Ebert:"Video games are an inherently inferior medium"

[Icarus Moonsight]

The puzzling problem is: how can challenge and good storytelling be married? How can stories be incorporated into gameplay so we play (and do NOT change) the story and not merely watch it? Or are they exclusionary? Can both be achieved without compromising one of them? There are indicators that game designers are on a good way to achieve this goal.

My point exactly... though your post is infinately better phrased than my own.

How can a view on the proper definition of art be simultaneously open-minded and closed to new entries?

Two words: Elitist Pricks

[Tron 2.0]

Ebert is a grizzled old man meh :P

Now if he said video games that are made into movies, as being the worst thing "hollywood" has ever done... i'd agree with him then

Ebert needs to stick reviewing movies.. and nothing more don't 'quit your day job bub

[Gamereviewgod]

Games give you choices indeed, and a director or writer can change the object, even in a second edition or remake, but it is always his decision.

But doesn't the game maker do the same thing? You can't do ANYTHING outside of what they created. For instance, in NBA Jam, I can't run out of the stadium and begin battling a storm of orcs. So while the game may be played in different ways, it's still a closed experience.

[Ulticron]

*HIGHLY SARCASTIC* Yeah there's no effort put in video games, I mean it's not like people spend countless hours desigining and programming these games. No craftsmanship what so ever and no plot either. Definately not art.

Ebert is a pretentious prick that doesn't know his ass from a hole in the ground when it comes to video games. One of my majors was computer programing and I can appreciate the hell these game makers go through. Not to mention even the simple old games like SMB have a plot. He admits he knows jack about games yet he makes snap judgements about them. When he gets a degree in computer programing and graphic arts design and has produced about a dozen video games and played and beaten about 100 games then he can open his mouth and say something, in the meantime he needs to do himself and the world a GREAT BIG FAVOR and shut the hell up!

Ebert doesn't know a good movie when he sees it an he certainly doesn't know shit about games!

PS: Sorry for the extreme profanity, but I REALLY hate this bloated, worthless prick.

[Dahne]

Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control.

What is it about games that makes people perfectly willing to acknowledge that they have no idea what they're talking about, and then act as though they're an expert?

I think the best example is Metal Gear Solid 3, in the fields near the end (you know what I mean...). Hideo even said, you have no choice, the character has no choice, you don't want to do it, but you have to.

I consider movies inherantly flawed just by the problem of length. Two hours is just not long enough to get to know a charcter enough to really care about them. That's the beauty of the anime series; you've got so much longer to build your characters and story. Games are the same. That's why all the movies are based on games with no storyline to speak of; the good ones would never fit into that tiny restrictive format. There's never been a movie that broke my heart in the way MGS3 did, and I highly doubt there ever could be.

[lendelin]

How can a view on the proper definition of art be simultaneously open-minded and closed to new entries?

Because Eberts definition is a minimalistic and very broad one and therefore inclusionary as possible; however, he would probably agree that authorial control is certainly not enough for art, there has to be other qualities, otherwise a cookbook would be literature and art.

Where he is narrow minded is the interactivity question which necessarily excludes games. He does not overcome the big separation line between the audience and the art object.

[lendelin]

2) He doesn’t put up a strawman by comparing Hamlet the drama to Aquaman the game, neither should we compare ‘Shadow of the Colossus’ to ‘The Waterboy.’

By his own words, that's exactly what he's doing.

No. he doesn't say take the best of one field and compare it to the worst of the other field which would be a cheap shot. He says take the best of the best of the two fields and compare them, and one of them doesn't come even close.

The story is the same, and it always unfolds

the same way. The only "fork" in the road is if you are killed (and the story ends prematurely).

Limited choice is still a choice and changes the object. The story might be the same and is independent of players choices, but games don't consist of stories alone. The game (according to Ebert the wannabe art) is still changed by the player. (see also response to gamereviewgod below)

If I walk out of a theater during a movie, throw popcorn, yell, hit the screen with a laser pointer - the movie I was watching is still art, even though it wasn't the intended experience.

Yep, your experience is different, but the movie itself is still the same. You can influence your own experience with the movie, you can stand on your head watching it or throwing an egg at the screen, but you cannot influence the movie.

What of movies that allow you to incorporate alternate scenes/endings, alternate sound tracks, alternate camera angles? You can watch the Matrix and configure it so that a little icon will appear at certain points in the movie, and you can choose whether to click on it and learn more about a particular scene, or to simply ignore it.

Still, the shot alternate scene cannot be changed by you, and the director might explain why he left the scene out. A commentary doesn't change it, it is an interpretation and information. The content of the movie cannot be changed by you.

Who's to say art can't be interactive?

That is the question -- Ebert says, and he might be wrong.

If you've ever seen a group of musicians jam (and I'm talking a true jam), any one person can alter or completely change the style and direction of the music.

The changes and improvisations are made by the performing artists, not by the listeners (audience). The art object is still finished and closed and thrown at the audience. I cannot influence game design unless it is intended as such (but I can influence the game) -- like in RPG maker; but then you become the artist, the finished product is there, and ready to be played and changed by gamers.

[Joker T]

Who gives a crap what he says? He gives every movie 2 thumbs up

[lendelin]

Games give you choices indeed, and a director or writer can change the object, even in a second edition or remake, but it is always his decision.

But doesn't the game maker do the same thing? You can't do ANYTHING outside of what they created. For instance, in NBA Jam, I can't run out of the stadium and begin battling a storm of orcs. So while the game may be played in different ways, it's still a closed experience.

The intended choices for games are still choices influencing and changing the game as it is. It is not static. Limited choices do this as well. The problem applies to Galaga and to Fable. If someone creates intentionally an object which can be influnced, changed by the audience by giving them two or thirty choices, it is still an open object to be played with.

The point is that games can and should be played in different ways, always, from the beginning of Baers Brown Box. That is their nature, and Ebert says this prevents them from being art.

The crux of Eberts reasoning is that there is a big separation line between audience and art object, and neither the artist nor the audience can cross it. While art depends on the existence of an audience, they are strictly separated. As soon someone crosses the line, he becomes artist or audience.

To play devils advocate:

1) Lets assume van Gogh intended his paintings to be played with, is ist still art? If we had the choice to put the sun one inch to the left or right, remove or add a figure in the background, make the famous dark blue sky of van Goghs paintings a bit lighter or darker, does the concept of art still work? We certainly can influence games this way.

The point is that art is something exceptional, has certain qualities to it, which isn't the gift of everyone. I'm sure Ebert is heavily against the 'democratization' of art which says everyone can be an artist, every creation is art. (which was challenged in particular in the sixties)

2) Aren't you the one who wrote in a very good post (!) some time ago that todays games give you too many choices (save points, weaseling out of challenges) so they become too easy? If a game designer gives you so many choices which changes the game experience dramatically and alters the game (within the limits and chosen game design), doesn't he give up authorial control in Eberts sense? The game can or cannot have linear simplistic challenges, but is it up to the gamer (audience) which alters the quality of the game itself.

Again, the audience (gamer) becomes part of creating the object, it is in flux, it is moving, it is not closed and finished and therefore not controlled by the game designers, the separation line between artist and audience is blurred.

The Q is: is this limitation or a new possibility for art which some artist actually dreamed of?

[Gamereviewgod]

Still, the shot alternate scene cannot be changed by you, and the director might explain why he left the scene out. A commentary doesn't change it, it is an interpretation and information. The content of the movie cannot be changed by you.

Now, I see where you're going with that. However, it is up to the person to select that scene. By choosing to play a new moment, it could radically alter the film. No, we're not changing the actual filmed product, but we are making the decision to change the pacing, and dependent on the scene, alter the work as a whole.

For instance, in one of the classic screw ups in film history, there was a deleted scene in Die Hard that explained why Bruce Willis's shirt ended up turning black. Everytime I watch the movie, for most of the second half, all I can think of is WHY that guys shirt is black. If that scene was reinserted via DVD, it does change the film overall and gives it a better feeling of cohesion (and why that shot was removed I'll never know).

Lets assume van Gogh intended his paintings to be played with, is ist still art? If we had the choice to put the sun one inch to the left or right, remove or add a figure in the background, make the famous dark blue sky of van Goghs paintings a bit lighter or darker, does the concept of art still work?

This contradicts what you said about the DVD. It's not a major change, but it is a change.

Aren't you the one who wrote in a very good post (!) some time ago that todays games give you too many choices (save points, weaseling out of challenges) so they become too easy?

Yeah, that was me, but I'm not entirely sure how it applies here.

If a game designer gives you so many choices which changes the game experience dramatically and alters the game (within the limits and chosen game design), doesn't he give up authorial control in Eberts sense?

Just by touching the controls we're giving up "authorail control." To what extent doesn't make a difference in this debate, at least I don't see how it does.

Again, the audience (gamer) becomes part of creating the object

Not really unless there's an extreme case not coming to mind. For instance, in Roller Coaster Tycoon, I can create a park anywhere I want, but I can't hire someone for the drink stands. It's still a confined world by the rules.

[Richter Belmount]

nani desu ka?
Killer 7?(which someone has mentioned before I havent been more confused in my life than with that little piece of art im still trying to figure out its story.
But I Ebert enjoyed the hell out of harry potter or chronicles of narnia(seems to lord of the rings to me) and chicken little, or yours mines and ours.

[Dahne]

He says take the best of the best of the two fields and compare them, and one of them doesn't come even close.

I have never seen a movie that moved me anywhere near as much as MGS3 did.

[Ed Oscuro]

Now, I see where you're going with that. However, it is up to the person to select that scene. By choosing to play a new moment, it could radically alter the film. No, we're not changing the actual filmed product, but we are making the decision to change the pacing, and dependent on the scene, alter the work as a whole.

This is simply a possibility opened up by games. You can't change the pacing of a game of Gradius, and in the world of 3D games there are still many ways of determining a game's pacing - at least as many as were had in the days of 2D.

[Tron 2.0]

Who gives a crap what he says? He gives every movie 2 thumbs up

That's why roper is there to give 2 thumbs down

[lendelin]

Still, the shot alternate scene cannot be changed by you, and the director might explain why he left the scene out. A commentary doesn't change it, it is an interpretation and information. The content of the movie cannot be changed by you.

Now, I see where you're going with that. However, it is up to the person to select that scene. By choosing to play a new moment, it could radically alter the film. No, we're not changing the actual filmed product, but we are making the decision to change the pacing, and dependent on the scene, alter the work as a whole.

By the same token you could argue that fast forwarding changes the movie, or starting in the middle of a novel, or skip a section of a novel "radically alters" the novel.

Every added and offered scene in itself is still a finished product which cannot be changed or influenced by the viewer. You cannot change actors, their clothing, the pacing or the dialogue. In a game the mere offering of a bonus level or a voluntary side mission isn't what Ebert meant with giving up authorial control; as soon as you play the bonus mission, THAT is what changes it and makes it open compared to closed.

You can hop in SMB2 in various directions, destroy enemies or avoid them, there is a lot at every moment in the game you can do, and that is the essential part of the game. It is interactive. The frame is the game design and the choices programmers give you. Limited choices are still choices which alters the game.

Show me an interactive novel, statue, or movie. Show me a novel where you can change the text. Show me a movie where you can change lightning, camera angles, dialogue, or the appearance of actors, then you convince me.

For instance, in one of the classic screw ups in film history, there was a deleted scene in Die Hard that explained why Bruce Willis's shirt ended up turning black. Everytime I watch the movie, for most of the second half, all I can think of is WHY that guys shirt is black. If that scene was reinserted via DVD, it does change the film overall and gives it a better feeling of cohesion (and why that shot was removed I'll never know).

see above, the added scene can still not be altered by you.

This contradicts what you said about the DVD. It's not a major change, but it is a change.

The example of the van Gogh painting is the equivalent of a game, that it can be changed was my point, and it doesn't contradict at all what I said about DVDs.

Just by touching the controls we're giving up "authorail control." To what extent doesn't make a difference in this debate, at least I don't see how it does.

That is exactly Eberts point. The extent doesn't play a role according to him, he's very rigid, but it sure did in your original blog which you contradict now: Limited choices, ok, but still enough control to be qualified as art. (blue key here, yellow key there, but the game still leads you the same goal, the door)

...and I agree with you here!!!! That is one of the keys where you can get Ebert: how much control is enough? I think he used a very rigid measure of authorial control, and therefore his criticism about games is valid, no question. But do we really need such a radical concept of authorial control for art?

Why in the world can't art be interactive to a certain degree?

...and from there you get to the Qs which really interest me for game design: stories told with gameplay not movies; invoked emotions and identification with game content through gameplay not texts or movie sequences (if someone cries over a movie sequence, he still cries over a movie not what makes games games: interactive gameplay); the balance between challenge and good stories told (linearity of stories versus the nonlinear gameplay).

...after all, I don't wanna make up stories in a game, that would be ridiculous, they should be told to me, and that means I have to play them. Can we actually play a story and not just read or watch it in a game?

It is easier for game developers to say let's make a game with a good challenge than lets make a game with a good story; and every movie sequence in a game is for me the failure of game designers to let me play the story elements. Game designers don't pay enough attention yet how powerful, multilayered, and engrossing stories in games can be. I would hang over every game designers bed the sentence 'whatever can be played should not just be told.'

Instead of focusing what makes games great and sets them apart from other forms of art and entertainment, game designers stuck in a rut copying movies and novels. How ridiculous and embarrassing would it be if we had during a movie pick up a controller and push a button? It destroys every cvareful pacing, tension build-up, identification process with the movie, but still we accept it for games to sit through a movie sequence; which does nothing else to interrupt, not enhance, the identification with an interactive game.

...and about Ebert: there is a belittling component in its comments about games by not acknowledging the potential games have. It is true that no game has yet the complexity, elegance, wisdom, new thoughts or self-reflecting level good novels or poems or movies have. It would be ridiculous to compare the best games to a Dickens novel, or Thomas Mann or a Rilke poem. lets face it: stories in games are still a poor excuse for focusing on gameplay.

...but game designers getting there. Games will overcome the childish 'safe the princess' story and already are on the way to tell good stories. But they have to be played. The scriptwriter for games, which will develop in the next twenty years for games going beyond hiring just professional authors once in a while (Indigo Prophecy, Advent Rising), acnnot make a good game. like the scriptwriter for movies cannot make a good movie. It is up to game designers to figure out how to incorporate stories into gameplay.

...and then games may be regarded art even if game designers aren't eager to be regarded as artists. Sometimes I ask myself, why in the world are we gamers so eager that games are acknowledged as 'art?' Why do we want these great little things we enjoy so much to have such a social recognition? Can't they just be games?

Do we really need the acknowledgement of the ever flip-flopping artsy-fartsy types who in one decade regard 'Dirty Harry' a terrible, trivial and dangerous fascist movie, and one decade later discover its artful qualities at French film festivals?

By not going this route of eager acknowledgement, it is my belief that games have every potential to be as great, entertaining, intellectual, engrossing, and mind-inspiring as great novels and movies. There is no fundamental obstacle which can't be overcome to achieve this goal. They can be as silly, trivial, just entertaining, and artful as every movie; and this will happen in a very structured corporate environment as well as with an independent developers scene with new and innovative ideas which then will be tarnsformed and swallowed by corporations; and the same cycle will start from anew.

Don't follow intellectuals, let them follow games. There is no doubt in my mind that games have a potential movie directors can only dream of. In the sixties there wre artists and art forms which tried to overcome the big seperation line between audience and art object. (happening scene, statues and mobile sculptures which could be played with and changed, theatre which required the input of the audience). It seems that in the least of all places this goal might be realized -- with the former so silly, disrespected, playful and childish videogames.

Historical research about games and the industry, the interpretation of games already srtarted as well as the unaviodable and necessary nostalgia. The former is in its infancy, and so is interpretation becasue academics didn't come to grops with interpretation methodology for games which is in some aspects diofferent than interpretations for written texts and movies; but it started already and is on a good way.

I wouldn't desperately run after the recognition of art critics. If they follow games and take them seriously one day, that is good enough for me.

[lendelin]

@lendelin
We obviously have different definitions as to what art is. I say something can be art regardless of whether or not there's an audience for it. If Mozart or Van Gogh destroyed their works instead of sharing them, that doesn't mean what they created wasn't art.

There is no art without an audience. Write the best poem, put it in a drawer, never read by someone, it is not art. It needs the communication with an audience. Not a very intuitive idea, but it still holds up.

Typically, most famous artists only become famous after they die; while they're alive their works are often ignored or ridiculed. Years later when people accept it as "art", it's only because their perceptions have changed, not the artist's works.

Typically, there are as many famous artists which are highly regarded during their lifetime and their art survives death as are ignored or ridiculed ones which gain critical acclaim after they died. Rubens lived like a nobleman in Amsterdam while Rembrandt had a short period of recognition, and died in poverty. Some are good businessman, some are not. Boecklin was regarded as THE painter of the century, he's still important, but the overlooked Gauguin is regarded today rightfully as much more influential for the 20th century than Boecklin. Andy Warhol is celebrated, he might be forgotten in 50 yeras, that is the uncertainty of an artist, and the uncertainty of important politicians.

Ridiculed, 'ignored' or failed art has an audience, otherwise the art wouldn't be ridiculed or failed to be acknowledged. Overlooked art like the paintings of van Gogh or Gauguin had an audience, both were exhibitioned in galleries in Paris, however, their paintings didn't sell. The brother of van Gogh tried to get him acknowledged, he failed. However, the artists did expose their art to an audience.

Ups and down in perception of art during an artists lifetime and after death is a given. In all of these cases, authorial control remains. If perception is constantly in flux but the art itself remains the same, isn't that one of the big key elements of authorial control?

With your other evaluations I completely agree. (see post above)

[Ed Oscuro]

Typically, there are as many famous artists which are highly regarded during their lifetime and their art survives death as are ignored or ridiculed ones which gain critical acclaim after they died. Rubens lived like a nobleman in Amsterdam while Rembrandt had a short period of recognition, and died in poverty. Some are good businessman, some are not....Andy Warhol is celebrated, he might be forgotten in 50 years...

I have a hard time imagining Warhol forgotten, as much as I'd like to...on the note of the old Dutch painters, I have to note that there are also tons of painters whom, while being highly regarded in the art circles, don't get nearly the same recognition as Reubens and Rembrandt (for example), despite having comparable works.

The whole illusion of the "most masterly of the master painters" comes crashing down a bit, I think, when you see what some of their contemporaries did. Rembrandt still gets the edge as many of his contemps weren't as good with light and creative grouping of their subjects, as evidenced by the picture hanging opposite Rembrandt's "Night Watch" in the Rijksmuseum: The Meagre Company

When you're face-to-face with the paintings, though, brushwork makes much more of an impression. I'm also quite infatuated with the non-Vermeer (though those are great also) Dutch still lifes.

[Cryomancer]

Since when does art need an audience? And even if it does, the artist saw it. so there's an audience. It's perfecrtly reasonable to have personal art i would say.

[lendelin]

Since when does art need an audience?

It always did. Art needs some kind of public discourse. Art is about the discourse of contextual messages.

And even if it does, the artist saw it. so there's an audience.

It is not about the artist and what he takes in, it is about the art object exposed. If you never read the best poem ever written to someone else and you are the author, you can walk around in public and they know you, but they don't know your art. There is no 'personal art.'

[lendelin]

Every added and offered scene in itself is still a finished product which cannot be changed or influenced by the viewer. You cannot change actors, their clothing, the pacing or the dialogue.

Getting back to games for a moment, let's examine laserdisc games. A large number of them, such as Cliffhanger, use footage from previously-released movies. Once a joystick is attached to it, it's no longer "art"? Doesn't it still fit your criteria? What if the footage used was Casablanca or Gone With The Wind? I don't see how that would 'de-artify' something.

Ebert would say absolutely not, this is not art. Me, who would give up some extent (very unspecific, I admit it) authorial control say: I don't know since I never played a laserdisc game. It all depends to what extent you can change the essential content of the movie.

If it is just footage in between game sequences (like Lord of The Rings by EA) I'd say yes, these sequences are still art in its own right. Not as a movie by Peter Jackson becasue they are put in a completely different context into another medium with a very different function than just to be viewed. They are expositions of interactive gameplay. In the new context they are art because I regard games as a medium withe every potential to be art.

So if I can sit down and paint an accurate reproduction of say, the Mona Lisa, I couldn't consider myself an artist unless I showed it to someone? How many people constitute a valid 'audience' then?

First, if you copy the Mona Lisa, you are just a copycat (if it is a exact replica) or it could be potential art if you make enough changes and give it your own touch which is then an idependent interpretation of it (which was done, authorial control over your potential art remains).

...and if you don't show it to someone, yep, it is not art. It is a strictly private affair. There is the possibility that sketches and outlines done as practice never see the public light becasue the artist chooses to withheld it, but still these objects are done in order to go public. If they are revealed after the artists death to the public, yep, then they become art.

Art is about the public discourse of contextual messages. If it is just about you and the Mona Lisa which never is shown to someone else, then this is a personal love affair or nightmare, but not art.

How many people constitute a valid 'audience' then?

One, just one.

Geez, these are difficult hypothetical Qs. This is like asking is masturbation sex?