Video games aren't art ... yet

Roger Ebert, you gotta love him.

Here he is in the worst physical shape of his life following a tremendous (and victorious) battle with cancer and the many surgeries that have left him unable to speak, and yet he’s at his writing peak, churning out movie review after movie review and writing some of the most thoughtful prose of his career on his blog, one of the smartest and most insightful on the entire Internet.

First he angered creationists by rebuking their need to have the “science” of creationism taught in school. Then he turned his guns on Glenn Beck, who he said any rational human being, Republican or Democrat, should despise. Then he outed himself as a longtime Alcoholics Anonymous member, an AA no-no.

And that’s how it goes; nothing’s really off limits: health care death panels, new-age medicine, the “festering fringe” of the anti-Obama movement and textbooks in Texas. He also talks about nice, happy things, like memories of his father, the Champaign-Urbana neighborhood he grew up in, stories of his late reviewing buddy Gene Siskel. But the meat and potatoes of his blog are really his careful articulation of controversial subjects.

Last week, Ebert posted a blog titled bluntly, “Video games can never be art.” And then, seemingly, the world lit on fire and started plunging toward the sun … at least according to every video game fanboy with an Internet connection. This group of people, bless their heart, don’t hear “no” very often judging by the anger exhibited in their responses. The largely anonymous group of game junkies will convict you of blasphemy if you don’t show pious respect to Mario, Zelda, Sonic the Hedgehog or Master Chief. And boy did they convict Roger.

Nearly overnight, the article tallied up more than 1,600 comments, 98 percent of them in strong disagreement of Ebert’s assertion that video games will never be art. (Comments now number more than 3,500.) Ebert argued: “Let me just say that no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form.”

One assumption that gamers make, one they get all wrong, is that Ebert says all films are art. Nope. He said film as a medium is an art form, although most films are not art. For example, Armageddon is not art, although cinema as a medium surely is. He does suggest (through consistent reading of his work) some films that can be classified as art — many of Ingmar Bergman’s films such as Cries and Whispers, works by Akira Kurosawa, last year’s Synecdoche, New York, or Michael Haneke’s Caché — for the way they examine the intricacies of the human condition. I agree with his assessment of film as an artistic medium, the same way I agree that hip-hop is an art form, although I can’t name you one Ghostface song that should be comparable to the works of Monet or Mozart. On the same plank, video games as a medium surely can be art, though no game yet has exemplified itself as art.

Although Ebert’s entire argument is critically flawed since he apparently has never actually played a video game, he still brings up some valid points, like why do video game fans feel that they must have their time-sucking hobby validated — “Bobby Fischer, Michael Jordan and Dick Butkus never said they thought their games were an art form.” He suggests they keep playing with his blessing, as they surely will.

What he really brings up, though, especially later in his replies to comments, is the nature of art: What is art, and what isn’t art? By and large, video game enthusiasts feel that (a) if it’s beautiful it’s art, like Flower, a game where you play as a flower petal and blow through grassy fields. (b) If it includes a moving story it’s art, like Bioshock a retro sci-fi shooter set in an underwater world. (c) If a game gives the player choices it’s art, like Heavy Rain a cinematic murder mystery. (d) Or if the puzzles require comprehension at an advanced level then it’s art, like Braid, a Mario-like platformer where the player can manipulate time. Gamers also argue that any combination of these attributes makes a game art.

Surely some games are beautiful, some games are challenging, some have involving stories and well-written characters, and some are created by visual artists of the highest caliber. But these alone don’t make a game a piece of art, or more specifically, a piece of fine art. This is where Ebert got it right even if there is a growing movement of people who will call anything art, from their ergonomic desk to their kitchen toaster. No, art shouldn't be so exclusionary that nothing is art, but it also shouldn't include everything because then it yields the same result — nothing is art. Ebert simply suggested we demand more than health bars and ammo packs from artwork.

I think art has to stir something deeper in the soul than just beauty, or invigorate the brain with something more than just puzzles. I think art must speak to elements of the human spirit, examining who we are at our core. A movie like Synecdoche, New York surely does that. The works of Picasso do too. As does Fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright’s fusion of architecture and nature. But Halo 3? It’s closer than most video games, but still has some distance to climb to reach the lofty pedestal of fine art.

Gamers need to be realistic: Yes, games like Halo 3, Bioshock, Heavy Rain, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, God of War III, Flower and Braid are fun, and they also look amazing, but what do they say about us as a people or civilization? At their core, games are about jumping and shooting — essentially mashing buttons on a controller — to beat the boss and win. Some games stray from that formula, but usually not far.

If I must label anything in the gaming community art I lean toward the sandbox gaming of products — I use the word “products” intentionally — like Grand Theft Auto IV. No, I don’t think the game itself is art, but I think the way it provides an open world and then allows the players to interact with it is more artistic than anything mentioned in the Ebert blog comments. Players are given a sandbox to explore. Some do just that, explore; others get in a car and mow down pedestrians with reckless cruelty.The player’s identity is reflected in the way they play the game the same way viewers are reflected in perplexing ways in Anish Kapoor’s Cloud Gate sculpture in Millennium Park, in Ebert’s own city of Chicago. Of course, a game like GTAIV would be more artful with just a city and the tools in which to realistically interact with it, but the designers give players missions, objectives and storylines, which then dilutes the artistry of the open-world choices. Other games, like Heavy Rain, give the illusion of choice, but really the formula has already been written. These sandbox games, though, really do give freedom in a digital world teeming with life.

The bigger question is this: Who said video games wanted to be art? The Rolling Stones never sat around whining that they weren’t art. They wanted to be rock’n’rollers, and they wore that title like a badge of honor. Video games should be happy to be bad-ass shooters, or sleek ultra-modern adventure thrillers, or perplexing visual riddles. I can admit, at least, that video games can be art, which is more than Ebert is willing to admit. The medium is full of artistic opportunities. We just haven’t seen any yet. And if Ebert’s debate does anything, then it should challenge video game designers to think on a higher plane, to design a game worthy of the Louvre or the Met, not just the TV rooms of every 14-year-old with idle thumbs.