Clive Barker was one of my literary heroes long before he entered the gaming universe. Rarely is such a perverse and twisted individual simultaneously intelligent and beautifully spoken, but Clive's no stranger to this mixture. Not one to take rubbish lying down, Barker addressed Roger Ebert on the Digital Trends podcast, saying:
"[Ebert's] a pompous, arrogant old man, and he's not going to stop us from making games or enjoying them or... making them art."
Praise the Gods for this man. This remark is not the first of its kind, following a letter Barker penned to Ebert after his claim that games are not art and Ebert's publicly posted reply. Barker passionately supports the positive end of the games as art argument, especially in this tidbit from the podcast:
"If you walk into the National Gallery in London, you are presented with masterpieces of impressionism and glorious Dutch miniatures and so on... countless styles and forms of genius represented. One day it'll be like that for games... and we will be looking at these things the way we look at the great animated cartoons of Disney."
That's a point of view sure to be argued to death, but I love the beauty of the idea. As it is, games are already interpreted in many different types of art forms from paint to craft. It's not just the work of enthusiasts that populate this genre, but also artists that see the history of games for what it is: A rich resource for all types in inspiration, from 8-Bit to Modernism. Cheers to Barker for his passion and courage on the topic. Maybe we'll get lucky enough to see Ebert have his innards chewed out by Cenobites in a Barker painting in the future.
[Via
GameDaily - Thanks John]
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Contest:
5:08 PM on 09.26.2007
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I'm so glad that, he of all people has stepped up to defend games where suits and mega corps can't be bothered. He's a champion of mature gamers everywhere too, another angle where the industry fails to stand up and be counted. Why are industry people so scared to even discuss this stuff, I don't know.
You are a champ Clive, and I'll happily buy Jericho because it looks damn sweet and you deserve my loot.
"he's not going to stop us from making games or enjoying them"
I hardly think roger ebert is trying to stop anyone from making or enjoying games. He doesn't think they are art. So what. Move on.
go Barker go
Call me a godless philistine, but I've only invested time and money in games that I hoped would be good entertainment, not good art.
Whether it is good art or bad art; that's just a matter of opinion.
I think the subject of this debate is less whether or not games are art, and more on what the definition of the word "art" actually is. I disagree with ebert's take on it, so his arguments ring irrelevant in my ears. To me, there's no debate. I've yet to hear a single compelling argument as to why games are not art, while I can think of quite a number of reasons why they are(eg. bioshock, planescape torment, ico, okami etc. etc. etc.). Doesn't mean they're all art, or they shouldn't be entertaining as well, but the same can be said of any medium.
Art is suppose to provoke thought and/or reaction from our senses. I've been moved by Bioshock lately, so that's art to me. It makes me think about mans place in the world, everytime I listen to Ryan's recordings, beside my doing my jedi like shit and frying enemies with Electro Bolt. This reaction can be positive or negative, so long as their is some, but it works for me (and others too perhaps.
Too look good, to sound well, to importantly play well. The fact that games are an interactive medium, they have the ability to touch the player/s emotions, more than film for countless hours (not in every sense but the industry is always learning). And those together, they deserve just as much attention as films or books in what they do artisticly, to the player but also through their very creation to reach the player and shop shelves.
If the same can be said about a ferrari, (something that goes through similar phases of creation, with an end product that must aim to please) then games classify as works of art. The highbrows of the world just don't want to admit it, that's all.
Fuck that Ebert, he's an old school film nut (granted, he knows his shit) ,obviously he feels the heat from games popularity, and sees fit to blank them. Shows what a biggot he is, if he can't do some research to back up his claims.
I reckon i'm going to give the national gallery a copy of tetris, just to mess this guy up.
You go Clive B.
Reading Ebert's reply, I disagree with him on a fundamental point -- he seems to think that games are not sufficiently complete works of authorship because they allow the player to make choices that influence the outcome.
This doesn't hold much water because we all know that players do not have unlimited freedom in games; they must act within the scripts provided. Further, I think a creative framework that allows input can itself be art. Isn't that what people do at museums? They look at something called "art" and attempt to derive meaning from it, often by ascribing meaning to it. It is the collaborative process between artist and perceiver that best defines the more abstract forms of art. I don't think Ebert would argue that abstract films could never be art because the meaning is always subject to change.
P.S. All of the Dutch
Incidentally, Undying is one of the most underated games I've played.
*whispering*
What?
*whispering*
Oh. Nevermind.
That is all.