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Apr 18
2010
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Some of you may recall well-known film critic Roger Ebert famously claiming, like five-years ago, that video games "aren't art". Not long ago, video game developer Kellee Santiago of thatgamecompany (makers of flow and flower on PSN) appeared on TedTalks to give a presentation on why video games 'are' art. Ebert recently decided to revisit the topic in his blog after supposedly being "urged" by one of his readers. If you say so Ebert.
He starts off by saying, "I remain convinced that in principle, video games cannot be art. Perhaps it is foolish of me to say 'never'". He then manages to go through his entire piece dissecting almost everything said by Ms. Santiago, criticising her appearant failure to provide a proper definition of art while calling her examples of games that cross the threshold of art, Waco Resurrection, Braid and Flower, 'pathetic', without giving so much as a hint of his own definition of what's art.
To me art is a creative expression. Just like artists and filmmakers express their creativity and ideas through their respective work, so do video game designers. A video game does not just pop out of thin air. It usually starts with an imaginative and creative vision that gets turned into a concept and eventually something tangible that its audience can experience.
In that sense a film is no more of an art than games like Shadow of the Colossus, Ico, Bioshock, Okami, flower, Braid, Heavy Rain and so on that strive to tell a story and evoke different feelings and emotions in their audience. I'm not saying all games are art but neither is all art good art.
Ebert states, "I tend to think of art as usually the creation of one artist. Yet a cathedral is the work of many, and is it not art? One could think of it as countless individual works of art unified by a common purpose. Is not a tribal dance an artwork, yet the collaboration of a community? Yes, but but it reflects the work of individual choreographers."
When confronted on this point by one commenter in his blog, Mr. Ebert responded by saying, "I do not believe collaborative art cannot be art. I cite cathedrals and tribal dances as collaborative works of art. But they begin with an auteur with an original vision -- whether that be a king, an architect, or a choreographer. The film director usually has the original vision."
So what he's really saying is that because a film comes from the vision of an individual, like a film director, a collaborative work 'is' art. I think someone needs to inform Mr. Ebert that games have too have creators and directors who have the original vision for what the end product will look like. I mean Jesus! Even flower, one of Santiago's examples that Ebert dismissed as 'pathetc' comes from the vision of one man, Jenova Chen. Either Mr. Ebert is clueless about video games or he thinks the vision of a game director is inferior to that of a fim director
