"If you don't know what you're talking about, then please shut up."

Who is Roger Ebert and why should I care about what he thinks?

Art is subjective, so here goes:

--------------- HERE BE SUBJECTIVE OPINION ---------------
Games are pieces of art!
--------------- HERE BE SUBJECTIVE OPINION ---------------

Quote:

Original post by trasseltass Who is Roger Ebert and why should I care about what he thinks?

Ebert is a Pulitzer prize winning film critic whose opinion is considered to count, much (but not quite) like Bertolt Brecht back in the day. In other words, he has clout. You might (doesn't mean you should or have to) care because he's achieved more in his life than most likely me and you combined (well, I don't know what you've achieved, but I certainly fall short on my end :) ).

Anything I am not interested in or do not understand can never be art.

Q.E.D.

If you've experienced a game as art then you know he's wrong. No opining necessary, to you he's simply plain wrong.

If you've never experienced a game as art, then maybe you can just listen to someone else's opinion and take their word for it, or you can make up your own opinion.

Quote:

Ebert is a Pulitzer prize winning film critic

Which by default removes him from the group of normal, non-elitist, rationally thinking humans. And obviously he's bashing a new medium that has the potential of replacing his own medium. It's about competition.

So yeah, why should anyone give a shit about what this guy thinks ? I certainly don't. Then again, I don't listen to film critics even when it comes to, well, films. I find that most of the time, their opinion is totally detached from reality. I certainly enjoyed countless movies that have been bashed by film 'critics' in the past.

--------------- HERE BE SUBJECTIVE OPINION ---------------
Games contain pieces of art
--------------- HERE BE SUBJECTIVE OPINION ---------------

Art:
1. the products of human creativity; works of art collectively; "an art exhibition";
2. the creation of beautiful or significant things;

Clearly video games fit into these 2 categories. Ebert is using "Art" to fit his own representation of what Art means.

More "critic" elitism, which is why I and most normal people hate critics.

To me the creation of a world in which YOU designate which rules are followed, and how they are followed, and how different elements interact, is one of the highest art forms. Monet took a scene and transformed it onto canvas, a game developer sets up the scene and makes it come alive.

Perhaps as far as the game PLAYER is concerned the game is less of an art and more like the viewer of a painting, they are just enjoying the art of another.

I also disagree with his assertion that chess and other games aren't art. The pieces on a chess board are certainly not worthy of Shakespeare, but the way that people approach the board, their opponents, and the method they choose for attacking and defending in the wake of a vast array of options is its own unique art form.

What a troll.

Wait, so movies can be art, but a movie in which you have an interaction with, and one that does not always show the exact same things twice can not?

[Edited by - Silvermyst on April 30, 2010 1:54:36 PM]

Quote:

Original post by irreversible If he wants to continually bring this issue up, then he should at least become a quasi-expert in it first or at lease try to understand it.

Let's be fair. He did try to understand it. He listened to and considered the argument of someone who he had reason to believe was knowledgeable on the subject. This by no means makes him an expert, but at least give him credit for not completely talking out his ass.

The question hangs, of course, on what your definition of art is (and not on personal attacks against Ebert, as some here seem to think are called for). It's easy to get a definition out of a dictionary, but you'll often find reasonable challenges to dictionary definitions of such a subjective idea, and you might find the definition inadequate yourself in under different circumstances regardless of how well it makes your point in this particular case. If you bother to read the article, you will find that Ebert naturally struggles with the definition, but given what he seems to settle on as the definition (which did not strike me as unreasonable), he makes a decent case that video games are not art in the sense that he's using "art".

Quote:

Original post by trasseltass Who is Roger Ebert and why should I care about what he thinks

Who is trasseltass and why should we care that you don't know who Ebert is?

[Edited by - BerwynIrish on April 30, 2010 10:32:21 AM]

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Original post by irreversible Roger Ebert: "Games can never be art".

I've read his reasoning.


Define art.


His definition is rather limited. For example, he said: "I tend to think of art as usually the creation of one artist". This would eliminate nearly all movies from art, modern architecture, and any large-scale work. He grants an exception to cathedral murals and dance because they were (supposedly) coordinated and 'artistically driven' by a single individual.

His definition states that collections of rules, no matter how elegant, cannot be considered art.

I think the clearest example of his definition is this paragraph: "One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome. Santiago might cite a 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."

It seems that his definition of art is something which can be "experienced", but not by rules, objectives, and outcomes. Art must be observed. I must wonder if his definition means that the artist can ever consider his own works as art: For the artists, the art is composed of rules and objectives, and has a clear outcome. The artist does not passively experience the art, but considers it a labor, sometimes a chore, and certainly a form of work.

For his definition it seems correct: it is impossible for games to ever become "art". That is his definition, and he can keep it as he sees fit.



I do not choose to live by such restricting definitions.


I don't believe art is something which must be observed only.

I experience art every day.

When I sit at a piano and pound out a tune, it is experienced as art to me. If I pull out the flute and play some piercing notes, I do not care about the experience of others, the art is within me.

When I develop an algorithm or review those from others, it is art: Code can be ugly or beautiful; it can induce awe or disgust; it can inspire; it can induce a wide range of emotion.

When I write, I experience my own handwriting as art; my own signature is as unique to me as any classical painting. My own emotions are expressed, perhaps not as clearly as a masterpiece in a museum, in an artistic form.


When I play a game, I can experience art. I am influenced by the artistic style of the models and the textures painted on them. There have been many times I have been brought to tears by story, music, and animation in games.









Pulling from the famous Final Fantasy series, who doesn't remember the emotion from the 'Aria di Mezzo Carattere', as you were tricked in to performing an opera scene? Or the shock as the beautiful Aeris was murdered as you were racing to save her? What about the longing as you hold Rinoa in your arms as she mourns the loss of her humanity, knowing that she will be put to death in a matter of minutes, with the background music of Faye Wong singing "Eyes On Me"? Or visiting Raine's grave, recalling an awkward proposal a decade before, while watching your daughter play as the heroes from the upcoming generation are kissing in the moonlight? What about the emotion of the campfire at the end of Yuna's pilgrimage, knowing that the only way to save the world is to sacrifice their own lives, watching the fireflies fatally attracted to the flames?

Art like that can be found in countless games coming from all over the world.

There is art to be had, if you are willing to experience it. If Roger Ebert does not wish to experience it because of a narrow definition of art, that is his own unfortunate choice.

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Original post by frob who doesn't remember the emotion from the 'Aria di Mezzo Carattere'

Amen

Quote:

Original post by frob When I play a game, I can experience art. I am influenced by the artistic style of the models and the textures painted on them. There have been many times I have been brought to tears by story, music, and animation in games.

There's a difference between components being works of art and the whole taken as a unified work of art. If the former is good enough for you to call it art, then fine, but winning that argument doesn't make the case for the latter.

Quote:

Original post by frob There is art to be had, if you are willing to experience it. If Roger Ebert does not wish to experience it because of a narrow definition of art, that is his own unfortunate choice.

I think it's safe to say that Ebert himself isn't much of a video game player, but I would put that down to a generational issue. I don't see anywhere in his reasoning that says that video games aren't worth experiencing because they are not art.

You guys are too defensive. Just because ya'll don't care what he says, as had been made clear, does not give you the right to distort what he says.

games are made of art, obviously games are above art

Quote:

Original post by BerwynIrish Who is trasseltass and why should we care that you don't know who Ebert is?

Why should I care that you don't care that I don't know who Ebert is?

+1, whatever you say. I win!

That seems like a pretty bold statement to me. When you sit and think about a well polished game, there is a lot of art in it. I think I remember reading somewhere that over half of the data in World of Warcraft's content/patches is background orchestral music and ambient noise. I'm not 100% sure, but I think all of the orchestral pieces are original to that game.

Games to me would be like a 'meta-art'. They combine music, graphics, story lines, dialogue, and even 'movie' cut scenes to make a fun, interesting, and sometimes engrossing experience.

I haven't played any of the games that article talks about, but it seems to me defending writer could have picked some better games to prove her point. One of the games was an arcade game on XBox Live.

I would also say many games are much more artistic than that cave drawing of a horse. He says artists call it an amazing piece of art because the people who drew it did an amazing job with the tools and knowledge they had at the time. What about games like Doom, where they had to squeeze every last byte out of the computer to make a '3D' game possible? They did a great job with the technology they had at the time.

I've seen kids on the beach make sand castles with nothing more than their hands and maybe some sticks or a shovel that look better than that horse drawing (IMO). Does that make their sand castle an amazing piece of art because of the tools they used?

/Rant...I guess I just don't understand Ebert. One more reason to not pay attention to his movie critics.

Edit:
Wow there were 5-6 posts made in the time I put this together. I agree a lot with the things Frob says. A lot of the issue is in the definition, which is different for many people. And like Frob says, if Ebert can't see any games as art, then his loss...

I read another article he wrote after the first one, in which he changed his stance somewhat, and claimed that games can not be 'high art'. That is, they can't deal with the 'human condition', or some other heavy topics and such. To me, debating what is 'art' and furthermore what is 'high art' is pointless. Cinema is what it is, dancing is what it is, music is what it is, video game is what it is. Ok, so let's say that somehow everyone agrees on this; that video games are art, or that they're not, whichever. Will it make any difference at all? Video games are products of a team of people, that present an experience to the player. Call it what you like, art or no art, it's still the same. One might enjoy playing Grim Fandango way more than watching the Godfather...no amount of people that claim video games are not 'art' will change his mind.

Also, I don't really take film critics very seriously. They're just like any film enthusiast, except they get paid to write down their opinion. Personally, if I want to know if a movie is worth watching, I will do a research on the director, script writer, cast, etc etc...try to find out what I can about the premise, and so on. Reading a critic's review offers me nothing more than another person's opinion; there's really no way to tell if I will actually agree with him. I find it also amusing that some movies are considered 'masterpieces' by almost every critic, say Citizen Kane; if anyone dares to state that he was bored with it he will be ridiculed. Yet Bergman called it a 'total bore'(in the same vein, Welles thought Bergman's movies were boring). It's not natural for a film to have everyone agree on its quality; people's minds are different; a film may have superb direction,script,acting and so on, but for some reason it may not 'speak' to you, and that's it.

To continue on Bergman, he has stated that he likes Sodehberg and thinks Traffic is 'amazing'; I on the other hand think all of Sodehberg's movies are extremely one-dimensional and Traffic is just a well-polished TV production. My point is, if Masters of Cinema themselves disagree completely on the quality of some movies, to the point where one thinks the film is a masterpiece and the other thinks that is crap, then we have to accept that the whole thing is entirely subjective; no movie is inherently good or bad, even if it's called Battleship Potemkin or Citizen Kane; someone may hate those movies without being a moron or film illiterate; he just can't 'connnect' with them. So basically, a film critic is just another viewer like you and me that just happens to get his opinion published. I always enjoy a well-written review about a film, but whether I will agree with it or not is completely unknown until I see the movie.

What can you do in a movie, book, theater, song, painting, or stone that cannot be done in a video game?

Games are the Same medium as movies! Audio-Motion Visual. They are just interactive.