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This part is key: > "I do not have a need ‘all the time’ to take myself away from the oppressive facts of my life, however oppressive they may be, in order to

This part is key: > "I do not have a need ‘all the time’ to take myself away from the oppressive facts of my life, however oppressive they may be, in order to go somewhere where I have control. I need to stay here and take control." The idea is that great art should lead you back to life, not pull you into fantasies. Ebert clearly felt that authorial control is the only way to achieve that, but I think he might have agreed that video games are art, if he saw even a single example where player choice was used to lead the player back to life. That's a very tall order though.

Jtsummers 10y ago
Shadow of the Colossus has always, to me, felt like that sort of game. It's one of the few I've seen/played that felt like something other than just an escape into fantasy. The consequences of the actions, the tragedy of the circumstances and outcomes, lend itself to introspection and contemplation for the player/audience.
- rrauenza 10y ago
  I believe my wife (as did many others) responded to Ebert's blog entry years ago with that exact example. He mentions Shadow of the Colossus it in a response: http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/okay-kids-play-on-my-lawn http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/okay-kids-play-on-m... It's funny, Ebert said that games aren't art because they give you choices... and in a way, Shadow of the Colossus gives you none.
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    > It's funny, Ebert said that games aren't art because they give you choices... and in a way, Shadow of the Colossus gives you none. I think his outsider perspective made it difficult for him to appreciate that these things, examples of what he wanted, already existed. Myst is another (sort of) example, where the number of choices are actually more limited than it immediately appeared. I'm not really certain that they'd actually be great art, but they're demonstrations that the medium is capable of it. Which he later admits, though I think his timeline for when it will happen (if it hasn't happened yet) was way off.
  - vacri 10y ago
    > Ebert said that games aren't art because they give you choices That has to be the dumbest requirement for 'art' I've ever heard. Especially coming from a professional critic, who earns his paycheck by interpreting art for others (ie: making choices about what it means). Or, on a simpler level, there can be no such thing as interactive art with that definition.
    - rrauenza 10y ago
      I don't agree with Ebert, but it is subtler than that. You get to choose how to interpret the art, but it is still presented as the 'auteur' intended. In a movie context, you don't get to pick and choose what scenes you see in what order. The author of the movie has complete artistic control of every moment on the 2D screen. Ideally. A photograph/painting is static. I think if we had true 3D (holographic?) movies he'd argue those aren't art as well because you could walk to any position in the scene to see the action from a viewpoint you pick, whereas his concept of art is that the director / editor picked very specific angles for you to view the scene to evoke a specific feeling. He'd probably argue the Lytro photographs aren't art, either, since you the viewer get to pick the focal plane. That, I think, is where he gets caught up in choice -- and that's where I mean that his concept of choice is very one dimensional. I think he felt you making choices in the game takes away from the author's control, and that lack of control made it not art. In a sense, he expects the artist to be active and the consumer to be passive, except for experiencing the art. ...I could be wrong, but that's the impression I got from his writing. (...and I think he was wrong.)
- aaron-lebo 10y ago
  You've watched Reign Over Me one too many times. Just kidding. But there really are no consequences. You get smashed by one colossus and respawn. Pure escapism. It is a beautiful game, though. It's thought highly of maybe because the writers didn't do too much. Too many devs think you want to spend six hours watching their bad writing.
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    I had no idea what that movie was until I googled it. I mean the ultimate consequence, of destroying creatures that (seemingly) harbor no ill-will to anyone not attacking them for the sake of someone who's dead, in a desperate attempt to bring them back to life. The consequence of the main character not truly achieving their goal, and, even if they had, what of them would remain for the person they loved?
  - astrange 10y ago
    NieR deletes all your save files at the end of one story branch. I don't think we need an arms race of games trying to have "real consequences" like that though.
- jszymborski 10y ago
  I think that this is the all-but-expressed motivation behind Lev Grossman's "The Magicians" series. The VC pitch would be "First half is Skins set at Hogwarts, Second half is Trainspotting, except the rave scene is Narnia"
  - Jtsummers 10y ago
    I generally avoid reading contemporary (< 10 years old) novels, especially series, for fear they'll turn out to be part of the 90% of everything that's crap. How is this one? Because that premise sounds interesting enough to me to want to read, especially since I'm about to spend a week recuperating from surgery and don't care to spend it online.
    - lbotos 10y ago
      It's decent but I'd firmly put it in the category of "pop-lit" vs "modern lit". It's very present day and I don't think the writing was anything spectacular but it is a fun "quick" read for sure. I'd say give the first a shot, and if you aren't interested, you won't miss much skipping the rest.
    - egypturnash 10y ago
      If you loved Narnia as a kid, and just couldn't go back when you tried to re-read it as an adult because of all the Christian allegory you missed the first time, it's pretty damn good. It also helps to have had a dream, attained it, and had it fall apart in front of you. I had both of those experiences and I devoured the Magicians books with glee.
    - rockostrich 10y ago
      It's enjoyable. I have some problems with the decisions of characters and the world building, but overall I think they can be mostly overlooked. I hate to say it's a more mature Harry Potter, but it really feels that way.
    - selimthegrim 10y ago
      I read it almost as a parable of people who didn't make it into <insert selective thing of their dreams here> and what they choose to do with the rest of their lives
- CoolGuySteve 10y ago
  Yes, there are a few others too. Dark Souls and its emphasis on patience/reward makes you a more conscientious person. The Walking Dead series makes you contemplate the consequences of quick moral choices more than most games I've played. Will Wright has commented on The Sims' relationship with materialism: > People frequently comment on the materialistic bent of "The Sims," but if anybody has played it in that direction as far as they can, they realize that every object you buy is a potential time bomb. They all can break or have some failure state. And so if you start pulling up your house and buy all the stuff, pretty soon you find that you're spending all your time fixing this stuff and they become a giant time sink instead of time savers--which I think has something to say about materialism. And another Will Wright quote that sums up the whole situation: > "Games are not the right medium to tell stories," said Wright in a CNN interview, adding that they're "more about story possibilities." > "Television is a very different thing from video games. It's kind of hard for me to compare."
jasonjei 10y ago
Isn't there that game called That Dragon, Cancer wherein it chronicles the experience of the Greens' raising their son Joel, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer at twelve months old? I wonder what Ebert would have thought.
ravitation 10y ago
A similar argument could be (and has been) made in the reverse, typically argued as reader response (as opposed to authorial intent). Without going into the actual argument favoring reader response... In the same way that a work of literature has potential for less authorial control over intent than a film, one could argue, since there is potentially less ability to convey authorial intent in video games, that video games are actually inherently a superior form of art. This argument has been made before. I think there is really no defense for arguing the superiority of an art form, and really no attempt should be made to defend Ebert.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
padobson 10y ago
The later bit on Schopenhauer expand on this: Schopenhauer does have a reputation for being pessimistic. But he really wasn’t. Because he also believed that there’s a way to leap off the wheel of desire. That way is the contemplation — the contemplation — of sublime art. Sublime art is the door to a perspective on reality that transcends Will. It frees us from the agony of contingency and causality, and give us a brief, precious glimpse of what we really are, one thing, already complete, and perfectly ambiguous. In this lens, art isn't so much a craft that elicits feeling, but the opus of a master that expands our consciousness - perception, empathy, taste, intellect, and the recursive capacity to create - through our appreciation of it. It doesn't remove us from reality, it strengthens our connection to it. My favorite painting is Matisse's The Red Studio[0]. I could look at it all day. If you gave me a poo bucket and delivered me a burrito every couple of hours, I could probably sit there for months, just absorbing it, contemplating the nature of creativity and the satisfaction of craftsmanship and never have any desire to create or craft anything myself. Matisse has erased my need to do these things by providing me with contemplation that ends my need for willful activity. Literature is just as powerful. John Gardener describes fiction as building a dream world inside the head of the reader[1]. Fiction possesses the consciousness of the reader, and great literature never lets go. After you read a truly captivating piece of fiction, it'll flicker through your mind for the rest of your life, shaping your experiences forever. When I read Shakespeare or Bronte or Orwell, I'm not just enjoying a narrative, I'm calibrating the lens through which I experience life. And video games are absolutely capable of shaping the human experience this way, but it's not in the quality of graphics or the power of the music or the story or voice acting. It's not even in the goal of the game. It's in the surrendering of your will to the game designer. Like the author or painter or director, it's about letting the artist take you by the hand and expand your consciousness so that your sense of movement, of peril, of success and of failure are redefined (or maybe "undefined?") It might take me a lifetime to argue that any particular game has achieved this at the level required in this context to be defined at art. But one thing I am certain of: we've had the requisite technology to create these experiences in video games since Spacewar[1] [0]https://www.moma.org/collection/works/78389 https://www.moma.org/collection/works/78389 [1]http://amzn.to/2n7CJ1U http://amzn.to/2n7CJ1U [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacewar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacewar!

Jtsummers 10y ago

Shadow of the Colossus has always, to me, felt like that sort of game. It's one of the few I've seen/played that felt like something other than just an escape into fantasy. The consequences of the actions, the tragedy of the circumstances and outcomes, lend itself to introspection and contemplation for the player/audience.

rrauenza 10y ago
I believe my wife (as did many others) responded to Ebert's blog entry years ago with that exact example. He mentions Shadow of the Colossus it in a response: http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/okay-kids-play-on-my-lawn http://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/okay-kids-play-on-m... It's funny, Ebert said that games aren't art because they give you choices... and in a way, Shadow of the Colossus gives you none.
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  > It's funny, Ebert said that games aren't art because they give you choices... and in a way, Shadow of the Colossus gives you none. I think his outsider perspective made it difficult for him to appreciate that these things, examples of what he wanted, already existed. Myst is another (sort of) example, where the number of choices are actually more limited than it immediately appeared. I'm not really certain that they'd actually be great art, but they're demonstrations that the medium is capable of it. Which he later admits, though I think his timeline for when it will happen (if it hasn't happened yet) was way off.
- vacri 10y ago
  > Ebert said that games aren't art because they give you choices That has to be the dumbest requirement for 'art' I've ever heard. Especially coming from a professional critic, who earns his paycheck by interpreting art for others (ie: making choices about what it means). Or, on a simpler level, there can be no such thing as interactive art with that definition.
  - rrauenza 10y ago
    I don't agree with Ebert, but it is subtler than that. You get to choose how to interpret the art, but it is still presented as the 'auteur' intended. In a movie context, you don't get to pick and choose what scenes you see in what order. The author of the movie has complete artistic control of every moment on the 2D screen. Ideally. A photograph/painting is static. I think if we had true 3D (holographic?) movies he'd argue those aren't art as well because you could walk to any position in the scene to see the action from a viewpoint you pick, whereas his concept of art is that the director / editor picked very specific angles for you to view the scene to evoke a specific feeling. He'd probably argue the Lytro photographs aren't art, either, since you the viewer get to pick the focal plane. That, I think, is where he gets caught up in choice -- and that's where I mean that his concept of choice is very one dimensional. I think he felt you making choices in the game takes away from the author's control, and that lack of control made it not art. In a sense, he expects the artist to be active and the consumer to be passive, except for experiencing the art. ...I could be wrong, but that's the impression I got from his writing. (...and I think he was wrong.)
aaron-lebo 10y ago
You've watched Reign Over Me one too many times. Just kidding. But there really are no consequences. You get smashed by one colossus and respawn. Pure escapism. It is a beautiful game, though. It's thought highly of maybe because the writers didn't do too much. Too many devs think you want to spend six hours watching their bad writing.
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  I had no idea what that movie was until I googled it. I mean the ultimate consequence, of destroying creatures that (seemingly) harbor no ill-will to anyone not attacking them for the sake of someone who's dead, in a desperate attempt to bring them back to life. The consequence of the main character not truly achieving their goal, and, even if they had, what of them would remain for the person they loved?
- astrange 10y ago
  NieR deletes all your save files at the end of one story branch. I don't think we need an arms race of games trying to have "real consequences" like that though.
jszymborski 10y ago
I think that this is the all-but-expressed motivation behind Lev Grossman's "The Magicians" series. The VC pitch would be "First half is Skins set at Hogwarts, Second half is Trainspotting, except the rave scene is Narnia"
- Jtsummers 10y ago
  I generally avoid reading contemporary (< 10 years old) novels, especially series, for fear they'll turn out to be part of the 90% of everything that's crap. How is this one? Because that premise sounds interesting enough to me to want to read, especially since I'm about to spend a week recuperating from surgery and don't care to spend it online.
  - lbotos 10y ago
    It's decent but I'd firmly put it in the category of "pop-lit" vs "modern lit". It's very present day and I don't think the writing was anything spectacular but it is a fun "quick" read for sure. I'd say give the first a shot, and if you aren't interested, you won't miss much skipping the rest.
  - egypturnash 10y ago
    If you loved Narnia as a kid, and just couldn't go back when you tried to re-read it as an adult because of all the Christian allegory you missed the first time, it's pretty damn good. It also helps to have had a dream, attained it, and had it fall apart in front of you. I had both of those experiences and I devoured the Magicians books with glee.
  - rockostrich 10y ago
    It's enjoyable. I have some problems with the decisions of characters and the world building, but overall I think they can be mostly overlooked. I hate to say it's a more mature Harry Potter, but it really feels that way.
  - selimthegrim 10y ago
    I read it almost as a parable of people who didn't make it into <insert selective thing of their dreams here> and what they choose to do with the rest of their lives
CoolGuySteve 10y ago
Yes, there are a few others too. Dark Souls and its emphasis on patience/reward makes you a more conscientious person. The Walking Dead series makes you contemplate the consequences of quick moral choices more than most games I've played. Will Wright has commented on The Sims' relationship with materialism: > People frequently comment on the materialistic bent of "The Sims," but if anybody has played it in that direction as far as they can, they realize that every object you buy is a potential time bomb. They all can break or have some failure state. And so if you start pulling up your house and buy all the stuff, pretty soon you find that you're spending all your time fixing this stuff and they become a giant time sink instead of time savers--which I think has something to say about materialism. And another Will Wright quote that sums up the whole situation: > "Games are not the right medium to tell stories," said Wright in a CNN interview, adding that they're "more about story possibilities." > "Television is a very different thing from video games. It's kind of hard for me to compare."

jasonjei 10y ago

Isn't there that game called That Dragon, Cancer wherein it chronicles the experience of the Greens' raising their son Joel, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer at twelve months old? I wonder what Ebert would have thought.

ravitation 10y ago

A similar argument could be (and has been) made in the reverse, typically argued as reader response (as opposed to authorial intent). Without going into the actual argument favoring reader response... In the same way that a work of literature has potential for less authorial control over intent than a film, one could argue, since there is potentially less ability to convey authorial intent in video games, that video games are actually inherently a superior form of art. This argument has been made before. I think there is really no defense for arguing the superiority of an art form, and really no attempt should be made to defend Ebert.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

padobson 10y ago

The later bit on Schopenhauer expand on this: Schopenhauer does have a reputation for being pessimistic. But he really wasn’t. Because he also believed that there’s a way to leap off the wheel of desire. That way is the contemplation — the contemplation — of sublime art. Sublime art is the door to a perspective on reality that transcends Will. It frees us from the agony of contingency and causality, and give us a brief, precious glimpse of what we really are, one thing, already complete, and perfectly ambiguous. In this lens, art isn't so much a craft that elicits feeling, but the opus of a master that expands our consciousness - perception, empathy, taste, intellect, and the recursive capacity to create - through our appreciation of it. It doesn't remove us from reality, it strengthens our connection to it. My favorite painting is Matisse's The Red Studio[0]. I could look at it all day. If you gave me a poo bucket and delivered me a burrito every couple of hours, I could probably sit there for months, just absorbing it, contemplating the nature of creativity and the satisfaction of craftsmanship and never have any desire to create or craft anything myself. Matisse has erased my need to do these things by providing me with contemplation that ends my need for willful activity. Literature is just as powerful. John Gardener describes fiction as building a dream world inside the head of the reader[1]. Fiction possesses the consciousness of the reader, and great literature never lets go. After you read a truly captivating piece of fiction, it'll flicker through your mind for the rest of your life, shaping your experiences forever. When I read Shakespeare or Bronte or Orwell, I'm not just enjoying a narrative, I'm calibrating the lens through which I experience life. And video games are absolutely capable of shaping the human experience this way, but it's not in the quality of graphics or the power of the music or the story or voice acting. It's not even in the goal of the game. It's in the surrendering of your will to the game designer. Like the author or painter or director, it's about letting the artist take you by the hand and expand your consciousness so that your sense of movement, of peril, of success and of failure are redefined (or maybe "undefined?") It might take me a lifetime to argue that any particular game has achieved this at the level required in this context to be defined at art. But one thing I am certain of: we've had the requisite technology to create these experiences in video games since Spacewar[1] [0]https://www.moma.org/collection/works/78389 https://www.moma.org/collection/works/78389 [1]http://amzn.to/2n7CJ1U http://amzn.to/2n7CJ1U [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacewar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacewar!