Games as Art
I’ve written on this exact topic before, but there’s recently been a resurgence of this debate that I just had to put my two cents worth in.
Okay so, if you read my previous post on this issue, you will have seen that I wrote of Roger Ebert’s comment about video games never being able to be considered an art form. I’ll sum it up here again, though. Ebert stated that due to the players choices necessary in a video game, it could never be considered art in the same way film or literature can. Oh and instillation art doesn’t count as art, either, by that understanding, but anyway.
This really irritated many gamers, and, quite rightly, Ebert has been inundated with requests to reconsider his opinion. He hadn’t written on the topic since he wrote his original comment, until now! A game designer and producer, Kellee Santiago, gave a TED talk at USC recently, and referenced Mr Ebert’s comments. She then spoke of amazing games like Braid, Waco Resurrection, and Flower and basically showed how each of these games could be considered art based upon their individual style and impact. I’ve not actually played Waco Resurrection or Flower, but the latter is one that my SO really wants to play.
Ebert wrote a short essay as a rebuttal to Santiago and as a confirmation of his previous statement in response. This then lead IGN writer, Mike Tomsen to write a rebuttal to Ebert, and that’s where I started reading. I agree with so much of what Tomsen had to say in his piece titled, Dad is Dead: Rebutting Roger Ebert - poorly named in my opinion as it doesn’t make sense and Ebert is currently fighting cancer, but anyway.
It was so heartening to see not one but two cogent and intelligent arguments put forth about this topic. Ebert asked in his essay why gamers care that video games be considered art, and to that I had my own response. Because it’s tiring seeing a medium which can be so evocative, emotive, inspiring, and far reaching be diminished by such ridiculous claims by ignorant people. Ebert pans Braid, and the other two games with it, when he’s never even played them. I felt insensed by that, because when I played Braid, I found it a touching and thoughtful game that deviated greatly from the norm. It was intriguing and, quite honestly, beautiful. Want to know what Ebert had to say about the storyline of Braid, which was told between the levels? He said that it “exhibits prose on the level of a wordy fortune cookie”.
I’m astounded that an actual critic would be so callous and dismissive. I found that particular line in his essay to be both grubby and snot-nosedly imperious all at the same time. But anyway, back to my original premise here.
In my opinion, the gaming world needs to stop looking to critics who’ve no idea of video games for validation. There are video games that do deserve validation, praise, and to be considered works of art, but if a critic doesn’t even understand how to play a video game, how is he ever going to be able to comprehend the full package? I think it would be great to see critics cross the boundaries of film and gaming, and I hope to see it in the near future, but I think Ebert is not that critic, and I think he’s just proven once again how ignorant of gaming he truly is. He’s got films down, but games? He’s just not there at all.
