Those of you who are (like me) fans of both Roger Ebert and videogames no doubt followed the debate ( part I; part II) that Ebert set off when he declared that videogames are not art.
My own take on it was–and is–that the video game is an artform, but it is one in its infancy. Yes, there is not yet a game as sublime as Bach’s English Suites, but, then, it’s only been 34 years since Pong. 35 years after the invention of music, I’m guessing we were still banging rocks against our cave walls. Videogames are evolving a lot faster, and I suspect the Bach of this art form will come along a lot more quickly than he did to music.
I’m revisiting this debate right now partly because of my recent PS2 purchase, of course, but mainly because Roger Ebert’s colleague at the Chicago Sun-Times Jim Emmerson recently featured a quote from Japanese videogame designer Hideo Kojima, creator of the “Metal Gear Solid” series, which some of Ebert’s readers cited as proof that videogames can indeed be art. Perhaps surprisingly, Kojima says he agrees with Ebert:
“I don’t think they’re art either, videogames,” he said, referring to Roger Ebert’s recent commentary on the same subject. “The thing is, art is something that radiates the artist, the person who creates that piece of art. If 100 people walk by and a single person is captivated by whatever that piece radiates, it’s art. But videogames aren’t trying to capture one person. A videogame should make sure that all 100 people that play that game should enjoy the service provided by that videogame. It’s something of a service. It’s not art. But I guess the way of providing service with that videogame is an artistic style, a form of art.”
The funny thing is, even though Kojima seems to think he’s agreeing with Ebert, he really isn’t; under Kojima’s definition, movies don’t qualify as art, either. And Emerson doesn’t quote one particularly significant paragraph from the interview (although he does provide a link to it):
While Kojima said that games as a whole aren’t art, he did say that games do incorporate art. “Art is the stuff you find in the museum, whether it be a painting or a statue. What I’m doing, what videogame creators are doing, is running the museum–how do we light up things, where do we place things, how do we sell tickets? It’s basically running the museum for those who come to the museum to look at the art. For better or worse, what I do, Hideo Kojima, myself, is run the museum and also create the art that’s displayed in the museum.”
Ebert’s article made me hopping mad. It wasn’t his statement that “videogames are not Art.” That question quickly turns into a debate about the nature of Art, which people can kick around as much as they like.
No, it made me mad because when Ebert (or most people) say “videogames are not Art” what they’re really saying is that “videogames are moronic and you are an idiot for enjoying them.” Ebert, in fact, didn’t just suggest this in his article, he outright said it: he said he would never waste his time with a videogame as long as there was a great novel out there that he hadn’t read. (Specifically, this statement was in his review of the “Doom” movie.)
That’s the reason people got angry and that’s the real discussion going on below the surface. And it’s just an irritating pose that he’s taking, since I’m sure he spends plenty of time doing perfectly fun but non-intellectual things like going to Bulls games or playing golf or whatever when he could be read great “literature” (<- pronounced with officious faux British accent).
I read an interesting comment that other day that suggested that videogames were like theme park rides — sure, they take skill and craft to design, but nobody’s ever going to describe them as their own form of “Art.” This hits very close to the point, and much closer than Ebert did. It’s the most compelling argument that I’ve heard so far that videogames are not Art.