Re: Video Games Can Never Be Art -Ebert
I took a class called "The Philosophy of Film" in my last semester of school and at one point I got into a very heated discussion with my professor about not only video games as an art form, but also what constituted art in itself.
I skimmed over the Ebert article, and watched a bit of her video. Didn't get a chance to take a look at anything else.
Anyway the convo with my professor got so intense, that we actually left class and spent the next 4 hours at the local mexican restaurant discussing things.
Along with about 10 of my classmates.
Anyway in our discussion it was eventually agreed on these principles of what we could define art as (I don't exactly agree on all this):
1. Something that was unique to humans.
2. Something that was also not needed for anything more than the pleasure it brought through creation, view, listen, reading or inspiration.
There was more, but these were the 2 general points that made things art.
Basically it came down to video games due to interaction from the player, their intentions (Money makers and enjoyment through playing) that they were not art.
It was agreed that part of the games were art, however not the games in their entirety.
I really wish my laptop hadn't fried because I had the whole convo notes saved on it as well as the 15 page paper I did at the end comparing film and video games as art forms.
Basically I believe it's silly to think games aren't art. 500 years from now some alien species could land on our planet, find it in ruins, and think that our fucking cell phones are art.
I mean I think art is to the beholder. Is the music produced for a game art? Yes. Are the illustrations, character models, environments etc. art? Yes. Are the stories involved art? Yes.
I think the games she cited in her talk were terrible examples aside from braid. I also think Ebert has no place in video game discussion.
I think video games are an advanced form of art that is unacceptable to the masses. It combines all forms of what we consider art into one usually. Music, Pictures, Story.
As you can see from the article Ebert has probably never spent more than 10 minutes on any given video game in his life, and seems to lack any respect that could possibly be given to them.
It's an old school societal way of thinking. You can't step out and look at the larger picture of what a game does.
I do believe somewhere on the list of things that make art, someone said "Something that makes you think about it even after you're done experiencing it"
I'm not saying all games are art. Not saying that at all. I'm saying that there are a lot of them though that are.
Games off the top of my head I would consider art:
Shadow of the Colossus
Braid
Okami
Bioshock (In more ways than 1 I can see this being an amazing film or mini-series had it never been a game, and people would have talked about it)
Those are just off the top of my head, but there are others (I had a list).
I think more so now that it's so "easy" to make a game on your own, or independently, that games are definitely moving more towards art.
I also agree at the same time though, that they don't need to be labeled art, they're still enjoyable, and in a way sometimes I believe they transcend art in a way.
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