Video games can never be art

Roger Ebert continues to make controversial statements that videogames can never be art. His strongest argument is 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." The only supporter for video games as art listed cave paintings as a comparable art form to video games. I personally find this disgusting that Ebert uses such a weird statement as the basis of his acknowledgment of video games as art. From class videos of user generated content in second life it really begs the question how can this not be art. I don't feel that art can be held to such standards that as long as their are great poets then poetry can be an art.

Taking his strong viewpoint, imagine a world without great poets or painters. You are just one person who draws pretty well but no one has ever seen your work. Does that make your work not art? Why does art require another human being to acknowledge? Also, why does Ebert find the need to say these comments about video games when he himself is just a film critic? What makes a film that much better than video games? A lot of cinematics in video games are akin to movie status such as cinematics in WoW. These take a lot of human effort to create an entire world that is suppose to be believable to the viewer. Is this not how movies work? Is it because video games sometimes have mindless violence and other seemingly random things with the intent to entertain the audience? This is exactly like movies so how can one be acknowledged over the other.

This leads me to believe that Ebert's eagerness to ignore how video games have evolved highlights a generation gap that he may never overcome. While the internet is working its way into bringing in the young and old it can not be denied that there is a visible generation gap where some people just don't get it and do not bother to try to understand it. The internet has things like facebook which is working pretty well at bridging this gap while the Nintendo Wii also has play mechanics designed to let the everyman play a video game. I find that Ebert's definition of an art is too narrow and specifically designed to hinder new art forms from being acknowledged and it's terrible that someone whose words are respected can say things like this to further drive in this gap of people who just wont get it.

He even adds lasting thoughts at the very end of his article that can summarized in a, "You mad?" fashion. Gamers did not even find it to be a discussion over whether games are art or not and are simply offended that Ebert would even think otherwise. He is basically provoking a group of people in which he has no knowledge of. If Ebert was trying to do anthropological work this would be a nightmare because he doesn't try to understand the game and only looks at random examples. A true anthropologist would dive in and actually try something and learn why some people appreciate it. He is giving a very etic viewpoint and asking why video gamers are getting so angry.




http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/04/video_games_can_never_be_art.html