Culture Clash

(January 2006)

The War of Art

"I believe books and films are better mediums… Because I have recently seen classic films by Fassbinder, Ozu, Herzog, Scorsese and Kurosawa and have recently read novels by Dickens, Cormac McCarthy, Bellow, Nabokov and Hugo, and if there were video games in the same league, someone somewhere who was familiar with the best work in all three mediums would have made a convincing argument in their defense."
-- Roger Ebert

In addition to knowing that the plural form of “medium” is “media,” I hold a completely useless degree in film and have read novels by Dickens, McCarthy, Bellow, Nabokov and Hugo. At last my existence has purpose: to rebut Ebert's postulation that video games cannot be art.

First things first. Roger Ebert is a brilliant film scholar, not a mere entertainer, and his knowledge of most literary forms is encyclopedic. Filmmakers and academics respect him enormously. He's also right most of the time, particularly when it comes to cinema. In this he's wrong, but – gentleman that he is – he concedes that he doesn't know much about games. If movie adaptations are his chief frame of reference, no wonder he questions the artistic potential of the medium. I, and all film students worth their salt, think very highly of Roger Ebert. Indeed, I only take issue with him when he makes remarks like “video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic.” That suggests not merely resentment about the claim that games can be art, but resentment of games themselves.

Ebert argues that games are artistically inferior because they involve player choices, which is anathema to the authorial control necessary in traditional art. Basically, he's saying you can't make art if you can't dictate how people will consume it. I've always taken the opposite angle: that interactivity makes games inherently superior to more limited forms of exposition. Ebert's claim that there can be no auteurism without authors is compelling, but ultimately incorrect; there is an auteurist presence in game development and those auteurs leave an imprint on all their work. Peter Molyneaux, Will Wright, Sid Meier, Shigeru Miyamoto; they and their many other name-known colleagues are our Fassbinders and Scorceses.

As to whether there are video games “in the same league” as great cinema or fiction, that issue is so subjective as to be practically meaningless. There is no litmus test for artistic quality. I found Werner Herzog's Every Man for Himself and God Against All so unendurable that I'd actually eat my own liver before watching another Herzog film. Ebert would doubtless think me a Philistine for that. I'd think the same of him if he refused to describe Shadow of the Colossus as art. Yes, it's a game, but it is also a brooding reflection on the human capacity for cruelty and the hideous power of obsession. It is a stark, lonely nightmare of self-reflection with a difficult and unforgiving morality and deeply nebulous definitions of good and evil. It's not dissimilar to Every Man for Himself and God Against All in that regard.

Joe Keiser responded to Ebert's claims by admitting (rightly) that there hasn't been a game on the level of Citizen Kane or Ivanhoe. That doesn't mean there can't be, or won't be. But maybe there shouldn't be. Games are not movies or novels. The biggest mistake developers could make is to create according to the rules of a medium other than their own. In fact, that is probably the thing most likely to limit games to pre-art doldrums, to constrain their creative potential. Maybe it's dumb to say “gaming hasn't had its Citizen Kane .” After all, movies haven't had their Metroid Prime.

Aesthetic merit can be found everywhere in gaming, if you look – and if you judge games as games rather than as movies or novels. Limited sales diluted artistic recognition of Lunar: The Silver Star , a misunderstood gem that so adroitly crystallizes the very real and often unbearable price of growing up. Lunar is like an interactive Puff the Magic Dragon , in that children, being innocent, see wonder in everything to such a degree that they manufacture elaborate fictions with no more real-world value than fairy tales, and are forced to abandon them as the realities of life set in. By the end of Lunar , the protagonist has been stripped of naive illusions of heroism, has learned the bitter truths that lie behind the fables, and it crushes him. There is thematic resonance in many games. You just have to want to see it.

The industry is young, and it was not created with art in mind. Ralph Baer certainly didn't think he was creating art when he developed Pong. The fact that the art evolved later has led to the misconception that there is no artistic value in games – something many developers hold to today, limiting their creative potential. Dubious creativity has repeatedly threatened the business. There are industry people who refuse to accept the idea that games are art, to the point of finding that suggestion personally insulting. Others, like industry albatross Rockstar, believe in the art but, perversely, spend their days struggling to abase the medium. It's not surprising that Ebert and other nongamers fail to see the beauty in games when we so often fail to see it ourselves.

There is the mistaken view that once a medium is declared “art,” everything in it must be artistic. This is not remotely true, as Mr. Ebert himself would doubtless agree. After all, in addition to the fancy films and books, we've all seen films by Bay, Boll (alas), Cameron and Scott and have read novels by King, Rowling, Brown and Crichton. The presence of art does not diminish the availability of entertainment. Film and fiction are art forms , but not all movies or books are art. Ico's existence doesn't threaten the existence of Quake 4. I can't help but wonder if in Ebert's mind, the existence of games threatens the existence of cinema.