Oh god.
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.
I’m going to break a personal taboo and tell you about a dream I just had. I normally shy away from anything but the most passing reference to my dreams, because I know something that shockingly few people seem to understand: that other people’s dreams are incredibly boring. Listening to other people’s dreams is like hearing a drunk try to describe a joke. Not tell a joke, but describe one.
Anyway, that said, let me tell you about this dream I just had, skipping all the bits that don’t matter. In the dream, I walked into a hardware store to buy some glue and duct tape and a few other things, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that fully two walls at the front of the store were devoted to comic books. I was thrilled to find a new issue of Phonogram, as well as a Phonogram CD featuring tracks from the bands referenced in the comics (as well as an all-new Los Campesinos track recorded specifically for the compilation). So I got my glue, and I got some comics, and I got a CD as well.
[As an aside, I recognize fully that the point of this essay could well be that I think about Phonogram too much for someone who isn't Kieron Gillen. Or Jamie McKelvie. (There are probably days I think about it more than McKelvie does.) In reality, I just like comics about bands and the music scene way more than I actually like bands and the music scene. Hell, most of the comics I've written (still sitting in the drawer, likely never to be seen again) are about bands, going to see bands, watching bands break up, and all the common experiences in the music scene. So it's only natural that Phonogram fills a particular vacant spot in my brain, namely standing in for an entire genre of comics I've always thought should exist but could never get off my ass to make myself. But that is, most definitely, another story for another day.]
Now, for whatever reason, this dream got me thinking about a discussion that was first becoming popular on the WEF (and other comics discussion sites) ten years ago; namely, what comic book stores should be doing to get new people in the door. Then, like now, the most intriguing answer to this question, at least for me, is that the question is wrong; comics don’t need more people walking in the door, comics need to become ubiquitously available. [I should probably tell you straight away that this whole conversation, while certainly an important, even necessary conceit, bored me, then and now, about as much as hearing about other people's dreams. Even then, when it was "the important" discussion. It seemed to me then, as it does now, that the way to get people into a comic book store is to have the best damn comic book store known to man, and pimp the hell out of it. Over the past ten years, people like James Sime and Andrew Neal have proven that formula. But again, another story for another day.]
So, I was thinking about how hard it is for non-comic stores to get comics on their shelves. And, because in my dream the example was being set by a hardware store, I thought about things I buy in hardware stores, and how I would go about getting them on my shelves (my rhetorical shelves, seeing as I no longer own a comic book store). And I thought about ULINE. Over the years, I have placed several orders with ULINE, both as a store owner and as a private citizen. They sell boxes and tape and shrink wrap and displays and trash cans and, well, primarily hardware and supplies best suited to a shipping company or warehouse. Important stuff. They deal primarily in large, bulk orders to businesses. Yet the process of getting an account with them was as simple as filling out an order form, entering my credit card information, and clicking “submit”. They don’t care who they sell to — money is money. They do have a check box in their order form that will tell them if the order is being shipped to a residential address, but that’s so they know the best way of shipping (and know not to send a large pallet on a tractor trailer when you don’t have a loading bay).
But here’s where ULINE excels, at least in this argument — they have tiered pricing. Order small amounts, it costs just about retail price (usually a bit less, but not by much). Order in larger amounts, and the price goes down. Order in huge bulk amounts, the price goes WAY down, to the point where it would be perfectly practical to use them to order stock to sell at retail.
Comics should be like that.
You know how hard it is to get a DIAMOND account? It involves credit scores and business IDs and phone calls and certified checks (seriously, when I ran my store I would have to go to the bank every week and get a certified check in order to get my order; after, I think, a year DIAMOND allows you to switch to a regular business check). As any comics retailer will tell you, the DIAMOND website is just about the least intuitive site ever created, and ordering from it (or even just finding a product on it) is mind-numbing. And that’s for the people who have decided to focus their entire business on selling a product they can only get through DIAMOND. (This is where the argument of ten years ago would devolve, justifiably, into a discussion of how terrible DIAMOND is. That discussion can be found anywhere else online, so I won’t go into it here.) So while there might be plenty of non-comics stores that have some interest in stocking a selection of comic books, most would run up against DIAMOND and decide against it.
[Here I should mention that for the first two years of JIGSAW, when it was a comic shop and art gallery in NYC, I didn't have a DIAMOND account, and instead got all my comics through COLD CUT and private small press distribution, as well as the occasional "fell off the truck" deal with friendly creators whose books I couldn't get because they were published by Marvel, DC, or Image, who are all exclusive to DIAMOND. It was, in fact, impossible to keep a broad selection this way, and one of the motivating factors for moving the store was so I could afford to get a DIAMOND account, and have enough space to put it all.]
As this is stretching on a bit longer than I’d intended, I’ll skip the bit where I contemplated the perfect match that is comics and hardware, what with single issue comics being cheap, disposable, and the perfect length to read on a break on a construction site (how great would that be to see a line of guys in hard hats reading comics on their lunch break?). I fully recognize that the comics industry is so far in the hole in terms of “how things are done” that changing the system is next to impossible. And I know that the business is built around pre-ordering and exclusivity and all sorts of things that, while idiotic, are just status quo. And I know that DIAMOND can barely get their distribution correct as it is, so adding customers would cause more problems than it would solve. And, and, and.
But picture a different world. Where there was a website where a customer could go and buy the new issue of PHONOGRAM for full price with nothing more than their credit card. A world where that very same website could sell 50 copies of the new issue to James Sime at his normal retailer discount. A world where the owner of that hardware store could decide to try having a selection of comics for his customers to read, and could get a good discount without having to jump through hoops. A world where the ubiquity of comics wasn’t such a weird idea.
All I’m saying is that it was kind of a nice dream.
