Games ARE art;. don't get me wrong. If that's the discussion at hand I'll be right there to take that side, holding up plenty of games as prominent examples: EarthBound, 999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors, Deus Ex, Devil May Cry 3, Super Metroid and any number of other titles to prove I play video games. When I say there isn't any merit artistically, I'm not talking about video games in general -- my argument is that (most of) these games already accomplish themselves as successful works of art, and, as such, turning them into a movie is pointless artistically. The key is that movies carry a legitimacy that video games do not. There's no (significant) Oscar equivalent for video games, and it certainly isn't broadcast to billions of people. And considering the games being adapted -- Assassin's Creed, Uncharted, The Last of Us, Metal Gear Solid, etc -- are
already designed to replicate a cinematic experience, putting them on the big screen is effectively the same as watching all the cut-scenes in Theater Mode. The difference is that a lot more people will see it and the story/property will be elevated to the "real" artistic medium that is film.
Ag0stoMesmer wrote:I knew he was sceptical about games as 'art', but kinda retracted that. I can't see how adaptations from games are any worse -in principle- than adaptations from books, musicals etc. (in practice of course they're mostly shit). Got a link?
Ebert was pretty much exactly who CMonster was talking about. He wrote a blog post on how video games aren't art with a boatload of stupid reasons, to say nothing of how stupid I think the distinction of what is "art" or not is in the the first place. Then, after he got called out for clearly not having a clue what he was talking about, he said he'd never really played video games because he hadn't found one worth his time -- which is reductive to a fault, and sounds more like a 15-year-old on a message board than the most respected film critic in the country. On a purely argumentative level, he was absolutely wrong.
But, as a problem at whole... why do people care? Why do people get so worked up that Roger Ebert doesn't appreciate video games as art? Again, it ties back to my point about "legitimacy." (quotations because of how stupid I find the concept, not the term) Ebert had his Great Movies section, and for people who see games as art, it would be nice for gaming to be at a point where there can be an Ebert of video games with a Great Games section that gives some realistic credibility to gaming as an artistic medium. And yet, at the same time, the gaming industry (speaking collectively, of course) doesn't seem to be willing to actually examine and develop the medium they constantly champion. As I said, there's no Ebert of video games -- there's also no Kael, Sarris, Bazin; whoever. The only person in the gaming industry I'm aware of who actually treats video games as works of art rather than just saying they are is Adam Sessler, and he's constantly given shit for it. Gamer culture desires video games to be held up as series discussion points without actually analyzing them beyond how to tighten up the graphics on Level 3. To sum it up in one image:
As for why they're different from books/musicals as sources for adaptation, that's a super complicated discussion, albeit one I have thought about. To keep it short, they key difference is that plays and musicals are passive viewing experiences in the same way movies are, and the distinction is putting them behind a screen and giving the camera the ability to become part of the story. Video games are a completely active viewing experience, and in this way, I'd say they're actually closer to books than film -- both demand the player/reader to be an active participant in their completion; they can't just play in the background for you to tune in ever now and then. The key difference here is the element of control a video game gives you, and that element of control is a hugely important factor in how we experience and enjoy playing a game. Great gaming stories almost always taken advantage of this (BioShock, 999, Spec Ops: The Line, Metal Gear Solid 3) and the ones that don't, well, I'm not sure why you'd want to adapt them. It's something that gets completely lost in translation, and it's far more significant than when a book is adapted to a film and people complain that the characters don't look how they pictured them.
There's a lot to discuss here, and it's stuff I think is work discussing, but, basically, I'd like to see video games start treating themselves seriously instead of just demanding to be seen as such.