Well you can see what I like from my list... story, art, and music are the biggest attractors. I've played and enjoyed all sorts of other games too (and some of those picks might come up later) but when I think back on the experiences that have stuck with me, the "gaminess" of it is really secondary to how it's all presented. I like being able to play along but I guess I'm conditioned to respond to pictures and music and characters that take me somewhere I wouldn't otherwise get to go.
Roger Ebert said in the 90s that video games will never be art because they have nothing to say, and presumably at the time he was thinking about things like Mario Bros. and Tetris and not seeing any room there for a game to communicate ideas that aren't just "press this button now". But of course that's not even true because Mario Bros. has an aesthetic visually and musically which has proved to be hugely influential on culture. There are bands that try to create the feel of old-school video game music and there is a whole huge industry in selling the same style of Japanese cute-ness that permeates early Nintendo designs. Just because not everyone 'gets it' doesn't mean it isn't art.
But where I think Ebert really misses the point (because he probably never played games much or at all) is that the experience of playing something is different than just watching what someone else has made and presented to you. Even something as simple as Pac-Man is conveying emotions that are not easily expressed in other mediums. Those ghosts aren't just chasing Pac-Man around the maze, they're chasing you around the maze. When you make a mistake and go for one last cherry you didn't need only to see your avarice punished, it was you who made that decision and thus it is you who is responsible for that failure, and are now challenged to learn how to do things better next time.
It's the same message as the movie Groundhog Day -- a dramatic concept which references the classic arcade game practice of starting over from the same point each time -- and it's not spelled out for you in the same way, but it's almost more powerful when you get to make the connection yourself. And in it's tabletop arcade form, Pac-Man 2P has an "I Go-You Go" format which lets you cheer on your friends as they make more daring moves than you could pull off or laugh when they die in the exact same spot. It's life in microcosm. and all of this is essential to the experience of Pac-Man and it's why that game is still worth playing today.
Maybe I'm just stating the obvious here, but I do think we have transitioned to a period of time where non-interactive entertainment is getting replaced not just by games necessarily but by mediums where the viewer is allowed to participate in the experience. And I don't think it's ever going to go back to the way it was. We are all self-curators now, choosing our shows and watching them how and when we want to and building our own music playlists. I don't want to try to guess a percentage, but a whole lot of the content on YouTube is aimed at DIY minded folks who are watching those videos in order to do something with the information. Fix their car or cook their own pizza or start a side job as a DJ, who knows. Maybe all of the above.
So yeah... I fully agree. I think there's enormous potential in video games (and tabletop games) to make artistic statements which cannot be made any other way. By placing you -- the player-- at the center of the experience and responding to your choices by presenting you with other ones that game is allowing you to experiences motivations and emotions which traditional storytelling forms can only show you in an abstracted 3rd person form. There's no reason for anyone to feel that the label 'gamer' is a pejorative anymore.
I agree. It’s funny how generalized and, to a degree, pejorative the term “gamer” can be considering how diverse the people it attempts to label. I think for “non-gamers” the image that pops into their heads of what a “hardcore modern gamer” plays (if they know anything beyond Mario and PacMan) are World of Warcraft MMOs, Grimdark military FPSs, eSports RTSs, and one-on-one competitive arcade-style Fighters.
And I don’t like any of those genres.
FPSs make me disoriented and sick (which sucked when GoldenEye was all the rage). The first person games I do love have secondary mechanics beyond run and gun.
RTSs are too frantic. Love StarCraft though for reasons I can’t explain, and one Vanillaware game, more because I’m a fan of Vanillaware.
I have zero interest in playing strangers online in an MMO, and can’t bother to memorize button sequences and execute in real time to be anything but a button-masher in Fighters.
Yet, I’m a gamer - and it’s telling that even writing that makes me cringe a little.
I’m a gainfully-employed, home-owning husband and father who doesn’t fit the pervasive prejudicial negative stereotype of a basement-dwelling non-social ne’er-do-well “gamer” pwning noobs online (to use slang which ironically shows just how old and out of touch I am) … but who does really?
No one would ever accuse my grandparents of being “gamers,” but in addition to regularly enjoying Tetris-clone puzzlers that were extremely popular among casuals but somehow don’t count as being “gamer” games, they absolutely loved the sequel to Oregon Trail. After my grandfather’s first successful run to Willamette Valley, he printed out the summary sheet, and had honest-to-god tears in his eyes as he handed it to my grandma and talked to her about his adventure.
This medium has far more power and ability to evoke emotion as an art form than anywhere near the pitiful credit it is given. Many more people would be open to being labeled a “gamer” if it didn’t come with such negative baggage and there was a lot less gatekeeping.
Ebert's argument is commonly interpreted as him being casually dismissive of video games, but the reason he's still referenced years later, is because his criticism was incisive and salient. Straw-manning his argument leaves us all the more foolish.
What Ebert originally said, was that games will become art once they abandon things that make them games, the interactive elements. At that point they become cinema. He wrote this in
various posts between 2006 and 2012.
Ebert presents a definition of art that is focused around the artistic vision of the creator. The argument is that anywhere there is agency, where the artist is letting the player inject themselves into the work, it is by definition not the artist's vision. Thus, video games are by principal, not art.
You and I can pick a different definition of art, base it on aesthetics or "cultural value" or some other thing, [for what it's worth, Kojima basically agreed with Ebert's definition](https://www.eurogamer.net/news240106kojimaart) But even if we plant our flag on another hill, his hill remains unconquered.
The question is not whether you can have art in a game, but whether the game itself adds anything to the art. Do the non-cinematic parts of the game have artistic vision? Looking at the list of games on our collective islands, I think that some are trying, but there's no definitive rebuttal since Ebert published. There's a *feeling* that there is an art form, but not enough evidence to prove it. I have no idea where things will be in another 15 years, but I'm hopeful that there will continue to be progress. It's good to try to do hard things, and I think Ebert presents a worthy goal.
The counterpunch that Ebert threw, also remains relevant "Why do gamers want video games to be considered "Art"?" There are lots of things people spend a lot of time on that aren't "Art", that aren't stigmatized.
I sometimes find myself wondering whether being a sports fan is a worthwhile use of my treasure and attention. The strongest justification I can come up with is that being a sports fan puts me in a common interest group with lots of types of people I wouldn't normally interact with in daily life. In the world where it's easier than ever live in a curated bubble, this seems like an important experience to seek out.
Maybe there's a value in noticing that whether we play our video games on a deserted island, a spare office in the suburbs, a palatial estate, or in a parent's basement, we all have something in common. Maybe that's enough to justify the time spent. And maybe even if that's not convincing, we can agree to not stigmatize people for how they spend their free time.
