LCC 2400 Midterm Paper

I'm going to post my midterm paper here because some of you might find it interesting. I'd really appreciate it if you'd give your opinions. Thanks. ;]  (If you want the document with the sources listed, download it here)

"How to Turn the Game Industry into Your Enemy"
A counter to Roger Ebert’s infamous "video games are not art" comments.

    On October 21, 2005, famous and influential movie critic Roger Ebert wrote his review for the movie Doom, giving it a single star out of a possible five. While most will actually agree with this rating (if not zero stars), a certain Vikram Keskar from Kirksville, Montana, sparked a response out of Ebert that would change an entire industry’s view on him.

"As long as there is a great movie unseen or a great book unread, I will continue to be unable to find the time to play video games." - Roger Ebert

    While this response may have been the catalyst, it wasn’t until a bit over a week later for the real chaos to start when he answered a question in his "Answer Man" column on his website. Andrew Davis of Saint Cloud, Minnesota, wrote about how he was "saddened to read that [Ebert] considers video games an inherently inferior medium to film and literature, despite [Ebert’s] admitted lack of familiarity with the great works of the medium." He then suggested a few readings on game theory and new media for Ebert, as well as hoped for Ebert to look further than the movie adaptations of video games.

    Ebert started his answer by congratulating the writer for "the most civil of countless messages" that he had received concerning his words. He followed with this quote:

"Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control." - Roger Ebert

    He claims to believe that video games have the potential to be most things that cinema and literature can be, but destroys said potential by stating that they will never surpass "craftsmanship" to "art" because of user interaction. The final straw in this hell-inducing statement was not only rash, but offensive to a plethora of readers.

"But for most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic." - Roger Ebert

    The biggest flaw that people see in Ebert’s logic lies in the fact that he simply does not and adamantly will not play video games. Many people on Ebert’s side claim that this argument is irrelevant because it’ll just reassure what he believes in, but I believe it is obvious that his supporters don’t play games either. It’s simple for someone who refuses to watch movies to say that they aren’t art and are just a waste of people’s time, so why shouldn’t that logic also apply to Roger Ebert and his followers?

    Ebert mentions that player-made choices take away control from the author or creator, thus not allowing the product to be art because it isn’t completely author-driven. What he fails to realize is that games don’t make themselves. It’s possible for a game to be very nonlinear and provide multiple choices for every action, but a human being designed every choice and path in the game. I’d go as far as to say that video games have the potential to be a higher art form than movies or literature because of this human interaction. In a world where human interaction is becoming prominent in technology, it’s looked at as an additional dimension to existing media, such as user-contributed information on Wikipedia or even audience-polled shows like American Idol. Another example would be the entire television network of GSN (Game Show Network). The vast majority of their shows have online counterparts that you can play while you watch the show with corresponding trivia and games. One of their newest game shows, PlayMania, is centered around calling contestants live on air. Many are emphasizing the new spectrum that human interaction provides.

    Matt Paprocki of Blogcritics.org brought up a very interesting point. He turns the table on Ebert and talks about the three King Kong movies. Each story is told differently, "arguably more varied than a video game player taking his or her own path through a game", but they all end with a giant ape being shot off of a tall building. By Ebert’s rules, would King Kong be disqualified from being considered "art"? The movie-watcher has a choice of the three movies, much like a game player has the choice of multiple paths to take. No matter which movie they choose, however, they obtain the same ending, much like the conclusion to a video game.

    One of the most interesting stories to develop because of this debate involves the director of the movie adaptation of the video game series Silent Hill, Christophe Gans. He openly attacked Roger Ebert with the power of speech. Gans brilliantly points out that all media are looked down upon by the older generations when they are first introduced. He uses cinema, Ebert’s forte, as an example:

"I will say to this guy that he only has to read the critiques against cinema at the beginning of the 20th century. It was seen as a degenerate version of live stage musicals. And this was a time when visionary directors like Griffith were working." - Christophe Gans

    Ebert attempted to counter Gans, but only made himself look even more ignorant when it came to video games.

"I am willing to agree that a video game could also be a serious work of art. It would become so by avoiding most of the things that make it a game, such as scoring, pointing and shooting, winning and losing, shallow characterizations, and action that is valued above motivation and ethical considerations." - Roger Ebert
"...it can take at least 100 hours to complete a video game." - Roger Ebert

    So to Roger Ebert, a typical video game is about killing hookers while having sex with them fast enough to rack up enough points, because if you don’t get a high score, you’ll lose. It also takes you 100 hours of solid killing and sexing to get a high enough score to win. By the end, though, you’ll feel a void because you never got to know the gangster or any of the hookers due to "shallow characterization". Are we really letting a man like this cause such a stir in the game industry?

    Shadow of the Colossus for the Sony PlayStation 2 is most probably the grandest example of a video game that is art. The main character of the story takes it upon himself to destroy sixteen large colossal monsters in order to bring back his love. These sixteen beasts are the only enemies in the game and there are canyons, lakes, and plains apart. Armed with a sacred sword and your trusty steed, you travel across the most beautiful graphics the PlayStation 2 has ever conjured, rivaling most Xbox and Gamecube titles. You must literally scale each colossus and stab weak points in order to bring them down. This game is unique to the world and has become the flagship art debate when it comes to this topic. Its innovative use of motion blur, along with their in-house lighting effects called faerie lights, enables the game to simulate this edge-of-the-world landscape to gorgeous detail.

    All in all, Roger Ebert started out strong with an arguable point, but over time, he revealed his true knowledge in the field and lost most credibility. He’s an artifact of a generation that scowls at new media just like the generations before his frowned upon film, just like the generations before them called playwrights degenerates and scum. In a country where everyone’s voice is heard, you have to learn to ignore those who are probably pulling words from somewhere other than their mouths.