Grumpy Gamer Roger Ebert Kicks Puppies

Roger Ebert Kicks Puppies

Nov 29, 2005 quarter to ten am

Wanting to be like all the cool kids, Roger Ebert has jumped into the discussion about games being art.

Here is the relevant section from his "Answer Man" column:

Q. I was saddened to read that you consider video games an inherently inferior medium to film and literature, despite your admitted lack of familiarity with the great works of the medium. This strikes me as especially perplexing, given how receptive you have been in the past to other oft-maligned media such as comic books and animation. Was not film itself once a new field of art? Did it not also take decades for its academic respectability to be recognized?

There are already countless serious studies on game theory and criticism available, including Mark S. Meadows' Pause & Effect: The Art of Interactive Narrative, Nick Montfort's Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction, Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan's First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game, and Mark J.P. Wolf's The Medium of the Video Game, to name a few.

I hold out hope that you will take the time to broaden your experience with games beyond the trashy, artless "adaptations" that pollute our movie theaters, and let you discover the true wonder of this emerging medium, just as you have so passionately helped me to appreciate the greatness of many wonderful films.

Andrew Davis, St. Cloud, Minn.

A. Yours is the most civil of countless messages I have received after writing that I did indeed consider video games inherently inferior to film and literature. There is a structural reason for that: Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control.

I am prepared to believe that video games can be elegant, subtle, sophisticated, challenging and visually wonderful. But I believe the nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art. To my knowledge, no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers. That a game can aspire to artistic importance as a visual experience, I accept. But for most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic.

OK, this is me, Ron, again. You can tell by the lack in indenting.

Given the fact that Roger is not a game player, and that there is enough debate about this very subject from within our industry, this is not surprising.

The one line that really jumped out at me was this:

There is a structural reason for that: Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control.

"Authorial Control".

1) Is Authorial Control necessary in art? Is Art someone expressing an idea, and therefore requires there to be a someone behind the idea?

Yes, I think this is true.

2) Do games have Authorial Control?

This is where I disagree with my childhood hero Roger Ebert.

I think games need and have Authorial Control. There has to be someone at the helm who is giving us their vision for the experience. Movies have a Director, Books have a Author, and Games have a Designer (titles in games in a complex issue I won't get into here).

I don't think Roger has thought about this. He sees toys and doesn't see the person or people behind them and that is our fault (dear lord... when will be stop screwing up).

Take GTA:SA. Who designed it? I don't know. I could probably look it up but I won't because I shouldn't have to. During the debate about GTA, where was the designer? Why was he or she not speaking out, letting us know why they did things the way they did, defending their art? Did I miss it?

During the controversy surrounding Natural Born Killers, Oliver Stone was very vocal about the film and his vision behind it.

This is why the games industry needs more visibility to the people behind the games. It is this humanizing that will ultimately pull them into the realm of art.

Other people's comments:

Ron, you make some great points, but I think that people really need to be shown more Grim Fandangos and Looms so that they understand that not all games are toys and bloodbaths. This argument seems moot to those who have played games by you and Tim Schafer; They see art, no question. I think, given time and good games, there won't be an argument in the future.

If you take a look at old titles (let say 10 years old), you'll see that you find much more reference to the people designing the games. (didn't you have your own name on MI's box ?)
Now, with the new mamoth company like EA, it's very hard to find out who did what.
What's funny is that, as it matured, humanization of the video game field seems to have been lost. Sure, there is still exeptions, but they are mostly for people who was already in the industry back then and have been followed by some kind of "fanbase".

Now, with the new mamoth company like EA, it's very hard to find out who did what.

The funny thing about this is EA was one of the first (or the first?) companies to give individual creators recognition. When EA first started they had "Electronic Artists" developing their titles. Before that companies like Atari didn't give developers any credit at all. How things have changed...

when someone who has no idea what ico is (replace title at will), but debates about games-as-art, his arguments are simpy irrelevant. sigh. i mean, next to today's wonderful asian films, the most popular films are non-events about superheroes?!

@space ace

I totally agree!

I think the article is in some parts kind of stupid, I mean a thing about videogames is, that you have to do something to move on and in some genres you even have to think a lot to move on and that is something you don't have to do in films, I mean the film just goes on and on and you don't even have to understand it there for.

And I played a game called "The moment of silence" that is really kind of critical and has really a good story and all.

At least Postal 2 has someone(maybe more than one, but one is the most vocal) involved with the game speaking out for it a lot of the time, Vince Desi.  He may not be the designer, and he may not be claiming that the game is art, but he definately touches on the vision of the game.  He's had like 50 interviews, too.

Ebert definately needs to play some of your or Tim's games.  No doubt.

Are some games just too much of a collaborative effort to claim a single person designed it?  Is that why the designers of many games are not publicised?

All Art is experiential. In traditional Arts the experience is dictated primarily by the author, in great games it's the same. Different media have different proportions of author dictated and audience dictated content.

Whether something is Art or not is between the author and the audience.

Right on.

I have always believed, and still do, that designers or names need to be more associated with games. For the reasons you cite and many more. Commercially speaking, it's great for branding, without the limitations of franchises, not to mention it's also great for PR and just plain selling games. (And movies and books and theater tickets and music and this and that and just about everything...)

But most importantly, it's important for there to be an artist if there is to be any art. Really good call on that, Ron.

What's funny is that by Roger Ebert's logic, a video game is inherently not art, but a video of a person playing a video game inherently is.

Nothing wrong with that logic. Eating a burger is not art, but Andy Warhols burger eating video is a classical example of video art.

Eating a burger can just as easily be performance art. And I suppose that means the playing of a video game can be performance art, too. But wouln't making a burger qualify as a culinary art? Sure, it's not HIGH art, but still.

Not to mention the fact that there are some people who'd still argue what Warhol did was art.

Unfortunately, the title of "Designer" is ridiculously nebulous in the contemporary market. Just because someone's got the designation in the credits and on their resume doesn't mean that they were the driving force for any memorable aspect of the game; more often than not, they've just got a basic floor plan and veto power over the ideas being fed to them by the creative team.

And equally as often, this position is filled through necessity rather than vision. Someone with a solid technical resume in similar genre offerings can magically become the design management guru despite the fact that they can't draw, can't carry a tune, can't design a level, can't write a line of dialogue, can't come up with ideas aside from what they've seen playing other people's games or watching other people's movies, and generally lack any kind of inspiration. Some fatback in an office rubber-stamps an idea they got from an outside source, hands it over to the project manager, and he's suddenly the head designer by default. It's a pretty shitty state of affairs.

But it's also the status quo. And that being the case, it's likely that a lot of these guys DON'T want to be propped up as mouthpieces and figureheads or held accountable for the quality or integrity of "their" work. The big decisions of the project and the artistic aspects aren't in their hands, so if someone completely cocks up the works before the title goes gold, they don't want it coming back to kill their future hiring prospects.

And hell, you can't really blame them. Just look at what's happened to guys like Sanders Keel.

Whoa. Things that require interaction can't be art? Talk about an antiquated definition of art - contemporary art (or even older art from the last century) will actually often require or at least encourage interaction from the viewer/listener/... .

Case in point: John Cage's "433". Contrary to what most people think, the piece is not just silence; rather, Cage himself said once that the real piece (and thus the real art!) is the sounds the audience makes while listening, the occasional rustling, coughing, whispered conversation, and all that.

And that was more than 50 years ago, already. If Roger Ebert thinks that art is diametrically opposed to interactivity, he's just a guy who screams "me too!" in a feeble attempt to be heard even though he doesn't actually know what he's talking about. :)

One of the assumptions of Ebert's argument is that anything without authorial control is inherently inferior to film and literature.

He doesn't deny that computer games are not an artistic medium, or that "433" is not art, but that they are both inferior forms of art to film and literature.

The John Cage piece...a piano player sits down at the piano, takes out a stopwatch, and does nothing for exactly 4 mins and 33 seconds.

It's all very avante-garde, and ahead of it's time in a way, but it's also a novelty. Cage's later work stated that any noise was music, that all sounds are all the same, you don't need instruments.

But then, why do you need a composer, either?

There are some games where the designer is very visible. The games that spring to my mind is the Metal Gear Solid series. Hideo Kojima and his oppinions and what not are very visible in those games, and they actually try to deliver a message to the player.

I can't really think of anything that comes as close as Metal Gear Solid to being both an entertaining game and art. Those games are also a very movie-like experience.

actually ebert looks like the watch from the opening of the secret of monkey island!

I would question the assumption of authorial control. A writer has some control, but the words will work on brain's differently; different interpretations will come out and the author is in generally in no position to refute an interpretation.

It seems we could argue that absolute authorial control is not necessary for art, or that players are co-artists (like musicians performing from sheet music) and are both observing, interacting, and creating art.

The statement that something isn't art is a bit old-hat isn't it.

Jackson Pollock...that's not art, it's a paint splash.
Yoko Ono...that's not art, it's an apple.
The "Piss Christ" that's not art...well...I think it's stupid, but it is art.

Art is whatever a person calls art.

Sure authorial control MIGHT be some way to define what's art and what isn't.  But even if it were his argument doesn't work for video games.

Is architecture not an art?  You design buildings and environments in both architecture and games.  You can walk (virtually) around in both.

Is sculpture not an art?  There's sculpture in video games.

Animation..not an art?  Painting...yadayadayada.

Surely, Roger can't dismiss these and other truths.

What Roger wants is the AUTUER.  He can't believe something is art unless a panel of critics and academics can point to one person and say...HE is the autuer.  In essence, he can't support it as art until he feels comfortable that those in authority will agree with him.  After all, he's an authority figure and desires to be an arbiter of taste.  By dismissing games, he doesn't have to make uninformed judgements and have his credentials be questioned.

The problem then is not with the art of games, but with its PR.

My suggestion is don't argue with someone who doesn't understand what he's talking about.

yes, but roger has cleverly defined the argument as "I did indeed consider video games inherently inferior to film and literature." .

So he doesn't deny anything isn't art. He just says the video games will never be up there with film and literature.

Excellent point, but do you think that a designer name will be associated with game titles any time in the future? Today the only names that are associated with games are names that were established 15 years ago when they did put names on boxes. Sid Meier, Will Wright, Peter Molyneux, Tim Schafer, etc...

As game development continues do you think that it will be phased back in? Or will it take some wild independant studio to bring it back? I mean, most people don't know the director of Disney films, and the same goes for EA games. Will there ever be a movement of designers to be recognized or will they continue just being a credit among others no one cares about?

Why does it matter?
Are games less fun without a name to associate with them?
Are games less popular without a lot of autuers?
Have recent games sold less than those of the one to three programmer team.

No.  They are perhaps less fun to talk about when you can't associate a name and a personality to them.

Hey, I've got my heroes.  Ron, Dan Bunten, Scott Adams.  And having my name on a box hasn't hurt my career any, but at a gaming company now you can have 50 people or more on an engineering team.

Why don't people think games are art?  Because we keep making games about obscenely proportioned women blasting demons with obscenely sized guns in drag gray dungeons photorealistically rendered.

Perhaps video games will evolve like comic books.  Unsophisticated and formulaic and churned out.  Then a few artists branched out and elevated the art.  It wasn't autuership, because the writer didn't control the entire experience and neither did the artist, but suddenly there was no denying that comic books were art.

Oh My GoD! Please stop posting things that make people talk this way.

...why do you even bother? You get your ass handed to you when you try to flame folks, Ron erases your posts and you dont contribute anything to this site as a whole. Nobody gives a shit about you or your whiny little girl protests.

Boy, is Ron right again!

I think games used to be more author-driven it their early days, remember "super mario" or pac-man, these games actually felt pretty personal, and they were in fact created by someone alone in his basement. As time went by, more money went on behalf of game authors, but then publishers took over (think Vivendi & Sierra On-Line) and then becoming "deadline-driven" not "author-driven" and finally becoming "console-oriented"; it is made clear that video games are not written by any means by the author, and his flourish, anymore. The only constancy we see coming back is by any means the "3d-engine" and the "gameplay". Only sometimes we see a "decent" script, a good story written by a real poet, an "artist".

Quoth Roger Ebert:

But for most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic.

A cheap shot. And if you're going to take cheapshots, make sure that they can't be lobbed right back at you? Take a look at the vast majority of modern movies (or novels, or music). I can say just as easily, "For most movie-goers, movies represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized, and empathetic." There are lots of good movies, but by and large the utter crap is what people see.

As for his core premise, well, I guess he's free to define art however he wants. If Ebert wants to define art so narrowly that a storyteller who takes cues from his audience cannot be art, or performance art that interacts with the audience cannot be art, well so be it. I don't think it's a terribly useful definition, but it's his choice.

Gaming lacks auteurs? Well, duh, surprise.

Hollywood has a few famous directors and many stars that mix and mingle, filll the entertainment media pages/channels etc. Gaming has a few famous designers and many heroes - all digital and not "real". And they are typecast to the max - nobody would buy a game because it says "Sam Fisher as The Prince in Katamari Damacy 3".

Now, would the average Joe/Jen rather go out for dinner with Angelina Jolie/Brad Pitt or Steven Spielberg? Movie buffs might chose the latter, but the majority will go with the former. Same for games: Will people rather want to play Peter Molyneux' latest game (as they can't really go out with its heroes) or have dinner with him?

I think that sometimes game designers lack some PR killer instinct. As long as they are all repeating "making games is a team effort, it's a team effort, really, really is", why do they complain that no one asks them any personal questions or even questions about how they came up with the design of the game? Sure they could answer that questions as it's probably not the third temp programming dude that made the initial gameplay decisions. Did you ever read that Steven Spielberg said "well, that's a great question, but making a film is a team effort so I rather would like you to ask the sound/costume/script writing/lighting guy" in an interview? He and his colleagues don't do that, because they know that the media folks like soundbits of a guy the people know and like to read about. Just look at pop culture and its media coverage in the US.

That said, how old are the designers mentioned here in the comments? Anyone younger than 35, 40? I remember Peter Molyneux presenting three games at three publishers at one trade show, really making each publisher's press release celebrating him as the star designer look a bit odd. If this trend continues, the gaming biz pretty much has to cryofreeze its star designers after their death or build some nice animatronic versions of them because I don't see any new ones coming up the ranks really.

Of course, I like to polarize things. Your mileage may vary.

It seems that Ebert knows that the amount of animation, sculpture, 2D art, and story means that games can be a work of art - by containment. But refuses to acknowledge games can ever be true works of art in their own right.

Lets examine this..

Pretty pictures are the most well known from of art.

Music is art, we all agree.

Literature are art because they tell wonderful stories, some use wonderful language.

Film is both story, language, audio and visual. You can turn off the sound to film, not know about what the story is, yet it still can be visual art. You can listen to the soundtrack, and its still musical art. And you can retell the story and the story will be art. Then there are certain crafts that are exclusive to film that create their own category of art, and let films be a work of art in their own right: eg editing, screen writing.

But computer games also have their own individual crafts that can be regarded as art. Things like level design, puzzle design, control system design. Ebert just is not familiar with these extra crafts.

"But good art makes you cry"
Well stories often do. Sound sometimes does. Now I admit crying at various pictures, usually photos of real humans, but usually when I know the story behind it (eg tsunami survivors mourning lost family). But I rarely cry in art galleries, and I don't see people crying in them - galleries just evoke emotions. I would suggest that good puzzle design, level design, etc can evoke a similar level of emotion, and thus can be regarded as art in their own right.

All this discussion about computer games being art or not...why bother?

Why on Earth (or any other planet for that matter) do we want it to be art anyway? - Is art the highest goal you can reach? - Is art the biggest complement you can give? - Why (and please explain that to me in small and simple words) do we want computer games to be considered art (except maybe to get some aditional funding from some art-committee)?

Or to put it in a quote of the late Douglas Adams (who did great things): "I think the idea of art kills creativity."

I agree.

The most we can hope to do by thinking about this subject in a prolonged manner is to foster a sense of self doubt. It's starting to make me feel a little uneasy, actually. Art is simply something people enjoy. No more, no less.

I recall one episode where they reviewed the first Mortal Kombat movie. Roger made some Komment about how it was the only game he thought was any good/worth trying(?), and I suspect it was the first and perhaps only video game he's ever played in his life. It's the only one I ever recall him saying he's tried.

I have to say I respected Siskel far more than Roger, and ceased giving their show attention after he died.

There's a good point being taken about the Authorial Control. Games, all games, but especially good games have Authorial Control. And yes, it's, theoretically, the designer.
We do need a bigger stand as game designers, and it's true that the names of game designers from the 80's and early 90's are the ones echoing. Some names have been said above, I was thinking of a few others.
Especially when I think "Monkey Island".
Monkey Island 1 and 2 were 100% Author controlled, where the author is non other then our beloved "non-indented text" Ron.
When you played MI, it didn't matter what was the order in which you solved the 3 trials, it didn't matter if you've left your shipmates to rot in Monkey island, or not. Everything had an answer for, everything was under control. Ron's control.
But what about open ended games ? What about MMO games where you don't have a story ?
What happens there ?
When I play world of warcraft, I can understand that the designer wrote a bunch of quests, instanes and stuff for me to do, and yes he was in control.
but what about those really open ended games ?
online MUD's ?
Second life (never played it, so i don't know too much) ?
What about games that don't have any story to them ?

Does Tetris need authoral control ? Can it be judges in compaison to a good movie or book ?
I think not.
Is it a good game ?
Yes.
Is it art ?
Most definitly.

There is more to games then stories, same as there is more to movies then stories. God knows i've seen dozen of movies which didn't have any more story then the really basic one that's been done over and over again, and you'd still go to the movie to see those stunning special effect or just becuase it was on cable last night and you lost the remote.
I havn't played Tetris for at least 10 years now. Nor i think i would.
I do replay monkey islands over and over again every once in a while.
Why ?
Monkey Island has a good story.
At least 1 and 2.

Now, go give money to the man who is behind those games, before it's too late.

Buy a car for Ron Gilbert.
Oded Sharon.

I think Mr. Ebert needs to play the Indiana Jones adventure games. By the way, wasn't The Dig supposed to be a TV series by Spielberg at first?

I don't know how many threads I've seen about when Aeris dies in Final Fantasy VII, using it as proof that games can evoke just as much emotion as movies, but there always seem to be someone mentioning it (and this time it seems like that someone is me).

Though I actually think that games are currently in the "uncanny valley", and have been since we got 16-bit graphics (I still have if not more, at least stronger emotional memories from 8-bit games than any modern ones).

Oh, and finally:

Tetris

If that's not art...

mi2 always struck me as something about pop culture... commentary... you know what they treasure as "high art". but i don't know what exactly it was saying. and is there more apt display of greed than when lechuck bent over to take the coin?!

Like many here, I?ve been playing games since about the time they first appeared. I?m afraid I have to take the dissenting role here and argue that Mr. Ebert, in spite of himself, is absolutely correct.

I think that most of the posts here up to and including Ron?s, (as insightful as they are,) are missing the meaning of Ebert?s ?Authorial Control?, especially considering that he is using the term as an explicit opposite to ?Player Control?. I do not believe his argument is simply that movies (or literature, etc) are any closer to being art merely because they happen to have a strong, unified creative direction. Absolutely anything that is ever produced has to have some sort of direction behind it, be it a single author or a committee of Hollywood drones.

But when I watch a movie or read a book, why should I give a flying fig about who produced it and what the author?s intent was or how vocal he was in defending his vision? All I have in front of me to consider is the work itself (or ?text?, if you want to be post-modern, which I generally don?t,) and based on that, and that alone, should I be able to form opinions about whether it?s a piece of fluff or whether it belongs in some hallowed literary canon.

I don?t follow the reasoning behind the statement that games will be pulled into the realm of art by making their authors more visible. Is Natural Born Killers a better work of art because Oliver Stone was vocal about it and had a vision behind it? Not that I?ve even seen it, but if I were to, I can guarantee you that my opinion on it will be based on that single 2-3 hour viewing and nothing other than the film itself.

When Ebert talks of ?Authorial Control,? I believe he?s talking about the control administered on the viewer/player/reader by the work itself, not indirectly by people who produced it. In a movie or book, this control is very tight? you the viewer are led from scene to scene intended to tell a story or invoke emotions or make you think. This does not tend to happen in games, which in most cases allow the player to direct most of the action. How then, can a game invoke the thought provoking or emotional responses necessary to be considered a work of art? It interesting that most of the games people quote here as being closer to art tend to contain far more ?authorial? elements than the average game. Aeris? death in FFVII might have made you cry, but it was a very, very movie like cutscene in the context of an overall story that evoked the emotion. The act of casting fire 4 on an enemy did not the work of art make.

Adventure games, by their very nature, fall the most strictly into the Authorial category. And we remember them for stories and characters, not their hotspot clicking or text parsing game mechanics. In 20+ years of game playing, the absolute closest thing I?ve experienced to a real, canonizable work of art on a computer is an interactive fiction work by Adam Cadre called ?Photopia? that leads the player through a set story line while only giving the player the illusion of choice. You?d hardly call it a game.

Good points. You maybe right. It's hard to tell without getting into a conversation with him about it. Something I would love to do. I have a lot of respect for Roger Ebert.

My point wasn't that slapping the names of designers, programmers and artists on the covers of boxes was suddenly going to make them art. My point was it will help (along with a whole lot of other things) in them not being seen as toys, which is the root of a lot of problems we faces theses days, most notably all the government threated censorship.

I have a lot of respect for Ebert as well. I also have a lot respect for game developers. To be honest, I don?t think his intent was to tweak gamers noses, but merely make (what I consider to be a very valid) statement about the nature of games as a medium for art. I?m seeing a lot of reactionary defensive type responses, (as is natural when someone criticises your pastime,) but I think we could definitely stand to learn a lot by taking his analysis into serious consideration.

Interesting point about games being viewed as toys. But I?d ask (in the pure spirit of debate,) why should they not be viewed as toys? You ?play? a game in the same way that you ?play? with a Rubik?s cube or you ?play? golf. Neither golf nor a Rubik?s cube is art (you may argue that the mechanics within the cube are a form of art, but certainly not an expressive one). Can you think of any form of art for which the active verb is ?play??

Perhaps Golf and GTA are ?adult? toys, but does that make them any less toys?

Well, you do 'play' music, but only in the same sense that you 'play' a movie... I should have said 'any form of art in which the intended audience 'plays' with the art.

Music, as already mentioned.

And while we are today mostly used to think of music as something we consume passively by hearing it, it's worth remembering that before the invention of recording technologies, music could only be heard if someone played it, and a lot of music was meant to be consumed by being played.

I think you may be worrying about the wrong thing.  If someone were to put a bold political statement on the back of a toy car, that would be protected speech, even if sold at WallMart.

The censors are after pornography, which is defined by the supreme court as being "harmful matter without redeeming social importance."

What we should be worrying about is that we make games glorifying graphic violence and allow it to be sold to minors.

Movies are, in Mr. Ebert's view, art.  Yet small children aren't allowed into a large number of movies.

Whether or not games are art doesn't matter.  If the ESRB doesn't come up with a ratings system that actually does something, the government will do something draconian.

Not to get into a big political argument, but this isn't about kids. It's about censorship, pure and simple. They aren't trying to keep porn from minors, they are trying to keep porn from everyone.

You are right that we have a problem with the glorification of violence in games, but that really speaks to the immaturity of the people making the games. Which also speaks to Ebert's conclusion. He doesn't find anything interesting in games because it's bunch of junk made by people that still think like there were in Junior High and giggle at seeing a breast.

It's hard to get anyone to take you seriously when our industry continues to crank out crap like this:

I hate to be critical of the guys at Hyboreal Studios, but you're not trying very hard.

hee hee... boobie!

I agree and empathise with with your political points, but I think you're reading too much into Ebert's comments. He's talking about the nature of the medium, nothing more.

<quote>
But I believe the nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art. To my knowledge, no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers.
</endquote>

Here's a list exercise ... how about a list of contenders for such a game? And only games that rely on gameplay or elements unique to the game medium for their 'artisticness'. i.e, Final Fantasy VII would be rejected, as it's emotive aspects are based on a linear story and FMV sequences (which are not unique to games).

yes, but is the story of a film excluded from being considered art because it is not unique to film?

no.

Sometimes we forget that because a film is sometimes the best way to tell a particular story.

But often, a a computer game is the best way to tell a particular story. If they turned something like monkey island into a film, it would miss many of the emotional experiences. Such as the beautiful epiphanies you feel when you solve a particular puzzle, or unlock the secret to a particular character.

I've been reading all your comments, Cordsie, and I'm afraid to say that I think you might be right. But just for the sake of argument, and I'm going to try to stay away from the dreadful "what is art?" discussion, perhaps games are, or rather could be, a form of "art" that is entirely unique to the medium, one which authorial control is not necessarily the vessel for communicating the message intended by the artist(s). That is to say, the experiences and decisions that the player is provoked to make is the actual artform, causing them to think/reflect/internalize more deeply due to their intimate involvement in the "art."

While I'm not saying that games in their current form are actually falling into this definition, I certainly think the games as a medium have the potential to. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any games that would actually do this, but in thinking about it, I wonder if it's simply because games in general never prompt me to consider why I, personally, may have made a specific decision, but rather simply reward or penalize me for either making a good or poor decision within the constraints of the game's logical system of available choices.

And if there was such a game that was so emotionally involving that the decisions I made within it were meaningful enough to cause a player to reflect on themselves and the situations within the game, would anyone even like to play it? I'm not sure.

Oh, and to answer your excercise... I'd say one of the only games that even came close for me was Fallout/Fallout 2. In this game I had gotten married and had this ragged pixelated woman looking person following me around for a long while. Eventually, she was killed by a zombie thing and, perhaps because of the interactions, perhaps just because I had grown used to having a crazy looking lady follow me, it did make a small twinge of sadness within me, which set off a "Anakin Skywalker" rampage in which I killed every zombie... It was relatively dramatic but I was the author of the event, not the game designer. Likewise, I remember shooting a child within the game, I think with an explosive or something and the child was callateral damage, I can't really remember. Regardless, I was considered evil at that point, notorious, people in my "party" resented me and I even felt guilty. It was this kind of finality, though, that made the game's events feel consequential and dramatic. I won't go so far as to call it art, perhaps, but I think it's at least a small taste. None of this was scripted, either, though, which makes it all the more valid as "game art," if we do want to go there.

I might not be doing this concept justice with that blowing up children story. ;)

I think you?re on to the crux of it there. Ebert?s issue with games is that the concept of player choice limits their artistic potential. Since player choice is the unique characteristic of games, it could follow that any ?Citizen Kane? of gaming should focus primarily on exploring the issues surrounding choice and repercussions. However, like you say, most games have a fixed and very well defined set of rewards and punishments. How do you design a system in which moral choices have appropriate repercussions which invoke the appropriate thoughts/emotions without herding the player into ?correct? and ?incorrect? behaviour?

Knights of the Old Republic is probably a good example? you may or may not have moral qualms over picking the ?evil? set of responses over the ?good?, but the only reason you?re selecting them is because you know they?ll lead to the light side or the dark side depending on your preference. I remember reading a review somewhere of Knights of the Old Republic that complained that the path to the dark side was to pick all of the easy, dumb, or arsehole responses throughout the game. Perhaps implementing a fuzzier morality system might be an approach here, but players get frustrated when they can?t figure out what arcane part of an AI algorithm is causing their fire resistance to be lowered by three points.

Interesting though, because the concept of players making choices have little to do with the actual ?playing? of a game, that is to say regardless of whether you?re typing text, clicking a mouse, or pounding out combo moves on a controller, the actual gameplay is secondary to the ?art?, so to speak. As I was alluding to when talking about toys earlier, I honestly don?t see how one could consider any mechanical process such as tapping a controller or twiddling a cube to be art in itself.

I think Fallout 2 was absolutely splendid? a flawed gem of a game, and I agree with your observations. I as well was thinking about games that have some real choices and consequences, and one that comes to mind is an odd Activision title from about? I dunno, 1985 or so called ?Alter Ego?. Again, it?s not really much of a ?game? per se, but more a person simulator, bringing you through the stages in life via a series of vignettes. Your reactions to situations affect your character and your options later in life. If you can get ahold of a C64 or Apple II emulator I?d suggest giving it a go. There was an online version, but it seems to have gone away. (I did snag the source for it at one point, though I?m not sure what the legal status of it is)

That's a very good point you bring up, it's not so much the gameplay itself, but the experiences that are a consequence. But, since we're sort of talking about the player actually being the "artist," in a way, or at least the game being a shared artistic experience between the designer and the player, I guess it might be comparable to saying that the actual movement of my pen on paper isn't the art, it's the final product at the end. And likewise, the effect of my art isn't in the viewing, but in the experiences and thoughts taken away by the viewer. But... I'll admit I'm just rambling at this point.

Anyway, it's entirely possible that since games do have unique characteristics, it might just be that we've stumbled on a new way of communicating "art." A new method which brings with it the unfortunate downside of having to blaze an entirely new trail in regards to 1) understanding it, 2) designing it and 3) explaining it to others. The latter being, perhaps, the most frustrating challenge. :)

ehehe... I haven't gone so abstract since English Literature finals. Another big issue here is that even if one of us gets to a stage where we're 100% certain we have the breakout 'art' title, there's still the small matter of getting it made, published, and sold.

Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Dickens, etc, etc... and each and every artist in history has had to find a way to get their art to pay for itself. Writing the next great novel is (publishing aside) a solo effort... getting a game from conception to product these days can take a cast of hundreds, not to mention all of the suits that need to be convinced at every step of the way. Hence the need for a Spielburg or Peter Jackson of gaming, someone who can do whatever the hell he wants without answering to anyone.

I'll be happy getting game one out the door (hopefully soon!) and selling. Whether or not it's art is the least of my concerns :)

I don't know of any bills that are in danger of passing that would prevent adults from buying the content they like.  If such a bill exists, it is certainly being touted as a way to protect kids.  (Otherwise it would get no support).

However, even if such a bill were to pass it would likely be challenged up to the supreme court level and judged as pornography.  Otherwise, any bill would be struck down as unconstitutional.  (God bless the bill of rights).

But the fact remains that if we don't clean up our acts, someone will do it for us.

Nice picture.  How does she stand upright?

The game is actually a challenge to get her to stand upright. With each level, she increases by a cup size.

I don't know if you can actually claim that even a great game like (say) Grim Fandago qualifies as art. Maybe the storytelling aspects can be considered art/literature. The actual gameplay mechanics? Just a bit of linear puzzle solving. Sure, sometimes you can solve the puzzles in a different order, but what do these "choices" tell you, artistically? Nothing. The gameplay can be fun, challenging, satisfying... but it definitely isn't art.

I think that's where Roger Ebert is coming from. Say, for instance, the way the player plays Grim Fandango had great effect on what other characters did and how the storyline would develop. Because the player has control now, he could do meaningless/non-dramatic actions (say, jumping off a building for no reason). The storytelling is now interactive, and thus part of the game(play), but is it still art? Is the story still trying to tell us something if it is the player that shapes the story?

Roger Ebert thinks not, personally I think they could be. I think it depends hugely on the "meaningful choices" the player is given. Too little, and it's not really interactive anymore (I don't consider a game with "3 different endings!" an interactive story), too much and there's a risk of the player performing nonsense actions again. In any case, I don't think any game so far has ever had any non-visual artistic merits intrinsic to the medium.

Ebert seems to be holding the old line, much like early film, rock'n'roll and any new media, people who have staked a claim on a medium that is slowly being edged out (or at least competed with -- as the game industry is obviously doing to film and television) have something to lose in the face of the new up-coming medium.

Beyond this, I think Ebert is doing what many Video Games theoreticians do--namely, comparing apples to oranges. Film, literature, and video games are three radically different mediums of entertainment/art and what works in examining one does not always apply in examining the other.

This is especially true of video games, which require the construction of whole new area of study, including method, terminology, etc. The construction of this area of study is just beginning as we debate on this site--taking place within the industry, popular media, and the academy all at the same, though sometimes hindered by the biases of each segment of the population.

Just my thoughts on the idea, please e-mail me with arguments, questions, or concerns.

Chris Chasteen
chasteec@uwec.edu

who's this Ebert guy and why's he so popular and well-known?

Roger Ebert is a popular film critic in the US. He's very intelligent and an excellent writer (got a pulitzer for it) and he's respected enough here to make an opinion on what art is and isn't and have people listen to him.

For more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Ebert

This isn't exactly on-topic, but: Fifteen years ago today I booted up "The Secret of Monkey Island" for the first time. My expectations of computer games have never been the same since.

(Also, I acquired this weird habit of squeezing any rubber chickens that cross my path, just to see if they contain pulleys.)

Thank you, Ron. It was a privilege to taste the fruits of adventure gaming's Golden Age. May its Platinum Age come quickly. In the meantime, I'm eager to see more of your creative output in any medium.

Yeah, that's a very good point

ok...
so, games may have visual art, sound, literature, sculpture, etc...and all this can be considered art.
if I put a Rembrandt as wallpaper in my computer, does it makes my pc art?
I don't think so.
I do belive that games are art, but not all.
what defines games as art is the intereactivity...intereactivity can be art.
where is it written that interactivity isn't art?
opening a bottle of water is not art, but playing tetris it is.
rez, for example, is truly art...
or ninja gaiden. most of you wouldn't consider this game as art, but as I see it, it really is.
the combat mechanics in this game are almost perfect.
we should be talking about gameplay...

another art game is katamari damacy....

Why do you delete my posts Ron? It hurts my feelings.

Because you suck.

OWNED

¿how can we know if a game is art if we don´t really know what´s art?
the definition is very complex, inexistent or ambiguous. i think that is mostly a title made to gain respect.

¿why art has to bring emotions and depth thoughts?
it isnt the main common form of art. art has many forms, every new form bring a new "tool" to make art. in videogames we have the interactivity. the art have to be there, not in the story, the cut scenes or the individual elements. for example tetris, is almost indisputable that it is art, but the it is in the basic gameplay. itself can have metaphores about life or hipnotic behavior or an harmonyous movement etc...

games are more similar to music than to movies or books. its primary function and diference is the interactivity. but both need harmony. a good game have armony in the desing. if the elements are rigth combined the player can have the same pleasure that a music listener. for example, in super mario bross the pleasure comes with the perfect play. when you die its like missing a note.
In music you can not to have emotions or thougs, it doesn make sense in a logic way for the inexpert listener, either do tetris. i cant cry with tetris, sometimes i cry with music. but some complex games can make you cry, like metal gear solid or laugh like MI or grim fandango but it isnt its primary function. the primary function of games is an excelent gameplay that can be played in a perfect and harmonious way.
~~---~~--~~---~~--~~---~~--~~---~~--~~---~~--~~---~~--~~---~~--~~---~~--~~---~~--~~---~~--~~---~~---
i dont know if my idea is well write because i´m not an english talker.

Wayne Shorter, the great jazz saxophonist once said, ?A series of vibrations. What does it matter, the source of the catalyst??. This could be taken as what does it matter who wrote it, but really i believe it pertains to the form in which it is portrayed to the audience, 'it' being art. These categories that people have made are bad and the boundaries don't seem to be given any thought. Also what does it matter whether art is being controlled by one person or whether there is freedom within one person's vision. When Coltrane is playing and improving over the chords given to him by another composer is that not art just because one person isn't in control of the piece as a whole? If anything, Interaction with art is a higher form of art; it allows you bring someones conception to a higher and more personal level. So really i think the whole argument is a category issue and just a bunch of bs; if a person doesn't believe in they're craft enough to say that what they're doing is art, maybe they shouldn't be doing it anymore.

yes, there is authorial control of games. Just look at such grumpy games as MI1 and MI2. It is more obvious when a puzzle can be solved in one way and one way only, but yes there is authorial control in games

Perhaps more in some genres than others, but if there wasnt any- how could the game concept be limited and not unlimited?

hehe boobs is a result for directing something at an intended audience

not unlike the differentiation between children's books and non-children's books ;)

in the case that movies can be considered an artform, then isnt it a paradox that the film Doom is a direct result from a game or three called Doom?

No, that was just a really bad idea.

That movie would have been so much better if the entire thing was in FPS-mode, shooting stuff. And if they had demons in it. Nothing but zombies = the yawn.

- SPOILERS AHOY -

(I also didn't "get" that the character with the nickname Pinky turned into a Pink Demon later on; I learned this reading a wiki article yesterday. The Doom 3 designs scare me. I don't have a clue what anything is supposed to be in that game.)

There are games where the designer is known by name, but it seems to be limited to those who are lucky enough to publish their own work. Ragnar Tornquist, Benoit Sokal, etc.

Sid Meier's Civilization

First published by Microprose (1 and 2)
Then by Infogrames (3)
Then by Atari (3+ expansions)
Now by Take2 (4 + series)

Never by Firaxis (which would have been close enough for you to call it "publish their own work" )

Therefore, not limited to those who are lucky enough to publish themselves.

I think that's a special case. Sid Meier has a status as being one of the most respected game designers in the business, so regardless of whether he was making a game for EA, Vivendi, Atari, or what have you, they'd put his name on the box, because people recognize it. If Johnny Johnson designed a game and it was published by any of those publishers, it wouldn't be Johnny Johnson's Castle Adventures, it'd be Castle Adventures.

Also, just to be nitpicky, Infogrames and Atari are the same company, they just had a name change.

Just to be nice: I know ;)

As someone pointed out, Ebert is not saying games are not art; this would indeed be impossible, as pretty much everything that a man can do is art. So please stop debating "are games art", because nobody is saying they aren't.

Once you've done that, you can start debating whether such a concept of "lesser art" or "minor art" actually exists, as Ebert thinks, or we are simply discussing the difference between establishment-sanctioned "official art" and popular art forms. As you can probably guess, rock'n'roll wasn't considered "art" until the Elvis-influenced generation got old enough to make it officially accepted as such; same happened with illustration and graphic design used in advertisement.

So don't worry about Ebert and his kind: they'll eventually die off and leave the planet to the MonkeyIsland-influenced generation, that will proceed to put games into museums (someone already does). The battle against official perception is fought by catering to the right market. If you keep making games for 16-years old, they'll keep thinking of the industry as a joke... look at the comic-book industry, it took almost a century for them to produce good "adult" works, so they still struggle with the same problems. Make a PeterGabriel-like, DavidByrne-like kind of game, make it great, right now, and the establishment will take you seriously.

"I am prepared to believe that video games can be elegant, subtle, sophisticated, challenging and visually wonderful. But I believe the nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art."

It sounds like he's saying "games are not art."

also, why is it impossible for him to say games are not art?

I can say 2+2=5.

People say false things all the time.

2+2=5

See, I did it.

2+2 can be 5 when 2 approaches something.

Erm...

Whatever

When comparing artistic qualities of movies, one may state that a particular movie is more artistic than another because of the photography used, or the emphasis on music or some other element of it.
Quite the same in games, a composition of images, graphic animations and music. It just have a different pace from a movie. And there is artistic value even on the way that the story is revealed to the player.

Roger Ebert is missing something there. Probably because he had never experienced a video game before, like he had with comic books and other kinds of entertainment media. I mean, you can just play a game, or you can also experience it, criticize it, talk with friends about what you like in it or don't, remember it. Just like people and movie critics do with movies.

Games like the Metal Gear Solids and Half-Life 2s of the world contain far more artistic merit than most movies I have seen in recent memory.
I think Ebert doesn't appreciate games like these though, because it's the player who has control over the camera - which make it impossible for him to analyze them in a film-centric way.

But the blame here shouldn't fall squarely on Ebert. It's safe to say that most gamers fail to respect the game-as-art as well, and that's a big problem.

I think Metal Gear Solid 2 is a good example, since very few people seem to have gotten that it was a postmodernist story about identity. Instead, it was just an insane japanese game that made no sense but the graphics were ok.
Half-Life 2 is also loaded with thematic elements and social commentary. Like MGS2, it's about postmodernism as well, or at least about how pure modernist ideology is undesirable in comparison.
Yet I've only seen two articles posted online that discuss these games' artistic merit through in-depth analysis.
Compare that to the countless thousands or millions of reviews out there (both professional or not) that say little more than "good graphics, story ok. 8/10"

Someone wrote a few comments back that the Citizen Kane of the videogame industry would focus on the nature of freedom and control.
But both those games use those ideas as key themes already.

In that respect, Ebert's position is flawed, but understandable. If gamers can't respect games as art, then who will?

It's good, however, to remember that even Citizen Kane was a box-office flop when it first came out. It's hopefully just a matter of time and a little more thought.

The problem is, as I see it, that there are no good examples of video game as art. So Metal Gear Solid 2 addressed some postmodern issues; did it do it in a way that was even close to work done in other mediums? If one has even a casual grounding in postmodern literature or film, MGS2 was obviously a substandard work.

I'm sympathetic to the view that videogames have failed to reach an acceptable level of artistic quality when compared to other mediums. This is not an argument anything like Adorno's comments on pop or jazz music. I think that video games are a sufficient medium for the production of high quality art. The problem is that nobody's made it and nobody would buy it (in the present state of affairs). You might be tempted to bring up other examples like ICO or Longest Journey, but these games only stand out as "higher art" or "good art" when compared to other videogames. When the comparrison extends to visual art, literature, or music in general, then video games start to look pretty awful in comparrison.

I think there are some standards to taste: I don't think someone well versed in music, literature, or visual art could genuinely see videogames games as even coming near the achievement of non-videogame work in these categories. Likewise, if somone did hold the belief that videogames have achieved true artistic merit (in the sense of being "high art" or "good art") I would assume, and most likely be right, that they have very narrow lenses and a limited amount of experience with art in general.

I think videogames as a medium are very capable of achieving true greatness, but it hasn't happened yet, and probably won't in the future. Maybe this is because of market pressures, or some other reason, but the art category of videogames has shown great potential, but has provided no fruit.

sorry, i meant to say it won't happen in the near future* bad editing skills

And the way Half-Life and MGS deal with this great conflict of moral and social issues? Blowing up and killing (either outright or by stealth) almost everything that moves! Even most "hollywood blockbusters" have just a little bit more nuance than HL or MGS (they're rarely only about action), let alone Citizen Kane...

To me, the "Citizen Kane of the videogame industry" would not only focus on the nature of freedom and control, but would let the player actually explore these issues and see how his choices (not pre-scripted choices the player must make because the game dictates it) affect the game-world and people in that game world. "Killing" or "not killing" a character is a bit too limited.

good point. This reminds me of an earlier post mentioning art on a game box depicting a female in "combat thong." Artistic vision does not have a lot of influence on game design in general and designers tend to resort to the most simplistic techniques, rarely moving beyond the primitive sex and violence.

HaHA! I found a loop-hole to your dastardly plan Ron! You will never be able to fully ban me! Muhahahaha! Ofcourse, you wouldn't know wha that is,that is Murray's signature laugh.Murray was a talking skull in MI3. The only good Monkey Island, and guess what, you didn't even write it! Good Luck Ron. Iwill see you in hell

The real Murray has a message for you...you are an ass.

Shortly after writing this post, the sheer mass of our friend's idiocy caused him to implode. Like a black hole filled with dog shit and suck.

Wow, that was lamer than JFK.

Yeah that makes sense. Can we ban this turd again Ron?

LMFAO WAIT I GET IT HE MEANT FDR

Holy CRAP are you an idiot.

Wow. No, seriously.

No. Seriously.

This just in:
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/fun.games/12/02/game.ban.ap/index.html

I think the biggest problem isn't that the Paul Anderson's and "Dr." Uwe Boll's aren't doing a good enough job(don't worry, that's a big chunk of the problem too). It's that the videogames we know to be true art, that give us an experience that could easily fit alongside the supposedly superior films of our time, aren't even being considered for feature film distribution.

Honestly, who asked for a Bloodrayne movie? Or Tomb Raider? Or friggin' DOOM?

Where's Vagrant Story? Where's Metal Gear Solid? Where's Shadow of the Colossus?

At least Squenix is bringing Advent Children our way. It may not be the most intellectual romp through a feature film, but what are the odds that it's gonna make Mortal Kombat: Annihalation look good in comparison?

Maybe if we had more people like Peter Jackson supporting our pass-time, these big-wig movie executives would get it in their heads that video games are not just brainless adventures through button-mashing, as Mr. Ebert thinks they are. Although he did give props to Final Fantasy, which is a considerably less-traveled road, but it's a thumbs up nonetheless.

It's not even that he's being ignorant or stubborn on the issue. In fact, I think he'd be very willing to give video-game movie adaptations a chance. But only if movie is worth seeing, let alone paying those outrageous theatre prices for. The man is a great appreciater of art in all it's forms, and he believes movies should be a way to express art and ideas. But would you call Street Fighter art? How about Resident Evil? Is Dungieon Siege on par with the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien? No wonder he doesn't have faith in videogames. Look at the current list of representatives.

I just have a problem with the concept that games have to have stories to compete as an art.

Let's stop having Hollywood envy.

Interactive design is an art.  The physics of a world.  Up until late in the 1800's all visual was just trying to create accurate representations of our world.  Then it found abstraction.

Videogames began with abstraction and are now have the ability to create worlds in a way that no other form of art can.  What greater art than defining the rules of a whole world.

The argument that art must make you cry is, to be blunt, stupid.  I don't see too many people openly weeping when they look at 'Blue Boy' in Huntington Gardens.

The Marx Brothers made you cry from laughing, but doesn't make you cry like 'The English Patient.'  (Although I was crying just wishing the movie would end.

I believe videogames as an art hit an entirely different portion of the brain than previous art forms, or perhaps it has the opportunity to hit all portions of the brain simultaneously.

How many avant garde artists have tried and failed to make a compelling play with audience interaction.  I think JM Barrie may have been the only success having children clap to show that they believe in fairies.

I believe we should stop validating Eberts dumb argument by forcing games into the realm of prior art.  He's ill informed.

But let's not kid ourselves.  Games are also toys.  Toys and art.
The only way to shut critics up is to make better games.

I like these lines:

Interactive design is an art. The physics of a world. Up until late in the 1800's all visual was just trying to create accurate representations of our world. Then it found abstraction.

The only way to shut critics up is to make better games.

We all know that games are as much an artform as anything, but like most new artforms it will take a while for the general population to catch up.  Which it will, since games aren't going anywhere.

Its to be expected that someone who is an 'expert' on a given artform will consider theirs to be superior - it happens time and time again.  Movies would have never made the transition had they all been 'Terminator' style action flicks (despite being perfectly valid in their own way), and games will never convert the critics with re-creations of World War 2, no matter how well they are done.

The transition seems to need deep and meaningful stories, perhaps because they trigger more discussion amongst people.  It just seems to be the way its done.

Look behind you! (It's a three headed monkey)

Panto is the most interactive sort of theatre, and it's probably the last form of theatre you'd call art. Ebert has a good point, and it's one that's echoed in lots of academic game projects that I've seen concentrating on interactive storytelling. Giving the player power decreases the artistic power of the author. He knows what he's talking about.

It's a basic limitation and constraint of the interactive art form that is games. Working with this constraint in a way that expresses the artistic wishes of an author, in spite of player power, is the unique skill that has yet to be fully explored by the innovators of the field (not least of whom runs this very page).

Making better games - that's the ticket. Defining the rules of a world - that's the train track. Games are art - that's the destination. It's a good thing that we're not there yet, because there's lots of undiscovered country out there, room to breathe.

Why do you think an author has to have ultimate control over the work, and how does decreasing the power of the author decrease the artistic value of the work?

Because of my definition of art:- the expression of a specific intent of the author. When the player takes full control it ceases to be art, and becomes a toy. This is where I agree with Ebert, however, don't misunderstand me - a game author can fully control the experience that a player is having (thereby retaining his status as an artist), while allowing for a certain amount of interactivity.

If the player is experiencing something that the author (one of the designers,developers,artists,whatever...) did not intend, then that player is not experiencing a piece of art, although there is a certain amount of flexibility in the audience's perception of the piece. You might not get the full picture, but if the artist's intent was that you did, it doesn't make the piece any less of a work of art.

In, say, a Will Wright Sim game, the intent is that you experience the set of rules , not a specific situation. Wright's genius is that no matter what you do within his rules, you are experiencing the artistically created simulation, and seeing something that demonstrates the rules of it.

If insufficient thought and consideration is put into the creation of the game world, the designer is not an artist. Does that answer your question?

1. Does the player ever take "full" control in a game?

2. Does intent matter at all? How can we ever know an author's intent? We look at art like, such as a painting (like the mona lisa, or whatever), we know it's art without asking the author. What if a certain work was not intended as art, but has been regarded as such? Is it no longer art, is it incorrectly identified as art? I think you're putting too much on the author here, and I don't think it's a tenable position. How do you know will wright's intent? what if he died without saying? Even if he says that was his intent, can we believe him? All we can go on is what it means to us; this is the most reliable source for judging things as art.

It doesn't matter if the player experiences something the author didn't intend. We don't let author's publish a book of errata to go along with their works when they have failed to produce the meaning that the author intended. Such an author might say "you're not experiencing my work because you aren't experriencing what I intended" and we could reply "I'm experiencing based on what you put forth, what you actually said." Intent doesn't matter in the slightest, all that matter is the work at hand, it's all we have to go on. In the realm of academic and philosophical aesthetics the importance of author's intent has been essentially tossed out. These thinkers do a better job at explaining this than I can, so look up some of the writings of Beardsley and Wimsatt.

It seems we could make the argument that players co-author their own experiences in some games. I don't see how this can automatically count against the aesthetic worth of the game. You can sight a lot of bad examples of interactive storytelling, so what? It doesn't mean the great work is not forthcoming, but it might indicate that this is a very difficult way to produce art.

I am still not convinced that reduced authorial control always counts against
the aesthetic worth of a game. I think this can only result from a primitive conception of art.

Also, can you qualify the phrase "insufficient thought and consideration" in your last sentence, because I have no idea what this means. What are the necessary and(or) sufficient conditions that the author's thought and consideration were sufficient for that author to have created art? Here, all that should matter is the quality of the game world as art, and this has nothing to do with thought or consideration. I could think and consider all i want and make crap, where as an expert game maker could probably produce an aesthetically superior work with 10% of the thought and consideration. Also, you'd have a hard time convincing me that my work was not art. I could easily be persuaded that it is bad art, but that it's not art at all? Please flesh out your account a little more so that I can understand it fully.

"I am still not convinced that reduced authorial control always counts against the aesthetic worth of a game. I think this can only result from a primitive conception of art. "

I agree with this and I don't think what I was saying earlier precludes it. It's another facet of the artistic expression in a game, to afford power to the player while still maintaining a coherent vision.

"..., all that should matter is the quality of the game world as art, and this has nothing to do with thought or consideration."

Well, not nothing to do with it. I left out inspiration, subconscious vision, hard work, empathy, and all the other things that I imagine artists use as their tools of the trade.

I like the idea of using the word 'art' to mean good art implicitly. bad art is just a bad painting, a bad poem, a bad whatever.

So I suppose I'm left with: Insufficient <whatever tool of the trade> produces bad art.

I'm not on the other side of the fence to you, I just think that Ebert's view of the industry isn't that far off what a lot of grumpy game devs have been saying for a while. And it probably requires more artistry to produce a game that will generally be recieved as art, than in any other medium. You can't really program by accident. It's not like throwing paint at a computer or something.

"Because of my definition of art:- the expression of a specific intent of the author. When the player takes full control it ceases to be art, and becomes a toy. This is where I agree with Ebert, however, don't misunderstand me - a game author can fully control the experience that a player is having (thereby retaining his status as an artist), while allowing for a certain amount of interactivity.

You say right right here that if the author loses full control he ceases being an artist, which would imply he hasn't produced art. So it seems that you are saying player control counts against a games status as an artwork.

"inspiration, subconscious vision, hard work, empathy"

"Insufficient <whatever tool of the trade> produces bad art"

"You can't really program by accident. It's not like throwing paint at a computer or something."

"Insufficient <whatever tool of the trade> produces bad art. "

This last definition is still not entirely acceptable. It is very possible to "program by accident" if you think of it in the right sense. What this would be is not blind hammering of the keyboard, but a kind of luck element where a programmer stumbles on to something good by accident, or ends up tinging some aesthetic response in the people who experience his art that he never intended, and he may not entirely understand the mechanism himself. This happens all the time in art--things happen that the author never intended to the benefit of the work. I suppose you could add luck to your definition.

>insufficient [whatever/luck]> produces bad art>.

again, you havn't really defined insufficient. It seems you would judge this by looking at the work, determining it to be bad art, and assuming logically that it had some flaw in it's creation cause by some insufficient aspect in its creation.

So basically you're saying that if a piece of art is good> it must have been made good through sufficient inputs, such that it be deemed good art> and therefore a good designer.

The last part is only true if you still feel comfortable saying the designer is a good artist if they created good art as a result of chance. If yes, then good art is made by good artists. If no, then bad artists can make good art through luck.
Again, it all falls back to the work itseld, you can only judge the creative process and the artist as good by the quality of work. Seems like a fairly useless thing to even go back to the creative process. anyways, i'm getting off on a tangent here. My main problem was that you make very strong claims, as i've shown in the first quote, and as a result of you using art to denote good art (and i assume artist to denote good artist). But since you've clarified/backed off of these strong claims, i'm thinking also that we are at agreement at some fundamental level.

To clarify, my main point is that the author or artitist is a lot less important than we make him/her out to be. I don't know if I've made this clear or not, as I write here off the cuff.

The author's intent doesn't matter in regards to the quality of the work. All that matters in regards to the quality of the work is the meaning or aesthetic value that the work actually ends up conveying to those who experience. I'm sympathetic to the idea that those who might be called "good artists" are better at conveying the meaning they intend properly. That is to say that, those who are good artists are more consistent in creating a meaningful and valuabel experience. Of course, we can never really know what the artist intended or what experience they wanted us to have, all we can go by is what we experience. One regarded as a good artist in this sense may have produced a lot of art considered "good" and is judged a good artist, when he/she was only a very lucky one, who happened to tinge the responses that lead it to be regarded as good art through chance (if this distinction matters to you that is). So any argument that relies on the idea that an author's intent matters, as you seemed to say in your above post, or the idea that authorial/artistic control really matter, are weak arguments in my eyes.

Authorial/artistic control doesn't matter to much to me either. If the intent doesn't matter, but only the experience the artwork produces in us, then it seems silly for anyone to say that the lack of artistic control counts against the experience of the game as a work of art. However, it seems that you, at least judging by the post above, and Ebert, who goes as far as to state that it is a necessary aspect of art or that the lack of it counts against a works status or value as art. I think we need to resist this assertion--giving the player control over the experience does not count against it necessarily. In fact, the increased emotional interest of the player because of the immersive quality of the game (which is a result of the players behavior with/towards the game as much as it is a result of the artwork in itself) can actually lead to a deeper experience than other mediums.

I'm somewhat sympathetic to your clarified argument, which is much like Gilbert's original post, stating that game creators do have authorial/artistic control, but that it allows for player choice (or something to that effect). One could argue that the control only needs to be their in some limited sense, which I think the claims at hand tacitly imply, but I still want to resists this. I think things that happen in the creative force and on to the gamer and then within the gamers experience are so random, variable, contingent, etc... that the idea that art requires an author/artist expressing an idea is too simplistic for me--he/she might not even know/understand the idea he/she is expressing, or express an idea unintentionally. I'm not entirely sure if I can completely do away with this line of argument you and others have made (either one similar to Ebert's in regards to artistic control, or weaker in the sense that it need not be so absolute, but must be present to some degree, the latter of which I'm more sympathetic to.), but I still want to resist it.

Again, I really think you're right that we are in agreement here for the most part. I'm just trying to make heads or tails of the idea or concept of an 'author/artist', a concept I'm not entirely ready to accept as a necessary or coherent concept just yet.

I wasn't going to reply 'cause I can't say anything good about your previous two posts. You're putting words in my mouth and basically restating this over and over:

the idea that art requires an author/artist expressing an idea is too simplistic

which is patent nonsense.

But I read this today and I think it has a lot to teach us about games, so I'd like to add it here in the hopes that someone who hasn't seen it before might read it:

Every media's greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. Every form of media is a set of fundematal compromises, one is not "higher" than the other. A painting doesn't do much, it just sits there on a wall. That's the best and worst thing thing about it. Film combines sound, movent, photography, music, acting. That's the best and worst thing thing about it. Prose just uses words arranged in linear form to get its point across. That's the best and worst thing thing about it etc.

I'm stating your argument exactly how you said it in your posts. Maybe you didn't mean what you said, but that's what you said, so whatever.

And the quote you used has little to do with the argument at hand (the argument Ebert made, and the one you seem to accept to some degree). Different mediums have different strengths and limitations, so what? Every medium has it's limitations, in the case of video games I don't think the players control over the work counts against it as an artwork. The claim that it does seems to rely too much on some sacred author/artist and his/her vision which is believed to be a sacred concept, seen as the ultimate or the highest meaning that a work can have. I'm assuming that you are implying that the weakness of games is the weakened role of the author. If not, please explain what you do think.

Alright, The quote was there to intimate the idea that what people like Ebert call the weakness of games as a medium - their interactivity - was also their greatest strength. This is what I've been trying to say, augmented by the point that the increased power of the player (interactivity) does make it harder to put forward a coherent artistic vision, yet this difficulty can be overcome in a way that can effect people in a form that is unique to the medium.

This is where I think we're getting our wires crossed. When I say it's a limitation or a constraint, I'm not saying that as a value judgement. A game isn't worse off for those constraints, it's the more a game for them.

We think the same thing, but for different reasons; Games are an exciting and worthwhile medium. You think this (from what I can see) because it gives the player a chance to express their artistic desires in collaboration with the game maker. I don't buy that.

I think that games offer a new dimension of creativity for an artist, granted that that dimension hasn't been explored fully yet, so I can't define it. You can see glimpses of it in some games - The Last Express jumps to mind right now.

Right on. I agree with your claim. It read to me, and maybe I was primed from reading the Ebert section and other posts, that it had some link with artistic value. But I understand you now.

"We think the same thing, but for different reasons; Games are an exciting and worthwhile medium. You think this (from what I can see) because it gives the player a chance to express their artistic desires in collaboration with the game maker. I don't buy that."

Not quite my argument. I'll try to make this as quick as possible. What I said was that someone could make an argument like this, and I find it somewhat compelling, but my point is that the author/artist has little control of the work and what it will mean during creation, and the context it is experienced in (among other factors) can have drastic effects on the experience a person has as a result of the artwork. I would say this is true of all art. So as I see it, handing them the controller doesn't decrease artistic control all that drastically in the grand scheme of things because their really isn't a lot of control over art in general.

Anyways, I think your claim that "increased power of the player (interactivity) does make it harder to put forward a coherent artistic vision" is true. And I agree with the second part of the claim as well "this difficulty can be overcome in a way that can effect people in a form that is unique to the medium. "

I don't know if you're old enough to remember, but in the mid 90's there was a large body of work built up around 'interactive storytelling.'  It was a failure both artistically and financially.  It's been explored, deeply and, if I can quote from that great cinematic wonder, Juarssic Park, it has been "selected out by nature."

I actually worked for a company where the whole business model was built on merging Hollywood storytelling and interactivity.  I drank the Kool-Aid for a while, but I've done a 180.

I wouldn't call the loss of controll a limitation.  I would call it the fundament of the art form.

hmmm. It's sort of disheartening to see someone like you (you've a classic - and commercially successful - interactive story under your belt, no??) giving up on it. I'm still expecting to see a great IS phoenix-like revival when the current games industry falls to inevitable ashes.

There are still some strides being made towards artistically interesting interactive stories - facade, fahrenheit, bone..., I'm sure there's more I can't think of right now.

I don't see it as giving up. I think my games were successful in the context of the available technology. (Not the ones at Rocket Science, Inc., just the LucasArts ones). But the technology has evolved and so has my understanding of the medium.

Personally, I'm waiting for text adventures to burst back into the mainstream zeitgeist.

I dropped some lengthy comments on this on my personal site. but since your site doesn't seem to support trackbacks (and since I missed a lot of juicy discussion in this thread, I think), I randomly felt like leaving a comment here with some links. :)

Part 1: http://www.theantnest.com/archives/2005/ebert-on-videogames-pt1/
Part 2: http://www.theantnest.com/archives/2005/ebert-on-videogames-pt2/

And conventional artists try so hard making interactive art.

Example: a scandinavian artist put fish in several blenders, giving the public the option to rip the poor fishies to oblivion.  At the end of the oblivion, most fish were reduced to little bits of skin and gut at the bottom of their blender.
The point comes across much easier this way than by a static, orchestrated painting or a 2 hour play.

You give the user a context and an interaction medium that happens to be virtual.  In a virtual world you have A LOT more options as a developer to create a richer context and more complex interaction methods.  Not to mention getting a point across without sacrificing innocent goldfishies.

Ebert is smoking crack.

I say this because while a director may have previous authorial control over the film, he can't control the psyche of the audience.

I.e., we all experience films through our own personal biases. A movie that resonates with you may not resonate with me. In short, a movie viewing experience has 2 parts -- the film, and the viewer.

Like it or not, a film director's best laid plans can completely fall flat if the viewer has the wrong mental/emotional/historical/contextual perspective. The movie may continue playing along on its rigidly deterministic path, but the audience may have already dropped out.

Well, that's art for you.

This type of 'interactivity' (interpretation) is typically acknowledged as distinct from what normally considered 'interactivity' (reconfiguration/ergodic reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergodic_literature), though.

Sure. My point is simply that any time there is a creator and an audience, the net result is collaborative. This makes it so that the creators intent may fail.

I.e., I may lack the vocabulary or education to experience certain literature the way the author intended. I may lack the visual arts experience to appreciate the subtlety in a certain painting. I may not have grown musically enough to enjoy complex Jazz.

So if these other arts are only effective in so much as a viewer/reader/listener has the tools to experience them the way the creator intended, how are games any different?

While games offer a unique medium to put the user in a context, interact with it and act on his own decisions, there are barely ANY games that actually try to put some catharsis in it. Or any result of your actions for that matter.

"Get quest from villages to kill the nasty monster, kill monster, yay everyone happy."

Why not make it something like this:

"Kill dragon, amonster shows up that happens to have the dragon as natual predator. All villages die because the dragon wasn't there to protect the village."

I would offer my firstborn child to the game that does something like Austin Powers, where the family of the henchmen that died are shown when they receive the news that their spouce/friend died.

Your site doesn't seem to support trackbacks, but I left some comments regarding you, Ebert, games and art on my blog in an op-ed piece.

http://www.mikehuang.com/blog/archives/001465.html

I think people tend to forget (or are not even aware) that GTA: Vice City (and the other GTA games for that matter) is basically a satire on American society. Its cleverly woven into an ensemble of violence and destruction but its there.

Quote:
To my knowledge, no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers.

What should that mean? For me and my friends, when we talk about things, games are on the same level as music, films and books. But I don't say much about games when I talk to people who don't play them. Would someone cite a book if he does not read books?

Ebert makes a lot of sense. There are hundreds of thousands of books, films, musical works, and visual works of art spanning thousands of years and hundreds of cultures. Most people will not be able to access even one percent of such a vast store of human knowledge.

Computer games are toys, just like board games. That is why it is not surprising that their biggest audience is composed mostly of children. And many who play computer games outgrow them. The same cannot easily be said about Shakespeare, Fellini, and Delacroix. In fact, the opposite takes place for great works of art: people learn to appreciate them only as they grow older.

Perhaps one day computer games will become part of "required readings" in schools, but only because more and more children will read less and will spend more time playing them. And they will play them because of the beautiful images and sound. (Let us not kid ourselves by dreaming that one day, interactive fiction in text form will return and overwhelm Hollywood-like computer games.)

Perhaps one day computer games will even replace books and works of art. In a way, that is already happening in the U.S., where more young people spend more time playing games than going to museums or even reading. Let us not think, for a moment, though, that such games will become great because they provoke readers in the same way that Kubrick and Shakespeare do. Likely, they excite gamers and make them happy, in the same way that Hollywood movies, pop music, graphic novels, and television shows entertain them, too. If that is the meaning of greatness, then in the realm of mass entertainment everything becomes great.

To forum posters, stop justifying the existence of something that is part of an industry that is already making more money than the Hollywood industry. Stop defending what doesn't need to be defended. Stop insisting on focusing on something that you already engage and that may take up more and more of your free time as you grow older. Finally, imagine what happens when you reach an age when loud noise and fast images start hurting your ears and eyes, respectively. What will you do, then?

You likely have 70 years of life left, and probably only enough free time to appreciate (and by that I mean spend several hours mulling over) a thousand or so books, music albums, films, and so forth.

Make that time count. You've already played more than enough games. Give it a rest, and start following Ebert's advice.

stop justifying the existence of something that is part of an industry that is already making more money than the Hollywood industry

Not True

Oded Sharon makes sense. Also, factor in the resemblance of movies to computer games (e.g., CGI), the increasing insistence on interactivity (e.g., more features in DVDs), the increasing preference for straight-to-home viewing, the propensity of Hollywood to leech not only from dead wood but even from computer games, if not to work with game makers (e.g., King Kong, T3, Doom, LOTR, Resident Evil, and probably in the future Silent Hill), the use of pop actors for computer games, increasing use of the Internet among youngsters (which is often connected to online gaming), and more.

Not true? True? Does being short by several billion dollars merit the fact that computer gaming is marginalized and needs more support?

I'd put Space Invaders as a much more impressive piece of art than: La Strada, Dodeskaden, or Eyes Wide Shut.

God, I hate La Strada! When will that woman stop whining "Zampano! Zampano!" Horrible.

The whole autuer thing leads to a whole category of fanatic who gives a standing ovation to "1492: Conquest of the New World" just because Ridley Scott directed it, ignoring the fact that it was a rotten piece of art.

Maybe that woman belongs to an Italian countryside that experienced poverty right after WWII, or maybe she is part of a culture where such "whining" is normal. The same applies to Dodes'ka-den. I can't say the same for Eyes Wide Shut, since I see that as one of Kubrick's weakest films. I name authors, of course, because I can't type the titles of all of their best works.

I get this feeling, though, that you are not impressed by works that show poverty or slum areas, but I don't understand why you'd compare a children's arcade game to works that most kids will not appreciate.

One more thing: if Space Invaders is supposed to be such an "impressive piece of art," then why are most gamers playing games other than Space Invaders?

Getting a bit close to being labeled a troll, Danzig since you seem to respond with unbridled fury to someone you don't know.

Yes, we're all very impressed that you have a liberal arts education.

It's clear that you have YMTD, (young man's testosterone disorder), so I'm not going to poke the troll any further than this:

Space Invaders was not a kids game at the time of its release, so if you're going to join a discussion with people who are experts in BOTH fields you'd better know your history.

Secondly, if La Strada is such a great movie, why would most people (excepting college kids who saw it in film class and like to feel superior) watch just about anything else when given the choice?

Please make no mistake. The fact that I just asked a question should not be construed by you as a prompt to make another post.

Gee, I don't know. Why aren't all my local movie theatres still playing "Citizen Kane"?

Yeah, and for the same reason every picture frame in our house tends to hold a different image. =)

This argument has so many holes in it, it hardly exists at all.

Ebert "...been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers". Sorry, what?

He's saying that someone should compare a game (artifact) with a poet (producer)? This kind of category error brings into question the mans ability to reason.  Surely he means comparing game designers with poets, or games with poems?

Actually, no, we don't compare artifacts or producers from different disciplines either. We don't compare Monets Lillies with Beethovens 5th.  We look at  music in realtion to other music, and painting in terms of painting, and games in terms of games.

Then he seems to have conferred the status of high art to film. Last time I was in a gallery, the only 'film' I saw was a "video installation" of a man on a trampoline.

Even the most serious of film-making doesn't get 'high art' status. Sure there are 'art-house' movies etc. but they aren't taken seriously by the art establishment, only cliques of indie-film fans. Film is Pop-Culture, not high art, Ebert is being a bit prentious.

As for Auteur Theory... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auteur_theory  It is important to recognise that games are made by people, but because those people deserve recognition, and it allows us a human angle on the critique of games, but not because it transforms the medium from pop-culture into high art.

High art in iteslf is laughed at in the popular press, is generally seen as being the domain of sophisticates and snobs, is commercially volatile (relies on a very few patrons each paying vast sums of cash), so why on earth should game designers aspire to it?

Hey Ron, excuse me for this totally out-of-topic question, but I'm curious of your opinion about Curse of Monkey Island and Escape From Monkey Island..Do you like them?I'm not speaking of technical aspects, but of the stories.

I personally think CMI has some good points, while EMI has gone totally out of style, missin' the sense of humour of the others(Planet Threepwood, Monkey Combat ...what an ugliness!!!)

Look Ron, I realy don't like it when I have my posts deleted. I really don't want to inject with a leathal dose a SQL.

Then say something interesting and stop acting like your 14. I only delete your posts when you're just flaming someone. Other people manage to have heated conversations with each other, but still say something that is on-topic. Do the same and you're more than welcome here.

If you "don't really care anymore" why the hell you still posting?

Go away.

Anyone wants to know what a "piece of eight" is?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piece_of_eight

Hello, the problem with such discussions is that people don't define what art is, only what it isn't. It can't be because someone famous wrote it. It has to be more than that. I think the discussion would go further if he explained what factors are needed to make art first. Then, because he perhaps does not know the game world fully, people could have a go at giving counter examples.
To his points:
Authorial control is not actually what causes great art, it might afford factors that cause great art. Secondly, I am not sure if authorial art can have only one author or cannot happen in realtime. You could argue that great plays happen in realtime and have a cast, they are not works of art through script alone. One could also point out the authorial or auteur control does not directly relate to film success, at least commercially. Hollywood interfers you know and sometimes Directors are not always right (or focused)! It may not relate always to artistic success either. We could ask him to sit a blind (ie never seen before) test on say procedural vs auteur films and guess.
It is possible he believes great art have to be experienced and reflected on, and we typically don't have time for that in games--we are too busy playing. Then again, there are films that we are too busy experiencing to reflect on their aesthetic worth or great inspiring ideas until after we saw the film.
It is also possible he believes that you cannot enjoy great art as the creator--because creating art is a realtime interactive process such a belief would be logical. Ie art cannot be truly and deeply appreciated while being created. This is of course controversial.

Sorry for the long post.

Just a short comment on the 'Games have choices' matter: Does interactivity exclude art like that? Making a game can be more complex a process than making a movie (it always depends, of course) just because of all the choices that a player may make. As many of these choices should be incorporated within the design of a game.
It's exactly the game's real-time interactivity that tackles the linearity of a film, play or a fully arranged musical work. Coping with this can very well be seen as an artistic challenge. The real 'choice' a player makes, takes place in the context of the set of rules that the people behind the game have created.
I also think that story/narrative driven games usually incorporate preestablished cutscenes which allow for full authorial control. Even in RPG's with so-called character development (Fable, anyone?) any choice you make still pushes you further along the same line towards the same plot.
well, seeya

I would like to ask Mr. Ebert this question. "With your vast knowledge in film, and the intrige and courage to value other mediums I would like to inquire, is there an example of a 21th century film outdoing a renowned 19th century novel, without in-par comparisons of different standards?"

I inquire Mr. Ebert to shut up and get a real job.

My opinion: Roger Ebert looks like an asshole and talks like one, too.
Whose opinion is more valuable? Mine or Mr. Eberts?

If game is not art because it is interactive... what about the art within the game? I mean if there are art exibit within a museam and you can experience it interactively making your choices of what to see etc does that make those pieces not art?

The way I see it a game isn't a piece of art... it is a whole freakin art exibit that many many many artists worked on together to bring it to your personal museam (tv/monitor screen).

Why are you guys trying to convince the idiots that don't see game as art by making the play the game? Send them a piece of a games original soundtrack... or a completely non-interactive cutscene. Also send them a clip of comparable movie footage (with respect to the game cutscene your including) from some movie.

Also why does art have to have very high standards? I believe elephant dung classified as art for an exibit in New York defended by its curators not too long ago...

Has this link been sent to Ebert himself yet?

In my opinion, where 'art' movies specialise in exploring complex themes and ideas (such as the nature of war, love, etc), games specialise in creating an experience where the players can extract and understand themes without having to be steered there every step of the way. It is evident that games are 'art' when you step back and look at a game in its entirety, and realise how carefully crafted each aspect of your experience has been.

Example:

A horror movie can try to arouse the audience's empathy and make them feel like they are there, by focusing on a key character to identify with. But the fact remains that the audience are NOT there, they are watching with disattachment the events happen to somebody else.

A carefully crafted game, however, can make the player actually EXPERIENCE the character's emotions, rather than just watching them. Players can feel real adrenaline and fear as they walk down dark corridors with eery music and shadowy lighting.

Online games also show the potential for games exploring themes through interactivity which are hard for movies to convey to audiences. By playing a MMORTS recently I have experienced in-game battles which reflect on basic human nature (this is just a side-effect of the game being online, the players were not forced to behave this way - it just happens naturally). While a movie can only show cowardly soldiers deserting squad mates from self-interest, it can feel more real and less fictional when you actually play a game where everyone looks out for what is best for themselves, and battles are lost due to failure to obey orders from leaders, and the self-preservation of a unit's life rather than being willing to risk it to win the overall war.

Sorry if this may seem like rambling, but my thoughts are a bit muddled at the moment and I can't be bothered explaining in a clear, rational way.

How do i make a videogame??????@@@@@@@@@@!!!!!!!!!!

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Roger Ebert Kicks Puppies

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Posted by Dauntless on Dec 2, 2005 half past seven am

Posted by adfegg on Dec 1, 2005 ten past three am

Posted by Paalikles on Dec 2, 2005 quarter to two am

Posted by Ben on Dec 2, 2005 eight am

Posted by Paalikles on Dec 3, 2005 five to four am

Posted by Giacomo on Dec 1, 2005 ten to five am

Posted by questore on Dec 2, 2005 five past midnight

Posted by questore on Dec 2, 2005 twenty past midnight

Posted by Paalikles on Dec 3, 2005 five to four am

Posted by Canedo on Dec 1, 2005 ten past seven am

Posted by Mecha on Dec 2, 2005 five past seven am

Posted by questore on Dec 2, 2005 eleven am

Posted by questore on Dec 2, 2005 eleven am