Monday 19 July 2010
In defence of video games - the satirical approach
Absolutely genius piece of satire http://www.thepoke.co.uk/index.php/2010/04/28/video-games-linked-to-something/
Tuesday 6 July 2010
Roger Ebert and Games
Just read this piece on the Guardian Blog taking acclaimed film critic Roger Ebert to task regarding his statements on videogames. Roger Ebert is one of an old guard of critics on the way out, dragging their heels in light of a new artform that they don't understand. But what amazes me is that he belongs to a generation that fought so hard to have film recognised as an artform...
He's even turned down the offer of a free PS3 with a copy of Flower from opponents wishing to sway him. There's a word for someone who professes strong opinions about something of which they have no knowledge and last time I checked it was spelled B.I.G.O.T. It's tantamount to me proclaiming that Monet was shit (which i don't believe is the case, incidentally) and then closing my eyes when someone tried to show me one of his paintings. Its somewhere between a primary school tactic and an almost Biblical level of ignorance.
Ebert should be given credit for softening his views in a second blog entry, although that might have been a result of the four and a half thousand comments, the majority opposing his view, he recieved. For my money the first comment sums it up: "Roger - as you are sure to be inundated with comments for this post, I will simply say: You just don't get it."
Two of the problems that Ebert has with games is firstly a percieved lack of human empathy and secondly the malleability of the narrative - fact that you can change their outcome. But if Ebert thinks art is about absorbing a preset message from the artist then he's effectively ignored most art and art theory since the sixties when Barthes declared the author dead! perhaps the problem is that Ebert doesn't understand games but doesn't understand post-structuralism. As for the 'empathy' issue, i can appreciate that it may appear to an outsider that most games (especially the most commercially dominant forms) simply involve killing, but he is very wrong to conclude that the entire medium is incapable of dealing with empathy. Games are experienced via an avatar - the player becomes the protagonist via a level of identification and control not seen in any other medium. Even more so than with a first person narrative in literature he is put in that character's shoes. I would argue that games are in fact the very best artistic medium for exploring themes of empathy and self. Of course this rarely happens, but that is because games are still in the early stages of development and are still viewed primarily as an entertainment by many inside and outside of the industry (as was the case with the industrial art of film before the sixties), although I firmly believe that the notions of 'entertainment' and 'art' are not mutually exclusive whatever your definition of art may be.
A growing number of games are dealing with these issues, however, and are finding ways to tell stories that couldn't be replicated in any other medium - this is art. Good examples are Bioshock, which deserves to be considered one of the great works of modern philosophy in light of the way in which it analyses the nature of free will; Prince of Persia, the ending of which forces the player to make a moral and emotional choice that undoes everything thing he has done up to that point; and recently Red Dead Redemption, which has an ending that rivals the greatest of tragedies in its emotional power.
Sergei Eisenstien believed that each artform possessed something that made it unique from all other mediums. For film this was editing; the ability to create meaning from juxtaposing images, which had hitherto only been static. For videogames this is interactivity, and there's no doubt in each of the three examples given above (and there are many more) this played a hugh part in the storytelling innovations on offer (just the fact that you have experienced so much as John Marston makes the ending of Red Dead Redemption shockingly poignant and the designers cleverly play on this by putting you in a position in which you feel utterly powerless). It is quite simply breathtaking and utterly, utterly unique.
Ebert says:
"I thought about those works of Art that had moved me most deeply. I found most of them had one thing in common: Through them I was able to learn more about the experiences, thoughts and feelings of other people. My empathy was engaged. I could use such lessons to apply to myself and my relationships with others. They could instruct me about life, love, disease and death, principles and morality, humor and tragedy. They might make my life more deep, full and rewarding."
I agree this is certainly one important aspect of art, but this statement certainly doesn't exclude games as Ebert thinks it does. After all how does Ebert think he is experiencing any more or any less about life than by sitting in a dark cinema for 2 hours watching the pattern of light play upon a screen than I am sitting in front of a game? At the end of the day films, books, games all have one thing in common - they are artifice (actually I believe this to be the most reliable definition of art), but it's the meaning that is injected into it by the creator and interpreted by the consumer (not necesarilly the same i hasten to add) that elevates it. In that regard games are just as capable of becoming art as films are, and are equally just as capable of becoming completely vacuous. Each work needs to be considered on its own merits. Sweeping judgements like "games can never become art" are ridiculous from the very beginning.
He's even turned down the offer of a free PS3 with a copy of Flower from opponents wishing to sway him. There's a word for someone who professes strong opinions about something of which they have no knowledge and last time I checked it was spelled B.I.G.O.T. It's tantamount to me proclaiming that Monet was shit (which i don't believe is the case, incidentally) and then closing my eyes when someone tried to show me one of his paintings. Its somewhere between a primary school tactic and an almost Biblical level of ignorance.
Ebert should be given credit for softening his views in a second blog entry, although that might have been a result of the four and a half thousand comments, the majority opposing his view, he recieved. For my money the first comment sums it up: "Roger - as you are sure to be inundated with comments for this post, I will simply say: You just don't get it."
Two of the problems that Ebert has with games is firstly a percieved lack of human empathy and secondly the malleability of the narrative - fact that you can change their outcome. But if Ebert thinks art is about absorbing a preset message from the artist then he's effectively ignored most art and art theory since the sixties when Barthes declared the author dead! perhaps the problem is that Ebert doesn't understand games but doesn't understand post-structuralism. As for the 'empathy' issue, i can appreciate that it may appear to an outsider that most games (especially the most commercially dominant forms) simply involve killing, but he is very wrong to conclude that the entire medium is incapable of dealing with empathy. Games are experienced via an avatar - the player becomes the protagonist via a level of identification and control not seen in any other medium. Even more so than with a first person narrative in literature he is put in that character's shoes. I would argue that games are in fact the very best artistic medium for exploring themes of empathy and self. Of course this rarely happens, but that is because games are still in the early stages of development and are still viewed primarily as an entertainment by many inside and outside of the industry (as was the case with the industrial art of film before the sixties), although I firmly believe that the notions of 'entertainment' and 'art' are not mutually exclusive whatever your definition of art may be.
A growing number of games are dealing with these issues, however, and are finding ways to tell stories that couldn't be replicated in any other medium - this is art. Good examples are Bioshock, which deserves to be considered one of the great works of modern philosophy in light of the way in which it analyses the nature of free will; Prince of Persia, the ending of which forces the player to make a moral and emotional choice that undoes everything thing he has done up to that point; and recently Red Dead Redemption, which has an ending that rivals the greatest of tragedies in its emotional power.
Sergei Eisenstien believed that each artform possessed something that made it unique from all other mediums. For film this was editing; the ability to create meaning from juxtaposing images, which had hitherto only been static. For videogames this is interactivity, and there's no doubt in each of the three examples given above (and there are many more) this played a hugh part in the storytelling innovations on offer (just the fact that you have experienced so much as John Marston makes the ending of Red Dead Redemption shockingly poignant and the designers cleverly play on this by putting you in a position in which you feel utterly powerless). It is quite simply breathtaking and utterly, utterly unique.
Ebert says:
"I thought about those works of Art that had moved me most deeply. I found most of them had one thing in common: Through them I was able to learn more about the experiences, thoughts and feelings of other people. My empathy was engaged. I could use such lessons to apply to myself and my relationships with others. They could instruct me about life, love, disease and death, principles and morality, humor and tragedy. They might make my life more deep, full and rewarding."
I agree this is certainly one important aspect of art, but this statement certainly doesn't exclude games as Ebert thinks it does. After all how does Ebert think he is experiencing any more or any less about life than by sitting in a dark cinema for 2 hours watching the pattern of light play upon a screen than I am sitting in front of a game? At the end of the day films, books, games all have one thing in common - they are artifice (actually I believe this to be the most reliable definition of art), but it's the meaning that is injected into it by the creator and interpreted by the consumer (not necesarilly the same i hasten to add) that elevates it. In that regard games are just as capable of becoming art as films are, and are equally just as capable of becoming completely vacuous. Each work needs to be considered on its own merits. Sweeping judgements like "games can never become art" are ridiculous from the very beginning.
Friday 25 June 2010
Video Games in the Papers
Its good to see video games in the papers for the right reasons (ie, not as a knee jerk reaction to all social evils by lazy journalists and showboating politicians). In this case Independent columnist Tom Sutcliffe takes to task the prejudice surrounding the medium, asking why games are criticised for the kind of depictions of sex and violence that wouldn't raise an eyebrow in other art forms. He suggests that its because games still have a foot in the toy box as well as art and the assumption is that as they are for kids they carry certain expectations of moral innocence. Of course we know that this isn't true, but the wider public perception of games still needs to change in much the same way people needed to revise their opinion of animation in the late eighties as something 'just for kids' in order to appreciate the credence of masterpieces like Akira and Perfect Blue. The truth is that since the Playstation emerged the gaming demographic has shifted firmly away from kids towards people in their 20s (a generation who grew up with the medium) and video games are now subject to the same kind of age classification as films.
Tom Sutcliffe also touches on a point that i've been fascinated by for years now. He says: "Video games have been around for years but they are still struggling to pass through that long gestation that any new creative form must go through before it matures from frivolity into art." Film only really attained the status of 'art' in the sixties thanks to a new generation of filmmaker/critics driven by the French New Wave and modernism. Sure there were isolated figures who argued the toss before then (Eisenstien and Vertov, Renoir and Melies) but by and large the medium was seen as purely an entertainment for the first 60 years of its life. Video games are developing much faster and I believe that they have reached roughly a similar stage in their development. Like the directors and critics who fought tooth and nail for cinema to be recognised as an artform, our generation must likewise fight for our medium, the 'eighth art' of video games, to be accepted.
Tom Sutcliffe also touches on a point that i've been fascinated by for years now. He says: "Video games have been around for years but they are still struggling to pass through that long gestation that any new creative form must go through before it matures from frivolity into art." Film only really attained the status of 'art' in the sixties thanks to a new generation of filmmaker/critics driven by the French New Wave and modernism. Sure there were isolated figures who argued the toss before then (Eisenstien and Vertov, Renoir and Melies) but by and large the medium was seen as purely an entertainment for the first 60 years of its life. Video games are developing much faster and I believe that they have reached roughly a similar stage in their development. Like the directors and critics who fought tooth and nail for cinema to be recognised as an artform, our generation must likewise fight for our medium, the 'eighth art' of video games, to be accepted.
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