On first read-through, I found myself nodding in agreement with the general sentiment, but as I wandered away and chewed on it for a moment, I realized that there was a flaw that kind of bugged me.
Now, I'm willing to set aside the question of videogames as art on the visual level. They're a highly visual medium, there is (I think) both art and craft going into their creation which can be appreciated, both by a savvy and non-savvy audience. I think it's a valid subject for discussion, but I recognize that it's not what the author was talking about. The real comparison was on the subject of story-based art.
So with that context, I think that in his desire to dismiss video games as art, he badly misrepresented their role in art. If you accept his conclusions, a video game is a container, something which may contain art. That seems reasonable, but I don't think he gives this as much thought as he could, dismissing it as comparable to packaging, and in doing so, I think he misses much of why this is a question in the first place.
Video games are much closer to a form of media, like books or CDs. Not the content of books or CDs, the actual physical objects as things which are capable of containing art, but are not guaranteed to. Under that model, it makes a great deal of sense that people conflate video games and the art they contain, since we rarely bother to differentiate between books and their contents in conversation. If I reference All the Kings Men i can just as easily be referencing my dog eared paperback as I can be the story.
To my mind, this is a somewhat more useful conclusion. It satisfies me intellectually because it answers the question of "If it's so clear, why would anyone think differently?" and it provides an existing model that we can look at to see how this differentiation is applied in other media, from liner notes to books bound in rich corinthian leather.
It also reframes the question. In this context, there is unquestionably craft to a video game, just as there is to a well bound and laid out book. The story is in there, but how well is it delivered to the player? Despite the original author's handwaving of this, it is slightly more sophisticated than jumping to a cutscene, and two games with equally good stories may differ greatly in how well those stories reach the player, and that difference is (to my mind) a definite measure of quality. (For the nerds out there, I would hold up FFVII or FFX up against, say, Legend of the Dragoon or Suikoden IV to illustrate this).
Of course, this cracks the question open again, but in a different light. Is bookbinding art? Music production? Liner note design? Can there be art in the creation of the device that is going to deliver art to you? I certainly know that bookbinders think so, and I imagine that's true in other mediums as well. Now, these are certainly more specialized fields, and it may be art that's hard to appreciate without knowing more about the field, but it can be reasonably asked whether it is art. It is, however, a somewhat interesting question to stop and consider what the criterea of this art may be - however artistically the book is made, no one claims it makes the story within it better, though it may make the experience of that story better (Through clarity of print, tactile experience and so on). So on some level, I'm back to the point I set aside - perhaps there is art in video games, but it is not necessarily story based art.
Now, this is where it gets back to RPGs in an interesting fashion, since it's not unreasonable to say that the RPG as written is the wrapper for the art that comes out in play. As with books and video games, the two things are related, but there is no guarantee from one that the other will have any artistic merit. You can play a great game with a lame RPG, and you can play a crappy game using a magnificent RPG. Theoretically a good game will be more likely to come from a good RPG (Much the same way a better read can come form a better produced book and a better musical experience can come from a better produced CD but is not guaranteed to happen). As with these other production arts/crafts there a strong amount of specialization in the field and a degree of familiarity required to appreciate the artistry of a particular effort, and those with the familiarity are the ones who will assert that it's art, not craft. :)
Anyway, purely within the context of stories, I don't think the post is far off, but I think in asserting that, it falls short of the potential mark. Not shocking, since I suspect the arguments it was written to address was much more of the practical "FFVII is totally like Hamlet! I cried!" to which one can only hope the response will be as reasonable and well though out as the post rather than a simple, and perhaps more deserved, boot to the head.
Also, Ben, I'd like to add, damn you for making me think this much before I've had coffee!
This also is interestingly informative of RPGs because, like any specialized craft, there's a lot of self assessment. This is pretty much unavoidable, because with a specialized field, it is usually only the people within that field who can comment intelligently. The bookbinder has to live with the frustration that the bulk of people picking up his book have no understanding of what went into making that book, and how it is different than the book next to it.
Where this becomes problematic is that the bookbinder has both inclination and incentive to elevate his own work to art. Part of this is defense against those who would dismiss his work out of ignorance, partly its the simple reality that art gets more respect than craft. There's also a component of having a genuinely deep appreciation of his own work - he knows it so intimately that it's rich and full of meaning for him in a way that can make it look legitimately like art to his eyes.
Unfortunately, that can end up elevating anything that is simply well done to being art, and that's hard to address. If only some work in a field is art (as is the case, I would say, in bookbinding) then everyone else who binds books has incentive to declare at least some portion of their own work to be art, if only to keep up with the neighbors. Often this means that the bar for art gets lowered to include anything that's merely well done. Of course, since this assessment tends to only take place between small, isolated communities, it arguably doesn't really impact beyond those bounds.
How this applies to RPG design is, I think, an exercise best left to the reader. :)
I'll chip in a much simpler thought here that actually doesn't really address video games at all.
Ebert's assertion about artisic control being requisite for literature implies that hypertext literature cannot actually be literature. I outright reject this. Actually, ever since I took hypertext theory in college, I've believed that video games are walking a long road towards becoming a form of hypertext literature.
I don't agree that game makers need to give up authorial control to sucessfully make literature. In hypertext literature, the connections and choices are thoughtfully crafted. However the games do need to be more open to allowing the player/reader to pick apart the layers of narative and imbed themselves in the story.
Last, since FF was invoked, I'll point out that FF4-10,T are all games with strong narrative. This is different from being literary. It is left as an exercise to the reader to determine which ones are the most literary.
And because the universe loves synchronicity, Raph Koster weighs in on this today in his blog (http://www.raphkoster.com/?p=193), putting forth an interesting assertion that breaks things even further.
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Now, I'm willing to set aside the question of videogames as art on the visual level. They're a highly visual medium, there is (I think) both art and craft going into their creation which can be appreciated, both by a savvy and non-savvy audience. I think it's a valid subject for discussion, but I recognize that it's not what the author was talking about. The real comparison was on the subject of story-based art.
So with that context, I think that in his desire to dismiss video games as art, he badly misrepresented their role in art. If you accept his conclusions, a video game is a container, something which may contain art. That seems reasonable, but I don't think he gives this as much thought as he could, dismissing it as comparable to packaging, and in doing so, I think he misses much of why this is a question in the first place.
Video games are much closer to a form of media, like books or CDs. Not the content of books or CDs, the actual physical objects as things which are capable of containing art, but are not guaranteed to. Under that model, it makes a great deal of sense that people conflate video games and the art they contain, since we rarely bother to differentiate between books and their contents in conversation. If I reference All the Kings Men i can just as easily be referencing my dog eared paperback as I can be the story.
To my mind, this is a somewhat more useful conclusion. It satisfies me intellectually because it answers the question of "If it's so clear, why would anyone think differently?" and it provides an existing model that we can look at to see how this differentiation is applied in other media, from liner notes to books bound in rich corinthian leather.
It also reframes the question. In this context, there is unquestionably craft to a video game, just as there is to a well bound and laid out book. The story is in there, but how well is it delivered to the player? Despite the original author's handwaving of this, it is slightly more sophisticated than jumping to a cutscene, and two games with equally good stories may differ greatly in how well those stories reach the player, and that difference is (to my mind) a definite measure of quality. (For the nerds out there, I would hold up FFVII or FFX up against, say, Legend of the Dragoon or Suikoden IV to illustrate this).
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Of course, this cracks the question open again, but in a different light. Is bookbinding art? Music production? Liner note design? Can there be art in the creation of the device that is going to deliver art to you? I certainly know that bookbinders think so, and I imagine that's true in other mediums as well. Now, these are certainly more specialized fields, and it may be art that's hard to appreciate without knowing more about the field, but it can be reasonably asked whether it is art. It is, however, a somewhat interesting question to stop and consider what the criterea of this art may be - however artistically the book is made, no one claims it makes the story within it better, though it may make the experience of that story better (Through clarity of print, tactile experience and so on). So on some level, I'm back to the point I set aside - perhaps there is art in video games, but it is not necessarily story based art.
Now, this is where it gets back to RPGs in an interesting fashion, since it's not unreasonable to say that the RPG as written is the wrapper for the art that comes out in play. As with books and video games, the two things are related, but there is no guarantee from one that the other will have any artistic merit. You can play a great game with a lame RPG, and you can play a crappy game using a magnificent RPG. Theoretically a good game will be more likely to come from a good RPG (Much the same way a better read can come form a better produced book and a better musical experience can come from a better produced CD but is not guaranteed to happen). As with these other production arts/crafts there a strong amount of specialization in the field and a degree of familiarity required to appreciate the artistry of a particular effort, and those with the familiarity are the ones who will assert that it's art, not craft. :)
Anyway, purely within the context of stories, I don't think the post is far off, but I think in asserting that, it falls short of the potential mark. Not shocking, since I suspect the arguments it was written to address was much more of the practical "FFVII is totally like Hamlet! I cried!" to which one can only hope the response will be as reasonable and well though out as the post rather than a simple, and perhaps more deserved, boot to the head.
Also, Ben, I'd like to add, damn you for making me think this much before I've had coffee!
no subject
This also is interestingly informative of RPGs because, like any specialized craft, there's a lot of self assessment. This is pretty much unavoidable, because with a specialized field, it is usually only the people within that field who can comment intelligently. The bookbinder has to live with the frustration that the bulk of people picking up his book have no understanding of what went into making that book, and how it is different than the book next to it.
Where this becomes problematic is that the bookbinder has both inclination and incentive to elevate his own work to art. Part of this is defense against those who would dismiss his work out of ignorance, partly its the simple reality that art gets more respect than craft. There's also a component of having a genuinely deep appreciation of his own work - he knows it so intimately that it's rich and full of meaning for him in a way that can make it look legitimately like art to his eyes.
Unfortunately, that can end up elevating anything that is simply well done to being art, and that's hard to address. If only some work in a field is art (as is the case, I would say, in bookbinding) then everyone else who binds books has incentive to declare at least some portion of their own work to be art, if only to keep up with the neighbors. Often this means that the bar for art gets lowered to include anything that's merely well done. Of course, since this assessment tends to only take place between small, isolated communities, it arguably doesn't really impact beyond those bounds.
How this applies to RPG design is, I think, an exercise best left to the reader. :)
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Ebert's assertion about artisic control being requisite for literature implies that hypertext literature cannot actually be literature. I outright reject this. Actually, ever since I took hypertext theory in college, I've believed that video games are walking a long road towards becoming a form of hypertext literature.
I don't agree that game makers need to give up authorial control to sucessfully make literature. In hypertext literature, the connections and choices are thoughtfully crafted. However the games do need to be more open to allowing the player/reader to pick apart the layers of narative and imbed themselves in the story.
Last, since FF was invoked, I'll point out that FF4-10,T are all games with strong narrative. This is different from being literary. It is left as an exercise to the reader to determine which ones are the most literary.
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That was art, man. I don't care what anyone says...it was art, and I was awed.
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You can make art by playing RPGs in the same way that you can make art by sitting around in a circle and telling a story.
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