Roger Ebert: I am error

[KeithHybrid]

Film critic appologizes for bashing games while not having played them.

[Gustavos]

I never participated in this argument. Because I don't play games because I want them to move my life, emotions, or philosophies (though that has happenned with some games), I play them to have fun. They're enjoyment, just like movies. Paintings and music aren't 100% about enjoyment, but they're also considered art, and this is where I get confused. And after reading the many definitions of art, I'm still confuzzled. If video games are not art by those standards of "they should makes us feel instead of feel good", than neither is 90% of film, which Ebert is supposed to be defending.

In the end, I think all four kinds of media are, in fact, art. And if somebody told me that video games weren't art, my first rebuttle is, "by what standards?". I always found art to be "an expression by the artist". Both movies and games are made by multiple people with multiple visions. But most music and paintings are done by a single person.

Anyway, I'm glad Ebert admitted he is in no place to negotiate his side of the argument.

[Salnax]

Good job Ebert. This kind of maturity is why I was always a fan even when you were making stupid arguments.

[Oolaph]

Finally this happened. I like the Zelda 2 reference as well.

[Aigis]

It's good that he can admit that he's wrong to some degree, but he still says he holds his uninformed opinion.

I think a big problem with Roger Ebert's reasons for discounting video games as a viable art medium is that basically the only reason he gives is that they're not like movies.

He says that being able to influence the narrative means that they can't be 'art', because you're not able to influence the narrative in other forms of art. He's holding a definition of 'art' that was created before video games existed and thus could not account for them.

Films don't allow for interactivity because they can't allow for interactivity, not because it would lessen their artistic impact.

Video games are video games and should be judged on their own terms.

[Chdonga]

He was right about video games not being art though.

[Centurion-Ryan]

He didn't really apologise. He didn't admit that he was wrong. He's still stubbornly clinging on to his opinion, even though he admitted that he's completely uninformed.

His medium is dying. Nowadays, the movie industry churns out maybe one half-decent movie every year. We're only halfway through 2010, and we've had God of War 3, Alan Wake, Bioshock 2 and Super Mario Galaxy 2; all great games. We've also had Red Dead Redemption; one of the greatest works of fiction of all time, in my opinion. What has 2010 had in the way of film? The Expendables looks like it's going to be okayish. That's literally all I can think of.

Ebert is a great movie critic, sure. But that's just it. He's a movie critic. We can't really blame him for not seeing games as an art form any more than we can get at Kerry King for not having an undying appreciation for Baroque music. It's not his thing.

[ZJ]

At 7/1/10 08:30 PM, Centurion-Ryan wrote: The Expendables looks like it's going to be okayish. That's literally all I can think of.

You're forgetting about Toy Story 3 and possibly Inception.

Also, I declare that women's basketball is not a true sport. (Let's all make uneducated statements!)

[KeithHybrid]

At 7/1/10 09:07 PM, Wabblefish wrote: herp derp

Can your trolling be any more obvious?

gtfo

[Jackho]

At 7/1/10 08:30 PM, Centurion-Ryan wrote: God of War 3, Alan Wake, Bioshock 2 and Super Mario Galaxy 2

You forgot Mass Effect 2. You deserve to die.

[Supermatx1]

Unbeleivable, he has now show us that he'll always be much more mature than most gamers.

[SoulMaster71]

Before his partial retraction and his admitting to complaining about a medium he doesn't use, TV Tropes said that he was one of the few critics to give animation and science fiction their proper artistic due. It no longer mentions it, replacing it with the retraction, but it's something to think about. The guy's clearly fair to whatever he's reviewing. And even if he were to play video games, how many games with real storytelling value would he find? A few of the Zelda games, a few Final Fantasy games, probably a handful of others, but a lot of games are stuck in, to quote TV Tropes quoting a comic book based on Doom:
"DYNAMITE! I'm cooking with gas! I've gotta handful of vertebrae and a headful of mad! Yeah, that's your spinal cord, baby! Dig it! Who's the man! I'm the man! I'm a bad man! How bad? Real bad! I'm a 12.0 on the 10.0 scale of badness!"

Yeah, that in either a military sci-fi setting or a World War II setting is the core plot of far too many games. They might have cliched plot devices from their respective settings and genres, but most of that is still treated as an excuse to shoot stuff. They don't often do much interesting with the art style either, just trying to give off an appearance of superficial machismo with 52 million shades of brown and maybe a bit of fire or blood if you're lucky. So really, the mass of games aren't art, and the average person (or the average film critic) isn't deep enough into gaming to find "art" in the pile of non-art. Here, the big differences from film are of age and penetration: film, being older and far more mainstream, has had more time and exposure to establish that it is a viable art form. So I can't fault Ebert for not seeing games as art, even if some games make me disagree.

[Gobblemeister]

Like I said in the actual comments page of that article

I'm surprised he actually took the criticisms to heart, but getting him to reevaluate games as a form of expression and an emotional experience is the true victory.