By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

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

SaviorX on 18 April 2010
Zucas said:
Well by academic terms he's probably right, although I'm not ones to make truth claims so I won't say gaming can "never be art". But the way he presented it and how he gave his examples to fuel his argument, it's actually quite good. For someone I always seem to disagree with on his reviews of movies, I must say this was a well thought out and fair analysis of the game industry. Wasn't a movies are better than games argument or anything like that, but simply asserting something that if you think about, makes a lot of sense.

But as some have already stated and Ebert gets as well, even if it can't be technically called art, it doesn't bring down the value of the video game industry or development process at all. Things can be amazing and wonderful just like art in their own way, and after 12 years of playing video games I know that to be true.

I read his opinion; I can't say he was wrong.

Then again, not many of us really know what art is. I figure it must an educated revelation. I could not care less if gaming is somehow declared art, and boxarts are placed and museums and stuff, so him thinking that all gamers want it to be considered art is a little presumptuous. 99.9% don't care haha.

However, if there were any games I could consider art simply for the emotions they impressed upon me......it would take 15 years of gaming to come up with two: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Shadows of the Colossus. Zelda only because the world was "masterfully crafted" and the story was good. Basic I know, but in movies (not like I want to compare, but whatever) like Lord of The Rings, the atmosphere and narrative make it great. The actual game of OOT is all in the exploration and musical integration.

Shadows......any game that could actually make me feel guilt to the point of discontinuing play is good enough for me. On Hard Mode, the amount of stabbing it took to  kill an innocent creature in an unwarranted manner was actually too much for me - I had to quit and do something else. The sense of awe from the scope of things, the great music, and the innovative lack of hundreds of enemies put if over the top.

Every other game I've played is mindless compared to these two.

My view of art may be subjective and basic, but no one person has the true definition of art is. I do agree with Ebert 95% though.



Leatherhat on July 6th, 2012 3pm. Vita sales:"3 mil for COD 2 mil for AC. Maybe more. "  thehusbo on July 6th, 2012 5pm. Vita sales:"5 mil for COD 2.2 mil for AC."

Around the Network
Khuutra on 18 April 2010

I'm going to send Mr. Ebert an e-mail or something. I'll post it here when I'm done...

Edit: Yeah, no way that's happening I guess



Zucas on 18 April 2010
SaviorX said:
Zucas said:
Well by academic terms he's probably right, although I'm not ones to make truth claims so I won't say gaming can "never be art". But the way he presented it and how he gave his examples to fuel his argument, it's actually quite good. For someone I always seem to disagree with on his reviews of movies, I must say this was a well thought out and fair analysis of the game industry. Wasn't a movies are better than games argument or anything like that, but simply asserting something that if you think about, makes a lot of sense.

But as some have already stated and Ebert gets as well, even if it can't be technically called art, it doesn't bring down the value of the video game industry or development process at all. Things can be amazing and wonderful just like art in their own way, and after 12 years of playing video games I know that to be true.

I read his opinion; I can't say he was wrong.

Then again, not many of us really know what art is. I figure it must an educated revelation. I could not care less if gaming is somehow declared art, and boxarts are placed and museums and stuff, so him thinking that all gamers want it to be considered art is a little presumptuous. 99.9% don't care haha.

However, if there were any games I could consider art simply for the emotions they impressed upon me......it would take 15 years of gaming to come up with two: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Shadows of the Colossus. Zelda only because the world was "masterfully crafted" and the story was good. Basic I know, but in movies (not like I want to compare, but whatever) like Lord of The Rings, the atmosphere and narrative make it great. The actual game of OOT is all in the exploration and musical integration.

Shadows......any game that could actually make me feel guilt to the point of discontinuing play is good enough for me. On Hard Mode, the amount of stabbing it took to  kill an innocent creature in an unwarranted manner was actually too much for me - I had to quit and do something else. The sense of awe from the scope of things, the great music, and the innovative lack of hundreds of enemies put if over the top.

Every other game I've played is mindless compared to these two.

My view of art may be subjective and basic, but no one person has the true definition of art is. I do agree with Ebert 95% though.

And that's a fair assessment.  Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder and while some of the games I truely love may not be art by academic standards, I'd still call it quite the marvel.



famousringo on 18 April 2010
Grahamhsu said:

You want to see me breakdown SotC or Flow? Fine I will, SotC kill bigass monsters by stabbing the weakpoint, Flow: eat smaller organisms and move up in levels. Tell me how that is art?! How is that aesthetics? There is a golden triangle which is the most pleasing triangle for a human eye to see, that is art. Art is not subjective, and the golden triangle AS WELL AS other GOLDEN shapes prove that it is not subjective, as the human mind has an idea for what it believes sounds/looks beautiful. Same in music, you think it's random chaotic notes? No there is a structure, and chords that are more pleasing to the ear than others. The only thing subjective part in art is your own viewpoint. Whether you think this piece of art is ugly, meh, or the most wondrous you've ever laid eyes on.

You talk a lot about the importance of gameplay to a game, so you surely must allow that some gameplay is good and compelling while other gameplay is bad and repulsive.

There is your aesthetics. Good gameplay is beautiful, and bad gameplay is ugly. Whether there is some universal structure to what constitutes good gameplay or whether it's entirely subjective is a seperate issue, but good gameplay and bad gameplay can be just as attractive and repulsive as good music and bad music.

And you ignored my point that the rules in a game influence the emotions that players feel, instead segueing into other games which are simply designed to amuse. The fact that most games are designed to amuse is a common argument against games as art, which I find odd because amusement is also an emotion, and one which isn't always so easy to stimulate in others. A song doesn't cease to be art simply because the lyrics make us laugh.

If you like, I could cite other examples of game rules influencing emotions.



"The worst part about these reviews is they are [subjective]--and their scores often depend on how drunk you got the media at a Street Fighter event."  — Mona Hamilton, Capcom Senior VP of Marketing
*Image indefinitely borrowed from BrainBoxLtd without his consent.

Moren on 18 April 2010

oh no roger erbesomething says videogames aren't now, what will we do?????
I know, enjoy the games and ignore this guy



Around the Network
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.



Chairman-Mao on 18 April 2010

Lol video games aren't supposed to be "art". They're just for fun.



Grahamhsu on 18 April 2010
famousringo said:
Grahamhsu said:

You want to see me breakdown SotC or Flow? Fine I will, SotC kill bigass monsters by stabbing the weakpoint, Flow: eat smaller organisms and move up in levels. Tell me how that is art?! How is that aesthetics? There is a golden triangle which is the most pleasing triangle for a human eye to see, that is art. Art is not subjective, and the golden triangle AS WELL AS other GOLDEN shapes prove that it is not subjective, as the human mind has an idea for what it believes sounds/looks beautiful. Same in music, you think it's random chaotic notes? No there is a structure, and chords that are more pleasing to the ear than others. The only thing subjective part in art is your own viewpoint. Whether you think this piece of art is ugly, meh, or the most wondrous you've ever laid eyes on.

You talk a lot about the importance of gameplay to a game, so you surely must allow that some gameplay is good and compelling while other gameplay is bad and repulsive.

There is your aesthetics. Good gameplay is beautiful, and bad gameplay is ugly. Whether there is some universal structure to what constitutes good gameplay or whether it's entirely subjective is a seperate issue, but good gameplay and bad gameplay can be just as attractive and repulsive as good music and bad music.

And you ignored my point that the rules in a game influence the emotions that players feel, instead segueing into other games which are simply designed to amuse. The fact that most games are designed to amuse is a common argument against games as art, which I find odd because amusement is also an emotion, and one which isn't always so easy to stimulate in others. A song doesn't cease to be art simply because the lyrics make us laugh.

If you like, I could cite other examples of game rules influencing emotions.

I can't say that gameplay is beautiful. For me gameplay is a method, my definition of method would be steps or acts for performing a function. A method can never be beautiful to me, just as the suzuki method is not beautiful to me though the music in it can be. A bad game is not fun to play, and a good game is fun, to me beauty/ugly can't be used to describe them.

For me art comes from ourself, it is part of our human nature, all people when they are born already have an idea/sense of art. As so, to me there must be a universal structure to what constitutes good and bad since I believe we are all instrisically born with the idea of what is beautiful and what is ugly.

It seems in our arguements you believe that if a game includes artistic values it can be considered art, while for me I don't believe blending them together makes them art. The best example I can use for my idea would be vinegar and oil, they make bread taste delicious, and complement each other but I wouldn't say they are blended together, as I can separate the parts easily.




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

ShadowSoldier on 18 April 2010

So the medium has to be cold in order for it to be considered art? Wait do we count books as art?



Black Women Are The Most Beautiful Women On The Planet.

"In video game terms, RPGs are games that involve a form of separate battles taking place with a specialized battle system and the use of a system that increases your power through a form of points.

Sure, what you say is the definition, but the connotation of RPGs is what they are in video games." - dtewi

Khuutra on 18 April 2010
ShadowSoldier said:
So the medium has to be cold in order for it to be considered art? Wait do we count books as art?

Stories are pretty much the oldest art form there is.