Roger Ebert: Games are inferior to books, movies

[gh0st]

Yes, but one could also say the same thing about movies. Here's how:

'I don't admire the artfulness of movies as I watch someone blowing shit up and hacking people apart. How can you call that art?'

The fact is that you have to make the distinction between different types games as you do between movies. Just like not all games are mindless twitch-fests not all movies are artistic masterpieces, in fact most of them aren't.

And what do your pictures prove? Fat people can't watch paintings and thus painting is a legitimate artform?

i definitely agree. you could say that about creative abortions like "2 fast 2 furious". im not saying ALL movies are art. hell 98% of them are utter shit, particularly the tripe being spewed from hollywood.

the difference is that 2%. 2% of movies are art. 0% of games are.

 

[Absinthe]

0% of games are.

This depends on what you consider art.

Make a clear and concise definition.

 

[gh0st]

This depends on what you consider art.

Make a clear and concise definition.

art is what you make of it. if you consider it art then i suppose it is. i would say it isnt. if it gets a reaction out of you and gives your life meaning then great im glad youve found something that does.

for me, it doesnt. and it cant ever compare to classic literature and film.

 

[Absinthe]

Then it's settled.

 

[Sulkdodds]

here's a challenge. compare any game to beowulf or the odyssey or the republic. seriously compare the two.

I'm comparing, and what I'm getting is this:

One is a medium millenia old.
The other dates back around 40 years max.

if it gets a reaction out of you and gives your life meaning then great im glad youve found something that does.

Then to me, videogames can be art.

 

[Beerdude26]

Then it's settled.

Good.

Tea?

 

[gh0st]

and i will concede the point that video games are not directly comparable to movies and shouldnt be. maybe in 50 years they will be. hopefully they are. right now i would agree with ebert, but disagree that there wont EVER be a game to match more conservative forms of art.

 

[Raz]

Well, I'm glad some discussions actually reach satisfactory conclusions.

 

[KagePrototype]

Whoa. That's never happened before.

...do I close this or what? :|

 

[Beerdude26]

Well, I'm glad some discussions actually reach satisfactory conclusions.

Yes.

TEA?!!!

 

[Absinthe]

DAMN YOU AND YOUR TAINTED TEA

 

[Beerdude26]

DAMN YOU AND YOUR TAINTED TEA

MY TEA IS FINE, THANK YOUO

 

[Absinthe]

I CONTEND THAT IT IS NOT, GOOD SIR. I WOULD, IN FACT, SAY THAT YOUR TEA IS THE VERY OPPOSITE OF FINE. IT IS QUITE POOR, I SHOULD INFORM YOU.

 

[KagePrototype]

Ah, that's better. My head doesn't hurt anymore.

Oh, and stay on topic or I'll close!

 

[gh0st]

one more question for you guys who consider video games art.

lets take the movie schindlers list. i know that i personally was deeply impacted by that flick and it probably changed a lot of my character. most people have seen it, most people think its very good.

has ANY video game done that for you? i know i've never been emotionally impacted by a video game (yet), though i wait for the day when i will. or is it that film or literature is just better at story telling, and video games are better at interactivity.

 

[Beerdude26]

I CONTEND THAT IT IS NOT, GOOD SIR. I WOULD, IN FACT, SAY THAT YOUR TEA IS THE VERY OPPOSITE OF FINE. IT IS QUITE POOR, I SHOULD INFORM YOU.

HOW DARE YOU EVEN SUGGEST SUCH ACCUSATIONS? I DEMAND EVIDENCE!

Oh, and stay on topic or I'll close!

What topic? That topic has been solved
*Beerdude26 changes thread topic to "Is my tea good or not?"

 

[Que-Ever]

*spikes tea*

 

[KagePrototype]

one more question for you guys who consider video games art.

lets take the movie schindlers list. i know that i personally was deeply impacted by that flick and it probably changed a lot of my character. most people have seen it, most people think its very good.

has ANY video game done that for you? i know i've never been emotionally impacted by a video game (yet), though i wait for the day when i will. or is it that film or literature is just better at story telling, and video games are better at interactivity.

I personally wouldn't praise any video game on the same level as schindler's list; but then again the video game industry is still in it's infancy, and I do think that video games can (and hopefully will one day) have that effect on people. All it would need is an effective narrative that aimed to do it, and games like Silent HIll display designers who know how to tell an effective, subdued story.

(I can certainly name a few video games that did affect my emotionally, but only in the way a film can as well i.e. through an effective albeit linear story. I think if a game like Deus Ex had some emotional impact to it's characters and the choices you as a player made, then I would have simply answered yes)

[edit]: ok, I'm gonna edit a few posts

 

[Beerdude26]

one more question for you guys who consider video games art.

lets take the movie schindlers list. i know that i personally was deeply impacted by that flick and it probably changed a lot of my character. most people have seen it, most people think its very good.

has ANY video game done that for you? i know i've never been emotionally impacted by a video game (yet), though i wait for the day when i will. or is it that film or literature is just better at story telling, and video games are better at interactivity.

No game has done that for me, but some games leave an incredible impact on me that require days or even weeks for me to recover from. A few of those are :
-Beyond Good And Evil (Everything in that game was absolutely perfect)
-Brothers In Arms (Almost cried at this one )
-Jedi Outcast 2 (I just couldn't believe such an absolute great game was over.)
-Far Cry (Same as above, mind you that I've finished Far Cry a month prior to its release, and I was simply absolutely baffled.)

 

[Absinthe]

lets take the movie schindlers list. i know that i personally was deeply impacted by that flick and it probably changed a lot of my character. most people have seen it, most people think its very good.

has ANY video game done that for you?

No, but I think that's more of an issue with wanting to sell well as opposed to some kind of inherent flaw in the medium. I don't expect giants like EA to ever approve of a game with such hard-hitting emotional impact. Lukewarm accessibility in the form of the latest NBA roster update or new WW2 shooter is going to be opted for instead of the seriousness of genocide. It's simply not reached that kind of maturity yet and nobody wants to take the risk.

HOW DARE YOU EVEN SUGGEST SUCH ACCUSATIONS? I DEMAND EVIDENCE!

THE PROOF, SIR, IS IN THE PUDDING.

 

[Beerdude26]

*AUDIBLE GASP FROM EVERYONE IN THE FORUM*

'Tis true

On-topic :

No, but I think that's more of an issue with wanting to sell well as opposed to some kind of inherent flaw in the medium. I don't expect giants like EA to ever approve of a game with such hard-hitting emotional impact. Lukewarm accessibility in the form of the latest NBA roster update or new WW2 shooter is going to be opted for instead of the seriousness of genocide. It's simply not reached that kind of maturity yet and nobody wants to take the risk.

Indeed. Remember, that many of these incredibly serious films have also been heavily criticised. More people then watch them to see what all the fuss is about.
But gaming isn't quite ready for that step, which is very easy to prove with Jack Thompson's presence.

Let's keep art where it originally belonged for now. Games will be ready for it when the time has come.

 

[DeusExMachina]

The fact that when I'm playing a game and I have a choice to do something and when looking at the options, I hope the decision won't be the death of my NPCs or the world inside the game is enough for me. I remember playing the first Deus Ex and the three endings are shot at you, all I could think was "What would mankind actually benefit from?" As negative as people are against DX2, I found myself saying the same thing at the end as well. I believe video games are a whole other expression of art. While movie's are more of a "how do you feel", video games are a "why do you feel" in terms of emotion. With videogames, you can create more than just one feeling. You can get the how and why while movies you mostly only get the how.

 

[Sparta]

Da Vinci Code was tripe.

Sure it was cliched, and now i know alot of it is untrue, but it was heck of a lot of fun

 

[mortiz]

I've been emotionally impacted by Games plenty of times, in fact more so than most movies I care to mention, Schindlers List was a great movie but I wasn't really affected by it because the subject matter was so alien to me. I'm not Jewish, I don't have any Jewish relatives that died in WW2, hell, I don't know that anyone in my family died in WW2.

Some of the Final Fantasy, Silent Hill and Metal Gear Solid games all had an affect on me. I cared about the characters, after all in most of the Final Fantasy games your with the characters for 50+ hours.

 

[Sparta]

You care about fictional characters in video games but not the 10's of millions of actual people that were killed for no apparent reason in WW2? Sorry man but that sounds really odd, and just plain bias. Could be the truth, sure, but i'm sure there's bias in that opinion. If not, then i suggest you try watching Schindlers List again without distractions.

Although when it come to straight up fictional movies/films, every now and then an extraordinary game like Grim Fandango comes along and trumps some of the best Hollywood movies in both execution, style and narrative.

 

[Raz]

I don't see exactly what's strange about that. Do you care more about the death of a family member or the death of, for example, the soldiers and civilians dying in Iraq?

Stalin said something that would be appropriate here; the death of one man is a tragedy, the death of a million is a statistic.

 

[Absinthe]

Have to side with Sparta here. I think that if you didn't have an emotional response to Schindler's List, something's wrong with you.

Ignore history. Simply witnessing such grave human atrocities committed against the innocent should tug at something within you.

 

[Beerdude26]

You care about fictional characters in video games but not the 10's of millions of actual people that were killed for no apparent reason in WW2? Sorry man but that sounds really odd, and just plain bias. Could be the truth, sure, but i'm sure there's bias in that opinion. If not, then i suggest you try watching Schindlers List again without distractions.

Anything you were involved into (directly or indirectly) will make you much more emotional to that matter.

For example, I knew of the Columbine High shootings, but I never really stopped to think about it until I read the forum posts about the shooting by one of the survivors. How he tells it is horrible; one of his friends gets shot in the head right in front of him, he gets a pipebomb thrown at him and has to throw it away in incredible haste... Really had an effect on me.

That is the same as what mortiz means: He was directly involved with the characters, so everything that happened to the characters also had a strong(er) emotional effect on him. He does not react very emotional for all the hundreds of thousands of dead that died. It's in the back of his head, but you can easily refresh his memory by having him read a horrible story about Jew prosecution or the like. Just like I read a horrible story about the Columbine High shootings.

 

[Spectre01]

If books and movies are so awesome then I'd be reading and watching right now instead of playing games.

 

[Sparta]

If books and movies are so awesome then I'd be reading and watching right now instead of playing games.

Ahhh but you're not playing games, you're actually on a forum

 

[Que-Ever]

THE PROOF, SIR, IS IN THE PUDDING.

I also spiked the pudding.

 

[DeusExMachina]

If books and movies are so awesome then I'd be reading and watching right now instead of playing games.

You're the reason the founding fathers didn't want a democracy

 

[TheSomeone]

No one knows what could happen in video games in the future.

In any case, Ebert and Roeper are a bit of a joke as far as movie reviews go.

 

[Greatgat]

I also spiked the pudding.

Not the pudding!:O

 

[JellyWorld]

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.

That's pretty much the most important statement in this thread. In traditional media what you see, hear, read, everything is controlled by the author or director or musician in order to evoke a certain emotional response, the whole experience is created by the artist not the audience. Games are entirely different, when the player has so much control over how he experiences the game, it's much more difficult to induce the same kind of emotional response from the player. A director can choose to film a scene in a certain way, in certain lighting from a certain angle, a game producer has no such luxury.

 

[DreamThrall]

books and films are better mediums, and better uses of my time.

Judging by some of the films that are getting "two thumbs up" and other such praise lately, I don't think this guy's opinion should be taken too seriously.

 

[gh0st]

roger ebert isnt a prick.. he was the first person to win a pulitzer prize for CRITICIZING

 

[Letters]

Games are inferior forms of art because I don't know about them!

 

[ailevation]

Books walk the reader through linear path, but, the reader portrays everything within the text with their own imagination. Videogames, the player takes control of characters and deals with the game, with everything laid out already.

I think it's easier to compare movies and videogames.

 

[The Mullinator]

Games at the moment are for the most part inferior when it comes to artistic merit. However I do believe that will change, new generations of game developers are now comming and they are also comming with completely different and new views on what a game can be.

The current reason games are inferior is really because they are young and were ultimately birthed completely different from movies and books. They were created purly for relatively simplistic entertainment purposes which is very different from what books and movies are normally created for. Give it time and it will change.

Besides, if you ask me what Ebert has just said will only speed up such change. This really is a challenge being put forth in my mind.