But is it art?

“Let me just say that no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form.”- Roger Ebert

“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 a immersive game without points or rules, but I would say then 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.” – Roger Ebert

Back in undergraduate school, when my studies were aligned toward emphasizing the “general” in “General Studies”, long before the degrees evolved into things with initials like B.F.A, M.P.A., M.B.A. and BS, I took a course in humanities.  Having grown up in the late 60s and early 70s I was more acquainted with Fleetwood Mac then Mack Trucks. “Weed” was something you smoked and not pulled out from amidst crops, and the only “hound dog” I was acquainted with was a Manchester Terrier with body a bit bigger than a Chihuahua and an attitude a bit bigger than Texas. There I sat one day, waiting for class to start.  I was told we were going to listen to music that day.  “Good” I thought, maybe a little Steppenwolf or perhaps some Rolling Stones. If we are really lucky we might even get a bit of Joe Cocker.  The video tape started (videos came in boxes nearly big enough to deliver a pizza in those days) and on the screen stood this old guy with salt and pepper hair, nearly down to his waist, but braided.  “Good” I thought, “Long hair – that’s a good start.” The musician was holding a guitar that looked as if it had been wielded as a weapon in more than a few bar fights. Looking even closer I saw that the guitar was signed – everywhere. It was an acoustic guitar of course. I say “of course” because that is simply the nature of this particular musician. No electric amps the size of the Aircraft Carrier Nimitz; nothing plugged into his guitar, thank you very much.

I had no idea what to expect.

Then the old guy on stage started to strum the guitar and music came wafting out of the small box on the front of the television…and it was magic.  I was never a fan of country music, and I still am not.  But this guy? This guy was different.  The guy’s name is Willie Nelson.

The point of the class that semester was not just to introduce us to art forms we were never acquainted with before. More to the point it was to introduce us to the various nuances of the phrase…

“I may not know art, but I know what I like.”

One of the more poignant lessons I learned about art came from a professor who at the time was speaking to a room full of artists of various sorts.  Art, he pointed out, is not done for the reviewers.  It is not done for people like Roger Ebert, Richard Roeper and Gene Siskel. In fact there are times when film studios pointedly didn’t care what they thought. Not only didn’t care, but made a point of making it impossible for the critics to render an opinion prior to the release of a film.  You might say that this was to keep the critics from panning a film before it was released, and you would be right.  What might not be readily apparent was the lesson my college professor taught us that day:  “Art is not made for the critics; it is made for the common man.”  Art is made for the person who buys the movie ticket, theater ticket, or even adds a dollar to a small pot in front of a musician on a city sidewalk.

Oh I could point out something obvious like his statement “one obvious difference between art and games is that you can win a game” shows a total lack of acquaintance with what he is attempting to critique.  I could spend time running down a point/counterpoint list as Ebert tried to do here in the original subject article.  In the end, however, it would serve little or no point.  There is nothing that I, any member of the No Prisoners, No Mercy Team, nor any member of the Virgin Worlds Collective could say to change his mind. 

In the end, it doesn’t matter. 

Why? Well I could point out something like the fact that videogames not being art might be news to the thousands of artists working in the video game industry. I could, but it would only be countered with an argument that was nothing more than semantics like “It contains art but it isn’t art.”  To be blunt, whether or not Roger Ebert considers video games art or not is irrelevant, because it simply doesn’t matter what he thinks. No one in the industry will earn a pfennig more or less because of the opinion or for the lack of it.  Major symphony orchestras will continue to appeal to younger generations than Ebert by playing the music of video games. Art galleries will still regale us with the art of video games. And Activision will still go about its merry way being the 800 pound gorilla of the industry. Hells bells, Bobby Kotick has probably never even heard of Roger Ebert.  My grandmother would have put it another way. She would have simply looked Roger Ebert in the eye and asked him “who made you God?”

The point to be made is that no single person can ever be the judge of what is considered “art” let alone what is considered “good” art.  After reading his missive cited above, and the words with which he ends his article, “I rest my case”  I suggest that he not take up the law…or perhaps he should. He might make a better lawyer than an artist. If nothing else, he certainly can do better than his quote which started this article, penned as it seemly was, merely for the purpose of eliciting a response – then again, perhaps he can’t.