I knew when I came up with the concept that this was going to be a little later posting than I’d hoped.

Yeah, this is one of those “It takes eight hours to shoot four minutes” videos. I’m not entirely happy with the sound, to be honest, but I hit a point where I just couldn’t work on it any longer.

Also possibly the most expensive episode of Jigsaw ever, as I had to buy $50 in D&D stuff. Had to, he said as if he didn’t relish the excuse to finally pick up the Red Box.

Just so you know, all four of them had actual characters generated with a combination of 4E player manuals. Most of the dice rolls are authentic as of writing the episode (earlier this afternoon). I decided not to knock Regibor prone because I didn’t want two prone minis on the game map; I just wanted Kranium’s fallen cleric on the ground, so I fudged the Hulking Zombie’s power. Like any good DM who wants to have a more poetic outcome.

And yes, I am contemplating doing an entire series of “Jigsaw plays D&D”, except I’d probably use Gamma World instead, because I just don’t have that many miniatures, and I’d much rather purchase weird mutants and robots than wizards and trolls. I mean, it’s a pretty slim margin there, but this shit’s expensive, yo.

Yes, this may be the most geeky I’ve ever been. Here, at least.

I see that Roger Ebert has once again decided to play the old man and shake a stick at video games. I can’t blame him too much; it must be incredibly difficult for his fans to reconcile his obvious intelligence about film with his utter ignorance and seeming intolerance of video games. So, no doubt, they (the fans) pester him constantly to revise his flippant dismissal of the form, prompting the occasional sleeve-breathing sarcasms we see today.

In his defense, Mr. Ebert isn’t saying that video games aren’t fun, or worthwhile, or interesting, or valid. He is merely claiming they can never be art. Which, yes, is incredibly myopic, but a view I can dismiss pretty easily. While my views on the subject have not substantially changed, Mr. Ebert’s assumptions strangely focus my own views in such a way that my opinion of video games as art is heightened. More on that in a bit. (And in checking out the above link, be sure to read James Ford’s particularly erudite comment.)

Oddly, what really gets my fire up is the TED talk from Kellee Santiago that prompted Mr. Ebert’s recent fun-pokery. Ms. Santiago is the co-founder of thatgamecompany, whose games (most notably, flOw) often come up in discussions of “games that might actually be art”. Granted, the fact that the games they produce are arguably the brainchildren of her business partner Jenova Chen might cause some to wonder why exactly it was Ms. Santiago giving a presentation on art theory, but… okay, I can’t actually think of any reason why Ms. Santiago should have been giving this presentation, apart from the nice ad she managed to wedge in at the end for their newest game on PS3.

I have to side with Mr. Ebert when he rightly takes Ms. Santiago to task on most of her assumptions about art. Indeed, the “first” cave paintings were, perhaps, crude by Renaissance standards, but Mr. Ebert is right in pointing out that they still possess artistic beauty more than the “chicken scratches” Ms. Santiago claims them to be. That Ms. Santiago should begin a defense of a maligned art form by dismissing another does nothing to win me over.

Then she presents her first example of games as art. Waco: Resurrection. Now, I’m not saying the game isn’t art. I would start by saying it was intended to be played as part of a larger installation piece, and that the game was never intended to be art by its own merits. One could argue that it attempts a perceptual shift akin to a second-person narrative conceit in order to contrast viewpoints blah blah blah point is, it’s a really stupid game to pick to back up your argument.

Braid is a better, or at least more obvious choice, but will win over no converts because it is art specifically for video gamers. I have the same problem with Braid as an example of art-worthy video games as I have with Watchmen being suggested as a comic book to give to non-comics readers. Braid, like Watchmen, derives most of its semantic and emotional weight from the semiotics of the artform within which it resides and exemplifies. Which is to say, without a schooling in superheroes, you don’t get why Watchmen is a big deal; likewise, without a solid background in platform gaming or, at the very least, Super Mario Bros., Braid loses a lot of its impact. These pieces of art work so well because, although we are familiar with all of the pieces that make up the works, we are shocked and delighted by the innovative and beautiful ways they are put to use. Which isn’t to say new gamers can’t like Braid, nor that new comics readers can’t enjoy Watchmen, merely that as an argument for the inclusion of their respective crafts into the pantheon of Arts they are, perhaps, too dependent upon foreknowledge to be terribly impressive to those not already on the bus.

…Which goes a long way to proving that video games must be some sort of art, some transcendence of mere craft or structure or system of rules, because unlike football or poker or chess, video games are capable of commenting upon themselves. The simplest argument for the presence of art in video games (and I do think that this is perhaps an easier point to concede, not that an entire video game is one piece of art, but that a video game consists of varying degrees of art, craft, game, chore, simulation, &c, and that it is the combination of these things that makes video games so hard to pin down) is the fact that they can do things not because they are necessary, but just because. The game mechanics of Passage, or The Path, are very simple. Both games can be played by holding down a single key. This is not the point, of course. (Here, had I another hour, I might attempt an explanation of the experience of both games. But I have not the hour, and you’re all smart enough to use Google.) The point of both games, though very differently expressed, are in the things you can do in video games that have nothing to do with achieving a goal. Exploration. Immersion. Discovery. The emotional connection between player and avatar. The different paths that lead to a foregone conclusion. The internalization of the concept of the futile choice. I’d argue that video games, when done well, allow a non-artist to not only experience art, but also to know, in some respect, what it is like to be an artist. (Not to say that every video game that wants to be considered art has to do it just this way, merely using these two as games that have low entry requirements, and still manage to create an experience no other medium can approach.)

It is to Mr. Ebert that I owe this particular epiphany, thanks to what I believe, in the end, is merely a semantic frission; his focus, his stumbling block, appears to be on the “game” aspect of things. A video game for Mr. Ebert, I gather, is nothing more than an animated version of a board game or sporting activity; merely a set of rules, automated, with some pretty pictures thrown on. Admittedly, the vast majority of games are, indeed, just that, no art to be seen, but there is certainly artistry possible there, and it is perhaps impossible to see where the art comes in without experiencing it. You can’t look at Portal and think it’s art any more than you can hear a description of a Picasso and understand its impact. You can only experience it, and then walk away, and recognize that your entire view of the way the world works has been permanently altered, purely because of the experience.

In the end, I would maintain that Roger Ebert should not comment on the artistic status of video games any more than he should review a movie without seeing it, though I also concede that video games may not be his cup of tea, and in the end he should perhaps just say as much. And Kellee Santiago should perhaps revisit her art history notes before her next lecture to avoid looking like a complete twit.

Thoughts, comments, rebuttals, &c, are, as always, welcome.

http://expertologist.net/?p=319

This response, originally intended for the comments, has spiraled out of control, and therefore I am putting it here. Feel free to ridicule this post on your own blog, or in the comments.

Hmm.

Firstly, anyone who claims that Citizen Kane is the film that proved movies could be art is playing fairly loose with the history of cinema. I’ll grant that it is one of the movies people use as an example now of early artistic film, one that serves as a gateway flick for people who want to explore the more artistic side of filmmaking. But it is a bit like the fourth comment in a thread proudly proclaiming “First!” There jes ain’t no sech animal.

That said, I think the real argument here is whether Games (or ANY popular medium) want to even bother with the label of “Art.” Frustratingly, it’s impossible to engage in this conversation without having some sort of working definition of what Art actually IS, a conversation that has been going on for a century with no consensus in sight. The latter half of the 20th century was one long argument over the nature of art. Most of what came out of that argument was that anything that was created before the argument began was automatically called Art, everything that happened later had to earn the moniker. Painting, illustration, sculpture, classical music, classic literature — automatically passed. Film, TV, modern music, conceptual art, performance art — that’s not art, that’s trash.

So it goes, with each new medium growing and asking to be called Art, whether the term is applicable or not. Personally (and I say this as somebody who strives to work in the medium), I can’t think of a single moment of Television that I’ve ever watched that I would call Art. Very few movies are Art. Popular books are usually not Art. Most comics, not Art either. And I haven’t played more than two or three games that were even approximating Art (I’d say Passage is the argument that it’s possible at all, for me).

You know what? Art isn’t a guarantee of entertainment. The fact that I haven’t seen Art on TV doesn’t mean TV isn’t my favorite medium. When I’m deciding what movie I want to watch, Art almost never factors into the decision. I admit to giving a second chance to comics with more Artistic conceits, but I’m far more excited about a new Ex Machina trade, say, than the Wolverton Bible.

The Big Lie is that something being Art automatically means you’ll like it. Unfortunately, when you do all the reading, listen to all the arguments, and really examine what it is that defines Art, it comes down to a weird mixture of posturing and fame.

There’s a story my old art teacher told about visiting the Louvre. He talked about the room with the Mona Lisa in it. He talked about how there were lines snaking around the building of people waiting to get a glimpse of the Mona Lisa, which was in a ten foot enclosure of bullet-proof glass. What boggled his mind was that the rest of the room was covered in other paintings by da Vinci. Small, delicate landscapes, other portraits, all of which were painted by the same great man, all of which were arguably better paintings than the Mona Lisa, and all of which you could walk right up to, put your nose an inch away from, no lines, no glass.

That’s Art.

The Mona Lisa is one of the greatest works of Art of all time not because it’s a great painting, but because it’s a pretty good painting that everybody has agreed is one of the greatest works of Art of all time. The Mona Lisa is an icon of the entirety of da Vinci’s career, and is a symbol for what Art is (even to me, as you’ll note by the use of this story to illustrate my point).

This is slightly different than mass-market popularity; most people, when asked, wouldn’t be able to tell you whether or not they like the Mona Lisa. You don’t typically see Mona Lisa posters in dorms or living rooms. Everybody knows it, few people ever actually pay attention to it. It’s Important without being Popular. Which is a neat trick.

No, while people often recognize Art, they spend most of their time with Other things. TV shows. Action movies. Superhero comics. World of Warcraft. Things that, for the most part, nobody would mistake for Art. What they are, and the point I’ve been trying so very hard to work towards, is Craft.

Things that are Good, things that are Well-Made, those are Craft. As in, well-crafted. By Craftspersons. Take TV. Sports Night, for example, is an incredibly well-assembled, well-paced, brilliantly performed comedy/drama with excellent writing, precision editing, and seamless direction. Apart from a few choices forced upon the creators by the network (the laugh track being the most glaring), the show is damn near perfect. It isn’t Art, though. It’s something else. It is a shining example of the Craft of Television.

Once you take “Art” out of the equation, things get so much easier. Craft is something demonstrable. Something is well-crafted or it isn’t. Sure, Arrested Development isn’t to my particular taste, but I cannot deny it is a supremely well-crafted show. I can appreciate it for how it’s put together, how individual performances play off each other, how the camera moves to manipulate the thoughts and emotions of the viewer, how and where the sound effects and music play into the scenes to intensify the experience, &c. I don’t have to like the show in order to respect it. Because I’m looking at it through the lens of Craft.

Video Games don’t NEED to be Art, see? They are Games. Games are for Playing. And what they need to worry about is Craft. How many times have we seen a review that praises a game’s ideas and then curses its interface? Or that notes its solid gameplay while mocking its voice acting? Video Games are the lovely little mash-up of all the Crafts of the last hundred years, but all this striving for Art has them a bit misguided. The best games I’ve ever played remembered that every moment needed to be Crafted. Skilled people (to use the term “artisan” here might cause confusion, as well it should, because it’s sort of at the root of the whole thing) creating solid things. Crafting a unique interactive experience.

So while I agree that it’s time for Video Games to grow up, I propose a clarification. Lamb, you ended your piece with this line:

The first step to being a grown up is calling yourself one – sooner or later, the rest of the world will come around.

The point at which the rest of the world comes around is when you stop worrying how you’re perceived and get on with your adult life. The respect (and really, isn’t this all we’re talking about here?) comes AFTER you do the amazing work, not before.