MrPopo wrote:No, seriously. Why does it matter if it's art or not?
It matters because if its called art, the medium gets treated differently, both by the audience and the developers. The audience holds a different reverence for it and knowingly goes in with different expectations. They don't necessarily expect blockbuster action, though it could be that. It could also be subdued, or absurd, or introspective. You have to walk into art with something of an open mind to appreciate it. With a game, you very clearly expect to have fun. With art, that doesn't have to be the case.
Additionally, the developers can approach with different intentions. Rather than a drive for creating enjoyment or making a highly marketable product, they can approach with the intent of making a person feel something, or crafting a message. It only matters to me that videogames become art because I want more artistic videogames.
Despite being an exceptionally good film critic, Ebert's opinion of videogames is not of much consequence because he is woefully naive of the subject matter. He says he doesn't believe any games are even good enough to warrant playing them, so obviously he can't know much about the medium. He does know something about art though, insofar as cinema is art. And he brings up a good point, which is to ask if the game part of videogames is really art. A game presents some sort of playful challenge that results from a certain set of rules. There isn't really much room for art in that. Yes videogames contain other established forms of art such as music, acting, cinematography, drawing, writing,, etc. But do videogames bring something new to the world of art by adding the layer of 'game' to this mix?
Ultimately, I think Ebert is wrong. Videogames are capable of being art, though their potential for this is rarely fulfilled. It's surprising that Ebert would say videogames are not art though, because he certainly would say that cinema is. Cinema also borrows from the other more historically established arts: music, theater, photography, screenplay writing, etc. What makes cinema a unique art though is that it is greater than the sum of these parts. Artful cinema pulls these pieces together into greater moires that become something unique. The camera can be set in motion. The editing can bring the viewers eye to areas that would be impossible in traditional theater. The concept of 'framing a picture' that is taken from photography can change dramatically in cinematography when the picture is moving, and perhaps the camera is too.
Likewise, an artful videogame pulls its pieces together in unique ways because in addition to artwork, music, and cinematography, the videogame brings in the element of interaction. What videogames add to the world of art is not so much their rules, but their interactive control and allowance for decision making determined by the audience member. Art is always subjective, but this is especially true in videogames because different people can approach the same interactive story completely differently and not even witness the same sequence of events. The user is always part of the art of a videogame.
Unfortunately, we don't yet have a well defined language for discussing videogames as art because we don't know what to say about our controls. People rarely talk about how the controls combine with the music, graphics, and everything else to create a unique artistry that can only be achieved by videogames. People usually just say the controls are good or bad; smooth or fudged. We don't talk enough about how our experience of the controls informs the artistry of the games message, but the designers often haven't thought of this either. Perhaps if they thought of themselves as artists, they would and the industry would move in many new unexpected directions. Hell, we might even see a big budget title that isn't an FPS.
