IAHGames

Games not Art, says Ebert. Also admits to being old, ignorant and out of touch.

It seems like a cry for help to me really. When respected film critic Roger Ebert last week published yet another article ballyhooing the idea that video games can ever be considered as art, it just seemed like the old man picked a dead subject he knew would get a lot of attention in order to showcase himself as relevant and high-brow...

He's wrong about it making him relevant. His lack of knowledge on the subject and refusal to even attempt to understand that which he criticizes only make him look ignorant.

You can debate what constitutes art at length (and people do just that), but Ebert doesn't even bother to provide a definition. He will rail about why some authors are better than others, and why Spider-Man 2 is not art despite being awesome (so... art can't be awesome?) From the article it seems Ebert defines art as things he likes, and everything else simply exists. His judgment is supreme, and it is final.

 
And he's judging you right now
Source: Roger Ebert

His rant is wrong. In so many ways. Ebert thinks he has enough information on the subject of video games from the 15-minute presentation he watches to make insightful criticisms of games such as Braid and Flower. As far as he's concerned, a few sentences about plot and mechanics and maybe one viewing of a trailer is enough for him to understand the whole experience.

He's essentially saying, I have not played, nor have any desire to play these games, but I am going to assert they are not art despite knowing zilch about them. It's like being firm in your belief that the Subway Chicken Teriyaki is not good food, despite the fact that you’ve never eaten it.

 
Who could argue with that?
Source: Subway

Or I can put it in a setting that Mr. Ebert will understand. Mr. Ebert, I saw the trailer for Love, Actually a few years ago, and despite the fact that tons of people seem to adore that movie, the trailer looked boring and British, so I can easily say with profound and smug authority that it sucks. Now I'm just like you!

Unfortunately, this is just the icing on Ebert's rant cake. Gamers are used to ‘experts’ who know nothing about games denouncing them (see: Lawrence, Cooper and newscaster, everyone), but Ebert's rant focuses on a lack of quality, an inability to be compared to GREAT works of art, and that this inability ensures that games will not be long revered.

Really?? I could fill up pages with lists of game titles in which some aspect has made a profound impact on the person playing, but I don't need to. I can trot out modern innovations in mechanics and titles that exemplify the high points of storytelling in video game history, but I don't have to. All I have to do is start at the beginning.

 
In your face!
Source: planetalbert.org

Everyone reading this right now knows what that image is. Everyone recognizes it, and has some kind of emotion attached to it. It was created by human ingenuity, and is way more popular and has brought a lot more enjoyment to people than you, Mr. Ebert, ever will. That screen, Mr. Ebert, is art. It will still be art whether or not you like it. And the game is art too.

Ebert does border on coherency when he argues that video games cannot be art because of their need for human interaction, because the player's action alter the outcome. He compares this to chess, which he claims to love, but says is not art. Interesting, but wrong again.

Is any particular chess match art? Perhaps not. But is the game itself, which has mechanics so well designed that it has survived longer than most, art? I would say so, because it is a creation of human creativity which brings about an emotional response in other people. And there's no doubt to me that a chess board is a work of art.

Although some are clearly more awesome than others
Souce: chessvine.com

Like all the other things up there, that chess board is created by a human, conceptualized in a human brain and executed with human hands. Same is true of every piece of concept art and every render that is made at a game studio. It doesn't matter if it sucks, is great, makes people cry or not care. If it was created with the intention of getting attention, then it's art.

Ebert, your big problem is you wrote an article detailing how you thought video games were stupid, and tried to disguise it as an intellectual debate on the nature of art. Maybe you've been getting paid for your opinions too long, and have decided the value has seeped over into the realm of the abstract.

Well it hasn't. Something doesn't become art because you say it's good enough; it becomes art when the creator says it is. And from what I know of developers, they cherish their creative input way too much to say it is meaningless.

Good for them, because we keep seeing better and better products each year. And that's just great by us, no matter what you say.