semi-real. Musicians before we play any piece of music must already know what the sound is in our head, which is why I say it need not exist in reality but only in our mind to already be stimulating. Same concept of getting a song stuck in our head except we mold the song in our head before we bring it to the physical realm.

I just realized I was probably coming across as rude or antagonistic, and that wasn't my intention. I'm sorry. That's my bad. I'm not trying to pick a fight either.

I understand what you are saying. I don't thinknn it's necessarily related to the question of whether or not games can be art: I mean, music is the same with or without actually seeing the orchestra, yes? When I go and see my sister-in-law perform in her orchestra, I often listen with my eyes closed because the images communicated to me are very different from the literal image of the music being played.

I probably came off as frustrated, I'm not a good writer, and I'm pretty bad at expressing my ideas/feelings into words, so part of the fault lies with me as well. Disagree with the bolded, there are visual tricks a musician can use to express more intensity. It's good you have experience in classical music so I can explain.

I'm guessing you already know what a bow is, now if I were to only use 1/4 of the bow for the first half of a piece, and than suddenly use all of it when I hit the climax of the piece, wouldn't that naturally give a clue to the audience that the section I'm playing with more bow is more important than everything that precluded it, even if the dynamic volume were the same? Also there are people that play better than they look, I was one of those as a student because of my horrible posture. My violin professor always told me I sound immensely better when he closed his eyes because of how bad I looked. Vice versa also applies, I knew a student that moved so gracefully, parents and adults that didn't understand music would think she played like a virtuoso, but every single student I knew complained about her lack of musicality.

As for closing your eyes to music I think that's good, to me by closing your eyes you are letting less visual information get processed and allows your ear to absorb more sound. That's what a majority of musicians will say is happening, but we have no actual science to prove it, so it's more of a hypothesis.




-=Dew the disco dancing fo da Unco Graham=-

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Khuutra on 19 April 2010
Erisian said:
Neither Fair nor Representative? In the same way that it's neither fair nor representative for a movie-reviewer to dismiss all of gaming (including all future releases) as artless?

Yes, though this is considerably worse in that it ascribes something to Mr. Ebert that he probably doesn't have, in this case sinister ulterior Hollywood-style motives. The man is not a Hollywood shill, even if he is a bit of an old coot.



Khuutra on 19 April 2010
Grahamhsu said:
Khuutra said:

I just realized I was probably coming across as rude or antagonistic, and that wasn't my intention. I'm sorry. That's my bad. I'm not trying to pick a fight either.

I understand what you are saying. I don't thinknn it's necessarily related to the question of whether or not games can be art: I mean, music is the same with or without actually seeing the orchestra, yes? When I go and see my sister-in-law perform in her orchestra, I often listen with my eyes closed because the images communicated to me are very different from the literal image of the music being played.

I probably came off as frustrated, I'm not a good writer, and I'm pretty bad at expressing my ideas/feelings into words, so part of the fault lies with me as well. Disagree with the bolded, there are visual tricks a musician can use to express more intensity. It's good you have experience in classical music so I can explain.

I'm guessing you already know what a bow is, now if I were to only use 1/4 of the bow for the first half of a piece, and than suddenly use all of it when I hit the climax of the piece, wouldn't that naturally give a clue to the audience that the section I'm playing with more bow is more important than everything that precluded it, even if the dynamic volume were the same? Also there are people that play better than they look, I was one of those as a student because of my horrible posture. My violin professor always told me I sound immensely better when he closed his eyes because of how bad I looked. Vice versa also applies, I knew a student that moved so gracefully, parents and adults that didn't understand music would think she played like a virtuoso, but every single student I knew complained about her lack of musicality.

As for closing your eyes to music I think that's good, to me by closing your eyes you are letting less visual information get processed and allows your ear to absorb more sound. That's what a majority of musicians will say is happening, but we have no actual science to prove it, so it's more of a hypothesis.

I understand, and I acquiesce the point concerning visuals in music.



Erisian on 19 April 2010

Ebert attempting to devalue ALL games past and future, known and unknown is both fair and representative... yet questioning his views or pointing out that he is certainly biased in this matter (it's his career after all) is not? His career relies on Hollywood, don't suggest he's a man apart.



Wonktonodi on 19 April 2010
Metallicube said:
“One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome,” Ebert said. “Santiago might cite a [sic] 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.”

Ebert nailed it with this quote. Games are not art.. they are GAMES. Do you call Yahtzee art? Do you call Monopoly art? I suppose you can put art INTO games, but the games themselves are NOT art.

The game industry is trying too hard to be like Hollywood, and Ebert can see through this.

So these last winter olypics when I was watching the figure skating I wasn't watching art?  It has rules pooints objectives and outcomes?  I don't see why art can't have those?  Art is a very broad term. Just because something has a function doesn't mean it's not art.  Just because the function of the game is to be played doesn't mean it can't be art. 

Games can contain music.  Visuals.  Dialog and poetry.  Stories that make you feel. I'd even say how you put it altogether is art itself.

You also seem to try and limit the definition of game.  Games don't always need to have winners and loosers but about having fun.  Or the experience.



Metallicube on 19 April 2010
Khuutra said:
Metallicube said:

Bingo..

The biggest problem I have with people saying "games ARE art!" is that it implies the art in games is the primary focus and very REASON for the game, and if the art is primary, that means the gameplay is secondary. The focus of games, or the "reason" games exist if you will, is to entertain users by letting the user interact with the medium, over a set of given rules. Art does not serve this purpose.

Let's turn this around, and say that "art ARE games." Now is that statement true? Most artists would take offense to that, because art is it's own entity, with its own purpose. Art are not games, and games are not art. Games are centered around user created fun based on a set of rules, giving the user interactivity. Anything else is exterior.

Art need not be the primary focus for a work to be art. I said that some time ago: believe me, I got your point from the start, and already addressed it specifically.

Art can exist just to entertain! That's all Shakespeare was.

Also, that's immensely ridiculous. Let me draw you an analogy.

"Humans are mammals!" is true.

"Mammals are humans!" is not true. Do you see?

Games and art are not mutually exclusive.

I guess that's where we disagree then. I think as specific terms, they ARE mutually exclusive, unless you're using "artful" as a way of DESCRIBING the medium.. For instance, you can have an "artful" game, or "artful" porn, or "artful" baseball player, or artful anything for that matter. But the game, porn, or baseball player themselves are not "art." That's my interesting take at least..