{"id":4361,"date":"2010-04-21T16:14:25","date_gmt":"2010-04-21T22:14:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamingwithchildren.com\/?p=4361"},"modified":"2010-04-21T16:14:25","modified_gmt":"2010-04-21T22:14:25","slug":"games-can-never-be-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/2010\/04\/21\/games-can-never-be-art\/","title":{"rendered":"Games Can Never be Art?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Roger Ebert, noted – actually extremely noted – film critic and all around good guy has written a blog post defending his assertion that video games are not <\/a>art<\/a>. Actually he writes “CAN NEVER BE ART” which is even wrong-er-er. And then the Internet completely exploded. I have no dog in this fight. I’m a gamer, I love games, I happen to think games ARE art – or at least have that potential – but I really don’t care what a noted film critic who doesn’t play games thinks about it. For one thing, I’m certain that back when film was new, the very idea of films being art was huffed and puffed by all kinds of older-generation Eberts. So he’s old and out of touch – this is a surprise? This is an insult? This deserves thousands of outraged posts against a lovely man whose voice I miss (and can hear in my head) and opinion I still value. When it comes to FILM.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The man has a right to his opinion and doesn’t deserve the hate from a bunch of clearly insecure young gamer men who somehow feel threatened by grampa’s cultural cluelessness. Leave Ebert alone and let him be wrong in peace.<\/p>\n

For the sake of conversation, here are some other things that don’t seem like art at first or second glance, but clearly are.<\/p>\n

Photography<\/p>\n

Computer, especially Apple, design<\/p>\n

Architecture<\/p>\n

Pop Music<\/p>\n

Abstract Art that looks like Finger Painting from a child<\/p>\n

Finger-painting from a child, particularly mine<\/p>\n

Art is more complicated in that, like film, it’s collaborative. Unlike film gaming doesn’t tell stories well, so Ebert dismisses it. But the art in gaming comes not only from graphics, sound, controls, etc., and but how they mix into something compelling. Why one game is a joy and another a chore is a form of art.<\/p>\n

And here are some games I consider worthy of the name “art” – Ms. Pac Man, Tetris, Braid, Flower, Katamari Damacy, Portal, Half-Life, Doom, and too many more to count. \u00a0These games will be considered art one day, dissertations will be written, museums constructed and experts will weigh in on the cultural significance and other hoity-toityness of games artistic merit.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile Roger Ebert belongs in the film criticism hall of fame. Somewhere very prominent. The man has the right to be wrong, stop getting all upset about it and go play an artistic game or something.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roger Ebert, noted – actually extremely noted – film critic and all around good guy has written a blog post defending his assertion that video games are not art. Actually he writes “CAN NEVER BE ART” which is even wrong-er-er. And then the Internet completely exploded. I have no dog in this fight. I’m a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4361"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4361\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.gamerdad.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}