As a gamer I have tried to simply ignore Roger Ebert’s commentary about how video games cannot be art. I obviously disagree, however I am obviously biased. There have been plenty of responses, most of which are along the lines of “you haven’t played game X” but those responses seem to miss a key point. Mr. Ebert, who I do have a great deal of professional respect for, is commenting on games, video games specifically, from the point of view from someone who does not play them. As such, the criteria for something to be considered a game, from his point of view, may actually be mutually exclusive with art. That doesn’t mean that games as we know them are mutually exclusive with art as well.

Here is an example. In his journal post defending his statement (specifically against a talk given by Kelee Santiago, whom I also disagree with) Ebert talks about the difference between work, game, and art. His quoted definition from Wikipedia is “Games are distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more concerned with the expression of ideas…Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interaction.” He then goes on to say, “One obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game. It has rules, points, objectives, and an outcome. Santiago might cite an immersive game without points or rules, but I would then say that it ceases to be a game and becomes a representation of a story, a novel, a play, dance, a film. Those are things you cannot win; you can only experience them.”

This is where I find the greatest evidence of his definition of “game” differing from a common gamer’s definition of “game.” Let’s look at the example of pencil and paper roleplaying games. These games have no way to “win” and in a sense, have no goals beyond that which the players themselves set. The objective of one of these games is to “play pretend” with the rules existing as commonly accepted boundaries for all involved. There is no way to “win” a pencil and paper roleplaying game, short of setting your own arbitrary goals and desires. Still, even though you might feel as if you have “won” if the story goes down a certain road, this is only a personal feeling and is not outlined in the rules of the “game” whatsoever. Pencil and paper roleplaying games are something you cannot win, just experience, which according to Ebert makes them something other than a game. It is now an interpretation of a story, novel, play, dance, or film. Specifically, I would say that pencil and paper roleplaying games are representative of a play, in which the script is written by all who are involved.

Now think back again to this notion of arbitrary goal setting. You can’t win a roleplaying game through any mechanic set forth in the rules, but you can set your own goals that you may or may not fulfill as the game progresses. These goals are entirely personal and have no effect on the mechanics of the game itself. So, thinking along these lines, let’s look at reading a book. There is no way to “win” at reading a book, is there? No. However, at the same time, you can set yourself a personal goal to finish the book. If you manage to finish the book then you have fulfilled that goal, you have won. If you don’t manage to finish the book then the goal has gone unfulfilled and you have lost. Still, these are personal goals that you have set for yourself, and are not inherent in the nature of the book. Any number of things could prevent you from finishing the book. Life could be too distracting, the book could be less interesting than you originally thought, or the book could prove to be a more difficult read than you originally planned for, too difficult for you to get through. Regardless of all of these circumstances, the book is simply an experience, whereas winning or losing (completing it or not completing it) is your personal goal.

So now let’s turn to the world of video games, starting with a genre that I particularly enjoy, the JRPG. The standard JRPG or Japanese Role Playing Game is a linear affair, much like a book. There is a story with a set beginning and a set end. It is your job to control the protagonists of the story from the beginning of the tale to the end. There is, once again, no way to “lose” and no way to “win” the game. Nowhere in the rules of the game does it state that the end of the story makes you “win.” In fact, splash screens at the end of most JRPGs almost never say “you win.” Instead they say phrases such as “the end” or “game over.” It’s simply assumed by the player that completion of the story is the goal for which they are striving. Sure enough you can “die” in these games, but dying does not “end” the game in a loss. Instead, you can pick it up and continue on as many times as you like.

To appreciate a movie, all you need to do is watch it and comprehend it. To appreciate a book, you must read it and comprehend it. To appreciate a “game” of this sort, you must play it and comprehend it. There are many reasons why you may not be able to complete the game. Life could get in the way, the game could fail to lose your interest, or the game could be harder than you originally thought, too difficult for you to get through. Regardless of all these circumstances, the “game” as we know it is simply an experience. It is a story that plays from beginning to end that relies on you, the reader, to move it forward (much like turning the pages of a book). We cannot win or lose a JRPG, we can only experience it, and set our own personal goals to fulfill.

Along the same lines, would a great book or film be cheapened if the words “the end” were replaced with “you win”?

When we look to other genres, we start to see that this model of game is not all that uncommon. Action games such as God of War tell a story with a beginning and end that you, once again, can die in but cannot win or lose. Adventures such as The Legend of Zelda and some shooters such as Modern Warfare do the same thing. The mechanics of the game are merely a way to convey the story like the pages of a book or the film of a movie. You might be tempted to say that it is the story within the game which is art, and not the game itself, but that seems as if it is an arbitrary distinction of story from medium. Could we not say the same about books and films, that it is the story that is the true art and not the pages it is written on or the projector and film that make images move on a screen? In that case couldn’t we say that the only thing that qualifies as art is the story itself? It’s also easy to say that books and movies require no effort to experience. There are no enemy encounters in books, no battles, no way to “die.” However, at the same time, you could not read a book if you did not turn the page, and you could not watch a movie if you did not drive to the movie theater or put in the DVD. Effort is required to start and continue your experience in all types of media, whether it be books, movies, or “games.”

Now, of course, there are some games that are not art. For example, many fighting games have a story, but most of the time the mechanics of these games don’t work to further the story. Instead they are built around a solid gameplay experience in which one or more player wins, and one or more player loses. This, under Ebert’s definition, is not art, and I can see merit to this point of view. It is not something you experience, but is something you learn. However, to play devil’s advocate, Ebert also says that “Bobby Fischer, Michael Jordan, and Dick Butkus never said they thought their games were an art form.” This is true, Bobby Fischer never did say chess was art. However, there are other chess masters that have; Gary Kasparov wrote this paragraph about artist Marcel Duchamp in his book How Life Imitates Chess.

The artist Marcel Duchamp was an energic chess player. During a period of his life, he even resigned art for chess and said that the game had “all the beauty of art and even more.” Duchamp confirmed this aspect of the game when he said “I have come to the conclusion that while all artists are not chess players, all chess players are artists.” And it’s true that we can’t ignore the creative element of chess, even though we must analyze this in contrast to the fundamental goal of winning the match.

In competitive games, it is that creative aspect that we might be able to view as art. Therefore, while Street Fighter or BlazBlue may not be considered art in their own right, the process of figuring out the exact correct actions to take in any situations, and the process of being creative and learning new strategies, can be viewed as artistic. This aspect is, in fact, analyzed in contrast to the fundamental goal of winning, as Kasparov says, but it exists nonetheless.

Finally I would like to address this portion of Ebert’s journal post:

“The three games [Santiago] chooses as examples do not raise my hopes for a video game that will deserve my attention long enough to play it. They are, I regret to say, pathetic. I repeat: “No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great filmmakers, novelists and poets.”

These three games were Waco Resurrection, Braid, and Flower. He says that Waco Resurrection does not even reach the level of chicken-scratches. He goes on to say that the time mechanics in Braid are synonymous with taking back a move in chess, and that taking back a move in chess “negates the whole discipline of the game. He also states “… I [am not] persuaded that I can learn about my own past by taking back my mistakes in a video game. [Santiago] also admires a story told between the games levels, which exhibits prose on the level of a wordy fortune cookie.” In response to the example of Flower a game “about trying to find a balance between elements of urban and the natural” he states, “Nothing she shows from this game seemed of more than decorative interest on the level of a greeting card.” He goes on to ask, “Is the game scores?” For the record, no. “Do you win if you’re the first to find the balance between the urban and the natural?” For the record, no. “Can you control the flower?” For the record, no. “Does the game know what the ideal balance is?” For the record, no.

Earlier in his journal post he wrote:

Does art grow better the more it imitates nature? My notion is that it grows better the more it improves or alters nature through an passage through what we might call the artist’s soul, or vision. Countless artists have drawn countless nudes. They are all working from nature. Some of their paintings are masterpieces, most are very bad indeed. How do we tell the difference? We know. It is a matter, yes, of taste.

This is important because, honestly, Ebert does have a predisposition against video games. In fact, the very questions he asks about Flower, and the way he characterizes the key gameplay mechanic of Braid shows that he does not have an accurate conception of the modern day video game. Flower, a game with no score or win condition, is about a primal emotional experience told through imagery, like a short film without dialogue. Braid uses time alteration mechanics to show that even moving backward is also a type of moving forward, and it tells a story about a young man, the people he has hurt over the course of his life, and his role in developing the atomic bomb, while still allowing the player to fill in the blanks through clues expressed through scenery and setting. It doesn’t just let you take back your mistakes, it shows you that your mistakes can never truly be taken back. (I can’t comment on Waco Resurrection as I have never played it.) Whether or not these games qualify, as art art is debatable, but the fact that he immediately writes them off as pathetic without any actual research into what they are and how they play shows his predisposition clearly. He is condemning “games” as a medium without experiencing or even researching them.

Instead, his predisposition is to examine all games as an analog to football or chess. His “taste” tells him that this is how video games are, and his “taste” will, perhaps for his entire lifetime, simply tell him that video games are not art. However, the rules he posited earlier in his article for what DOES qualify as art paints a very different picture indeed. If we were to go by these rules that he very clearly outlines, then it is safe to say that Roger Ebert does believe that the modern video game can qualify as art. In fact, he believes that they already do qualify as art. If art is something that you don’t win or lose but simply experience, and is something that improves or alters nature through artistic vision then game developers have been making art for ages! We, as gamers, have been guided through the artistic vision of storytellers such as Hideo Kojima, Yoshinori Kitase, and Shini Mikami for a while now. In the end, it turns out that Roger Ebert isn’t saying that these people haven’t been making art, he is saying that they haven’t been making “games.” A game to Roger Ebert clearly is synonymous with football or chess, whereas our modern day story-based video games are not. Perhaps then all we need to do is stop calling them games all together, and instead adopt Heavy Rain’s policy of calling them “interactive storytelling experiences.” Or perhaps this is all one gigantic argument of semantics … I don’t know.

On a final note, Roger Ebert’s famous quote is, “No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great filmmakers, novelists and poets.” My response to that is, “What would make the game worthy?” In Ebert’s eyes, the first step is “not being a game” which kind of makes the question pointless. However, for me, personally, there are games that have caused me to cry, laugh, and get that warm fuzzy feeling inside. There are games with characters that I came to identify with, characters that I saw myself in, as well as characters I despised and characters that I felt pity for. These are stories that have taken up 20, 40, 80 hours of my life and more. These are immersive experiences that have actually changed who I am as a person. If that isn’t comparable to the works of great filmmakers, novelists, and poets that have done the same, I don’t know what is.

Now to totally invalidate everything I have just written with a piece of internet slang.

TL;DR Roger Ebert does think video games can be art, he just doesn’t know it yet.