Roger - as you are sure to be inundated with comments for this post, I will simply say: You just don't get it.

I agree with you that video games aren't art, but I would point out that it's only in the past century or so that popular wisdom has decided that art must be anti-establishment, anti-marketing, or revolutionary. I've even heard people say that art has to be controversial to be artistic. This is rot. (Worse, it's rot imported from the UK, where they think nothing is of any value if it isn't delivered with a revoltingly arrogant smirk.) Our view of history has even been affected by this: popular history has turned hundreds of perfectly conventional artists into rebels simply because they were good.

In other words, there's such a thing as going too far. Art by authority is no worse or better than art in defiance of authority: both are, or are not, art based on the end product. Video games are not art because the end product is not art: that is all.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I see amazing things in video games and I don't require third-party validation. I know what moves me and there are many video games that do. If you don't see it, it's your loss and I'm sorry you're missing so much beauty.

WACO? Waco the Video game? That's not art - that's...gross actually. I've seen a crucifix in a jar of urine that was closer to art that that game.

Personally, I agree with you. At the age of 45 I've just started to play my first MMORPG and it is anything but art. It's a game. I don't play it to achieve some sort of greater understanding of humanity - I play it so I can get my mind off the drudgery of my day. That's not art - it's entertainment. (And you of all people know there's a difference.)

If game and graphic designers are looking for approval from the arts communities - then going around saying they're art won't prove it. It smacks of self-esteem issues...

I disagree, but that is the nature of opinions.

One of my favorite Ebert pieces of recent memory. Not because I agree, but because even the master sometimes proves that, his best words and intellect at this disposal, he is ultimately fallible.

And thus, comfort abounds for those of hoping that imperfection won't limit our run towards relevance :)

It's refreshing to so completely disagree with someone whom you so completely admire. Feels like catching the tail end (no pun intended) of Haley's Comet. And yet it might happen twice in one week depending on what I think of KICK ASS. Thrilling!

Never?

I'm a big admirer of yours; and agree with you most of the time, and although I do not know anything about this subject, one thing i know is to never tell anybody in this world: never. they will do it.

good night.

I am always interested to hear your opinions on this subject, Ebert. Simply put though, you did nothing in this article except deconstruct and dismiss Santiago's definition of art.

While I admit her definition was flimsy (and the Wikipedia version even moreso) you need to give credit to her and the fact that she tried to define art. I read through this article (and, it is 1:30am, so I may have missed it) and you managed to get through the entire piece without providing your definition of art.

I also took particular note of your one sentence (and I'm paraphrasing) that videogames cannot be art because they have an objective, a point- someone wins and someone loses. I fear you may be simplifying matters, as most games these days have a narrative and you only win when you complete the narrative that the makers intend you to complete.

I would like to know how that is any different from a film's objective being the ending that the filmmaker intends the audience to sit quietly until? Simply because in a videogame it is possible to see a game over screen before then? Some games have done away with even this, providing no possible way to lose until the very end.

Anyways, keep up the blogging.

Ebert: I think I had a sorta definition lurking in there somewhere.

Interesting article, however games do contain art especially those with original cinematic that are akin to movies at the quality of the best out there.

Some more questions, then (because I find that easier than providing answers :-)

The basic premise is that NO game (video or not) can be considered art, true? What about life, in general? Can you ever consider someone's life to be art? Seems like not, either. But in many ways a videogame is more like 'living' than anything else. We move through places, we interact, we have goals and achieve some of them and fail at others. So maybe the real question is whether or not art can be created WITHIN a videogame, just as we can create art within the real world.

Narrow definition of art.

I'd say art is anything that is beautiful or makes me think.

Oh, come now. You "tend to think of art as usually the creation of one artist." Fair enough. But cinema, no matter how ardent a defender of the auteur theory one may be is explicitly not the creation of one artist. Cinema - which is clearly art - is inherently a collaborative art, requiring the efforts of directors, writers, actors, set and costume designers, cinematographers and any number of other artists each making their own contribution to the final artwork. The director may be the leader of this team of artists, but...well, "The Hurt Locker" represents fine work from Kathryn Bigelow, but she couldn't have made as great a film as she did without the efforts of Mark Boal, Jeremy Renner and many, many other artists with whom she worked.

If the cinema, or the other kinds of collaborative artwork you name, can't be discounted as art, why is it a point against video games?

I would had not chose neither of that the three games as examples, maybe Braid, and is just a maybe (I was not impressed with the actual game but it has moments).

I agree that the Overall Videogame Writing Quality is still low (and many gamers agree with that) but is growing, in a really low low speed, but is growing. Still, I hope that both gamers and game producers realize that we need to raise the bar or else we will get many many questionable content.

Also, maybe you would like this article:

http://www.destructoid.com/why-heavy-rain-proves-ebert-right-165034.phtml

Sorry for my bad English... a Mexican Fan.

Hmmm. If you made it, it's art. If you're just playing with something somebody else made, it ain't. How's that sound?

As tacky as I find the term, I am a "gamer" myself, and yet I agree with you on most of the points. Those games are not art. They're just pretty visuals and sweeping orchestral scores. I remember purchasing Flower for myself and all the accolades it received from gaming circles as being "art," but was sorely disappointed. I later tried a demo of "Braid" only to realize that it too had been the subject of pure hyperbole.

However, I still believe games have the potential to be art. They have an unrivaled potential for immersion and emotional involvement, but no developer has yet seen fit to truly take advantage of this, despite all pretenses. How am I supposed to feel different or enlightened by a game that is essentially the digital equivalent of tossing flower petals at a desk fan?

I am also totally content with games not ever being recognized as an art form. I think the problem is that games have always been seen as a lesser medium, which makes gamers defensive, and with the modern presence of the internet, they have made themselves a security blanket behind which to hide when faced with the possibility that video games may be nothing more than amusing trifles. Were video games unleashed upon the world, say, ten years earlier, with ample time to develop without the hindrances of the internet, I think we'd be looking at a very different medium.

I could go on, but if I were to, I might as well type up an essay rather than post this as a comment.

Would you concede that a chess set itself can be a work of art, whether or not it is actually played?

Ebert: Yes. But why is that a concession?

I disagree with your claim that "[Melies] has limited technical resources, but superior artistry and imagination." Until you've played these games, it's unfair of you to assume that the imagination of their creators is inferior based simply on their medium. Braid's player-controlled distortion of time, for instance, is one of the most imaginative mechanics gaming has seen.

And what of the music and artwork that make up these games? Can there be great visual and aural art contained in a larger, unclassifiable package?

Santiago is offering an argument that misses the point, and I think that the same can be said on both sides. Through all of the points made above, I see nothing that considers art as experience. There's a touch on the subject - the comments on both sides regarding "Waco Resurrection" are misguided at best and hopelessly biased at worst. Yes, it's naive and simplistic to say such a game is "how we feel happened in our culture and society." But it's just as simplistic to offer no argument against the game's relevance as an artistic statement except that it didn't move an individual viewer. To make such a statement, under guise of actually engaging the subject, is a mockery of good-faith argument.

What is art removed from context? Artists love to "draw a line" between themselves and the cave-painters of prehistory, precisely because looking back from our contemporary vantage point and envisioning the context of their creation is what gives them their power as art. To acknowledge that, and to then turn around and eschew any achievement that can be made simply because it's controlled by a keypad? That smacks of as willful ignorance.

Video games allow their participants to enter a world of the designer's creation, with the rules set forth by the designer as their guide, to explore aspects of the human condition. Sure, a game like Waco Resurrection is all shock and no substance, but can't the same be said of a potrait made in menstrual blood of feces? There are rules - but aren't there rules for interacting with a painting, or a movie, or a piece of music? Interactivity is hardly a characteristic solely held by video games, and without it I fail to see what the argument in favor of their disinclusion of art could really be.

still no mention of "Ico"

I have not watched Santiago's lecture, and I do not intend to defend her point. I do wonder if perhaps this discussion has something to do with the idea of the performer. Maybe Fischer, Jordan, and Butkus never claimed to be artists. But I don't think it's so much of a stretch to propose that they, along with some of the other most entertaining "game-players" of our time, have had a unique understanding that their actions are ultimately - after history has judged them - works of art by even your own definition. If art is meant to imitate nature, by way of your definition from Plato/Aristotle, these "game-players" were surely aware of the ways in which their game-playing would imitate - and at the same time represent - an expression of human triumph/failure. Jordan's victory is like Roland's; Bonds's downfall is Lear's. And is there an essential difference between watching Hoosiers and watching a replay of the 1985 NCAA men's basketball final?

Perhaps ultimately, video game players are a similar kind kind of game-players and performers, aware of the imitative element of their game-playing, and creating constantly the narrative of their efforts.

You should change your statement to "Video games can never be art TO ME."
I'm sure you've fought for films you considered art, but other people didn't. This is no different. Just because you can't see something's artistic merit doesn't mean other people can't, and it seems very self serving to assume your view of said art is the correct one.
I respect your opinion, but I feel the way you put it out there is wrong.

I believe when someone says "That's not art" what the speaker really means is "I don't like it."

These are not very good examples.

Where's Bioshock? Where's Shadow Of The Colossus? Where's Mother 3? If you're arguing for video games as an art form, these are pretty essential examples.

Pshh.

Roger, I agree with you that video games don't NEED to be art and people are trying too hard to define them as art. It's silly. But at the same time, just because a video game doesn't achieve the same artistic level as a Keats poem doesn't make it worthless.

You know what else isn't on the same level as a great classic poem? Terminator 2. And I freaking love Terminator 2. At the same time, I could argue that a game like Bioshock is just as thoughtful, well-constructed and memorable as Terminator 2. It's close, at least.

But hey, that's just me.

While a video game as a whole could not be art, it should be argued that there are artistic elements.

The visuals in many video games are becoming photorealistic, and often enough the scenery and characters (such as in Uncharted 2) can be absolutely beautiful. While the gameplay itself isn't artistic, a snapshot from a given level could be considered art. That doesn't make the game itself art, only that one particular element of it.

Also many video games have very compelling stories, but like the scenery they are only one individual element. Often enough these stories get developed in cinematic cutscenes between gameplay, and these would just be considered animated movies. However the individual scenes could be art on their own merit.

This is what I think gamers base their argument on. They argue these individual parts amongst others, but fail to recognize that as a whole the games are not art.

TerrilynnS - why the non-topical dig at graphic designers?

Graphic design can't be art? Huh. Nobody tell Saul Bass!

People think that video games are art because they have a considerable amount of design to them and because they include film-like scenes in between levels to tell the story. It takes artists to make a game. This does not make games art, however.

In the same way, a chess set can be elegantly hand-crafted and even considered a great work of art, but playing chess with that work of art doesn't make the game any more artful. It's still just a game of chess, only played with art rather than pieces of plastic.

No matter how much art goes into the making of a game, it doesn't make the playing of it any more artful. It can make playing it better, or more entertaining, but the art remains in the design, not in the game itself.

The place where art and games come closest might be in figure skating or freestyle gymnastics. It's only the judging and competitive nature that separates it from dance. When I see the same competitiveness applied to the arts - the Oscars for instance - it seems to diminish the art.

Games are not art any more than art is a game. Games are measured in quantity, and art is measured in quality.

Any anthropologist would define games as art.

Here's what Ebert really means: games are not "great" art.

I wish he'd define his terms better.

This is, frankly, a failure to understand the word "art" in any kind of meaningful context. Art is an appeal to the aesthetic sensibilities, and it is literally impossible to argue with any kind of coherence that the makers of these games are making no attempt to do that. Yes, they are games, but the design of the character that the player moves is not simply a function of the rules. The design of every element, while necessarily conforming to a set of rules, also has an artistic component to it. What else could guide the decision to color a character's hair brown instead of black, give them a particular facial expression as they run through the game, and decide their voice as they comment on the situation they find themselves in?

What you are perhaps intending to say is that they are not High Art (the same argument once leveled against van Gogh and the Impressionists) or that they are not art that you could ever see appealing to you (as can sometimes happen with any artistic statement; even Citizen Kane has its detractors.) But to argue that video games are not art at all, merely a set of rules to a particularly complex game, is like arguing the sky is fish.

To put it into terms you might understand, since you repeatedly used the chess analogy: The rules of chess, the way the pieces move and the way that victories are scored, is not art. (Although it might have a certain elegance all its own...) But the pieces? The way they're carved into intricate, elegant shapes that suggest their function in clean, understated lines (or sometimes, gorgeously elaborate ones?) That is art, and only a fool would argue otherwise. And if there is art to game design, then designing games is an artistic pursuit. And appreciating video games involves appreciating art.

There is no empirical, universal definition for what art is. If you want to dismiss an entire form of media, fine, but at least appreciate that to many people, myself included (and I have great regard for your work, follow you on Twitter, etc.), it makes you look like an ego-centric ass. I don't say that to be glib or dismissive. I'm trying to make a point.

The point is that trying to make objective statements about the quality of any form of media is necessarily fraught with peril. Trying to make objective statements about subjective things is impossible. It doesn't matter what definition of "art" you personally ascribe to, you should at least understand and hopefully appreciate that the word "art" is, by itself, completely meaningless. It only gains resonance and meaning in an individual's mind, as it is related to any other number of words and ideas to form a complex, inter-connected web of significance.

No one thinks about empirical definitions from Plato when they decide whether something is art to them or not, and most people don't give two shits either way. Something is "Good" or "bad", and they don't bother to articulate why. You, being a critic, are more accustomed to examining why you think something is "good" or "bad", as am I. Most people, however, myself included, realize at some point that trying to tell a fourteen year-old girl that "Twilight" is complete crap is a fruitless endeavor, as it merely steals her resolve to be on Team Edward.

So why are video games any different? You consider them to be beyond the realm of what you can even consider to be art, but you can't offer up a real reason as to why they are categorized thus in your mind, other than that they have a "win condition". You can't spell out why this fact precludes them from your empirical definition of art though. Why can a video game never be art? Why do you presume to say that a different form of media (a relatively young one, yes) has yet to and probably never will reach the heights of "the greats". Who are the greats anyway? Do you have a list?

If you don't consider games art, that's fine, that works for you in how you view the world. Swell. What I just don't get though is why you find it necessary to broadcast this indefensible position about the subject when you know it just pisses people off. And it pisses people off because your position is incredibly arrogant and wholly dismissive of a form of media that a lot of people find joy and meaning in. To paraphrase your colleague A.O. Scott in his review of "Once", there is a "deeper longing for communication that underlies any worthwhile artistic effort". And games communicate extremely effectively to their audience. They just don't communicate to you. And that's too bad.

Hmmm. I'm kinda stuck in the middle on this one. The first video game that comes to mind when I think of "art" is one titled, appropriately enough for this blog, "The Movies". At a most basic level, the game lets you simulate how a movie studio runs, controlling actors, directors, writers, janitors, R&D specialists, etc. An interesting part is the game simulates different technologies available from 1920s to beyone 2010.

Odd thing is, you can choose whether or not you have an objective. On the main menu, you can choose a "New Game", where you have to compete with other studios to gross the highest from your movies, get the best technology, and hire the biggest stars. Alternatively, you can choose "Sandbox mode", which, as the name suggests, consists entirely of diddling around with the moviemaking software with no objective other than to create whatever movie you want.

"The Movies" has a considerable cult following, and there are many websites online devoted to showcasing the short animated movies created using the software and also to developing new costumes, sets, visual styles, etc. to be used in the game. There was at one point an official site sponsored by the game's publishers, but it shut down due to lack of sales.

I have placed a link to what I believe is the most popular "The Movies" fansite below. I would encourage you to look at some of the shorts that have been uploaded. I would argue at least some of them could be considered "art". Does that mean the game "The Movies" is "art" in itself? Maybe, maybe not. I honestly can't say.
http://www.tmunderground.com/

Perhaps the problem is (merely?) semantic. People have latched on to the word 'art' because it grants the meaning "of some lasting value" to something they love. Art can sometimes fluctuate like literature and apply only to what we value now - all else is weeds! Lasting value is left to the bigger picture - it won't be for us to say what future minds will find valuable about our times. But we can always aim to be true to what we value right now, today. Is that art? No, I don't think so. At least, not necessarily so. The word has to be reserved for great things that endure as great in the world at large. The subjective and temporary are not in themselves without value; we'll just reserve judgement. Time is on the side of art.

First the Kick-Ass review now this? Oh you're asking for some nerd freak-out now. :)
I agree with you on most counts, but it's going to be fun to see the what happens in the comments.

Mr. Ebert... I must say as others have that perhaps you are misguided.

I won't berate you for your opinion but I would like to note something that particularly bothered me. The reason that some gamers deign to call a particular game 'art', is likely for the same reason you might personally recommend a movie to a friend. In the drudgery of the gaming market when a new game comes out, it can cost between $40-$60 depending on the system, and consume somewhere between 4-60+ hours of your time depending on the genre. Many games are not worthy of this time or this money expenditure, but most are.

Occasionally, a game is produced that simply MUST be played so that it can be experienced. Some people might place older games in this category simply so that you might understand where games have come from, similar to recommending that you look at the paintings Herzog is filming to understand where art may have begun. But then there are the games in this category which others claim to be "must-plays" simply for the experience, and nothing more.

In short, I think most of the time when a game critic, or the gaming public at large tries to call a game "Art", it's a sort of recommendation to the rest of the gaming public. "You should play this. Seriously. It's worth your time and money. VERY worth it." Similar to say, "Hey, the museum has a Van Gogh exhibit in this month, you really ought to go check it out."

I believe video games contain art. I think the initial story development prior to code writing is an artistic endeavour. The game play itself I do not typically think is art. There are a few exceptions: Peter Gabriel's video games and some of the more complicated boss fights in World of Warcraft -heigen's dance for instance has tremendous art to it.

The idea that works of art have always been the work of one person, uninfluenced by money or marketing, is preposterous. Did the masters not work for money, hired by rich patrons and the church to create their beautiful masterpieces? Painting and sculpting were expensive to learn and master, not even counting the incredible costs for materials. They couldn't exactly pop down to Blick's and pick up a few tubes of clearance oil. It was rare to find people creating high "art" for pleasure, for their own amusement, for a very, very long time in the western world. All those beautiful church works of the Renaissance were dictated by people selling Christianity to the people, paid by the Catholic church.

The idea of doing art for the sake of art is a very new thing indeed, and plenty of the old masters had assistants to create their works--models, people to mix the pigments, people to simply run the studio while they worked. But even if we are talking about someone so wealthy they were doing art for sheer pleasure, the implication that no works were motivated by money or marketing, done by a single mastermind in a stroke of brilliance without anyone's help, is ridiculous.

I think you've jumped the gun if these are the best that anyone can do. They don't look particularly interesting to me. I'd say to look at the works of Team Ico and Clover. Heck, even the Final Fantasies are a better example than that dreck.

@rado: yes, both Ico and Shadow of the Colossus. I find it odd that Santiago failed to bring up two of the most emotionally cathartic games I know of when trying to make her point.

Mr. Ebert,

What, then, is your view on interactive art (such as the kind described here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_art)? I would say that a game like Flower, which, for the record, does not really have any "points", could be an example of interactive art.

Your opinions of these games are based on videos and descriptions. In a medium like videogames, where the entire experience is defined by the interaction between player and game, an active participation in the work, basing an opinion on those is like passing judgment on a film based on other peoples' descriptions; sure, you might have an idea of what it's about, but you haven't really experienced it.

I think that games can be art, and that the "art" lies in how well that interaction between player and game is defined, much like how the "art" of interactive art is defined. Artists creating interactive pieces concern themselves with how the piece will be perceived by the audience, how it will encourage them to interact with it, how they actually interact with it, and how it affects them once that interaction takes place. With games like Flower, the core idea is the same: there is a specific feeling or mood or thought that the designers want the players to react to, or react with. This exchange between artist/designer and audience/player is where the art lies in games, and while it has typically been a hollow and meaningless exchange, designers like Kelly Santiago are working to fill that exchange with something more.

Mister Ebert, you picked the wrong public defender. She heads a games company that, itself, poorly represents art games. The "Comics aren't for kids!" people tend to be similarly self-interested, though there are certainly stellar examples they seem to miss. I laughed at your accurate portrayal of her examples, so don't listen to those who say, "Pearls before swine." If you'll indulge me, I have a better example. It's inside baseball and far too dense (I wrote it quickly while keeping up my studies at a brutally difficult school), but you won't find a game with more thematic depth. I bet the message is 1 you can support, too.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=376513

Wow, those are horrible examples.

Roger, there is a genre of games that is basically an immersive version of interactive fiction. Take your greatest novelist. What if he had a story so compelling that he had three possible outcomes for the ending, each so great he decided to write them all. Each would stand on its own as a "great novel." But he instead chose to synthesize all three into an interactive work, where the readers' subjective experience leads them through the great novel of their choice. There are games like this; they are art.

I agree that 99.9% of games are not art, just as 99.9% of rap that gets played on the radio isn't either. I'm not concerned that games be "defined" as art, because I am an intelligent, independent thinker who knows at the core of my being that I have experienced interactive art. I'm concerned that someone I greatly admire, whose voice is heard by so many, publicly pronounces that something doesn't exist, or even is *able* to exist, just because he hasn't experienced it.

I agree video games are not art. Because of their deeper first person interaction from the player and the combination of visuals, sound, and story telling (sometimes with multiple stories). They are in fact deeper then art and deserve their own separate category.

While I sadly agree that games generally aren't, I find it not a fault of the medium, but the fault of the creators involved.

It's particularly in your accusation of "lack of authorial control" that I find fault. Yes, to give choice is to not dictate what the player does, but the authorial direction lies in how the system (the game) responds to the player's input. It's a conversation between the player and author that, in the end, the author has all control over. I'd like to cite an unusual example: "Sim City."

You've likely heard of "The Sims," the virtual doll house created by Will Wright. Long before that, he made his name on Sim City, a game in which players are tasked with building a utopia for virtual denizens of their city by issuing zoning permits (Residential, Industrial, Commercial,) building roads, libraries, public transit, and the likes. How is this example valid? Because if you build a city with no public transit, people will eventually rage. If you build a city with no roads, people are only discontent. Ideally, public transit permeates your city, and roads simply "exist," inverse to how many major cities are today. The judgment of if the placement of zoning is "correct" or not is not one made arbitrarily, it's one of artistic intent, and to ignore than is to ignore how games function.

These things aren't the result of some study of urbania meant to make a realistic simulation, this is purely the definitive example of a perfect city as described by the creator, Will Wright. This is his artistic vision put forth, largely (and obviously, given the game's visuals,) influenced by his Californian upbringing. It's by the player choosing different avenues of development, and seeing them marked as "incorrect," that Wright makes his case to the player.

It's with this view on games that you should consider a "win state" of a game as merely "an end." Films end, novels end, poems end, and games end. Games just have multiple endings due to their interactive nature, but this doesn't preclude them from all narratively driving to a singular thesis (not that such a thing should be required to meet any definition of "art," but it does make the understand simpler in modern games. An alternate ending can simply be another viewing of the same point the game strains to make.)

Now, my definition of art ("a product of human creativity") is likely vastly different from yours, but I would certainly love to hear a better justification for not considering games art than "lack of authorial control," which games absolutely have. The issue of why you don't see this more often is a much better question, and has partially to do with the old Hollywood studio system that permeates the Game Industry today, chopping potential artists off at the knees. More than that, it's the fault of fans.

I agree that the vast majority of games are worth nothing artistically speaking, and I say this not with derision, but sadness. I see such potential and I see it wasted on Michael Bay levels of emotional exploration solely because it's easier for developers to make with interactive explosions than it is with interactive emotion. This is the fault of gamers for preferring cheap and instant gratification to good and heartfelt. These are the same people who make death threats at you for having a different opinion and sharing it. But I certainly do believe games can drag themselves out of the era of cave paintings, but it will be dragging its fanbase, kicking and screaming.

I think it certain that games will reach levels of artistry as complex as any other medium. I just really hope that I'm alive to see it. Though, like you said, I expect I won't be, simple due to the complete lack of regard for subtext in interactivity.

Gaming is an artistic medium, despite its would-be artists.

Anyway, keep up the good review work, sir.

Roger, I may not be able to change your mind, but I think I know a game that could. It is short, requires little interaction other than pressing an arrow key, and it will install and run on your Mac. It is called "Passage". It may look like just a bunch of pixels but if you give it 5 minutes (it will end then), I'd be surprised if it didn't give you a similar experience to reading a short, poignant poem, or watching a heart wrenching death scene. To me, it's art, in a form we are only just beginning to understand how to express ourselves in.

Unfortunately, it cannot be downloaded right now as their servers are apparently being upgraded, but please, give it a try in a few days. I'd love to know if it can make an impact on your argument.

Here's a link: http://db.tigsource.com/games/passage

And here's a review that helps explain:
http://www.necessarygames.com/reviews/passage-game-free-download-independent-linux-mac-os-x-windows-art-game-abstract-singleplayer

Can aspects of the game, "the graphic design, the writing, the music" be considered "art" but the game itself cannot, because by it's nature - the fact that it is a game - goes against the very principals of art?

I'm confused, but I'm trying very hard to understand your point of view.

I think Santiago chose bad examples and is looking for art in the wrong part of the video-gaming realm, which you correctly called her on. I'd say the question could be approached more effectively by thinking of a hypothetical rather than a real video game. Imagine Avatar. Now imagine Avatar, only you're playing a game inside of it. That's what a really good video game is like.

Video gamers (of whom I actually am not one) see their games as different from chess or mah-jong or basketball because a video game has something different from those other games: ethos, atmosphere, actual physical artwork. It also has a story, and though one can experience a story through a baseball game, the story isn't inherent in the game itself -- it's being told around and through the game by announcers and fans. A video game, a good one, inherently isn't a game. The object of such a game is not to win, but to get to the end so you can find out how it ends, and experience the culmination of the story. The interactive aspect of the game is simply to get the viewer more into the narrative.

You have to see a video game, I think, not as a game punctuated by cut scenes, but as a film punctuated by opportunities for the player to interact with the characters. You may find this gimmicky, but then I'd say a video game is like a 3D film: gimmicky, but no less art for that.

Roger, we get it. You don't dig video games. My recommendation is that you do not play them.

I've played video games that have made me feel real emotion. And I'm not just talking about excitement, etc. I'm talking about sadness, even horror, when a beloved character unexpectedly dies along the way (etc).

Of course, much of this depends on the game itself. Yes, shoot-em-ups and games where you jump around (etc) aren't close to art. But the industry is so amazingly diverse today that you almost can't just lump them all as "video games". That would be like saying all "movies" are like mindless action films (is Transformers 2 "art"?)



Many video games today are much more than shoot-em-ups or simulations - some games tell stories that are comparable to films. Some games almost *are* films, where you play out certain parts. They'll tell a story, and you play out the gun battle (etc). When you win the battle, the story continues.

I've played video games since the beginning (I'm 43), and I have to tell you, Roger, (certain types of) games and movies are moving closer together by the day. If movies are art (and I think we can all agree they are), games aren't far behind. Do you have a PS3 to watch Blu Rays on? There are some games for that system that I suspect would surprise you with their depth.

Thank you for this article, Roger. Your writing has proven, once again, that was is art is truly in the eye of the beholder. I disagree with your underlining statement but appreciate watching Kellee Santiago's presentation, which does prove that at this point, those of us who play video games and see the art in the ones that contain it, cannot quite describe what makes these games what they are in our eyes. Art is not marketing, but, dammit, there's something very powerful that can be said in a game.
The industry will get there, it simply needs some time.

Yeah, it's a Cracked article but it contains paragraphs like this: The cigar-chomping beverage moguls who head the corrupt slavers echo and embody the corruption of our own plutocrats, bringing into sharp relief the subjugation of the working class on the grim, and often dangerous, factory floor (whiff of an Industrial Revolution critique?). Even the slaves themselves, with mouths and occasionally eyes sewn shut, confront us with the haunting visage of a lower class that cannot see, that cannot scream, that has had its very voice stripped from it through the dehumanizing processes of big business.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/defending-the-habit-10-video-games-as-modern-art

The video games seem to be at the level of children's art: not artful masterpieces but primarily symbolic, made and appreciated with joy. Has there never been a game that's been considered art? What about garden mazes. Are any of them considered art, as seen from the air? I suppose that would be the equivalent of saying that some images from a game are beautiful, which is not the same as calling a game art.

We can think about artful (talented) play on the part of the gamer, but that's a different meaning to art than what you've discussed, and is closer to what is meant when people use metaphors such as The Art of War and the Art of the Game. But why can't one have an experience of art that doesn't involve reading, listening to, or watching a creation? Chuilly the glass maker emphasizes the collaborative quality in making art, the experience of working with other artisans as being an important aspect of art or a kind of art, perhaps like musicians jamming. Can play ever be art? This might be an off-topic question--"depends on the definition of art"--but the article is thought-provoking and I am now interested to read what philosophers have written about art.

I'm also thinking about that Belgian movie BenX in which the video game world is integrated with the film story about the autistic boy. Those video game sequences were very effective in the storytelling.

I enjoy your writing sir but you didn't really make any kind of a case to support your claims here. I just got a sense of pretentiousness that "your art is better than my art because my art has already been accepted as art so I obviously have the prevailing opinion". It's as silly as an old money vs new money feud that rich people have.

I'm sure classical musicians dismissed rock music in it's early beginnings.

Oh, I nearly forgot. http://store.steampowered.com/

If you get Steam, I will personally gift you Portal so you can play it and enjoy the madness.

Also, I think Socrates would have liked video games.

"Long ago, Socrates described some second thoughts he had about the new and questionable technology called a "book". He thought it had several weaknesses. A book could not adjust what it was saying, as a living person would, to what would be appropriate for certain listeners or specific times or places.

In addition, a book could not be interactive, as in a conversation or dialogue between persons. And finally, according to Socrates, in a book the written words "seem to talk to you as if they were intelligent, but if you ask them anything about what they say, from a desire to be instructed, they go on telling you just the same thing forever."

... from Thomas West's Thinking Like Einstein

So, to bring it to a "meta" level: can the art within a game be art? I mean, if you play a game that is set in a structure that is beautifully designed and beautifully rendered, that perhaps contains artwork that is original and beautiful in and of itself, then is the game itself not full of art? And since that is the only venue through which to experience that art, is it not itself art? (More so than, say, a documentary about a museum.)

I can appreciate a film on many levels, and while I hardly think the film Clue is great art, I find the art design to be fantastic (that house was amazing) and the dialogue to be artful in it's comedy. Do you mean that for the whole to be considered art, then everything has to gel to a point of the whole transcending it's parts? If so, then I might be able to agree that gaming hasn't reached that point just yet.

Game designers call games which you can't win (which are quite common), toys. Classic city simulators (Sim City) are toys, not games.

Can games be art? I don't know, but what I do know is that Knights of the The Old Republic was a better Star Wars story than Episodes I, II, or III. By far. Bioware (the publisher) got what made the first trilogy great, better than Lucas does any more.

Games are about experience. The sort of games I personally prefer tend to be about story. I wouldn't say any of them are great art (to borrow a distinction from another commenter), but some of them are at least as good a stories as many movies. Are they art? Depends how you define art? A lot of paintings I've seen aren't great art, but are they art?

Once we get into that argument, we're into the question of illustration v. art, and that way lies sterility.

Braid is one of my favorite games, and it evoked emotions in me as strong as many films and novels I've read. The art is framed within a typical styled game, and the only way you could ever experience the game as art is to be willing to play it from beginning to end to notice the nuance.

Someone could tell me that their favorite music album was art, but if I was not impressed with the initial sound of it, I would not be able to hear what they heard in the music. I think this applies to how you could perceive Braid, and games like it.

To simplify how Braid was designed would go something like this. The core game is similar to something like Nintendo's Mario games. It may be different because you can rewind time to fix your mistakes, but this is just a gimmick in the game at this point. There are many games that have this feature.

Outside of this, there are the prose sections. Your comparison to fortune cookies is not far off because the prose is kept purposely vague, and it is also discovered out of order. This is where the game plays deeper with the idea of time and continuity.

Along with the prose, the puzzle pieces you collect in the game are assembled into original paintings that correlate with the prose's story. Instead of capturing one moment in time, each painting seems like a photo that was taken a moment to late. You get a sense of what may have just happened in the scene, but you are never sure. These static images contrast with the gameplay's ability to go forwards and backwards in time.

As you play the game, trying to rescue the princess from the monster, the game is telling the story of someone who has failed to maintain a relationship with the woman he loves. In the game's climax, these ideas come together. The hero chases after the princess in a tense sequence, only to lead to a dead end. The only option is to reverse time, and it is revealed that the game was played in the wrong flow. The princess wasn't running from the monster, she was running from you. An alternate interpretation of the game's ending is that there are many perspectives to a situation, and maybe the protagonist is allowed to be both hero and villain depending on point of view.

You don't "win" Braid, you finish it just as would a movie, book, or album. I don't think there is anything to fault you for, Mr. Ebert, just because you wouldn't want to play a video game, just as I wouldn't be expected to appreciate the art in song I didn't care to listen to.

You've just made my day, Roger. I've been wanting to air my views on this discussion in your direction for some time now.

I find the story and experience more important than the mechanisms and rules of playing a video game. Chess may never be art on its own, but if an artist creates a poignant message about war using chess pieces, and someone viewing the chess pieces evaluates his or her own views on war, wouldn't that be art? It's not the game itself; it's the context.

I'll use the game Bioshock as an example. [SPOILERS AHEAD.] The game's action-adventure, which, like an action-adventure movie, involves fighting enemies and solving quests. But that's only the barest surface of the game. It takes place in a city underwater, created by a man who wanted to create his own government away from the existing systems. Of course, the government's corrupt (particularly as the government's based almost entirely on commerce), which brings the city to its downfall. The overall message is one relating to the absence of morals.

As a movie, that much would be pretty conventional, and entertaining. The game was well-made, so I enjoyed the experience. But it had one element that elevated it above: a twist that made me evaluate the whole structure of video games in general.

The perspective character was genetically created by the man who ran the city, and if someone around him uses a particular phrase ("Would you kindly?"), the perspective character has to obey the command. The opponent of the man who rules the city, who orchestrated a riot to bring down the city, uses the phrase throughout the game to send the player on his or her missions, and therefore is controlling the perspective character.

When the control element was revealed to me, I spent a very long time thinking. How many times had I played video games and gone on quests and trusted the characters? Heck, how many times had I trusted the characters in films who had served the same purpose? I was complicit in these actions, blindly following a mechanism without considering the consequences. Bioshock opened my eyes to it.

Games are like any medium that uses story: they can be used, and misused. Like with movies, there are major studios who churn out a lot of commercial fare, and occasionally produce a gem, and there are minor studios who experiment with form and function.

Do I need validation for my games? Hardly. I also don't need validation for the bad movies I watch and enjoy. But just like with movies and literature, I get more enjoyment when I discuss the merits and failings of video games, again, because I view them in a similar light.

I think what really keeps games from being art is the lack of potential enjoyment from viewers who aren't personally playing. As much as I enjoy Braid, if I saw it being played in a gallery or on TV, I wouldn't keep watching for more than a minute. Oddly enough, I feel like games are getting further and further away from being art with every passing year. With a game like Asteroids or Ice Climbers, I think there's something to be said for the imagination required to make it entertaining, since the graphics were so minimal and there was no distinct story within the game. With modern games, where the (generally) stupid stories tell you (repetitively) what's going on at all times and the graphics are detailed, there's no thinking of that sort involved, and it's really quite a bummer.

Games should not be compared to novels or cinema, if you wish to talk about art. They should be compared to architecture. The game designer creates an environment for the player to view and inhabit; the rules of the game give the player a way to interact with that environment.

Architecture works in a similar fashion, the difference being that the architect always works within the same rules--gravity, the movement of the sun, and so forth. An architect may create a building interior which gives a sense of weight and history, or clinical detachment, grandiosity or loneliness, pride or humility--creating or engaging emotional responses in the person who travels through that space.

Now think of most narrative games as a museum with moving and still exhibits--films or sights that you engage by traveling a particular length of time or distance, or by completing a task (say, climbing upstairs).

A game designer is the architect who designs the building; the painters who make the art; the curator, who places the art; and God, who constructed us in such a way that we see the building and the art on the walls.

The object that the game gives the player is merely an excuse to lead the player actively through the experience. This part has the game designer taking the role of the museum guide, who says, "For every painting on the wall you go and look at, you get a point, and you must have ten points by the time we exit the museum."

The result is an experience which might be variable, but is always directed and influenced in every conceivable way by the hand of the director. Compare this to Playtime, a film you have admired often in print. Each viewing is different, based on where you decide to look within large, complicated deep-focus frames, but Tati still knows how to guide your eye via movement and color and sound.

This argument is one which is often played in the form of examples, when it can only be won in the realm of definitions; but I know I have played games which have made me feel lonely or care about a companion (Ico) or which have revealed to me truths of human nature (Bioshock) or which have shown me things I have never seen before (Metroid Prime) or which present me with a total mastery of the form (Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time), which are all things I value in my favorite works of literature or cinema.

For me, art is about an author conveying with all elements of craft emotions, ideas, and sensations of value and of individualistic viewpoint. By that definition, there are certainly games that I would call art, although there are many that I would not. There are many films I could not call art, either.

As a side note, Santiago's talk is riddled with errors, omissions, logical flaws, and problems of every sort. I'm reminded of one of Jim Emerson's favorite sayings:

"There's nothing I like less than bad arguments for a view that I hold dear." -- Daniel Dennett

"The circles are labeled: Development, Finance, Publishing, Marketing, Education, and Executive Management. I rest my case."

How lucky for film that there are no elements of finance, publishing, marketing, or executive management, or else that medium might also inherently never "rise" to the level of art! *cough* ("Development" in this discussion refers to the primary creative team behind the game, who would analogously be the cast and crew of a film.) As well, Dan upthread is absolutely right that TV and cinema are generally considered art (or at least, "they can be art"), and they are absolutely collaborative works. (I personally despise the auteur theory, but I suppose that's for another discussion.)

More importantly, my problem with this line of argument is that it typically conflates "art" with "*good* art" in confusing ways, substituting one for the other as necessary. Art isn't always great, but it doesn't stop being art nevertheless.

Finally, I want to ask: was "The Five Obstructions" art? (In either the 'good/ transcendental/ awe-inspiring art' or 'it was the product of a creative effort' sense.) Was it a documentary of a game that von Trier and Leth played? (Or, arguably, a game designed by von Trier and played by Leth?)

Just because your old pretentious brain doesn't understand games, doesn't mean they aren't art.

You mention that games are the work of many, and as thus they cannot be works of art. However, I assume you consider films to be works of art. Are you still operating under the notion that all directors are auteurs and we should not pay any attention to the efforts of dozens to hundreds of other people who are involved in creating a film?

On another note, I assume you would consider a breathtaking painting of a landscape to be a form of art. Correct me if I'm wrong, of course. Do you realize that, although digital, many games contain interactive environments that can produce images that rival many great painted ones. Not only are these breathtaking images built into the games, you can explore them from different angles and interact directly with the environment you're seeing.

Read Chad Concelmo's article which examines Final Fantasy XIII, especially regarding its visual merits: http://www.destructoid.com/counterpoint-final-fantasy-xiii-is-beautiful-classic-170803.phtml

From the article: "For people who have played the game, think back to the first time you start walking through the frozen Lake Bresha. Remember stepping out into the enormous, gorgeous open fields and cliffs of the Archylte Steppe on Pulse. Remember the epic, giant battle between the PSICOM soldiers, the monsters, and the Eidolons on Eden near the end of the game. All of these moments are staggeringly beautiful. ... There were times I was so blown away by the graphics in the game that I had to stop, spin the in-game camera around slowly, and just take it all in. Every animation, every texture, every environmental design -- it is all absolutely breathtaking and completely compliments the epic, although sometimes confusing, story."

Ebert: 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.

Oh, Sorry, I forgot to add something in responce to your final statement:

People (specifically those who are above the age of 16) who play games tend to want others to take their form of entertainment a bit more seriously because games have been labeled as "Kids toys" for decades. Though, in some cases, it could be said that these WHERE kids toys and those adults that play them simply have nostalgia for it (like adults that collect G.I. Joe's), games themselves have grown to match their majority audience. Many games that come out are still for kids, but many others are far from that case and as such that recognition is sought out.

Santiago used poor examples. Plain and simple. Let me frame my following comments with this, In my opinion. Video Games can be art. Are most art? No. Should most be art? Not exactly. The thing about games is, at the end of the day they should still be, just that, games. Something you can play.

More recently, although the trend has been occurring for quite some time, Video Games have been becoming more cinematic through heavy use of cutscenes. In game terms, a cutscene is any break in the action, whereupon a game becomes unplayable while cinematic exposition unfolds. Previously, games may have had a few of these to WOW the player, and to force the story to continue. Recently though, many games consist of more cutscene than actual gameplay. I once heard someone say, "If they wanted to make a movie, why didn't they?" they then answered their own question, "Because, no one wants to watch a 40 hour movie."

This is good and bad. Depends on what you are looking for in a Video Game. If you're looking for a story to unfold before your eyes, on your fancy 1080p television, than this is good. However, if you just got in from work, need to be in bed in an hour, and just want to sit down and play a game, you might be a bit upset when you get slapped with 2 hours of exposition to your 10 minutes of gameplay.

I'm rambling here, but I'll link it to my main point. As games become more cinematic, one thing happens that allows me to personally define them as art. I can put them into a literary genre. I'm not speaking as to the genre of the game, as to what you do in the game, I'm speaking of a genre that the game's story can be placed in from a literary perspective. Popular genres include War, Horror, Steampunk, Cyberpunk. I've played games with fragmented storylines. The first time I had someone explain the concept of Twentieth Century British Modernism to me, I was linking video game narratives to Virginia Woolf.

It's funny how these things can change as well. I'll make a specific example. I played a game called Metal Gear Solid (A series of English words coined by a team of japanese speakers, no less), a game that is now remembered as being one of the first and most cinematic games of all time. When this game came out in 1998, I lied to my mom about the age requirements (You had to be 17, I was 10), and I rented it. It astounded me, but while I liked the story, I was more impressed by the fact that I was playing as a secret agent, sneaking around and strangling nameless soldiers.

When I played it again when I was older, it affected me differently. I was looking at a well-written story, one that sucked me in. One that contained complex characters with real flaws. One with themes of isolation, the futility of war, and with a surprisingly intelligent commentary on the asininity of Mutually Assured Destruction.

It's art to me, and I respect your right to disagree.

I don't know why I'm so intent that you consider the media I hold dear as art, but I do. I'd imagine -- having read your passionate prose regarding film -- that you would feel the same way if film were under the same scrutiny.

I'll try to make these few points as quickly as I can.

It is clear that the word "videogame" skews what people expect from this medium, but it is just a name. Just because "game" is in the word doesn't mean that the word itself hasn't expanded and taken on a completely different connotation.

To say that interactive fiction is not a "videogame" anymore is to be willfully ignorant.

We call them games for lack of a better term, but that doesn't mean that they all are chess.

Sure, when you can't win an old-time game then it does cease to be a game and becomes an experience, but don't let the word hold you back from realizing that "becoming a representation of a novel" does not make it a novel, it is interactive fiction which we still claim under the "videogame" umbrella.

You have the same stumbling block with Braid. You are starting from the viewpoint of "this is a game." When you take a move back in a game it is cheating. OK? What does that have to do with Braid? Braid is not a game it is a "videogame."

You're going to get this a lot and I do believe you will ignore it, so I don't know why I am typing it, but:

You probably would have had a better time understanding the implications of taking back time in Braid had you played it.

As sure as you are that games are not art then I am just as sure they are.

I know that games are art. It has little to do with narrative or character. Just as the artistry of music has very little to do with the lyrics. A great jazz set can move me emotionally, but so can the feeling of the code in any arcade game from the 80s. The way it feels to guide a character in a fictionalized imitation of nature that has been shot through the prism of a directing artist can be just as affecting as any piece of music.

Winning is a byproduct of that experience. It gives the experience a reason to exist in a marketplace and it does cheapen the experience, but it does not diminish it completely.

I am conflicted, because I do care that you validate videogames. I don't know why, but I do. However, I also know that you are wrong.

I know that Donkey Kong is a finer piece of art than White Chicks, Airplane, and most of Tony and Ridley Scott's movies. Shadow of the Colossus is a more powerful piece of art than any piece of music that the Disney Corporation has ever published. Zelda is as important to the development of young minds as Harry Potter.

I know that if DaVinci were 20 years old today, then there would be a decent chance that videogames are where he would want to express himself.

First off, let me say I have a great amount of respect for you, and consider you a champion of the film medium. However, I think it's very short sighted and narrow of you to overlook the medium of video games, and the talented people who make them.

Video games are constantly changing and being reinvented. It is a much more flexible medium.

Video games are created by entire teams of artists

texture painters
character designers (3d sculptures)
writers
musicians
actors, etc

and a director, just like film-- they have their own crews; the result is collaborative, but it is still art.

that's not to say every game is *good* art. just as there are thousands of horrible movies, there are thousands of games that exploit a single elements, as an exploitation film would.

I would still argue that even the worst games have art in them.

Then again, when viewed by someone who truly appreciates a specific genre (such as the shooting galleries you mention) - they will see the genius in the details-- the eloquence in the craftsmanship (just as a car enthusiast would pine over their car's performance, balance, artistry)

You must recall that films were considered cheap entertainment in their early days, just as comic books were. And now we have you, a very respected figure, undermining the importance of the newest, most influential art form.

Consider this: different people could view the same monet painting-- it will not affect everyone the same way. the brilliance of great art is found in the interpretations.

You can watch a movie twice at different points in your life, and have a completely different experience based on the baggage you bring to the movie, and put things into new contexts based on what you are feeling that particular viewing.

The same can be said with a game, except that the experience could be much more varied. The profoundness of this experience, would depend on the emotional depth of the game.

You argue that chess or soccer are not art, but I believe the invention of those particular games were, and, the most talented athletes that play them, truly are artists in their own right.

However, if you state that they are not art because they are governed by rules, I could equally argue that a film has rules-- it needs to play on screen of some kind, has a beginning middle and end (just like soccer)

Do you agree: That art is created when there is an expression of emotion committed to a tangible format for others to interpret?

In a game's case-- This expression may or may not necessarily be delivered in a linear format.

I love film, I considered it to be the ultimate art because there was the combination of music, picture, story etc--

But games inject one more ingredient: Human input, directly into the experience.

A good game will have a profoundly personal experience.

Do you agree: that movies are interactive (as I stated your subconscious baggage you bring watching a given movie at a given time alters your perception of it) -- which I think is a common philosophy between both games and movies. Only in games, your input has a direct result on the presentation of the art.

Both mediums need highly creative people (artists) to thrive.

The games stated in your essay, are not the best examples in my opinion.

I would say "Shadow of the Colossus" is a modern masterpiece. I won't explain it to you here, but recommend you give it a try, if you have any open mindedness at all. You may not like it, but there is definitely a conclusive moral message that is communicated to the player through the action of playing the game (not the story scenes).

You are in a difficult position, as obviously, you cannot play every single game in existence. So whether my arguments hold any water or not, there are still hundreds if not thousands of games in development-- and you know what they say about the 99 monkeys with typewriters?

I don't know why I'm so intent that you consider the media I hold dear as art, but I do. I'd imagine -- having read your passionate prose regarding film -- that you would feel the same way if film were under the same scrutiny.

I'll try to make these few points as quickly as I can.

It is clear that the word "videogame" skews what people expect from this medium, but it is just a name. Just because "game" is in the word doesn't mean that the word itself hasn't expanded and taken on a completely different connotation.

To say that interactive fiction is not a "videogame" anymore is to be willfully ignorant.

We call them games for lack of a better term, but that doesn't mean that they all are chess.

Sure, when you can't win an old-time game then it does cease to be a game and becomes an experience, but don't let the word hold you back from realizing that "becoming a representation of a novel" does not make it a novel, it is interactive fiction which we still claim under the "videogame" umbrella.

You have the same stumbling block with Braid. You are starting from the viewpoint of "this is a game." When you take a move back in a game it is cheating. OK? What does that have to do with Braid? Braid is not a game it is a "videogame."

You're going to get this a lot and I do believe you will ignore it, so I don't know why I am typing it, but:

You probably would have had a better time understanding the implications of taking back time in Braid had you played it.

As sure as you are that games are not art then I am just as sure they are.

I know that games are art. It has little to do with narrative or character. Just as the artistry of music has very little to do with the lyrics. A great jazz set can move me emotionally, but so can the feeling of the code in any arcade game from the 80s. The way it feels to guide a character in a fictionalized imitation of nature that has been shot through the prism of a directing artist can be just as affecting as any piece of music.

Winning is a byproduct of that experience. It gives the experience a reason to exist in a marketplace and it does cheapen the experience, but it does not diminish it completely.

I am conflicted, because I do care that you validate videogames. I don't know why, but I do. However, I also know that you are wrong.

I know that Donkey Kong is a finer piece of art than White Chicks, Airplane, and most of Tony and Ridley Scott's movies. Shadow of the Colossus is a more powerful piece of art than any piece of music that the Disney Corporation has ever published. Zelda is as important to the development of young minds as Harry Potter.

I know that if DaVinci were 20 years old today, then there would be a decent chance that videogames are where he would want to express himself.

What I see here is blind ignorance. I see statements from a man who is hopelessly attached to his own values and interests. Anything can be art. Anything. The value of art is interpreted by the viewer, and it is obvious that Roger Ebert has a close minded view of the medium.

Play a game beyond the mechanics and look at the picture it paints and the story it tells. There you will find art.

Someone else mentioned Ico already. It is ostensibly a game in that there is a goal or objective to be completed, but the progress of the game is more akin to a film or novel narrative than any kind of real goal seeking. Ultimately, Ico and a handful of other games succeed as art because they could not exist in the same way in any other form. A film of the same story would not produce the same sense of connection in the viewer as the game does in the player. It isn't the graphics, or the goal, or even the story that makes it important and moving, but the act of experiencing the story in the way the designers created it. In other words, the game is not about what it is about, but how it is about it. That being said, I have argued that we should all stop pestering you about your completely incorrect assertion that games cannot be art, which would be much easier if you would stop constantly reasserting it.

Games in general may be artistic, or have artistic elements, and in some cases true artistic works. Thinking back to the innovative trend that arrived with the game Myst, we first saw a game that was both.

As others have and certainly will write here, films can be interpreted in the same way. Games can be yet another medium, one that like other interactive pieces requires the player to complete the artistic piece.

Mr. Ebert

I respect you as a movie critic. I have your books nad love your passion for movies.

But regarding video games. I believe you should first play games like:

Bioshock (you're gonna looovee this one)

Heavy Rain (I 100% sure you'll like this one)

Lost Oddysey

Metal Gear Solid 4

Final Fantasy 13

These are mostly new games that can be played on an xbox 360 and ps3.

Games are A DIFFERENT ART FORM THAN MOVIES.

Games can be like movies with interaction and making you feel like you're part of it. Movies are only images that entertaint you sitting down for two hours.

With a game you can be entertained for minimum 10 hours like a movie and feel like you were part of it (play heavy rain please)

After you've played the games in that list. You can correct the mistakes you've made with this blog with another blog apologyzing for this insult

Thank you.

Roger,
I am a fan of yours and generally fall on the same side of issues as you, but I have to say I vehemently disagree with you here.

I ask you this:
If a videogame -not because I lost- but as a result of not only its story buts it cumulative experience (gameplay ((which acts as a sort of conduit of emotion between the player and the plot)), music, dialogue, etc.) has made me, your standard apathetic college student, as well as millions s, I'm sure, of other people straight out cry(as well as invoked many emotions not based solely on 'winning' or 'losing)', than what are videogames if not art?

While I think I agree with you, I do have to take issue with your criticism of Santiago's "six keys" to the development of the video game as an art form. Art has always been linked very closely to economics and the marketing of artists and their products; the Sistine Chapel didn't materialize, it came out of protracted and difficult negotiations between Michaelangelo, his studio, and the patrons financing it--and that's true of pretty much every piece of art made since it was decided artists should be paid for their skills.

There's a very unartistic side (and possibly a mercenary side) to a lot of "great art", and it's that side that has also allowed such art to proliferate. If anything, you could argue that it's just as much the money and ability to create demand/interest as the technique itself, that drives art production at a professional level. Santiago's "six circles" are that unappealing side--a side that might (who knows?) produce games or narratives that aren't dictated by the typical "game" paradigm.

At what point do artistic elements coming together cease to be art? There's art in narrative, which most video games certainly have. There's art in music, which, more and more, video games are relying on to set the same sort of tone as film. There's art in design, which games feature as characters, settings and objects. Does the confluence of these elements mean that the playable portion is not, in itself, art?

Are movies of videogames art?

The two examples of the top of my head (and as still young Console Gamer and my still limited knowledge) that are examples of Videogames trying to be some more or at least giving some sort of subtle comment to the Industry and the Medium are Shadow of Colossus and No More Heroes.

One is a simple and not free of choice game that tells a story with both scenery and cut scenes.

The other one is what Kick Ass wanted to be (and, at least, the Comicbook version failed, dunno the movie, still not here in my country); is never moody even after some disturbing revelations in the last part of the game, but still gives some sort of message about the medium, the cliches and the fandom in general.

Sorry for my English, but Is a thread I like and I found really interesting to discuss.

I disagree.

If art is "the process of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions", then there is at least one game that fits the bill. It's called Planescape: Torment. It would be too much to expect you to play it, but if you have time, look up the Wikipedia page for it. It's brilliant fantasy, with some of the most evocative imagery since Calvino's "Invisible Cities." The plight of the unique main character, as well as the events surrounding some of his incarnations, brought me almost to tears a number of times. Against the backdrop of an immense demonic war, the game deals with the ideas of memory, redemption, choice and human nature. I don't know how one would meaningfully compare this with the great poets, filmmakers and novelists. But goddamit, if it's not art, then I don't know what is.

P.S. The issue of art is a contentious one, but one thing I believe to be uncontroversial: as genre exercises, games routinely beat Hollywood movies. Dead Space is the best sci-fi horror in any medium since Alien. Mass Effect basically lets you star in an exceptionally well-written science fiction TV series. Assassin's Creed puts you in the Holy Land during the crusades, where Muslims are allowed to be interesting characters with their own complex opinions. This is some good stuff here, Roger... It's glorious trash at the very least, and with recently improved writing and acting, games are starting to beat movies in many areas.

I've been playing games for about thirty years. As I've grown, so has the medium. (I'm 33 now.)

Video games are not analogous to sports at all, to address your mention of Dick Butkus and Michael Jordan. Video games can have complex characters, intricate narratives, soundtracks, and acting.

There is, to me, a great deal of very skillful craft involved in the making of a great game. Creativity and innovation are qualities of most great games. Creativity and innovation are also qualities associated with some works of art, which I think is where some of the confusion on this issue comes from.

I do think that there are games that communicate meaning through their stories or that make meaning through their mechanics of play. This is something unique to games, and in it, I find tremendous potential for creativity and expression on behalf of the creator and for emotionally engaging and thought-provoking experiences on the part of the player. Certainly a great novel or a great film might also be emotionally engaging and thought-provoking. It's not unusual for film critics to use terms like "powerful" and "compelling" when describing a film, and since there's an impulse to similarly describe a great game, things bleed together for many avid game players, myself included, making it difficult to see why cinema should clearly be recognized as an art form but games should not. For me, as one example, I have to admit that there were moral considerations and dialogue exchanges in Grand Theft Auto IV, moments of truth-telling and forgiveness, that, while not Shakespeare (or, perhaps more analogous, not The Wire), were legitimately meaningful to me. Whatever that means. That I came away feeling enriched by the experience, I suppose. And that while I actually agree with you that Bad Lieutenant--Port of Call: New Orleans is a work of art and that Grand Theft Auto IV is not, (though in my view it's a game that exhibits tremendous craft and creativity), my internal experience of both is on some level profound and personal and affecting, and in that internal world that fumbles with these questions and tries to make sense of them, one experience cannot be said to be more valid than another.

And I think you are right that this is what it comes down to, a search for validation, a desire to have others look on this strange pastime of ours and see in it the same value or at least the same potential that we do. When you love something deeply, you want to share that love with others. Or perhaps you just want to convert other people to your way of seeing it. Personally, I won't be satisfied until everyone in the world loves the film L.A. Confidential, the novels of David Mitchell, the music of Joseph Arthur, and video games.

Thank you for this post. I think the ongoing dialogue about this is a good thing.

You didn't give her the last word! Reminds me of old S&E shows, I think you had a higher "last word batting average" than Gene...

Super Mario 3 is a work of art. You prove that it isn't. Prove that Shigeru Miyamoto isn't an artist.

Marcel Duchamp's "The Fountain": Widely accepted as art now, years and years after it was first entered into public discussion as a scandalous commentary on what could be art.

Art, for me, is any creative interpretation of the world or some aspect of it; Wikipedia's (obviously partial) definition is "the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way to affect the senses or emotions." Art is relative. Art is subjective.

Art is not a field that can be fenced in, and does not lend itself well to proclamations. Video gaming, Roger, is not a field you have been immersed in as much of my generation (I'm 20) has been. I do not begrudge you your opinions and am always happy to read you articulating them so clearly, but I have to disagree with your contention on those two counts.

Mr Ebert - I'm not an avid game player, but lucked into a humble Czech offering called Machinarium. The animation, storytelling, characters, pacing, music, all beautiful and inspired. When I completed the game I felt like I'd seen a really good Pixar film.

Wall-E starts with a similar setting and is told in a similar spirit. If you took that film and made progressing through it an interactive experience for the viewer, would it cease to be art? Not because it would be derivative, for fairness imagine the interactive Wall-E was created first, and watching someone playing through it would be just like the film.

Admittedly a game of this type is a cinematic story that unfolds in segments. It's not immersive or free-ranging. But almost any video game creates a narrative and invents a spectacle. What inherently prevents it from being art?

If I have kids I hope they'll be able to enjoy my copy of Machinarium along with my old books, music, and videos. It would fit right between Lewis Carroll and Monty Python on the shelf.

Oh come on. Citing the aforementioned games as why the video game genre can't be art is like holding up "Showgirls" as the pinnacle of film making. (People have already mentioned "Ico" and "Shadow of the Colossus." I'll cautiously add another: "Bioshock.")

And weren't similar things said about film roughly 20 years after the genre appeared?

Ebert: No, they weren't.

So movies are art but games are not? I see...

Did you ever play any of the Final Fantasy Games?

Dear Roger
I adore your writing, I've adored you since I was a child. But please, for the love of God, sit down and play Shadow of the Colossus or something before you continue to express your views on video games.

Solved at last: which came first, chicken or egg? Depends on which you ordered first.

With all due respect to how often I've agreed with you over the course of my life, you are wrong.
Watching a few videos of OTHER people playing games, and deciding whether or not an entire industry can be "art" would be akin to judging ALL of cinema based on someone describing the plot of a movie.
Is "The Godfather" art? I would say yes, but what if you only got a 2 minute description of someone else's experience. That re-telling would certainly NOT be art.
I completely agree actually that the only true way to judge the artistic merit of a cave painting is by torch light, as much as I believe that the only way to judge the potential artistic merit of gaming is with a controller in your hand. As you refuse to do this, you forfeit having any meaningful commentary. That's really too bad, as I would love to debate the potential for an interactive medium, the personalization of protagonist, the ability to serialize content.
Your classification of "games aren't art" so "videogames can't be art" is a false association, and completely shows your ignorance of what the medium is already capable. Your comparison to chess is a battle of wits between two people, and while I think chess is an artful game, any individual game would not be classified as art. That is a fair point, so videogames involving direct competition between two humans (like Street Fighter for example) I would say is also not art. You in essence "beat" your opponent.
However take a game like Half Life. The game has a story. It is your job, as protagonist to see that the protagonist makes it to the end of that story. Is this game "beaten", well I would argue no, not any more so than any film is "beaten" when you arrive at the conclusion of the story. Half Life's premise rivals most of what cinema provides in terms of story and entertainment, and features scope impossible to achieve through film. It's useless to try and describe any further though. The intensity experienced at the end of Half Life Episode 2's final confrontation, the genuine sadness over which supporting characters are lost, the elation over saving the rest of your team, can not be relayed to someone who wont pick up a controller.
Basically you've told us that NO photography can be art, because there are no photographers that have painted the Sistine chapel ("No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets.").
You imply that art needs to have singular vision (choreographers instead of just a bunch of dancers spontaneously grouping), so movies can not be art as they are created through a massive collaboration of writers, directors, set, sound, lighting, makeup, costumes, effects, etc, just like games.
Why are we concerned? That's a silly question. We fight you on this because of your dismissal of something that has spoken to us. If you were some random curmudgeon on a blogspot blog it wouldn't matter, but you're you. You're "important". I'm sure MANY theatre critics panned film at it's inception, but how many continued to pan film without ever watching one?

Excellent flame bait Mr. Ebert. I'm sure you'll get lots of traffic, and plenty of tweets, but I wont be sharing this article.

Narrative plus Visuals plus Audio equals art. Narrative plus Visuals plus Audio plus Interactivity equals not art.

Let's deny the countless graphic designers, editors, writers, musicians, and directors their recognition as artists due to an arbitrary reading of the accumulative work of others.

Does an infomercial represent motion pictures as a whole? Or how about that greeting card mentioned earlier to its medium?

At this point, the problem isn't the authenticity of something as "art", it's the nauseating overuse of labeling things "not art". It puts the argument at a superficial level where one person assumes a little too much about what they are talking about (that or they are simply ignorant). It devolves into everyone's intellectual noses in the air so high they can sniff cloud vapor.

That, or someone simply wants to start a ruckus.

Mr. Ebert,

Long time reader, first time poster. I have used your works as an absolute reference for years - to me, the words you spoke were absolute truth and I refused to listen to dissent against your opinion. I hope you can grasp the immense amount of respect I hold for your understanding of film, as well as your views on most subjects posted under your blog.

That said, I think you are underestimating the power of videogames as art. I could list examples, but of what use would that be? I could point you towards the Metal Gear Solid franchise (what was my introduction to the fine philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, philosophers who are unequivocally considered artists), or the Kingdom Hearts franchise, which is widely considered to be a storyline with little equal. But alas! Neither of those would be of either use!

Mr. Ebert, while I still consider you to be the utmost expert on film who still writes, I am nearly certain there is nothing I could do to convince you that video games count as art. This makes me unreasonably sad. I think that if you simply did a wikipedia search on the storyline of "Metal Gear Solid" you would quickly agree on the merit of video games in terms of social criticism. And yet, i find the possibility of a neutral reaction to "Metal Gear Solid" to be impossible.

I agree with you that a majority of video games are worthless trash - at best mild tests of intellect and perseverance. However, I question your neutrality on the subject. Yes, you are correct to condemn a lot (and I mean a LOT) of movies as "just video games", but some games have within themselves the multitudes necessary to constitute art. I can only hope you reconsider the possibility of great story line within the context of a game; a story line which is only benefited by the context of a choice-driven game.

You question the desire for video games to be considered art. I respond with this: any form of media which receives extreme attention to detail deserves the possibility of art. Video games take years to develop, perhaps even more given a good enough story. They deserve your consideration as something of substance, even if only in the abstract. Metal Gear Solid is perhaps the best criticism of Western Politique I have ever experienced - and yet it becomes so only because of the time investment via the player. It is only when an individual has spent hours upon hours to reach the conclusion of the story that they feel rewarded, that they feel as if every bit of sweat and tears poured into the game were relevant. Perhaps this alone is enough to deserve your respect...though I am again unconvinced of a conclusion.

Mr. Ebert, I hope you can understand the immense respect I have for you as both a critic and an individual. In the end, however, we have irreconcilable differences of opinion on video games. I contribute this to your lack of experience with the medium. Surely, you will contribute my understanding with a lack of experience with other mediums. Either way, I hope we can mutually understand each others opinions and grow from this dialogue. I wish you the best of luck in life and all of your endeavors:

Regards,
Murray

I doubt you'll ever read this, but I need to leave my input here.

One of my all-time favorite games is called Mass Effect. It's a sci-fi-themed game set a couple hundred years from now, in which humanity has branched out throughout the galaxy and is currently interacting with various types of friendly aliens. One of the things that makes the story so unique is that the player has complete control over everything the main character says and does, meaning that aspects of the plot can be shaped as the player sees fit. It's an interactive story, in other words, which only a video game could pull off.

Now, Roger, if this video game were to be successfully and skillfully adapted into a film (and there's talk of one in the works), I have a feeling you'd like it. Never mind that most or all video game-themed movies to date have been terrible; Mass Effect has an intelligent script, an imaginative setting and some fantastic twists in its final act. If one were to take the key scenes directly out of the game and cut out anything involving player interaction, it would be a very, very good film. I can't speak for you and I don't want to go over every detail of the plot, but I have a strong feeling you'd enjoy it.

Now take the game out of the equation. Say this very good sci-fi movie was based on an original script, and that the Mass Effect game never existed. Let's say you loved the movie. You're calling it one of the best of the year. (I'm not saying you would think so; this is hypotheticl.) The movie, in your mind, is art, as you consider filmmaking an artistic expression and Mass Effect is exemplary of the medium.

How does being a game change ANY of that?

Mass Effect still has a great story, but what makes it so effective is the way the player is involved in it. It's interactive storytelling, which no other medium can pull off. Games like Mass Effect are the example, not the rule, but why dismiss video games when they have the potential to be everything movies are and more?

opening a piece with a visual stereotype of a gamer does not bode well for you, mr. ebert. it puts you alongside the likes of fox news, and i personally would have expected a somewhat more differentiated view, especially with respect to your very competent motion picture reviews. as far as your video game criticism goes, you are clearly less than qualified to make such value statements, and the fact that so many people will listen to this and take it as informed criticism saddens me deeply. the current state of the art in game design strives for so much more than you describe, and the mere fact that you do not shed light on this piece of culture makes your ignorance all the more visible. given that you have dedicated your life to an art-form that, at one point in time, struggled for its deserved cultural relevance, makes this all the less understandable for me. instead of supporting a new expressive art-form, you have decided to suffocate it. congratulations.

andy nealen
professor of computer science
rutgers university

Roger, would you review a movie you haven't seen? No? Then why do you insist on passing judgement on something you haven't experienced?

Perhaps I am deluded because I grow up more with video games than with movies, but I do believe some games have true, artistic merit to it. Maybe I am one of the people that seeks validation, but I do so in the face of a society that condemns video games for being too childish, too tenage-male-oriented, too mind-numbing, and too violent. Video games can be much more than Mario, Halo, and Grant-Theft Auto. They can be real works of art.

Uncharted is a cinematic experience unto itself, Portal is a physics mindgame that would give M.C. Escher chills, the music alone from Silent Hill evokes an inescapable nightmare, and Heavy Rain is a whole level of storytelling that is unrivaled by any other form of media. The list goes on and on. Video games can often create experiences that involve players in ways that movies and television shows cannot. As I said, it could just be the way I grew up, or the fact that my generation isn't considered as cultured as those older than us (I've only been on this planet for two decades), but as a deliberate creation of immersive experiences, video games have proven to be just as valid an artform as anything else.

Mr. Ebert,

I respect your opinions in general, but when you tell me that you've formed an opinion about something which you have not experienced, I am forced to think of parents who wrongly attempt to ban literature they haven't yet read, or movies they haven't yet seen.

I am sorry that you personally are not interested in playing games but it is your right to make that choice. However, it is not your right, having made that choice, to further extrapolate and pass judgement on things with which you have chosen to not even attempt an understanding.

You said:

"Art is the process of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions." This is an intriguing definition, although as a chess player I might argue that my game fits the definition.

You went on to say:

One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome. 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.

So, how does chess transcend being a game, and become art? Chess has "rules, points, objectives, and an outcome", but, as you said, chess is arguably an art. Why?

You pose the defense that as soon as a game stops being "gamey" and approaches something on a higher level, it ceases to be a "game".

That's very convenient. This argument always did boil down to semantics.

We get it Roger. How about you stay away from things you know nothing about(video games) and I'll stay away from things I know nothing about, like having cancer and looking like an abomination.

Baldurs Gate 1&2, Fallout 1&2, Star wars knights of the old republic, Final Fantasy 6,7,8, mass effect. These games are all art that are comparable with any of the great works of any poet, composer, artist etc. Beautifully made, with great stories, powerful and emotional

I have played video games for a significant portion of my life. They have mesmerised me, entertained me, but they have never stirred my "deeper" emotions. The first time I watched "One flew over the cuckoo's nest", I couldn't sleep well for three nights, my heart being so overwhelmed with what the movie represented. There are umpteen examples of movies that change you as a person within the 120 odd minutes of their run time - The Godfather, Cries and Whispers, Anand (Hindi), Ikiru, and even Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). As of now, there is no video game capable of achieving this feat. I don't know why. Maybe, like you said, it is their focus on winning, and not experiencing. You can't stop at a beautiful mountain spring in a video game and choose a different path. The rules of the game bind you, your actions and thoughts are "pre-decided" by the programmers. And finally, you can't relate to it. Video games never evoke thoughts like "this is my mother's story", or "I have felt like the protagonist before".
Of course, there are movies that are devoid of art, and we have seen a lot of them, sometimes those that are based on video games. Yet, some movies are undoubtedly great art. No video game is, till now.

I was terribly saddened to read this article, it is amateurish at best. We have a higher standard for people who are supposed to be as "esteemed" as you, Ebert. You are clearly out of your element here. This article is disjointed, terribly misinformed about the process and aspects of games and game design, and blatantly lies because of your lack of knowledge on the subject. Every single one of your examples are quite easily refuted by anyone who understands the aforementioned processes, and i suspect we will see many responses to this in the coming days.

I hate to yell at an old man, but this sort of irresponsible dribble is exactly why games and gamers have to defend themselves so rabidly in the media. Next time do your research or silence your keystrokes.

Roger, you've brought me from the woodwork after having read this blog from the beginning. I'm not a dedicated gamer at all, but actually a devoted follower of art games.

By judging games by watching videos of games presented in the context of a 15-minute lecture, you may as well be judging a book by its cover blurbs. They may evoke the tone of the work, and they will show the experience that one person had with it, but they will not be the text of the work itself.

Waco is not art. I'll concede that has nothing to it except shock value.

Flower I've not played.

But Braid is not something to be dismissed. You may think it derivative of the worst stereotypes of games, and this is likely because it does pay homage to some of the most iconic moments in all of videogaming by constantly evoking and subverting imagery from the original Mario series. The game is illustrated by David Hellman, who was ironically best known for his prior work on the beautiful webcomic "A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible" before his work on the game that operated on the precise opposite premise. His work within the game deserves accolades in and of itself, but it does build to something greater. Each world within Braid has a different emotional theme. Each is summed up by that "fortune cookie" prose, which, mind you, is intentionally vague and littered with contradictory elements that build up to a distinct whole that, again, cannot be summarized without creating your own art object from the materials at hand. Each world's theme is conveyed through the music, the art- a slow shift in Hellman's illustrations from a lush world of nature to a burning city- and, most importantly, the nature of time.

Within Braid, the single consistent element is that you can rewind time for your own character. This does not serve to just take back your mistakes, though it does do that. In most videogames, if you die, you come back with the mistakes undone anyway. However, each world of Braid has a different emotional theme that corresponds to the flow of time within it. In a world of inevitability, you can rewind time for Tim, the main character, but certain elements of the rest of the world will proceed without you, and mistakes you've made will stay as they were. In the world of time and place, rewinding serves no purpose because the flow of time is determined only by where you are, forcing you into linear time that rewinding has no effect upon. In the world of hesitance, the sight of the engagement ring from your failed relationship causes time to slow. Like the way an awkward moment or humiliation seems to stretch for an eternity.

This all comes to a head in the final world where all time is flowing backward and Tim, through reversing his own mistakes (as he perceives them), forces it back into linearity. Throughout all this, Tim has been chasing "The Princess". We get increasingly contradictory accounts of Tim's relation to The Princess throughout the game in the prologues to each world. First it seems that she is just a lost lover, but as it goes on- well, I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise for anyone.

So, spoilers ahead.

In the finale of the game, with time still running backwards, Tim sees The Princess just barely escaping from the grips of a hulking knight while screaming for help. She runs from him, and Tim, in the subterranean passage below her, runs to rendezvous with her as she, from the surface, activates devices in the passage below that allow him to continue his run.

Once they reach the Princess' home, time begins to flow forward again, and we see the scene as it truly was, before Tim's memory allowed him to rewrite himself as the hero. When time is flowing forward, the Princess is running from Tim, screaming for help, throwing traps to prevent him from catching her, and diving into the arms of a knight in shining armor who comes to rescue her.

After all the struggle to manipulate time, to undo mistakes and learn from every trial, the ultimate lesson of the game is that a lesson is learned but the damage is irreversible.

For some context, here's David Hellman's former webcomic:

http://alessonislearned.com/index.php?comic=31

And on an unrelated note, here's an art game that will not tell you its objective or how to achieve anything in it that is one of my favorites. It's playable in-browser and very simple, so you don't have an excuse.

http://www.molleindustria.org/everydaythesamedream/everydaythesamedream.html

ps. Thank you for the recommendation, Suttree is one of my favorite books now.

Either everything is art, or nothing is art.

Is any painting or poetry as beautiful as Pac-Man? Or Chess? Or sitting in the park underneath cherry blossoms?

You have to be well-versed with a particular subject (i.e. actually play video games) in order to submit an educated or informed argument about it.

Until then, these pieces will always read as frivolous navel-gazing.

While I do appreciate that the overall tone of the article is "my opinion is that games are not at the state where they can be considered art", as established in the opening paragraph, I am simply shocked at the unwillingness to be open to experiencing something in order to satisfy your point. The entire article was spent analyzing Santiago's lecture, and two points that stuck in my mind were:

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.

I would like to restate a point made in several commenters' posts above, that the "win condition" as you call it, is essentially the end of a novel or film. While you may be able to play "after the end" so to speak, it really doesn't change the narrative arc of the game, nor would watching a deleted scene track from a film change its narrative arc.

Also, the fact that you detract from these games with nothing more than a "from what I can see..." standpoint. This is basically like being told about a novel or film and making a judgement based solely on that. Without actually experiencing what these games have to offer, especially in the case of Flower, you cannot have the emotional investment inherent to all works of art - Da Vinci's Mona Lisa, Moby Dick, Citizen Kane, all work because of what you feel as you experience them, whether it be from actually looking at the painting, reading the novel, or watching the film, the attachment is there, in some small way they move you and draw you in. Being told "OK, so there's this painting, right? And it's a woman, OK? And she's got this SMILE, man, this AMAZING smile!" will never have the same effect as viewing it for yourself, experiencing the wonder and mystery of the painting for yourself, and that's exactly what you're missing by dismissing Flower, Ico, and Shadow of the Colossus simply from video footage or word of mouth.

In SotC you BECOME Wander (the main character), experiencing his struggle to climb the Colossi, in Flower you are a gust of wind, rising and falling and swooping around fields, awakening flowers and creating a storm of petals in your wake. The first time I played the final stage of Flower, arcing and swooping around the playground, I could feel the exhilaration, the rush of the downward spiral, and a smile spread across my face. THAT is pure emotion, and something that can evoke feelings that strong is truly art.

Ebert, I love you and I understand that you are inundated to the point of boredom with this debate, but (skipping over the arguments already made) you can't judge the games you mentioned just by watching clips of them - you have to play them.

Would you pay any attention to a film critic who reviewed the whole movie based on a trailer?

The 'game' part of a videogame lies between you and the screen, not on a video. You mentioned Braid - which gives you the ability to play without mistakes - and then explicitly discusses the problems this would cause human relationships. Without playing the game you're not going to pick that up.

You're welcome to your views, but wouldn't it be smarter to give the other side a fair hearing before airing them?

Roger,

I am a huge fan of yours. I thoroughly enjoy your blog and your reviews and I am incredibly grateful that you take the time to share your opinions with us.

All this said, I must sorely disagree with you on this kerfuffle about video games.

Art, in my layman's opinion, is about an artist suggesting or conveying a certain set of emotions in the viewer or viewing audience. The Eggleston exhibit at the Art Institute right now is an excellent case to look at, as it took his color photography work quite a long time to be considered "worthwhile art" and not just a mere snapshot aesthetic. John Szarkowski's introduction to Eggleston's "Guide" (here: http://www.americansuburbx.com/2008/01/theory-introduction-to-william.html) points out a lot of the problems with accepting Eggleston's work, and the work of many photographers, as art.

In it he says this of photography:

"Photography is a system of visual editing. At bottom, it is a matter of surrounding with a frame a portion of one's cone of vision, while standing in the right place at the right time. Like chess, or writing, it is a matter of choosing from among given possibilities, but in the case of photography the number of possibilities is not finite but infinite."

Eggleston was accused of a "snapshot aesthetic". How are his pictures different than a family touring the south? Arguably, by choosing out of this infinite set of possible pictures, Eggleston edited down all of reality to several dozen images that he felt conveyed an unspoken -- but visually recognizable and recordable -- opinion of the world. His opinion. His perspective.

Video games kind of present a similar problem, as, frankly, does cinema, especially in this post Matrix era of manufactured realities. I can create and show you anything, so my mere ability to do so cannot be art. I must use the medium to show you something; tell you something. I must make you feel something.

In the video game Portal, which I am sure you have heard referenced, the player is inserted into a universe which -- just like the best of science fiction, both written and filmed -- supposes a new reality: we made this tool, this gun, and with it you can create doors anywhere. Doors in the floor connected to the ceiling so you can plummet infinitely, a door in the wall here connected to the far part of a room that is otherwise unreachable, etc.

Now, yes, this sounds banal. This sounds like rudimentary plumbing -- I'll just connect these two things and solve a puzzle, and I am done. But Portal, through a very deliberately controlled plot line, structure, visual style, etc. slowly helps the player to understand the new rules, the new possibilities, that a device like this opens up. And over the course of a five hour game you will, having beaten the game "be thinking with Portal", as they put it. The game opens up an immense sense of wonder and a fascination with possibility.

2001: A Space Odyssey asks us what happens when humans learn their transcendence was facilitated by another being. Umberto D. asks us how do we live when we have lost all will. Inglourious Basterds asks us how much do we permanently view World War II through the lens of World War II movies.

So why when a game like Portal asks us to think in entirely original ways, and to imagine the consequences of this new and unreal reality, is that not art?

I argue, of course, that it is. Not all video games are art. Not all films are art. Not all books are art. Stop by a used hotel furniture store in Pilsen and you'll see that not all painting are art, either. But mediums can be transcended and senses of wonder can be conveyed. It is rare in video games, but it is there. Some video games have been art. More will be.

But you have a pleasant evening, sir. I hope one day to run into you at the Caldwell Lily Pond or somewhere about in Lincoln Park.

In the 2000s we've sacrificed the narrative elements which made interactive fiction games of the 90s useful and provocative morality plays with the player as the central character, living with the repercussions of their decisions. Now everything has to be the latest and greatest technical wizardry, but we've lost the themes and plot elements. "Mission Critical" (1995) was a great example of a sprawling morality play video game, unmatched by technically sophisticated first-person shooters of today.

While I have to agree that the three specific examples provided by Ms. Santiago would in no way fit my personal definition of art, Video Games can indeed be art, and to millions of gamers worldwide are already considered such. I find that I often disagree with your movie picks, but I would not be so arrogant as to say that in your eyes they are not artistically engaging. To me there are certain games that are every bit as engaging and artistic as your most highly beloved movies, If perhaps for different reasons. I would direct you to the brilliant story lines and excellent animations of Heavy Rain, or the gripping (if all too short) storyline of the last two Call of Duty games. I just think you are on a different side of the conversation, and without the knowledge to speak more than your personal feelings on the matter, which without experiencing some of the better, or really, any offerings out there, is like downgrading the entire history of cinema as fluff without ever stepping foot inside a theater.

I think I agree with you that video games are not art, but I found Ms Santiago a poor apologist for the medium. Here are a couple of instances I find promising:

• The popular game Myst created a virtual world one could wander around. Unfortunately the virtual world is littered with puzzles, and solving the puzzles progresses the player through the story of two brothers. There is very little in the way of "win" or "lose".
  

  
  Unfortunately the story is jejune and the virtual world does not yet stand up to the imagination of the great landscape painters or the great surrealists, but this seems to me a difference of degree, not kind. Perhaps Myst is bad art?
  

• 
  I have played several games of the sort that used to be called "text adventure games" and are now called "interactive fiction". Most of them are of a quality you might expect from college freshmen doing creative writing, but there are occasional gems. For example, I found Andrew Plotkin's Spider and Web every bit as artistically satisfying as the better short stories by O. Henry, and more difficult to put down.
  

  
  Of course, a text adventure game is not a video game, and indeed, the people working in the medium no longer call it a game. But good stories are being written.
  Are they art? I don't know. Does it matter?
  

  
  (Interestingly, there appears to be no commercial market for interactive fiction. I don't know if that makes it more arty or less arty—certainly it means there's no nonsense about marketing and so on—but it does mean that the impetus behind the outpouring of works is a creative impetus, not a commercial one.)
  

2 Things;
Never is indeed a very long time.

And in topics like this, one's own definition of the terms can be so wildly different as to make discussion almost impossible. I don't wanna get all post-modern up in here, but we can have a more interesting discussion on what aspects of video games or chess or mahjong are interesting instead of trying to define them as art.

My definition of art is anything you can have a good discussion about, and the better/longer the discussion, the better the art. (kind of)

To put it simply... the writing and dialogue in Mass Effect 1 and 2 piss all over James Cameron's entire oeuvre. hehe Video Games (like film) are a stunning new audio visual medium for story telling...

Blah blah blah I'm old and I like to criticize things that I don't really understand and that appeared years after I was already set in my ways.

This is an argument that repeats itself decade after decade.

I found the argument about flower particularly kind of dumb. "Nothing she shows from this game seemed of more than decorative interest on the level of a greeting card. Is the game scored? She doesn't say. Do you win if you're the first to find the balance between the urban and the natural? Can you control the flower? Does the game know what the ideal balance is?" - If you can't answer even basic questions like this, how are you qualified to pass judgement on the game? It's like me watching a trailer of a movie and assuming I know its artistic merits. That's not how things work.

Ebert will probably never change his mind, no, but public attitudes are already shifting and will continue to shift as we get a new, younger generation of critics entering the public consciousness. That's always how these things work.

I thought you'd like to know that you're on reddit's gaming front page: http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/bs5pt/video_games_can_never_be_art_roger_eberts_journal/

Other than that, you sound ridiculously snobbish. I mean seriously, a film critic going around saying that games are not art? Games that of course you haven't bothered to play because you're just too good for that it seems.

Other than that, I think those reddit comments sum up what I feel for your article. But I'm sure you don't care what mere gamers have to say about it, do you?

"It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome"

Pretty much the same applies to books and movies. Books and movies depict worlds with rules, they keep score (although not explicitly), the characters have objectives, and there's an eventual outcome. Games tell stories. The fact that we call it "winning" instead of "ending" when it is a game instead of a book doesn't mean that there is any actual difference.

"Nor am I persuaded that I can learn about my own past by taking back my mistakes in a video game"

From your description of the game (and the other games you mention, like Flower), it is obvious that you have never played any of them. I'm not sure how to respond to that; would you accept my opinion of a movie that I have never seen? Of a book that I have never read? Of a painting that I have never seen?

Just to pick one example: Braid tells a story, and the time element (which is much deeper than just allowing the player to turn back time) is used as a storytelling device. Comparing it to taking back a move in chess is like comparing an accidental spilling of a bottle of red paint to a Van Gogh painting because both involve paint.

I would also like to address another idea, namely the concept that games are not art because the player controls what happens. This idea is wrong. The player in a game does not control what happens; he has some limited influence on specific scenes, but the story that unfolds is predefined; at most, it contains a few branches, which, again, are predefined. The story is not told by the player, he acts out a script written for him like an actor in a movie. The things the player can do and see and experience, those are from the mind of the people who made the game. The argument that games are not art because the player controls what happens is akin to saying that books are not art, because the reader's imagination defines how the characters look and sound. The beholder always has an influence on the art.

Reading your essay, I get the impression that you're looking for excuses for why games can't be art, without really knowing much about any of the examples you mention. Waco is a documentary. Braid is chess, and poorly written. "Is it scored?" you ask about Flower. As far as I remember, it is not, but why does it matter? How is a score the border between games and art?

You ask why gamers are so concerned about this question, but it seems to me - judging by the length of your essay - that we are not alone in this. Why do you care about games? And why, for that matter, do you care about movies? I don't know why other gamers care, but I know why I care: I've played games whose stories moved and influenced me more than any book. I've played games whose characters I cared more about than those in any movie. I've played games that showed me worlds grander than any painting. And yet, games are still perceived as children's toys.

I care about this because I think people like you are missing out on an incredible source of powerful contemporary art.

As someone who admires you, but does not worship at your feet, I must say that this blog entry is surprisingly devoid of a good argument. You merely deconstruct your opponent's own beliefs, without clarifying your own, in a manner that comes off as limited in your understanding. Games have objectives, as do films; they both have predetermined endings; and in recent games, the narrative does not allow for gratifying "choose your own adventure" gameplay. This is not Super Mario or DOOM. These days, games take it one step further by making the player the character, rather than just watching them on a screen. Oh yeah, games and films are viewed on screens. Some independent games I consider art, pure expression at the expense of entertainment; a fusion of narrative, music and visuals...like film. They just don't make for the very best games. The same can be argued for "depressing" cinema: self-expression at the expense of mass entertainment.

True, not all games are art, maybe very few. But most of the films I have seen are not art, either. They are entertainment. For art, I pop in Chinatown. As you know, there are far more Transformers in this world than there are Chinatowns.

I fail to grasp what point you are trying to make. As an analogy, this sounds like a Creationist dismissing evolution, presumably out of idealism, but with very few convincing points; and no doubt you are firm in your beliefs. Relating them is another matter.

You could respond to my comment with a smart phrase. You are first a critic, after all. But this blog is rather thin for such a controversial and potentially absorbing topic.

You suggest, strongly, that if there is an end-goal or an objective, that that something cannot be art. But what about art galleries, meticulously designed to guide the viewer through a story and conclude in a decidedly "end" or, dare I say, "last level".

At the end of the day, you've once again come across as a bigoted, close-minded old man who still (for some gods-awful reason) refuses to sit down for an hour or two and actually play a game. YET, you still sit through hours and hours of movies that you deem, for example, "morally reprehensible".

Shame on you.

I think there may need to be a distinction between the kind of games that are traditionally games/sports/puzzles and those that are narrative-based. While you make constant comparisons of video games to non-art things like chess and sports, this breaks down when you play games that have a narrative. Players and game makers are then making a different sort of decisions then Dick Butkis and Michael Jordan - instead of making points to win, one makes decisions that shape how the story is experienced, progresses or develops. The game makers are making decisions of how to tell a story through the exploration of the world by the player, how and what events take place, and what choices the player must make and the consequences that result from it. So, in fact, you do end up experiencing instead of "winning."
(Although maybe you can "win" a book, seeing how people often congratulate themselves after finishing a difficult book like Ulysses or Pynchon's work. :) And are not game strategy guides like Cliff Notes?)

The advantage games have over other forms of media is interactivity. Films (like this one, which is disqualified as art regardless of being a film?) and books (Choose Your Own Adventures) have tried this, but they don't seem to have taken off as games have. Games offer someone to further explore the world at their pace for additional information that can affect how the character can interpret a character or the story (as an example, Silent Hill 3 lets you gain insight into the protagonist through her observations on things in an environment you inspect - her personality, her history). Interactivity also allows for someone to examine the various outcomes of a story. Whereas linear narratives mostly drive towards a singular conclusion, games allow the player to experience how differently things can play out depending on the choices you make. In a recent case, Silent Hill:Shattered Memories changes based on how you act during the game, offering different experiences. If you act like a louse, you get a different experience with a specific kind of events and ending than the branch where you act like a gentleman. There is some authorial intent in games. The creators script dialogue, events, and endings no different than a writer or filmmaker. The creators choose whether the player can make a choice or not in a story (in fact, Bioshock plays with this very premise). It's just a different form of experience than with other media.

Instead of the examples mentioned in the post, I can think of other examples that may met your criteria of art. I may be biased, but I do think they are "worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets." Take Silent Hill 2, which involves a man looking for his dead wife in a haunted town after receiving a letter from her. It's an amazing study of various tortured characters in a supernatural town that forces them to literally face their demons. How you play the game depends how the story will end up - and how you perceive the protagonist.

Flower is more concept-based then narrative-based, but is it really any different from video art installations? Why is Andy Warhol's long take of the Empire State Building considered art, and not Flower? When film was first starting out - with simple things like a guy shooting at the camera - didn't people deride it as not art and inferior to books and theater?

though i have been recently harassing you about it on twitter, you seem to be ignoring me, thus i have chosen to repeat my sentiments regarding video games as art here.

from my perspective, i think you're being far too dismissive of the medium. ultimately, that's all that games are: simply another medium. as a medium, it is already as valid as film, literature, paintings, music.

i think the issue, however, is that video games have been primarily focused on entertainment, but that is exactly the same with any other medium. i doubt that anyone would consider a movie like the fast and the furious art, or a book like the davinci code to be art, but one cannot say that the entertainment aspects of those mediums negates the artistic aspect which unquestionably exists within those mediums.

i can count several video games which i personally count as art. "ico", "shadow of the colossus", "killer 7", "silent hill 2", the list goes on. while it's true that video games still largely maintain an entertainment aspect, there is unquestionably a much stronger element of narrative in modern video games that has not existed in decades previous. there is nowhere this is more evident than with regards to independent gaming. terry cavanagh's "don't look back", for example, is a brilliant 8-bit retelling of orpheus in the underworld.

but i pose to you the question of whether or not art actually needs to make some sort of grandiose statement to be art. what statement does van gogh's painting of sunflowers make other than to capture some essence of beauty within the natural world?

"Video games can never be art."

I'm surprised you even have to explain yourself. When did games and art become confused? I shudder to think of Grand Theft Auto on display in the Louvre next to the Mona Lisa. Can't we simply enjoy these games without having to deify them? I love "Pac-Man," but I hope he doesn't campaign for an Oscar anytime soon.

M

Yeah, I still don't understand what sort of definition of the word "art" includes things like vases and paintings and cathedrals, but not games. You and Santiago seem to agree that Chess, as a game, is not art, but couldn't a chess set be a piece of art? Let's assume for vividness that it's a hand-crafted chess set, a masterful collection of tiny, intricate sculptures, which complement each other beautifully, and re-imagine the classic symbols in a fulfilling way. Are these little sculptures not art? Is the set, designed as a whole, not a work of art? And does the fact that two people can sit down and move the pieces around in a largely proscribed manner, but with an uncertain outcome, rob them of their status as art, any more than the ability to hold flowers robs a vase of its status?

Most of what I would have said has already been said in the previous comments, so I feel no need to reiterate those points.

One thing I will say though, is that modern video games don't really rely on points or trying to get a high score. Video games have been moving away from that concept for about ten years. Most games, as Mr. Adam Yim has pointed out, are now about interactive story telling. Because of this the need for points in video games has virtually disappeared.

What has happened now is that we're seeing people use the interactions of the player to cause events with in the narrative that motivate the player into seeing what happens next. Players of these games are now not motivated by getting points but instead seeing their impact on the in-game narrative.

I hope what I've said has made some sense. I personally don't think many video games are art, but I do think that three are ("Shadow of the Colossus", "Silent Hill 2", and "Ico")and that makes me consider video games as art.

"Ico" sure, but "Shadow of the Collosus", which by it's visual scope alone and the idea that even though you make it through you don't necessarily "win" comes closest to any cinematic experience I've ever felt. That aside, I agree with you Ebert, her examples are pretty terrible.

Though you've got me thinking about what maybe influenced you growing up with your question, why do gamers need this to be an art? You're a fan of science fiction mags, yeah? I've always loved Ray Bradbury; he signed some books and I was able to shake his hand...I felt my body go numb. I was so embarrassed because I wanted him to sign so many books that I stupidly told him he didn't have to. Bradbury is certainly an artist. Now who influenced Bradbury? A hundred writers, all mentioned quite specifically in his work. How about Edgar Rice Burroughs, perhaps? I'm just reading the John Carter of Mars series. Five books in and it's amazing how social, political and religious it all is; certainly art. A serial novel. As far as I know, Burroughs didn't create the serial novel. Others did. Nor did Bradbury create science fiction. But they loved it! They ate it up! These were stories they grew up on. Meant something to them. Inspired them to write. But as they grew older and life became about more than just the stories they read, they wanted the stories they wrote to mean more too. They had the passion for these genres, which weren't necessarily an art form, and with their wisdom and knowledge they were able to transform what they worshiped into an art form.

You've certainly made writing about movies an art form, which at one time, before Ms. Kael, it wasn't.

Now all of these gamers, who love these games so passionately, who were affected by stories within these games as they grew up (as I was with Final Fantasy) want to take them and for me my love of Tolstoy or Chaplin or Kirchner or Kurosawa and instill those qualities into games, or to instill what I've learned from my own life into games. For me it's movies and comic books, but I'd love to write a game at some point, really help push it towards what any outlet for storytelling can become, i.e. art. And whether you're winning or losing, video games have the potential to tell a great story.

I think the problem is, it's a really tough medium to get into to toy with it in that way. With stories you need a pad and pen. With movies some film and camera (now days even easier), however with video games (aside from the writing) you need schooling and training, a very technical brain made for coding. It's a whole other language. I don't know if this necessarily stops people, but it is a lot more than picking up a paint brush and practicing or a violin. This might be a reason why video games could take a bit longer to get to that point. Just a slapped together theory, but it might be something to think about and I will.

This is more about the definition of "art" than about video games.

But...what if art can't be defined?

Then, wouldn't the point of whether anything can be defined (an objective process) as art, be moot?

Or, do you believe that art can be defined enough to be a standard to be measured against?

This reminds me of one of your earlier entries on the concept of "Elevation" in cinema. That, IMO, is probably a better definition of art than the more complicated examples listed above.

D'oh, I forgot to add... Don't people try to "win" mysteries by guessing the killer before the detective hero does? The Phoenix Wright series is not that far removed from the structure of mysteries of Agatha Christie or Monk. The games just makes the player in control of advancing the story, experiencing things as the "detective" - putting the player in the role of the detective by collecting evidence, putting it all together, then, as the defense attorney, poking holes in a testimony by finding the contradictions and finding the real killer.

I cried when Aeris died and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I cheered when Aerie - after extended sequences of her whining, insecure self, said "Oooh this is going to hurt you A LOT more than me!"

Just choosing 'A' for characters off the top of my head.

It's absurd to even suggest that the musical scores of these works are not art. It's absurd to suggest that the artwork made for these games is not art. It's absurd to suggest that the writing behind these stories is not art.

Regardless, you argue that the synthesis of these forms of artwork are not, in fact, art. Were the Choose Your Own Adventure books not art?

You point out an obvious falsehood at the moment you begin your argument "One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game." - how do you win open-ended simulations? Or even traditional roleplaying games in general? Don't even have to get into video games for that.

Many video games that are not art cannot even be won (except for the dubious merit of flipping the score). Whether or not something can be won is not a proper definition of a game at all.

It does point out an interesting distinction - for nearly every video game that we might push as an example of art, winning is secondary to the overall experience of completing the story. That is most certainly key.

Santiago picked three absolutely horrible examples. It's like you're choosing to engage in a battle of wits with someone who is distinctly your inferior. It does not make us respect you more, it just makes us wonder when you are willing to engage someone who is actively capable of debating you on the subject.

Games are just movies, films, music, and paintings with just one element more pronounced. The participation of the observer.

If you think about it, every art form requires a participatory element. An observer will feel the character in a book, the figure in a painting, or the hero on the screen. Sometimes we can even feel what the artist was feeling in the act of making a piece of art. We all run simulations involving us in some sort when it comes to art in order for it to impact us.

A GREAT game just takes this participatory element to a higher utility. It allows us a place to insert ourselves, instead of providing elements we can connect to.

Games have a long way to go. Its birth was not for self expression, but for industry. However there are many movies and much music that is the same.

One thing I take issue with is the comment about sportspersons not considering their respective games as "art". On the same note, I wouldn't consider any competetive video game to be a work of art either. There do exist games, however, that aren't intended to be played in the traditional sense. I'm not trying to take a "you just don't get it" tone, because I can't claim to know as much on these subjects as you, but I just want to highlight the distinction between games like Modern Warfare 2 or Counter-Strike and, say, Galapagos, Another World or Shadow of the Colossus. You also mention that Melies possessed "limited technical resources, but superior artistry and imagination" and that's a good point - perhaps it would have been better had Kellee touched on the rather rich independent game community that is more concerned with taking risks and playing (ahem) with the medium than turning a profit.

Also good call re: Braid, Jonathan Blow would have everyone believe his game is solely responsible for turning games into high art.

Authorial control is an interesting argument. I think the things you define traditionally as art--paintings, novels, poems, etc.--are less subject to authorial control than we tend to think. The creator, the artist, sets up an experience for the reader/viewer. They have control over the realm they create, whether that be visual, textual, aural, or something else. That is the only extent that authorial control exists--they create the context for the reader's experience. Whatever someone chooses to interpret from a piece of art may have nothing to do with what the author intended. The art takes on entirely new life in the eyes of the viewer. Most writers argue that books aren't one-sided, but instead a conversation between author and reader, with the author giving the frame but the reader injecting all the color and life to the situations presented. Interpretations and experiences with artwork vary wildly, and the author has no control over such things.

I'd argue that a video game works in the exact same way. Programmers, writers, musicians, designers, etc., work together to create the presentation that is the final game. They create the words and images, the way the controls work--the experience is crafted and then handed to the players. Once it gets into our hands, the creators cannot control our experience with it, just like a poet cannot predict what kind of experience people will have with his poem. The player directs his or her own experience, guided by the authors into certain situations (just like novelists create situations for readers), but how the game is ultimately experienced is dependent upon the player (just like the takeaway from a novel is determined by the reader).

I'd say video games have just as much authorial control as any other medium. No, the creators of a game can't force your hand and make you play a game a certain way--you can go against the traditional method the creators designed for you and play it however you want. Just like you can see a play and come away with an entirely different message than the author believed he or she was writing. That's the nature of art, to me--it's open to interpretation. Authorial control is, to a large extent, a myth.

Art is defined as such - the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.

Essentially, art is objective.

Ergo everything and nothing is art. Something is and isn't art at the same time.

I imagine that if Picasso or Davinci, without the prejudice and conceptions of skeptics nowadays, were to lay their eyes on many of the more immersive games nowadays, they would declare them great works of art

Mr. Ebert, I very rarely disagree with you, but I think I have to do it for this post.

I think Ms. Santiago's argument falls flat and she chose poor examples to support her case, so even though I'm going to assume (and hope!) that someone has already recommended you check it out, I hope you have the time at least to read a bit about The Legend of Zelda, a favorite game series of mine that I think qualifies as art.

It, like some other video games, has objectives but concentrates more on a complex storyline than on a player's skill. It takes relatively little skill to play The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, for example, but it does take a lot of time. Players can't really control the final outcome -- just whether or not they reach the end of the story. Art is frequently interactive, and that's all I see the game as -- interactive art. You may disagree, but if you have time, I encourage you to look at one of many videos taken from the game. This one is of a couple minutes around the middle of the game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szHD31_AA-8

Thanks for the post and all your fine contributions to art.

Roger, I could agree with you more. I feel as if there is a growing need for the game development field to feel as if they are doing "more important" work. Friends that work in games tend to see themselves below those in the film or TV field. I can only assume that the purpose of Santiago's presentation at USC was to help those that might move from the visual arts to games feel less like they have compromised their artistic goals.

There's a certain feeling I'm constantly looking for. I know of no way to describe it, but know that I've found it in Paul Thomas Anderson's "Punch-Drunk Love," Woody Allen's "Crimes and Misdemeanors," Gustav Holst's "First Suite in E Flat," The Beach Boys' "SMiLE," George Orwell's "Nineteen Eighty-Four," and the games of Hideo Kojima, among others.

As long as I continue to find things that provide this feeling for me, I'm not sure I care what they're called. That being said, "art" works.

Ebert, you should play the games Shadow of The Colossus and ICO. Those games are brilliant examples of how video games can be art.

I like your enthusiasm, but if you haven't played the games yourself, then it is like you are reviewing a film you've never actually watched.

"Plato, via Aristotle, believed art should be defined as the imitation of nature."

This is when I stopped, Plato would find zero value in art and so would Socrates so why use Plato and Aristotle as any type of reference?

As an artist, I find there are examples of radical art in the world that I don't approve as "Art" though art is in the eye of the beholder NOT the over-educated examiner like yourself.

Must be nice having your farts smell like roses, eh?

Books are not art. The oral tradition is art. The idea that what is contained in performance -- the grand gesture, the rising and falling of the voice, the vitality, the spontaneity, the ability to evolve and vary with each telling, the different spin created by each storyteller -- can be recreated in the written word -- with its inability to change, its inability to jump and speak aloud -- is preposterous. Can you imagine a future in which children read The Odyssey out of books? It's unconscionable! You don't read The Odyssey! You have an experienced storyteller sing it to you!

Video games unquestionably contain several components that are art by definition. Digital painters design the sprites and environments. Animators design the movements. Painting with pixels, building with vector-based polygons. Composers and sound engineers design all of the sounds. Authors write story lines, dialog, and in-game literature. Why shouldn't the sum total be a work of art? Or really, what would you require of a game, specifically, in order for it to be a work of art? Outline something here for us to show us what would be both a video game and a work of art in your opinion.

I wonder if you might clarify what you meant when you said:

"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."

Are films/plays/novels not all representations of stories?

The distinction between games "containing art" as opposed to "being art" is an interesting one. After all, games these days MAY contain great voice actors, writing, music, production design and cinematography. Is there a comparable human experience that draws on all of these artistic sources to create something that is not, in itself, art? Ornately carved chess sets aren't really the best comparison, since fancy game pieces are less integral to the experience of a chess game than writing, acting, music, art direction, etc. are to the experience of a great game.

You could argue that storytelling is at least as important as any other factor to the success of an immersive, story- and character-oriented "adventure game" like the recent "Tales of Monkey Island," for example. That game also happens to feature an innovative engine that exploits the 3D environment in an especially film-like way, and blends gameplay with cinematics in novel ways. And while the storytelling requires player interaction to progress, the player cannot rewrite the carefully plotted tale.

And it IS an authentic tale, not just a simple win/lose scenario. The bottom line is, the game's characters are REAL characters -- well-written, well-acted, with convincingly realized emotions, personalities, motivations, etc. Their story has a beginning, middle and end. They experience, love, hatred, betrayal, revenge, etc. We CARE about their lives and what happens to them. This is not the shallow investment of becoming emotionally attached to an avatar with a gun, but something more.

Roger has included several gameplay links in his post, but none of them are primarily character/story oriented. I'd like to throw out one more: this play-through of "The Curse of Monkey Island":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nExk_lHH6Y0

Watch the first twenty minutes (which covers the prologue, main title, and Part I) and you'll get an idea of what I'm talking about.

And that game (the third in its series) is more than a decade old. Here's a trailer for the most recent entry in the franchise, which gives an idea of how "cinematic" the game-play itself has become:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BI8MMAurIZ8

This stuff may not be GREAT art, but is it art in ANY sense? Or does it merely "contain art" as distinct from "being art"?

Having played Braid, I must chime in that the game tells a remarkable story. There is a twist at the end that I would put up there with any I've seen in the theater recently and that twist turns the game on its head and makes some degree of sense of the "fortune cookie" writings in between levels.

I feel like the story could not be adequately experienced in a passive medium. It is because you are so engaged with this character's goal that the ending has the impact that it does. To some degree you identify with the character, only to have that called into question in a fascinating way.

Anything that tells a story like that feels like art to me. Most games are not, but there are some masterful story tellers that are using the gaming medium to tell great stories. It's not for everyone, of course. After all, there are some strange people out there who don't like movies.

Also, if Transformers 2 is art, then I think the definition is plenty broad to accommodate some select video games.

I disagree with many of the self-appointed defenders of games (who confuse high-quality visuals, or rather predictable melodrama, with artistic merit.) But in the long run, you are more deeply wrong.

I could write a very long response. I have spoken about this topic at length, in public, often.

But I will write a brief one, with two short observations.

Part 1: The videogame's native mimetic tactic is simulation, not representation. Simulation uses representation, but is not the same thing as it. It is also not the same thing as diegesis, the narrative mode of cinema. Roger, you do not know how to unpack game-based simulation - you do not understand the way that it refers - so you are, in some sense, unqualified to make the claims you do about game aesthetics and its capacities as an art form.

Part 2: Cinema created* new modes of attention. These modes were not recognized as sites of aesthetic experience at the time. A historical process of self-reflection eventually produced enough self-consciousness that the cinematic gaze (and not just the painterly appraisal) could be seen as the ground for aesthetic experience. Games also create new modes of attention. If you have little fluency with those modes, you will not have the basis for understanding their aestheticization, either. You have neither eyes to see nor ears to hear. You are not to be blamed for this, either - what kind of poetry or music could a man who has read nor heard nothing until late in his life truly understand? Could someone who has never seen more than one or two films in his life understand Tarkovsky's achievement?

* I would rather say that the co-produced those modes, or mobilized, but I'll stick with the simpler "create" in order to reduce the inevitable burden of sounding jargony.

i agree video games are not art, just as 99 percent of films/music/whatever are not art. The only video game ive ever seen come close to being artistic is one i believe was called ICO and definetly had an artistic quality to it.

Shadow of the Colossus. Art. Deal with it.

I wouldn't trust the opinion of a literary critic who hasn't read a few hundred novels. I wouldn't trust the opinion of a film critic who hasn't seen a few hundred movies.

Ebert knows film, but anyone who takes his opinion on the artistic potential of video games seriously is a fool.

No disrespect meant, of course. It's just that you cannot possibly know anything about the potential of games without having experienced the form's wide spectrum of possibilities first hand.

And expecting a gamer to convince you about it through discourse is asinine: the world's premier critic or novelist couldn't convince a dedicated non-reader of the artistic potential of literature in a hundred years. It has to be lived.

roger, personally i think you buried the lede, whether on purpose or not. i have to think it was on purpose. practically midway through the article you toss out "you can perform [...] a paraphrase but then you are creating your own art object from the materials at hand." it feels like a basis for your argument but you may not realize it. might be worth elaborating.

perhaps instead of interacting with high art, a game player is at best creating their own art object. this would arguably involve a certain awareness be intact. chess, you say, is not art; however duchamp played it and made it into a lifelong performance piece. of course, that took a lifetime. and he was duchamp.

I wouldn't listen all that closely to people suggesting other games, Ebert. I'm a gigantic video game nerd. I've played the big "games are art" games, and I've played the indie ones. You would consider every last one of them to be pathetic, I'm positive. And I would completely agree.

But the most spot-on thing about this article, what I thought was way more interesting than what is and isn't art, is what you brought up at the end; it's the desperation of gamers. So many gamers want their grandmothers to respect video games. It's baffling to me.

Street Fighter is a game about two people beating each other up. And because the series has never once, in twenty years, dared care about things like "messages" and "meanings," it winds up being a fast, complicated showcase of skill. It's something that my friends and I can all constantly try to one-up each other in. It's something I can struggle with, in the best way, and it's something that I can actually be satisfied with when I notice myself improving. This makes a great game, even if my parents would only ever look at it as cartoon characters beating each other up.

Heavy Rain is a game that is embarrassed to be a video game. Heavy Rain's idea of character development is forcing the player to shake their controller while they watch the main character brush his teeth. It's damn near mindless, and by focusing almost entirely on telling a story, it will never be as great of a game as basketball, Chess, or, yeah, Street Fighter. Games that focus on narrative first look like a dead end to me.

Im something of a gamer, but I agree.

I think it comes down to something McCarthy said as he watched film production of one of his books. It was something to the effect of disgust at all the people and equipment required to bring the vision of the director to life. It's too hard to bring someones art to life when it involves so many damn components, whereas with books, you just need to be a dammn good writer. With games, you need what, like, computer programming skills, be a damn good writer, effective communicator, artistic, talent, millions of dollars... Maybe thats why the book is always better then the movie, and the movie's always better than the game.

Roger, like everyone here, I'm a big fan of yours as well, but I this seems, at its heart like a semantic argument that's bound for nowhere. I can't remember who said it, but to paraphrase someone: ever since Duchamp (a skilled chess player, I might add) presented that urinal ("Fountain") no one has had any idea what good art is.

My personal definition is more about any thing that inspires you to think about something in a way you haven't considered. I know this is very broad, but it almost always applies to the artworks I love (including games). And even further, I consider the code behind video games an art, not to mention that actual drawings, cinematography, etc. Code is such a strange, intricate thing that involves working with and almost rewriting or redefining an entire new language every time you set out to make something. And it is, just like English, a language. And just like getting all of Joyce's references in Ulysses or all of TS Eliot's literary connections in The Wasteland, you have to know the language and its history of usage _very_ well in order to understand it and write it well. It might not move a person emotionally (although I imagine, in some cases, it has) but it certainly asks you to consider things from a different perspective every time you attempt to understand it.

I'd also suggest that art is often about interaction, especially contemporary art, which often plays on the subjective response of the viewer to make its point. It's not always about emotion, but rather, discovering something about the way you interact with the world and the things in it.

As you mention, you are handicapped as a lover of film. You seem to compare games to your experience watching film. Consider Clement Greenburg's idea of "medium specificity." I would argue that you haven't yet discovered where the "medium of video games lies" and that perhaps as a film critic, you're looking in the wrong place.

Roger,

I'm a huge fan and I was really hoping you'd elaborate more on this subject. Admittedly, Santiago's points are pretty weak, but taking apart her argument does nothing to really underline what we're talking about here. From the title, I'd thought you were gonna delve further into examples, but instead you just casually dismissed a few random examples she brought up. It seems very much from the title of this article that you're just trying to be inflammatory on the subject. I'm almost wondering if you're being defensive because you feel like videogames are an attack to cinema in some way.

It really appears to me that you don't understand what videogames are, or how they work. Maybe the word itself - "video game" is throwing you off. Videogames and board games, where there is a clear goal to be reached and that goal is the same every time, have little in common anymore. They may have been very similar in the earliest days of games, but they're clearly not now. Even if games have still retained some of their "gameyness" and haven't really reached a point where they're able to appeal to people's emotions and communicate complex ideas in the same ways great works of film or literature, I don't know how you could possibly think of videogames to be the same thing as a board game. How many games have you played? Maybe I'd believe you more if you actually gave more examples, but right now you're just making more obvious your ignorance on the subject.

Anyone who's designed for a game knows that there are many ways for a videogame to communicate ideas to its player through the game design, much like a film communicates ideas purely through the image, sound, editing. There's a language for game design, much like there's a language for cinema, although it remains pretty undeveloped and unwritten about at this time.

At least try to have a greater understanding of the subject before being completely dismissive, Roger. Videogames will never replace your blessed cinema. They are two completely different things. And yes, there are a great many garbage videogames, but there is plenty of potential in games as a valid art form too. People who have spent their lives with videogames know this. 20-30 years from now it will be much more widely accepted that games are an art form. And as wonderful a writer of cinema as you are, history will prove you wrong on this subject.

As an artist myself, a painter of fine repute, my annoyance at this article happens to be severe. The selection of videogames apart from Braid, are terrible examples of the artistic medium. As a painter fond of the Renaissance, I get to discover Renaissance Italy in games like Assassins Creed, Marvel at the wonder of interacting in amazing way with the environment, how is that not like interacting with Installation art we see today?. As a gamers also, I've discovered games like the Shadow of the Colossus, which astounded be with it's sense of loneliness and beauty, of which I see in many of the great paintings I love. But what better is that they are TANGIBLE!, all my senses feel heightened. Games like Ico suck you into an amazing abstract worlds. What is wrong with you, hasn't history taught you anything?, old men don't know anything, you cannot tap into the hearts of the young, where the the next layer of human art lies.

Games have music, writing, and graphical art and design in them, and all these elements are combined to create a work. Films also bring together writers, photographers, and designers to create a work. The product of filmmakers is art. The product of game designers for many reasons Ebert gives may never result in art. At worst games are an installation, or a gallery -which isn't unimportant.

I really love the definition for art that Scott McCloud gave in his seminal work, Understanding Comics. I wish I could directly quote it. To boil it down somewhat, those things we do (or perhaps the works that we create) that do not specifically contribute to our safety or our property might be considered art. I'm sure that I've mangled that in paraphrasing.

As a board gamer, I think of the crafting of a set of human interactions. Perhaps the way that a good party host might be able to artfully entertain their guests with an amazing meal and elegant conversation. Role playing gamer friends of mine might be seen to use their game as a creative outlet. The results of playing a game may or may not be art, but players are moved in one way or another, and perhaps through asking the right questions we can explore the art or craft of games.

As a dancer, I wonder: does a staged ballet have a distinct artistic value that doesn't exist in a dance in competition? Are contestants in a talent show (or American Idol or what have you) not, for sake of being in a winnable-like-a-game situation, somehow artistically invalidated?

As an improvisational actor, does the fact that my rules of my interaction with my partners were developed by Johnstone or Close mean that my own creative output cannot be artistic?

I would argue that Donkey Kong is as much Art as E.C. Segar's Popeye. From me, that's high praise.

Maybe a more interesting question would be - what shifts might be made to create works (and I do think of games as works rather than products) might become more deeply meaningful than a pastime?

I'm not sure I'd consider a game itself to be a work of art, BUT, some games certainly do incorporate art and music and acting and drama much in the same way that a movie does. I also know that whether something is or is not art is independent of whether or not I actually like or dislike it. There's good and bad art, but it's still art, nonetheless.

Art, imho, is in the purpose of its creator, to inspire emotion, to communicate more than what is explicitly said or shown. One difference between good and bad art is in how successful it is in accomplishing this. Art can be propaganda, art can be used to sell, and art can entertain. And whatever the subject of the art is, exists separate from whether or not it is art.

You can actually start with a work of art and build a game around it. That's, essentially what a lot of games end up being -- a beautifully rendered, detailed world to explore, with game elements added, to make it interactive. Sometimes it's used to tell a story, sometimes it's used to allow players to come up with their own stories. Whether or not the game itself is art is irrelevant, imho. The virtual world itself, in which the game is set, can be art.

I'd like to submit for consideration a British-made theater project, entitled 'Sleep No More'.

Essentially, a renovated schoolhouse plays host to scenes from MacBeth, taking place throughout different rooms. Like a play in-medias-res, the participant is granted the ability to wander freely about, and explore the atmosphere, directing his or her own particular immersion--though still firmly entrenched in the atmosphere of the Sleep No More Project, and the overarching story of MacBeth, and all of the ideals and themes which those are intended to express.

http://www.americanrepertorytheater.org/events/show/sleep-no-more

Would you consider this installation to be 'art'?

Or let us consider the city built in Synecdoche, New York.

Let's propose a hypothetical scenario, which would allow Cayden to actually stage his production--inviting viewers to move through and live amongst the world he built, FOR them to move through and live amongst, in order to portray specific themes of life, love, gradual decay, death, etc.

Would you consider that project to be an expression of 'art'?

Why, or why not?

I can't say I agree that video games will not be art for many years, but after seeing Santiago's examples I don't blame you for not being convinced. The truth is that most video game developers probably aren't concerned with whether their game is "art" or not - and really, how can they be, when the primary thought for almost all games is whether it's going to be fun to play or not?

However, there are some developers who have managed to make great games that I personally would consider art. While I'm not going to recommend them to you, as you've said you're very unlikely to go off and play any of them, I will say how surprised I was that Santiago didn't mention (as many others in this comment section have) Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, two games that succeed in providing the player with a high level of immersion while telling beautiful stories.

Overall, I see where you are coming from.

However, I am nearly convinced that some games enter the realm of art. 1. Many games are centered around a complex story that reaches the equivalence of a novel and usually add the ability to choose how the story will go. Are these games not art? And if so why? List of possible games in this category Final Fantasy 7, Chrono Trigger.
Most people consider a good story "art" so what separates a game that is story centered from a story?
2. Some games incorporate visuals/sound/touch with the players gaming experience so well I believe it may be considered art. A key example of this is Rez (it can be downloaded on the Xbox 360. To know if this can be considered art it is necessary to experience the game for atleast 15 minutes. Whenever I have brought out this game, and showed it to my friends they were all willing to watch me play this game for quite a long time. And it was not in the similar vain of watching Baseball (they did not care if I won or lost). They just wanted to watch the game unfold.

I suppose I just want to see your reaction to some of this. I do not think that lady gave the best example of games to prove her point. She could have chosen much stronger contenders.

Hello Roger,

I have a quick two part question:

1. Did you play Braid?

2. This question is assuming you didn't, since your retort to the game's validity made that evident. How can you justify criticizing something you didn't experience personally?

Please answer, but if you wish to know why read below:
________________________________
You criticism for Braid ended up comparing the game to Chess. You learned something about Braid, and then thought about if that aspect of Braid was translated to Chess (reversing time/your move). You decided that if that were possible in Chess, it would ruin the game, therefore Braid must be as good as "ruined chess."

I find this a very poor criticism because Braid was not built to be an elaborate competitive match-of-wits. It was entirely designed as single-player narrative experience (I'm guessing you moaned at that last sentence).

Braid reveals its plot to be about a relationship gone wrong, or at least that's one of the issues it refers to. The "reversal of time" mechanic is used as a theme throughout the game. You frequently incorrectly do something in the game and have to rewind a few seconds.

However in a relationship that is not possible. Saying something wrong, or doing something wrong can not be reversed. This is just a small bullet point of issues the game touches upon, so if you were underwhelmed with the explanation I assure you there is "more to it."

The most important part of Braid was its entire plot reveal and "point" was shown through gameplay. There is a pivotal moment at the end of the game where the "rewind time" functionality is used to its fullest extent and completely explains everything the game is about. This not only describes the point the original creator wanted to make, but does it in a way that can only be done in games (by interacting with it).

I think for this reason Braid was a tremendous step for games since it used what was unique about the medium as a way to convey the point. This is in comparison to countless other games that basically mimic movies by having long cut scenes that have no relation to what you play.

Anyway. I don't expect a response to this long section, or for you to read any of this. But I would like the two questions to be answered. And if you couldn't tell already, I disagree with your opinion, and I find it difficult to "respectfully disagree" considering it seems clear that you haven't spent a lot of time doing first-person research on the medium you so heavily criticize.

Thank you.

-Artie

"My notion is that [art] grows better the more it improves or alters nature through a passage [that] we might call the artist's soul, or vision."

Roger, you gave 4 stars to the thriller film "Green Zone". I haven't seen the film yet, but from reading your review, the film seems to have a very similar tone to that of the Metal Gear Solid games. A popular theme of the MGS games is that a lone supersoldier goes into a conflict, loyally following the orders of his American superiors, typically searching out WMDs known as "Metal Gears", giant nuclear weapon-equipped robots. But as he learns more and more during his mission, his superiors are revealed as corrupt. They're manipulating him into serving their political power plays.

What am I fighting for? What does it mean to be a soldier? A patriot? The supersoldier of Metal Gear asks these questions as he goes through the game world.

There are other themes of the games. One common theme seems to be that soldiers are pawns of political elites, and that their lives and deaths are more sad than glorious or exciting.

The first game had a strong anti-nuclear weapon proliferation message. The fourth game had an anti-Private military corporation message in it, and seemed to say that turning war into a profitable business was immoral. The upcoming Metal Gear game (Peace Walker) apparently has the US military illegally invading a nation in 1970s South America for some reason. Why this setting? Kojima says: “The idea of PW sprung from news I saw about 5 years ago. At the time, the President of Costa Rica was supporting the U.S. in the war with Iraq, and a college student took legal action and won stating that the support of war 'breaches the constitution' of the country.” Reading this, I have a feeling Peace Walker will have some jabs at recent US foreign policy, subtle or not.

So all of the games seem to express, overtly or subtly, the generally left-wing and semi-pacifist views of its central creator, Hideo Kojima. And just as Green Zone's director Paul Greengrass has pissed off elements of the right while getting praise from the left, Metal Gear has sometimes divided players along political lines too, from what I've seen on game forums.

Just thought I'd point out an example of a "Green Zone"-like video game :)

http://www.immersence.com/publications/char/2004-CD-Space.html

Games might never be Art. But Art can take the form of a game.

"One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome."

I think this is where the disagreement comes from. Games in the 70s and 80s had rules, points, objectives and an outcome. Video games now don't necessarily have any of these. Artists like Jenova Chen (designer of Flower) create "games" that have none of these. Perhaps video game an inappropriate term for those interactive arts that aren't actually games.

Roger did not address the big issue here--whether or not games are ert?

I'm not prepared to fully argue that video games are or aren't "art", but I will just say that while such examples aren't the norm, I have played video games which have been, in my eyes, every bit as imaginative, clever, engrossing and thought-provoking as any movie or book I've been exposed to in the past twenty years or so.

I'm an artist. I am a full-time graphic designer. I am a musician. I am also a programmer who started writing games in BASIC when I was 10 years old. I have apps in the app store. My art has been in galleries. My illustrations have been in national publications. My website design skills are used daily for a company worth billions. I have redesigned user interfaces for billion dollar insurance companies. I carry a sketchbook in my bag everywhere I go. I'm sitting 4 feet from my oil paints and a 6 foot easel. My 2 guitars and rig are 4 feet in the other direction. I have a 30 gig music collection I listen to all the time. I love Hendrix. I love Renaissance choral music, like Palestrina just as much. I like Bach harpsichord even better. I have recorded vocals and guitar in professional studios. I have played live in bands and solo for the last 20 years or so. My art professors have work in the Guggenheim. I teach my kids art all the time. I have won awards for art. I write a graphic design blog. I write about graphic design several times a week. I draw most days of my life. I have a large art book collection. I surround myself with art. I have XCode open on my Mac at this minute, as I prepare another app for the Apple App Store. My son and I design casual games in Unity3D, a game design platform. We talk C++, Objective C, Javascript, Perl, HTML, CSS, jQuery and whatnot for fun. I own very fine Russian watercolors and expensive sable brushes. My drafting table with 2 packs of bristol board and a block of cold press Arches watercolor paper is 4 feet behind me in the third corner of my office / studio. My brother and I grew up programming games on C64, TS1000, Amiga, etc.. He's a Flash / Flex developer now. I'm a jack of many trades. Leaning against the wall, next to my mousepad, are Mars Steadtler Pigment Liners, a bottle of water-based oil medium, 3 prints in their frames ready to be hung. To my left is "Designing with Type" and "Elements of Typographic Style". My son and I just worked out the physics of a lawn dart game in Unity3D this week. Did you know increased drag on a separate object nested inside a parent object causes the lawn dart to realistically tip downwards as it descends from it's arc? I use Blender to create still life compositions in 3D and paint them in the oil style of the Northern Europe masters (sketch, underpainting, gris / dead layer, color layer, highlights).

This article caught my eye as I was about to provision a certificate to submit my compiled Obj-C based application for iPhone.

Artist. Graphic Designer. Programmer (applications and games). Musician. Writer.

All this to say:

Video Games Are Not Art And Never Will Be.

I make video games. I make art. Never shall the twain meet.

When someone says to Roger Ebert "you don't get it", it's quite clear that the person saying that does not know art. Sorry, but you don't get it yet. Start reading some good art curriculum. Maybe draw a little every day.

The 20th century tyranny of mediocrity that has obliterated objective standards of beauty is slowly grinding to a halt under the weight of its own internal contradiction. There is a nascent renaissance for the recapturing of beauty in art as conceptual art runs out of steam.

Video Games Are Not Art And Never Will Be.

I see several definitions of art. What I don't see addressed is utility. Why does anyone care if a video game is classifiable as art? "Being art" must be a desirable trait. So, why is that?

Communication takes pieces of our lives or feelings or imaginations, and bundles them up for someone else to consume. Words, films and music all try to give us a glimpse of the world of thought someone else carries with them.

To me, "art" is made of the glimpses that carry the most interesting experiences with the highest fidelity. Why is this desirable? Because what's already in my own mind isn't enough.

Roger,

While I almost always agree with what you have to say - I think you're being a little shortsighted in the scheme of your argument here.

If, indeed art is "the process of deliberately arranging elements in a way that appeals to the senses or emotions," then video games are art. I have seen many a gamer throw down their controller in hysterics at losing a level they've been trying to beat for hours, or even laugh at humorous videogames like "Portal." In this way, videogames ARE art because the programmer is decidedly rearranging elements in a way that gets a significant rise out of those who play the games - the good games that is.

I think where you go wrong is in saying that video games can never (or at least will not any time soon) be art. Something more exact might be to say that it is not a realm of art worth following, or it is dangerous, or it is a bad influence on other art forms.

Now, you may say that you do not fully agree with the Wikipedia definition, or find other flaws in my train of thought. All I'm saying is that you fail to consider the following: the best movies are the ones that have you laughing your ass off, crying your eyes out, or thinking your brain apart by the end of them. I would argue that a good video game would, and has, been able to get a comparable emotional rise out of devotees. And if that's not enough to justify them as "art," then it becomes difficult to judge a good movie from a bad one as well.

I hate to use your own quote against you, but you always say, "A man goes to the movies. A critic must be honest enough to admit he is that man." I think for you to have a full and true opinion on games, you need to sit down and seriously play one - a good, intelligent one. And there are many. Devote yourself to the game as you devote yourself to a movie. I'm not saying that you will come out the other end with a different opinion - but merely with a better formed argument.

I'm not a gamer myself, but I can see the reasoning behind certain games being called art... Obviously not the games like Mario, but certain games can have narratives that explore complex subjects.

The game Bioshock (which I've admittedly never played, myself) apparently features themes relating to politics, and I've heard good things about it in that area. Perhaps think of the gameplay and the cutscenes as separate- the cutscenes are the part that actually tell a coherent story, after all. While I hesitate to say that a game on the whole can be called art, I can see a game containing art.

If they could make a game where the gameplay is motivated by an emotional connection to the story/characters rather than by the usual sense of fun, that'd really be something. Only in that case could I see a video game in its entirety as art.

I'm a fan, Roger. I really am. On this topic, you are a narrow minded fool. I want to make clear that it is not anger your opinion elicits from me, but rather pity. You make many assumptions without any first hand experience. Your dismissal of Flower tells me you didn't bother to research the game outside of the material you've embedded in the article. Allow me to try to explain Flower, or at least the part I don't think was made clear to you.

In Flower, you are a force of nature. Moving through the stages of the game (levels, acts, chapters, verses...)

Stage 1:
It starts off peaceful enough. Blue skies and green fields. You move through the grass and over the hills kissing the earth one petal at a time and doing so revitalizes the world.

Stage 2:
Dusk. You maneuver through rocky terrain and race through canyons until you reach a field full of wind turbines.

Stage 3:
Night. Power Lines and fences make moving through the environment a bit trickier. Encircling stacks of hay creates illuminated beacons in otherwise black night.

Stage 4:
Fallen towers of power lines litter this midnight stage. Movement is restricted and challenging. This stage is threatening and dangerous.

Stage 5:
The final stage is an urban city scape. You build strength from the petals accumulated and emerge a force of change and growth. Empowered as nature itself you reclaim the landscape. Obstacles that previously demanded caution now shatter at your very touch.

I might be missing a stage. I cant remember if there were six but its not important. The narrative is there. Its a journey. This is a story told without any dialogue or exposition. Its a story told through interactive visuals alone. And the part that you simply cannot understand without playing it yourself is the significance of your interaction with it.

YOU ARE THE WIND! Observing this footage and Experiencing this game are two very different things.

The video material above shows petals racing through environments. To you, the visions on screen are simply that; moving pictures. Seeing video of the game being played and saying you have experienced it is akin to hearing about the Mona Lisa from a friend w/o ever seeing it yourself. You dismiss your friend's experience as simply a drawing of a woman. How sad. How very tragically sad.

I implore you, buy an xbox360 or a ps3 and solicit a play-list from gamers. You'll find that you can be moved in new ways with a controller in your hands.

Hi Mr. Ebert,

Never commented on your blogs before (though I've read several). As you might guess, I'm a pretty big fan. Anyway, as someone who's been VERY moved by movies, books, music, AND a few videogames (very few though, certainly), I was wondering if you could clarify your argument a bit. I've always just thought that art was something that was defined by the people who "appreciated/consumed/critiqued" it. For example, I feel like an expertly prepared meal could be a work of art with the chef being the artist in question. As an actor, I feel like I'm an artist when I'm performing. They're both experiences that can (and often do, if you don't mind the boasting) move people. There are also some things that lots of people agree on as being art (a lot of paintings come to mind), that I just don't get. I mean, I guess I'm asking: Who gets to decide what is and isn't art? I just feel like it's subjective. I didn't realize there were so many rules. Do I not like Jackson Pollock's paintings because I have bad taste? Who decides that I do? Videogames aren't art for you. That's cool and they shouldn't have to be. I just don't see why they can't be for me and the people who feel similarly (although I agree that even if they aren't, people shouldn't let that stop their enjoyment of them). I'm not trying to challenge you, but I'm just sincerely curious about your opinion on this point.

Hope you're doing well,
Justin

P.S. - I listened to your commentary on Casablanca (my favorite film) a few months ago and loved it. Thanks for that.

I'm amazed at this article. It's almost a perfect example of blind refusal of an idea.

As others have said, you criticized her definition of art whilst giving no contradictory alternative.

Consider this: games include visuals, music, and many times writing. Regardless of the quality, do you not consider them, individually, as art? How does the addition of interactivity disqualify it?

In fact, interactivity should emphasize the artistic aspect. My "definition" of art is simply any creative work that I can take pleasure in, and game design easily fits into it. Furthermore, any definition that declines game design would decline writing, would it not? Both simply craft an experience.

As for "requiring validation," why do you look down upon us for it? Many people have no respect for the gaming industry, yet similar treatment of artists, musicians, or filmmakers would be taken as a complete lack of understanding of their respective art form because that's what it would be.

You may argue that disqualifying games as art doesn't imply disrespect, but then what are you trying to say? If games aren't to be treated as art, how should they be treated? And why should they be treated differently than actual art forms?

Roger,

Imagine a person (or book guy) saying that movies couldn't be art or writing off all of cinema when the only thing they've seen is a few trailers on TV.

- "Please just watch *insert great movie here* on DVD or go see *insert blockbuster here* at the theater."
- "No, thanks. I've seen the trailers. All movies are rehashed stories, full of poor acting and CGI explosions."

People are so adament about this topic, not because you don't like videogames but, because you have written off an entire industry. An entire industry they have been moved by. An entire industry that gave them a lasting experience beyond getting a high score or beating the game.

Something that gave them the same feelings you had the first time you seen Aguirre, the Wrath of God. They defend it for the same reason you would defend George Melies' "A Voyage to the Moon"; A movie that 99% of Americans would call boring and shut off within the first five minutes.

It went beyond what others would think is a silly game or movie or painting or piece of writing. It became art.

- Also, "Do they require validation?". No, it's that your stance invalidates the emotions they've felt and sadly, most people think that way.

I hope that you are disproven someday. Meanwhile, a few random thoughts:

1. A nitpick. You write, "She spoke extemporaneously." I have long liked the word "extemporaneous," and an extemporaneous PowerPoint presentation is an oxymoron. Also, while PowerPoint criticism is not an oxymoron, it should be.

2. I have yet to see a chess set that qualifies as art: pretty pieces distract from the game & make beautiful play nearly impossible. However, many chess games strike me as art, & great chess players often strike me as artists. Early in the twentieth century, a few leading chess players argued that players should be able to copyright the moves to a game: artists, after all, should be rewarded for their performances.

3. So can the player of a video game player be an artist, and a particular performance of a game be a work of art? Some people play games with a grace & rhythm that I could never achieve.

4. I do not play video games. When I think of artistic video games, I think of Tetris: simple yet creative. In general, old video games, developed when computer processing power was constrained, strike me as more artistic than elaborate immersive experiences. This creativity—a creativity brought forth by limitations—reminds me of the "chicken scratches" by primitive artists.

Holy crap. Feeling in the mood to wack a hornet's nest, Mr. Ebert? This comment section is going to explode, mark my words.

I was struck by two things in this post:

1) You are resolutely determined that video games cannot be art. By all appearances, however, you are not and have never been a gamer. You make vague references to scoring points and the like, more appropriate to arcade games of the 1980s than to many games today, and all of your examples are taken from Kellee Santiago's lecture. You mention people telling you to play this or that game and the connotation is pretty strong that you didn't listen to them and try it out for yourself.

All of that is fine. You are under no obligation whatsoever to "get" video games or enjoy them. But if a man who was born in the pre-film era and had exposure to the medium no greater than a few random clips were to proclaim with confidence that "films can never be art", how seriously would you take him?

I've been a gamer all my life, so I have my biases as well. However, having played games for such a long time, I have long ago seen the medium evolve beyond the simple point-scoring and mindless clicking you seem to suggest it consists of. I have seen "Knights of the Old Republic" produce characters and a story richer and more true to the feel of the original "Star Wars" than any of the three Star Wars prequels ever got. I have been moved almost to tears by the sacrifices of characters I had come to know and love at the end of "Planescape: Torment". I've been forced to make philosophically confounding decisions ("Deus Ex") and watch as a game turned my every hard-fought success against a designated 'enemy' and showed it in its full tragic reality ("Shadow of the Colossus"). And this is only skimming the surface.

In short, I can speak from decades of experience of gaming. I do not suggest you need such a long time to reach your own conclusions, but I do suggest that to reach such conclusions without ever having really understood or tried out what you're talking about is absurd. When was the last time you really played a game for any amount of time?

2) Kellee Santiago had some...odd choices for 'artistic' games. There are games with stories and characters as rich and developed as most novels and she chooses a shoot-em-up about Waco? Weird.

Also, in answer to your question of why so many of us wish to defend the idea of games as art, there is a good reason. And that reason is that there are many people involved with the game industry today who share your belief; they cannot see the potential of the medium for anything but churning out lots of utterly mindless games about running around shooting people. The more this idea spreads, the less likely we are to see new games that transcend it.

The amount of rage this article incites in me is immense. I think that the writer of this article does not actually know what art is. Art is when a human uses a medium to express an idea or emotion to a viewer using representational means. Many video games are great examples of art, if not examples of great art.

The only reason a Picasso, or a Monet or a Beethoven are considered great art is that they have classical history on their side. In school we are taught that they are the masters, and so they are.

The genius of Braid is that it creates a mood of nostalgia, through the music, through children's book like illustrations, and especially in the way it mimics the gaming style of the simple plat-former. It calls upon the history of gaming that any gamer would know, and changes it slightly, making the idea of many lives into a joke.

Has the author of this Article LOOKED at Assassins Creed? Has he played the Circle Tower mind freak of Dragon Age: Origins?

I don't agree. The author of this is absolutely wrong.

"Plato, via Aristotle, believed art should be defined as the imitation of nature."

Although I'm not sure what exactly this is supposed to mean, I'm pretty sure it's not right. Socrates, via Plato, believed that the arts were a degraded reflection of the world - which itself was a degraded reflection of the realm of the forms. Artists were moral deviants who had no place in the ideal Republic that Socrates was developing.

Aristotle's thoughts come closer to what you're saying; or at least, Aristotle starts closer. But he develops the idea of mimesis (usually translated as imitation) while talking about katharsis. Which is the first of many attempts to shift the view of art from the art-object to the art-consumer. Which now takes the form of these degraded forms of radical subjectivism ("well that's just what you think!") that are much more harmful to art than video game publishers clamoring to open up another market.

I'm not really comfortable saying whether you're right or wrong on the judgment though, since either position seems to me to suggest a degree of knowledge/a political position that I have not developed. I do think, though, that what hangs over a debate like this, is the question of the politics of art (which is not to say whether this thing we call a piece of art is sufficiently revolutionary/Leftist/politically motivated/etc. I mean, how does choosing to call something art embed you in a political judgment).

Sort of unrelatedly, I was about fifteen when I heard your first claim that video games could never be art, and my reaction was to think very hard about Magritte's "Treachery of Images" painting. Thanks very much for that. Magritte is really very phenomenal.

Oh and one final note: "They are, I regret to say, pathetic." From the OED: [

I think one of the main problems with this perennial debate is that there are very, very few people with a fair, unbiased opinion on this subject. Most gamers are passionate about their pastime, and will defend it appropriately. Meanwhile, people who don't play video games don't really know what they're talking about. I have played video games, and still do, but I don't do so on a regular basis and would not be considered a "gamer" by those who do. So I think I'm in a good position to weigh in on the subject.

Regarding the notion of what is or is not art - it will never be answered, because art is subjective. Everyone has their own opinion. Some people think graffiti art is art, others don't. Some people think Jackson Pollock is art, others don't. You could argue that a fork is art, or just silverware. The most you can use as a yardstick is "general social opinion," and even that can be hard to gauge sometimes, depending on who you hang out with.

I think video gamers actually kid themselves/don't want to admit some unpleasant truths about their hobbies. The Elephant in the Room is probably the continuing dependence of most video games on violence, which severely limits the type of story they can communicate and keeps them at the general level of action films, which are the kind of movies cinema lovers tend to not gush over. A bigger issue than violence, though, might be the reason it is used so often - to keep players from getting bored. Games also use devices like puzzles or treasure hunts, but the point is, video games feel the need to offer their players something more interesting than everyday life, something interactive, and thus they tend to fall back on the same kinds of stories over and over again.

But I also think that without actually playing video games, you can't really get a feel for what the experience is like. A lot of the affection gamers feel for their hobby comes from the long hours they put into it - unlike movies, which tend to be over in three hours at most, games stretch on for weeks, and gamers feel a pride and nostalgia looking back over the story that movie viewers (or book readers) can't approximate. They actually conquered that difficult puzzle or challenging enemy (via their virtual proxies). Some games offer players the ability to direct the story somewhat - the "Mass Effect" series, for instance. The ability to customize and experiment distinguishes games from film or literature. Finally, some games do offer stimulating stories, artful visuals, and profound (or catchy) music.

I will grant that a lot of video game stories, voice acting, and visuals cannot seriously compete with those in good films, but I don't see this as a problem that can't be overcome. The notion that they "can never be art" is very pessimistic and short-sighted.

Finally, I feel like most video gamers don't really think of their hobby as art - just entertainment. It's mostly something thinking gamers worry about. And yes, it's probably mostly a result of deep insecurity that they're wasting their time or rotting their brains or whatever. (This is where those exercise video games like "Wii Fit" also come from.)

To sum up, I don't think you're right, but most gamers probably exaggerate their cases as well.

While I am an advent player of video games, I agree they're not art, not even in the same sense that films, cartoons, and paintings are art.

This has nothing to do with the subject, but I think you should watch this video. It explains a lot about a certain director.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFzLRP8e4vE

Much of a video game is a view of reality after it's passed through the game designer's senses and back out into the computer sketchbook. The designer composes a reality in the same way a painter designs and executes a painting.

The largest part of the game generally is the artwork. Most game companies have large staffs of really good to great painters and graphic designers who provide the visual and auditory environment in which the player does whatever it is they do (it matters not).

The basic difference between movies and video games is that you are a passive captive to the movie. Your involvement is simply to view, hear, and be entertained.

In a video game, the focus is very similar in that the player watches and hears what the designer has put on the screen, but is also generally required to be one of the actors in the drama. The drama can be frivolous or deadly serious or any shade in between.

I know that some video games are art. How? I just know. Some are crap as are many movies. And many are just a way to kill some time.

I'm 59 years old and I can state with certainty that many video games have ascended well into the realm of art. A computer game is a canvas into which you insert yourself and deal with someone else's world, and be manipulated by the artists imagination both limitless and confining.

If comic books have reached legitimate art status, then video games would have been elevated to that level by default.

Piss Christ lowered the bar such that anything and everything is art. It could have been Piss Buddah or Piss Krishna. Perhaps even Piss Nixon.
Gosh...I just fell into the toilet trying to make a point.

Oxford English Dictionary defines art as "the expression of creative skill through a visual medium such as painting or sculpture." If that's the only criterion, then yes, video games are art - the question is whether said art is any good. I agree that cinema has fulfilled infinitely more of its potential as an artform, but no medium should be dismissed in and of itself.

As spot-on as I think you may be here (and I've been gaming since Carter was in office), you're kinda turning into Roger Trollbert on this subject.

"Critically acclaimed" games involve cutscenes between levels with dialogue, characters, etc...

Shooting someone in the head for points is not art, but the world that a video game can immerse you in certainly is.

Funny thing. I was reading a lot about games in the last few days and remembered constantly the discussions you've had occasionaly about videogames as art. I've played videogames now and then, but rarely since my childhood spent in the late 80's and early 90's, a great time for "classic" games. You may have been too kind to Kellee Santiago - It seems to me she doesn't have a clue about what are either videogames, or games for that matter, or art. That said, I fully agree: videogames are not, in any way, art. But they sure are something in itself; it seems though that the question about what games are seems to be restricted to people asserting that videogames are art, and others speaking from common sense that a game cannot be art, whatever art is, but the latter are not usually interested in investigating further what videogames may be after all. But the thing is, there are a lot of people from the side of games that understand very well what games are about, and none of them ever says that they are an art form – they, and by that I mean the game designers that actually invented or pioneered the whole thing, understand that games are about gameplay, about the mechanics of the game. They’re about going from point A to point B and presenting this as a problem, as a puzzle to be solved in the most imaginative way. Of course, this is already so crystallized that the solution of a problem may be implemented as simply as “shoot someone in the face” – but the very possibility of offering a true problem to the player, a challenge to the imagination, is there, and such a task is taken upon more often than you can imagine.

Art is something different all together, and it sure is not about the mechanics of it – art is not a problem to be solved. But I must say, I’ve been a reader for a long a time, and I’m genuinely disappointed with your approach to the question of what art is – I hope that you go deeper and further still. You mention the Greeks, but you don’t seem very curious about it. Aristotle did say that art is imitation of nature, but are we sure we understand what that means? “Nature” is for the Greeks, after all, “physis”, and its meaning is something we cannot understand through our knowledge of nature as either an object of science or what occurs “naturally”, as opposed to “culture”, that which we produce. To say Aristotle’s sentence is a definition among others is to say too little. Physis means growing, expansion, the emergence and the very movement of being of everything that is, even what we ourselves make and create, things and thoughts. When it is “imitated”, we are not talking about a picture that is taken, about a sound that is echoed – we are not talking about a “physical” reproduction, but we are not talking about a symbolic representation of the meaning of something, either. When art “imitates” nature, it means for a Greek: it imitates the growth and emergence, the movement and genesis of being, that which is not readily accessible through senses or even common sense.

We look around, and everything that we see and perceive already is what it is – we don’t see such an emergency. We see transformation, sure, birth, growing, death, and the passage of night and day, but we already know what night and day are, we know what awaits us when we wake up, though we make sure to prepare ourselves for the darkness that comes before dawn. We have keys for that sort of thing, and a savings account. We are never completely out of our familiar path, and in this path, everything already happened before we noticed; the world doesn’t begin with us, and even if we try to imagine an absolute chronological beginning of something, it’s only because we’re projecting our own understanding in direction to the past. Like the tribal dance you mention – don’t you think the choreographers you imagined would know beforehand what dance itself is, as they prepare this particular dance you propose? If art imitates this emergence and growth and expansion of everything that is that we do not experience through the course of day and night, it could be said, art brings forward the world we are in, as if for the first time.
Sorry if I’ve taken too long, or if I sound a little preachy. Everything here is meant as nothing but a question. But he thing is, Roger, you do sound preachy yourself about what Kellee Santiago understands as art, but if instead of actually posing a question, investigating, reflecting, you just come up with a list of better definitions than hers, you don’t fare much better – and I say this as a profound admirer, knowing I exaggerate somewhat. The path you take is also all too familiar, and maybe a little curiosity about the meaning, sense and history of the words we take for granted is in order before we correct Plato and Aristotle.
Last thing: if you are still in any way willing to read what someone who knows that videogames are not art writes about videogames, I urge you to seek Tim Rogers’ article
here
.

Roger, to pick the Transformers 2 equivalent of video games and say video games can't be art is like to say movies can't be art never having seen a non-hollywood formula movie.

I'm as big a fan of movies as anyone. My library probably has at least 2 or 3 thousand movies, more than half of them foreign and with the full spectrum of bad enough to be good and good enough to be moving.

As critical and ecclectic as I am of movies, I'm likewise a fan of video games that are art.

I can off the top of my head pick three video games that are definitely art--unless someone wants to say movies can't be art either.

1. The Path (by Tale of Tales). http://tale-of-tales.com/ThePath/

There's no fighting in this game. There's no plot. There are several sisters of varying age, and you navigate them through the woods to grandmother's house. Each has several encounters and their own variation of a wolf.

People who think the 2001 remake of the planet of the apes is art would not like The Path video game, but people who like good poetry or werner herzog and slow paced movies almost certainly would.

2. Fallout 3. I won't bother linking it because this one was role playing game of the year not long ago, but this is the first movie I played that forced me to admit it was an interactive movie of high quality writing and acting.

For instance, there's a "scene" (though truly interactive) where I fought myself through Washington D.C. to a Ghoul City and came upon a bartender and asked her story of her. Ghouls were people who were human before the war but didn't die from the radiation and now, two hundred years later, are still alive.

Audrey Wasilewski played a ghoul who was a young kid when the war started, and she told a story that kept me revitted by her tale and how passionately she told it. Rarely in any movie have I heard a story told so well. Maybe the old man in apocalypto, or maybe the guy who played Bhisma in Peter Brook's Mahabharata, but here was Audrey in the role of a ghoul telling a story that could have been a survivor of Hiroshima two hundred years later talking about what happened. And that's just one example from that game. There were many other great actors in it.

3. Grand Theft Auto IV. This is the holy cow of interactive movies. The story, the acting and the open endedness amazes me even two years after having played it. Heck I just logged off playing an add-on module to it a few minutes ago. This "game" is probably better than more than 90% of the movies I consider watchable.

I don't really think whether someone thinks games are art has to do with being the eye of the beholder. I think it has to do with exposure and education. It's easy to grow up watching TV that's all Dukes of Hazard and Three's Company and think there's no TV that's art. But after someone sees Deadwood there's no going back to thinking TV cannot be art.

And games are the same. Are they getting better all the time? Sure, the same way special effects in movies get better all the time. But the best games are made amazing not by computer power. They're made amazing by the story telling and the human acting.

Video games are the movies of the future. Sometimes they're the movies of today.

When you look at art history, you always encounter the same thing. Mainstream art critics who fail to understand the new directions within art and vocally oppose change. Somehow they are stuck within a certain paradigm and can't see further then the boundaries they've set themselves. By doing so they actually make way for newer generations of artists to invent their own language of art.

Well... you are one of those critics who can't seem to keep up and observe with an open mind. On top of that you fail to understand the fact that there is a) no single definition of art and b) no single definiton of a game. Therefore you can NOT make the claims you do! Even your basic assumption that every game needs an ending is wrong and proofs your lack of knowledge.

You obviously have not explored the medium of video games apart from the examples that have been giving to you. From an outsider's perspective, it might be hard to see why these games could be "game-changers". But until you are willing to invest the time to actually explore them, your oppinion in invalid. I really hope you take this as an adult and do the right thing. Become involved with video games, learn more about their history, the genres, the difference between westerns and eastern games, talk to real game designers and find out how they tick but most importantly: play the games! After all that, you can come back to the topic and actually have something worthwhile to say.

Can video games be art? I think it all depends on what your definition of "art" is. And Roger, I think your definition is stricter than most people's.

There are many bad, boring games out there where all you do is mash buttons and things explode. There are some better games, which challenge the player to react quickly and solve problems under pressure. Then there are a few which are done in a very creative way, with challenging-yet-fun game design, an emotional connection to the characters involved, and an engaging storyline.

When something takes a lot of creativity and effort, and the end product is a highly enjoyable for the person experiencing it, I call that "art". Maybe you don't.

Other things I might consider art: an extremely proficiently designed piece of software, the design of the iPhone, and the design and execution of the "Homerun Throwback" play where the Tennessee Titans defeated the Buffalo Bills with no time on the clock in the 2000 NFL playoffs.

I suspect nearly everyone in this thread will disagree with you, but the reason isn't that video games fail to make strong impressions in people. It's simply that our definitions of words differ.

Roger if you don't really consider games as art then would be it be fair to say that you really shouldn't consider you human?

I mean think about it with your cancer and all you can speak or do much of what we normal humans can do can you? Like normal humans can speak for instance, don't look like rotting pile of flesh and bone and make rational arguments based on evidence and observation rather than opinions.

But if we are going to play the opinion game here is my opinion: You are not human. You are a bag of shit. A literal leaking wet bag of human excrement. I mean that's why you need a nurse right? To clean your boo-boos when you make dirty in your bed? Or to aid you in any of the other tasks humans can accomplish. Like speaking or actually looking like a human.

Your really more akin monster at this point y'know. But not one of the scary monsters but instead one of those abominations of science one can only hope to put out their misery ASAP. Like from the Fly movies. You know the type of monster that only really capable of eating and shitting and not much else. If tries something else it might break a bone like its hip. Its the kind of monster that has accepted it should be put out of its misery.

But I digress scum-taint. I am here to touch on the notion what you imagine is making point. It isn't or rather its futile much like the rest of your life. For you see you are going to die. You really are, and you will be forgotten quite quickly by this generation that gobble down any and new information however inane. So I will give it... 3 years after you have died for you to be completely forgotten. There a numerous reasons for this but mostly because nobody gives a shit about old movie reviews. Especially from a critic who has contributed nothing to society.

And people generally don't like you and don't really consider you human anymore. Like on Oprah dragging you out like freak sideshow for her entire audience to leer at. Those were eyes of not care but condescension, that of fat middle aged women looking down at mangled dying puppy in the street. But instead the the puppy is made from brown sheer fecal matter, pubes are oddly sticking out of it, flies are buzzing about its head slowly devouring at its turd flesh and The dogs lower lip is slacked jawed, quivering unable to close, only able to let loose a rancid stench of decay. Thats what you are and that's what all those obese women saw. And how quickly they will forget you as well when Oprah shows them some new book made from chocolate.

I severely doubt this comment will be approved, as the critic of course cannot take a real criticism or argue his case, or if the wrinkled urinal cumlicker will even read this. Ill just say for all others reading that there is no reasoning with this filthy bucket of bubbling stool. You know how old racist hicks never change their stripes? This brown and yellow stain will never change either. He won't play the actual games hes decrying much like how a racist will never talk to a black person to realize they are human. Oh no, far too old, retarded, ignorant and stubborn to do that. He unable to actually complete a game of course being a bag of shit and all but beyond that the thing deludes itself into thinking its higher than us. But a bag of shit is still just a bag of shit and no matter what it does at this point all it can do is reek.

But you know what the bag of shit wants the most in the world as it rots? Attention. You can talk to it all you want but it will not change its mind. Hes a bag of shit. He only wants other bathe in its smell as he slowly rots to death. So you guys could do that and try to reason with liquid diarrhea or you could instead debase and humiliate. Call it out for the vile oozing pus he really is and laugh while you do. Laugh at his slacked jawed face much like did and this the piece of shits inanity. Don't think because he has cancer and is dying hes beyond reproach, you are all far too soft.

Ebert: Lujo, this comment approaches art, but doesn't...quite...make it.

I stand out from many of my game industry peers when I defend Roger Ebert's position. I insist on defining a "game" very narrowly as concerning just rules (the gameplay mechanics). Compare it with an ornate pocket watch. Inside the whirling cogs are a beautiful wonder of engineering, but I can not consider it art.

Though perhaps you could find art hung upon the central clock mechanism? A jeweler could use precious metals and arrange stones with some meaning in mind. A verse of poetry could be etched on the back. A small music box could even play a song. After all this, has this thing that we call a "pocket watch" come any closer to being art?

It might be true that great art will be hung upon games in the future, but the games* themselves will never, at their core, be any more like art than the Mona Lisa's easel.

(*not including interactive art without gameplay mechanics)

Hi, Roger. Please forgive my post script, but there's another very important example I forgot. Previously I picked games that are interactive movies, but I forgot that there's a very important book that was written as a video game.

In the 1980's Raymond E. Feist wrote a wonderful trilogy called "Magician" that starts with two ten year old boys and follows them through very different paths in a world consumed by wars. When he decided to write the fourth book in the series, he didn't make it a book. He made it a video game--literally half book and half game. It was released in 1993, so the computing power was much weaker than it is now. But it's an example of computing power not being as important as story.

To my humble knowledge Raymond E. Feist may be the first to actually make a video game as art rather than as pure game. But others have taken the torch and run far with it.

Mr. Ebert, I can't begin to tell you how much respect and adoration I have for you as a critic, a pundit, and even more so, a person. It wasn't long after my father finally gave in and hooked our family up to the internet that I found I could read your reviews online. This was about ten years ago, and since this discovery I've read more of your reviews than I care to count. Every single time I watch a film, I immediately look up your review to see if I agree with you, which is about 95% of the time. I attribute this to the fact that, through reading your critiques you've taught me the majority of what I know about film. You're the greatest teacher I've ever had, and for that I cannot thank you enough.

With all of that said, it's not that I necessarily disagree with your views of videogames as an art-form. I have played hundreds of videogames, and have yet to find one that I felt was truly "art". I have found a few that have moved me emotionally, and one that nearly brought me to tears. This was quite an accomplishment as I have watched thousands of films, read hundreds of novels and experienced some of the most beautiful music known to man, and can count on two hands how many times I've been moved to tears. I list my artistic credentials not to be pretentious, but so you know that I'm not some guy with blistered thumbs that sits in front of his Xbox all day.

No, my problem is not with your assertion of videogames as an artform, it's that you've made an assertion at all. Since you've admitted that you haven't played more than a few videogames, it doesn't seem that you are in much of a position to be judging them at all. Your view of the medium as nothing more than people running around shooting things is, quite simply, archaic. The videogame medium has evolved leaps and bounds in the past 15 years, due largely in part to improving technology, but more so the aging and maturing of it's core audience. As we grew up, so did the themes and concepts portrayed in games. The game Metal Gear Solid is as much about killing people as is Apocolypse now. Sure, it happens, but that's not at all the point.

Since you admittedly aren't well versed on the medium, you've taken to using definitions to prove your point. This is flawed, as it was you who taught me early on that a film isn't just the sum of it's parts. The same can be said for music, as it would be impossible to define how the Overture of 1812 is exciting, haunting, inspiring and beautiful all at the same time.

I don't at all need for videogames to be considered art. I don't have any stock in the videogame industry, nor do I play them enough to require some sort of validation for my time spent. I just can't understand how you are so quick to pass judgement on a medium you so clearly don't understand. It's not as though you would write a review of a film you haven't seen. I'm sure you've recieved alot of mail (hate or otherwise) regarding the issue, and I certainly respect you for sticking to your guns. I will always have untold amounts of adoration and respect for you sir, but since you clearly aren't interested in the videogame medium as whole, don't you think this may be one debate you should just stay out of?

Roger,

I love your work as a film critic. There are nearly no times that I don't at the very least respect your opinion and see where you are coming from. Most of the time I agree with you nearly 100% with your movie assessments.

That being said, you just don't get it(someone should trademark that now). Just as a piece of canvas is transformed into a piece of art with a brush and some paint, video games take your monitor/TV into a whole new realm of interactive art.

If you want to split hairs, I'd give you that video games are not art if you will say that movies, television, photography, and anything other than the classic forms of painting, sculptures, and literature are also not art.

Quite simply, it is just an extension of art into this era. It is a good commentary on our culture that we need more stimulation to be amused.

All things considered there are a lot of video games that are not trying to be forms of art. But even those carry multiple people that have "artist" in their job titles. Graphic artist, storyboard artist, sound effect artist, etc.

Thanks either way for your insight, it is always a treat reading your words. You truly have a way with them :)

If I may be forgiven for going off-topic...

I think your reviews are great and usually very accurate, I love reading your blog and especially your responses, I'm a big fan.

But your review of Kick-Ass was so far off base that I just can't understand it.

"This isn't comic violence. These men, and many others in the film, are really stone-cold dead."

YES IT IS TOO COMIC VIOLENCE. Ok, so it's not Batman swinging at someone with a "BIFF!" on the screen, but it's (mostly) completely exaggerated impossible-in-the-real-world craziness. I consider it in the same area as Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, except they happen to show all the blood and guts here.

I'd also compare it somewhat to the scene in Pulp Fiction where Vincent shoots Marvin in the back seat of the car. It's unexpected, it's violent and messy and disgusting (there's brain matter in Jules's hair)... but how do people react? They laugh.

I can't explain it, but when violence is filmed a certain way, it's so crazy and shocking and unreal that somehow the effect in the audience is laughter and entertainment.

I mean, I can understand that you're morally opposed to violence committed by young people and don't think it should be glorified. But what about the zillion other movies filled with violence and theft and drug use and murder?

To give a movie one star because you object to what it depicts (instead of how it depicts it) is something I expect from the reviews on Christian websites, but not from you.

" 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. "

Wait, are you saying video games, by definition, cannot be immersive?

It seems to me that a lot of commenters are missing the point.

"Art" as a description is a category, not a value-judgement. Saying that a video game is "not art" is not tantamount to saying that it is "not good". There are good games and bad games, good art and bad art.

Since I am a musician, I will work with a musical analogy. A musical work is the creation of one (or sometimes more) composers, has internal coherence, contains carefully-timed buildups and releases of tension, and contains many forms of Wikipedia's "deliberately arranged elements".

Imagine a musical work in which the composer relinquished control and allowed the listener to decide where the music went. On the most basic level, you could have a piece with several alternate endings, which the player chooses between. Is this art? Possibly, in principle, it would be a type of aleatoric music. In practice, however, I doubt if any such piece would ever be good art. The ending of a piece should be the inevitable outcome from what went before it; the first part would need to be quite bland, dissolute and inconsequential in order to be able to support several possible conclusions.

Now imagine a symphony in which the listener can add or subtract any instrument at will, extend or compress the duration of sections, and explore the sound-world of the symphony with complete freedom. Is this art? My gut reaction says no. I'm not sure exactly what line has been crossed, but I think it is related to the vision of the artist being subjugated to the whims of the audience. The goal of that symphony would be for the listener to have a good time interacting with an orchestra. It would be a fascinating experience, but not a work of art in itself.

Take it a step further still, in which the player is given various musical elements, and plays by combining them to create their own work. Is this art? In principle, whatever the player creates would be art (could be good art, could be bad), but the game itself would not. It would just be the player's instrument.

This, I think, is the fundamental difference between video games and art. Yes, video games can contain artistic elements. But once the game creators surrender their control to the player, a line gets crossed. Art is fundamentally passive. It may involve and excite us, may make us jump out of our seats, but it's still about absorbing through our senses the work of an artist. The video game, on the other hand, is about us. We explore and rearrange the elements of the game, we control the experience to some extent. That's what makes the difference, for me.

Roger,

As much as I respect you as a man and as a movie critic (oh how I am defending your kick-ass review on imdb!), I am sad to say that video games are not your territory and you should just not say anything about that. I have complete faith that video games are art, and I agree its subjective to quite an extent, but almost nobody comes out and say-'Hey! painting is not art!' Cause its established. Video games will be established as art. I could recommend at least 5 games right here, but since you said that you get many recommendations anyway, I wont. But I have arrived on conclusion that you dont get it, and never will. But then at least stop writing about it. I dont get many painting and I accept that they art, I am just not getting it. Do the same please.

Dear Mr. Ebert,

You are wrong about this:

"One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome. Santiago might cite an 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."

I have a counterexample. A game that has neither points, objectives nor an outcome would be comparable to the hunting of pathetic little animals exemplified in La règle du jeu. Before you itch to raise the objection that the killing has an objective, the one being precisely the killing itself, ask yourself do the characters in La règle du jeu kill for any purpose? If there is an objective, it is a tacit one of obliging with the rules of a house party (and the tacit part belongs to other rules). Yet none of this excludes the fact that they are participating in a human activity the objects of which are game (game-birds, rabbits etc.). Hunting is a game and it has rules without necessarily having objectives or any meaningful outcome. I, for instance, suspect most people go hunting or fishing to be with buddies.

Looking deeper, we will also have to distinguish what is meant by ‘an objective in a game’ and ‘the objective of a game’. The objective in a game would be, in most cases, to win (though not necessarily so, as I have stressed). The objective of a game, for instance one taught to kindergartners, would not be to win, but to teach them about civil competition (or other societal rules). We in fact teach quite a good deal of useful things by means of games (if you enjoy analytic philosophy you may also like to consult the famous term of ‘language game’). In a similar manner, we see the populace of La règle du jeu caught in an funnel of infinite games and rules from which they cannot escape.

When someone creates a game, it often has a function (objective of) as shown by the distinction above. "Immersive games", that you would argue wrongly "ceases to be a game" when they don't involve points or winning (objectives), could still qualify as games if they have objectives beyond the game itself. Furthermore, something can be a game devoid of your observed characteristics of points, objectives, and outcome. Thus, what you have said about games having rules and "points, objectives, and an outcome" (as necessary) is false, and does not alone go to show that games cannot be art.

At the core of any human form of activity, may it be language or games and not excluding art, are rules. Santiago's examples of "immersive games" have rules. I ask you to think to yourself that this form of "immersive game" as a restricted construction that exhibits the intention of its creator very much like a film despite being a game. In the case of films there are rules as well, which of all people you should know the best (especially the technical bits). But even if we look beyond the creator, our acceptance of any film is governed by rules (psychological rules if you wish), without which we wouldn't be able to appreciate art at all.

Even when we come to art, I find myself doubtful that what most people call strain themselves to label as art (see example: http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2009/10/the_agony_of_the_body_artist.html) can be properly taken as art. In my opinion, the battleground of what is or is not art begins far before games (video) entered the fray. When you say "No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets," the natural question is whether even a lot of alleged ‘art’ can count as art. By your comparison to masterpieces, there are an abundance of poets, filmmakers, novelists, etc. who would not satisfy the requirements of being artists simply because they suck. In addition, many great video games, I guess, would by far exceed the lowliest and most base of artists in terms of aesthetic output. This goes to what you write about the difficulty of defining it. And I don’t think we have any microwavable definitions in hand.

The closest I think we can get to a usable definition, though one that is not very useful, is very much similar to the one Santiago cites from Wikipedia. The artist who creates a work of art must will it as part of his intention that the work should fundamentally be a work of art, that is as having aesthetic value as its prime achievement. And by this flimsy definition, I agree with you that there are few games that are worthy of comparison to poets, filmmakers etc. simply because their intention was never chiefly an aesthetic one (it’s about making money and that says a lot about ‘artists’ who dwell at a similar level). This, however, does not exclude the possibility of games from being works of art (see my comment above about ‘objectives of a game’ contrasted with ‘objectives in a game’).

Now, I agree with you that winning is something alien to art, but at the same time I deny that the ability to win is an essential feature of a game. If there is any essential feature of a game (however loosely defined) it is one of human participation, which by itself does not set apart games from art. Furthermore, I would argue that most video games are not art. Since, I have qualified the statement with ‘most’ and you probably won’t ever be motivated to try any video games out, you will probably never come to see any video game as art.

Your conclusion doesn't follow from your argument. What you've actually shown is that games aren't Great Art. I think I might be willing to agree with you on that point. That argument is summarized here by a Great Artist:

http://modernkicks.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/calvin_2.jpg

Others have made good points I won't repeat here. I take issue with the assertion that you've experienced a game sufficiently to review it by having observed its advertising trailers. By the definition of the medium, until you've actually played it, you haven't truly experienced it the way the "authors" intended. You don't review films by reading screenplays, theater by reading scripts, and you can't really judge sculpture by looking at a photo taken from one side of it. If you didn't play it, you're not in the audience.

"Why are gamers concerned about video games being defined as art?"

Same reason comic book fans invented the term graphic novel, same reason Truffaut write the auteur theory, same reason you argued for a Pulitzer prize for cinema: to validate your taste and distance your favorite art form from claims of being simple mass culture trash.

And, one could likewise ask why defining video games as not art is so important to you? I personally have no interest in defining anything as art: seems one of the least interesting things we can say about a cultural object.

I hope Roger understands the inherent paradox in his analysis: if art depends on taste, is it not self-evident that some may see games today as art? Are their opinions somehow less valid?

But relativism is just my pet peeve. My real "beef" with Roger's analysis lies here:

One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome. 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.

Is it so impossible to imagine a video "game" in which one does not win or lose but simply experiences a story? Perhaps our problem isn't with the term "art", but is instead with the term "video game". Santiago makes explicit her operationalization of the "video game" medium not as "game" made art (she goes to great lengths to distinguish other modes of play) but as a synthesis of the auditory, the visual and the interactive. Print brought us the visual. Radio brought us the auditory. Television and film synthesized the two. I agree with Santiago that the movement is away from the video game as a raw mode of play akin to baseball and towards the video "game" as an interactive experience made to evoke responses far more akin to those experienced between the pages of a book or sitting in a darkened theater.

Santiago's talk suffers greatly from her mediocre examples. Though perhaps peculiar, the Waco game just looked silly, and the time-travel Mario knock-off can only be called laughable. The flower game example though, I think, was the most apt of the three. Her handle on the literary significance of the game may have been tenuous, but consider: is the object of a game like Flower to "win" really, or is it to experience the visuals - to use the controller to immerse yourself (to the extent possible) in the sensation of being a clutch of flower petals flowing on a gust of wind? The experience of "winning" is pervasive in video games, but what sets games like Flower apart - what creates for them an audience - are sensations apart from the slight buzz of completing a demarcated task successfully.

I'd offer another recent game as perhaps the best example of the "video game" made art. Heavy Rain (to which I see another commenter has already alluded) is billed as "interactive fiction". Essentially, the game tracks four main characters through the hunt for a serial killer. The player controls each of the characters at various times. Part of the rub is that there is no way to "lose" - if a character dies, then it is simply the case in this iteration of the story that that character does not survive to the climactic scene, which scene appropriately shifts as the player makes the choices he or she will make as the game progresses. In a way, this makes the player simultaneously the patron and the critic - he absorbs the story, tries to unwind the whodunit, becomes attached to the characters, but also does what he thinks the characters should or would do to make the story the most interesting, the most true. Those truly engaged in Heavy Rain qua Heavy Rain and not as a cheap thrill (something akin to somebody who watches Un Chien Andalou just to see the eye cutting scene for the gross-out thrill) will create the ending that best reflects their understanding of human nature, their skill with the controls and their ability to sort through the clues that the game presents. Barthes would be proud - the author doesn't even get to solidify his own ending, much less fix the meaning of his work to its consumers.

If this sounds like sophomoric, juvenile reverence of simplistic nonsense ... well, yeah, I guess it does sound like that. I am, after all, trying to hold what is basically an evolved version of Super Mario out as art (and admittedly mediocre art at that; try playing the game and you'll understand why the French should never attempt a New England accent). But the point is that the object of this "game" isn't to win or lose, it's to experience. I absolutely take Roger's point about that dichotomy being the necessary dividing line between play and art, but I submit that video "games" are, indeed, evolving. Like the man says, "never say never."

Why the urge to define video games as art? Simple. Because gamers feel a desperate urge to convince themselves that the hours, days, weeks, months, years they have lost to gaming were for the sake of a nobler purpose, or anything but a waste of time.

And this coming from a chronic gamer. No matter how engrossing, beautiful or just plain fun a game experience is or can be, all I'm left with in the end is the realization of the sheer magnitude of time lost, and what I could have done with that time that would leave a more lasting imprint on my life.

Games aren't Art in the same way Movies can never be art.. In many ways video games are just movies / stories with one additional feature.. interaction. Games can engage their audience on a level that most movies never can.

What if you play a video game and, upon completion and subsequent reflection, you discover that it has resonated with you in a manner similar to or even indistinguishable from the way a film, novel, musical composition, or image can? Is it then art?

Is interactivity the fatal factor? One should think it is just as possible for an individual (rather than a committee) to direct the creation of a game or multiple games in such a way that a distinct personality or style is conveyed, a case in point—for me—being Shigesato Itoi and his series of 'EarthBound' ('Mother' in Japan) games. A video game, like a film, can establish a unique aesthetic and attitude, and can be a vessel for satire, criticism, pathos, character study, or moral commentary. 'EarthBound,' for instance again, is all of the above, and moreover offers a very specific experience that is not merely goal-imprisoned: it is a comically exaggerated imagining of Western (specifically American) culture, and pop culture, from the perspective of an increasingly Westernized Japan, infused with the singular idiosyncrasies, impressions and traumas of its creator, Itoi.¹ Other media are perfectly capable of imparting the same perspective, but not with the same completeness as 'EarthBound.' That said, of the probably hundreds of video games with which I've interacted, 'EarthBound' is the only one that's felt like a creative achievement; after which, I felt enriched. I generally try to avoid playing video games, because they feel like ambition-zapping time thieves. There's more overlap among cinephiles and avid gamers than you may think in the under-30 set, but that overlap doesn't usually extend to the corresponding sensibilities, and someone with both an earnest appreciation for Bergman films and for the 'Grand Theft Auto' games probably isn't calling out for higher artistic merit in the latter.

Like film, however, video games provide a canvas of sorts—a canvas like any other, with its own medium-specific shape. You're a writer of nonfiction and fiction as well as feature films, so you have a firsthand understanding of the creative impulse. Imagine, in your capacity as an artist, a hypothetical scenario in which your access to those canvasses is permanently taken from you, and your only permitted medium is the video game. Answering only to your own whims and not to the obligations of commerce, you must funnel your creative impulse into the video game format, applying all of your personal sensibilities and tastes to the interactive parameters of the medium to create a video game that only Roger Ebert could have created. What would the result be? Is the result not art?

¹ The dialogue and visual elements of a key sequence in 'EarthBound' were inspired by, according to Shigesato Itoi, an incident in Itoi's early childhood in which he entered and watched the wrong movie at a cinema, witnessing the onscreen rape and humiliation of a female character in the film; as a result, he was in shock for days afterward. This insight, and the emotion that colored this sequence in the game, recalls David Lynch's discussion of the origin of Isabella Rossellini's front-lawn nude scene in 'Blue Velvet.' The compulsion to exorcise these respective experiences in properties that are inessential to their narrative contexts appears to be the same in both Lynch and Itoi.

Dear Roger,

I'm a big admirer of your writing, but in this case you're wildly wrong. "Braid" and "Flower" aren't just works of art; each one is a masterpiece. I'll explain why in a moment, but first I need to offer a working definition of art.

First: Art is stored humanity. When my mom was a kid, you could walk into a bank and exchange a dollar bill for a dollar's worth of silver. But now paper money has become detached from silver or any other specific commodity and exists as a pure store of value. Art does the same thing. It detaches from the artist and stands alone and self-sufficient in the world. The artist calves off a piece of himself or herself; and when I encounter that piece -- the artwork -- I'm able to glimpse or sense the unique human spirit or human intelligence that created it.

Second: Art overflows the ice-cube tray. In other words, it doesn't fit neatly into compartments. It spills over, sloshes around, and commingles. It contains ambiguities and ironies. This goes hand-in-hand with the human-ness of art. Because the human spirit is rife with contradictions, our greatest artworks tend to be those that explore our conflicts with ourselves, each other, the world, or history.

Third: Not all art, but a lot of art, is layered. It contains a variety of elements configured in such a way that they sometimes contradict each other and sometimes align with each other. The overall design of alignments and contradictions can begin to resemble, or suggest, the complexity of the human spirit.

On to "Braid." The game begins with you, the player, maneuvering your on-screen avatar, a man, across a bridge backlit by a burning sky. He enters an abandoned house, goes through a door, and encounters a series of books, which tell a story about a girl he once loved and lost. He wishes he could go back in time and undo what he did to drive her away.

When you move on to gameplay, you quickly discover the unique feature of "Braid": you're able to rewind time. What makes this compelling isn't just that it's a novel gameplay mechanic; it's that it mirrors the heart's desire of the game's main character. This is brilliant. As an artistic milestone in the development of the medium, creating this kind of alignment between thematic content and formal mechanics is at least on par with painters realizing that the color of a sky can be used to create mood, or filmmakers realizing that shot composition and editing can be used not just to chronicle the action of the story but to express a character's emotional state.

But as "Braid" unfolds, it becomes clearer that as a work of art it does much more than just achieve thematic unity between gameplay mechanics and story. Films have to be filmy, novels have to be novely, and games (even if they're works of art) have to be gamey. In other words, to succeed they have to play to the strengths of, and succeed in the context of, the constraints of gaming is a medium. And "Braid" does, wonderfully.

Reversing time turns out to be not just a gimmick. It yields a way of playing that's totally new. As in: never existed before in human history. Certain objects and elements are immune to changes in the time stream, and to solve the game's puzzles, you have to figure out how to juggle your own actions relative to the movement of time and the actions or positions of the other elements.

These time puzzles are fiendishly complex. Manipulating narrative like this in service of a story with a profound theme was art when Christopher Nolan did it in "Memento" or Quentin Tarantino did it in "Pulp Fiction." Why isn't it art when Jonathan Blow does it in "Braid"?

As you progress through the story, little by little, you piece together what happened between the protagonist and his lost love. It's somewhat open-ended but that doesn't make it less emotionally affecting. And each nugget of exposition feels truly earned, because it isn't just being dished up to you -- you can only gain insight by solving the puzzles.

The concluding sequence is nothing short of astonishing. It was so beautiful it made me cry. And difficult and fun to play. Without ruining it, I'll just say that it ingeniously and movingly pays off what the game has promised from the beginning, which is to achieve a synthesis of the story you're experiencing and the way you're experiencing it -- through play.

And I haven't even mentioned the sly references to Super Mario Bros. (a funny, un-precious choice that creates a dialogue between "Braid" and the history of the medium), or the gorgeous artwork or hauntingly beautiful music. These aren't just window dressing or surface aesthetics; they're part of the fabric of the game.

I love "Braid" because I think it truly is a distillation of something rich and universal about the human spirit, through the eyes of a particular artist, filtered through the unique tools and mechanics of a new and exciting medium.

As for "Flower": It's an achievement of equal magnitude but a very different game. In the early levels, you make a flower petal float around and interact with its environment. The game gives you no instructions, so you have to figure out for yourself what to do. And what you eventually discover is that you can heal blighted landscapes by interacting with patterns of individual flowers.

This simple premise permutates quickly into much more complex scenarios, which are, if not puzzles per se, puzzle-like. Then, unexpectedly, the atmosphere of the game darkens, and the action takes on a different tenor, sending the player into a very unexpected resolution -- but a resolution which emerges organically from the elements that have appeared previously in the game.

As with "Braid," I don't want to describe what happens in the end, because it's something people should really experience for themselves. It's amazing. So I'll just say that what really wows me about "Flower" as a game and as a work of art is that when you finish it, you feel like you've taken an emotional journey. And yet the game has no words. No instructions. And no human characters.

Jenova Chen, the creator, has sublimated or transmuted human emotion into actions that you trigger by moving a video game controller. Yet it's no less real and no less moving as a result of that. It reminded me of some of Haruki Murakami's novels, particularly "Wind-Up Bird Chronicle," in which characters are working out emotional dramas that have little or nothing to do with the specifics of what they experience... yet the stuff they're experiencing becomes just the arena they need to work their way through it all.

And, as with "Braid," "Flower" is just plain beautiful. The first level is pastoral and lovely, and then some of the later levels are exploding with color like a J.M.W. Turner painting.

It's also a joy to play. I can't think of another game that's captured soaring, swooping, gliding and all the other colors and textures of flight like "Flower" does. And when you do what you do at the end of the game (sorry to be vague -- don't want to spoil it!) it's both satisfying as an action and a true emotional catharsis.

Gaming isn't years away from being art. It's already there.

Mr. Ebert, you seem at least a bit conflicted when it comes motive in this article. There are parts where it seems you want to dismiss videos games altogether as an art form and there are parts where you seem to want to simply say that it is such a primitive art form that it hardly bares mentioning as such.

You're first major point is to say that video games allow a person to win. In making this point I assume that you are not just simply stating the obvious but are also implying that this somehow makes video games less of an art form or even disqualifies it altogether. Yet why should it? I imagine that there may have been fine arts critics, that upon seeing motion pictures for the first time, dismissed them in a similar fashion; "The pictures move! That is unlike any painting I've never witnessed so this certainly isn't art." Yet our response to such arguments nowadays would be to dismiss it as foolish. The point is different art forms have different qualities that make them distinct and you ought to have either expanded on this point or simply not make it at all.

You then go on to analyze the three games that were shown in the presentation. You're quoted as saying that seeing these games "do not raise my hopes for a video game that will deserve my attention long enough to play it." Fair enough, but what does this say about video games as art? Very little I would argue. All this says is that the games that were shown do not appeal to you. I'm sure I could elicit similarly negative reactions from people by showing them clips form a movie such as The Passion of Joan of Arc. If a modern audience made of randomly selected members of the general public were offered free tickets to see an unannounced movie, and if the movie there were shown happen to do the aforementioned film, I don't think its a stretch to say that many and quite possibly a majority of those people would walk out of the theater well before the closing credits. Yet this obviously should not diminish the claim that movies have to being an art form. At the same time, this also should not diminish this film's claim to be a great film. It is possible or a work of art to be great without someone recognizing it and in this case, it is possible for a work of art to be great even if many are unable to recognize it.

And then there is this statement, "No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets." While I would be inclined to agree with this statement, I do believe it is very possible that video games that have already been released could certainly one day come to be mentioned along with the great films, novels, or poems. This argument of course leads us into the realm of subjectivity and I do not want to go too far in that direction.

As for the reason you initially wrote the article, whether or not video games are art, I fail to find many convincing arguments in your article. Meanwhile, I can find many that would claim to have found just as much (if not more) emotion, connectivity, and resonance in video games than in film.

So why do people debate you so passionately on this topic? For me personally, video games are important to me, perhaps not as important as movies are to you, but likely very close. In that regard then, I ask you, if someone were to dismiss films as nonsense and claim that films are not art, would you not defend your preferred medium with fervor? Would you not seek validation for movies as an art form if you felt compelled to? Then there is also the fact that I have a great deal of respect for you as a critic, and while I have often disagreed with your assessments on specific movies, it has never affect my opinion of you. On this topic however, it is difficult for me to reconcile my respect with my strong disagreement.

You're final point:

"The circles are labeled: Development, Finance, Publishing, Marketing, Education, and Executive Management. I rest my case."

In our culture, these circles apply as much to films and music as they do to video games.

Mr. Ebert, you seem at least a bit conflicted when it comes motive in this article. There are parts where it seems you want to dismiss videos games altogether as an art form and there are parts where you seem to want to simply say that it is such a primitive art form that it hardly bares mentioning as such.

You're first major point is to say that video games allow a person to win. In making this point I assume that you are not just simply stating the obvious but are also implying that this somehow makes video games less of an art form or even disqualifies it altogether. Yet why should it? I imagine that there may have been fine arts critics, that upon seeing motion pictures for the first time, dismissed them in a similar fashion; "The pictures move! That is unlike any painting I've never witnessed so this certainly isn't art." Yet our response to such arguments nowadays would be to dismiss it as foolish. The point is different art forms have different qualities that make them distinct and you ought to have either expanded on this point or simply not make it at all.

You then go on to analyze the three games that were shown in the presentation. You're quoted as saying that seeing these games "do not raise my hopes for a video game that will deserve my attention long enough to play it." Fair enough, but what does this say about video games as art? Very little I would argue. All this says is that the games that were shown do not appeal to you. I'm sure I could elicit similarly negative reactions from people by showing them clips form a movie such as The Passion of Joan of Arc. If a modern audience made of randomly selected members of the general public were offered free tickets to see an unannounced movie, and if the movie there were shown happen to do the aforementioned film, I don't think its a stretch to say that many and quite possibly a majority of those people would walk out of the theater well before the closing credits. Yet this obviously should not diminish the claim that movies have to being an art form. At the same time, this also should not diminish this film's claim to be a great film. It is possible or a work of art to be great without someone recognizing it and in this case, it is possible for a work of art to be great even if many are unable to recognize it.

And then there is this statement, "No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets." While I would be inclined to agree with this statement, I do believe it is very possible that video games that have already been released could certainly one day come to be mentioned along with the great films, novels, or poems. This argument of course leads us into the realm of subjectivity and I do not want to go too far in that direction.

As for the reason you initially wrote the article, whether or not video games are art, I fail to find many convincing arguments in your article. Meanwhile, I can find many that would claim to have found just as much (if not more) emotion, connectivity, and resonance in video games than in film.

So why do people debate you so passionately on this topic? For me personally, video games are important to me, perhaps not as important as movies are to you, but likely very close. In that regard then, I ask you, if someone were to dismiss films as nonsense and claim that films are not art, would you not defend your preferred medium with fervor? Would you not seek validation for movies as an art form if you felt compelled to? Then there is also the fact that I have a great deal of respect for you as a critic, and while I have often disagreed with your assessments on specific movies, it has never affect my opinion of you. On this topic however, it is difficult for me to reconcile my respect with my strong disagreement.

You're final point:

"The circles are labeled: Development, Finance, Publishing, Marketing, Education, and Executive Management. I rest my case."

In our culture, these circles apply as much to films and music as they do to video games.

Well said, Roger. I couldn't agree more.

I think the key to proving that video games can not be art is to consider them as games. As games, they depend on rules.

(A brief aside: I remember reacting strongly to Wittgenstein's using the definition of 'games' as an example to argue against abstract definitions. I wish I had the text in hand, but I remember his using 'catch' as a counterexample to the proposed definition that all games must have rules. But doesn't catch have one simple rule; that is, don't drop the ball? One doesn't necessarily win at catch, but one is certainly playing the game wrong if he or she doesn't catch when the ball approaches.)

Needless to say, I would propose that any game must have rules, otherwise it is not a game.

Does art have rules? I think not. I mean, certainly, when artists speak of their craft they use the word "rules" often, but they use it in a different sense, somewhat metaphorically. That is to say, one doesn't melodically sit on the 4th degree of a major scale when playing over a major triad; some might call this a 'rule,' though it would probably be more correct to say that it's a guide to what our ears find pleasing. 'Our ears don't tend to like the sound of a minor 9th, so don't play that shit.' Likewise similar 'rules' with sentence construction, color theory, film composition....

Again, art does not have rules. When you listen to a symphony, you don't have to do anything except listen. This is not a rule, but a tautology. If you don't follow the 'rule' (listening) it's not as if you're listening 'wrong,' playing the game 'wrong;' rather, you're simply no longer listening to a symphony, you are instead doing something else.

(Again, an aside. I realize that one could use my 'catch'-as-a-game definition against me here. I would only propose that if you would like to make listening into a game, fine. The game of listening, then, is a rather simple one. The symphony itself still has no rules)

But what about people telling you you need to be aware of harmonic movement, of compositional techniques like counterpoint and syncopation, of the life of the composer? Obviously, these are not rules; rather, they are ways to listen (or to study a score, for that matter) that will broaden your understanding of what is taking place.

So, art does not have rules.

Games, however, do.

What is it about the presence of rules that is inherently antithetical to art? That is to say, though art up to this point has not had rules, why can't this new medium be, say "art + rules...... = still greater art?"

Rules are meant to be played by. That is, the player (or audience?) of a game must follow the rules while he or she plays that game. The player is an ACTIVE part of the gaming experience. This brings us to the concept of interactivity, which is crucial to the excitement of people proposing video games as art.

The praise and positive valuation of video games lies in the fact that they are interactive in ways other art forms are not. However, their interactivity is precisely the point at which the games cease to be art. The 'game' part of 'video games' is the interactive moment. One does not step outside oneself when playing a video game; one very much stays oneself, makes decisions and, (this is key) ACTS.

The key to art, on the other hand, is that you, as a member of the audience, must bring a bit of yourself to the work, a work which is NOT yourself. This MUST happen. You do not participate (as in a game) in the work itself; rather, you participate in attempting to find where yourself and the work meet (or do not meet). The exciting discovery of art lies in finding yourself in something that is not yourself. If your starting point is yourself and your experience (as in a game) is still yourself, then there is nothing to discover.

Art is transcendent. By bringing a bit of yourself to something that is not yourself, you experience something that you cannot describe with words, something true. Truth is the goal of all art.

Well said, Roger. I couldn't agree more.

I think the key to proving that video games can not be art is to consider them as games. As games, they depend on rules.

(A brief aside: I remember reacting strongly to Wittgenstein's using the definition of 'games' as an example to argue against abstract definitions. I wish I had the text in hand, but I remember his using 'catch' as a counterexample to the proposed definition that all games must have rules. But doesn't catch have one simple rule; that is, don't drop the ball? One doesn't necessarily win at catch, but one is certainly playing the game wrong if he or she doesn't catch when the ball approaches.)

Needless to say, I would propose that any game must have rules, otherwise it is not a game.

Does art have rules? I think not. I mean, certainly, when artists speak of their craft they use the word "rules" often, but they use it in a different sense, somewhat metaphorically. That is to say, one doesn't melodically sit on the 4th degree of a major scale when playing over a major triad; some might call this a 'rule,' though it would probably be more correct to say that it's a guide to what our ears find pleasing. 'Our ears don't tend to like the sound of a minor 9th, so don't play that shit.' Likewise similar 'rules' with sentence construction, color theory, film composition....

Again, art does not have rules. When you listen to a symphony, you don't have to do anything except listen. This is not a rule, but a tautology. If you don't follow the 'rule' (listening) it's not as if you're listening 'wrong,' playing the game 'wrong;' rather, you're simply no longer listening to a symphony, you are instead doing something else.

(Again, an aside. I realize that one could use my 'catch'-as-a-game definition against me here. I would only propose that if you would like to make listening into a game, fine. The game of listening, then, is a rather simple one. The symphony itself still has no rules)

But what about people telling you you need to be aware of harmonic movement, of compositional techniques like counterpoint and syncopation, of the life of the composer? Obviously, these are not rules; rather, they are ways to listen (or to study a score, for that matter) that will broaden your understanding of what is taking place.

So, art does not have rules.

Games, however, do.

What is it about the presence of rules that is inherently antithetical to art? That is to say, though art up to this point has not had rules, why can't this new medium be, say "art + rules...... = still greater art?"

Rules are meant to be played by. That is, the player (or audience?) of a game must follow the rules while he or she plays that game. The player is an ACTIVE part of the gaming experience. This brings us to the concept of interactivity, which is crucial to the excitement of people proposing video games as art.

The praise and positive valuation of video games lies in the fact that they are interactive in ways other art forms are not. However, their interactivity is precisely the point at which the games cease to be art. The 'game' part of 'video games' is the interactive moment. One does not step outside oneself when playing a video game; one very much stays oneself, makes decisions and, (this is key) ACTS.

The key to art, on the other hand, is that you, as a member of the audience, must bring a bit of yourself to the work, a work which is NOT yourself. This MUST happen. You do not participate (as in a game) in the work itself; rather, you participate in attempting to find where yourself and the work meet (or do not meet). The exciting discovery of art lies in finding yourself in something that is not yourself. If your starting point is yourself and your experience (as in a game) is still yourself, then there is nothing to discover.

Art is transcendent. By bringing a bit of yourself to something that is not yourself, you experience something that you cannot describe with words, something true. Truth is the goal of all art.

I understand that you don't see the appeal in the medium. The status of a work as "art" is something I feel is determined by the observer, and you are certainly entitled to make your own decision. As someone who has a built a career on critiquing art, you may be more qualified than most, if such a thing is possible. However, there are many of us who see real potential for artistic expression through interactive media. It's not there yet as an industry, but I think the argument can be made that some examples do already exist (and I don't mean rabble-rousing garbage like this Waco thing).

What bothers me isn't that your opinion differs from my own, but rather that you staunchly refuse to at least give some of these games a chance. Those of us who have had transcendent experiences with games know for a fact that it's possible for the medium to achieve what more traditional art forms do, and it's a real shame that you won't allow yourself the opportunity to see that.

Dear Roger,

I'm a big admirer of your writing, but in this case you're wildly wrong. "Braid" and "Flower" aren't just works of art; each one is a masterpiece. I'll explain why in a moment, but first I need to offer a working definition of art.

First: Art is stored humanity. When my mom was a kid, you could walk into a bank and exchange a dollar bill for a dollar's worth of silver. But now paper money has become detached from silver or any other specific commodity and exists as a pure store of value. Art does the same thing. It detaches from the artist and stands alone and self-sufficient in the world. The artist calves off a piece of himself or herself; and when I encounter that piece -- the artwork -- I'm able to glimpse or sense the unique human spirit or human intelligence that created it.

Second: Art overflows the ice-cube tray. In other words, it doesn't fit neatly into compartments. It spills over, sloshes around, and commingles. It contains ambiguities and ironies. This goes hand-in-hand with the human-ness of art. Because the human spirit is rife with contradictions, our greatest artworks tend to be those that explore our conflicts with ourselves, each other, the world, or history.

Third: Not all art, but a lot of art, is layered. It contains a variety of elements configured in such a way that they sometimes contradict each other and sometimes align with each other. The overall design of alignments and contradictions can begin to resemble, or suggest, the complexity of the human spirit.

On to "Braid." The game begins with you, the player, maneuvering your on-screen avatar, a man, across a bridge backlit by a burning sky. He enters an abandoned house, goes through a door, and encounters a series of books, which tell a story about a girl he once loved and lost. He wishes he could go back in time and undo what he did to drive her away.

When you move on to gameplay, you quickly discover the unique feature of "Braid": you're able to rewind time. What makes this compelling isn't just that it's a novel gameplay mechanic; it's that it mirrors the heart's desire of the game's main character. This is brilliant. As an artistic milestone in the development of the medium, creating this kind of alignment between thematic content and formal mechanics is at least on par with painters realizing that the color of a sky can be used to create mood, or filmmakers realizing that shot composition and editing can be used not just to chronicle the action of the story but to express a character's emotional state.

But as "Braid" unfolds, it becomes clearer that as a work of art it does much more than just achieve thematic unity between gameplay mechanics and story. Films have to be filmy, novels have to be novely, and games (even if they're works of art) have to be gamey. In other words, to succeed they have to play to the strengths of, and succeed in the context of, the constraints of gaming is a medium. And "Braid" does, wonderfully.

Reversing time turns out to be not just a gimmick. It yields a way of playing that's totally new. As in: never existed before in human history. Certain objects and elements are immune to changes in the time stream, and to solve the game's puzzles, you have to figure out how to juggle your own actions relative to the movement of time and the actions or positions of the other elements.

These time puzzles are fiendishly complex. Manipulating narrative like this in service of a story with a profound theme was art when Christopher Nolan did it in "Memento" or Quentin Tarantino did it in "Pulp Fiction." Why isn't it art when Jonathan Blow does it in "Braid"?

As you progress through the story, little by little, you piece together what happened between the protagonist and his lost love. It's somewhat open-ended but that doesn't make it less emotionally affecting. And each nugget of exposition feels truly earned, because it isn't just being dished up to you -- you can only gain insight by solving the puzzles.

The concluding sequence is nothing short of astonishing. It was so beautiful it made me cry. And difficult and fun to play. Without ruining it, I'll just say that it ingeniously and movingly pays off what the game has promised from the beginning, which is to achieve a synthesis of the story you're experiencing and the way you're experiencing it -- through play.

And I haven't even mentioned the sly references to Super Mario Bros. (a funny, un-precious choice that creates a dialogue between "Braid" and the history of the medium), or the gorgeous artwork or hauntingly beautiful music. These aren't just window dressing or surface aesthetics; they're part of the fabric of the game.

I love "Braid" because I think it truly is a distillation of something rich and universal about the human spirit, through the eyes of a particular artist, filtered through the unique tools and mechanics of a new and exciting medium.

As for "Flower": It's an achievement of equal magnitude but a very different game. In the early levels, you make a flower petal float around and interact with its environment. The game gives you no instructions, so you have to figure out for yourself what to do. And what you eventually discover is that you can heal blighted landscapes by interacting with patterns of individual flowers.

This simple premise permutates quickly into much more complex scenarios, which are, if not puzzles per se, puzzle-like. Then, unexpectedly, the atmosphere of the game darkens, and the action takes on a different tenor, sending the player into a very unexpected resolution -- but a resolution which emerges organically from the elements that have appeared previously in the game.

As with "Braid," I don't want to describe what happens in the end, because it's something people should really experience for themselves. It's amazing. So I'll just say that what really wows me about "Flower" as a game and as a work of art is that when you finish it, you feel like you've taken an emotional journey. And yet the game has no words. No instructions. And no human characters.

Jenova Chen, the creator, has sublimated or transmuted human emotion into actions that you trigger by moving a video game controller. Yet it's no less real and no less moving as a result of that. It reminded me of some of Haruki Murakami's novels, particularly "Wind-Up Bird Chronicle," in which characters are working out emotional dramas that have little or nothing to do with the specifics of what they experience... yet the stuff they're experiencing becomes just the arena they need to work their way through it all.

And, as with "Braid," "Flower" is just plain beautiful. The first level is pastoral and lovely, and then some of the later levels are exploding with color like a J.M.W. Turner painting.

It's also a joy to play. I can't think of another game that's captured soaring, swooping, gliding and all the other colors and textures of flight like "Flower" does. And when you do what you do at the end of the game (sorry to be vague -- don't want to spoil it!) it's both satisfying as an action and a true emotional catharsis.

Gaming isn't years away from being art. It's already there.

Bobby Fischer, Michael Jordan and Dick Butkus never said they thought their games were an art form.

And there are people that make film that, to them, it's nothing but a business. That doesn't change your opinion of the medium, does it?

“while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists.” - Marcel DuChamp

It's perhaps most important to note here that a key characteristic of art is appreciation: Without any matter of capacity to appreciate, it's particularly difficult to define anything at all as art.

It's also important to recognize that different media of art are totally mutually unintelligible; applying the characteristics of narrative in a literal manner that one would to a film (an experience lasting, generally, no longer than three hours) to a videogame is simply not an accurate or fair judgement. Knowing this, it's important to judge the medium in its own realm if anything constructive is to come of it.

Having said that, it'a easy to see how a proponent of stating that video games are art would have a particularly tricky time getting through to someone who doesn't seem to play very many and, given that, doesn't have a well-built mechanism of meaningfully scrutinizing videogames. Both of these facts are particularly evident in you anchoring your argument on a person who subsequently anchored her argument on three games that attempt to be art based on the terms of other media. Because of this, it's perfectly apt (and may result in some level of realization on your part) that people will readily suggest to you to play a certain videogame. They do this because the particular nature of videogames as an art form is that their artistic beauty comes about by PLAYING them.

Videogames are art and I assert this on the basis that they are an intentionally created work with the potential to offer emotional value beyond their mechanical worth. The quality of the gameplay -- that is, the unique characteristic of videogames in that they are directly controlled and experienced by any number of humans -- is what provides this emotional value. An experience so fluid and engrossing is capable of providing the player (should s/he be willing to accept it) with an emotional experience much like listening to a dynamic and articulate piece of music can. A climax in a piece of music fills its listener simultaneously with all of the emotions that they had been building up over the course of a piece of music and so too does a climactic moment in a videogame where all of their vested efforts come into fruition.

One of the key tenants of your argument is that art cannot be "won". The problem with this is that "winning" a videogame (a statement applicable to an increasingly small number of videogames, by the way) does not prevent that game from being experienced again. Much like a piece of music can be listened to comlpetely, a game can be experienced from beginning to end (or "won" if such a term is applicable); it would likewise be bizarre to claim that videogames cannot be art because it can be "completed" because then so too would music not be art. The videogame itself is a static entity waiting to be inrepreted and a "beaten" videogame is simply one that an individual has interpreted.

Like every art form, videogames are different than those that came before it -- while similar words can be used to describe visual art and music, describing why music is an art form within the confines of visual art is impossible and leave the dumbfounded victim of this argument to assert that music is not art. The reason that you are left with a venerable mess every time you make this statement is because what's happening here is a bunch of videogamers who have realized themselves how videogames are art trying to explain it to someone who hasn't on terms that they can understand. What you have done here is tanamount to a blind person decrying visual art based on someone else's description of it: It's difficult to realize the individual human expression involved in videogames when it's laid out in such an inorganic fashion. And, much like what would happen if you had made the same statement about any other art form, it is borderline when you assert that videogamers are attempting to seek validation when they state that videogames are art, just like it would be borderline for me to state that, by posting this artcile, you have knowingly placed a flaming bag of feces on a busy street to see how many people it could convince to stomp on it.

At the end of the day, every time you make this statement you will rightfully receive a tongue-lashing; this is because nearly every gamer has played a game that has provided them with the visceral connection that only art can provide. Obviously, you haven't and you seem quite content with this; but you're not going to convince people far more experienced than you (in the field of videogames) that what they hold as art is not art until you grab a controller and start playing. You might even learn something.

Another thought: Obviously, the Lord Of The Rings movies are art. Now suppose you choose to watch it at home with the additional scenes included in the extended version. Still art? Of course.

Suppose there were even more additional scenes filmed, some where the characters follow a different path than in the original. As that part approaches, you can choose between seeing the characters stand and fight, or run away into the forest. Then you get to see the scenes that take place as a result of your particular choice. Is this still art? I think you might still say yes.

But at what level of interactivity does it cease to become art? And what precisely is the invisible line that it's crossing that officially makes it "not art"?

Would this thing (now officially considered a video game) be considered art again, if the player was skillful and the result of his actions was the exact movie that played in theaters?

BTW I absolutely agree with Alex - your points seem to prove that video games are not GREAT art, and not that they aren't art itself.

I have to say that I'm disappointed at Ebert's arguments.

Judging from what's been written, I think I can assume that he has not played any of those games mentioned, nor has he played any recent game in the last few years.

In a sense, this is the equivalent of saying that the Mona Lisa is not "art" without seeing a single picture of it, let alone the actual piece. Or saying that Bach cannot make art, without listening to a single composition by him.

If Ebert had played many of the games that "gamers" consider "art" (not necessarily that ones mentioned) and made his opinion on that, I would have respected it. However, his arguments are currently largely unfounded, more or less focused on the presentation of a single pro-gamer (out of millions world wide).

I hope he takes his time to play many games fully, as I believe that there are certain facets of it that is worthy to be considered art.

The game I play, World of Warcraft, is nothing but art. Every single environment, object, creature, player, animation, weapon, etc was first imagined and then hand drawn, just like art always has been. In many cases you can still see the brushstrokes!

And this is only on the graphical level..some of the music is so beautiful I get a little choked up when I hear it, just like I do when I hear Amazing Grace.

Some of the story lines involve betrayal, redemption, hypocrisy, jealousy, and of course heroics, all themes that you'll find in literature and film.

What is different about this new art form of games is that the viewer is no longer a passive consumer of whatever the artist points at..he or she is in control of the way they interact with the game.

There's no such thing as "games" anyway, it's too broad a topic to be described with a single word.

I can only speak of this particular game in front of me and the experience I have while playing it, which is a feeling of deep respect for the game and the artists who made it.

Every generation has its own version of this art/not art battle, and the naysayers are usually proven laughably wrong, eventually.

Well said, Roger. I couldn't agree more.

I think the key to proving that video games can not be art is to consider them as games. As games, they depend on rules.

(A brief aside: I remember reacting strongly to Wittgenstein's using the definition of 'games' as an example to argue against abstract definitions. I wish I had the text in hand, but I remember his using 'catch' as a counterexample to the proposed definition that all games must have rules. But doesn't catch have one simple rule; that is, don't drop the ball? One doesn't necessarily win at catch, but one is certainly playing the game wrong if he or she doesn't catch when the ball approaches.)

Needless to say, I would propose that any game must have rules, otherwise it is not a game.

Does art have rules? I think not. I mean, certainly, when artists speak of their craft they use the word "rules" often, but they use it in a different sense, somewhat metaphorically. That is to say, one doesn't melodically sit on the 4th degree of a major scale when playing over a major triad; some might call this a 'rule,' though it would probably be more correct to say that it's a guide to what our ears find pleasing. 'Our ears don't tend to like the sound of a minor 9th, so don't play that shit.' Likewise similar 'rules' with sentence construction, color theory, film composition....

Again, art does not have rules. When you listen to a symphony, you don't have to do anything except listen. This is not a rule, but a tautology. If you don't follow the 'rule' (listening) it's not as if you're listening 'wrong,' playing the game 'wrong;' rather, you're simply no longer listening to a symphony, you are instead doing something else.

(Again, an aside. I realize that one could use my 'catch'-as-a-game definition against me here. I would only propose that if you would like to make listening into a game, fine. The game of listening, then, is a rather simple one. The symphony itself still has no rules)

But what about people telling you you need to be aware of harmonic movement, of compositional techniques like counterpoint and syncopation, of the life of the composer? Obviously, these are not rules; rather, they are ways to listen (or to study a score, for that matter) that will broaden your understanding of what is taking place.

So, art does not have rules.

Games, however, do.

What is it about the presence of rules that is inherently antithetical to art? That is to say, though art up to this point has not had rules, why can't this new medium be, say "art + rules...... = still greater art?"

Rules are meant to be played by. That is, the player (or audience?) of a game must follow the rules while he or she plays that game. The player is an ACTIVE part of the gaming experience. This brings us to the concept of interactivity, which is crucial to the excitement of people proposing video games as art.

The praise and positive valuation of video games lies in the fact that they are interactive in ways other art forms are not. However, their interactivity is precisely the point at which the games cease to be art. The 'game' part of 'video games' is the interactive moment. One does not step outside oneself when playing a video game; one very much stays oneself, makes decisions and, (this is key) ACTS.

The key to art, on the other hand, is that you, as a member of the audience, must bring a bit of yourself to the work, a work which is NOT yourself. This MUST happen. You do not participate (as in a game) in the work itself; rather, you participate in attempting to find where yourself and the work meet (or do not meet). The exciting discovery of art lies in finding yourself in something that is not yourself. If your starting point is yourself and your experience (as in a game) is still yourself, then there is nothing to discover.

Art is transcendent. By bringing a bit of yourself to something that is not yourself, you experience something that you cannot describe with words, something true. Truth is the goal of all art.

Finally, the other argument supporting video games as art seems to be that, though the gaming itself is not art, the designed elements of the games are. To this I can only say that we already have names for the art of these elements; that is, they are called 'music,' 'literature,' 'visual arts,' etc. You may rightly counter by saying that film, in essence, is also merely a combination of older art forms (music, drama, visual art), but we would say film is a new art form. I would simply respond with the assertion that video games are, then, either, film + interactivity, or, perhaps, cartoons + interactivity, much in the same way that chess is basically sculpture + interactivity. The elements of these games are perhaps art (though not consistently good art), but the games themselves are not.

While I respect your opinion, I feel you're not taking video games into their proper context at all. Over thirty to forty years, this medium has progressed thoroughly, and to classify a zombie killing massacre so dismissively together with a strongly cinematic game like 'Heavy Rain' (a video game on the PS3) is purely unfair. Any proper piece of art should provoke emotion and/or thought. Not all paintings are art, not all films are art, and for the majority of video games, they are not art. But when you look past the WWII shooters and see something that has moving music, well rounded characters, an immersive plot and high levels of enjoyment, why should that be any different from a film? Would a video game where you play as Jack Nicholson bashing down doors with axes not be art even if you had the same plot, feel and dialogue as an artistic movie?

What I'm trying to get across is that there are video games that I would consider art. Video games give the ability to enjoy aesthetic points, involve the player and provoke what art should be provoking. If you've played titles like 'Zelda', ''Heavy Rain', 'Indigo Prophecy', 'Silent Hill' or 'Final Fantasy,' and not feel anything that one would when considering art, then that's okay, but on a wild guess, you haven't. If you could back up your argument with ideas regarding all video games (and not just a direct squabble with Santiago) then I'd most like agree wit you, but since you haven't, I really must say that you're just being narrow minded. Sorry.

This is off-topic, but I had to bring this to your notice.

You disliked Kick-Ass. I think even that would be an understatement. In your review, you go to great lengths to spoil its ending.. describing in detail the sequence of action and events that take place.

Yet, merely 4 years ago, you had written this blog entry-

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050129/COMMENTARY/501290301

criticizing other critics for spoiling the ending of a film, even if they didn't agree with its message.

Maybe you should practise what you preach.

Ebert: In what sense did I "spoil" the ending? Did you expect Hit Girl to get her ass kicked?

"Why aren't gamers content to play their games and simply enjoy themselves?"

I can answer that question. It's quite simple. Your definition of Video Games is primitive. You say A player plays a game, because they want to win at something. It becomes a competition, like Chess? Well It was like that in the early years of Video Games, but those that haven't been following Video Games, don't realize that certain Video Games have evolved into something more than just enjoyment.

There are certain Video Games that I have played, that have touched me on an emotional level. They've been compelling and moving experiences. That have actually made me cry. It was my own personal journey. It wasn't about winning, getting the high score or just enjoying myself. It was about discovering myself through a virtual landscape. That told me a wonderful story with characters I grew to care about, and the added depth to be able to control part of this Virtual Landscape only drew me closer to the experience. I wasn't just watching a movie presenting me a story. I was part of it.

What it boils down to is that you've taken Video Games and reduced them down to a basic level. It's like me telling today's moviegoers. Movies have no color or sound. Why do you keep saying they look so colorful and sound amazing? It's because I haven't seen a movie since the 1920's. That's what what you sound like Roger Ebert. When you tell gamers that Video Games can never be art.

I could ask the same question the same question to you. Why aren't movie goers content to watch their movies and simply enjoy themselves? Why should they want films to be considered art?

Sir, I respectfully must explain why your views of video games are fueled by ignorance.

Any form of art must be experienced in it's own way. When you look at the Mona Lisa, you can acknowledge it as art. That is how this particular form of media is meant to be appreciated. Regardless of how much you analyze the work in question, it is still a static image.

Now let's take a look at a movie, Citizen Kane for example. To truly appreciate it as an art form, you have to experience it in the way it was meant to be experienced; by watching it.

If you attempt to view it in the same method you would view the Mona Lisa, by looking at a paused, static frame of the film, you simply cannot appreciate what it truly is. This is simply because that is not the way to experience it.

The same can be said with the way one must listen to music, read a book, or indeed, play a video game in order to properly experience and judge it. You certainly cannot rate a meal simply by looking at it, why would video games be any different?

Sir, I beg of you; play a video game. Then, should you choose to berate it, even going as far as to call an internationally critically acclaimed video game "pathetic", you will then at least have a somewhat informed opinion on the material in question.

Only then, just as you have done with literally countless films in your time, can you say you have truly experienced it.

Thank you for your time, I do greatly appreciate it.

My greatest disconnect with your running stance on this is that you're ignoring the most basic tenet of games as a medium: quite simply, they are defined by their interactivity. Not by goals, or by scores. If you're not interacting with them, you're not experiencing the relationship that makes them what they are in the first place.

Would it be fair for me to critique any film, never mind the entire medium, only ever having listened to films, or perhaps glanced a scene here or there? It doesn't matter how many examples are thrown at you to dismiss; you're not playing them, so they're equally irrelevant.

Gamers' frustration and outcry with your argument - or at least mine - isn't based on defending them as art. We know that they are. It's that we've had these incredible, literally life-changing experiences with them, as much as with any film, album, or book; more often than not, it's a whole lot more than "simply enjoying myself". But I can understand why you wouldn't appreciate that, or see the potential for it, based on the way you've interacted with them (or haven't, more appropriately).

Sit down and play an hour of Flower - actually play it - and then you can condemn it or under-appreciate it all you like; most gamers do already. It's relaxing, it's exhilarating, it's creatively and intellectually inspiring. And over the course of its narrative arc - yes, you read that correctly - it develops an emotional resonance and a lasting impression that dwarfs the simple mechanics that you could no doubt forcibly distill it to. Within ten minutes of playing the game, my complete non-gamer, 56 year-old father's mouth was agape. He had no clue that that's what games could be, and he didn't know because he'd never interacted with them AS games.

If it means you'll play it, I'll happily mail you a Nintendo DS and a copy of Electroplankton - you can hold it in your hand, play it by touching it, and won't have to bother with learning anything. The barrier of entry for you truly having an informed voice in this discussion is remarkably low. After all, if a random music critic watched a couple of scenes from your five favorite films and dismissed the medium as not being art, you'd simply laugh it off. If it was someone you greatly respected, you'd feel more than a little exasperated. No?

Not to degrade your opinion, but this is one area where you are not qualified to be a judge. It'd be like me going up to you and saying that movies can't be art because they're too short: "No one is going to watch a 30 hour movie!" That's just part of their form, and you wield that to your advantage if you make them into art. Unless you pick up that controller and play ICO or Braid yourself, and really invest time and concentration, then you can't say it isn't art. More importantly, you can't dismiss an entire form based on a few examples. Technically, I could link you to a number of games as good as the best movies - I'd stick Grim Fandango up as a worthy and possibly superior answer to Casablanca, for instance - but unless you sit down and play them for a few hours, you haven't got the necessary tools to dissect or criticize. It's demeaning.

Roger, you should visit the "i am 8-bit" art Exhibit some time. They showcase some wonderful paintings of Retro Video Games. It's beautiful Art you can hang up on your wall.

Totally agree with Roger. I spent a couple years in art and animation courses and was often the lone dissenter on the Video Games as Art debate. Video games are horrible at telling stories, and I will stand on Fumito Ueda's coffee table in muddy boots and tell him so.

One fatal flaw is Pacing. Too many times a game devolves into repetitive attempts to complete an action. The player must do something elemental yet totally uninteresting, such as clear a jump, strike an enemies weak spot multiple times, or find a missing key/MacGuffin. If the player fails they must reattempt or start over. People say Shadow of Colossus is ART but i have had to watch a friend spend an interminable time taking down a boss and it was simply boring. Imagine a book or film stopping and meandering while the audience and the characters felt out the situation. I cannot understand people who feel deep emotion with video games because video games fail to handle pacing as well as established artistic genres. Literature and Film both allow the creator to navigate the audience through the work. There are natural rhythms and currents in a story, and there is beauty and art when creator shows great ability to understand this. A gifted artist can fine tune words, phrases, and imagery to elicit a response. How can a story be art if you cause the virtuous hero to stumble off a ledge in the climatic battle because your thumb was sweaty?

Second fatal flaw is a player's influence on a character's choices. In The Godfather, Michael Corleone didn't want to be a part of the mob, but he found himself dragged into it. Theoretically, a player playing The Godfather game would succeed if they kept Michael away from the mob. That is, after all, the desire that defines his character at the beginning of the story. What happens when a player is attempting to influence a character whose arc is antithetical to their desires? The best story is Michael Corleone's entry into the Mafia, therefore your character must fail in it's initial course of action. Of course, some genius designer has a solution to this problem, but I imagine a lot of sidestepping and forced failures which will make either the play or story suffer. The game Shadow of Colossus, the game everyone mentions for it's artistic merit, ends with the hero being dragged into a well. My friends sat watching and wondered if we could have stopped it from happening. We played the game for hours, appearing to influence the story, aware of little clues of something greater, and at the climax we were impotent.

Third fatal flaw. Simply put, a game must involve a player influencing the rule-based setup to reach a goal. I will say games are art when they have no goals, no successes, and yet are still gratifying. Gratifying like Gregory Peck walking away from Audrey Hepburn at the end of Roman Holiday. Gratifying like the bittersweet boat-ride at the conclusion to Love in the Time of Cholera. Gratifying like when, in Love and Rockets, Maggie and Ray meet again after a decade apart, and have little to say...

Mister Ebert. As a critic, would you label a movie as art before you saw it? Before you read a book? Before you viewed a painting or sculpture?

If the answer is no. Then why is it fair to say games are not art before you have experienced them? Watching a few trailers does not give you the knowledge to critique a game. Same as you would not use a trailer to critique a movie.

In short, unless you actually sit down and play games people have recommended, you have zero creditability.

Once you truly understand the medium, then you can debate if video games are not "art."

So if a chess set can itself be a work of art as you mentioned earlier why can't the elements of a video game, the background, the dialog, the color pallet, the coding itself be works of art in their own right. I would agree that the act of playing a game may not be an act of creating art but those who created a game using the same principles and creative process that go into painting or movie are creating individual works of are that contribute to the finished product.

I have written some code in my youth and while I'm not cut out to do that sort of thing full time the feeling i would get when writing lines of code was the same feeling of creativity. While my teacher in the programming class criticized the way i wrote the code for my program it felt better to me because i was expressing myself instead of following the pre-outlined process to write the program requested.

While i will never point it out as a shining beacon of humanity i would like to present the "game" second life as evidence that gaming can be art. Many people use second life to create art which they choose to present in a digital medium and their avatars are capable of interaction which could in rare cases be described as performance art.

I am not an expert in philosophy or an art critic but i understand how art makes me feel and how creating art makes me feel and i can say with some certainty that the act of creating a game that evokes an emotion, stirs controversy, or just felt right to make is the act of creating art.

This was a long winded and fairly sloppily written comment but i hope it is read and at least considered.

"Art is the opportunity for love between strangers."

Not horribly useful, I know, but when looking at the liberties you've taken with your personal definition of "game" I think I'm entitled.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophical_Investigations#Meaning_and_definition

Beyond tossing out a shallow definition you're also glossing over the important difference in playing a game versus designing one. Couple that with your lack of experience on either side of the screen (this metaphor doesn't work as well as I want it to) and it's hard for fans of the form not to see your opinion as willfully ignorant.

A while back, over twitter, you linked to some foreign horror flick that had the audience interacting with the main character via cellphone. Now, granted, this concept is pretty awful and the trailer certainly didn't ring of masterpiece. But, one of the concerns you raised was what happens when an audience member fails to answer to the call. I believe this was under the assumption the movie just halt.

We can both see that isn't the proper the way to handle a lack of input. What you're missing is that this also is a chance to impress something on the viewer. Maybe our polite viewer causes our protagonist to hesitate a second too long, doesn't escape the murder unscathed and she ends up limping through the rest of the film. One particular viewer gets a unique view on inaction and responsibility. Or maybe the only way she escapes is learning to trust her own instincts and the whole thing is a lesson about turning your phone off in a movie. This isn't subtle or well developed, but there is something behind this choice. It might be too manipulative to really consider it art, but these options, versus your immediate assumptions, help illustrate a lack of understanding when it comes to interactivity. And it's this lack that causes people like me to blanche whenever you start discussing games.

Obviously, I should not care what Roger Ebert thinks of videogames. If we were to apply the standards for knowledge he puts forth for movie trivia, to videogames, I assume (perhaps erroneously) that he would fail. But as I stated earlier it's precisely this ignorance that makes things so intolerable.

When you state that game design is not art, it comes off as "your form of expression isn't valid." By belittling the form you're following in the path Jack Thompson and others who have tried to censor or ban videogames. It's far too easy to paint you with the same brush. Just another in a long line of judgemental assholes who purport to know what a video game can't or shouldn't handle. If you were more familiar with the history you'd realize this is more than just personal justification.

I guess I'll wrap up. I do have great respect for your writing and your opinions, but in this case you've pretty much missed the boat. I also hope this doesn't just get straw manned as "roger doesn't get it." I hope haven't offended and have done a reasonable job representing the other side of the arguement and my personal insights.

PS: just to keep that first quote related:

gamecrush.com

If you're going to critize a medium and community do so for the right reasons.

Santiago has it all wrong. Only very specific games can be narrative implements. When utilized properly, they exist as pseudo-free simulations. Like a room of glass mirrors, the limited simulation will grant you the illusion of free will, but will place you in a position under which all possible outcomes are dictated by the writer or narrator.

No current game on the market even approaches the underlying potential of videogames as a storytelling medium. They are too interested in shooting one another to even attempt to consider complicating the perspective of the player in any way or considering some measure of interaction that is not shooting something in the face. In order for an artistic medium to first even begin to come into its own, it must first understand what it can and cannot accomplish, what it is and is not, and how best to craft a narrative around its own structural limitations.

Nobody in videogames as they currently exist is interested in this. They are all perpetually interested with being little more than empty-headed facsmiles of Michael Bay plotlines.

Now is there a potential for narratives to exist in the videogame format that could not be as well-told in other mediums? Yes. But nobody is currently exploring those possibilities today, and few people in the videogame industry are even interested. As you say Roger, the majority of people in the videogame industry are there to focus their talents on creating new variations on 'foursquare' and 'cops and robbers'. But the medium itself still harbors potential, it's just that nobody is interested in pursuing it.

Hi Roger, as I am sure many other readers have pointed out already that there is considerable 'artistry' at the very least that goes into making the atmosphere and creativity of the games. I think it would be fair to acknowledge that there is more to a game than:

"Development, Finance, Publishing, Marketing, Education, and Executive Management."

If these divisions alone were to come up with a video game, then yes, surely it would be entirely devoid of art. Yet obviously it takes more that. Bottom line is to make any good video game, you will need lots of creative, artistic types. I am not a graphic designer so I can't argue on their behalf that they qualify as true artists. But I would make the case that as they are artists working on it- surely the end product of an artists' labor of love qualifies to some degree as art.

According to your argument, it would be difficult to claim that any advertisements at all would qualify as art (certainly some do). Or any other medium that combines artistry with a commercial function: cartoons for example are structured basically as 'games' to observed, not participated in.

Lastly, I would like to point out that in your review of the awful 2007 film 'Hitman', you commented that 'Hitman stands right on the threshold between video games and art. On the wrong side of the threshold, but still, give it credit.' Then you went on to praise the producers for not basing the film on the game. That is truly a pity, because to people that have played the game, it sounded like a rather ignorant comment. In fact, it was the other way around, Hitman the film is a mindless pubescent violence orgy, while the game is actually about USING AS LITTLE VIOLENCE AS POSSIBLE. In 'Hitman' the game, the objective is to achieve an assassination with as little notoriety as possible. A skilled player can complete these missions like a ghost and an amateur will behave as Tim Olyphant in the film. Therein lies the artistry- a game like Mah Jong can only have so many mathematical outcomes, while in Hitman, it is possible to play it so the outcome is never quite the same.

I spend a lot of time thinking about art. I'm a MA Candidate in creative writing and I've had my battles with pop poetry, pop fiction and of course surrealism. I get grumpy and I imagine, when I get older, I'll get even more grumpy.

That's sort of what it feels like happening with Roger. He wrote a review of a rated R movie by using the slippery-slope argument usually reserved for the legislators in my home state (Texas). "Well yeah, it's rated R, but what if a kid did see Kickass--then wouldn't it be bad?" I don't think Roger Ebert from 20 years ago would have bought or allowed that argument in defense of his medium.

By the way, his medium isn't all that old in the scheme of history--and has produced more duds than classics. It's amazing that the aging always point the finger at the new and scold it for being less. There was a time when a guy a lot like Roger Ebert talked about how Rock and Role wasn't real art--or how films weren't really art. Some guy out there who only believed in the great novels certainly died thinking film was an egoist's fad.

Yet, when new art begins to shape the world and the way we inhabit it--the old guard begins to worry. They feel threatened and pushed out and sometimes angry. Usually they don't have a clue what they're talking about, yet still rail on as if having expertise in one area gives them claim on the new.

It does not, and as with every generation, art will be defined by the artists and the divine--not by the pundits and the critics. Rilke would have preferred it that way, and I certainly prefer it that way.

Art is about emotion, imagination and it's marriage with the intellect. Lorca used to talk about Duende and said that it was Duende that allowed the spirit to interact with and divine meaning from art before the intellect had time to engage.

Gaming, when done right, is a moment when the creative force of ideas is married with the willful and wandering spirit of someone in their living room--with no knowledge of the artist's pure intent. Playing a game is like a close reading of a poem--you abandon the intentional fallacy and you simply experience something.

If that doesn't appeal to you, then you shouldn't worry about it. But you also shouldn't assume that you can wish it out of the artistic conversation.

After all, film has been an uneven "art form" and if you want to start pointing at bad examples of film I'm pretty sure we could use completely specious arguments to negate your preferred art form as well. You mention a game about Waco--which I assure you doesn't resonate with the gaming community at all--well I'll give you Core, or Battlefield Earth.

We can negate my art form as well, if you like, by bringing up Hallmark Cards and books by reality TV stars.

Or, we can stop being silly and realize that we're getting older and becoming just like everyone else who gets old and watches the world change. It's scary, it's lonely--but fighting a battle against the youth just counters the reputation you build for so many years.

I wish you the best, even as you're on your way to missing the next great art form as it evolves.

I'd like to repeat and underline Adam Yim's point: dismissing computer games as a medium based on videos and descriptions is like dismissing the movies after seeing some stills and descriptions. I haven't played any of the games in question above, but here are some good interactive fiction recs: http://nickm.com/if/rec.html

I cannot agree that gaming/video games are art, nor can i agree that they aren't. However, the discussion can't be is "this massive group of interactive, multicensorial, experiences art?", in my opinion the discussion can only be "is X example art." In order to have that discussion both participants must have had an equal oportunity to experience what is being discussed, X.

Your arguments about chess is valid because you are taking a clearly defined example and discussing it. Chess doesn't changes, it has clear objectives and how it is interacted with is very clearly defined.

When you say video games can never be art, you are talking about something that has dozens of genres/sub genres, that is constantly changing from game to game, and is becoming increasingly difficult to define.

I can argue certain games are artistic, as i can argue certain games are not. Groups can never be all one thing, or never something else.

Groups always have a way of surprising us, because we can never everything that's in them.

What we do know is white always goes first, and knights can't seem to get past miming L's and 7's

I hope you'll forgive for a follow-up comment, and yet another in what I'm sure is to be a wide variety of recommendations of games that are also 'art', but there's a few things that set the game "Portal" apart from the crowd:

- It's short. From start to finish, it won't take you more than a few hours.

- It's cheap. About $20 for the stand-alone game on Steam.

- It's easily available. It was released in 2007 and is available for download on Steam, a free game download service which can be found within a few moments searching on google. A brief download later and you're set.

- It's friendly to those inexperienced with games. Simple controls, simple gameplay and a simple concept.

- It meshes fun gameplay with a minimalistic plot while still being both amazingly creative and, frankly, one of the most ingeniously hilarious things I've ever played.

As mentioned above, it is intentionally quite minimalist and it superficially resembles the kind of game you seem to think of when you say 'video game.' But it deconstructs that kind of game from start to finish. If you want to see why some people think of games as art but don't have 60+ hours to wind your way through the borderline graphic novel-ish stuff like "Planescape: Torment" or other such massive investments of time and energy, "Portal" is probably your best bet.

I find debates such as this rather comforting. As long as there is still no absolute consensus as to what *is* and *is not* art, then possibilities and explorations and discoveries continue to unfold. I think art - by ANY definition that can be put forth - would cease to exist if any one definition could be found to perfectly articulate and contain the whole nature of it.

Very few few games approach anything like art. The ones that might be said to often do so through visual imagery or through their narratives, which share many similarities with movies, or books. I'd argue that they are past chicken scratch, but concede your point. Still, there is a style of indie game that explores how you relate to the world directly through the game mechanics themselves.

This is a fundamentally new type of expression -- one that could never be accomplished through a medium that doesn't have interaction. It's what makes video games unique. I'm sure you've gotten a lot of comments already, but what I'll say is this -- check out Passage, by Jason Rohrer. It's still just chicken scratch, I'll admit. But it's the clearest light towards games that I would consider art, on their own merits, using what is unique and special to the medium. I think that when Passage was released was a revolutionary moment for the entire medium of videogames.

Video games are absolutely a legitimate form of art. Art is anything that causes someone to believe it to be so, that is all. It's completely subjective. You don't consider games art, but there are many people who do and we're growing fast as modern tools allow more and more individuals to express their ideas through this powerful new medium.

There is a movement happening, Ebert, far deeper than your thumbs can reach. Video games will be regarded as a form of art by the public before most of us die. Mark my words.

Regards,
R. Mutt

Why are gamers concerned with games being considered art? Why are film-watchers concerned about film being considered art? You could lump it into the same category as the newspaper or television news, an archival medium. You can slide anything around to support a viewpoint that doesn't make sense.

Roger,

Your role as a respected critic is not under question because of this article, you have rightfully earned your place to comment on such matters, so the below is not a personal attack on your opinion or person. But I feel that there is a generation factor here. Art, that is paintings on a wall or a play have failed to stir up the same kind of emotions that I have experienced while playing some truly beautiful and artful titles such as Okami, Braid, Portal and flOw.

As a published video game critic in Scotland I have had to defend the whole 'game as art' stance my entire professional career. However, I have never once looked down on naysayers because I understand that these people are my se jot and therefore are not 'digital natives' The term is widely used now for those having grown up in a work with video games and the Internet, so immersed in technology that they grow up as adept users.

I am not a digital native, I have seen both sides of the coin, but those bob wrote gaming became the cultural phenomenon it is today often have this mental block that prevnts them from acknowledging video games true worth and overlookingthe rank stigmatism placed upon it by news networks, uneducated 'experts' an fearmongers.

I propose that a game alone cannot be art. You do not place a game upon a mantle or in a picture frame to display as a static piece. It is an experience, a journey rich in narrative, grandiose orchestral scores, beautifully crafted worlds and visual art. Is a game art? No I don't believe it is either, but each game is artful, drawing together the breathtaking works of hundreds of concept artists, music composers, script writers, amazing voice actors and more.

These elements are the true art, the game itself is the frame that it is presented in. People who get it, are likely digital natives or long term fans of games, those who don't are typically from the pre-gaming generation or those who refuse to believe that gaming has any merit or social/cultural currency whatsoever.

With this in mind, I realise that it will be impossible to sway you on this issue, but again, no one can or should hold you at fault on this as gaming simply isn't your world. Giving these games a shot for yourself however, will show that you tried. Why not review a few as you would a film? It might even be fun and I'm sure your readers would appreciate it.

Thanks for your time Robert, keep up the good work.

Dave

Dear lord, this post is long, but I pray you bear with me. I assume you posted this to invite the discussion of "gamers" like myself, so, here is my rebuttal:

A video game, a good one, inherently isn't a game. The object of such a game is not to win, but to get to the end so you can find out how it ends, and experience the culmination of the story. The interactive aspect of the game is simply to get the viewer more into the narrative."
-Jeremy Young

Hoo boy, Roger, I know I'm not the first to say it, but first the one-star (???) Kick-Ass Review and now this? I have to say, I've never agreed with you on the whole "video games can't be art" thing, but it never bothered me. I've always felt that you just don't feel that way because you've never experienced a game that speaks to you (or any games at all, for all I know.) (And for the record those above 3 games are poor, poor choices to hold up as the best "art" video games have to offer.)

So when I saw the title of your latest blog post, I was hoping you'd finally, in detail, address why you felt that way and maybe give me some challenging thoughts to consider on the subject. But then all you do is cherry-pick this one woman who gave a presentation you happened to see and make a lot of vague talk about what art is and isn't, bouncing around, never coming to your own conclusion of what art is, finally denouncing video game's potential to ever really be considered art.

This isn't a post about video games. This is a post deconstructing somebody's presentation on video games as art and using it as fodder for your curmudgeonly decision to refuse to see games as art at all (or any time in the next 70 or 80 years). But your logic doesn't hold up. Consider this. Before moving pictures were made, we just had pictures, and plenty of them were considered art. Hell, before pictures, we had actual painted art. Go back to then, and imagine talking to someone about how photography would be considered an art way down the line in the future. They'd call you bonkers. How in the heck could picture-taking ever be considered art? I know many photographers today who would disagree with them. And even worse - film! Just a flip-book of thousands and thousands of individually taken pictures. How is that art, those people so long ago would ask, just taking pictures of what's already there?

Yet you and I can both agree that films are most definitely art. And it's because with each introduction of a new medium (photography, film, and now video games), rules have naturally evolved to encompass that medium. Much of the vocabulary we use today to describe whether a film is "good" art is vocabulary that didn't exist 150 years ago. Relative to these two, video gaming is still in its infancy, and I think that's where your issues with it lie.

Video games came on the scene less than thirty years ago, so it's not surprising that they're struggling to find their way still. And considering the immense cost of video games, it's also not surprising that money-making distributors and developers churn out crap sandwich after crap sandwich. But that doesn't sound also suspiciously like Hollywood's greed that churns out so much tripe like "The Ugly Truth" and "Old Dogs"? And Hollywood has people like the Coens, Quentin Tarantino, people who use the studios to produce products (yes, products) that they love and that they hope audiences will love. The video game industry has similar people, people who work against the norm and try to produce work they can be proud of. Not that you'll ever play these, but I urge you to check out this list, of 10 Games that Should be Considered Art
http://www.cracked.com/blog/defending-the-habit-10-video-games-as-modern-art

And on top of it all, I'm surprised that you, of all people, can't understand all of gaming's potential for crafting a unique immersive experience that's separate from movies but not their lesser. I can't believe that you arbitrarily dock gaming a few points for being able to "win" in them. How...how does this even work? What, just because you can't "win" in movies or paintings? Think about it this way. Imagine me describing a movie to an artist who lived 300 years ago. "So you sit down and you watch a series of pictures that seem like they're moving, and it's people talking and going about their lives, and then it ends after a brief story, and it lasts an hour and a half to two hours, usually." There was no available language at that time to describe all the intricacies that would later bring film into its status as an art form. Why should there have been?

Likewise, does it not make sense that the video game developers are still finding their legs with this can of worms, and have yet to fully reach their potential? You like to point out most of the mindless shooter crap that gets plastered all over the consoles as a serious denunciation of video games as a whole, but this is blatantly unfair. If you took film and put all the good movies that were released one year on one side of a scale, and all the bad ones on the other, the balance would tip pretty heavily in favor of the crappy, my friend.

Video games themselves also have a dramatically different history from film. Movies were places you went outside to, while gaming was for people who just wanted to stay home and kill a few hours. Either way, you're killing hours, and whether it's a crappy movie or a crappy game the amount of time wasted is the EXACT SAME. So why rag on video games for simply having a different evolution than film?

What about games that have a great story (Bioshock)? That paint their worlds with gorgeous animation and creative bursts of energy (Okami)? Or that use the medium itself to engage the player while creating a devilishly clever story that subverts the very concept of gaming and also inserts a satirical bent to the proceedings (Portal)?

Anyways, I'm not blaming you for not enjoying gaming. It's not for everyone, but you can't keep denouncing it like this and not expect us long-time gamers to cry "UNFAIR" and furiously type out pages-long responses.

The point is this. We know gaming, as you so clearly don't. We've played games, lived them, had amazing experiencees with them, some of which rank among my favorite multimedia (film, music, games) experiences ever. And they're not just my favorite because I got to the end and collected all the stars and saved the Princess. Reducing gaming to such simple concepts like this (as you so often do) insults us, and I think it's why video gamers bristle when people like you turn their nose up at our favorite products and sniff snootily.

Why we enjoy games is because of the experiences we have with them, HOW we get to the end, the insanely creative paths you can take to get there, and everything in between. Sounds a bit familiar, doesn't it? It's like accusing a movielover of only going to the movies so they can see the ending. What goes around comes around, Roger. :-)

@Ebert
"One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome. 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."

Would you then concede that the interactive medium can create works artistic value? Especially when stripped of player agency - when 'all' it is, as you've aptly described, is a representation of a story.

Moon: Remix RPG Adventure (to an extent - please forgive the name) and the titles that followed from the same developer, retreading themes is a better example than Santiago's. In addition, we have Fumito Ueda's Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, the two flag bearers of any such discussion. Sadly, these are really the only 2 1/2 examples of interactive artistry, and they're not perfect. Nor are they worthy of comparison to great artists from other media.

I've never personally cared enough for games to consider them art, but they're merely a subset of the interactive medium, which I maintain is rich with potential, but is so poorly represented (case in point, Ms. Santiago and her middling examples).

I believe most gamers are referring to that interactive medium, and not mere games, which have been around for centuries before Space Invaders. Of course, there are those that hold up uninspiring works completely void of artistry, like the latest Super Mario or Shooting Gallery, which you may dismiss without hesitation.

Why do these people care if their games are consider "art" or not. We do they need the validation? If they want to call the E3 expo a museum of fine art let them. I think maybe one day in a galaxy far far away, video games will be at a higher level, but the examples they have today are for the birds (or chickens). Now I was raised on video games, Nintendo couldn't been considered my babysitter. There are games I love, like Ico and Final Fantasy Series, but let's face it at the end of the day, you can only play those things so many times till they are BORING! Come to think of it, chicken scratch leaves much to the imagination and might have a longer lifespan than any video game (a low blow, yes I know, but I couldn't help myself). I find it interesting that as an avid follower of your blog, I see so many posts from people that never post on any of the other subjects you blog about, but the minute you talk about video games or comic book movies in a bad light, they come out the wood works, with classic saying such as; "you just don't get it". Get what exactly? That your opinion is different then there's? Since they have such strong convictions, and really need seem to want that validation of "art", I really hope to see more links to their blogs with wonderful defenses of video games. I would like this to be the dawn of a "New" and fantastic medium.Now that would be a good go at it, but all I seem to read is hasty generalizations leading into the chewbacca defense. I would like to see a good defense of that point of view (and I wouldn't call them ego-centric or arrogant for having an opinion on the internet).

Don't worry Rog your not "too old" or "not getting it", your still a quick draw. I just think some people don't like a rebel with a cause, stirring up trouble in their parts of town (the internet). Keep Kick'n-Ass.

And I'm curious, by the way - have you ever actually played a video game? And if you have, you clearly have played none of the best that most gamers I know champion (Psychonauts, Ico, Heart of Darkness).

If I had only seen two movies before in my life and was asked to judge their respectibility as an art form, how much faith would you have in my decision if those two movies were The Bounty Hunter and Old Dogs? Worse yet, how much faith would you have if I had only seen a *presentation* about these films?

Perhaps now you can sympathize a bit more with us gamers who are so baffled by your decision to judge something so harshly about which you have virtually no experience.

Roger,

It is really sad to see how wrong you are, but you are totally wrong. Why are you so close-minded towards videogames? You are a smart person, so this is really baffling. It kind of seems like you are a videogame bigot. You are sure you are right and no person or fact can convince you otherwise. You are clearly ignorant of the games you condemn. Many modern videogames do not have a score, many videogames have not had a "win" condition since the early days of arcades, and in braid you don't simply "take back moves", you manipulate the flow of time backwards and forwards in order to solve thoughtful puzzles.

I feel sorry for you at this point that you are denying yourself the ability to experience the art that videogames are. Ultimately it doesnt matter what you think. You have an opinion based on ignorance that younger generations do not share. You limited definition of art will not survive as time marches forward.

It's interesting you would allow the animators, writers, programmers (perhaps), and musicians that work on the game to identify as artists, but not allow the sum of their work to be called art.

Can the rules and mechanics of a game in itself be considered art? Maybe. They certainly can manipulate and excite the mind in some way, but never mind that, now. A great video game is full of amazing visual art, beautiful music and engaging, thought provoking stories. Why dismiss all that just because it's also a challenging, entertaining game? Besides, you really shouldn't judge video games so harshly based on those three examples and certainly not without actually playing them. Think of the articles that have been written throughout the last century about how movies could never be art, comic books could never be art, pop music could never be art. I'm sure you don't think that compares to this, but to a lot of us, that's exactly what it feels like. It's probably a generational thing, so I don't really blame you. I'm sure my parents would say the same thing because they never got into it either. But imagine yourself as kid, into sci-fi and comic books, if someone had presented you with this way of visiting strange planets as a space explorer discovering ancient civilizations and fighting outrageous monsters, or solving sinister mysteries as a hard-boiled detective, or racing your favorite cars at break-neck speed, or rescuing the princess from an evil wizard's castle. I bet you would have totally loved it and you would have grown to respect the medium as a valid form of entertainment, and sometimes even art, like any other. I don't really mind if you don't think video games can be art, but I do wish you wouldn't be so broadly dismissive and unnecessarily down on them all the time.

By the way, thanks for writing your reviews and blog. You've moved me sometimes to tears and many times to laughter. Always a good read

As many of the authors above, I am a big fan of yours and even a member of your club. I've been reading your reviews since I visited Chicago in 1998 and almost always found something of value for my viewing of films.

Having written that, I must add that your view on video games is a mystery to me. It is incredibly ironic that a lover of film, a medium itself once dismissed in its entirety as "petty entertainment", now dismisses another medium with similar arguments. It's like a case of the bullied becoming the bully.

I don't believe the art is in the medium itself; a film is not art simply because it's a film. In the same way, I don't think a video game should be considered un-artistic just because it's a video game.

Though I disagree with you, I really enjoyed reading this. Thanks and keep up the good work.

Dear Mr. Ebert...

I am not sure I understand the question. I am about to write an essay contrasting what the Western world considers art and what the native Hawaiians considered art. Just what is art? The Hawaiians didn't create oil paintings or frescoes or marble statues. Yet that is an old way of thinking about art. In more contemporary times, even a urinal can be considered art.

I should have prefaced this with some background. My original major in college was printmaking, specifically intaglio etching. Like lithography, etching was a craft at one time or a means of communication and mass production. Now, one hardly uses either for anything but art. Even today, not all printmaking is art because sometimes photography is not considered an art (and what would have been the second type of printmaking I would study much later). Often there will be printmaking exhibits, but photography will be not be accepted.

Yes, just what is art? Currently I study jewelry making and you are not likely to find discussions on jewelry making in your average art history class. It is not an art, it is a craft. Just who makes that decision?

I currently write about dancing and just this week, after following the guidance of my former manager, I wrote about "Dancing with the Stars," "America's Best Dance Crew" and "America's Got Talent" under the category of recreation/sports. That manager has moved on and up, but the new managers now believe that this is really arts and entertainment but I can still write about dance auditions under recreation, but not the shows that results from these auditions.

So not only do I not know what printmaking or photography are really (art versus craft versus vocational skill), I no longer really know what dancing is.

As for video games, they may or may not be art. But they can be funny. I recently found a World of Warcraft Dancing with the Stars video. It isn't art, but it's definitely amusing.

I think someday, even if video games aren't art, I think they will be used as art--performance art. If a urinal can be art or a man playing chess with a naked woman can be art, then there are a lot of mundane, boring and silly things that can be considered art.

For the record, I do not play video games. My husband does. I prefer to play with my dog.

Two of my favourite writers of all time are film critics - you Roger, and a Brit named Mark Kermode. Kermode is frequently asked his opinions on all aspects of videogaming, and his answer is always the same: "I don't know anything about videogames. Ask someone who does."

My girlfriend and I had a two-hour long conversation a few weeks ago after she caused the death of a central character in David Cage's Heavy Rain. It was a conversation similar in scope and depth to the one we had after I showed her Life Is Sweet for the first time.

I love you Rog, but remember that it is never deplorable to plead ignorance!

I wrote a longer, better, and more detailed response to this but the page reloaded itself and it all disappeared so this is going to be shorter and sloppier, and I greatly apologize for that.

"For example, I tend to think of art as usually the creation of one artist... Everybody didn't start dancing all at once."

This is true of video games, the person who generally gets credit for a video game is the designer (see: Shigeru Miyamoto, Hideo Kojima, Peter Molyneux, Tim Shafer, Sid Meier)

The main problem I have with your argument (other than the choice of argument to debate against, which I have to agree was very weak) is that your argument seems to be that because you control the game to a certain extent, it takes away from it being an experience in and of itself. However, I feel that in many cases the gameplay serves to allow you to experience well-crafted music, art design (Nintendo and Konami do these particularly well), and, in much rarer instances, plot and characters (Fallout's plot may not be Shakespeare, but I think it's chicken scratches). The gameplay, the graphics (specifically the art design), the music, and the plot all serve each other. Take away these elements from a game like The Legend of Zelda and you've lost a lot of what made it what it was.

I look forward to your next blog post, your writing is always interesting and entertaining.

A game is not just it's mechanics. That's the single point of failure in this comparison.

As my good friend once said, you are indeed a cassette, and unfortunately, you just don't get it.

Having read other comments, here and on other forums, I feel the urge to smack more sense into these people than you have, Roger.

There is an annoying but small group of people who will insist games are art on the grounds that they are a creative act.

If developers are, by that definition, artists, so are cobblers and auto-makers. They create products made for mass consumption, differentiated from those two only by the developer's intention to make the game entertaining, rather than merely functional.

Art is not an interaction between the work and the audience where the audience can alter the work. If it must be an interaction, because people have this incessant need to project themselves into films and novels (then turning it around and claiming the artwork speaks to them - Ha!) it is only possible through a carefully constructed and cohesive work that consistently communicates with that audience.

This means SimCity is out with its sandbox gameplay. It means branching narratives actually constitute 2 stories. It means Mother 3, GTA4 and Bioshock fail the test because of the incongruence of narrative and the gameplay that pads out the bits inbetween cutscenes (or vice versa?).

Games will never be narrative art. They will never be expressive art. Not in the way that we consider film, painting and music to be.

With regards to this part of your article:

"Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art? Bobby Fischer, Michael Jordan and Dick Butkus never said they thought their games were an art form. Nor did Shi Hua Chen, winner of the $500,000 World Series of Mah Jong in 2009. Why aren't gamers content to play their games and simply enjoy themselves? They have my blessing, not that they care."

Those people you mentioned are ones who excelled at their games, the people who are arguing for games as art usually suck at games and don't really understand them (do they even like them?). None of the gamers who win at the level of those people you mentioned ever utter the words "games" in "art" in the same sentence.

The "games as art" crowd have a different equivalent in the games mentioned above. They're more like Sports Accessory journalists or people who frequent forums about nice looking chess sets.

I write all this as a longtime avid gamer. Thanks for this article, Ebert! You understand games better than %99 of game critics.

With regards to this part of your article:

"Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art? Bobby Fischer, Michael Jordan and Dick Butkus never said they thought their games were an art form. Nor did Shi Hua Chen, winner of the $500,000 World Series of Mah Jong in 2009. Why aren't gamers content to play their games and simply enjoy themselves? They have my blessing, not that they care."

Those people you mentioned are ones who excelled at their games, the people who are arguing for games as art usually suck at games and don't really understand them (do they even like them?). None of the gamers who win at the level of those people you mentioned ever utter the words "games" in "art" in the same sentence.

The "games as art" crowd have a different equivalent in the games mentioned above. They're more like Sports Accessory journalists or people who frequent forums about nice looking chess sets.

I write all this as a longtime avid gamer. Thanks for this article, Ebert! You understand games better than %99 of game critics.

You know Mr. Ebert, my friends know that I will be discussing this with them, many of them agree with me, many of them agree with you. I can meet your point of view half way, to a casual observer who doesn't play games the way the industry presents itself comes across as very shallow and very juvenile. However, have you ever tried to even play some of the more engrossing games of the current generations? I'm talking something like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Bioshock, Elder Scrolls, Skies of Arcadia, Dragon Warrior, Eternal Darkness? I would asume not.

I have to ask myself, have I found a game that moves me as much as Schindler's List or Princess Mononoke did? I have actually, but I know most haven't, the artform is still in it's infancy however. I doubt people seeing Gertie The Dinosaur felt any emotional impact other than "wow that looks amazing" and animation wasn't art back then, it was just something of passing interest. However people viewing todays animated films like Avatar or Spirited Away have much more lasting emotional responses, some of them life-changing. Animated movies are now considered art.

In the end, you are entitled to you opinion Mr. Ebert, but I think you do yourself a great dis-service by not even trying to meet gamers halfway, instead you talk in absolutes. Games will be considered high-art someday, it's only a matter of time before society accepts it. Obviously there are many of us out here trying to get it accepted as art, not for self esteem issues, but because we know the power of games to impact our lives in ways no other art form has or can.

Tell me Mr. Ebert, have you found a movie as emotionally impacting on you as I found Skies of Arcadia on the SEGA Dreamcast was to me? I doubt you have heard of that game, it's not the best game, it comes across as fairly indie in it's quality at times, but the elements came together in such the right way that I find myself drawn into the world completely. I know more about that world than I do my own. The same could be said for Mass Effect or Dragon Age, games that have touched me deeply, with characters I feel for and strive to know better. I have to understand their plight and their lives. No movie has ever done that, because in no movie is finding that information an option. As the viewer you are given what they give you, there is no more info than what is immediately on the screen. Each time a play these games there is another layer removed, allowing me to dig deeper to the core.

Sure there might be hidden hints in a movie, in the background or in the color or blocking of a scene, but in a game, in a game Mr Ebert you are in the world, you can influence it and that perspective can give new meaning to the creator's vision, their artistic vision.

"No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets."

Samuel Delany argues in his book About Writing that students routinely fail to "get" the books they're forced to read—Shakespeare, Dickens, Thoreau, or whomever—because they haven't read widely enough to understand the context that the canonical classics exist within. He says that there's no objective quality that makes great art great: it's a particular work's position relative to all others, before and since, that qualify it as worthy of respect and admiration. He goes so far as to imply that students' ability to appreciate writing is diminished by being exposed to such a lopsided, machine-cut cross-section of writing in the first place.

You might see where I'm going with this. I contend that, regardless of whether a game "worthy of comparison" et cetera currently exists or has yet to be created, Roger Ebert, movie critic, will be incapable of recognizing it as such. I will give two reasons why this is necessarily the case; I will then explain why this issue seems to matter so much to proponents of the notion that games can be (or are) art.

REASON ONE: To evaluate a work of art, you must experience it first-hand.

It's a simple idea: no synopsis can actually convey the experience of the original work. The Pulitzer Prize isn't given out to the book with "the best story"; it's the reader's reaction to the actual writing that makes a given book a contender. Likewise, I'm sure Mr. Ebert could educate us all on the perils of making judgments about a movie you've heard about yet haven't actually watched.

So it is with the video games. Just watching one isn't enough to tell you if it's any good. As most kids born in America in the 80s and 90s will explain, playing a game can be satisfying, frustrating, exciting, saddening—but just watching is usually boring! Sure, you can empathize with a player sitting right there with you, getting excited or upset right along with them, and if you've played enough games you can project the experience of playing into recorded footage of gameplay... but to a non-gamer, it's just so much sound and noise.

(It might bear resemblance to movies and television, but the resemblance is superficial, and the wrong things seem to be emphasized. That's because video games are similar to movies and television in the same way that movies and television are similar to painting and photography. In each case, the former contains elements of the latter, but abandons the latter's specific focus in favor of adding a new dimension. A movie takes the static image of photography and adds movement over time to tell a story, but individual frames do not necessarily meet photography's standards so long as the movie as a whole is satisfactory. A video game takes the movie's sequential portrayal of events and adds the performance of the player and interaction governed by a set of predefined rules to portray possible outcomes, unexpected events, and personal responsibility; while it's certainly preferable for any given narrative outcome to form a satisfying portrayal events, it's not necessary as long as the player's involvement was compelling.)

Digressions aside, Roger Ebert is not a player of video games. Maybe he dabbles; I'd be a little surprised if he hadn't put a quarter in a Pac-Man machine or played a game of computer Solitaire by now. But let's hypothesize for a moment that an Artistically Significant Game exists, and that for some reason, Mr. Ebert is actually inclined to play it—even under these favorable circumstances, I don't think he'd recognize it as such. Which brings me to...

REASON TWO: To appreciate a work of art, you must be conversant in its medium.

Sure, anybody can take up Tetris or Bejeweled or Minesweeper or any of thousands of other games and be (relatively) entertained, until the novelty wears off. This isn't the same as understanding why something like Shadow of the Colossus or Silent Hill 2 or Mother 3 or Cave Story is artistically significant, or why something like Shadow the Hedgehog or Resident Evil 5 or FarmVille or World of Warcraft raise all sorts of moral and artistic red flags.

It's true that art appreciation is portable, insofar as one understands the medium to which it's being ported. I will grant that anybody familiar with the movie industry probably already recognizes that sequels are usually bad and that too much creative influence from the publisher suggests dire things for artistic merit. There are universal truths about art as commodity, as it relates to entertainment.

I would argue that Mr. Ebert is unwilling or unable to recognize how these truths apply to video gaming. Take his response to Braid, for example:

Her next example is a game named "Braid" (above). This is a game "that explores our own relationship with our past...you encounter enemies and collect puzzle pieces, but there's one key difference...you can't die." You can go back in time and correct your mistakes. In chess, this is known as taking back a move, and negates the whole discipline of the game. Nor am I persuaded that I can learn about my own past by taking back my mistakes in a video game. She also admires a story told between the games levels, which exhibits prose on the level of a wordy fortune cookie.

While I resent the attempt to hamstring the game's primary conceit by examining it in an inappropriate context, I can't blame him for doing it. Well, no, actually I can—complaining that Braid shouldn't let the player rewind time because it would defeate the point of Chess is like saying Pleasantville's use of monochrome-vs.-color is unsophisticated since Rocky can also tell a moving story without using such formal tricks. I'd think that someone who understands that, just as the appropriate lighting and film use for a boxing drama can differ from those used for a metafictional parable about repression, it should follow that appropriate rules governing interaction in a competitive two-player game can differ from those in a single-player meditation on correcting one's mistakes.

I could argue—at length!—that Ebert's take on Braid is incorrect, that bopping enemies on the head and collecting puzzle pieces with a built-in error-correction tool is not (as it might appear) the plaything of a childish mind, but rather a cogent and coherent argument for rigid determinism and the illusory nature of free will, and that the use of traditional videogame iconography serves to lull the player into an unconscious acceptance of every event's fundamental immutability. I could go on in this vein for a long time. Even were I a far more persuasive writer, such a letter would be no more convincing to Mr. Ebert than an outright bribe to aknowledge games as art, because he is not versed in the vocabulary of choice as presented in electronic gaming. If he received enough such letters, it might even prove more offensive than the bribe.

Why, then, are so many supporters of electronic gaming so impassioned on this issue? Why do we crave legitimacy from people like Roger Ebert? Because games are controversial! Because lawmakers want to regulate them, and decency advocates want to censor them, and pundits want to demonize them for causing violence and delinquency and addiction and death. Because we sense that, one day, it will be just as absurd for someone to claim "I don't like games" as it is for someone to claim "I don't like music," and we want to hasten that day's arrival. Because some of us believe that, through games, new worlds and modes of existence will become possible, and because that's exciting. But mostly it's because we love them and we don't like to see people we admire trashing them, however much the vast majority of them deserve to be trashed.

"The beauty of his games, the clarity of his play, and the brilliance of his ideas have made him an artist of the same stature as Brahms, Rembrandt, and Shakespeare." -- David Levy (on Bobby Fischer)

"You know actors in talking movies aren't as good as ones from silent films, because they have to emote more."

"You know films will never be art because they are mostly dancing girls and trains coming towards the screen."

"Science says man will never run a five minute mile."

"Rock and Roll isn't Music!"

Do people who make statements like this end up being correct in the long run?

Video games are art now.

If you don't believe Video Games are art it says something about your understanding of history. Video games are very new, we are just learning how to make them.

Here is some trivia for you: "The Godfather" wasn't made until the film camera had been around for a while. It's true! They didn't make it as soon as they invented cameras. Apparently game developers are supposed to invent the technology, and instantly compete with arts that have been around for centuries.

What do people do with a new art form? Violence and pornography first, then interesting things after the diffusion of innovation becomes more widespread.

Stick with film, it is annoying that gamers have started to 'boo' your name, and paint you as a luddite.

Roger, I respect your previous argument that games are not art according to your definition, which requires high art to be entirely the work of a creator (or creators) without input from the audience. It's a clause in the definition of art that I have never heard before, but if we accept it, your point is correct by definition.

In this article, you have indirectly clarified your definition of "art" as "something that is good". If the ancient paintings on the walls of the Cave of Chauvet-Pont-d'Arc are art because they are so skillfully drawn, presumably any ancient cave paintings that are less well illustrated are not art. This matches the statement you make that no game is yet at a level of quality that you would consider art, but one could reach that point in the future.

In the interest of fairness, would you agree that many - perhaps most - films are not art?

Thanks for the added clarification Roger, it was unneeded but I'm sure was burning inside of you after watching that terrible TED Talk that bolstered your stance on the issue!

I like videogames but can't pretend to see them as high art. Maybe in your next post on the subject you could clarify what it means to be an art form as opposed to being 'high art'. Anything can be an artform if someone can become highly skilled or innovative in it. Creating pictures on the head of a pin is an art form. But that, and videogames are not 'high art'. Even real artists like Bill Viola have tried their hand at creating real art from a videogame platform: http://www.thenightjourney.com/ But their results are yet to be seen.

Also, everyone else, feeling emotion from a videogame doesn't make it art. People cry at Hallmark commercials. They are not art.

Your ongoing discussion on videogames has finally swayed my opinion: you are indeed the most stubborn man alive.

Suggested future columns:

- Crossword Puzzles Can Never Be Literature
- The Chicken Definitely came First
- Political 'Science'? Bah!
- As A Matter of Fact, God CANNOT Make A Rock So Big Even He Can't Lift It.
- Green Can Never Be a Prime Color.

Ease up on the videogames, Rog. Not because your point is invalid, but because I fear a fatwa.

Mr. Ebert,

You have never played Flower, and yet you feel comfortable claiming that it's a pathetic attempt at art? You're acting like a film critic who reviews movies based on their trailers.

It's pretty obvious from what you've written here that you don't play video games. Because you can "win" or finish a game, that means that the game can't be art? That's like saying because you can finish a book, a book can't be art. Of course an interactive story (which many video games are) has an ending, just like any other story.

Your whole article seems, to me, like a book-reader who has never watched a movie in their life saying that movies can't be art because no movie is as good, to their taste, as their favorite book. Also, a lot of movies are awful. Therefore, movies can never be art compared to books!

I think you're trying to critique a media that you don't have enough experience with to understand.

Mr. Ebert,

As an avid reader of your work and a fellow critic (you write for the Sun-Times, I used to write for my school paper; the difference is enormous, but I'm hanging on to my title, dammit :) ), I must say that I cannot disagree strongly enough with your argument.

That's fine, of course; you have your tastes and I have mine, diff'rent strokes will move the world, all that jazz. I have some points of my own to make, but those can wait until later today. I'm afraid I'm not very good at going to bed on time, and I've learned the hard way that firing off internet missives at 6:20 AM (the current time as of this post) is a Very Bad Idea. Thus, my defense of the medium must wait until I've had a decent rest. I did, however, want to mention this part of your article:

"Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art? [...] Why aren't gamers content to play their games and simply enjoy themselves? They have my blessing, not that they care."

Frankly, that sentiment is one I do agree with. We gamers should absolutely stop worrying about what other people think and enjoy what we know is art. This idea that one's chosen medium of expression is not "legitimate" until everybody agrees that it is is not only asinine, it's actually damaging to criticism of the medium in question. We don't have to prove anything to you, any more than you have to prove anything to us. If our positions were reversed, and film was viewed as an "inferior medium" by game critics, would you think any less of "Synecdoche, New York?" I submit that you would not.

...I just wrote something that Roger Ebert might read! Eeee-hee-hee!

Ahem.

Sorry. I'm kind of a big fan. :)

If you're defining art in such a way that, by definition, it can't include video games, fair enough. But, given that video games now generally combine several things that are art forms -- acting, cinematography, music, writing, combined together similar to the way movies are -- would you grant that there's some sort of separate-but-equal new word that should apply?

I mean, it's a different stimulation, like a "Choose-Your-Own-Adventure" compared to a book... but that brings up a question -- does the nature of the media inherently make something art? Are *all* movies art? Are all things published as books art?

Roger, it's not often I can say this to you, but to say video games aren't art is just plain stupid. How can anything that employs so many artists turn out in the end to not be art?

If video games aren't art, then neither are movies, because nowadays the two are practically the same thing. I'd like to offer you a challenge. First, watch Clash of the Titans. Wait, you've already done that. Good, you're already ahead of the game.

Second, get yourself a Playstation and play God of War from beginning to end.

Then tell me which one is art and which one isn't.

OK, this is going to be long.

I am an independent game designer. And for a very long time now, I have been arguing that games are art. I have also been making games that are generally perceived as art. They are not the most successful games in the world, they are not commercial, but they are definitely games.

Most of Santiago's arguments are weak, and her examples are less than excellent. You have responded to several of them quite well. But at no point have you said why games cannot be art. What's wrong with games? Why cannot they have the same emotional/aesthetic/intellectual/other impact that movies, books or paintings have? What makes it *inherently* impossible for them to do so?

Let us start at the beginning, with the definition of "games". We mean here digital games, of course; but even that is not enough of a definition. Is Tetris, a game about falling blocks, the same manner of thing as Fallout, the complicated story of the survivors of a post-apocalyptic world? These are essentially different creations: one is simply a simulation of falling blocks with a set of rules, the other has story, characters to interact with, a world to explore and understand, and choices to make. Just because they both run on a computer doesn't mean they are the same kind of thing. Now, some people might argue that Tetris *is* art, and I feel that this is their right, but that's a different question, and one to which I have no answer. I dislike saying what isn't art; my purpose is to show some things that *are* art.

Your comparison to chess is simply incorrect. Not all games consist of this simple player/opponent - win/lose mechanic. Not all games force you through this kind of binary logic: in many games you are required to come up with solutions to problems, and deal with the consequences (both in gameplay and in story). Sometimes the consequences are purely moral ones.

At the end of Fallout 1 and 2, for example, you are shown the ultimate consequences of your actions, years down the line. This is a deeply powerful sequence, the result of interactivity, and has nothing in common with chess or Mah Jong. A computer game is not the same as a board game.

(Defining what art is is tricky, of course, and people have been arguing over it for thousands of years. What I find very problematic, however, is the idea of defining art as how good something is, rather than what manner of thing it is. Surely a Nicholas Sparks novel is art? It's not particularly successful art, but surely we cannot entirely discount it from being art? It fails at being good, not at being art. Anyway, this is more of a sidebar.)

Let's move on. If I remember correctly, one of your basic objections to computer games as art is that art is the result of the artist's work and vision, and controlled by the artist. It's true that this is what makes art, but who do you think makes computer games? Game designers do, and game designers are artists. Maybe part of the problem is all the misleading advertising of some game companies - "a game in which you can do whatever you want!" and all that. But the truth is that everything that happens in a game only happens because a game designer chose to create the game that way. Of course interactivity allows a certain amount of unpredictability, but all that only happens with a framework that is designed with a purpose in mind. And in a way, that certain lack of absolute control by the artist exists in every artform, in the space between the artist and the person experiencing the art. People don't always understand or experience or treat art the way the artist would like them to. The artist creates a clearly defined framework, and the audience finds in it what they will.

But the framework is very much there, in games as well as in other art. And it has a definite source: not the programmers or the executives, but the designer and the producer. It's not that different from a movie, really. The fact that there's a cinematographer, or that some movies are ruined by executives, does not mean that film isn't an artform.

Just because games are interactive doesn't mean they're not art. Games are not *random*. The interactivity is part of the design, often the very essence of the design. And think of what it allows the designer to accomplish - it allows us to draw the player in, and make their choices be choices with consequences. It allows us to create an *experience* in a way that other artforms cannot accomplish. It is different to watch someone fly and to actually control flight yourself. And when the player is truly immersed, they are not just playing a 3D version of chess or Mah Jong - they are flying. Do you not see the possibility of an aesthetic experience there? Do you not see that we may be after more than just a simulation?

There's more. Many games have stories. In many of these stories, choices can be made. These choices are a lot more complicated than "go left" or "go right." Players can interact with characters, can choose what to say to them - and if the game is well-done, if it is good art, they can feel the same amount of emotional attachment to these characters as they can in a movie. More than that, they can feel even closer to these characters, because they feel that they truly talked to them.

Games allow us to tell stories that other artforms cannot, because they allow us to show choices and consequences in a truly unique way. The player walks into a town in which multiple parties are warring for control. Which side does he/she take? What will the consequences be for the characters, for the town itself? What is the moral thing to do? What is the expedient thing to do? The player is going to see, step for step, what the consequences of their actions will be. It's a lot more than just "I won" or "They won" or "Now there's a blue flag on the top of the screen."

This isn't theory, it's what really happens in games.

And even if the stories in some games aren't interactive, if you cannot make choices that alter what happens - don't you see the aesthetic and emotional potential of an artform that actually allows you to interact with a world, that allows you to experience a place as if you were truly there? I don't know why Santiago would pick something as crude and pathetic as "Waco Resurrection" when there is so much that is impressive and beautiful. Exploring the underwater city of Rapture in Bioshock, walking through the depressing and scarily beautiful landscapes around Chernobyl in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (related to but not based upon the wonderful Tarkovsky movie), or watching a Pegasus fly around its nest in Quest for Glory: Dragon Fire, these are emotional and aesthetic experiences that are quite unique, simply because they are actually interactive.

I'll be arrogant enough to cite one of my own games as an example now. I wrote a game called "The Museum of Broken Memories." It's set in what appears to be a museum, but is something more akin to a metaphor or a state of mind; it's hard to explain in a few words. Each room has exhibits, and each room allows you to travel into another part of the game, in which you experience a story fragment. It is, essentially, a game about war and the consequences of war, about the difficulty of moving on, and about the ability of art to set us free. (It involves no shooting of any kind.)

And it is absolutely essential that this story is told as a computer game. It is otherwise impossible to create the experience of walking through (well, clicking through) a museum, of being able to take your time to look at the individual exhibits and images (which all interrelate). It is impossible otherwise to allow the audience to experience the fragments in the order of their choosing, which is essential to the experience of being stuck in that museum. And, since the story fragments are all told in different styles and from the perspectives of a variety of individuals, it is essential for the player to actually *play* these story fragments, to move through them by choice, experiencing their worlds and stories. Without these interactive elements, the very concept of what the Museum is cannot be experienced.

I'll stop talking about my own game in a second, and I'm sorry if this sounds arrogant, but over the years I have been contacted by a whole bunch of people who had extremely powerful emotional experiences by playing the game, including the parents of soldiers, who felt that it really got to the heart of what had happened to their children. Is this not art? It may be flawed, no question about it, but if it's not art, what is it?

You seem to believe that the only focus of games is to win. This may be true of some games, and is certainly true of games like chess, but it's not generally true of all computer games. The rules in computer games are what allows them to be interactive - it's no more, in some ways, than the rule that in books the sentences ought to be printed one after the other. The rules allow the experience. But it's the experience we play for, not the rules or the winning. In fact, with many games, "winning" is entirely the wrong term. Would you say you "won" when you get to the end of a movie or book? No. Many games end when the story ends. You can get to the end of the game, but you didn't win some kind of contest, as in chess. You finished the game, like you finished the book.

"Toward the end of her presentation, she shows a visual with six circles, which represent, I gather, the components now forming for her brave new world of video games as art. The circles are labeled: Development, Finance, Publishing, Marketing, Education, and Executive Management. I rest my case."

Would you be surprised if a movie executive made that kind of list? Would you then discount film as a medium for art? The above list is anathema to many game designers, it represents everything that is wrong with the world today. But just because some people have - with good intentions or bad - hijacked the idea that "games are art" in order to sell more, that does not mean that games are not art. And it does not mean that there are not games out there right now, from fully commercial ones to small independent works, that truly make use of the medium to create an artistic experience.

Ebert: Your comment is very valuable.

As to your final question,: No, I would not be surprised if a movie executive made that kind of list. But I would be surprised if Bergman did.

As mentioned above Shadow of the colossus is definitely a work of art. Designers strove to create as asthetically pleasing and beautiful an environment as they could within the limits of the platform. This is no different to an artist creating a painting within the confines of the oil and canvas. It's art by any definition. You need to play this game just like you need to go to the gallery.

I feel like you just want controversy for controversy's sake, and maybe for page hits.

When you 1st made the statement, it gained notoriety, because games were still struggling to find good ways to tell a story. There were a number of good examples back then, but it just felt at the time that those great games were more of an exception, rather than the rule.

But they were there, and as a gamer, I hoped for more, but was not entirely sure that game developers have actually began to understand what works and what doesn't, rather than doing it more by accident.

So it was a bit of a touchy topic, because I would've felt quite disappointed if there were indeed some fundamental reasons that prevent games from being great storytelling devices.

But not anymore. Not every game is great these days, sure, but there is no lack of games that try to tell a story.

Great games these days can have complex characters, and pose controversial moral questions, give you freedom to explore various choices, and by allowing you to play through the consequences of these choices, a game can make interesting philosophical or ethical points.

The statement that games are not art is simply laughable these days. My prediction is that this blog post is not going to resonate with the gamers nearly as much as before.

I'll close with an example. My favorite Star Wars story, is not the movies, even though I liked the original trilogy a lot. My favorite Star Wars story by far is Knights Of The Old Republic game by Bioware, and the reason is that while the movies were a great thrill ride, it was the game that made me seriously contemplate what can make a person turn to the dark side.

Dear Mr. Ebert,

I have a question. You have reviewed a lot of horrible movies in your career, so what I would be interested in knowing is whether or not you would still classify such films as art? Because one of the points you seem to be making is that videogames aren't art because they're just too bad to be art, which implies some kind of conflation of 'art' with 'good art', which seems strange to me. There are plenty of movies out there that are atrocious works of art, but they are art none the less.

Now there's a fundamental difference with videogames, as you point out: gameplay. I don't think chess or mah jong should be classified as art either, but why? What is it that separates these things from art? It is my view that the only real thing you can point to is the creative intention behind these things. A game like chess wasn't created to be some object of self-expression. Put simply, it wasn't made to be art, it was made to be a game!

I think anyone can agree that even though there may, a priori, be a small region in which games and art overlap, they are in general two different abstract concepts. But it's not the level of aesthetic detail or artistic elements used that make a videogame art. After all, the game of chess isn't art even if the pieces are beautifully crafted and the board comes with an inbuilt soundtrack playing. What determines, I feel, whether a game is art or just a game is the creative intention. If someone creates a game with the intention that its primary function is to be art, that it is primarily constructed to express some artistic vision, then it is art. It may be bad art, but still art. If someone creates a game with the main intention that it simply be a game, then it's a game regardless of how aesthetically pleasing it might end up being. The vast majority of games fall under this category, but it would be shortsighted to exclude any possibility of the former.

I think a strong case can be made that the nature of gameplay means that its going to be much, much harder for a game to be actually good art, for reasons you allude to in this article; simply put because gameplay tends to essentially fragment the artistic vision of a game, which is almost always contained primarily in the plot. But even if most videogames don't qualify as anything but crap art, I can't see why you would classify them as non-art.

Again, would you call a terrible movie non-art or just bad art? If the latter, why make a distinction with videogames? I guarantee you that there are videogames out there with narratives that are at least as good as the worst movie plot, and that even with the fragmentation of the artistic vision caused by the gameplay, such games can still work as a presentation of an artistic vision. If, in fact, you would answer the former, then I guess there's nothing much more to say, but I don't think that's a useful way of thinking about art. After all, if you don't allow for the notion of terrible art in your definition, then how does the notion of great art become meaningful?

Ebert: No, I wouldn't define bad movies as art. Hardly any movies are art. Film is however an art form.

Roger, what are your favorite video games?

I'm a little surprised at your conclusions, because I think that video games are intriguing and wholly unique media, in the way that so many of them withhold content from their audience until the audience can complete their goals or show some mastery of the game. How many books do you read that snap shut if you fail to understand their meaning? Have you ever seen a movie that abruptly ends if you get confused and lose track of the story?

Also, you see artistry in Melies' century-old film, and so do I-- but was he hailed as an artist when his movie debuted, or did it take a few decades of development before movies gained acceptance as a form of art?

Finally, I'm also a bit skeptical of your assertion that "No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets." That seems like an awfully broad statement, and as a fan of video games I can immediately cite several that are as engaging and worthwhile to me as a Walt Whitman poem or a Van Gogh painting. I'm not talking about the latest and greatest, either-- I'm talking about Tetris.

As an undergraduate I was an art history major and struggled with the definition of art. One of my professors stated that art can't be "art" unless it is in a museum or otherwise displayed--which I thought was rubbish. So I came up with my own criteria:

1) It must have meaning (doesn't have to be deep meaning, just some kind of meaning)

2) It must require technical skill to create (no black dots on white canvas)

3) It must be the artist's own work (no "found" objects--sorry Picasso, that bull's head is just a bicycle seat), or the work of a collaborative team (but you can't put your name on something made entirely by other people--even if the original idea was yours)

You'll note that my definition excludes much of what you may view at many museums of modern art, and I certainly recognize that not all people will agree with my criteria--but they work for me.

Under my rules, video games could be art--they certainly could often fit numbers 2 and 3. And after meeting some video game designers, who care less for the money they make and more for their vision, I think many may fit number 1 as well.

An example I would point to is the PC game "Syberia" -- I haven't played it for years, but I still think of the story and the visual beauty. It's art enough for me.

This article just proves that you know nothing about video games. A perfect example of a video game that is art & better than 95% of all movies ever made is planescape: torment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planescape:_Torment

Play the game & then honestly tell us that this isn't art.

Take any given film, give the viewer the choice of an alternate path (based perhaps on a test of skill), and voila you have a video game. Extend this dynamic to a large number of ever-so-slightly different narratives based upon a large number of viewer actions and you have something more like a realistically marketable game.

The only difference between a video game and a video, conceptually, is viewer input and reaction to it. The assertion that the mere fact of interactivity renders images, sound, and narrative art-free is so arbitrary and ridiculous that I am at a loss to argue against it except to point out the complete and total lack of any sort of argument on its behalf beyond naked personal prejudice.

As for this: "No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets." (er...I guess you really like poetry?) ...

Yes, the first couple of decades of experimentation in a new form have not risen to the level of the absolute best of all of human culture to that point. I find that, I imagine, as completely unsurprising as you do. The lack of truly Great Art in a particular form does not in any way exclude it as art, however, no matter how hard you pat yourself on the back for noting it.

(incidentally, I don't believe that you can cite a film worthy of comparison with the great novelists and composers. Which again is hardly surprising. And again, has nothing to do with whether or not film is an art form.)

You rock Roger Ebert but are astoundingly ignorant on this matter. And please don't believe that just because someone is on TED that they're going to present a good argument. There are a surprising amount of poor arguers on it.

The most obvious apparent flaw in her presentation is only choosing console games, not also computer games. And/or choosing those particular video games.

So many other flaws though in general. The biggest is the target audience and the medium. Books are for readers, films are for viewers, yet you conflate the value of one to the other in order to slip in fimmaking into your exclusive set of "artistic" mediums. Does anyone consider Citizen Kane or Memento as comparatively "great" examples of literature as Moby Dick or MacBeth? No, it's not literature, it's film. It may have great literary qualities, but it isn't literature.

Video games add interactivity, but otherwise would be little different from an animated film. Many of the written and visual art in video games is of oustanding quality. Some producers are succesful novelists (Raymond Feist) or succesful artists (Jason Manley). Many games employ succesful film actors for voiceover work. Many employ succesful composers for soundtracks. The defining value of video games as art are the same as whatever definition you assign to film art, visual art, written art, aural art. Whether it's to move a viewer, offer introspection, communicate, whatever--video games are as capable of fulfilling the definition as these other mediums are.

It's quite obviously art. It's just not art you "get" or appreciate or think is good art. Well, people who don't get or like movies might leave "filmmaking" out of your quote and leave you scratching for a defense against a similar too-strict, too-traditional aesthetics argument.

This same argument cropped up, as it does from time to time, on MetaFilter last month. Here's what I had to say on the subject.

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Despite being a fan of video games since childhood, I’d long been undecided on the are-they-art debate. Sure, games have made me feel emotions, but rarely anything more complex than frustration or satisfaction. I’ve also been impacted by the stories in some games, and the way the characters were affected-- Final Fantasy VIII made me cry-- but in hindsight it was simplistic and manipulative, like watching a tearjerker movie. I reasoned that if I were to consider video games an art form, I’d need to experience a moment in which the interactive nature of games made an emotional impact on me that was unique and apart from any other medium.

Then a friend of mine, who’s made a side career out of finding and reselling rare video games, gave me a copy of Psychonauts for the PS2.

***SPOILERS AHEAD***

Like most games, Psychonauts has a tutorial level, where you learn the basics of the game’s controls and get the hang of things before setting out on your own. Since the game is set in a training camp for psychic children capable of entering and exploring other people’s minds, the tutorial level here takes place inside the mind of Milla Vodello, a cheerful and fun-loving counselor who loves nothing more than dancing the night away. The interior of her mind, therefore, resembles a psychedelic disco, full of upbeat music and colorful lights.

So there I was, learning the controls and exploring the disco, following Milla’s instructions, when I noticed a ledge off to one side. Aha, said my gamer brain, that must be a secret place, and it’s always good to go in secret places! After several attempts, I made it up onto the ledge and started following a hidden corridor. I started hearing voices: “Milla, help us! Milla, why didn’t you save us?” No longer in the happy, welcoming region of Milla’s mind, I found myself in a room filled with flames and eerie silhouettes. There was a chest there, representing her memories, and I opened it. I learned that Milla used to run an orphanage. She loved the children and they loved her, and everyone was happy. But one day, while she was out shopping for supplies, the orphanage caught fire and burned down. Everyone was killed.

I felt guilty. I had followed the usual rules of video games, and instead of being rewarded, I was punished, and I felt like I deserved it. My snooping had brought me knowledge that I wished I hadn’t learned. If I could have apologized to this fictional character for violating her mind, I would have. Let me reiterate: the choices I made while playing a video game led me to feel remorse as genuine as any I’ve felt in real life, despite the fact that nobody was really hurt in any way.

At that moment I learned that video games can be art, and that they can be a unique art, and that anyone who doesn’t see this truth probably needs to experience their own epiphany just as I did.

As much as I love cinema, I think the best film ever (put your favourite film here) is a lesser work of art compared to Melville's Moby Dick (I could say Don Quijote, or Hamlet). I think videogames are in that position compared to cinema, some games are a form of art (a lesser form of art, no doubt) in a developing state.

Mr. Ebert, as long-time reader and companion in patronage of art forms (we share an admiration for McCarthy), I must disagree--for whatever it may mean to you as a philosophy and art history major--video games, or interactive role playing, is a very naive and shallow conveyance of themes momentarily. All this due to how, I agree with you, "Story, Story, Story damn it!"--but by way of an involving means.

Art, like statements of value, can be subjective to preference. But we can however be objective in the logic of one's reasoning. As you've stated in a blog, 'Transformers' is a bad movie. You have way of rationale, more accurate than that of an argument that is is a great film.

Hemingway once said of Thoreau's idealistic 'give me truth' in a world devoid of pragmatism by way of a childish addiction to scavenge absolutism to make arbitrary sense of the state of all things: 'I don't always need to know what's true, just what's bullshit.'

Sincerely, JeanPierre Rivas from OC California. 20 years old, frequently refreshing your homepage in eagerness every Wednsday since Jr. of high school.

Alright, you want to know a video game that has something to say about the human condition? Try the Hitman series. As the title suggests, you are a contract killer named Agent 47. Each 'job' places you into a particular environment -- an opera house for example, or a few city blocks. You are free to wander around that environment as you please. You have a target. The point of the game is to figure out a way to reach your target and kill him/her.

Now, if you want to play the game as a slam-bam straight ahead shoot-em-up, you can do that. But the game rewards stealth -- the ideal is to get in and out without being detected, without killing anyone other than your target, and without firing any weapons.

The joy of the game is in the solving of the puzzle - I assume you'll agree that puzzles are art - but what makes it involving is the choices is forces you to make along the way. You are constantly making decisions about what actions you are willing to take and not willing to take. That guard up ahead is standing in your way. Do you kill him? Or do you figure out a way around him? Is the extra effort worth the reward of higher points? Is that not an artistic theme being explored by the game? Is it not a reflection on morality as profound as any by St. Augustine?

Interesting points, although one could argue that your conclusion proves Kellee's argument more than your own. You could make a similar slide about many of the great artists throughout history. Many had similar organizations behind them. The same could be said of course about films. Most of the greatest works of art and film were created as a result of forces greater than simply an individual's desire to express their craft.

We should not just consider the highly scripted and rules based games in this discussion. Many games are now expressive open sandboxes in which people choose to do things, not merely complete assigned tasks. The traditional video game view is to win, or to complete.
The potential of performance art, requiring dexterity and skill within the confines of the tools used, in this case game elements and pixels leads to an artistic platform.
A particular experience may be very moving, one crafted by a talented team of writers and designers, one that transcends the experience of the static broadcast media of a film or a painting. The players direct involvement in the scene and a further degree of empathy with the characters surely puts this into the category of art.
One further example, is that games are not longer all solitary experiences, man vs machine. Some of the technology is used for collaborative expression amongst people dispersed across the planet. we have places like Second Life that have a vibrant artistic community (as much as corporate meeting places) creating experience to share with others, festivals that are like Burning Man, concerts with live music etc.
Second Life is not a game of course, but many people look at as one. Hence it shows the crossover of the definitions of games and art and human communication.

Let's see, an interactive, immersive story-driven videogame, a collaborative effort featuring hundreds of graphic artists, voice talents, cinematographers, game designers, programmers, and a $100 million budget, compared to some art school poseur urinating on a cross?

You have no idea what you are talking about, Mr. Twentieth Century.

I don't really understand why they couldn't be art. You make the point that football and chess aren't works of art, but I disagree. Have you ever tried inventing a game? You make up rules and procedures and ask everyone to follow them. But if you do a terrible job designing the rules or the procedures, the game is not fun or unplayable. Games that survive and continue to be played should be considered masterworks.

Even if you don't consider games an art, there is still many aspects of video games that make them an art form. Narrative, visual composition, music. The only real difference between a video game and a movie is interactivity. And I don't think that devalues it's status as an art form. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel invite a viewer to gaze into it and explore the various parts of it. How is a video game allowing you to explore it's world any different?

Even if you don't believe that there has been a video game that could be considered a masterpiece(which just not true), there's no reason to believe that there couldn't be one. Just because something hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it couldn't happen.

As a person who plays video games occasionally, I must admit that a video game can deliver a story worth a small piece of science fiction - e.g. by allowing the player to read pieces of diaries scattered around. And a video game can contain images that can be considered a work of art: imagine a video game set in the Metropolitan Museum of art and requiring the player to search for keys for further progress in actual paintings (AFAIK there isn't one, but who knows?).

So the video game experience can transmit an art experience to the player. I think that this point cannot be argued. But the gameplay, the process of playing, will still be limited to doing some actions (mostly common to all games in genre) - e.g. shooting, collecting poits, pieces etc. And I cannot imagine a gameplay that will be a work of art in itself. The same can be applied to any game in the world - the art e.g. in chess begins when you start to create chess problems, which are related to the actual playing only by using the same ruleset.

I think that cause of no game being a work of art is pretty simple. Playing a game is a way of entertaining at least as old as cave paintings (wasn't hunting the first game in some sense?), and it is distinct from art in its deepest roots.
So the word 'video' in your title is unnecessary — there are just _no_ games which can be considered art, no matter are they 'video' or not. The people who state the contrary just misinterpret the fact that it is now possible to deliver a work of art to the player via a video game. Like feeding a squirrel through the fax machine (c).

No, Santiago makes the sad mistake of instead of truly exploring the artistic world of video games, she reaches for independent games made good. The independent gaming world is so ambitious that the successes of Braid and Flower have elevated these games to a level of reverence that may inflate the game's worth.

But what I find interesting is that you compare video games to chess and sports, and let's make no mistake, some are exactly like that. But therein lies your first inherently wrong assumption that video games can only be thus defined. The truth is that "game" is itself a restrictive title for the vast library of video games, and while some games are nothing more than contests with digital opponents, there are more than plenty that go far beyond that definition. In many cases, the term "video game" is not nearly as effective a descriptor as perhaps interactive art, or as one genre of video games is already labeled, interactive fiction.

But perhaps the first issue here is how do you define art? Everyone seems to have their own definition of art, which I believe is fair enough, but at some point if we are going to have an in faith argument about something as this, we need to have some sort of common definition, or set of definitions. For the purposes of this argument I checked out Dictionary.com and there we find no less than 16 definitions of art. And interestingly enough video games can fit into or around about half of them, just like movies. No objective mind can look at the sixteen definitions of art there and say that all sixteen undeniably shutter their doors to art.

On the most simplistic plane, one can say that if art is beauty, are there no video games capable of beauty? Even on the most superficial level, can't video games provide a visually stunning subject? Of course they can and this alone suggests they can be art.

But that's not what you are talking about, is it, Mr. Ebert? You want the nitty gritty stuff, the stuff that tugs at the heart strings and challenges you emotionally. When you say video games can never be art, you mean that video games can never speak to the soul like a Monet or a Shakespeare or a Thoreau. And to this, I say, again, you are wrong, though I will admit that it's not your fault.

The truth is "the industry" is bloated with ineffectual mass produced content built to make as much money as possible. Again, as I say earlier, Santiago's selections were chosen not necessarily because they were what we would call art games, but because they were independent games that have enjoyed commercial success.

You have already expressed that so many people have thrust game after game upon you telling you you NEED to play this and you NEED to play that. So I won't do that here. But I will say that at any time if you want to see video games as art, if you are willing to actually explore that possibility and see what is out there, all you need to do is ask. Ask and I'll introduce you to the works of Gregory Weir and Jason Roehrer and Jonas Kyratzes and Cactus. If you really want to test your own hypothesis in the spirit of open and honest debate, all you need to do is ask and I'll show you those games that might actually challenge your assertions.

Because the truth is that I've played games that have touched me emotionally in ways that no film and only few books ever have. You ask why people involved in video games are so invested in this argument. Well, part of it is because for some of us, we see artistic value in video games, we have been effected by video games in positive and powerful ways and as such, in gratitude if nothing else, we wish to share that experience for others. But more importantly, I think the argument must be made because there are truly gifted and talented artists who have chosen video games as their primary medium because of the unique and unprecedented relationship with the audience that this field grants the artist. It's not a fight to validate the people who PLAY video games, but instead the artists who create them.

So, again, if you are ever interested in truly testing your hypothesis, just let me know. Unlike most the games you have had thrown your way, these games will all be free, and most of them you can play in your browser.

You ask: "Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art?"

I ask: "Why are people who don't even play them concerned that they are not?"

Video games are a generational issue. I no longer believe it is possible for the majority of those over the ago of 45 to understand what those of us aged 3-45 do about video games. You have not played them enough or had experiences with them to understand why they affect us the way "art" affects you. Fortunately for us, we don't really care.

If you don't understand why Braid is art, then please consider once again abandoning this topic and sticking to your superb movie reviews.

The assertion "video games can never be art" is essentially meaningless, as is it's negation, "video games can be art." And no amount of argument will clarify the issue. The same problem will arise in any debate of the question "Is X art?" The reason: there simply is no concrete definition of the term "art." And in absence of a concrete definition, there is nothing to be said.

Roger, I love video games. But I wouldn't call it good art. There is however a deeper enjoyment you may have over-looked in the competitive nature of online play.

I play a military game with teammates--maybe we shouldn't call it a sport because 'sports' Are as elusive as art conceptually--but there is a method of skill to play well; Critical thinking under pressure, navigating issues in real time, coordination for aiming etc., these take practice to master, and no one truly does as we often fall prey to our egos like a chess player to hubris.

Sometimes asking ourselves--which may seem absurd to you, and is--; "Do I really want to vent and machine gun this guy whose been harassing me ergo revealing my position to aloof enemies, or should I be tactical and knife him?" Or when wounded, fight or flight? Or even which strategies suite different match locations (IE Sniper or shotguning "No Country for Old Men"-style).

It really does require know-how street smarts to be decent at it. No one just knows the buttons, there is always a learning curve.

Can you see that aspect?

For me games are an art form, just like films, music and books are art for me. Games can give you visual art (par example Okami), or can let you feel emotions. A game as Heavy rain does that brilliantly, it really lets you feel emotions. Just like a film can do that and in some ways this game does it even better. Maybe if you play this game you will change your mind about gaming.

Roger, I am a computer games developer in training. I will not go down the route of saying you "don't get it", that you're too old, that you're an elitist snob or anything of the sort because I simply don't believe they're true. Video games as they stand today cannot be considered art in the same way as the works of the great poets, artists et al. That is a fact. It is something new. Something different. But it is the form that is different, not the emotions stirred. Not the skill needed to tell an effective story. Not the fact that your story can be perverted by its users. Sure, the player running around in a circle can dampen the seriousness of any game, but using Hamlet as toilet paper would no doubt make you see it in a new light.

The real question is not whether or not games are art. Art is a term based on one's own opinion. The real question is more basic, going back to the Wikipedia definition. Can they stir emotion? If something affects you as much as the great works of art, even if it is something completely removed from such a world, does it not make it worthy of admiration and respect? Lots of things in our world can stir emotion. Art is one of them. Games are now a new one.

Allow me to give you some practical examples. The game Half-Life 2 tells a story of oppression and rebellion under a veil of science fiction. This affected me in the same way "Children of Men" did, showing how there can be hope in a state of complete despair, and how one man can change everything.
Fallout 3 is a game in the similar vein, set in a retro-futuristic, post nuclear-holocaust Washington DC. One of the most emotion stirring missions involves the Lincoln Memorial. In this hellish new world, slaves are a new commodity. The statue is inhabited by so-called Slavers who buy and sell slaves. Upon approach, you notice Lincoln is missing his head. Later on, you come across some escaped slaves hiding out. They ask you for their help in clearing out the Memorial so it can become a beacon of hope for all freed slaves, and yes, they have procured the statue's head. The player is then required to kill or help the slavers. If this sequence occurred in a film, it would be hailed as a masterpiece, a powerful way of showing how the old ways will never go away, they will just be hidden. How people never change, how every place no matter how desolate can be made worse or better by people. Of course, as it's a game, and a very freeform one at that, nobody cares.

Games can stir emotions, exactly the same as art. They may be limited by the player's skill, but so are the works of art. You have to be a skilled reader to understand Shakespeare. You have to be good at observation to understand the great paintings. Games may not be art, but they stir emotion. They can broaden your mind. They can provide you with experiences you will remember for the rest of your life. So if you want to call this petty, and games pathetic, go ahead. But I'll keep playing my games and watching my movies, and wondering why nobody thinks emotion is more important than the author's control, or the user's skill.

Are costume designers artists? Set designers? Digital effects artists? These are all very important roles needed in the making of a film, but ALSO in video games. So why does it qualify as art if it's in a film but not when it's in a game? I don't think you've played many games Mr. Ebert. At least not modern ones. There are some games where every single screenshot could be considered a work of art considering how much detail and feeling the programmers and designers put into them. Eye of the beholder I guess but I think you're being extremely unfair and insulting to the artists who create these games.

The failure to perceive art in everything is just that, a failure.

Roger,

when you polemically claim that „Video games can never be art“, this of course can only be the starting point of a (very long) discussion and in no way could it be a final statement. Me being an admirer of film in the first place, I also like to experience a video game once in a while. But I wouldn‘t (couldn‘t) convince you that they in fact are art, by just basing my arguments on some random examples and the first sentence of an Wikipedia article. That‘s why the TED presentation seems to me hopelessly naive and contraproductive. And this is by the way one of the lessons Plato wanted to tell us: you can‘t define the concept of „Beauty“ (or Art) by just pointing to something beautiful. And a great many (and beautiful) texts have been written in the history of philosophy, trying to understand what we mean by saying that something does (or does not) qualifiy as art. And if these texts tell us one thing, then that „art“ is a concept too complex to narrow down to one exact meaning. Then take into account the ever-changing canon of what society at a given time (and place) credits as worth of putting into museums or teaching in the history of art department. Finally look at how far the evolution of computer games has come in just a few years. In some cases they really are an astounding example of human expression, and yes a few of them even offer deeper emotional experiences than a lot of todays movies do.
Interesting that yesterday I read a tweet by David Chen from Slashfilm.com that said: „Its sad to me that the trailers for the 3 Gears of War videogames are more effective than 90% of film trailers out there“. Effective, I would add, not only in the way of animating people to buy it, but also in an aesthetic and emotional way. So, are video games art? I don‘t know, but obviously there is a lot to think and discuss about. The discussion is on!

Sorry, that this post got a little long. I want to conclude by thanking you for your always inspiring work, Roger. It‘s kind of ironic that (as a faithful reader of yours) this, my first comment on your site, was not about our mutual love, film, but about video games. Film next time!

Best regards from Berlin
Thomas

So here's a question: Can a picture taken from a video game be art? Some games, such as Okami have been praised for the artwork that went into the game. And if a picture from the game can be considered art, then why not the game itself?

I completely agreed with the comment made by Matt on April 17, 2010 12:59 AM

...I think you need to provide evidence that all games are NOT art. Consider that if you were to take the individual elements of the game, and separate them from the medium. There is music. There is graphic design. There is direction. There can be story depending on the type of game. Why does combining the individual creations of artists into a game, invalidate the artistic sum of the game?

Or, are you saying that the caliber of the artists that contribute to a game (throughout all gaming history!) hasn't been sufficient enough to merit the qualification of art? If so, then do the works of artists in general have to be "great" to even be considered art? If only great works of art can be considered art, then I think you are setting the bar too high. I am of the opinion that amateur artists can produce inspiring works, and the art in modern games can be substantially better than amateur.

I suppose what makes us gamers so concerned about your definition of art, is that we don't understand how you can't see some games as art. I am also struck by the similarities of your contention that all games are not art, with the critics of early cinema suggesting that film is never art, but only a recording. Those early critics could not see the "forest" of the artform through the "trees" of the presentation.

Jesse Prinz Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Chicago has noted that some people have suggested that, "All film is art, though some of it is better art or higher art". It is my belief that the same is true for games.

For good examples of high-art in games, I would suggest Bioshock, Portal, and Half-Life 2.

I like video games, although I kind of feel I like a lot of other stuff (books, architecture, movies, music) more, and there's only so much time in the day. My friends, who are video game fanatics, constantly want me to get an X-Box and join up so we can hang out more (you play games and talk over a head set, which I bet would be a lot of fun), but I barely have the time to read a book in a month, so I refuse.

I agree, video games are games, like chess, and are not art. A chess game might involve beautifully sculpted pieces, but then that's sculpture, and a wholly separate component that does not really affect the nature of the game. The same can be said about the exquisite renderings and music made for some video games. The only devil's advocate defense I might have is that video games can hit upon some emotions in a more visceral manner than movies (particularly horror games), since you are more literally placed in the position of a character. This could be a powerful advantage.

Mr. Ebert, It's not about what a game objectively is. It's about what a game subjectively becomes during the experience of playing it.

You say games must be winnable, so games which tell a story are not games. This is redefining the terms.

Braid is an excellent example of a world-class gaming experience. The 'art' which comprises the game (design, music, etc.) is itself a major accomplishment - but your article doesn't address that.

Your only research into this seems to have been a video. To experience a game as art, you must play it. Get a Steam Account from steampowered.com; email me your account username. I will buy you a copy of Braid (it is £6 or something). Please play it.

I tend to agree with you here. Video games - as a medium - tend to be in the category of 'game' rather than art. Games can be played artistically. The way Jordan plays can be called art; but that 'way that he plays' is what is called art, rather than 'what he is playing', which is basketball, which is a game. By nature, video games are a medium that excludes art. It's a category mistake to say otherwise. It's akin to saying colors will never qualify as smells.

We all admit video games are laced with beautiful imagery nowadays. But this doesn't make the game art; it just makes the images 'in the game' art, as they always have been. Then there's the music that accompanies the drama of the game: this doesn't make the game art, it just means that the music 'in the game' is art, as it always has been.

I think I found a contradiction in the Sangtiago presentation near the beginning of the talk. She trys to undercut your point (nobody compares video games to painting, sculpture, music, dance: and the latter have a long tradition of attaining greatness) by showing the 'inartistic' beginning of all the other art forms.

Well, even if you grant that point (which I don't), Sangtiago is just saying that art forms start out so rudimentary that they aren't art yet. This means (along the lines of your point) video games aren't art yet - if there is a 'yet'! And this supports what you say here: "Let me just say that no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form."

My undergraduate degree is in art and art history. I was taught that anything can be art, and I believe that. True the vast majority of video games are not, but nor are the vast majority of movies, books and even paintings. Marcel Duchamp puts a urinal in a gallery and it's art. It's art because it says something, even if we don't know what. It's art because of its uniqueness, its creativeness. Most of all, it's art because someone said it was art. You're both wrong, chess and majong can be art too. It depends on who plays it, how it's played, where it's played, and what it all means. Of course my opinion doesn't matter that much. But you Sir, as an expert, as someone people look to criticism of the arts, have a power here. If you say something is art, it is.

Gotta kick the hornet's nest every once in a while, eh Roger? I love it.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say. I gave up on video games a long time ago, other than the simple ones I can complete in a few minutes, like Free Cell.

I know a few graphic artists who have designed imagery for video games, and I find their work impressive, not only for the visual beauty of the images but for the effort that went into creating them. But what I find sad about them is that the viewers playing the game will rarely take the time to freeze the action and appreciate the art around their particular avatar.

I do recall two artistic video games, both by Peter Gabriel: "Xplora" and "Eve." Both were more user experience oriented than your basic MMORPG that sells so well today and offered no weapons. Sadly, neither will play in any current OS for sale today, and I no longer have my Windows 3.1 floppy discs.

Art can be showcased in video games. It can also be the centerpiece of a television show for kids, such as Disney's "Little Einsteins;" or big-screen films such as "The DaVinci Code." The question is: does it take the time to allow the end user to appreciate the art, or is it just a backdrop to the game's action? If it is just a backdrop, then I would submit that it is not art.

Artistic themes can be examined in video games, but they are only there as long as the power is turned on. If the electricity goes off, you can still open a window or light a lamp and read a book. (If the electricity goes off while you're at the theater, you can get a refund or a raincheck to return at a later date.)

To those who say that Roger "just doesn't get it;" you're right. He doesn't see video games as art. Neither do I. I find no intellectual stimulation in them. I bought a Playstation 3 to play Blu-ray discs; I own no games for it. I do have a Wii, but I play the simpler games, such as bowling and Wii Fit.

But before you shoot us down for our opinions, examine why you play video games. If they are a diversion for your otherwise busy life, then fine. That is their purpose. If they encourage you to seek out other diversions that fall under Roger's definition of Art, even better. Both of us would encourage creative thinking in a world that seems to be increasingly devoid of it.

But if video games is your only passion outside of eating, sleeping and the occasional trip to the multiplex to see the latest Michael Bay video game writ large, I would suggest that you don't know the definition of Art; you're just marking time until they come to collect you for that final trip to whatever medical facilities are nearby.

Its been said that if Muhammad Ali were born in the 70's he'd be a football player and not a boxer. Boxing has been in a steady decline since the era of Ali and the NFL has been on the rise. Great athletes tend to gravitate to the sport which earns the most respect, money, and overall happiness, right now thats football.

I believe the same could be said of artists. If Martin Scorcese was born in the era of video games perhaps he would be bringing them to a level that would allow you to concede they're art. But its widely accepted that art is painting, film, music, sculpture and the like. I think its also possible that many artists who couldn't succede in those areas have been reduced to working on video games.

I think the examples you mentioned in the articles are very poor representations of video games as art. Likewise the film referenced in the article is a very poor example of simple.

The majority of video games are created for one purpose, money. They are only there to feed the appetite of those who crave mindless, violent, and superficial entertainment. There are a few, however that I believe make the attempt to be art even if it means losing a percentage of their audience. This raises a question. If someone is attempting to make art, then haven't they already succeded? Not saying its good art, just that it is.

I think the same could be said of film. A top grossing movie from 2009 was Transformers: Refvenge of the Fallen. Is that film any better than a video game or cave painting? Probably not. However it was made to sooth the soul of effects-craving movie-goers who really don't care if they are appreciating art.

Now consider this, the Transformers 2 target demographic is the same audience that video-game makers are trying to win. Why make video-games art when the filmmakers are getting rich off movies like GI JOe and Transformers?

There is, however, a larger percentage of film enthusiasts who are discerning, refined, and enjoy art. Likewise there are a larger percentage of filmmakers attempting to produce art. So if the percentage of art is relative to the percentage of the art-seekeing audience then it stands to reason the percentage of video-games attempting to be art is very, very small.

So isn't it possible Mr. Ebert that there is a game out there somewhere among the millions, that you could hypothetically concede was art? With the small amount of video-game experience you have isn't it reasonable to assume you might have missed something? Maybe its harder to admit, just because you don't like them. Thanks for your time.

But Roger, don't some mystery video games provide a "puzzle solving" aspect similar to some Hitchcock thrillers? Take for example the game, "Deus Ex." While the art may not be in the shots, or the acting, there can be art in the way the game developers have decided to give you in a sense, "interactive cinema." Granted this form has yet to evolve. Like Hip-Hop, it is a young medium and it just needs that innovative pioneer to push it forward. But I wouldn't write it off just yet. After all, a video game adapting the wars of WWII, or the quests of Julius Caesar seem to me like better art than Kazimir Malevich's "Black Circle" and "White on White."

I have one question, have you played any of the games that Santiago mentioned cause games are about playing not watching a trailer?
If you have I disagree but can understand your point of view, if not why do you think you can talk about videogames with the same authority you talk about movies?
Also what was the last videogame you played?

This article comes off as very uneducated and ignorant. It's clear that he's never actually played Braid, or could even begin to grasp why it would be considered art. Missed the point completely. That part was really embarrassing to read.

And where he says "Why aren't gamers content to play their games and simply enjoy themselves? They have my blessing, not that they care. Do they require validation?"... Why does he care so much about proving video games aren't art? Especially since he clearly has no idea about what he's talking about.

This is like someone glancing over a couple of poems he heard people like, then bursting into a room full of poets and declaring poetry isn't art.

If he doesn't want to put the time and effort into actually playing any of the classics, that's fine, but he should keep his uneducated opinions to himself.

Roger,

Not all video games are art. However, not all writing is art, nor is all photography, nor is all of any one thing. The medium doesn't make the art. It's how the medium is used.

An individual brick isn't art. That doesn't mean that buildings made with bricks can't be great architecture. It also doesn't mean that pottery isn't an art form. There's nothing about the physical process of making mud into clay that makes pottery "art" or "not art". It's what the artist does with it AND what the viewer sees in the final product.

I understand that you don't appreciate computer/video games. Many people don't either. I've had this same discussion with many of my relatives on the same subject. And although I am certainly an appreciator of the computer game medium, I realize and understand that there are people it does not speak to.

Art, and entire mediums, can speak to people, or not. I am not a consumer of fine art, and have never claimed to be. I am generally interested in paintings. They don't move or do anything. To me they're basically sloppy photography. I amuse myself in painting-heavy art museums by counting the works called "madonna and child" among the various depictions of constipated looking people.

However, I will spend hours looking at the complex filagree of glasswork, if the museum happens to have a glasswork exhibit--which of course are sequestered in the "modern art" section and so the serious snooty art consumers don't bother to even go to.

The game "Racer" and other games like it are certainly art if you're a serious consumer of blink-and-you-die reflexes. It's a simulation of the Pod Race sequence in Star Wars Episode I. Each race is about 6 minutes of your visual cortex and tactical center being completely saturated because it's so fast. It's stimulating and breathtaking and exhilerating when you win a race at a high enough position to advance to another, better, faster pod racer.

The game "Metroid" for the Nintendo is not great art, maybe, but certainly an excellent tactical simulation (never liked it myself). But the reaction of thousands of adlescent boys (and girls) late at night in their houses when they finally completed the game, and the character takes off its helmet and shakes its hair out, and they realize "oh my god, it's a girl!" is certainly an artistic experience.

If books like "Illuminati" and "Cryptonomicon" are art, then the game "Deus Ex" certainly is. It has a similar reveal in the middle of the game; you get of a prison that you've been captured in, and as you work on your escape, you realize that you're inside the compound that in the beginning of the game you called your own headquarters. It's rather mind-blowing to have to sneak out of corridors that at one point in the game you considered your safe place.

Music: certainly art.

Classical music: certainly a solidly artistic sub-genre.

I like Bach, and Tchikaufsky (but can't spell him). I find Mozart deadly boring and generally quite dull. It doesn't speak to me. I'm not going to go around to others and try to tell people that Mozart isn't art because it doesn't move me. Computer games aren't a medium that you appreciate, and that's fine. I don't blame you; it's a background and generational difference. But I think it would be the better part of valor for you to spare your scorn of that medium and try to assert that it "isn't art" just because it doesn't speak to YOU.

To judge games as an art form without playing them is to judge music without listening, a painting without looking, and a movie by it's trailer.

You simply aren't qualified to answer the question.

But in answer to your arguments, which is more than you deserve, honestly -

http://www.rodvik.com/rodgames/marriage.html

Play it first, then read the explanation. If you don't understand how the feel of playing it, is where it's art ( whether or not you feel it is good art is irrelevant to the question ) then the flaw isn't with gaming.

After all, your argument, at it's core, argues that a chess set can be art, but that exact same chess set just can't be art if it was designed for a chess videogame!

Yes, if videogames can't be art because they're videogames, then videogames will never be art.

And Pixar will never make a movie with a soul.

In my opinion games can be art, but not every game is art. As in my opinion not every film is art, though we all agree that films too can be art.

And by the way: Please read this article by Ron Gilbert, his games I do consider art.
http://grumpygamer.com/7961508
(Full disclaimer: I'm neither Ron Gilbert nor affiliated with him in any way. I'm a mere reader of his blog and came to that article via his link).

This has always been a ridiculous debate about semantics and the meaning of a word.

Luike Bailey said above that:
Simply put though, you [Ebert] did nothing in this article except deconstruct and dismiss Santiago's definition of art

Ebert:
I think I had a sorta definition lurking in there somewhere..

Um. Sorry, no, you didn't. You posited several ways of defining art, but in the end, you deferred to your personal opinion about how you felt about the three games presented in the video. This mixture of subjective and objective opinions is what causes the most confusion.

In philosophy, there is a famous way of illustrating the vagueness of words. Take the word "baldness". Now you and I both know what baldness means. If I walked you down the street, and pointed out different people, you could surely tell me who's bald and who isn't. However, what is the technical, rigorous definition of baldness? Is someone who has 1-10 hairs on their head bald? What about 13? What about 25? Where do we draw the line? There is an unresolvable fuzziness behind the use of the word "bald". Most of the time, it doesn't limit our ability to use the word. Everybody knows how to use the word "bald" and yet nobody knows the correct definition.

This debate about art is much the same way as the debate over what baldness means. The trouble, of course, is that video games lie (at least for the moment) somewhere in the murky region where nobody is quite sure.

However, that said, what's the point? You're all basically arguing about a word in which nobody has defined. There is one way to sort it out---a deferrel to authority. Let me present the following definition of art.

Definition 1: Roger Ebert is a Pulitzer Prize winner and thus obviously an authority on art. He has stated that video games are not art.

Fine. So you accept that someone has imposed a definition on the word. This definition states that video games are not art. And that's it.

Not good enough for you? Let me propose a different definition.

Definition 2: Each year, poll a statistically significant number of a given population (like the United States). Ask them to decide: "Are video games an art? Yes/No". Whatever decision wins shall be adopted as the definition.

As I said, this is the silliest debate in the world. The only way to resolve it is for an authority (or a majority, or whomever) to propose a definition that the rest of the world adopts. Otherwise, this is how I see the whole debate:

Person 1: A person with more than 13 hairs on their head is bald.

Person 2: You're stupid! A person with more than 14 hairs on their head is bald.

Person 3: You're both wrong! A person with more than 15 hairs on their head is bald.

Person 4: Umm...what about near-baldness? How many hairs is that?

Everybody: ...

My freshman year of college, my roommate purchased the game "Resident Evil 4" for the Playstation 2. In this game, the protagonist (yes, the player) must rescue the daughter of the U.S. President who has been kidnapped by some sort of Spanish cult which is connected to some sort of bizarre plague which turns peoples into zombies, monsters, etc. He played it many afternoons, when a few friends would come over, and although my roommate played the game, every eye in the room was glued to the screen. As the story unfolded, we cared about which characters died. We discussed who was trustworthy and on which side of the conflict. When, for the first time, an obviously inanimate corpse suddenly lunged at the protagonist in a dark, creepy corridor of a disused medical lab, every single person in the room jumped with shock and fear. This game transcended a simple diversionary task; we felt as if we were watching a film.

Even though the text itself is good,I don't think this is a very good way to approach this subject. You see, videogames are in many ways the best way to tell a story, because you have all ways of communicating at your disposal. Picture, text, sound and motion picture. Also you can interact and leave your response in the game, set your footprint in it, so every game means something different from every player. People picking up Braid might pick it up for the challenge, or for the beautiful environments and the fascinating and original storytelling.

A game is to some degree what you want it to be, and if you don't want it to be art, then it's not.
Also you need to be clearer on the difference between having art IN a videogame, and actually making a videogame that is art.

Turi Emaki and .deTuned are art, but only to some extent videogames. You might not like the art, but the are entirely based on being art. Other games like Elder Scrolls IV and ICO have a lot of art, both in beautiful music and pictures. So, no. Videogames aren't art, they're collections of different forms of pictures, music, text and video, and these elements can certainly be art.

Shouldn't film critics, (especially ones who don't play video games) stick to film criticism.

I admire your writing, Roger, though I have to disagree. Any art is subject to an internally consistent set of rules that allow it to make sense. The layers of paint applied to a painting form a system of their own. They are not laid down randomly, but they bend to an order that allows them to create meaning. (I guess someone is going to mention Jackson Pollack here. I would argue that the subversion of all rules is a rule in itself.)

I think your confusion is coming from the fact that to fully experience a game, you have to participate in it. But to claim that this makes it "not art" is like saying that a dance is only art for the people watching it, not for the dancers, or that a film is only art for its audience, not for the actors in it.

A game, like theater or dance or film, is a performance. Games are unique in that their audience and their performers are one and the same. In a single player game, at least, I wouldn't say there is strictly "winning" and "losing" so much as successfully completing the performance, or not. The fact that actor might flub his lines while performing a play, doesn't mean that the play isn't a work of art. Likewise, a gamer may "lose" a game by getting killed at some point, but this is just an unsuccessful performance. The comparison breaks down a little in multiplayer games, because there is nothing else like it in the realm of performance art. There are no other performances where your costars are actively trying to make you screw up. Maybe improv comedy comes close sometimes.

The notion that "art" is the creation of a single person seems at once vague and arbitrary. At their genesis, games are usually the idea of a single person. They are no doubt shaped and influenced along their path to creation by the many talented people required to complete them. Is it any different from film? I know you can cite better than I can films that would not be nearly as successful as works of art without the contributions of actors, editors, cinematographers, make up artists, or other contributors who may not have created the idea. I'm sure some of the more cynical entrants to the gaming field are created by marketing committees and focus groups, but I doubt anyone could claim with a straight face the this is any different from the film industry.

Finally, it is myopic to compare the time-shifting mechanic of Braid to taking back a move in chess. This is not a convenience that was tacked on to make the game easier, it's an integral mechanic that you have to use to solve the puzzles in the game. It is more akin to "the queen can move in any direction in chess." The queen's power isn't a "cheat" added to the game, it's part of how the game is played.

Ebert, I put it to you, that judging a game from a video of its gameplay is like judging a film based on its soundtrack.

The only thing I like about this conversation is that it is silly. First of all, no one really knows what art is. Second of all, a good game is a significant achievement, and a really good game a masterful one. And regardless of what you call the people who create that kind of game, excluding their creation from the category of "art" is a disservice to art and the public.

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.

WAITAMINIT so if a game has no points its not a game?. then what do we call ICO?

Sorry, Roger, but it's generally a good rule to abstain from sweeping, categorical declarations when you have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.

I won't argue about what games are artsier than others (suffice it to say, if you experienced some of them yourself, you might actually sound educated on the topic) but I will staunchly refute the idea that a videogame is largely incapable of conveying artistic expression.

A videogame is a medium. It's a canvas that can contain plot, characters, symbolism, allegory and and every other artistic device conceivable. Some even force the player to make choices that influence the experience in meaningful ways. No other art form has the capability for that kind of interactivity.

Sometimes Roger, I've disagreed with your reviews, but I've always respected your logic and reasoning. Here, I'm appalled. Ironically, you really do sound like one of those short-sighted fuddy-duddies who denied artistic value of the "talkie" upon its arrival.

For their time, those "chicken scratches" represented the absolute leading edge of art. Here, humanity began to transcend it's basic survival needs only way of living. To view them as chicken scratches in light of the Sistine Chapel demonstrates, to me anyway, a surface understanding at best of art and it's history.

This just shows definitions are hard, IMHO. I think of it this way--if one film is a work of art, they all are. You can't have a definition that depends on the quality of the piece. Perhaps you think most movies are bad art, but if Citizen Kane is art, so is _________.

I can't comment on video games as art. But golf is not a sport. :)

Roger - knowing what a big fan of movies as you are, this surprises me. Why would you think that a presentation form that involves art, design, writing and filmography (yes, seriously) not be art? The difference between video games and movies is basically that games take audience participation in mind. I think (and of course much of this is an opinion based argument on both sides) that video games are about as close an art form to film as there is (see: Uncharted 2).
I think the main issue you have with the speaker you refer to is one of definition - what is art and great art and how do video games fit in there? I think what constitutes art is too subjective for me to define, but I will say that compared to other forms that are accepted as art, I don't see a compelling reason why games as a general form should not be included.
I think what you're saying is that because you haven't seen any great games that are artful, they can't be an artistic form, while admitting to not really playing much at all. Forgive me if you think this is unfair, but I think this is like someone claiming movies are not art because "All About Steve" was a terrible movie but is not interested in watching "Citizen Kane". I think perhaps because you don't see a game that rises to the level of "Kane" or "Sunset" that you think the entire genre is by definition incapable. Yet you say this is not something you especially are interested in or participate in. Again, this is like saying there are no good movies, hence movies can't be art, but (or so) I never watch movies. I doubt you would accept that as a reasonable argument from someone, so why are you making it now?
It seems that you are dismissing the form as not being art simply because you don't especially care for it. That last part is fine - just as there are many people
who don't care for poetry or painting or film, there's no reason why you must like
video games. But, the fact that you don't, doesn't mean that it's not art. I don't
especially care for poetry, but I can clearly see that it is art. Let's not confuse
personal preference with our definition of what can be art.
Finally, you day that no one can name a game that could be listed amount the great poets, filmmakers or painters. Here I must disagree and can only imagine you've never asked this of someone who loves games as you love movies. There are dozens of games I could site off the top of my head that fit this, so it surprises me that no one would tell you "Yes! There are games that are not only art, but GREAT art, Roger!" Well that's what I'm saying now! Not just art, great art. I won't list every game I could, just one. Just one that if I had to pick somthing to represent the genre at it's best, most artistic, the highest achievement in the form that I have ever experienced it would be:
"Shadow of the Colossus"
I could go on forever about how amazing this game is. But whatever else it is, it is essentially a game. By which I mean, there is no other artform that could have produced this and yet great art it is. This game contains everything that makes a game great - story, music, graphic design, challenge - making the player a part of the story, the event. I love (LOVE) movies, but playing this game is an experience that no movie could ever come close to giving me.
I will confidently put "Shadow of the Colossus" with any great art you can name: "Citizen Kane", Waterlillies, Hamlet, the David... anything you want. Seriously, it's there.

Thank you.

Your admission seems to be that games cant fit your abstract concept of art so you deny them.

I have played games that have made me feel real emotion - sadness , joy and awe. And even if that doesn't mean "art" to you because of the medium used , I will continue to advocate that games are an artform that can and will mature along with film and books.

The trouble with this topic is that it always ends up in a definition war. I'm starting to wonder if there is any way to reasonably discuss this topic without pissing tons of people off.

I do find your post to be quite valuable. I am apparently a very rare creature: a gamer who does not particularly care whether games are art or not. In fact, I am getting incredibly frustrated with developers trying to force cutscenes and linear plots into games that really don't benefit from them, resulting in smaller possibility-spaces and thus degraded games overall.

And it's really odd to me that the "games as art" advocates always choose super-simplistic action games as examples of "mature" and "intelligent" gaming. I think that the Civilization series of strategy games (in which players manage history-spanning empires) fits that bill much better, if only because those games are highly complex and, thus, much more mentally engaging.

Which isn't to say I don't like action games; I do! They're just not good examples of thoughtful entertainment, and I'm okay with that. I don't need them to be.

I'm kind of on the fence, here... I'm a very infrequent video gamer, not because I specifically dislike them so much as because they fairly consistently fail to hold my interest. I've played and enjoyed a couple in my time, but I never thought of them as art -- I thought of them as games. But I'm not so sure I agree that they can NEVER be art.

I suppose it all has to do with how you define art -- and that's probably why a debate on this subject could never really go anywhere. Everybody has their own way of defining art, and that's as it should be -- there is nothing more personal than art.

I don't think something needs to have an emotional affect in order to be art. I agree with some of the other commenters here that a distinction can be made between "Art" and "Great Art." Great Art is in a class by itself, but if I go to see a movie that doesn't particularly make me laugh and doesn't particularly make me cry, it's okay with me as long as it wasn't TRYING to. If it was TRYING to, and it failed, then I think of it as a failure, but it's still art. It's just not good art. If a film succeeds in whatever it was trying to do, even if what it was trying to do was nothing, then that's a kind of art.

If all a video game is trying to do is divert me for a while, that doesn't mean it isn't art.

But then there's the question "Can a game be art?" This is where I'm not so sure, because video games have become such visual experiences that they're really somewhere in between chess and a film. Chess, I happen to think, is the greatest game mankind has ever created. If any game could be called art, it would be chess. And, for whatever it's worth, I think the elegance, simplicity, order and beauty of chess DOES imitate nature. I just can't quite define what I mean by that.

So, what's a game? Entertainment, just like art. An arrangement of elements into a structure. If I said to you, "Try to hit my hand before I move it," I just created a game. Maybe the simplest game possible, but it still has fairly sophisticated rules. There's no reason for you to try to hit my hand before I move it, except for that we're playing a game. Just like there's no reason to look at a painting or read a poem, except for that it's art. A game does something else that art does -- it creates elements of organization that bring focus and order to the chaos around us. And a game creates joy, drama and entertainment. Is a game art? I'm really not at all sure, but it's something to think about...

As for video games, I think it's foolish not to address the fact that some video games are visually stunning. My girlfriend plays a game called "Elder Scrolls: Oblivion", and many times I find myself drifting over to the computer to just sit there and watch her play -- not because I care about the game, but because it is so visually beautiful that it holds me awe-struck. It moves me. And it moves me in a way that feels just like art.

So... as I said in the beginning, I'm sort of undecided. If you define art as the organization of elements into a structure that... does SOMETHING (moves us, entertains us, imitates nature, captures something about what it is to be alive, etc.), I think there's a case to be made that games could fall into that category. I have to say I think the best definition of art is the simplest... art is the result of somebody being driven to creation.

I love your movie reviews and I follow you on Twitter to my great delight, but in this case you have no idea what you're talking about. Must be a generational thing, but you have blinders on.

"Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art?"

A better question would be: Why are you so concerned with feeble attempts to "prevent" it from happening? Especially since: 1. It already has, 2. You simply can't, and 3. You've got nothing except ignorant bias.

It's great that you have no problem going down in history as being an uninformed naysayer regarding what is easily the most important new art form.

Don't worry Roger, movies won't completely go away. Just like still photography didn't go away when movies showed up and paintings didn't go away when photos were invented.

Never played a videogame, eh? I guess that's why you're an expert on the subject. At least you know what you're talking about.

I found that many game that were lauded for their 'artistic merit' are lacking in refinement, and are often shallow, sentimental, and self-confident tripes. I tried to play Mass Effect, but the cliched plot, the uninspired characters just wore me out. Bioshock is an amateur regurgitation of Ayn Rand's novels (which were already horrendous by itself). Like many other games, Bioshock presents a shallow black-and-white morality, which I found tiring. I know that videogame industry havent had games like Mass Effect or Bioshock before, but to compare them with great artworks is too much. They are too inconsistent.

You are stuck at finding a definition, on something you never really experienced. Too bad. Imagine a man who never seen a movie, who says that movies can never be an art?
Just do it, a wise saying. :) And than you can judge and theorise.
Or, I will use words of a man who writes great movie critics: "Write what you know about". :)

For the most part, taking the definition of art in it's most literal sense, 99% of games could never be classified as art. Of the games she chose to touch on as art only 2 should be considered such and only 1 actually is, IMO. Braid is a good game, but I don't think it could ever really be art. Flower is the closest thing to art that I have ever played. It's simplicity lies in the fact that there is a story, kind of, but not really. There is no score and really you only have to motivated to finish a level to finish it. There are no time limits, no major puzzles to solve. The entire experience is very sublime, calming, smile inducing, it gives you whatever you want out of it. I own a lot of games, a lot of which people could claim is art, but only Flower is the real contender in any sense of the word.

Video games are Design and not Fine Art as we understand it. The line between them is very blurred, and the 'what is art' debate seems endless. Very briefly, The main contrast between them is that Design is commerical, made for a client and adjusted to their specifications; It solves problems, it must convey the message in the brief. Fine art comes from within as an expression, not through a brief and generally isn't altered for the person who buys it.

I'm with the first commenter. First, you don't get it. I believe that there are video games that are being produced that are well beyond the artistic character of the production of most of Hollywood and, hell, independent movie makers as well.

In fact, I would go so far as to argue that one of the reasons that video games can be so effective is because of the personal interaction aspects. Games like Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age by BioWare both take on hard questions, deal with fascinating choices and grapple with questions that cause you to think.

'Her next example is a game named "Braid" (above). This is a game "that explores our own relationship with our past...you encounter enemies and collect puzzle pieces, but there's one key difference...you can't die." You can go back in time and correct your mistakes. In chess, this is known as taking back a move, and negates the whole discipline of the game.'

If you'd actually play Braid instead of relying on somebody else's description of it you would know that "taking back your moves" (actually, rewinding time) is an essential element in solving many of the game's puzzles. You literally cannot win the game without rewinding time at key moments, and the reason it works is that not all of the game's elements respond equally when the player rewinds or fast-forwards time in the game.

I haven't played the other games mentioned in this piece, but I'm forced to wonder if your dismissal of these other games is equally based on your idea of what these games are like than what they're actually like. Whether or not games are art, relying on second-hand experiences to decide the question is hardly a good idea.

"Would you concede that a chess set itself can be a work of art, whether or not it is actually played?"

"Ebert: Yes. But why is that a concession?"

When you say that a video game is not art you are combining the computer program and the act of playing the program.

If the chess pieces can be art but the act of playing chess is not, then you must concede that a computer program game can be art even if the act of playing is not.

I believe video games can be art, just like how movies and poetry and music can be art if done in the right way. Video games like Heavy Rain immerse you into the story and actually require you to make decisions and move the plot forward, movies (which i love) require you to sit and observe what happens and requires only your attention and intellect (sometimes). By the way, i also believe art represents life and how we deal with life, life has rules and objectives and i do believe you can win (and lose) in life sometimes, thus making SOME video games art :)

Criticizing a game you have not played is like reviewing a movie based on the trailer. No offense, but why should one care about such baseless opinions?

(For example, Mr. Ebert describes Braid as lacking discipline, but I suspect that belief would change if he actually played it for half an hour.)

"Let me just say that no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form."

So you are saying that videogames are not capable of becoming 'art' right now? I enjoy your insights and am curious to what makes you think videogames CAN become art in the future? Is it a matter of capable technology or something else entirely?

Ebert: For the sake of gamers, I sincerely hope video games can evolve into art.

In all these comments, no one has mentioned Shakespeare, Beethoven, Dickens or Picasso. Indeed, hardly any great artists have entered into the discussion. Perhaps it appeared unseemly.

And this is the point where I gave up on Roger Ebert.

Usually, you have reasonable opinions, but in this case, I cannot accept them. It is clear to me that your age is clouding your viewpoint as comes videogames, and I don't think you're qualified to make any sort of objective opinion on them.

Do me a favour Roger, play Grim Fandango, play Planescape: Torment, play The Longest Journey. These are games that stir emotions and contemplation, that cause us to question the very nature of reality. Even non-gamers can understand this.

But no, what you are doing is taking a fleeting glimpse at something you don't understand and condemning it. Imagine if somebody who knew nothing of films looked at Transformers 2 or 300 and condemned the whole medium as immature and base immediately. I think you'd be quite incensed with them, and would I. They're just looking at the most popular dreck and failing to dig any deeper before they come to a conclusion. A rational person would sit them down with some Bergman and Tarkovsky films and see how they feel afterward. I doubt they'd think the same.

Because that's exactly what you're doing, you only taking a glance at the mainstream dreck and condemn it based on what you see. It's bad reviewing technique, because you aren't digging deep enough before reaching a conclusion. I wouldn't mind so much, you aren't a videogame critic, but when you say 'Videogames can never be art', you take it upon yourself, and if you make a statement like that, you'd better know what you're talking about.

Incidentally, none of those games I spoke of are particularly violent. Planescape: Torment, somewhat, but only when appropriate and where it makes sense as relates to the story.

I suggest that you do your research before making such grandiose claims, otherwise this is just an old man ranting about something he doesn't understand.

As I'm sure you understand, nobody wants to be in that position.

I've combed though your post a few times and you don't say anything that would suggest your own definition of art and why video games will NEVER meet it. Don't say that "a sorta definition lurking in there somewhere" because there isn't!

Instead you "deconstruct" the speech by just saying that the speaker is wrong without giving any supporting reasons.

You then take the last paragraph to call the people that have the opposite view as you as shallow and pathetic.

In the end, you really aren't doing anything to convince the reader why your opinion is right. You just come off being a stubborn old man that only has an opposing opinion for just the sake of it.

People must think "Braid" is an artistic game because the graphics are pretty. Come on guys, we can do better than that.

Roger, I love your work, and even agree with a whole lot of this, but the tone you take here is extremely condescending.

I don't know if games are art or not, but I never would've expected you to be so utterly dismissive of a medium you don't actually have the slightest bit of experience with (at least modern experience).

Roger,

While I certainly appreciate the careful consideration you have given in developing your point of view, unfortunately your statements that video games are not art are akin to someone who cannot read claiming that books are not art. The illiterate man can look at scratchings on a page, as well as the technical feat of applying ink and assembling the bindings. Such illiterate man might appreciate the technical skill that it took to assemble the book. But he would never acknowledge the book as art, because he understands none of the meaning.

As you have not played Braid or any of the other masterworks of videogame medium (and I had to stop myself from the reflexive and natureal reference to the "art form" in an effort to avoid circular reasoning), you are completely unable to offer an informed opinion - for your have never learned to "read" a videogame. Braid means nothing by looking at it (though like many others on this forum, you can appreciate the artistic components). In Braid, you are the one who makes the catastrophic mistakes that lead to the game's tragic end - but, like the protagonist, at no point during the course of the game did you realize you were making such mistakes. The crushing resolution is magnified because you were the one taking the actions.

To use a simpler example, horror and thriller video games have leapfrogged contemporary horror movies (though certainly not Hitchcock) by leaps and bounds. Yelling at a movie protaganist for entering a dark basement is comedic these days. Yet when you can choose to leave your partner, enter the basement, or not, and the fear still follows you whether you go downstairs or stick together, the "safe" feeling of horror movies is gone. I would refer you to Eternal Darkness, Heavy Rain, and/or Dead Space for examples of the range of emotions the video game horror/thriller genre can span, from the cerebral to the visceral.

The choice element in video games, which you refer to as the loss of the author's control, in fact is the distinguishing characteristic of video games that distinguishes them from books and movies - but it does not invalidate video games as art. In many instances it heightens their value.

Thank you, as always, for your thoughtful commentaries. I will, however, submit that if your were to play (and I mean fully play to completion on your own without guidance from a PR person) Shadow of the Colossus and then watch Avatar back to back, you would very quickly realize which makes the greater artistic statement. I look forward to your some day learning to play video games. And if you choose not to learn, please enjoy the wonderful world of art already available.

Best regards,
Mike

Well, if you were to list an explanation as to what art is, I can take that and make it fit into just about any videogame from my point of view. Actually, I could probably make it fit into just about anything, to where pouring coffee could be considered 'art'. So your problem with videogames-as-art has to go beyond just the standard definition as to what art truly is. Yes?

So it has to come from your gut. You just know in your gut that this isn't art. But isn't that a personal view? How can you tell me something isn't art when I think it is? Can I tell you that I think Sam Newsome's new solo soprano sax album 'Soliloquy' isn't art at all but just a bunch of annoying sounds? Yet some would consider this 'art' while I do not. Who's right and who's wrong?

It's subjective don't you think? Every time you seem to try to tell people it's NOT subjective and that you're right about this, you seem to get further away from understanding. Perhaps you'll never understand...just like I'll probably never understand Sam Newsome's 'Soliloquy' and probably never admit it's even approaching art.

It seems to me you've bought the "peaches" argument: Movies, novels, and poetry can evoke the taste of a peach. Video games cannot. So they're not art.

Some game designers agree... but if art is that which evokes aesthetic appreciation, then games don't need to evoke the taste of a peach, they just need to evoke some kind of deliberate reaction. If they're not much good at peaches, well, that is a weakness. But they may have distinct strengths as well.

There is a huge and popular genre of video games that cannot be won. It includes the works of Will Wright (SimCity, The Sims, Spore) and the various "tycoon" games (Railroad Tycoon, Zoo Tycoon, etc.). I call these "sandbox games." Detractors call them "toys," because they don't offer much of a challenge unless you personally set an objective for yourself.

I'm a fan of a particular sandbox game called Dwarf Fortress. It is quite difficult to appreciate this game by looking at it; a lot of people refuse to play it because it looks like the machine code from The Matrix. To learn to play it, you need to master a menu system reminiscent of old database software from before computer mice became popular. If you persist--and I'm not recommending you do, I'm just using it as an example--you will find a detailed and intricate simulation of a fantasy world.

In fantasy literature, many fans and authors are very concerned with 'worldbuilding,' the practice of constructing a detailed background for the story to take place against. Dwarf Fortress has a pretty impressive amount of worldbuilding; before you even start a game, it's simulated some five thousand years of warfare and political intrigue between its five races, which will affect those races' attitude toward your dwarves as you play the game.

So this school of game design has some creative techniques in common with fantasy literature. That in itself doesn't make the games art, it just makes them a craft, like set design. If you make a set for a movie, and then don't film a movie on it, you haven't made art.

Game designers make "sets"--imaginary worlds, which follow consistent rules and respond to the player in consistent ways--with the intention that players explore those sets, and react to them in various ways. In Dwarf Fortress that "set" is a fantasy land, but not quite your usual Tolkien ripoff. For one thing, the elves in this setting are warlike bastards who will invade your fortress if you cut down too many trees. By itself this would just be a lame joke--but when you have a fortress to defend, and have to weigh the benefits of more firewood against the risk of cannibal elves pounding down your door, the joke takes on a certain edge. I find that the overall feeling of the game is one of paranoid tension, mixed with anarchic glee when e.g. your dwarves go berserk and kill each other because they ran out of alcohol. Losing is fun in this game.

This makes game designers the creative equivalent of Disney's Imagineers, the people who design the rides at Disneyland. I'm not sure The Haunted Mansion would qualify as "high art", but it's an experience you can't really get anywhere else.

There's a lot of good theory about this at the blog Lost Garden. I'd particularly recommend this essay on the aesthetic value of card games:
http://lostgarden.com/2006/11/millions-of-peaches.html

Mr. Ebert
You wrote "
Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art? Bobby Fischer, Michael Jordan and Dick Butkus never said they thought their games were an art form. Nor did Shi Hua Chen, winner of the $500,000 World Series of Mah Jong in 2009. Why aren't gamers content to play their games and simply enjoy themselves? They have my blessing, not that they care."

Allow me to provide some explanation. As a long time game player and a waver of the "games as art" flag, I know exactly why so many people want their medium defined as "art". They want their medium to gain legitimacy so that they, in turn, may gain legitimacy.

Your blog will be interpreted as more proof that, for all of it's market success, the game medium is not actually mainstream. People don't really know or understand video games and, thus, cannot respect those involved in the medium(creators or players). Of the small section of game players who will take it upon themselves to make the "Games as Art" argument (a very small section of the game playing public), there is the sense that if the medium can be respected as "art" than they too can grab onto the mediums coattails and be respected to. They want their passionate, detailed, extremely nerdy interest in the topic will also be legitimized. They will be respected for their nerdy predilections instead of ostracized for them...like cinema lovers and book enthusiasts.

The irony of the preceding paragraph does not escape me. The idea that people who love love love films have "respect" in this country is absurd. The fact that game players think that artistic legitimacy for the medium will lead to acceptance says more about those people than the art they try to defend.

I would rather watch a documentary about the life of a person who thinks that games are art than play a game that tries to make that argument.

Video games are every much art as movies are. If you don't play then, then you wouldn't know they have stories just as deep and intriguing as any movie. The art style used in many games rival anything hanging in a museum. Take Flower for instance. It's one of the most beautiful games ever made, and to say it's not art is wrong.

It's not that people like Mr. Ebert don't get it. It's that they aren't schooled at video games, so they can't sit down and play through a game and see the scoping story of something like Uncharted 2, which is better than most movies released every year.

Roger, I respect your reviews and writing more than any other living critic. But it's foolish to wade into a debate about a form of media that you're entirely ignorant about. Yes, Braid is art. Dismissing it because you don't understand its rules is poor form; do you know about its immersive, cryptic storyline? Its deconstruction of the rules of game playing and dreamlike logic? The actual gameplay is nearly secondary to the experience of watching it being played.

If video games cannot be art, then neither can books or films.

So if a narrative involves a decision tree, then it isn't art? A book essentially has an objective, winners and losers. They are just fully predetermined and non-interactive. A collaborative evolving storyline might, gasp, actually resemble a game and still be considered art. The balance between limitations and freedom are what makes art interesting - and the same is true with games. Of course the narrative in games is, by necessity, more limited than a book, but often can be more free than in a movie.

The real limitation on games being art is purely commercial. There is no incentive to get beyond a Harry Potter level of literacy or commentary.

There are some games, like RPGs, that tell stories. The "gaming" part of them is just a hook to keep you interested in the story and make the story more personal and intense.

If the story itself would have been "art" if it were presented in movie or book format, why deny it that status just because it's presented on a Wii instead of an old scroll? If the Odyssey had been a video game where you control Odysseus, instead of a story where someone else tells you about Odysseus, then as long as the essential elements of the story are preserved it's still art.

I think a more relevant question is whether, separate from the subject matter of a game, the mechanics of a game can be art. I'd argue that they can be, but only in the same way that a well-made scientific theory can be "beautiful" - the ability to derive aesthetic satisfaction from something that fits together with grace and simplicity.

I'm quite confused at many of your arguments. Firstly. the major difference between Sports and Video games is that video games tell a story. This is why it doesn't make much sense to put them in the same category. Sure, games were originally made for entertainment, but so were films.

Secondly, the best definition of art I have ever heard is that if someone or a group of people makes something with the intention of it being art, it is then art. It might be bad art. It might be high art. Art is art whether it's a highschooler's abstract painting for art class or if it's Starry Night.

Thirdly, your saying that no game has earned the time to play it. That's completely absurd seeing that Braid takes three hours to finish. As a film critic, you spend much time watching films yet don't give a single game a chance. The thing that makes games different than film or any other art form is that games have interactivity. Not usually with the story, but interactivity none the less.

One more thing I would like to point out is the reason for art. We make art to say things that we couldn't say in conversation. They are in a way similar to Jesus's parables. It's easier to show people something than it is to tell people. That's why I'm astonished you don't consider Braid art. Braid's message is as powerful as any film I've seen. It's about how mistakes can never be reversed. It brings up, quite subtly, examples such as a couple having an argument, the dropping of the atomic bomb and so on. The game is a game because when the gamer reverses time, they are given this feeling of invulnerability. At the final scene of the game, you lose control for the first time. This ending brought many who played it to tears.

As a final note, I have found the perfect game for you. It's five minutes long, and requires two playthroughs. It's called Passage. It takes less time than watching the video you embedded.

I hope you give this comment at least a fraction of the respect I give to your articles every day.

Part of the confusion is that there's two very different things grouped under the "video games" rubric. One is things like Flower, which are basically games, like chess, or football, but with much more developed aesthetics. I would argue that something like Flower is art, but it's closer to painting than prose; the art is in the visual presentation, which is pretty substantial (unlike photography, an artist must decide what every blade of grass in the world looks like, which is a whole series of individual aesthetic decisions). In fact, I've always thought that Tim Burton, with his tremendous visual gifts and total lack of storytelling chops, would have made a great video game designer.

Anyway, the second type of video game is the "interactive narrative", like Grim Fandango or Bioshock. Those are closer to movies or novels, and like movies or novels, they're tough to evaluate based on a still. They maintain the visual aesthetics of the first type of game, but add a narrative that has to be experienced to be evaluated.

Part of the trouble here is that Mr. Ebert keeps confusing "art" with "good"---there can be bad art, or mediocre art, or pretty-good-but-not-great art. I wouldn't put Grim Fandango next to Citizen Kane, but I'd definitely put it next to The Forty-Year-Old Virgin.

I think I finally figured out the disconnect in this argument.

Ebert, I think our disagreement here comes from not drawing a distinction between "Game," a single- or multi-person competition defined by its rules and objectives, and "Game," a crafted single- or multi-person interactive experience designed to communicate certain experiences and evoke certain emotions. The former's objective is "win." The latter's objective is "participate in the experience that the designers have created for you."

It's not a distinction that the game industry makes, either. The line is blurry, and the latter often uses the former as the mechanic to keep its audience involved.

But it's a critical distinction to make, from the perspective of "games as art." Criticizing Braid because taking back one's mistakes is "taking back a move, and negates the whole discipline of the game," is willfully disallowing yourself from experiencing the game because you want it to be a sport instead. Games don't have to be scored; you're not supposed to be worried about whether or not you've "won." Much like movies, they can raise questions without having to answer them.

Oh--and the business of making movies can be divided into "Development, Finance, Publishing, Marketing, Education, and Executive Management" too.

"Digital," a game made by a friend of mine in her spare time, is art. It'll take you about an hour to play. Give it a try, before the next time you decide to resubmit your "Games aren't art" article for a new generation of controversy.

Mr. Ebert, I've been a gamer since before I even knew what a gamer was and I must reluctantly concede that you are right. I can't speak about the future, but my own observations (from a more internal, and therefore more detailed, standpoint than yours) lead me to believe that videogames are still far away from being an art form.

The reason for this is simple: there is no intention to turn a videogame into a work of art. Even if there is, there are no "real" artists involved in its creation. Most important perhaps is the fact that there is no market for "art" video games. There is no inherent sensibility in a typical gamer to consume them. The entire medium is oriented toward young people, and the very nature of the things you are required to do preclude any sensibility toward art.

Allow me to make an example: God of War is an excellent game, it is an example of superb game design, one might even say it is a work of art within the medium. But its main attraction is the violent dispatching of your enemies and the epic scale on which said dispatching occurs. The game of course features a story, but it is not a great story (on the scale of literature), rather it exists only to justify the current state of events.

But this is now.

Take the opinion of a somebody who is in the middle of it, so to speak. I've been following the evolution of the video game industry since I was kid playing Super Mario and there has been growth, there has been a certain desire, however vague, to mature. There is a desire to tell stories, there is a desire to, as it were, transcend the genre. It remains to be seen whether the genre can be transcended.

I quote: "those of us who play video games and see the art in the ones that contain it, cannot quite describe what makes these games what they are in our eyes"

And there you have it. There is something there. The seedling of things to come perhaps, however immature it might be now. In any case, the medium is moving forward, there is no doubt about that. The fact remains that is is incredibly young, it has barely attained the technology and monetary means through which to fully express itself. A video game today can deliver something akin to the experience of a summer blockbuster, see Modern Warfare 2, or that of a thriller, see Heavy Rain (which some are calling an interactive movie, I've yet to play it myself, though). Those are by no means works of art, but they are steps forward. They represent a desire to take the medium forward.

What I am perhaps hinting at is that your view as outsider, Mr. Ebert, is extremely disadvantaged. You can't hope to watch a 15 minute presentation and have all the facts there for you. I hope I've managed to shed an extra bit of light here. There is potential, but no actuality, and there probably won't be any for a while.

Heavy Rain trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKPPdgBK3r8

Heavy Rain gameplay:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnck2oXdxMo&feature=related

Modern Warfare 2 trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWIJTydRLt8

Modern Warfare 2 gameplay:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKgnl4R8YeM&feature=related

I agree that most video games are not art. But I do not believe games cannot be art. Shadow of colossus is a perfect example. There are no score points, you do not win at the end. It is just a story that the player has the opportunity to guide the protagonist rather than just watch him. If the game were a film and there were no controller, it would be called a work of art. So I would contend that video games can be art, but of all the games I've played this is the only one I'd call art as of eight now.

As a 21-year-old reader of your reviews and this fascinating blog post.

Let me say that I agree completely and people who say you "Just don't get it" are probably playing too many video games.

When is a film art? Is it possible to enjoy films that are not art? Is it also possible to not enjoy films that are art?

Perhaps the best thing to do is to ask: Roger, can movies based on video games be art?

I would think they could be considered art in the same way a slot machine can be considered art.

There may be the rare exception, but for the most part, a lot of them are junk, not art.

A slot machine gives a lot of people great emotion, but I don't think it gives them a sense of human connection or asks them to think, or even learn. There very often lacks empathy, or perhaps it is one of the "arts" which can engage another without the requirement for them to feel empathy, towards it? Pop Art.

Maybe in a few years video games will get better? I don't believe anyone has made a video game with real "depth" yet. Anyone remember Disneys Dragon's Lair? Choose your own adventure cartoons?

MMORPGS could be the next step video games take. I mean they already have and the addiction/reward factor is through the roof in comparison.

Roger, I find you keep trying to show how video games are not art by a rather bizarre method, where you define by exclusion. Just as an example:

Santiago now phrases this in her terms: "Art is a way of communicating ideas to an audience in a way that the audience finds engaging." Yet what ideas are contained in Stravinsky, Picasso, "Night of the Hunter," "Persona," "Waiting for Godot," "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock?" Oh, you can perform an exegesis or a paraphrase, but then you are creating your own art object from the materials at hand.

Just because there are no perceptible ideas in Picasso or Stravinsky (I disagree), it does not mean that we can exclude things that are rich in ideas from the category called "art". Not only that, but here you're selectively defining by example, and highly subjective examples at that.

Just because a vast grouping of humanity can see a Picasso to be art, it does not make that it is any less a subjective judgment. I anticipate that you would be equally hard-pressed and frustrated to convince someone who does not consider Picasso to be art (should such a rare creature be found,) as Santiago would be to convince you that the same is true of video games.

I personally take the view that the very question, "Can video games be art?" Is meaningless, and approaches no real answer until someone can satisfactorily answer the question, "Is art, art?"

I find this to be a good discussion of the topic.

I would think they could be considered art in the same way a slot machine can be considered art.

There may be the rare exception, but for the most part, a lot of them are junk, not art.

A slot machine gives a lot of people great emotion, but I don't think it gives them a sense of human connection or asks them to think, or even learn. There very often lacks empathy, or perhaps it is one of the "arts" which can engage another without the requirement for them to feel empathy, towards it? Pop Art.

Maybe in a few years video games will get better? I don't believe anyone has made a video game with real "depth" yet. Anyone remember Disneys Dragon's Lair? Choose your own adventure cartoons?

MMORPGS could be the next step video games take. I mean they already have and the addiction/reward factor is through the roof in comparison.

Roger, I find you keep trying to show how video games are not art by a rather bizarre method, where you define by exclusion. Just as an example:

Santiago now phrases this in her terms: "Art is a way of communicating ideas to an audience in a way that the audience finds engaging." Yet what ideas are contained in Stravinsky, Picasso, "Night of the Hunter," "Persona," "Waiting for Godot," "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock?" Oh, you can perform an exegesis or a paraphrase, but then you are creating your own art object from the materials at hand.

Just because there are no perceptible ideas in Picasso or Stravinsky (I disagree), it does not mean that we can exclude things that are rich in ideas from the category called "art". Not only that, but here you're selectively defining by example, and highly subjective examples at that.

Just because a vast grouping of humanity can see a Picasso to be art, it does not make that it is any less a subjective judgment. I anticipate that you would be equally hard-pressed and frustrated to convince someone who does not consider Picasso to be art (should such a rare creature be found,) as Santiago would be to convince you that the same is true of video games.

I personally take the view that the very question, "Can video games be art?" Is meaningless, and approaches no real answer until someone can satisfactorily answer the question, "Is art, art?"

I find this to be a good discussion of the topic.

When is a film art? Is it possible to enjoy films that are not art? Is it also possible to not enjoy films that are art?

Perhaps the best thing to do is to ask: Roger, can movies based on video games be art?

Roger, I find you keep trying to show how video games are not art by a rather bizarre method, where you define by exclusion. Just as an example:

Santiago now phrases this in her terms: "Art is a way of communicating ideas to an audience in a way that the audience finds engaging." Yet what ideas are contained in Stravinsky, Picasso, "Night of the Hunter," "Persona," "Waiting for Godot," "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock?" Oh, you can perform an exegesis or a paraphrase, but then you are creating your own art object from the materials at hand.

Just because there are no perceptible ideas in Picasso or Stravinsky (I disagree), it does not mean that we can exclude things that are rich in ideas from the category called "art". Not only that, but here you're selectively defining by example, and highly subjective examples at that.

Just because a vast grouping of humanity can see a Picasso to be art, it does not make that it is any less a subjective judgment. I anticipate that you would be equally hard-pressed and frustrated to convince someone who does not consider Picasso to be art (should such a rare creature be found,) as Santiago would be to convince you that the same is true of video games.

I personally take the view that the very question, "Can video games be art?" Is meaningless, and approaches no real answer until someone can satisfactorily answer the question, "Is art, art?"

I find this to be a good discussion of the topic.

Many people have already said many more profound things than this, but here's my two cents.

Until you play some of these games, your arguments here will continue to fall down. As an example: You shut down the game flower because you don't understand it. You ask about points and winning and losing, and the game is just not about that.

You are a petal. You fly around finding other petals. There is no winning. There is no losing. Each level tells a simple story, and at the end, you become a new flower. The end being when you are done, not when something decides you're finished.

Games aren't side scrolling, 8-bit gorilla barrel throwing asteroid shooting monstrosities any more. They have evolved.

Why are gamers concerned about convincing people that games can be art? Because they have played amazing things, and felt amazing things, and they want to share it with others. They want to share it, and they want to defend that which they love.

And whilst I won't argue that many games aren't art, neither are a lot of terrible bloody movies.

Along with being a film, comic and literary buff I consider myself an avid gamer. For a long while, I enjoyed gaming on a purely practical, functional basis--it was interactive, it was fun, I could enjoy it with others--but I had never considered the medium to be artistic in the same manner as literature, cinema and comics are.

And it's not like most game designers and developers go out of their way to create a work of art, even if their medium allows the concept. While all media are commercial at some point, I'd say proportionally the game medium puts out more purely entertaining and functional product than film or literature does. It's probably closer to comics, which for every Grant Morrison has three Rob Liefelds (bit of an in-joke but if you do some reading you'll probably appreciate the analogy).

But I do believe games have the capacity for art, insofar that a work of art allows the recipient to connect with it on an emotional and/or intellectual level, to provoke thought and debate and to explore systems, issues and concepts. In fact, I don't simply believe in the medium's capacity for art. I can think of a few games that I would consider to be as moving and fascinating as a Michael Chabon novel or Steven Soderbergh film, chief among them Konami's Silent Hill 2. This game explores issues of denial, repression, loss and remorse like few others--not only in the gaming medium, mind you, but of nearly any mode of entertainment.

Maybe it all comes down to classification of what "art" entails. Lord knows it varies. Comic creator and theorist Scott McCloud categorizes art as any activity not related to the human survival instinct. I've outlined my criteria in the previous paragraph and needless to say your definition and my own are more selective than McCloud's.

Do I need video games to be classified as art in order for my interest to be valid? Hell no. Of all the games in my Xbox 360 stack I'd say the majority I play for pure, tactile entertainment, and were likely designed as such. I don't need artistic justification if I'm having fun. But I'm also one for giving credit where credit's due. If I think Silent Hill 2 and BioShock are artistic in their aims and succeed at doing so I'm going to label them art without any condescension towards their brethren that I enjoy simply for entertainment's sake.

Do I think the majority of games will be considered art (to my standard if not yours) in the next 20-30 years? I doubt it, but then again of all the films I've seen in my lifetime I wouldn't consider over 50% of them to be introspective and thought-provoking works. Every medium, every genre even, has its fair share of Michael Bays in comparison to the Ridley Scotts. At the moment, games simply have proportionally more, and if that's going to change in the future it will because more developers attempt an artistic product and because critics (not yourself but those who would review for video gaming publications) make the attempt to perceive the game's message and aesthetic along with its functionality.

When is a film art? Is it possible to enjoy films that are not art? Is it also possible to not enjoy films that are art?

Perhaps the best thing to do is to ask: Roger, can movies based on video games be art?

Roger, I find you keep trying to show how video games are not art by a rather bizarre method, where you define by exclusion. Just as an example:

Santiago now phrases this in her terms: "Art is a way of communicating ideas to an audience in a way that the audience finds engaging." Yet what ideas are contained in Stravinsky, Picasso, "Night of the Hunter," "Persona," "Waiting for Godot," "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock?" Oh, you can perform an exegesis or a paraphrase, but then you are creating your own art object from the materials at hand.

Just because there are no perceptible ideas in Picasso or Stravinsky (I disagree), it does not mean that we can exclude things that are rich in ideas from the category called "art". Not only that, but here you're selectively defining by example, and highly subjective examples at that.

Just because a vast grouping of humanity can see a Picasso to be art, it does not make that it is any less a subjective judgment. I anticipate that you would be equally hard-pressed and frustrated to convince someone who does not consider Picasso to be art (should such a rare creature be found,) as Santiago would be to convince you that the same is true of video games.

I personally take the view that the very question, "Can video games be art?" Is meaningless, and approaches no real answer until someone can satisfactorily answer the question, "Is art, art?"

I find this to be a good discussion of the topic.

Here is a very good discussion of this subject from an online journal called 'Contemporary Aesthetics':

http://www.contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/pages/article.php?articleID=299

Ebert: I read it.

I think the problem you're having in understanding games is that you aren't experiencing the aspect of games that make them a potentially unique art form: interactivity. Unfortunately, most of the games people will suggest as examples of art require the player to have a built-up vocabulary of video game playing skills.

However, I can think of one very rudimentary art game that anyone can play: Jason Rohrer's Passage. It runs on just about any computer (even Macs), only requires you to use the four arrow keys, and is only five minutes long. You can download it here: http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/

I would really recommend you play it. Every rule and design choice has been made with the artist's statement in mind. Even silly gaming conventions like gaining points are repurposed in an interesting way. If you enjoy it, you can play it again, do things differently, and notice how the parameters set up by the game's creator support the same overall artistic statement through all of the player's available actions.

I'm with you Roger. Video games may have entertainment and "social" value, and the craftwork of creative and skilled brainiacs, but they are not art. The medium of video games is like pornography; it appeals to a very specific animal response. You can put a teenager in front of a Playstation or a Playboy and the intellectual involvement will more or less be the same.

I'm not saying porn and video games are bad. I'm just saying they serve a purpose very different from art, cinema, and literature.

Having watched the piece and read the article, I am baffled why Melies is even being put against videogames, for me they are part of the same development in video art forms and the creative possibilities of industrial design and technology.

Just as the inventions of the 19th century are pre-cinema, videogames of the late 20th century are post-cinema. Furthermore they represent a new stage in animation and run parallel to the development of computer animation and has led to a unique form of commercial and artistic medium.

Of course they are an art form, only a reactionary or disinterested bystander would think otherwise, just as animation is, in all its forms, a unique art form despite being maligned by many, especially in Western culture, so are videogames.

If the medium has not fully realised its potential merely reflects badly on contemporary society, the complex details and realities of production, market pressures etc as it does in the decline of quality in commercial cinema in more recent times.

You're mostly right, it is true that gaming as a medium has many more craftspeople than artists. It is true that even a lot of the mainstream titles that several gamers attempt to promote as art are in no way works of art. But, you misunderstand Braid.

"You can go back in time and correct your mistakes. In chess, this is known as taking back a move, and negates the whole discipline of the game. Nor am I persuaded that I can learn about my own past by taking back my mistakes in a video game."

Taking back a move is one of the most shallow ways to use the rewind function in Braid. In many different scenarios, this is used to advance in the game, sometimes by interacting with objects that are unaffected by the rewind, sometimes in other very interesting ways.

The best story element in the game comes at the end, where a parody of the "saving the princess" trope in video games is done expertly, the use of the time function changing your perspective of your role in the final act of the game.

There are artists in gaming today, most of them do a majority of the work on their own game and create a very personal experience between them and the player. To me, that sounds an awful lot like art.

When you mention chess as art, I immediately think of Nabokov, both for the chesslike puzzling of his novels and the actual problems he composed.

Something he wrote about the latter explaining why he grouped chess puzzles with poems applies, I think:

They demand from the composer the same virtues that characterize all worthwhile art: originality, invention, harmony, conciseness, complexity, and splendid insincerity.

These are what I would say characterize great game design. Unfortunately the creation of a quality video game requires a variety of other difficult skills, such that the release of a terrific final product requires either Leonardo da Vinci or the financial resources of Santiago's Six Circles, with all that they imply. But a great game is one where these virtues still shine through, a dialogue between designer and player. Gamers want to feel that games are something worthwhile, and art is our cultural shorthand for what is worthwhile. But plenty of things are worthwhile in moderation and play is one of them.

That said, I have to admit I would trade all of Nabokov's chess problems, lepidoptery, and poems for just one more great novel! There's something about great narrative art.

It would be great if Ebert actually played games and didn't just comment on them from afar. Has he played Metal Gear Solid 4? I consider that to be the highest achievement of gaming I have ever played, and brought out real emotions while playing it. Try Uncharted 2 and see how realistic the characters are and imagine you are in an Indiana Jones movie. Try Mass Effect or Mass Effect 2, or even Dragonage and see how much fun a game can be when the player is given domain over a character's choices and actions in a space setting, and try not to evoke images of Star Wars or Lord of the Rings. Try Heavy Rain and see what a game made for adults is truly like, with murky choices that lead down many different dark paths, exploring the ethos of your mind.

Merely looking at several games that one person found particularly fond does not give you a proper glimpse of the medium. There is something to be said for interactive fantasy, and the stories you may weave on your journeys, and that the crafter of those universes and tales is not considered a poet and artist damns all literary contributions to modern society. Doesn't the reader of poetry and a great novel take part in the story in his or her own mind?

Play some games Ebert, see where the medium has gone to and what the messages are and how they are constructed and conveyed. Play Kojima's masterwork, Metal Gear Solid 4, and proclaim that it is not art if you still may.

I'm going to try and keep this short, because I could honestly write a book on the ways I disagree with every 6 words of this entry.

Many of the people defending their games are backing up their 'beauty' or their sophisticated level of graphics. Tell me, when you watch a film, do you bring a checklist of how many people are killed or how many seconds of 60fps pops up?

You're missing the EXPERIENCE of playing a game. You're not capturing the intention or story of a game. And you're certainly paying no attention to the effect a game has on its audience. I don't play mindless shooters because I don't *feel* them. I can't even get in to many puzzle games because I've developed a low level of patience for them. But when I can relate to a game's story and find myself within the dream of what the game developers intended, it changes me. It inspires me. And I go and create art myself.

If you want to write that you can't be inspired by films and cinema, then I'll agree with you about video games never being a form of art. And if that's the case, you've NEVER seen art.

I would love to see you apply your critical standards to comic books and graphic novels, Roger, and tell us what you think about comics as art. I'd argue the best graphic novels (From Hell, Louis Riel, Diary of a Teenage Girl, to name three) definitely rise to the level of art, but the question certainly is one that is often discussed in comics circles as well and this excellent essay has prompted me to think about it some more.

I do agree with your ultimate point about video games, and I think the missing element in the discussion is the artist directing the perceptions of the experiencer of the art they create. If some video game is lauded as art but I prefer when playing it to stay on level one blowing up cars or beating people up, and never experience all the levels of the game, I am experiencing it the way I choose and not really as the game's creator(s) intended. Am I invalidating the "art" of the game by playing it but not experiencing it the way they want?

My gut tells me if the artist cedes that much control over how his "art" is experienced, it probably isn't really art.

Food for thought, in any case. Thanks for a great think piece, Roger.

Nick, I will simply say this: You just don't get the definition of art. "Art" is not equivalent to "The art of [insert variable here]."

I think one of the major obstacles for video games being considered "art" is the fact that they are called games when, for the most part, they have already evolved beyond that. I would never submit that a multiplayer match of Halo could be considered art, nor would I consider a game of chess "art." However, I fail to see how an experience that is purposefully crafted to unfold in a specific manner, eventually reaching a predefined ending, is any less "artful" than, say, a movie.

In fact, as was mentioned in Santiago's speech, the evolution of film is extraordinarily similar to that of "video games" (for lack of a better word). Both began rather simplistically and focused on novelty rather than storytelling. Both were compared negatively (and unfairly) to already existing forms during their early years (films being compared to theater, and games being compared to film).

It's also a difficult argument to make either way because "art" is such a subjective term. To me, art is something that manages to express itself meaningfully in a way that is exclusive to its chosen medium. I think this last part is particularly significant, as it is what prevented film from being "art" for so long: people had to get to the point where they understood the significance of montage and composition in cinematic expression, two elements that are absent from theater.

The way that you've dismissed the examples presented by Santiago above is a similar misunderstanding. You speak negatively of these "games" based on watching about a minute of footage from each, which is akin to dismissing a film based on a couple pages of script. While I would not suggest that playing the entirety of Braid or Flower would cause you to change your mind about the validity of "video games" as an art form, I can absolutely say that these clips do not fully represent the "games" themselves. Flower shifts quite drastically from the "greeting card" aesthetic in the opening stages, and the prose within Braid is not at all what makes it such a significant piece of work.

There is absolutely a level of artistic expression in "gaming" that is exclusive to its given medium. Take, for instance, the introduction to the underwater city of Rapture in Bioshock. The way that the player himself stumbles onto the city, and has it revealed in front of their eyes from an underwater pod (following a slide-show regarding objectivism versus socialism, capitalism, and religion) could not be replicated effectively in film, or in any other medium, for that matter. While these moments of inspiration are not as prevalent in "games" as in other mediums, the medium is still only a few decades old, and I have no doubt that the form will continue to expand.

Perhaps it is useless to try to argue this point either way; art is always going to be in the eye of the beholder. But I think that there is a certain element of "gaming" that you may not truly understand, because you yourself are not interested in "playing" them, or because your idea of what can be deemed "art" is already too firmly cemented to be expanded. Either way, I greatly respect the work you do and, despite disagreeing with much of this article, found it very intellectually stimulating. Thank you for addressing your stance so thoroughly.

Perhaps after this you might consider blogging about a less controversial topic. Like, say... evolution?

I'm willing to accept the perspective that video games are not a form of art, but not from a person who compares them to films having spent thousands of hours watching great movies and evidently not a single minute playing great video games. We gamers hope for acceptance of our medium as art because it is a form of expression that we experience in its creation and in its consumption as art. It is insulting to dismiss Braid having never interacted with the game more deeply than through a presentation of someone talking about it. How much respect could you summon up for the viewpoint of a person who dismissed The Godfather as art, having read a short description of it in a book?

Not only would I say that video games can be art, I would say that some already are. Some are already masterpieces (Santiago has odd examples; those are awful).

We all have different definitions of art. I get that. Video games are collaborative and require a player to participate more actively in narration. I can see your discomfort with this aspect of 'gaming as art.' But your definition of art and your exceptions seem established to exclude ONLY video games while making concessions to other mediums.

Fiction and film tell stories. There is always a give and take of understanding between what the narrator is telling us and what we understand. That is why authors use detail and connotation to try and fill in those gaps of understanding. Or in the case of film, gaps can be filled in with changes in sound editing or a rise in the score's volume or intensity. But sometimes, authors or directors will gloss over pieces of a story because they're unimportant. It is up to the reader or viewer to fill in the gap, and there is always a gap, whether large or small.

Video games do something different, which to you, somehow disqualifies them as worthy of being called art. They hand over the narration to a player. Instead of a reader, who paints and decorates the areas the characters inhabit, a player moves the characters left or right around a coffee table, down a street, etc. When an author says, "he fought his way across the field," a player decides how this happens by maneuvering the characters across the field. A reader also decides how the character gets across the field. Readers also decides how many people the character had to fight to get to the other side, etc. The same book carries different experiences for every reader. It is an extension of Wofgang Iser's Interaction between Text and Reader. Yet, to you, novels are art and video games are not.

Your argument makes no sense to me--maybe others, but not me. It is beyond my rational ability to seriously entertain the notion that "games aren't art" because they so clearly are. I'm not sure I would even concede that people's differing opinions on this are justified. To say games cannot be art (or high art) is just incorrect.

That's a sticky situation, certainly. As a novelist, I'm not sure I agree one way or the other. As a pickup basketball player, I think I disagree.

Let's get it straight, I'm discerning pickup basketball from competitive basketball for a reason. Of course the object is to win the game, but I think there's a higher level of artistry at work in it, and less of an objective to simply score as many points as possible.

There are fleeting moments, brief moves, shots, fakes of the head, spins, hop-steps, any of those things, that approach art. They're not simple steps to gaining points--their machinations to impress, to express your skill, your own interpretation of the game itself.

I'm not sure that's the same concept, but it might be. If a painting is art, if a picture isn't art, isn't the still frame of a video game art? And then, can't we then reason that a number of them put together represents a certain type of art form? Isn't the goal of a novel for the reader to finish it? Isn't the goal of an audience for painting to get someone to look at it?

The games with a more narrative element are closer to movies that the user experiences. Games like Mass Effect take that to an entirely different level. I'd challenge someone to play Shadow of the Colossus and tell me when they're through that it isn't art.

I don't think Ms. Santiago took a very good cross-section of cyber-life to her presentation, and a lot of her arguments do sound like a load of crap. But what about games like Sim City, where the user creates something? There's just to many gray areas for me to buy into your blanket statement, Ebert.

You're living in the past Ebert. Video games aren't these archaic systems where young teens try to acquire the most points. Now many of them consist of engaging stories in which the player is given control for portions. A games like Mass Effect 2 should be considered art just as much as any movie, and to not put them on the same level is puzzling.

Perhaps Roger, a good comparison would be between Avatar the movie and Avatar the video game. I would be interested in hearing why you think the movie is art but the game is not. I agree with you mostly, but this provides an especially opportune comparison.

I agree with you. I went to the Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia (where you gave a wonderful Citizen Kane lecture a few years back), which has an entire major dedicated to video game design. I suppose it's an admirable goal to try to make VGs art, but can the figure paintings of Matisee stand beside the thugs and skanks of Grand Theft Auto? Really?

I don't hold out much hope, but think of this, Mr. Ebert, how art tends to inspire art. The play "Sunday in the Park with George" was a realization of Georges Seurat's gorgeous "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte." Could a video game be soon to follow...? Would such a VG taint Seurat's vision?

When a novel or play inspires a movie, we often go on to celebrate the movie as art just as much as its original form. However, when video games inspire movies (Tomb Raider), or movies inspire video games (Harry Potter), we dismiss it as trivial gaming. I guess I can see how this is unfair in some people's minds... but c'mon making Mario jump over a cloud doesn't elicit the same excitement as seeing a Picasso in person, nor should it. It may sound snobby or elitist, but I agree with Mr. Ebert that maybe video games should just be video games, just as Scrabble is Scrabble.

Julia R.

As I devoured this piece (and occasionally choking on a few typos along the way) I kept expecting to stumble upon a paragraph in which you explained why movies are art but games are not. Some games--such as the recently released Heavy Rain--are literally movies but spiced with interactive elements. Now how could that make Heavy Rain less "artistic" than a movie that tackled the same story?

You also casually mentioned that you don't think games without objectives are games at all. If I'm understanding you correctly, then that means that you believe that there are some forms of interactive entertainment that can be art?

Come on, Roger! Can't you defend your position? Or do you also believe that film can't be art?

If you've seen the Flower trailer which you've posted and still are resistant to games as art, I feel that you can never be convinced.

I am not a gamer myself. I have old game technology sitting around that I might plug in every few months or so to waste some time and not have an "artistic experience." In other words, I don't really have a horse in this race, however...

Would you concede that a frame of a video game that is artfully rendered would be art? A still image of digital artistry is some form of art, is it not? Next, many games feature animated cutscenes. A cutscene is a non-interactive short film or animation telling a story. These perhaps 60-second cartoons are a form of art, are they not? So, video games can contain pieces of art, but yet the whole experience, glued together as a playable, ordered set of rules and experiences you do not consider art? Or do you not acknowledge/make the concessions I suggest?

Much as I love games, I find myself agreeing with Mr Ebert.

But why are game designers in such a hurry to be thought of as artists? I don't need games to be validated in order to enjoy them.

I don't want game designers to make great art, I want them to make great games.

Old man says, "Video games! Get off my lawn!"

Internet implodes.

Art is a conscious attempt to communicate beyond words. I wonder if that works as a definition. Good or bad, fail or succeed, if it's an attempt to communicate beyond words, it's art.

Would something qualify as art if it made you think deeply? If it made you appreciate the world in a different way? Is a fairy tale or mythology art?

If so, games are definitely already art.

Interactive fiction, which has been around for decades, provides a prime example. Try the classic "A Mind Forever Voyaging" -- a fascinating story about a computer that is aware and lives in a virtual world. It tackles in a beautiful way that is uniquely suited to a game the sense of what it might be like to make the discovery that you are in a game. It definitely leads one to contemplate the nature of AI and of reality.

Planescape: Torment is a classic RPG with an incredible story and world. It, like any great myth might, transports you into a different universe. It allows you to encounter beautiful imaginary worlds. Why is this not art?

The Myst games inspired a sense of wonder and delight in their virtual worlds. Yes, they had a "winning" component but they also touched a sense of mystery in the world. Why is this not art? If a photograph is art, why not this?

And there are so many more examples.

You ask, "Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art?"
Well, don't you care about what's true? Especially when that truth is in regards to something you value? When you and Siskel used to argue vehemently about a movie, I'm sure some people thought, "Why do they care so much?" But presumably you cared because you thought you're right and Siskel's wrong. That's enough reason to care.

As it happens I don't play or like video games myself. But I do care about what's true. And I think your conclusion is false. Since you don't want to quibble over definitions, I'll grant you your premises. Let's say this is a suitable definition of art: "My notion is that it grows better the more it improves or alters nature through an [sic] passage through what we might call the artist's soul, or vision." It's not an exact definition, but it's pretty and has some intuitive value. I like it. If you're going to stand by your view of art and be consistent, I should think you would want to accept a video game that does meet your definition as a work of art. It's your choice. It may be the definition is wrong. If we define "fish" as all creatures in the sea and then find a whale, we can either call the whale a fish or change our definition. But if you feel secure in your definition (or 'notion'), it might seem dishonest to change it to avoid admitting games.

As an example of a game that fits your definition, I offer a Super Nintendo game called 'Earthbound.' It was written, directed (yes, games have directors), and produced by Shigesato Itoi. He designed the game's world as a loving satire of America, or at least how he's learned of America through television programs. There's definitely a worldview at work in his satire. But there is one passage that's particularly powerful. The final battle is with an evil alien intelligence that threatens to destroy this fantastical Americanesque paradise. To capture the horror of the situation, Itoi based the dialogue that runs during the battle on a traumatic childhood experience in which he witnessed an in-film rape. He used the rape dialogue from the movie as the evil alien's only words during the battle. It is indeed quite disturbing, even without knowing the source. Moreover, the battle can only be one by using one character's prayer ability. This all strikes me as a sufficiently soul-expressing moment as to fit your definition. Many people who played that game in their youth, as I did, felt it affected them and remained with them, especially that final battle. How do we know it's art? We just know.

Part of the problem here may be that you're labouring under an equivocation. Is the term 'game' being applied to chess and battleship in the same way it's being applied to a narrative-driven game? I don't think so. The term 'interactive fiction' might be more appropriate for narrative-rich 'games'. Perhaps these games aren't great art yet. But perhaps they're already qualifying as great trash. And I'm not convinced the distinction between art and great trash is as firm as some Harold-Bloomians think.

Incidentally, Santiago tried her best to show 'artistic' games based on a notion from the visual arts. They're stabs at concept art, not much more interesting than Damien Hirst's gimmicks. Games with narratives are a much better bet. A very small collection of narrative-driven games from my childhood affected me as much as did the Chronicles of Narnia and The Wind in the Willows.

I think that the mistake a lot of the posters are making here is that they assume that because you don't deem something a work of art it means that you either don't like it or are dismissing it. I got neither out of this blog. I like video games and I do play them on occasion, but they are not art and in concept (at least as we understand it in this age of development) cannot be art. That doesn't mean that I don't like video games. I think them fun but, for me, a work has to have been planned by the artist from start to finish in order to qualify as art. Ok, so they are not art, that doesn't mean I don't like Wii and PS3 games as much as the next guy.

I think we run into trouble when we start trying to define art, because we all do so based on our own personal preferences. I'm not a huge gamer. I play some games, but not often. However, the process of a game is so similar to the process of making a movie (which I assume you believe is an art form) that I'm not sure why the simple fact that you play it keeps it from attaining the level of art. There is character design, development, world-building, and even storytelling. A great many do not do this well, but that is also true of movies these days. My consensus? You have to play the right game. Some certainly aren't high art, but if you think the storyline of a game is incapable of making you think about certain things, you are wrong. There is the rare game that does.
If you think that games cannot tell stories or communicate art in the same way as movies, I highly recommend you go online and read a Fire Emblem script sometime. Might change your mind. Actually, just about any RPG script would do; they are notoriously story-heavy.

"Ebert: 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."

If that's the case, then why use the indirect argument that games are collaborative as one of the reasons why they cannot be "art"?

"For example, 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."

So, you're saying that collaboration can produce art, but it is generally the result of a single vision by the artist. Ok, I can accept that (although I disagree), but you seem to have failed to notice that there are plenty of "auteur" game designers/directors: Shigeru Miyamoto, Hideo Kojima, Goichi Suda, Will Wright, Gabe Newell, other big names, and many independent game designers who work either completely on their own or with a very small team.

If you take a film as potential art, I don't see how you can fail to take at least certain games, such as "Heavy Rain", as potential art as well. "Heavy Rain" has a plot that would not be out of place in a modern drama. It has acting. (Mediocre acting, but I don't think that contradicts the point.) It has written dialog and the computer graphical equivalent of cinematography. The only way it differs from a film is that the player can change the course of events. Philosophically, it's just the filmatic version of a "choose your own adventure" book. Does interactivity cause all the art to suddenly drain out of the work?

I'd argue "no", and in fact that game *uses* the interactivity for artistic purposes. For instance, near the beginning of the game, playing the father, you must plunge through the crowd after your young son. The result is a foregone conclusion, and as the payer, you pretty much no that. (The game uses foreshadowing, itself evidence of artistic intent.) Whereas a movie describing the same plot would use camera movement to put the viewer in the father's frantic shows, the game does this by forcing you to make the vain attempt.

The game does this in a number of places, giving the player "control" yet with the conclusion foregone. There's no game play reason to do this. It's entirely there to dig at the player's emotions. If that's not "art", then I don't know what is.

I'm sure theater critics in 1910 said similar things about Cinema.

I've barely played any videogames in my life, but your article couldn't help but remind me of one that I really enjoyed--enough that I contacted the people who made it to tell them. The set up was that it was in a haunted house, and as a player you entered the reality of each of the ghosts. Each reality was in a different time period with a different feel. The visual style, setting and music were all chosen to evoke different moods and characters.

I liked it because it did approach a feeling like art to me, whether or not I would call it that. It reminded me of dropping into a movie--or maybe more accurately a dream that was art directed like a movie to evoke different moods. The clues in each world were clues to the story of what happened to the ghost in question, iow, they were telling you a story. It wasn't really unlike looking at a picture and noticing details that hint at what's going on.

Whether or not the game was or wasn't art I couldn't say, but it certainly used the techniques of art and it did emotionally effect me the way a movie or book might have. I even dreamed about it.

If I was thinking about it as art I might describe it as...incomplete? As if there was a moment where became a game instead of just a work of art. But maybe a game can contain something like art without being art in itself. Chess is a great example, after all. Chess the game might not be art, but there are chess boards that should qualify. We wouldn't dismiss the craftsmanship that went into a beautiful chess set because it's a chess set any more than we'd dismiss ceramics because they're bowls and cups. Art and function don't always contradict each other.

See, here's the thing about Flower. Flower does not meet the usual definition of a game; we call it that only because we lack another word for it. You cannot lose Flower. You also do not win Flower, you merely reach the end. There are no other players, so there is no one to beat or to be beaten by. It keeps a score only in the most rudimentary sense, and only for the benefit of those who think this is important in some way (I don't, so I ignored that system and lost nothing important to the experience). It has rules, in that there is a well-defined mechanism for controlling the flower (the flower being the "player character" here) and a well-defined means of progression, but due to the lack of any intelligent entities aside from the player, this progression cannot be called "winning"; you simply proceed to the next scene until there are no more scenes. So it is a very unconventional game, if it is a game at all. Maybe this kind of "game" is the only kind that can in fact be art, I don't know. I do think that if Braid counts as art, it is because of things that are separate from its game mechanics in all but superficial ways, and most games that aspire to be works of art have that feature. So perhaps to make a game that is art, as opposed to a game that contains art, it is necessary to bend the boundaries of what a game actually is.

Also, is abstract art art? If so, why couldn't even Chess -- viewed in terms of the elegance or inelegance of its rules -- be viewed as art? There is such a thing as a good game and a bad game. Why can't we admire Tetris for its aesthetic perfection *as a game*, just as we admire the aesthetic perfection of a beautiful piece of pottery? Neither need move us to deep emotional places to acknowledge they are well-crafted, artistic.

Roger:

I'm a huge admirer of your work, and also a writer who takes games' intersection with the broader world of art (among other subjects) as one of the chief themes of his columns (I write for the Economist website More Intelligent Life).

I'm not going to engage with the other games on the list, but I'm definitely going to quibble with your discussion of Braid, a flawed piece of art, but one that I think deserves more than your simple dismissal.

Firstly, you note that taking back moves "negates the whole discipline of the game". Discipline is an appropriate term when talking about a game that is all about individual moves in a rule-based competition, but don't you think it's a bit unfair to talk dismissively about a game mechanic negating discipline when the discussion is not about the discipline of gaming, but about the medium's chances of achieving artistic success? In essence, you're begging the question, assuming that the rules are the most important thing, since you're pre-dismissing the artistic/storytelling merit of games. Thus, this game can't even follow the rules (which, incidentally, involves a complete misreading of the rules of Braid, and its reason for existing as a game), which means we can dismiss any pretentions to merit above rule-based play out of hand. Or am I missing something?

I understand you don't plan to play "Braid", or any other game, and certainly if you judge it based on the mechanics and the dreadful prose that is interspersed between levels, you're not going to be convinced of its artistic merit. But surely you can see that your position is similar to those who have decried great movies as trash by selectively viewing certain extreme scenes out of context, without bothering to try to comprehend the language of film?

Everything about Braid (except the admittedly overwrought and silly prose) is written in the language of games, from the structure of most of the game's levels (which cleverly recalls the style of Super Mario Brothers, an almost universally recognized game), to its climax, which is one of the most surprising and, honestly, aesthetically engaging moments I've experienced in years, regardless of medium. The experience of Braid does, indeed, have significant things to say about intentionality, nostalgia, human relationships, the inescapable solipsism that is part and parcel of being human. I can understand that this is hard for you to believe. But understand also that it is incredibly frustrating to have someone whose opinion I respect so much dismiss an art form out-of-hand, without any willingness to experience or understand its strengths as a medium for uniquely expressing commentary on the human condition.

I specifically engaged your earlier argument that games cannot be art because they leave too much room for player agency in my article on the game Bioshock a couple of years ago. If you would like to read it, it's here: http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/story/the-high-art-of-quotbioshockquot. I also wrote an article about the merits of Braid, if you're interested. It's here: http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/story/time-mechanics.

I'm not saying games have reached an aesthetic pinnacle yet. Far from it. But it would be great if you could understand that, just as is the case with novels, film, music, painting, etc., there are experiences, in some cases deep and meaningful experiences, that gaming is better at providing than any other form of expression.

There are uniquely game-centered moments of aesthetic arrest, as surely as when Stephen sees the girl in the water at the end of Portrait of the Artist. No film could improve on Joyce's prose in capturing that moment, and I can't imagine that another form could express Braid's climax as well as the game itself does. This is not to compare the merit of the two. I accept your argument--we don't have a game that's comparable to great novels, film, etc. yet. But it seems like you don't want to know about the ways in which games are moving in the right direction.

When you bold out only those comments that agree with your viewpoint, Roger, you make it clear that you wish readers to agree with you, rather than participate in open, thoughtful debate and then make up their own minds. Surely as a critic you know there is no definitive answer about what constitutes "art."

I would rather man up and sift through comments that I disagreed with in order to possibly learn something about a topic or people in general, than to highlight only things that agreed with my viewpoint, and learn nothing. Your readers don't need to be led by the nose.

That said, I don't play video games. :)

As an anthropologist, author and gamer, I have considered the meaning of 'art' from a number of angles over my life. There is only one real objective definition that actually fits the reality of art.

It is simple: "art is that which the collective artistic establishment -- and the wealthy patrons who purchase from it -- consider to be art."

The Haywain. Macbeth. The Cistine Chapel. Requiem for a Dream. The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living. Stroke. Single or collaborative; talent or happenstance; unique or mass-produced; tangible or intangible: The only common grounds they have is that someone has done at least something -- and that they are labelled art.

The tautological conclusion is that in order to become accepted as art, something has to be sold -- and purchased -- as art.

The subjective version of this, "Art is what I feel it is," appears to be Mr. Ebert's position.

That's unassailable; it is also entirely personal. Mr. Ebert is in no sense an objective arbiter of the notion of "art", other than to the extent that his wealth and inclination allow him to buy art products.

All that he is able to say is that he will never consider computer games to be art, which is perfectly fair, if a little on the narrow-minded side. To accept a film as art on the basis of a director's vision for instance, and then dismiss the identical contribution of vision from a game's director (and to totally ignore the long history of single-creator games) is an act of pure selection bias.

For my part, I will just state that movies can never be art. I don't feel the need to explain that, but why should movie-goers be concerned about defining their hobby as art anyway?

Oh for goodness sake, these examples are terrible; you don't dismiss movies as a whole based on one trip to Blockbuster. The Path, Portal, Today I Die, The Void, Silent Hill 2; these are games that hold up as emotionally and intellectually affecting, technically precise works of art, not this shallow junk.

Ebert, I watch you on twitter under the same name.

I enjoy some of your reviews and love your commentary, but I just can't agree with you on the video games and art thing.

Would I say painting is an art? Yes. Would I say poetry and prose are art? Yes again.

Art is usually defined as something that moves or speaks to the person. More often than not art is usually something that just looks interesting. Art doesn't necessarily have to have meaning and art doesn't have to be beautiful either.

An argument that I have not seen brought up so far is what it takes to create a game.

Some will say programming is an art, many attest scriptwriting is an art, visual application through 3D rendering is an art and that math is an art. All of these elements and more are required to create the game itself. So, suddenly after the mesh it's no longer art once these elements are combined?

I can honestly say that I have played games that with their storytelling have moved me to tears. I've seen movies that have made me cry and read books that have haunted me. Does this mean that anything that does not stir something in us is lesser art?

While I'm not sure where your argument comes from. I honestly in my opinion feel that video games are art. Many people will say that some books are not art because they don't like them, etc. Or that a book is just a book. I believe art is also part of how people interpret it.

This shows that art is all relative to the person. It's probably never going to be something that we all agree with. So, in the tl;dr version.

1. Art means different thing to different people.
2. Art evolves.

I think your definition of art is flawed. Can a novel be art? Can a passage of music be art? Does it have to be famous to qualify as art? Must come from a single artist to be art? Can a movie be art? Does architecture qualify as art?

How about this: an artist creates art that is so small, that only people possessed of a microscope can see it. Is it still art? Or does narrowing the audience disqualify it?

Does the art require some world changing element?

I think videogames are an emergent medium - why didn't Picasso dabble in videogames? I'd wager it's because the medium didn't exist.

I think it's fair to say that any delivered experience can be considered art. I think the trouble here is that people are trying to elevate art to some elite plane in order to use the definition to demean creative endeavors.

As far as videogames being an entertainment, show me art that isn't an entertainment. Arguably, non-essential communication is an entertainment.

The bottom line is merely this anywhere you find a conscious thought, you will find art.

The instant game-is-art supporters stop citing the idea that games' popularity/money-making power validates its artfulness, the more likely their argument will be taken more into consideration.

Chris Marker films have not be considered "popular" or "money-makers," but they certainly are talismans of movie art.

Roger, the key here, as others have pointed out, is defining art. I've gotten into some entertaining discussions with people by saying "modern art is an oxymoron." Entertaining is as far as we can go, however, unless we can all agree at some point on what exactly art is. Until then, we just go in circles.

Example: go read about this guy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piero_Manzoni

I would argue that nothing he produced is art, but rather was entertainment/fodder for art critics and art historians. But then, that just shows my definition of art as not being that which is designed to evoke a reaction from (only) art critics and historians.

Please elaborate on this point sometime, it's fascinating conversation. But can you come up with a definition of art first? That will make the conversation vastly more intriguing.

I'm with Roger. I play video games all the time, so I can't be accused of just writing off an industry I know nothing about, and I've played all of the recent brand new games like HEAVY RAIN and GTA and the like. Yes, they're immersive, yes, they're beautifully made, and no, they're not art. They offer no insight into what the world is like, they offer no individual vision of how someone perceives the world, they offer no relatable emotion, and the experience in NONE of them comes even close to being as viscerally thrilling as real life, good music, a good film, a good book, etc.

I hate the point people make that "games are immersive and entertain you for 10+ hours" but movies "just entertain you while you sit there and watch for 2 hours". I won't contest the point that games can be entertaining for longer - length of entertainment doesn't art make. But I've never been immersed in a video game the way I've been in a movie or a book. A great film or a great book leaves me with a sensory recollection of what being taken to that place, that time, felt like, even if it was just an artful illusion. I have no sensory recollection of being in Miami Beach in the 80s, despite playing 100+ hours of GTA:VICE CITY. All I remember is a pixellated guy, Ray Liotta's voice, and being amazed that my iTunes library could actually play in a video game.

My other point against video games is that they're not original. The old Mario Bros., Zeldas, Sonics - ok. But definitely not the modern, immersive kind. What are GTA and Heavy Rain, if not just rip-offs of a certain kind of movie, just with the added concept that you can play a character? What is Halo or BioShock or any of those if not riffs on sci-fi films and novels? No video game - not a single one - has ever endeavored to show or perceive the world (Roger's "nature") in an individual, original, personal way.

And yes, gamers - stop caring so much about whether video games are art. If they're so great and so fun, just f***ing enjoy them and leave it be. It has more than a little whiff of "Qui s'excuse s'accuse."

I think you're right, or at least close, but more accurately, video games can never be *movies*, or novels or the like. In the end the term art is what we bestow on what we consider the best of its kind, and we have to understand that:

What is good for movies is NOT what is good for video games. The good movies and novels and such, the "art", is art because of how it expresses and glorifies reality/life/the human condition, and we are emotionally stirred by what it expresses.

Video games aren't about expressing a facet of reality but escaping into a new one. One much shallower than real life, sure - but something that's still greatly entertaining. So what's movie art isn't video game art, and if video games go down that path they'll just pointlessly reinvent the movies.

A good video game then is one that's complex, involved, immersive, difficult, and above all highly interactive, rather than expressing something else or pretentiously trying to be like movies. Rather than giving you a crafted story and making you empathise with other characters, it's about being the character and forging your own story, because even in the simple games if you were to sit down and talk about your experience, to tell "your story", it would be different to someone else's. Video games should try to be like real life: not real "art". But I don't think you should avoid playing games: play GOOD games, not "art" games, and you'll understand why so many of us enjoy this little hobby as much as you enjoy your movies. That is, if you're up to the challenge.

You mentioned you're a Chess player: play a masterpiece of a game like Civilisation IV (a turn-based strategic game, like Chess), where you have to manage a history-spanning empire from the early ages all the way to launching a spaceship. You have to manage your resources, build up your roads and cities, wage war or be diplomatic with other nations, and you can win by non-violent ways (like being the most cultured of all civilisations). Now that's real art.

Roger, I agree with a good majority of what you have to say here, even though previously I have wondered why you seem so opposed to the notion of games being art. I think that the reason why gamers seem so vitriolic about your statement is a basic misunderstanding of what you said. The way we see it, by you saying games are not art, you are saying they cannot be compelling.

So here is my question. If you think games cannot be art,do you at least believe games can at least be compelling? That you can walk away from one and your mind lingers on what just happened?

I think this is what the majority of gamers believe you are saying. When you say games aren't art, they take it as meaning that games cannot be compelling. And maybe those are your feelings on the subject, but that is why your statement has sparked such debate.

Roger, can you imagine how much credibility you'd have as a movie critic if you wrote your reviews based on trailers? You can no more presume to be a video game critic without fully experiencing the games whose artistic merit you've summarily dismissed. If you don't want to play video games, that's fine, but you can't then expect to be taken quite as seriously in this arena as in your own.

I have to wonder why it's so important to you to argue that video games aren't art. Perhaps you feel movies, in which you have a great financial stake, are threatened by the competition?

Dear Roger,

I sent you this in an e-mail several months ago, but I imagine you either didn't read it or I just sent it to the wrong address; so I'm posting this here in the comments. Though it might be considered somewhat of a digression, hopefully you'll read it and consider it.

In this earlier blog post:

http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/01/a_riddle_wrapped_in_a_mystery.html

You discuss Caché within the context purely of being a "puzzle" for the viewers to solve, and this made me wonder extensively about the line between "art" and "interactivity" which, in my opinion, is the only value in discussing video games as possibly art or not.

In your earlier discussions of video games as possible art, you stated "serious film and literature ... requires authorial control." In general--and perhaps I misunderstand this- inherent to this control is the sequencing and framing of events. In the discussion of Caché, it is clear that many viewers are "active" when they watch it. They pour over shots far longer than the director intended. They rewind, they fast forward, they zoom in. You yourself discuss shots at 20:39 in the movie, something I imagine (though I may be wrong) that you examined far longer than the director intended.

Now, Haneke is a contrary bugger, and did, possibly, intend for viewers to not only wonder at the end of the film who was sending those tapes, but to investigate the film's content, forwards, backwards and upside down to work out to try and find the solution. In that case, I think he created a game as much as he created a film.

So is it art?

There are, I think, two possibilities.

- Its nature as something unsolvable protects its status as a serious work. Were viewers able to find the smoking gun by interacting with the film (finding one all important frame, or combination of frames, that explain everything) it wouldn't be; or at least, it would be less of a work of art than a film that explains itself with effort from the viewer at all. This is the unyielding definition that interactivity--the agency of the player or the viewer in the work,
rather than simply the director's control--denies a work the ability to be art, whether a director intended the viewer to be active or not. The time spent investigating the film is, in actuality, a total waste of time.

- Yes, because the time spent investigating the film is a use of "those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic". This is as related to the content of Caché as directorial control. Caché plot, acting, set design and everything else not related to the directors' ordering, framing or length of shots are meaningful enough that they either override the interactive nature of the puzzle, or the interactive nature simply adds to them. Being able to view and examine them from different viewpoints helps us appreciate their artistry.

Of course, I'm sure I'm missing something. It does seem, after all, unnecessarily strict to believe that any time spent examining a film outside of the director's intentions could remove its ability to be art.

From everything you have written, it seems to me that it is not video games nature that made you decry them as "not art" but their content. That near-everyone's first viewing of Caché is linear is not a factor, because that is only the introduction to the depths of the work that can, I feel, only be appreciated by further viewings, deeper, non-linear investigations.

(And in case you're wondering, I think there is no answer, and that's the whole point. Were there a smoking gun, it'd be found and discussed and the game would be over. Haneke is playing a game with the viewer to make them play a game with the film, but not for their own entertainment. He gives us a "smorgasbord of choices" rather than lead us to an "inevitable conclusion", yet it is not escapism.)

In closing, I feel a short web game like Every day the same dream:

http://www.molleindustria.org/everydaythesamedream/everydaythesamedream.html

is as much art without needing to force its interactivity by being a puzzle.

If you wish, try it. You can consider yourself finished with it in about five to ten minutes, but I feel there is a consistent value to the player's interaction; think of it as the equivalent to a short film.

Thanks,

Mathew Kumar

Art's a sensation, we all do agree,
Which earns proclamations of greatest beau-tee!
Yet martyr by silence each innocent saint
Who claims to see art where we say it ain't.

--Fr. Jascalasa Gapes

Actually, that was me, imitating the artistry of another author. That makes me an artist, for richer or poorer, in sickness or in health, 'til death do us part. I can't disagree with your reasoning in Mme. Santiago's case, Roger. Your decades of proven artistry in criticism lends a certain authority where, although not strictly a matter of ratiocination, bears weight appropriately on the nature of the subject.

Here's another point where the soulless dogma of "evolution" bugs me, though. "Language evolved as a way of warning"??? Give me a break. It is artless, backward thinking like this that has driven the wary back into the arms of feathered, robed and Armani-suited sacerdotes whose arts often resemble guilty manipulations more than anything else.

Uh oh. There are birds outside warning all who will hear that they're happy. Gotta run.

I've always considered art as being something in the eye of the beholder. Perhaps that's a cop-out, meaning that anything can be considered art by the right person. Does art have to be generally appreciable?

As a software engineer/techie I've encountered software/code that I consider to have changed and improved my perceptions about my craft. It made me think in a different way and made me appreciate the abilities of its creator. It aspired me to do better.

I firmly believe there is artistry in writing code. I firmly believe there is artistry in designing user interfaces.

By those example, I would say there is artistry in creating video games. Game mechanics, what you can/cannot do, how it is represented to the user, etc. These things convey someone's vision and when done right can be considered art.

Maybe that's not the same thing as considering the video game, taken as a whole, as art. I do understand the auteur concept.

People who play video games want to call it art because they want to justify the incredible amount of time they are wasting.

Mr. Ebert,

You have an incredible talent for writing and argumentation, that`s why I frequent your site. That said, the arguments you present are surprisingly reductive, and I smell a hint of the same stubborn ignorance my grandfather displays when he says that Bruce Springsteen doesn't do anything but yell. Sitting down with some of the videogames mentioned by those who left comments ("Metal Gear Solid" moved me to tears) could only be positive and eye-opening, and at best could give you a lot more perspective in your film critiques.

Players of videogames are defensive of what they perceive as "art" because the media and the majority of the older generation have persistently accused videogames from everything to dumbing down children, to only appealing to children, to being too violent, sexual, or subversive, to being no good at all for anyone. Rather than adding to these contradictory and sometimes hateful voices, I implore you to pick a well-reviewed, modern, story-driven videogame and let yourself be sucked in.

While art may be conatined within a game, the game itself is not art.

I won't comment on why people are so eager to get it validated as art or try and have some games listed alongside great movies but they won't be and they shouldn't be.

I have loved some video games and have been very invested in them but they are only games.

Again w/ the art thing. Many video games are created in processes driven by individuals who are interested in expressing something/evoking something in the player. To this end they use music, story, visual design, and modulated player interaction (indeed, the player's contribution can be shaped and paced just like the player's more passive experiences).

Ebert may have some innate magic ability to determine that Braid or Flower are "pathetic" just by looking at a few seconds of footage. But whether or not they are _good_ art is a very different question from whether or not they are art.

If audience participation excludes a medium from "art-hood," a great deal of contemporary and experimental art is, it turns out, not art (e.g., the live nudes at NY MOMA right now who keep getting groped).

It is, of course, possible, that "not a video game" is definitional for Ebert. W/out something other than tautology and cant (which are apparently all Ebert can manage), that's no more justified than "not a motion picture" being definitional.

Hi Roger,

I have been a gamer all my life (I'm 29 now), and while I don't play as much as I used to, I still love video games. I don't quite subscribe, though, to the games as art debate. I agree with you. I've tried many of the games that people consider "art" and it seems like time and time again they're just slower or "different" from mainstream games. That doesn't necessarily make them art, though.

But, I do think in all my years of video game playing that there is ONE game that come close to getting it right. It's a little free, indepedent, flash-based game (it takes like 20 to 30 minutes to beat right in your browser, maybe a little longer for someone who's not used to videogames) called "Don't Look Back." You can read about it on Wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Look_Back_(video_game)

I don't want to spoil the ending for you, but I'll honestly say that although I kind of got that "Oh wow, I think I know what's going to happen" feeling a minute before the ending, it still hit me like a ton of bricks when I got there. My heart kind of dropped for a second and I was truly sad and couldn't stop thinking about it for a couple of days. Just like an amazing film.

For now I'll just keep enjoying games for what they are, entertainment. But "Don't Look Back," I think proves that while it might not happen anytime soon, more games could become art in the future of the industry. After all, it's not like all movies or paintings are really art, either. And I'm cool with that.

David Rosen

The issue of "what is art" is knotty. It also plays into the larger issue of "what is good."

One of the better definitions I've read is from Robert Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" (not that I am in any way qualified to provide an exegesis for his views). "Quality is what you like." Something in you responds to something you experience. This process *is* quality.

"Art," to me anyway, is trying to convey meaning by means other than straight narration (so a technical document, or a ideogram at an airport for baggage claim, wouldn't meet the test).

The "Game" definition you gave is good. A contest or similar activity, usually performed for leisure/relaxation/learning/what have you. Of course, it can satisfy many other requirements too, as in a substitute for conflict (think single combat).

It seems to me that many modern games aren't, really. They are more like interactive movies. They incorporate elements of art (I want to live in a housing development made from the various houses found in Myst). The game part is more in the puzzle class, which is still a game, because you are competing against yourself (or the person who created the puzzle).

At the action end of the game spectrum, there is still an artistry to the visuals, or the sounds, or to the elegance of the interface. BUT, the total package itself is just a game, and not art.

Or so it seems to me. Now I'm going to go play "Sins of a Solar Empire," which is fun, has a nice interface, beautiful visuals, and some nice footage of space battles, if you zoom in and watch one...

Don't listen to most of these people. Video games are for children and savages.

Most videogames come closer to being a technologically advanced version of the childhood game of Cowboys v. Indians than to works of beauty and art.

But then again, children pretending to shoot each other with pretend guns and imaging themselves as cowboys or indians "teaches us about our past" as well, so maybe the video game people think that's art, too.

What about art WITHIN video games? I submit to you a specific game, "Bioshock" (and it's sequel, unimaginatively named "Bioshock 2")as examples.

http://www.2kgames.com/cultofrapture/age-gate.html

Within these modern games, there exist a great many artistic examples - architecture, costume, voice performance, etc - that all combine to create, from nothing, an entire city teeming with life and atmosphere entire unlike any in actual existence. Its purpose is to serve the game, and therefore the player, but can it not be considered art? The question then becomes "is the video game itself art, or does it merely contain art?" and I think that's, in this context, a moot question. Thoughts?

Ebert: Let me just say that no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form.

Frankly, that's as meaningless as Sarah Palin implying that she understands foreign policy because she can see Russia from her porch.

It's telling that you're only highlighting the few defenders of your viewpoint: it shows that everyone else is wasting their time trying to persuade you to look a little deeper, and demonstrate a bit more intellectual curiosity about a subject before declaring yourself an authority on it.

People give you a lot of credit for being smart, and insightful (even wise at times), so I wouldn't say it's desperate when people argue with you on this point. I'd say they're disappointed that you've not only shut yourself off from something they really enjoy (much as you would be, if someone said: "Nope: black and white movies=old, and subtitles=boring), but also declared yourself the final word on it.

Interesting argument.
Based on Plato's definition of art, I'd have to argue that to those watching the game be played, the games are art.

I truly enjoy watching the story structure, character develop, etc. of video games when my husband plays. I am still learning about humanity (e.g. Cratos' struggle with destiny), which is no different than watching a mediocre movie.

However, I do agree there are quality levels of art. The movie "Dino-Shark" would clearly not be on the same level of art as "Schindler's List". Yet if the goal is to capture nature's forms, perhaps gaming does fall into that category.

proving that the art, like beauty, is ONLY defined by the eye of the beholder...

now get off my lawn!

I think you are overly concerned with the format of gaming when it comes to analyzing it as art. Games as a whole, taken on such a basic level, certainly sound like they're not art, but many games are not so much about "achieving an objective" than they are about experiencing a story. Imagine if someone presented Die Hard to you, except you had to control Bruce Willis through all the action scenes, and in between, they showed you the various dialogue scenes. Even though, as this woman suggests, it's kind of clunky -- obviously, Die Hard is just a quick example, and it works better as a movie -- the game is trying to elicit emotions more than increase the player's hand-eye coordination, and not just basic emotions either. The game creators want you to feel and invest in the characters as you would characters in a book or movie, only moreso, because you have some control over their fates. In the past, this "control" was more limited -- you can only make Mario go in one direction! -- but nowadays, with games like Infamous and Mass Effect, the outcome of the game is affected deeply by the various, numerous choices you make when it comes to playing your character.

That said, the woman's examples are shockingly bad. Braid? Waco? That's like inviting someone who doesn't like film to a presentation and showing them the Transformers movies.

Video games have artistic elements. Great artistry can go into character design, or the music within the game. But the game as a whole is another story. I'm myself more interested in those pieces than in the way they combine, because the way they combine is, I find, a lot more lockstep and closed-ended than the individual pieces when channeled through someone's imagination.

When you watch a movie, read a book, or reflect on a painting, you're encouraged to use at least some of your imagination to process what goes on. When you play a game, a lot of that is pushed aside -- you're engaging an entirely different part of the brain, one more concerned with finding solutions and gathering evidence than posing questions or being open to an experience.

If I play any of the Final Fantasy games, for instance, I might find the storyline moving, but the way I'm being encouraged to take in that storyline is markedly unlike simply sitting and reading it. We're constantly tempted with the illusion that we can do something about the goings-on, when in fact we're just walking from one predetermined plot marker to another. It's enjoyable, but for me it's not the same thing as being offered a story that I know full well I will not be able to do anything about -- it's already written -- and so if I change it at all, I do so by passing it through my own imagination and reading things into it. Surely there's something of a game in that, too, I think, if you wan to call it that.

A work of art is a work of art, and a game is a game. If some people don't think of one as the other, maybe that's only because they don't feel it's an aesthetic requirement to do so.

If games are not the same kind of art as a really good book or film, does that make them any less enjoyable? I don't think so. I think that just makes them food for a different part of our minds.

This is the sort of debate that, even if it never reaches a satisfying conclusion, ought to happen if only because it hones our thinking, our feeling, and most importantly our judgments and biases/prejudices.

However, did I miss the location of that link to Kellee Santiago's talk at TED? If so, it's not labeled as such.

In the 40 plus years of writing you've given us this is without a doubt the stupidest, most idiotic and downright ignorant thing you have ever expressed in written form - this includes your positive review of Cop and a Half.

I won't call what you wrote an opinion, because that is an insult to actual opinions. If I say that the sky is green that's not an opinion, that's me being wrong.

And you seem to be reveling in your ignorance. Proudly proclaiming once again that you don't think video games are art even though you haven't played any of the examples laid out before you. If I told you that I thought a movie was crap without seeing it I'd be an idiot wouldn't I?

As for your final point:

"I allow Sangtiago the last word. Toward the end of her presentation, she shows a visual with six circles, which represent, I gather, the components now forming for her brave new world of video games as art. The circles are labeled: Development, Finance, Publishing, Marketing, Education, and Executive Management. I rest my case."

That reasoning isn't just idiotic and stupid, it's idiotic and stupid twice over:

1. So her criteria is the end-all, be-all of the "video games are art" argument, and since she used criterion you don't like then every arguement for video games being art is wrong? I could get up on stage and say black & white movies aren't real movies...that doesn't make it true.

2. Video games are art, but they're also a business, much like movies and music, her model seemed to take that into account, but you chose to ignore that it seems.

Your dismissal of an entire medium, for whatever moronic and pea-brained reason, is pathetic, insulting and hateful to the thousands of people who contribute to it. To re-affirm your idiotic and worthless viewpoints, to push your outdated and hateful "opinion" to an industy, community and fan base that you refuse to understand, learn about and participate in is about as high-class and well-rounded as a Mike Savage rant against homosexuality. You refuse to understand it, and your refusal somehow invalidates its "letigimacy."

You're not just ignorant, you're aggressively ignorant. You don't WANT to know how video games can be art. And that's insulting.

Could we get your definition of art?

If you do not possess the faculties to experience a medium, you should leave the criticism for those who do. Reading your claims of what games are and are not is much like seeing a review of a film from a blind man.

Roger, I recommend that you try playing a game before you dismiss the potential of the medium, and no Pacman does not count. I think you should find a game called Passage. It is an amazing portrait of the inevitable march of time and how you spend that time. If you aren't crying after four or five play-throughs, you do not have a soul.

I love you roger, but you are so wrong about this. I have played games which have moved my in experience and story telly more than the best of hollywood. the games shown do not come close the the fine crop of games which carry the case for games being art. I dare you to play : shadow of the collosus, the legend of zelda: ocarina of time, and Half life 2, and NOT say that a lot of art was put into their craft and the experience. sure there are a lot of trivial ones, made by careless companies, but that is the same for movies/ or poetry.

That's my 2 cents:

"No, I would not be surprised if a movie executive made that kind of list. But I would be surprised if Bergman did."

How about Michael Bay? Or Uwe Boll?

Just like there are all kinds of directors, there are all kinds of designers. Some games are the equivalent of Transformers, others are the equivalent of The Sweet Hereafter. (I'm thinking "Photopia" by Adam Cadre, a deeply affecting text game.)

This is a bit like reviewing a movie trailer -- or reviewing a second-hand description of a movie. Games are meant to be played, not observed in video clips. You aren't experiencing the game at all if you don't play it.

Ebert seems to be approaching games as though they're purely an audio-visual experience -- like film is. But they aren't, they're an interactive audio-visual-haptic experience.

I agree with you Roger. It seems that "video" can be art, but "games" can't. Games require us to do certain things--run here, throw that, follow suit--while art reveals creative choice and allows the viewer to use his or her own mind to interpret the artist's ideas. A gamer (whether that is someone controlling a computerized character with a joystick or soaring through the air with basketball in hand) may act with elegance, but elegance alone does not define art. It must contain an interpretive cerebral component. Games may contain artistic elements of various merit (the configuration of a baseball diamond, a Monopoly board, CGI interludes in video games,) but the prescriptive play of the game itself is not art.

Apologies for multiple posts. The interface kept bouncing me to an error, so I assumed I had to resubmit.

Roger, how many video games have you played in your life? Can you even name some of the major categories of games (not all games are mario clones or shoot-em-ups)? And yet, somehow you are qualified to debate their nuances? Your "analysis" of Braids and other games reveals an egregious lack of understanding, and it is very hard to take you seriously.

From above:

Would you concede that a chess set itself can be a work of art, whether or not it is actually played?

Ebert: Yes. But why is that a concession?

Just because the discussion has gotten muddled. I think it's necessary to distinguish between the craftsmanship (or artistry) that goes into the making of the game, and the user's experience of playing of a game. So, as you say, playing chess may not be art (it's a game), but the "equipment" -- the imaginatively designed and skillfully crafted board and pieces themselves -- may be works of art, regardless of whether they are actually used to play the game of chess. Likewise, some video games exhibit considerable artistry (you might even call them cinematic) in the composition of visuals, music, etc. The way I look at it, if "Avatar" (which has no more story or character development than a video game) can be considered art, then so can a video game. It just depends on how imaginatively the world of the game is realized. As you like to say of movies, they're not about what they're about but how they are about it.

Ebert: Jim, I see your point. I have been sublimely engrossed in chess games. But they give me nothing I can take with me into my own life or emotions. Nor are most chess sets art.

But I feel this chess piece is fine sculpture: http://j.mp/9Ciogu

Ebert shows a blatant misunderstanding of the topic that he's speaking on. Mostly due to the fact that not only has he never actually played the games that he's dismissing, but he admits that he rarely, perhaps never, has played any video game. So, video games can't be art? I point you to "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMLYjBcMGGA

The game is based off of the short story by Harlan Ellison, in fact, he wrote the script for the game as well. Ellison wanted the game to work as an extension of his story, wherein both he and the player could explore aspects of the characters and the surroundings that he did not in the original story.

"One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome. 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."

I would argue that a truly great film gets one so attached to the characters that if they win, you win. If they lose, YOU lose. In that sense, one CAN "win" a film, the only difference being that there is no other possible outcome. In fact, in that sense, a game is more of an art form than a film, because it is even MORE immersive. Rather than just watching a character, you BECOME a character.

Anyway, back to "And I Must Scream". This is a game that, in essence, you CAN'T win. "Beating" it requires you to fulfill every task with the utmost perfection, and if not, you lose. The only real victory in this game is a MORAL victory. You can't beat the villain. Spoiler alert for those who don't know the ending, but the only way to win is for most of the characters to die, so that the villain can stop torturing them.

Ebert seems to think that every game in existence is either harmless fun like Mario, graphic violence like Grand Theft Auto, or "non-art", which he himself calls "pathetic". Excuse me for saying so, but coming from a man who actually does play video games, this article is "pathetic". You can't dismiss an entire medium if you know nothing about it. If you had never heard of movies before, and I told you about them, you would probably dismiss them as art too. Real art is an expression of the soul of the artist, and it should have nothing to do with appealing to the masses. Why do you think Gone With The Wind was made? To make money. It doesn't negate the fact that Gone With The Wind was a spectacular movie, and surely you would consider it a work of art. Just because something is entertaining does not mean that it is not artistic, which seems to be your point here. And just because something is artistic doesn't mean that it can't be entertaining.

It baffles and saddens me to see that so many people have a completely perverted understanding of what art is.

Art is the product of creative choice. Any further criteria is firmly in the realm of subjectivity. The sheer arrogance of keeping emerging creative mediums from the term 'art' is astonishing.

Electronic games represent a deepening, expanding, of the dimensions of art. Not only can you make a 'Mona Lisa', but you can make it have a conversation with you. Not only can you make a 'Rite of Spring', but you can make the music dynamically restructure and evolve depending on your actions. These new possibilities are the tip of the iceberg.

New kinds of experiences can be expressed and shared that were never possible before. Not only can you represent a place as you might in a landscape on canvas, but you can express things like the freedom of movement one might feel while there, or the feeling of anticipation of imminent change, or the feeling of that change occuring and the choices that open up. You can give a person a chance to participate and explore deep facets of the artwork. I could go on for hours on this.

It doesn't matter that you think nothing the gaming world has put out has as much merit as classic works of art. That is an opinion. Merit, and the criteria for it, is entirely subjective. Some of the simplest works of art resonate the most deeply with people.

I'm sorry Mr Ebert, but I can't believe your ignorance. Games are art. They have always been art. Were you an aspiring artist in this day and age perhaps you would realize that this new medium we have before us is the most exciting and powerful artistic medium we have available to us. We still need a long time to mature it, but a creation need not be mature to be art. Such an arbitrary criteria is meaningless and, in fact, wank.

Sorry, I'm going to add to the cacophony, but I feel that part of the problem here is the uncrossable generation gap, and part is the terrible examples of the presenter.

Braid is the only example there I find compelling, and even it's only compelling if you've already been exposed to the games whose concepts it riffs on. (Namely: the 2D Mario games.)

As a game player, I've gotten a lot more emotionally involved in games like Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (which is being made into a movie with virtually no modification of the script), Bioshock, and Fallout 3 than I've felt watching most movies. Even if I only consider "great" movies.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I was in tears at the end of Sands of Time and Bioshock. And Halo 2 gave me an emotional rush that lasted for days.

But still. I don't have any problem with you not believing games are art, as long as you're not calling for unfair censorship of games like, for example, Hillary Clinton is. That's the real threat: people can have whatever opinion they like, but government censorship is an evil that never goes away.

I really enjoyed this piece of writing, as well as the TED conference, but I must say I think you're wrong. Not necessarily because of your narrow perspective of video games, but because of this whole silly debate about what is art and how it can be defined. This is quite a modernist discussion, and I for one, think we should bury the hatchet, since it does no one good. With the emergence of Web 2.0, youtube, the democratization of the media, it is now more difficult than ever to correctly label this or that as art. I don't buy the whole social media frenzy, and I do think there are standards and precedents that establish a sort of rubric, but as you already said, how do we know what a Picasso or a Kandinsky, or a Pollock want to convey? We don't, but we do sense (maybe because we've been taught) a formal dexterity from which it all gels together and evokes an emotional response. As a consumer of the work, we complete it in a sense, we shape its meanings according to our worldview. Therefore, no "work of art" can be the same to two people.
On the other hand, a game like Braid, for example, through its visual style does create an emotional response in me. And the way it approaches concepts like time, loss, longing and desire, does indeed make me reflect upon them. It is immensely better and more profound (for the lack of a more appropriate word) than say, Neil Labute's remake of Death at a Funeral, or any Paulo Coelo or Nicholas Sparks novel. Is it art? I don't like the label, but according to the definitions I've read here, I would say so. I am not a hardcore gamer, and much prefer film. I do think most great games are pure entertainment, at the level of a great B movie or something like that. But as a medium, I do think it has the potential to be "art", and it already has been. Wether the player has control over the character, there is an overall narrative and more important, a thematic and formal preoccupation the game is addressing. There is, inevitably, a generational gap that has to be taken into account here, Roger. Cinema: art vs vaudeville was a hot debate during many many years, as you know, and many people died believing it would never achieve the level of art. Just some thoughts...
This piece made me look for other articles on the subject, especially on Metal Gear Solid 2, which, as I recall, cites Paul Auster's City of Glass in the game, and shares some traits with it. I once read a thesis on that game as the first postmodern game, but I didn't find it. I leave other links here if you're interested:

http://www.insertcredit.com/features/dreaming2/index.html

http://snakeandme.typepad.com/snakeandme/2004/09/haruki_murakami.html

http://www.gamespot.com/features/6106009/p-9.html

One thing I'd like to add: Nobody's claiming *ALL* games are art. Certainly there are tons of games that don't even slightly attempt to be art. Of course, I'd argue that the same applies to movies-- is G.I. Joe or Transformers 2 art?

I haven't read all the comments, but I thought I'd link to a few short games that spoke to me personally. I would agree that most video games are not art, but I believe the potential is there.

http://www.molleindustria.org/everydaythesamedream/everydaythesamedream.html

http://www.ludomancy.com/games/today.php?lang=en

http://www.increpare.com/2009/02/opera-omnia/

All three of the above made relatively interesting statements in a relatively simple way, in my opinion.

..."It will always be art"
..."It can never be art"

Let these two asses be set to grind corn.

Or, to be less flippant, surely art is a debate rather than an absolute quality?

Roger, I'm glad you took the time to write out a thoughtful defense of your position. I feel that you are making one critical misunderstanding is your analysis of video games as art. You repeatedly compare video games to sports or games such as basketball and chess. You say that Michael Jordan or Bobby Fischer never claimed that they are artists. Now, I am a video gamer, and I'm not claiming myself as an artist either. However, the person who CREATED the game is. Michael Jordan may not be an artist, but it could certainly be argued that Dr. James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, is. At the very least, he is deserving of respect. Someone watching a movie is not an artist, but the director and actors are. This is the flaw in your viewpoint.

One other small flaw is the fact that you stated that video games are not art because they can be "won". (This is not the case in all games, however. Though games end, not all are "won".) Do the characters in films not often "win"? The only difference is that in a film, the writer and director control the actions of the character, whereas in a video game it is the programmer and the player. Yes, in a video game you can "die" and restart from a certain point. But, were someone were to play through a video game flawlessly from start to finish, how is this different from a film, or at least a television series?

I encourage you to take a closer look at the video game Shadow of the Colossus, for the PlayStation 2. I believe this game is the single best argument that exists for the video game as art. It uses lighting to create mood, follows the progression of a character through a narrative arc, involves deep personal loss, and ends in a climactic scene that invokes strong emotion. I am not ashamed to admit that I cried at one point while playing it. After it was over, I sat and pondered the repercussions of the character's actions, perhaps more than I have for any movie. The fact that it was I who was controlling the character as he performed these morally questionable acts served only to strengthen the emotion involved.

I hope you will at least read this comment, and possibly consider some of the points made within. Thank you.

Art is videogames. Period. I understand you never played Yars' Revenge on an Atari 2600.

However, art lies below the creation, using tools at the time to create a masterpiece.

A hundred years ago I imagine there were plenty of art critics who said motion pictures would never be serious art. We know how that turned out.

At the risk of copping out, I would argue that video games are partially art and partially something else. Not 100% art, not 0% art. Like a great film, a great video game depends on good pacing and art direction to keep the player's interest and properly tell the story. Well... maybe. Some games don't really need pacing at all. Some are just immediate fun, like Pac-Man or Wii Sports. That's where things get tricky. But the fact that games are something different entirely is what makes them so very interesting.

I can think of no better example than Dragon Age. It's a heavily dialog-driven game (not to say it isn't also about killing enemies, which it certainly is) where you, the player, create the main character. You make decisions and statements that affect the main character's relationships with the other characters. You can betray the other characters or give them cause to betray you.

In the final hours of the game, one of the computer-controlled characters makes an offer to "your" character. This offer would compromise some of your character's moral values, but avoid the need to sacrifice someone's life. (Possibly even your own.) This ultimatum is given further weight if your character has entered into a romantic relationship with the other character. When I played the game, this was the case, and I chose to reject the offer. The other character left, taking with her all of the time I had put into building up her combat skills.

The remaining hours of the game carried a stinging sense of loss. This character was really gone, and I really missed her. All that remained was a ring that she had given to my character. The game ended with my character deciding to pursue his missing mistress, with the ring acting as some sort of emotional radar. And thus we have one of the best sequel setups in recent memory, partially due to my own decisions.

But then I go to a site like GameFAQs.com and see a strategy guide for all of the possible romantic options, all of the dialog choices you can make to achieve the best possible outcome. I hear about people who play the game as quickly as possible without engaging in the inter-character conversations at all, or who manipulate the game's relationship system to maximize "perks" across the board and have sex with all of the characters (one-on-one) in one sitting. And then I have to remind myself that, yes, it is a video game. Depending on how you play it, it can be Pac-man with sex instead of power pellets.

So is it art, or is it a "beep-boop-beep, score 1 million points to win" test of reflexes? It's neither. It's both. I don't know.

One could as easily dismiss film for its facile observations about the human condition relative to other mediums. Your argument depends on the idea of a critic who has a refined taste which approaches an objectivity not met by those less refined. One could just as easily dismiss the artistry, the elicited emotions, philosophy, sharing of experience in film as shallow from the perspective of the third culture which thinks the message presented in film is not grounded enough to have any meaningful insight.

I think you have unfortunately not read enough about the nature of fact and value, the problem of subjectivity, of the difference between valuing and valuable, issues in the demarcation of art and not art, high and low art to say anything not approaching confusion about the issue; you speak as if your expertise crowds out the subjective element yet it's ridden with poor reasoning, an elevation of your opinion hiding behind criteria about what is or is not art.

Unlike many of the people here, I am not really interested in whether or not games are art. Instead, the issue I have with this post is that it shows some fundamental misunderstandings about video games that attempt to tell a story.

I don't mind being told that video game stories are primitive and childish, it's true, but it's important to understand why that is the case. Many video games attempt to tell a story as if it were a book or a movie. These are your Grand Theft Autos, Bioshocks, and Uncharteds. In these games, the game play is largely disconnected from the narrative. This will almost always create a poor story. Proper pacing is really difficult to achieve with gameplay sections mixed in, and characters often come off as homicidal maniacs given the number of enemies they slay during the course of a game. This is one class of game, one that often ends up with a conflict of gameplay and narrative. There is another class of games though, games that attempt to use gameplay as a storytelling tool. This is a difficult proposition for game developers, it's not an easy feat to pull off. That is why games of this nature often feature simple stories rather than deep expositions. It's easy to dismiss these games out of hand, but doing so without playing them is like dismissing a painting without viewing it. Without actually playing the game you can't understand its full impact.

From the way you've written your argument I feel that you have a misunderstanding of how games feel when you play them. For example, you talk about winning a game. Most players don't view story driven games in that context. It's not about winning or losing for the players, instead we consider whether or not we've finished the game. It may seem like a small distinction, but it's an important one. Players aren't trying to master or overcome a challenge, they're trying to have a complete experience.

The other impression I get is that you don't fully understand the power of merging game play and narrative. Lets take a look at the ending of Braid. You can view the ending sequence here: http://www.youtube.com/watch#!feature=related&v=gEgpOrAvHZg (sorry for the annoying commentary). When viewed as a video, the sequence is rather mediocre. It's interesting, but not very deep or powerful. When you experience the scene as a player, it takes on a very different feeling. A lot of the scene's strength is a result of the active player involvement. Through the game our ability to affect time has been our strongest asset. Without it we would have never completed the game. Yet here, at the end, our tool has been effectively turned on its head. What was once our greatest asset turns out to expose our character for what he really is. This is where I feel you make your greatest misunderstanding of video games. You seem to believe that all game mechanics are intended to create win or fail conditions for the player. That's a big misunderstanding though, game mechanics are a part of the experience and they fundamentally change the player's involvement in the story.

So while I don't particularly care about the debate of video games being art, I think the discussion of the merits of video games when you haven't played the games is disrespectful. Much like one wouldn't put much weight into a person's opinion on movies if that person has never seen one, it's difficult to put much weight into your thoughts on video games when you haven't made the effort to experience them.

Roger, you are an old man. Why are you writing about things you don't understand?
It's even more weird, since you are blaming gamers for being over-concerned? Why are YOU so concerned about proving that games aren't art?

I have to say that the games cited in the video are not good examples of the argument that games can be art. The games that can be considered art are ones that try to tell a good story, that are essentially like playing a novel, a play or a film. To say a game can't be a art, is saying that those 3 forms are not art either. Since a video game can simply be an interactive version of a novel or a movie. Good examples of the argument that video games are art, are games that are in the Final Fantasy series, they do try to have fully developed characters, the art direction is often beautiful, and they have a coherent, and full fledged plot. I can understand the actual game play argument against them being art forms, cause agreed, when I am controlling the character, shooting, or inputting commands, that is not an art form, and sometimes is often very simplistic, but walking amongst a fully realized world, where great passion, and time was put into the look of the environment how can I say that the artistic direction of a film or play is better than that in a game. The same goes for music scores in some video games, again the final fantasy series excelled at this. Can't these aspects of the gaming experience be considered an art form? I really don't think anyone is arguing that game play is an art form, that would be the equivalent of pushing pause and play on your DVD player, and that is not art. What is art is everything that goes into building everything around it, and sometimes, yes even the writing is very good.

Hi, Roger.

My girlfriend and I were just discussing the fact that, as she put it, your post was just like Hannity and O'Reilly from Fox news. She's right, one of the biggest crimes of news today is that rather than reporting actual events directly they spend hours or days commenting on comments. They get panels of "experts" to debate a newsclip, which itself is frequently abridged.

You have fallen into this horrible trap, Roger. You've just commented on comments about video games rather than from actual experience. You really shouldn't draw conclusions on it at all if you don't know the field except through second hand knowledge.

Would it not at least be more fun and possibly enlightening for you to actually try your hand of directly reviewing video games like you do movies? I'd respect more if you played a video game and commented on it than if you base your review on other reviews.

A very simple video game to start with that only costs ten dollars to download (http://tale-of-tales.com/ThePath/buy.html) is The Path.

Forgive me if someone has already made this point...

I understand your reasoning for why you think a game cannot be art, but I would hope you would at least concede that the craftsmanship that goes in to building the game is worthy of recognition as art.

Just as a production designer or a costume designer in a film production are viewed as artists, I imagine that the graphic designers, animators, modelers, voice actors, and composers who work hard on video game productions (and yes, they ARE productions) would all be soar to hear that they aren't contributing so something that can be called art. Or worse, to be relieved of their title as artists could be even more upsetting.

Allow me now, to critique the entirety of film as a form of art, having never watched any of the landmark films (or hardly any at all) and basing my judgment solely on my opinions about film reel technology and on the fact that I cannot see how a set of moving pictures could provide insight into the world. As a film reviewer, who I generally greatly admire, I find it unbelievable you would write what amounts to a complete dismissal of something you have no first hand experience of. Why not write reviews of all movies based on what you read in the synopsis.

Many games (take for example the Mass Effect series) now amount to very deep "cinematic" narrative structures which allow a single central story with variation in how it comes to resolution.

Further, the WACO game is your defense that video games suck? Come on, that's lack dismissing film as a waste of time and saying "Did You Hear about the Morgans" is what all movies are.

Video games today easily equal and often surpass motion pictures in both scope and scale. This is true of story, animation and immersion. If the intention of art is too elicit an emotional response from the audience then making a broad sweeping statement is just ignorant. No one can decide what will resonate with others. Everyone is affected differently by different things. That being said I have often felt connections and emotions while playing video games that I have never felt while watching a movie. It is us who decide what is art based on how we are affected by it, no one can decide for us.

Mr. Ebert,

Let me first apologize for not taking the time to read all the comments posted in regard to your article - I may repeat some of what was said, or say something entirely new (doubtful - is there anything truly new left to be said on the subject?).

I agree with you. I am a gamer, I play many video games, and no, they are not art. They are a competition, either with the computer or a human opponent.

Perhaps you would concede that there are, however, elements of art in video games?

The design of the appearance of characters, for example, is art, at least in some cases.　And I think I have better examples than Ms. Santiago for my arguments. I offer you Final Fantasy, by Square Enix. The characters in the original 8bit version were, naturally, horribly deformed by their medium, but they were created by a great artist、Yoshitaka Amano.　The later versions, when the medium was improved, showed more of the artistry behind the character images.

The same can be said of the settings for such games - ones based in fictional lands require the art of creating the maps, the history of the place, the historical relationships between its peoples. The physical locations must also be created - deserts, grasslands, mountain ranges, rivers and oceans must all be invented, illustrated and rendered in computer graphics, flora and fauna created and rendered. And be made to move in a natural way - the animals must run, charge, leap, attack in a way compatible with their physiology. All this invention and imitation is art married to science.

In some games, there is no story, just a goal - create a creature and have it survive artificial challenges. In some, there is a story,　and　how you interact with the story will alter the progress of the game. This can be seen in such games as Mass Effect and Dragon Age. There is still a goal, and you do not　”win” unless you achieve it, but there was art in the story creation and implementation.

I have, in fact, come across games that have no point. None. You can achieve small goals, if you want, but there is no need. The point of the game is to look at it, in an interactive way. Such a game is Endless Ocean, for the Wii. You start on a boat, and have the option of swimming in the ocean. If you swim, you can swim in various parts of the ocean looking at various sea bed formations and fish. No goals to achieve, no points to acquire (although it may be an option). Just pretty imitations of nature to observe, if you wish.

And this game is even less of an artwork than the others I have mentioned.

It is entirely imitative of nature and does nothing to engage the mind. It has some effect of soothing the soul, for those who are inclined to be soothed by ocean scenes, but does not stimulate the intellect in any way.

You may say the same of many video games, and you may be right. I find the challenge of winning the sword/gun/fist fight against a programmed enemy to be boring and artless, but the challenge of interacting with the characters and building relationships (without cheat codes or ”walk-throughs”) to be interesting. Not art, but at least engaging.

For the video gamer looking for art in a challenge-based game, I would suggest turning off the game system, getting some friends together, and learning how to play a role-playing game. Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition is nice and easy on the math-challenged and even has a computer based character builder, for those who can’t be off line for more than a few hours at a time. How is D&D (or any other role-playing game) more of an art than video gameｓ？ It　is collaborative story telling - you can invent the world, the setting, the characters, and the story. You create the challenges, and the ways to overcome them (not necessarily by fighting)； the goals and the rewards, if any； the way people interact and the history behind it all. You are, essentially, writing a novel in a group.

But art in game isn’t the subject, is it？ Let me say again, I agree, as someone who spends considerable money on video games, and a fair amount of her free time playing them, that no, video games are not art. But they are made of art.

Of course, so was the Great Bonfire of 7 February 1497.

art is what makes life more interesting than art.

someone said that. i stick to it. in your *personnal* journey to give art form a dominant position over plebeian misconception of beauty, sorrow or harmony, you forget, fail or wish to understand how we are supposed to organize this mass of inputs we call reality. we do what we can, with what we have, in constraints and dreams. video games belong to a new generation, they give the tools to people to create from a base. user content worlds, individual narratives, you fail to see that because you have no idea what it is. it is a langage, inherited from other medias, and scriptures, and visuals, that enhance our perceptions, just like the cave, just like the shadows in their time. you get what is a shadow. you don't get what is a shader, sir.

it took 50 years for krazy kat to be perceived as a work of art. it took as much time for comic books to be perceived as an art form. art takes time. even if the games santiago choose were not the perfect examples, you should research more. try mother 3. but you know, you ll hate it. why ? because the codes, tropes, semiotics it's using are already, in your mind, filled under the junk section of sub-culture. now sir : cookie monster is philosophy. you get that, your mind will expand to accept video games as what they are : a form of art, not an art form.

now, the great kurt :

"Artists use frauds to make human beings seem more wonderful than they really are. Dancers show us human beings who move much more gracefully than human beings really move. Films and books and plays show us people talking much more entertainingly than people really talk, make paltry human enterprises seem important. Singers and musicians show us human beings making sounds far more lovely than human beings really make. Architects give us temples in which something marvelous is obviously going on. Actually, practically nothing is going on." [Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Wampeters, Foma and Granfallons, When I Was Twenty-One (1974)]

Can video games be art? Sure. Can video games be pure art? Never.

I believe it is safe to claim that Mr. Ebert finds that movies have the potential to be art. This position does not however bind him to accept that ALL movies are art, but that the medium is sufficient to create something that is art.

At its core, the only difference between movies and video games is user input. If we remove input, they are the same, moving pictures on a screen (I'm not trying to trivialize either, I'm just stating that essentially, that is what they are.). Therefore, it can be assumed that the area that Mr. Ebert has trouble accepting is the player involvement. It is with this point that he can justifiably claim that video games can not be pure art.

No matter what video game you give, that depends on the player to interact with it. The interaction with the game is dictated by the level of skill a player might have. Because of this, video games can also be likened to traditional sports and boardgames. By being a blend of both story (art) and skill based interaction (game), video games simply cannot be considered a pure art form. For example, adding an expertly crafted story to a chess tournament you enter would not make your experience pure art, it would just simply be a game with an artistic story crafted on to it.

I would like to refute, however, the claim that because there has been no great example that gamers can herald as art, that video games cannot be art. By that logic, because the Roundhay Garden Scene (one of the first filmstrips) was not art, then no movie from there after could be art. A simpler example would be this, say that there are no red cars in the world. Using the same argument, it seems that red cars cannot exist. Just because something hasn't been made, it doesn't mean that it can't be made. Also, the claim that if Mr. Ebert were to simply play a certain game, he would accept that games are art. Unlike movies, games have a much higher barrier to entry. If Mr. Ebert were to tell you to watch a movie (probably “Citizen Kane”) to prove a movie can be art, all you would simply have to do is, well, watch it. With a video game however, there is much more that plays into it. Say that Mr. Ebert did make an attempt at playing a game of your choice, “Bioschock” for example, he would not be able to get past the game aspect to progress through to the story elements. I guess that accessibility has nothing to do with whether games are art or not, I just find that it is a poor defense to simply say play a game (as equally poor of an argument if someone simply said watch a movie).

On behalf of the human race, I would like to apologise for the comment left by Lujo.

Ebert: Thanks, human race.

Final Fantasy XIII is very clearly an artistic masterpiece. Anyone who disagrees is entitled to do so, but it can't change the obvious.

The video game is a medium just like filmmaking, painting, sculpture, printmaking, drawing, and photography. You can not declare an entire medium to not be art based on the properties of that medium (as you put it "rules, points, objectives, and an outcome" is what defines video games and precludes it from being art). Sculptures are three dimensional forms, but clearly the Pieta is art and something a 3 year old makes out of Play-Doh isn't. The latest and greatest first person shooter game is no more art than the latest and loudest summer action flick. But that does not preclude all works that are video games from being art.

The Santiago presentation is an easy strawman to tear apart. She may be a game developer, but her examples of "game as art" are weaker than the works I was introduced to during my first semester as a New Media Art grad student. Five years after that, I am now teaching game development to undergrads in the same department. I rose to that position by working for an established artist who has shown his works in prominent New York galleries, the Whitney Biennial, and museums around the world. His tools (like many others in New Media) are programming, 3D modeling, and 2D and sound design for games, and these are used to create art. For the last 100+ years since Modernism, the definition of art has changed radically over time. Even early photography was considered a craft before it was accepted as art, but since then our culture has learned to judge art based on its creativity, intention, and ability to create environmental spaces (both figurative and literal) and evoke emotions and thoughtfulness.

Standart game types (sports, board games, etc) obviously are not art as they are not flexible media that one can create content with symbolism within. It is not the gamer players who should be so enraged by your opinions, no matter what type of game one play, a gamer is not the one creating art. But game development is an open-ended process which can and has been used to create art, and it is the artists who chose to work in this medium whom you clearly understand little about.

Roger, Roger, Roger. I'm not sure where you dug up this Kellee individual, but the games she cited are like scraping the bottom of the barrel. No gamer would cite these as moving instances of artistry within the medium. Basically: Kellee done poorly, and she gone and done you wrong...

I'm surprised to find that you've adopted this narrow perspective on the 'what is art?' question. Every college kid whose taken a survey art history course should be able to tell you that, personal opinions aside, art is what you make it. With video games, I would say the art is the process. Games for platforms like PS3 and XBox 360 have tremendously complex, highly cinematic plots that run much deeper than a puzzle or point and shoot. They're constructed with scripts and storyboards, filled in with the sort of detail-conscious CG that most animated flicks can't be bothered with. They are, indeed, already art. Created and built by people who are already considered artists within their medium. When they're good, they are complex, moving, deeply involving works that turn reality as we understand it upside down and offer us an escape from real life into a world we can only imagine. Sound familiar? That's what cinema does, isn't it? You're looking at games all wrong. I see the new generation of games as attempts to locate, to involve the player in the action. It's a movie that puts you in charge, involves you, and has you select from multiple options to determine the ending. A game like Infamous, for example, sees its protagonist (you) harnessing burgeoning super powers. You must decide, ethically, whether to use them for good, or to become a villain. Meanwhile, the landscape and the electrical currents pulsing from your hands are beautiful to behold. Grand Theft Auto, too, gets a bad rap, but the game is what you make it. You're a small time mobster, will you ascend the ranks or work with the police? It's GoodFellas, but with you in the driver's seat.

I would agree that there's a fair amount of brainless crap offered up for party, multiplayer entertainment, and that maybe a racing game doesn't exactly rank high as art. Yet, the Cracked link you posted on Twitter is correct, Katamari's dreamworld is already a fractured contemporary installation piece in vibrant hues. Fallout is a masterpiece that places you firmly within the post-apocalyptic world so many sci-fi visions have shown us. The only way to understand, and to unlock the color spectrum, the fantastic visuals, the adrenaline filled moments and the art of video games is to play them. If you have not, you're simply not qualified to speak on the matter. The best thing you can do is find someone with a Playstation 3 and have them hook it up so you can play (or at least watch them play) Uncharted 2, Fallout 3, Final Fantasy XIII, or, at the very least, Katamari.

I'm sure you wouldn't trust the film criticisms of someone who had only ever been exposed to Lifetime movies. Consider that with gaming, you're doing precisely that. Someone has shown you the absurdity of Waco (i've never met anyone who has played that), the failed conceptual Flower, and Braid (which looks like Lemmings circa 1995, to me) and you've built a perspective rooted years in the medium's pre-history and veering dangerously close to complete ignorance.

I never comment. But, I mean, come on. Baiting this type of fight is really beneath you. Even my 70-year old uncle has sat captivated watching my cousins play Ratchett & Clank and that guy? That guy is about as notoriously finicky as it gets.

I'll spare you the details of certain games are so good and other crap people are posting.

I'd just like to say that there are many artistic things that one can take from video games but perhaps that as a whole it doesn't work as a cohesive form of art.

The design from an art perspective in today's game definitely is a form of art as it merely is something one could view, whether or not the game uses this to say anything may not be true. It's relative to the game I suppose.

Then the story itself when on paper can be art but in the video game becomes something different. When reflecting on the story though in a single story, perhaps that becomes art.

"You can go back in time and correct your mistakes. In chess, this is known as taking back a move, and negates the whole discipline of the game. Nor am I persuaded that I can learn about my own past by taking back my mistakes in a video game."

You're noodling about what the rules of Braid might mean... without having played Braid? Do you criticize films without watching them? What is this? What are you doing?

"Nothing she shows from this game seemed of more than decorative interest on the level of a greeting card. Is the game scored? She doesn't say. Do you win if you're the first to find the balance between the urban and the natural? Can you control the flower? Does the game know what the ideal balance is?"

You're ready to condemn Flower, and you don't even know whether you control the flower? WHAT? Why are you talking about this? Why are you weighing in here? You don't know the most basic things!

"The only way I could experience joy or ecstasy from her games would be through profit participation."

By all appearances, YOU HAVEN'T PLAYED THEM. Why are you putting your fame and prestige behind criticism of creative works that you haven't even touched? What are you thinking? Okay, this is your blog, you can say what you think here, it doesn't all have to be well-supported or well-developed. But you know by now how seriously video game fans take this conversation between you and them. You know people will assign a lot of weight to your criticism. So why are you toying with these people in this way? You suggested that you'd prefer to keep quiet about this. Did somebody put a gun to your head and make you participate some more? Why don't you either play the games with an open mind and heart, or shut up about them? Wouldn't you expect that of somebody criticizing film, or anything else? Are you really just trolling here? Yes, you've got a lot of semi-clueless people picking at you, desperately trying to inject you with their perception of the secret beauty of Final Fantasy Whichever. Yes, you've got people hatefully trashing you. So what? You can't be the better man?

One thing that your friend seems to have glossed over are Japanese Roleplaying Game videogames. If any video games are art, then the later installments in the Final Fantasy series are. But the reason I call them art has not much to do with the visuals and everything to do with the fact that those visuals are used to tell intricate and compelling stories. And telling stories is an important function of art.

First, excuse my English.

Ebert is right. His main point for me seems to be, games can’t be art.

The reason why a game can't be art lies in its necessary moment of self- or group-interest. Without trying to reach a goal, you aren't really playing a game. But with an active interest you can't experience art. Video games simulate life too much to be art. They can't be art for the same reason why a good meal or good sex can't be art. Even pictures of food (like in commercials) -where the only intention is to sell you food- can't be art. Porn can't be art. The philosopher Kant separates the agreeable (food, sex, money) from the beautiful. Art is beautiful not agreeable. "Beauty"-judgments don't contain an active interest in the objects or persons presented. Art objects are always in a distant realm in which you don't intervene. Even interactive art is not about making good or bad choices to reach some goal. Take an installation where you move through a room. It's not about doing something or simulating something, but about experiencing yourself doing what you do.

There is life, there are games and then there is art. Life is serious, games have to be treated serious, art is never serious. You can enjoy tragic events in a drama or failures in a comedy that you could never enjoy in real life without being a sociopath. And you could never enjoy them in a game where you have an active interest in winning. You wouldn’t take the game serious anymore.

As a lover of video games, mostly older ones, I once tried to justify them as art. Sadly, those arguments looked no different than some of the ones being made here.

I agree with Roger: video games can never be art.

True, games can possess plenty of artistic elements: design, music, and narrative. But these elements will never gel into a complete work of art. Why? Because the goal of a work of art is different, always, from the goal of a game. Let's use Joyce's definition: "Art is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an aesthetic end." Games, video or otherwise, certainly meet the first part of this definition. They are indeed a "human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter." Simple enough: game designers make games out of matter. However, games are never created for an aesthetic end.

True, as I stated earlier, certain elements from games can be isolated for aesthetic effect. To be sure, orchestras have been known to play music from games, and visual artists have started rendering their own interpretations of video game characters and worlds. But, as Roger points out, the aesthetic appreciation of these elements isn't the purpose of a game's creation; a game is created so that gamers can actively interact with it to reach a goal (i.e., high score, winning, leveling up, and so on). If a game does not require this, it will cease to be a game. Only then will it be eligible to be called art.

Even a so called "art game," like Electroplankton for the Nintendo DS, is not art. In Electroplankton, a player manipulates objects on the screen to create music. This doesn't sound like a game, but it still doesn't sound like art. It's neither; it's a tool. An artist can use the "game" to create music like he or she might use a keyboard or a guitar. The music he or she creates would be the "art," but not the game itself.

Thank you for addressing this topic in your blog, Roger. It's an important question, and I'm glad everyone's talking about it.

I didn't want to do this, but have relented because in every defense of video games, I see people posting mainstream titles that don't come close to illustrating the potential for artistic expression that some video games enjoy.

This is more in response to Green Eyed Joe who call video games the toys of children and savages. So here are some games to check out. All are free, and most don't even require a download. Those that do require downloads, believe me, have been verified to be virus free as well as free of charge.

Downloads:

The Passage: Jason Rohrer's five minute exploration of life and the balance between the pursuit of love and the pursuit of fortune.

http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/

The Strange and Somewhat Sinistar Tale of the House at Desert Bridge: A beautiful fairy tale story book for adults about innocence and war, and the debilitating uncertainty and fears about parenthood.

http://jayisgames.com/archives/2009/02/the_strange_and_somewhat_sinister_tale_of_the_house_at_desert_bridge.php

Silent Conversation: Gregory Weir's subtle yet beautiful reinvention of the act of reading itself. I imagine none of you have read Lovecraft quite like this:

http://jayisgames.com/archives/2009/08/silent_conversation.php

Just a few more...

The Beggar: a powerful and sometimes painful example of commentary on the life of the homeless.

http://jayisgames.com/archives/2009/07/the_beggar.php

Every Day The Same Dream: http://jayisgames.com/archives/2009/12/every_day_the_same_dream.php

Gray: http://jayisgames.com/archives/2009/04/gray.php

Small Worlds:
http://jayisgames.com/archives/2009/11/small_worlds.php

ive always liked your reviews (with the exception of The Golden Compass... WTF, how much $ were you paid for that one?)

this article is foolish. art is an incredibly broad concept to define but you are swinging the term around like you are the only one allowed to use it.

like movies or books, videogames are simply a new form of media. you have a responsibility to look past these grudges and stop being such a xenophobe. i have met many great artists that have dedicated themselves to game design, all of which would be deeply offended by your very shallow understanding of the potentialities of that medium.

TLDR; shhhh Ebert, stop hating on things you don't "get"

Ever heard of Tale of Tales? Belgium indie game company, basically just a husband and wife team. Just one example of virtual artists. You don't win their games, you experience them. In fact, they think that the term video game should no longer be used because developers like them are making things that are better described as interactive art.

Even outside the indie circles, there are games like the recent "Heavy Rain" and its predecessor, "Indigo Prophecy" (That's "Fahrenheit" for all yins in the UK) in the mainstream. Going back even further, there's Sega's "Shenmue", which was like living out a Japanese crime thriller and was also one of the earliest examples of interactive cutscenes. Also, who can forget "Shadow of the Colossus"? The moving journey of a lone, silent hero as he slays magnificant, breathtaking creatures to bring his lost love back to life? And what about Suda51's "Killer 7"? That 'game' is so artsy that I can barely make heads or tales of it! I also think the first few Silent Hill games are worth a mention, featuring gruesome monsters that are actually carefully conceived manifestations of the protagonists' inner demons and psychological traumas.

You know what? I'm just going to make my own blog post about this rather than take up any more of your comment page.

Why do you keep talking about this? You're as ignorant as a proponent of Intelligent Design. You will never even allow yourself to experience the work and actually consider that your points could be wrong.

I challenge you to, in fact, PLAY Braid yourself and tell me that the whole of the work is not art. It can be purchased for Personal Computers for $10. If you would like, I will gift you the game so that you can play it.

Roger, I completely agree with you. I have a friend who insists that both video games and sport are in fact art and need to be appreciated on the same level as all other mediums. I just don't see it. While I enjoy watching sport, I don't feel enriched by it no matter how much "artistry" Sidney Crosby might display in his play. I think the gamers above protest too much.

Mr. Ebert,

Your understanding of art, and film in particular, is exceptional. Your review is the first I read when judging whether or not a film is worth spending the money to watch in theaters.

I must, however, disagree with the position that video games are not an art-form. To the contrary, they are the new opera. Opera took the "higher" arts of painting, music, acting, etc. and merged them into a single unique art-form. We're seeing the same happen with video games.

Video games are at the threshold of coming into adulthood as a medium. If we look back to the early days of any medium, they imitated the mediums that already existed. Early film, for example, imitated theater and assumed that the viewer was sitting in the audience and watching the stage from a single perspective. It wasn't until filmmakers threw out the assumptions of theater and began moving the camera that film began to break away from theater and become its own unique art-form. Today we have pans, tilts, zooms, fade-ins, fade-outs, jump cuts, and an arsenal of camera tricks. There are things unique to film that just don't work in theater and vice versa.

I point to the comic books of the 1980's as an example of what is likely to happen with the video game. Comics were looked at as juvenile rubbish...then Alan Moore created Watchmen and won the Hugo award. Suddenly, comic books became "graphic novels" (or at least the good ones did). How did Watchmen contribute to this change of public opinion? Alan Moore attempted to create a comic that would not work as a book or a film - he focused on the elements that made comics a unique art-form.

Even if you aren't convinced yet, it is my life's goal to create a game that convinces the everyman that games are an art-form, and I hope you'll enjoy it.

Adam Moore,
Game Designer

I wish you would elaborate WHY video games aren't art? It seems hypocritical to think that movies are art, but games can't be? The only difference I see is that with video games, you take an active part in furthering the story, as opposed to movies where you just passively watch. Why is creating a highly detailed 3D characters for a game any less artistic than an actual physical sculpture? I’m not offended as a gamer that needs to be validated, but as an art student that goes to school with lots of talented artists that are trying to get into the game design business.

Or, is this a case where if a person likes something, its art, and if they don’t like it, it’s crap. If so, well, not everybody enjoys video games. But I will say, even bad art is still art.

I feel I mostly must respond to the comments I see you have bolded in which a self-proclaimed gamer claims absolutely no emotional impact from any game he/she has ever played and another in which a heavily self-credentialed artist states his argument without ever really making any argument.

In response to the first, I question whether this gamer has really played a full range of games. One could play through the entire spectrum of fighting or shooting games and not really ever experience an emotion because those kinds of games aren't meant for that. As numerous other commentors have cited, just because Transformers gets made doesn't mean film as a whole isn't an art. Likewise, just because Call of Duty may be a hugely popular game doesn't mean it's an example of art or that anyone at any point thought it was.

I am not an avid gamer by any means. There are new releases I get excited for and I have a small collection of games, but my interest is nowhere near as vast as my love for films and TV shows. But in my limited experience, I have encountered games that moved me emotionally and enraptured my attention just as much as Children of Men or Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans. The World Ends With You and Final Fantasy X are the first games that come to mind in that regard. I became deeply engrossed in these stories and felt strongly for the characters just as much as I would in a well-written novel or film. How is that not therefore artistic? TWEWY tells a brilliant tale about sacrifice, mortality and deception. It leaves every character - and therefore the player - on edge about who can truly be trusted. Even the protagonist's own memories are suspect. I find you always applaud films that remind us that we are only given the information the director is willing to give us, and that he or she can shape it however they choose. We cannot trust anything we are told because ultimately, the director can lie to us. How is a game which applies these same rich post-modern ideas not even remotely close to artistic in your view?

Other commentors have already covered your arguments regarding the "win state" fairly well, so I won't harp too much on that point. I will say that particularly in the genre of role-playing games, which place a much heavier emphasis on story and character development than gameplay, there is absolutely nothing to differentiate the "win state" from the end of a movie or a book. There also tend to be few ways in which the player can truly alter the narrative or choose their own experience. Open-ended gameplay has become more popular in recent years, but linear gameplay still holds a fairly firm place in the industry. And rightly it should, since we can experience much more beautiful and moving stories through it.

A short response to the second comment you bolded, in which a fairly pretentious listing off of credentials is not actually backed up with any kind of argument. Okay, we understand, you've done a lot of things. And because of this, your opinion is allowed to stand with no other backing? Please, sir, make a real argument. Telling us how wonderful you are and then stating your opinion tells us nothing. As evidenced by the fact that many people are disagreeing with Roger (someone whose credentials I would offer are much more impressive and vast than yours), who you are and what you've done is meaningless. For the record, I am also a graphic designer, artistic, filmmaker, musician and programmer. I'm not entirely sure how any of those are relevant to this discussion - as evidenced by Roger himself, you don't need to have a deep background in creating something in order to be an expert on it. I'd venture that a kid who has played video games daily since the age of 10 holds a more valuable opinion on the subject that you do, since he would have a much better understanding of all the medium has to offer. I highly doubt someone whose range of video game knowledge seems to hardly extend beyond watching a commercial for Halo ODST on TV knows about beautiful and poignant indie games like An Untitled Story. I feel your only point here was to try and make it sound like everyone who supports video games is an uncultured, ignorant Philistine who has never created or appreciated any other form of art. Surprise! Gamers can be musicians, painters and writers as well. And having been a member of a gaming forum for many years, most of them are.

At any rate, I digress into pure snark which is unhelpful to everyone. My point is that the above person - like you, Roger - is making sweeping judgments based on an extremely small selection of games, and even then they're games you haven't played for a second. Whether or not video games are art, you can't expect your opinion to be taken seriously if it's only based on that. And given that you seem to have some misguided notions about the very core of what modern video gaming is like (we've come a long way from Pong) I feel you should take the time to play through some of the games mentioned in the comments here. Bioshock is another game that blew me away with the depth of the story, the emotional connection to the characters, and above all the immersion into the world. Perhaps that's why I was so unimpressed by Avatar - people raved about how real the world felt and how detailed everything was. Video games have been doing this for years; each world in Metroid Prime has as much if not more detail than Pandora, and there's 5 of them to explore in that game alone. It seems film has some catching up to do.

Kevin

If you haven't read it yet, I'd recommend reading Justin McElroy's response: http://justinmcelroy.wordpress.com/2010/04/17/games-arent-art-but-these-arent-games/

I think it addresses the fundamental problem here.

When Streisand bends a note, is that art? When Baryshnikov arched his back during a leap? When Michael Jordan spectacularized a dunk?

When the awful karaoke singer bends her note, is it less than art?

I'm thinking taste is it. Walk through the bulletin boards of "artwork" entered into county fair contests, and you see board after board of next-to-nothing. It's discouraging in a terrible way. All these infinitely worthy people wanting so badly to make something beautiful, or something compelling; just to make SOMETHING. But it winds up feeling, to others, like almost nothing. Shame on me and us for feeling that way, but we do. The ribbons are pinned on the few somethings and near-somethings. When there's something there, the judges recognize it.

And when there's something there, we feel it. It's encouraging. "OK. See that! We're gonna be ok. There IS something, afterall."

It also has something to do with how you're feeling at the time.

Stranded alone on a desert island for 20 years, maybe the first words out of your rescuer's mouth would hit you like poetry. But after a short while, you'll need better to give you that lift. And the whole piece of music can't be sublime, I think. You have to lead up to the sublime with relative-dreck.

Although "Alfie" comes close to pure sublime for me, words and music both.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVQSj0AFIyk

I'm not a gamer. All the same, I was going to play Devil's Advocate and take issue with your argument: surely some game, I was going to suggest, some game somewhere of some kind...?
But I read a favourite chapter from "Bleak House" again last night, and now of course I'm not going to argue: video games just aren't art.

Ebert: Whether they are or not, I wonder how many people who haven't read him realize how sublime Dickens is?

Apples and oranges cannot possibly both be fruits because they are different colors and I don't even like apples.

I talk a lot about oranges because I wish I could be an orange but I can't. Maybe if I talk about oranges enough one of them will notice me.

I have a large orange collection but I'll never eat them because that's not what oranges are for.

I tried to make my own orange once or twice but it just wasn't the same. It's weird because I talk about oranges all the time.

I think the problem is that Ebert does not have a concise definition of what art is. His main point seems to be that video games are driven by commercial needs and that works of art are not. But even given this point, and it's validity in light of modern video games, it is wrong to say video games will never be art.

Tolstoy gave the best definition of art I have ever encountered. He wrote that art is simply a form of communication to transmit otherwise incommunicable feelings to others. Given this definition, there is no reason video games cannot be art.

Ebert mentions Braid (a game he likely hasn't played) and this is a game that uses the standard tropes of 2D platformers to communicate a genuine sadness over loss and regret, a very mature and complex emotional state. Therefore in my mind, it is a real work of art.

Ebert is usually pretty open-minded about things, but in this case he is just plain ignorant about what is going on. It's sad because many people listen to him.

If your going to use the game waco as an example, you should also use horribly drawn stick figures someone did in 2 seconds on a coffee break as an example for art. That's not even a fair comparison. If your just going to take random garbage, you might as well take meet the Spartans as a movie highlight.

Hello Ebert! I have to say, I've only recently discovered your blog and Twitter feed and it is truly brilliant (even though I disagree with some things you write). An amazing next phase to your career; which is a tad surprising as I wouldn't quite have expected this level of output merely from having watched you on "At The Movies" (I confess I never read your column in the old days, perhaps that would have given me more warning).

I want to write in response to your article because I used to work in the gaming industry, and my original interest in it was precisely because I wanted to make art. I left the industry mostly because I felt it had moved in a direction that was more or less antithetical to that desire; nearly every game being made today suffers from fundamental problems that prevent them from really rising to the level of art, even if they can be quite impressive games in their own way.

I agree in general with your dismissal of most existing games as art (at least as "good" art), I disagree, however, with your contention that games either cannot be art or won't be art within the lifetime of living gamers. What I believe is that it is very difficult to make games which are art, but to assert that they cannot be art I believe is based on a lack of understanding of what differentiates a game from other existing art forms.

We can start with a reductio ad absurdum argument: A film could be thought of as a game without any choices. But something seems to go wrong the moment we add in choice: i.e., there does seem to be something fundamentally less satisfying, artistically, about a choose your own adventure novel than a regular novel. So obviously there's something about *interactivity* itself which makes art problematic.

But not all interactivity. Suppose a great film critic (ahem) created an interactive library of films, complete with the option of selecting commentary or not commentary, rewatching certain film segments with and without commentary, watching films in an order selected by the user, and so on. One could argue whether or not curation is art but certainly I think it is plausible to suggest that collages, mashups, mixes can be considered art --- and curating an interactive film collection I think could certainly rise to the level of art, provided the curation was clever enough. So I don't think the problem is necessarily that interactivity itself dooms art.

But of course in this case, the individual elements of the interactive experience were not originally intended to be interactive. They each created an artwork that was intended to stand on its own. There is something about creating something noninteractive which makes it much easier to create art, and the interactivity in my example is comparatively unobtrusive and doesn't affect the content of each piece. The choices don't interact significantly with the worlds of each element (film); there is a natural relationship between the choices and what is being presented.

So this leads me to my theory about the problematic nature of interactivity and art. The problem, it seems to me, is that the way in which interactivity interacts with the game world creates a fundamental breaking of suspension of disbelief, because the interactivity itself forces a highly artificial and noticeable break from our expectations extrapolated from the nature of the world being depicted in the game. Part of the problem is that many games try to live within some sort of story world, or involve interactions with what appear to be creatures or characters. But creatures or characters in the real world behave in ways far more nuanced and complex than characters do in game worlds; the only thing we are able to simulate effectively and accurately is physics of objects, and thus games are getting more and more realistic in terms of their physics, but the interactions with characters remain completely unbelievable.

And this is not merely about the quality of writing. It has to do with the expectations of interactivity itself. When you are free to make choices in the game world that seem relatively unconstrained, but then you come across or interact with characters who allow you either no choices or just a few "branches" of choices, that is fundamentally at odds with our expectation. In the real world you don't switch back and forth between modes where you can freely do things in the world and modes where you can only listen to canned speeches. Even if the speeches were brilliantly written, the jarring transition between interactivity and noninteractivity prevents the character interactions from being emotionally engaging.

The same, I believe, applies to games that don't involve storylines, per se; even platform games that have animals or other creatures in them --- because these creatures behave in ways that are extremely routinized, so there's no real sense that you're actually interacting with people or animals or real monsters. They're just cutout figures for the most part.

I would submit, however, that earlier in the history of computer games there were games that I would say could have begun to qualify as a sort of primitive art --- precisely because they were so limited. For example, consider Marble Madness --- a game which was simple by modern standards and involved rolling a marble down fanciful surfaces. On the surface this game seems quite like every other similar game, but I'd say it could start to be considered a kind of simple, cartoonish, abstract art in its own way, precisely because the world was so constrained that one could easily totally immerse oneself in the world without a jarring sense of breaking of suspension of disbelief. The creatures you interacted with were abstract (a bowling ball, moving green ooze, etc.) and thus their movements and behavior were consistent with the artificiality of the algorithms that controlled them. The interactivity was constrained in a way that didn't violate the implied rules of the world. In other words, it wasn't an attempt to imitate life; it was an attempt to create a self-contained interactive world with its own properties that was self-consistent.

Other games which I think could begin to qualify would include things like Sim City --- again, not really realistic, but in an abstract sense I think the game itself could be thought to be a simple form of art. The rules of the world are constructed in such a way that you are interacting with it at a level of abstraction where the artificiality of the constraints don't slap you in the face. I wouldn't say Sim City is a particularly great artwork (in fact I'd say Marble Madness is better as an artwork) but it is the sort of design which I think, executed very well, could become art in some sense.

The key, it seems to me, is to make sure that the interactivity is constrained in a way that, within the properties of the world you've created, within its limitations, feels natural (this does not have to mean realistic). Once you've done that, then I think you have at least the possibility of starting to create art.

What if you want to create a game that involves characters, storytelling of some kind? This is a much more difficult problem. Years ago I worked on a game design which was intended to address this problem. In this game, you could interact with characters --- not by very simplistic or totally constrained conversations, but via a series of buttons. The buttons had labels like "Snub" "Flirt" "Kiss Up" "Insult" and so on. These buttons would change as the conversation proceeded. When you hit a button the game would show what you said, and then show what the artificial character replied. The interesting thing about the design is that people who played our prototype found themselves identifying with what their character said even though they hadn't actually typed it out or said it themselves. They'd often find themselves shocked by the specific nature of the replies they received... as though the computer had "understood" them.

This differed from the common practice in some games of listing out several whole sentences and asking the player to choose between them. Doing that, you totally destroy suspension of disbelief; people don't choose between sentences when talking to others. By only showing brief one- or two-word descriptions, we latched onto a psychological tendency in people to think about what they're going to say in terms of intention before actually saying the words. The conversations were relatively realistic, aside from that. Even with this simplification it was very difficult to make these conversations work, but we managed to do it with clever reuse of lines of dialogue in different contexts and a lot of coding work. With a few hundred lines of reusable dialogue you could make a conversation which seemed funny and realistic that lasted 5-15 lines. We created what I still think is the only reasonable approach to doing interactive conversations with artificial characters.

There were other factors in our game: the "point" of the game was primarily the experience. We didn't have puzzles. Sometimes there were goals, but we designed it consciously so that even if you failed to get your goal you still had a satisfying experience.

Unfortunately the company that funded our project (initially Disney and then Trilobyte) went out of business before they published the game, and there's still a fair amount of work to do before it could be released. I still have the source code and the rights to the game, however, and our prototypes which work... I do hope someday to have the time or money to finish this thing. Will it be art? I am not sure the game could be compared to a Rembrandt, but I do think it could have been compared to a sitcom on TV (it was essentially an interactive sitcom). It is possible to make games art.

Roger, I invite you to check out this three minute youtube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dJFDHz581ko

That is a clip from a game called Rez. You have limited freedom of movement in rez; the only thing you can move is the cursor you use to shoot ambiguous shapes.

As such, it is much like a film or painting in that you cannot affect what transpires. There is, in fact, a whole genre based on this concept, called the "Rail Shooter".

Anyway, Rez has specifically stylized graphics that are digitally, simplistic, and altogether engrossing.

Most importantly, however, Rez is an interactive music maker. The beat and music you hear in that video is the result of the player's actions. Whenever a player hovers a cursor over a target or releases a missile to shoot, it adds layers to the beat.

What this does is makes Rez, effectively, an interactive short film, whose score is determined by the playing. Sure, you can lose (if you are not successful at shooting down the ambiguously shaped enemies). I think you would be foolish to contend that, because there is no emotional involvement, it isn't art. Art can be created simply for enjoyment's sake, and I think Rez's original concept, obvious efforts by the creators, and visually and musically immersive (all while being unavoidable; the artistic parts are not up to the player's discretion, they happen every time because it's a rail shooter) make Rez undeniably artistic.

But I'm also not a film critic.