Video Games and Art

After reading Roger Ebert's Video games can never be art article, I felt I should respond. With a history in developing games and as an artist from a family of artists with a Bachelors of Art, I felt I could contribute to the debate.

Roger Ebert is responding to a TED Video by Kellee Santiago in which she asserts that video games are art. He takes the opposite approach claiming that video games can't be art because they involve a goal to win, they are more business in their creation, and that the games currently made do not hold up to his standard of what art is. He also re-quotes himself as saying, "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." This is a dangerous way to decide if something is or isn't art, but I'll start with the first argument.

Can Art Involve a Goal to Win?

Mr. Ebert has placed a limit on art as saying that "One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome." Implying that art cannot have rules, objectives, and an outcome is setting limitations on art. He only argues this because of the direction games are coming from.

Forest Gump is a wonderful film and one Mr. Ebert would probably agree is art as he has claimed to love film as art. What if the next technology allows us to stand in the middle of the movie Forest Gump? We are still watching the movie, but now it is happening all around us. I would imagine this still fits Mr. Ebert's definition of art. Now imagine we can touch things and possibly move them. A story is going on around us but we are like ghosts that might possibly change the outcome. Suddenly we have interaction, rules, possibly objectives and goals. Has adding the ability for a viewer to change art make it no longer art?

Mr. Ebert argues against games being art in this case because he thinks of Pong or simple games as their origin and cannot conceive these as art. I'd agree. Pong is not art. Pong is more a sport. There is no storyline and no creation beyond simple rules and function. The games today however, even your simple first person shooters, have story arc and characters in them. They are no different in structure that if you could move a cup in a Tom Hanks film.

Can Art Come From Business?

One of Mr. Ebert's commentators answers this question already by reminding us that most of the art in history was thought of and requested by patrons. It is easy to compare a Video Game Producer telling his team of Designers and Developers what he wants to a Patron telling Michelangelo what he wants on a ceiling.

Even today there is "Corporate Art". Art directly created for a purpose of business. Mr. Ebert could argue that "corporate art" isn't "true" art, but I will get to that after I address his earlier points.

What Standard Does Something Have to Reach to Become Art?

Mr. Ebert cites Kellee Santiago's examples of games that are art as "pathetic". This is an opinion and not a valid argument for whether or not a game is or isn't art. He expresses his disappointment and says that these games are no where near what he would agree to being art. He also asks as I said before, for someone to show a game to him that will compare to the works of great artists. This is a dangerous and ill-conceived way to define art.

I do not enjoy Jackson Pollock's paintings. I find them to be meaningless and uninspiring. That being said I do not hold my opinion as the definition of art. I would not define art as something that I personally enjoy as art. When a man throws paint against a wall and calls it art, I cannot stand up and say it isn't art. What I can say is that it is "bad art". This is not a debate about Pollock's work. This is a shared opinion. Just as Mr. Ebert's dislike of the three examples Kellee Santiago provided was just his opinion. You cannot give definition to a thing based on personal opinion.

Conclusion

Mr. Ebert's opinion of what defines art is at best limited. It seems to be limited to what art has been in the past and what he considers to be "good" art. As he asks for a game to be compared to any of the Master's works, I refuse. I will always refuse to define something as art based on someone else's art. That being said I don't think that any games today do compare. I do however define them as art if they contain some original story. Games are no different than a choose-your-own-adventure book. While these books aren't great art, they are a form of art, and so are games that feature story lines. Someday these primitive forms of art will grow and evolve into something comparable to works of Da Vinci, Frost, or possibly even, Tom Hanks.