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[fenrif]

Assumptions are bad for you.

The vast majority of the population, if asked to reflect on a play you made them see (as there is no chance in hell they would do so of their free will), would most likely say somthing that could be boiled down to "lol gay". Video games are enjoyed by almost everyone, including the uneducated masses.

So you've had a lot of experience with theater-goes from all over the globe, in all walks of life, and of all ages? Or are you assuming that your limited personal experience translates to how every human on the planet behaves?

This is the reason I think that video games have underwent a shift to entertainment instead of art in the recent years. It became accepted.

Are you implying that something cannot be art and entertainment? I'm failry sure you're also implying that if something is "accepted" then it isn't art?

If anything video games have become more like art than even 10 years ago. There's a whole art-game scene growing in indie circles, with games that are designed solely as art, sometimes even loosing gameplay at the expense of artistry.

It isn't that video games have shifted to entertainment, that is what the vast majority of games have always been. They were entertainment mediums first, Pong for example has no real artistic merit yet is very entertaining. The difference is that video games are a much bigger subset of popular culture, so there are more people making them for a wider range of reasons.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

My limited experiances are all I have. Said experiances can only be expanded by time. The things I have seen in my enviorment are what I must use to judge the world around me.

An individual work can have a have a balance of both entertainment and art. But, more people enjoy entertainment then they do art. Thus, when somthing becomes accepted, it will shift farther from art and closer to entertainment in the event such a balance exists. Video game art is limited, and is only becoming more so. Video game entertainment is growing like a cancer. Is one superior to another? I don't know.

[fenrif]

My limited experiances are all I have. Said experiances can only be expanded by time. The things I have seen in my enviorment are what I must use to judge the world around me.

An individual work can have a have a balance of both entertainment and art. But, more people enjoy entertainment then they do art. Thus, when somthing becomes accepted, it will shift farther from art and closer to entertainment in the event such a balance exists. Video game art is limited, and is only becoming more so. Video game entertainment is growing like a cancer. Is one superior to another? I don't know.

Any sort of factual basis for the arguement that video games aren't as artfull as they once where (in the 80's i assume?) or that artistic merit is dwindling?

Having limited experiences isn't the problem. Noone knows everything about everything. The problem is that instead of furthering your knowledge on the subject you're assuming that your limited experiences apply to every person on the planet, and then making sweeping statements to that end. This is called assuming, and is bad for you apparently.

[Grakelin]

Saying that theatre is dying out because young kids from the age of 14-18 in North Carolina aren't attending shows which cost big money to see is pretty ignorant. Theatre has been seen as entertainment for the wealthy for some time, though there is one group in Canada which is managing to waylay this a bit by offering the 'Go' program, letting kids under 18 see any show in the best seats in certain theatres (only the extremely packed ones in Toronto are turning it down) for $5.

Personal experience is entirely useless no matter how much of it you have, incidentally. What you should be using to judge the world around you is careful study of larger patterns and past events, not passive observation and speculation.

Since you're in high school, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that you have not actually studied any artform and that you're just pulling things out of your ass. Do you realize that there is a school of thought (a large one) which believes that art and entertainment is the same thing? Why do you think that art has to be something that the majority of people don't know about? Is the Mona Lisa no longer art because everybody accepts that it exists? Is the Eiffel Tower no longer art because L'Arc de Triomphe is not as famous? There is a word for art that is unafraid of social constructs. It is avant garde.

[Footkerchief]

Raliegh, and the people around me are 14-18. My interactions with them tell me that my generation cares nothing for theater. The mass closing of theaters tell me the previous generation dosen't care either.

You'd better go tell Raleigh Little Theatre and Burning Coal how dead they are, in particular all the 14-18 high schoolers doing classes and camps at RLT.  What theaters closed recently?

[Stove]

He hasn't changed his stance. He still believes games aren't art, and he's still wrong. He has based his position on his own completely arbitrary criteria for what can and can't be art, and even the definition he cites at the end of the article describes many games quite well.

And as for his attempt at devaluing games by putting them up against Shakespeare and Huckleberry Finn, I would like to quote Pope Guilty from Metafilter:

Comic books have Sandman, Watchmen, and the like, and video games have Deus Ex, Portal, and so on. On the other side of things, your average novel is just as inane as any Superman comic, and your average film is no more deep nor insightful or literate than Unreal Tournament. Rigging the game so that the highest-minded and most expressive books and films are compared to the average video game or comic is just as dishonest and stupid as comparing the highest-minded video games and comics to the average novels and films.

Or to put it more succintly, let's switch things around and compare Deus Ex to any Danielle Steele novel. Look how stupid these books are!

[Grakelin]

I agree. I find it wild that Ebert can debase video games as an artform while simultaneously giving 'Clash of the Titans' four stars. I think he's losing it.

[palsch]

Just wondering, what definition are people using for art that includes video games? Or are they using one at all?

And as for his attempt at devaluing games by putting them up against Shakespeare and Huckleberry Finn, I would like to quote Pope Guilty from Metafilter:

Comic books have Sandman, Watchmen, and the like, and video games have Deus Ex, Portal, and so on. On the other side of things, your average novel is just as inane as any Superman comic, and your average film is no more deep nor insightful or literate than Unreal Tournament. Rigging the game so that the highest-minded and most expressive books and films are compared to the average video game or comic is just as dishonest and stupid as comparing the highest-minded video games and comics to the average novels and films.

Or to put it more succintly, let's switch things around and compare Deus Ex to any Danielle Steele novel. Look how stupid these books are!

This isn't a question of quality. Bad art is art nontheless. It's about the nature of the medium and the nature of art and whether (and how) the two overlap.

[fenrif]

This isn't a question of quality. Bad art is art nontheless. It's about the nature of the medium and the nature of art and whether (and how) the two overlap.

That is the arguement Ebert made though. Compare good art in one medium to bad art in another. When the second doesn't compare favourably decide the entire medium isn't art.

[Stove]

Just wondering, what definition are people using for art that includes video games? Or are they using one at all?

The one Ebert quoted includes video games, though I think trying to define 'art' is an exercise in futility.

This isn't a question of quality. Bad art is art nontheless. It's about the nature of the medium and the nature of art and whether (and how) the two overlap.

I was considering this as a question of value rather than quality.

[palsch]

That is the arguement Ebert made though. Compare good art in one medium to bad art in another. When the second doesn't compare favourably decide the entire medium isn't art.

Well, no. He didn't. His argument was that, as a medium, games don't qualify as art. My other post in this thread made a couple similar arguments which I've never actually seen addressed.

The problem was that people didn't actually address his arguments about that. I'll let him explain the more common response;

If I didn't admire a game, I would be told I played the wrong one. Consider what happened when I responded to the urging of a reader and watched Kellee Santiago's TED talk. It would finally convince me, I was promised, of the art of video games. I watched it. But noooo. Readers told me I had viewed the wrong talk about the wrong games. Besides, arguing with a You Tube video was pointless if I had never played a game.

See now, this is the problem. If I make an argument that, say, science fiction books by definition can't contain elves - and that if they do they are fantasy - no amount of examples are going to convince me otherwise. You have to instead engage with the argument itself and make a case for how an elf can exist in a science fictional environment. You have to explore the definition of science fiction and show that a sensible definition can include elves. Then you go to the examples of books that fit such a definition.

Listing fantastic games without first exploring what art is and how a game may match that definition is pretty futile. I mean, I love Portal, but I don't really see how I could call it art. I don't have a workable definition of art which it fits.

I was considering this as a question of value rather than quality.

See, this is another category error. Hell, Ebert mentions a game he played and enjoyed and I don't see him saying they have no value. The guy reviews summer blockbusters next to art films without making value judgments based on their artistic merit.

[Stove]

I mean, I love Portal, but I don't really see how I could call it art. I don't have a workable definition of art which it fits.

Here, I'll help you out.

See, this is another category error. Hell, Ebert mentions a game he played and enjoyed and I don't see him saying they have no value. The guy reviews summer blockbusters next to art films without making value judgments based on their artistic merit.

He devalues games through the way he compares them to Shakespeare ("If I could save the works of Shakespeare by sacrificing all the video games in existence, I would do it without a moment's hesitation.") and Huckleberry Finn. If it's a category error, then it's Ebert's category error.

[palsch]

Here, I'll help you out.

And I don't think the game fits that bill. Quoting myself because it's already written;

Video games are, in this sense, as much a medium as art itself.  The primary purpose is for the player to express themselves (at least in most games that are fun to play). The game may have a tight plot that it follows, but a plot alone isn't art until it's story is told. That is the players job. The player takes the role of an author, actor or director (depending on the game), albeit one with tight constraints on how they explore the telling.

Then again it is easy to shift your definition of art to one that can include video games. It's just I can't think of a consistent one that doesn't leave it horribly subjective and down to immediate experience, which suggests that whether or not a game is art depends on the player. I find that hugely unsatisfying and think it falls back to the situation of the art not lying in the game itself, but in the interaction between its content and the players actions.

He devalues games through the way he compares them to Shakespeare ("If I could save the works of Shakespeare by sacrificing all the video games in existence, I would do it without a moment's hesitation.") and Huckleberry Finn. If it's a category error, then it's Ebert's category error.

That isn't saying games have no value, it's a statement of relative value in his eyes. Given the choice between a world with computer games and a world with Shakespeare, he would take the latter. That doesn't mean that computer games have no value, it means that he values them less than the works of Shakespeare.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

He devalues games through the way he compares them to Shakespeare ("If I could save the works of Shakespeare by sacrificing all the video games in existence, I would do it without a moment's hesitation.") and Huckleberry Finn. If it's a category error, then it's Ebert's category error.

Hmmm..... That might make a good poll. Shall I?

[Footkerchief]

Hi MetalSlimeHunt, in case you didn't see this before:

Raliegh, and the people around me are 14-18. My interactions with them tell me that my generation cares nothing for theater. The mass closing of theaters tell me the previous generation dosen't care either.

You'd better go tell Raleigh Little Theatre and Burning Coal how dead they are, in particular all the 14-18 high schoolers doing classes and camps at RLT.  What theaters closed recently?