Ebert thinks games are 'getting a lot better', prefers knitting to gaming

I just think he has yet to play 'Wii Knit!'.

He'd be a pro at it.

The thing is, Ebert is right. I don't know how much I agree with the label 'high art', but we need some label. So that will work.

Games are not 'art' in the way movies and other passive media are. And while it's true you can't do "whatever you want" in a game, you can do anything you've been granted power to do at anytime. This is what destroys games as 'artistic experiences'. You can't tell a consistent, moving tale if someone can stop and stare at a wall, or bunny hop, or pretend to masturbate, or teabag someone, etc, etc.

Anybody who offers up games that made them cry or games that seemed like movies to them is just fooling themselves. The most movie-like games are utter crap. Bioshock: boring pap. Metal Gear? All movie, no gameplay (and what gameplay there is hasn't evolved since 1996). The game and the story generally exist in separate, linked spaces.

There's nothing wrong with your preferred form of entertainment not measuring up to another on some scale. Games have other things going for them. But I'm really, really tired of people getting defensive about games and pretending they're more than they are. And it's even worse when people try to make 'artsy' games, like that god-awful 'game' where you walk across a graveyard and sit down in a bench.

Homo

Games are not art: they're commercial products. Art has no price, so games are not art. Price diminishes any artistic pretensions a product may have. And really, would any of us really consider 'focus tested art' a serious pursuit? We'd laugh off the idea as crass and move on with our lives. So why this redundant topic over and over again.

The games industry is simply pop fascism: authoritarian technology used to stupefy the audience through great spectacle. An orgy of colour (or brown), flashy lights, sweet sounds, and bullshit; parasiting off existing mediums in a desperate attempt to stay relevant in the mass media eye (no need, really). No, that doesn't sound like art, not at all.

So if games are not art, shouldn't us gamers embrace this deal?

Art audiences, whatever that means, revel in fear. They love fear. The fear of being ignorant, the not knowing. There is a innate snobbishness that comes naturally to consumers of 'art.' I have to listen to a certain 70s rock band to be a true music lover; I must see that French art house film to be true film lover; you cannot comment on architecture unless you've seen the Notre Dame in person: all bullshit, get the fuck out.

These people see art as 'improving' when in reality it's simply empty justification for meaningless pursuits, a thought we all harbour but most cannot bare to utter.

The cold hard fact is this: there is no art, it's just a giant circle jerk, a French circle jerk at that. Make sure you wash your hands.

To even consider drawing a line and saying what is art and what isn't in creative mediums is shamefully ignorant, and a joke. How can the value YOU find in something determine whether or not it's art, when value is found entirely subjectively?

Art is simply the result of creative choice. People can use creative choice putting words to paper, shaping a lump of clay, moving the body in dance, writing complex sets of instructions for computers, drawing with crayons, and any number of other things, and in any combination. It's all art, no matter what you or anyone else thinks of the result. The very first computer program was art, as was the computer it ran on. How the hell are games, which have been getting more and more complex, and incorporating more and more creative fields, not art? Hell, advertising, graffiti, Britney Spears' last album... all art. Whether or not you see any merit in it in no way defines it. Even freaking porn is art.

Stating that something that has been created through human choice is not art does not discredit it. It only shows your ignorance.

I think games are getting WORST as far as being "art" - the focus is online multiplayer matches that don't follow a story arc.

Fuckles, I forgot to delete your paragraph from my post.

If this is a double post, blame Joystiq. Every few hours when I try to post it'll give me one of those 'email confirmation' messages, even though I gave the right email and password, and then somehow magically post the comment later.

It got me disqualified from a contest; that's pretty lame, Joystiq. Eh, at least the post number problem was solved.

I went over to a friend's house on Monday and played Gear of War 2 Horde mode for several hours while his female roommates knitted and chatted with us in the living room. Maybe Ebert is on to something here...

For the record, I agree that games are a poor medium for NARRATIVE. The best games create an interesting world and give the player objectives. When the action keeps getting interrupted by cut-scenes telling the backstories of the characters, etc, I always think that I would rather just watch a movie. The GAMEPLAY is what makes a game a unique experience.

Everybody calling Ebert a retard or a douche is a retard or a douche. He can have his opinion if he wants, and he can broadcast his opinion if he wants. What's unwarranted is you guys calling a movie critic names just because he doesn't appreciate what you've dedicated your sad lives to.