Over the past several years, film critic Roger Ebert has written about his belief that video games can never be art. In 2005, Ebert wrote “I… consider video games inherently 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.” In 2007, Ebert again criticized video games in a response to a speech by Clive Barker, given at the Hollywood and Games summit. Most recently, Ebert authored an article titled Video games can never be art. Here, he responds to a presentation given by game designer and publisher Kellee Santiago, in which she defends games as art.
When debating any topic, it’s important that both sides agree on some key definitions. You can’t argue if bowling is a sport without first defining what a “sport” is. The same is true here. Before we can explore whether or not games are or are not art, we have to first define “art.”
While Ebert never flatly states his definition of art, he repeatedly alludes to a few reasons why games can never be art. His most prevalent reason is that art can only be created by a single artist, and the audience has no control over what he or she is experiencing. Since players have some control over the narrative in video games, they inherently become the artist telling the story. The irony here is that many games do only provide one single narrative. While it’s commonplace for games to provide multiple endings with diverging storylines that can make each playthrough unique, that doesn’t mean this is how games have to be played.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare
features only one single narrative. Sure, I might play the game differently from the next fifty people who play, but we are all experiencing the same exact story. Final Fantasy XIII
is another game with one story. As a player, it doesn't matter what you do with the characters. Once players reach certain checkpoints in the game, the story is advanced regardless of the actions they have taken. God of War III
is the latest installment in another series that features only one narrative throughout each game. Players don't get to choose what Kratos is going to do, they just get to control how he does it. These games, and many others, offer a single narrative. One the player has no control over.And what about games with multiple endings, like Heavy Rain
or Dragon Age: Origins
? Does the fact that I can have a completely different experience from everyone else who played the game mean that I have somehow grasped control of the narrative from the author? Of course not. I’m still experiencing a story told by someone else. I didn’t hack into the game’s code and change the ending. Another reason Ebert states games can never be art, is that they can be “won”. The reality is that this is irrelevant. Granted, there are some games where you play solely to “win”. Sports games and multiplayer games come to mind as examples where I play to win, and not much else. But this doesn’t fit all games. I didn’t play BioShock
to win. I played to experience the narrative. Some games can have both. I bought Modern Warfare for the story, and stayed for the multiplayer. The closest Ebert comes to defining art is in his latest article: “Plato, via Aristotle, believed art should be defined as the imitation of nature. … Does art grow better the more it imitates nature? My notion is that it grows better the more it improves or alters nature through an passage through what we might call the artist's soul, or vision.”
This is the perfect place for Ebert to explain why video games (the medium, not individual games) can never break into the exclusive club filled by other, accepted, mediums. Instead, Ebert throws in an analogy about artists painting nude portraits. Most are “very bad”, but he acknowledges that some become “masterpieces”. He then analyzes three examples that Santiago used to show video games as art: Waco Resurrection, Braid
, and Flower. Admittedly, these are very poor examples when talking with someone who knows virtually nothing of video games. Still, what Ebert essentially does is to point out three “very bad” nudes, and then use those as an attack against the “masterpieces”.In the end, Ebert's argument is weak at best, and only illustrates his ignorance of the medium, rather than point out the reasons why video games can never be art. The irony in all of this is that the best defense for games as art was written by Ebert himself: "Santiago might cite a immersive game without points or rules, but I would say then it ceases to be a game and becomes a representation of a story, a novel, a play, dance, a film. Those are things you cannot win; you can only experience them."
Exactly.
Posts
