Forbin

Roger Ebert rehashes old debate even indie hipsters are tired of

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*yawn*

I still think the whole "Art" discussion is bullshit. I have yet to be convinced that this is art.

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I'd probably have to agree with the definition of art as something that expresses an idea. In that case I believe many video games do and don't qualify as art under that.

But at the same time another piece of art doesn't necessarily have to express an idea, but simply originally tell its story (a super basic and nebulous story but told with incredible language for an example). And in this case I think that a game's mechanics can qualify it as art.

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I've never considered the question "what is classified as art" as a debate, it's more akin to an argument.

Debates usually are based on factual examples and reference that conclude in a resolution of some sort(eventually). Arguments are where opinion is king and resolutions won't be found, ever.

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Tolstoy said:

Art is that human activity which consists in one man's consciously conveying to others, by certain external signs, the feelings he has experienced, and in others being infected by those feelings and also experiencing them

Just sayin'

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Where this one fell apart for me was when he decided that games are only systems, and not even considering that they can be used as narrative devices. That pretty much rendered the rest of his column moot.

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Ebert sees games much like Chris Remo's dad seeing Zelda as a maze.

BRAID = SUCK, BECAUSE YOU CAN'T TAKE MOVES BACK IN CHESS!

He's just a rich troll using his reputation for his platform. In all these damning diatribe's he makes against video games, I've never heard him once actually entertain the possibility that he could be wrong, even when admitting the subjective nature of it all in the same article that what one sees as fine art may not be the same to another.

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Ebert sees games much like Chris Remo's dad seeing Zelda as a maze.

BRAID = SUCK, BECAUSE YOU CAN'T TAKE MOVES BACK IN CHESS!

He's just a rich troll using his reputation for his platform. In all these damning diatribe's he makes against video games, I've never heard him once actually entertain the possibility that he could be wrong, even when admitting the subjective nature of it all in the same article that what one sees as fine art may not be the same to another.

I agree pretty much. It's more the fact that he is a dinosaur when it comes to these matters, the same way people felt about Film.

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I've decided that I don't understand why Ebert is even considered an important critic. A lot his film reviews that I have read have been terrible.

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Ebert sees games much like Chris Remo's dad seeing Zelda as a maze.

BRAID = SUCK, BECAUSE YOU CAN'T TAKE MOVES BACK IN CHESS!

He's just a rich troll using his reputation for his platform. In all these damning diatribe's he makes against video games, I've never heard him once actually entertain the possibility that he could be wrong, even when admitting the subjective nature of it all in the same article that what one sees as fine art may not be the same to another.

Well, to be fair the time rewind mechanic is so much deeper than a reset button. What makes Braid great is that the mechanic challenges preconceived notions of linear time, which wasn't explained very well by the presenter. The examples in the original video were not very indicative of how games can be meaningful to people, especially that David Koresh game.

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I've decided that I don't understand why Ebert is even considered an important critic. A lot his film reviews that I have read have been terrible.

That's the truth, I can't tell you how many terrible movies I've seen with "two thumbs up".

I just find it funny he keeps bringing this up, when he doesn't know what he's talking about. Maybe he's still getting blow back from his original article.

I decided to read some of the comment on his blog. It's funny how many banana riders he has, but I liked this guys response:

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 video games 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 Video game 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.

to which Ebert replied:

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

He just chooses to ignore anything that goes against his assumption that all games are simple systems. I wonder what would happen if someone sat him in front of Last Express and forced him to play it. Or better yet, let's see how he reviews the movie if he survives to see it.

Edited by Forbin

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Ebert is not a stupid person. My mind is blown by the fact that he doesn't seem to have cared to play any games before spending some 1000 words damning them for ever with no room for doubt. Within those 1000 words he dismisses Braid so stupidly, I don't even know how anyone can say anything so retarded and live to tell the tale.

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Christ, I just want to break into the man's house, tie him down and force him to actually play games. The nerve! The asshole!

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Ebert is not a stupid person.

Ok.

My mind is blown by the fact that he doesn't seem to have cared to play any games before spending some 1000 words damning them for ever with no room for doubt.

But you said....

Within those 1000 words he dismisses Braid so stupidly, I don't even know how anyone can say anything so retarded and live to tell the tale.

Ah... so he is stupid.

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Goddammit, I just managed to let his last dumbass diatribe slide. I like his movie reviews but I can't imagine why he feels the need to write these. He knows so little of the subject he's not even coherent.

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Smart people can do stupid things sometimes...

Anyway, Ron Gilbert has quite a good response to Ebert on his blog:

http://grumpygamer.com/7961508

Aye. I remember Ron Gilbert damning CD drives, confidently declaring they wouldn't be around two years after his interview.

I like Ebert, he's just wrong here.

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I've decided that I don't understand why Ebert is even considered an important critic. A lot his film reviews that I have read have been terrible.

He's great at being the everyman's critic. He takes films on their own terms...for example, he doesn't expect Spider-Man 2 to accomplish the same things as Gone With the Wind and he will give something like Spider-Man 2 a good review if he thinks it accomplishes what it's trying to accomplish in a way that will please an audience who is discerning enough to read reviews. I've heard a lot of "average joe" types disparaging critics as out-of-touch snobs, but Ebert manages to bridge the gap of being intellectual, but not letting that make his reviews irrelevant for those who are not as intellectual as he is.

Don't let your frustration with his talk about video games color your opinion about him as a film critic. He really is damn good.

edit: It does frustrate me that he seems to base his opinion of games on watching videos of them. They need to be PLAYED...that's what they're fucking FOR!!!!!!!!!!!

He admits that he never intends to play any video games ever...so why does he talk about them?

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While he is obviously being needlessly dismissive, does anyone think there is something to the following passage?:

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.

Obviously he's got a somewhat outdated view of what games are (how many actually include points these days?), but I kind of agree that the further they move from these principles, the less they seem like "games" in the traditional sense. Of course, the problem with any alternative terminology is that it always sound incredibly pretentious. I would disagree with him on the implied claim that if they are not a game, they become a representation of some other art form. I think it's quite possible for an interactive ex-game thing to become something with its own distinct identity; indeed, I think these are the things with the best chance of being art (in my terms, anyway). The interactivity has to be key, but must be something beyond "kill the man to win the game". It has to do something that other media cannot do in the same way.

I don't think that interactivity or uncertain outcome are barriers to artfulness, but I kind of feel like competition, winning and losing in most cases would be. The exceptions would be very specific instances where something about competition, winning or losing is being expressed (beyond the pure experience of it). I guess, as is often the case, it's really just a question of terminology. Is a game with the qualities necessary to be art still a game?

Of course, none of this matters a great deal. A thing doesn't need to be art to be valid, and a thing doesn't need to be a game to be enjoyable. I suppose in this post I've been equating "art" with "high art"; by these standards most films are not art, and possibly neither is a lot of music. There is certainly stuff in gaming that is exciting to me in the same way as art might be. Also, there is an awful lot of dumb crap. I wouldn't get angry about whether someone thinks it's art or not. Perhaps it's its own whole new thing.

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Don't books, poetry, music and movies also have rules? Am I not supposed to read/listen/see it from begin to end, and not jumping to various places? Also, don't movies and books have an outcome?

It's quite easy to dismiss a medium because it has certain features others don't. You could easily dismiss movies form being art when compared to books because it has sound and pictures.

Also, isn't here "classic art" that is interactive. For example, a sculpture is quite interactive because I can view it from the angle I choose.

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That is you interacting with the art, though. The statue itself does not interact with the observer, except maybe in the same way a movie interacts with a viewer. I wouldn't regard it as interactivity, maybe just participation. OR SOMETHING! SEMANTICS MAN, UP UP AND AWAY!!

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I've never considered the question "what is classified as art" as a debate, it's more akin to an argument.

:tup::tup::tup:

In the bit where he tries to define art and falls on it having a single creator, he:

- Ignores that a film is produced by 100s of people with one director.

- Ignores that games have creative directors.

- Redefines art in a way that excludes a lot of contemporary artists who delegate (e.g Damien Hirst; no matter what you think of him he's accepted by the arts establishment and Ebert's perspective is likely to be troubling and wrong to a lot of contemporary fine artists), as well as many classical painters who did similar (Rembrandt used a studio full of apprentices to do client work, it wasn't an unusual business model for an artist).

Ebert can pretty much fuck off. Someone on Twitter pointed out his argument is like someone claiming books can never be art because they can't read.

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