Are Games Art?
17 04 10 - 20:48 There has been a lot of back and forth between Ebert and the gaming community at large over whether or not games can be art. Like most gamers, I side with idea that games can be art, and I've played several that to me are unquestionably art. Well, Ebert recently posted his response to a (failed) argument of games as art by Kellee Santiago of thatgamecompany. He spent some time disagreeing with definition of art used by Santiago, but reading Ebert's response it became very clear to me that his definition of video games is extremely outdated.He states "One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game.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." Which if we go by Ebert's definition of a video game, most modern video games outside of multiplayer are not games. Does Grand Theft Auto IV have rules or points? No. Heavy Rain? No.
What Ebert descibes is a certain type of game, the arcade game. Modern games can effectively be divided into three categories: arcade games, toys, and interactive fiction. Arcade games are what Ebert claims can't be art, and I'd agree with him, they are entirely based on pulling off feats of skill and could be compared to sports like he does. Toys are interactive sandboxes like the Sims, there is no real point structure or even win condition. Interactive fiction is exactly what it says on the tin, and is actually what most modern games are. The win condition in an interactive fiction game is the same as a movie or a novel, reach the end of the story. There are usually no points, and if there are they don't really matter.
When gamers say games are art, they are usually talking about the latter two categories. Both of those game types are purely about the experience. And that experience is what makes modern games great. In a book or movie, you can grow to care about the characters and feel remorse when they die, but a game can do far more. Imagine growing to care about some characters and then being forced to personally kill them. That would cause much great emotion, wouldn't it? There are games like Portal, which have managed to feel that way about an inanimate object in the game. I can't think of a single book or movie that has done the same.
So maybe the terms should be changed and only arcade games should be continued to be called video games. That way Ebert could be right, but until it does, he's definitely wrong.
Trackback link:Please enable javascript to generate a trackback url