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Beyond the shrill, politicized rhetoric heard in some state capitols, where, in 2006, we've been treated to such gems as "This video game is not even speech. It is a device" and "yes, games are speech, but worthless, disgusting speech", a quiet debate has been emerging on a related front.
Can video games be considered art?
Alexa Moses and Elicia Murray of the Sydney Morning Herald examined the issue recently. The journalists found those who hold that games are not art include influential movie critic Roger Ebert.
The "not art" argument typically centers around the interactive nature of games. Following criticism for dismissing games as an art form, for example, Ebert explained why he considers the game medium inferior to film and literature:
"There is a structural reason for that: video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control."
Some game designers, such as Brisbane studio Krome's co-founder Steve Stamatiadis, agree with Ebert. Although Stamatiadis believes games have the potential to become recognized as an art form in the future, they're not there yet.
On the flip side, Australia's John De Margheriti numbers among those who argue that games do represent a new type of art. De Margheriti is the foudner of Aussie development studio Micro Forte and considered a leader of the video game industry Down Under.
While De Margheriti acknowledges the interactivity argument, he insists that the video game experience is indeed controlled by the creative process.
"The author of the game has written some grand plot line, has created the races, the pretext of the stories... He's constrained you in a series of quests you must do, missions you must complete, objects you have to collect. There is a structure, but it's a structure that's interactive."
Brendan McNamara, game director for Team Bondi, makers of the upcoming film noir PS3 game L.A. Noire, has no doubt his team is creating art. With a project plan that includes 170 pages describing cinematic moments, and 1,200 pages detailing interactive events, the game has a Hollywood-like budget of more than $30 million.
"We control the delivery of the information... We give players a setting and a framework, we control what they see and do. So how are we not authors?"
McNamara wonders if video games are stigmatized because they are a mostly commercial venture. At the same time, he believes that being driven by sales is a good thing.
CM: GP readers, what do you think? Should video games be allowed the title of "art"? Or should a distinction be made between the art as portrayed through the medium, and the medium itself?
-Reporting from the Louvre where he is arguing that the Mona Lisa is not art because oil paints are "just a medium for relaying colour information into our eyes", GP Correspondent Colin "Jabrwock"
McInnes
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September 9 2006, 13:57:25 UTC 5 years ago
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September 9 2006, 14:30:28 UTC 5 years ago
OOPS !
you're right. fixed that...Thx, good catch
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September 9 2006, 14:09:17 UTC 5 years ago
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September 9 2006, 17:55:00 UTC 5 years ago
September 9 2006, 14:18:00 UTC 5 years ago
Video games are just an interactive form of art. And while some games don't really fit the bill, there are many others that have plot structure better than most novels I've read.
September 9 2006, 14:22:34 UTC 5 years ago
This would be a correct statement if you neglected to realize that most games are driven by a story that for the most part does not change, or if this was some retarded bizzaro world where a single horse's ass is the only voice on the subject. it really doesn't matter what Ebert says, Virtua Fighter will still be left on exhibit in the Smithsonian Institution for Art and Entertainment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtua_Fig
September 9 2006, 17:05:42 UTC 5 years ago
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September 9 2006, 14:22:53 UTC 5 years ago
For example, in Morrowing, Oblivion, and just about every Final Fantasy game ever, you can put off advancing the main story to do some sidequests that often reveal very engaging sub-plots or side-stories. In fact, this is often true for the GTA series, aside from the side-missions having no relevance to the plot.
And finally, these persons are forgetting that art cannot be defined. That is the very nature of art, and it is the only part of art that is true across the board. It is purely subjective. It is impossible for anyone to say what is art and what is not art, and anyone who disagrees is wrong.
September 11 2006, 02:11:56 UTC 5 years ago
Math isn't art.
There are things like mathematics that are obviously not art. Of course, videogames contain visual art, music and stories, easily justifying them as a medium in which, whether or not gameplay is art, most everything else is.September 9 2006, 14:31:39 UTC 5 years ago
Anyway, authorial control vs. interactivity is no good argument. Sure, literature and film have strong authorial control -- though to argue that there is not interactivity when a person watches a film or reads a book is a crazy talk -- but not all art is literature and film.
Much performance art and experimental music of the 20th Century explored giving up authorial control or greater levels of interactivity with the audience...acknolwedging the audience as author. People don't call Yoko Ono's "Cut Piece" or Allan Kaprow's Happenings not art because they are about interactivity.
Further, there is theatre. While theatre nowadays is less obviously interactive (though the give and take of energer with an audience changes a performance even today), it wasn't always so. Take Shakespeare. Up until sometime in the 19th Century, audiences were very, very interacitve in their Opera and Theatre. If they didn't like something they threw tomatoes. If they liked something very much they'd holler until it was repeated. Actors would do Hamlet's monolog twice in a row if the audience demanded it. Same with big arias. Or movements in symphonies. I doubt that people would argue that Shakespeare wasn't art until the this century when aucience behavior expectations changed.
Fundamentally, all art is interactive...some are more interactive than others. And not all art rests on the hierarchy of authorial control -- jazz, theatre, much of the live performing arts.
Art is in the eye of the beholder, and we need to be asking why Ebert (a film critic--which he labels art, even though many people would not have back in the 20s, since it was the new kid on the block) feels the need to exclude video games as art. What is at stake?
September 9 2006, 15:07:45 UTC 5 years ago
Oops. sorry for the double post.
I don't necessarily think Ebert feels threatened on behalf of his chosen artform, if that's what you're implying. I do think he exhibits poor historical sense considering the history of his own medium, as you say. And like I say in my post further down, I think he's simply too narrowly focused on movies to consider that movies, along with books and paintings, are the least interactive artforms, and that many other forms of expression that we do call art are traditionally interactive.
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September 9 2006, 14:37:19 UTC 5 years ago
Maybe I'm not qualified
...but I'll give my opinion anyway.1) Interactivity does not change whether 'something' is art or not. I would like to say one word to these people: Dance. Dancing is a form of art. It's interactive, because the dancer is the one doing the dancing. And don't say 'choices make the difference' because the best art/best dancing are the ones where dancers CHOOSE how to proceed in a pattern of dance. The same thing goes for songs, or more directly as an example; singing. A singer sings, and that song they sing is considered art. Again, intereactivity is a strong part of singing. Choices again pop up. How many times have we heard the National Anthem or the 'Take Me out to the Ball Game' here in America? Lots right? Now, how many times have we heard that exact same song sung exactly the same way from different people? Ah ha, rare if ever isn't it? Let alone that music is highly structured, verses, chorus, the expectation of a rock song to have an awesome lead guitar solo, or the assumption that a rap song is going to have it's very last hook to be altered in some format. Yet, that is still art.
2) Games have sounds, scripts, acting/performances, and graphics/art. Those are all art forms put together, and it's no different than movies. As for those who say movies aren't interactive (I'm looking at you Mr. Ebert), then you have no right talking about movies in an expert fashion. Resident Evil 1 and 2 (the games) wanted to make you jump at certain points, and I'm sure some of us did. How many horror movies do the same thing? Most. How many times have we laughed at a comedy movie? Lots? And how many times have issues in games made us laugh? Lots? My point here is this. Three of my favorite movies are Alice In Wonderland, Death to Smoochy, and How High. We can all watch those movies, but chances are not only will we watch them for different reasons, but we'll also get very different milage out of them. Some might say that they watch AiW to feel like a kid, others might thing it's genius and comedy combined, others may watch it just so they can make comments like 'Where did Disney go wrong?', etc. Now let's all play Metal Gear games. Some will play to feel like a spy, some like the game mechanics and think it excels there, some will choose to pay more attention to the story and think that the gameplay is more of an intermission, others may play it just because the wacked out characters are fairly original.
In short, there is a line to be drawn to differentiate videogames from movies from music from etc., but that line should not be labeled "Art".
September 10 2006, 13:37:11 UTC 5 years ago
Re: Maybe I'm not qualified
Do you have a pulse? If so you may be overqualified.September 9 2006, 14:40:20 UTC 5 years ago
September 9 2006, 14:59:34 UTC 5 years ago
And of course, the performing arts have a long history of audience interaction (in that sense, it's not surprising that the interactivity argument is espoused by a movie critic). Ask a comedian or actor whether or not the audience is part of the show, and you'll probably get a yes more or often than not.
Probably the most extreme example is a piece of music by John Cage called "4 minutes 33 seconds". It consists of the musician(s) entering the stage, and being completely silent for, yes, 4 minutes and 33 seconds. While it sounds like a gimmick (and in some ways, it is), it is in one sense a piece of interactive art because part of the piece is how the audience reacts to the lack of "music" as their preconceptions define it.
September 10 2006, 03:24:11 UTC 5 years ago
I agree with most of the posts that outline that games take a number of artistic elements and collectively use them to form interactive media. saying music, story, acting and visual originality combined into a game do not count as art collectively is disregarding the artforms behind the game. Roger Egbert only shows his ignorance when he brings up his opinion that interactivity is the one factor that separates games from art.
September 9 2006, 15:53:18 UTC 5 years ago
Well...
The problem with these arguments are that those in the "Not Art" court are making up definitions that suite their views, the core belief is that Art is the expression of creativity, and last time I checked, game developers create.September 9 2006, 15:58:25 UTC 5 years ago
So the Choose Your Own Adventure books arn't art then? How sad.
September 9 2006, 18:13:06 UTC 5 years ago
These days, video games are Choose Your Own Adventure novels, with the graphical flair of a Graphic Novel, the soundtrack of a neo-Classical orchestra and the storytelling of some of the greats(until localization teams get involved and ruin it, anyway).
I think the likes of Ebert are jealous. With video games, you get in a single medium great works of visual art, wonderful works of storytelling, the audiophiles ecstasy of a full-on orchestra in high quality digital audio, mingled with the ability to suspend your disbelief in ways that let the mind take a vacation and allow it to be a more relaxing, if often less cerebral event.
But still, your mind gets more of a work-out than watching Terminator 3, Gone With the Wind, Lassie or Shindler's List. And, unlike in any of those circumstances, you're still left thinking and wondering if there may be a way to make a different choice and have a different outcome. You're given the freedom of life, rather than the entrapment of a single, narrow "vision".
September 9 2006, 15:58:28 UTC 5 years ago
I think people like Ebert are splitting hairs to try to *not* include video games. I don't see how you can include movies and not games, especially today. Look at things like MGS2, where a lot of inspiration has been taken from movies. Hell, one of my husband's complaints about video game soundtracks these days is that they've become too movie-like and less catchy.
I don't see how there's not total authorial control in a game - you can only do what the game's been programmed to do, experience the story that's been laid out, play the levels that the creator has designed. In some ways, there's almost less control in a book - sure everything is laid out, but you ask someone what they imagine X character is like, and I bet you'll get similar but slightly different answers every time.
Besides, it could be argued that books, movies, games and even traditional art are all interactive - they require a response from the viewer to have any value. A book is only words until somebody reads it and reacts to it, and feels for the characters. A piece of art just hangs on a wall uselessly until somebody admires it.
Critics and politicians are just afraid of admitting that video games have any value to society.
-Synth
September 9 2006, 16:00:46 UTC 5 years ago
artist/gamer?
In Ebert's context couldn't the video game be the medium, and the way it is played the art? Essentially making the gamer the artist. So watching some one play would be watching art, because you've removed the interaction of the audience, and moved into artist(s) hands. Multi-player games would just be colaberations "by gamer1 and gamer2" or "by gamer1 featuring gamer2" or "by Leeroy Jenkins with assistance from WoW gamers in WoW." I mean its not like the artist never experiences his art work.September 9 2006, 17:41:39 UTC 5 years ago
Re: artist/gamer?
Thats very true. Take Ninja Gaiden. You have someone that might do the same move (flying sparrow or something) over and over again throughout the game, or you have someone that runs in, flying sparrows one person, regular hacks another one, jumps and then uses Nin-Po or something. Different methods to get the same ending, yet, none outside of what the people who made the template (the programmers and designers and artists) allowed.5 years ago
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September 9 2006, 16:07:18 UTC 5 years ago
However I do consider it as a differnt type of art like I do when I see people walk down the street with their style of clothing on that is a bit "over the top". So really I do think art is an art form but not the way the people mentioned above think.
September 9 2006, 17:05:26 UTC 5 years ago
The funny thing is, all of those artists were repeatedly told that their paintings were not art back in their day. It was only after they died and the next generation took over that they and their paintings got recognition. While some of us may not consider games "art" now, in 20-30 years, who knows?
September 9 2006, 16:12:47 UTC 5 years ago
Those are the same vital pieces, among others, that are in movies.
September 9 2006, 16:19:23 UTC 5 years ago
Critic this Ebert
"There is a structural reason for that: video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control."How is this even an argument? Game designers are the ones who allow those choices to players, it's not by accident but by design that a player can chose different courses of action. That only makes the artistic value of a game over a movie that much more true, because a designer has to add more elements to a game in consideration of player choice. Thus allowing for small tidbits of story, as has been seen in so many rpg's, which many players find and are awed by the extreme detail which game designers inserted.
Nobody can play Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, and 3 and tell me that Hideo Kojima isn't an artist.
September 9 2006, 17:54:49 UTC 5 years ago
Funny that you mentioned Kojima...
I remember the last 2006 issue of OPM, on the front cover Kojima said "A videogame is not art." And the irony is that many people use the MGS series as an example in arguing that videogames are art. And here you have the series' creator arguing that it isn't.It's a pretty good interview, and I remember it started some interesting arguments on all the message boards. Unfortunately, it appears they neglected to copy the interview onto the 1Up archives.
September 9 2006, 16:40:27 UTC 5 years ago
"Star Trek" which just turned 40 can be anything from "teh suxxor" to "life defining".
Point is, static art is static until it is viewed, once your eyeballs start peeping it, it is interactive. Reminds me of the joke from Futurama:
Horse race announcer: And it's a dead heat! They're checking the electron microscope. And the winner is ... (man holds up a "3" in a window) ... number 3, in a quantum finish.
Professor Farnsworth: No fair! You changed the outcome by measuring it!
September 9 2006, 16:47:48 UTC 5 years ago
If they are right...
and the game itself is not art, then the images contained within are art. Someone took the time to draw and create them, if memory serves me that is art.I think games are art, but someone who doesn't has to admit that the game is a collection of art if nothing else.
September 9 2006, 16:52:35 UTC 5 years ago
A: It depends on your definition of art.
September 9 2006, 17:46:43 UTC 5 years ago
Art is human expression. Video games are just a new medium -- and of course every new medium gets ignored and trashed for a while until it gets regonized. Why Roger Ebert doesn't seem to realize that he's doing to games exactly what others in the past have done to novels, theater, rock music, and, you know, movies, I have no idea.
September 10 2006, 03:30:53 UTC 5 years ago
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September 9 2006, 18:00:05 UTC 5 years ago
I'm a simple person, what can I say?
September 9 2006, 19:10:23 UTC 5 years ago
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September 9 2006, 18:01:41 UTC 5 years ago
What I really don't like is Ebert's assertion that a large portion of art is reliant on the objective qualities of the piece, i.e. passage of time and placement in accordance to the person in the position of the "author". There isn't much explicitly stated in the definition of art that says this is so. What I always gathered was that art was more about the subjective experience -- the recipients reaction to what is presented before him. I believe that if it causes someone to feel something emotional (beyond frustration or boredom, unless those were actually intended), then what you're dealing with is art. This is why I consider games like Ico and Rez art, because I get some feeling out them (in the former it was confusion mixed with sadness during a part far later into the game and in the latter it's a sense of awe as I fall into the synesthesiac world presented to me).
In my view, reliance on total authorial control makes for a rather silly argument against games, especially since it makes the presupposition that there really isn't much. But that's not true. In Metal Gear Solid 3 the beginning always involves getting your backpack stuck in a tree, and you have to get it down. In Rez a majority of the enemies show up in the same placements no matter how you place. Some games offer a difference in the passage of time between events, which makes the games more personal and tailored to the players--an argument that could easily be made from there is that there is perhaps more artistic merit offered there, as the player is more likely to feel something because the world becomes more theirs.
I'll stop there, even though I could go on forever. I just disagree with Ebert and others when it comes to the artistry of video games. Sure, in part it's game dependent, but on the other hand we have to ask ourselves what we think art is anyway.
September 9 2006, 18:31:59 UTC 5 years ago
Not all games are art, but art is an expression of an idea through a medium. Video games are a medium, and if it's got a story, it's an expression of an idea.
Is pong art? No. Is Knights of the Old Republic? Absolutely.
September 9 2006, 18:48:42 UTC 5 years ago
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