Thoughts on the latest SW novel

So, I just finished up the latest Star Wars EU novel--Karen Traviss' Revelation in the Legacy of the Force story arc--and I thought I would share my thoughts. Since my comments are filled with *SPOILERS*, I will post them in the comments section.

Star Wars: Episode 2.5?

Good news for the Star Wars fanatics amongs us! As I'm sure many of you already know, an animated Star Wars film is coming to theaters this summer, just before the animated series begins this fall. In general, I will read, watch, or play anything dealing with Star Wars, so this is big news indeed. But, I do have a few minor gripes, the first being that both the upcoming movie as well as the series will be set in the Clone Wars era. It's not that I dislike the Clone Wars era--it's just that this era seems sufficiently covered for my tastes (there is a Dark Horse comic book series,and a Del Rey book series, and of course the Cartoon Network animated series, not to mention the "spinoff" stuff like the Republic Comnnando series). I would vastly prefer something set set either in the KOTOR era, or the post-RotJ era (preferably something during the Thrawn trilogy, or during the NJO). My other little gripe is that the animation looks a little goofy--frankly, I would have preferred computer animation more realistic (more like Advent Children).
But--minor gripes aside--I must say that I am extremely excited.

Welcome to the Circus of Values!

Good article about Bioshock and Objectivist philosophy over at Kotaku. As I'm not an Objectivist, I don't really have much to say about the game's semi-critical attitude towards the philosophy, except insofar as they are more general criticisms of free markets. And even here, it is hard to read anything in Bioshock as a truly substantial criticism of free markets or libertarianism as Andrew Ryan, Rapture's leader and the game's main anatagonist, comes off as a tyrnat and is hardly a libertarian model (likewise I would be be hesitant to call Rapture a "libertarian" society).

Video Games as Art

On July 21st, 2007 Roger Ebert wrote an article in which he declared, in no uncertain terms, that videogames should not be considered art. This is a far grander claim than one might at first realize. Ebert is not merely claiming that, at this very moment, there are no videogames that have attained the lofty status of “high art”; rather, he is claiming that no videogame could ever attain such a status. I think the former question—that of whether any videogames right now ought to be considered ‘art’—is a more open question that is worthy of serious discussion (for those curious, my answer would be a qualified ‘yes’). But I do not wish to tackle this thorny issue—rather, I would like to answer Ebert’s claims with regard to the latter issue, that videogames can never attain the status of high art.
Before addressing Ebert’s claims point-by point, there is a general point that ought to be made. There is a larger question of some importance here, a question that reaches far beyond the scope of this response (it is a question also not addressed by Ebert). This is the fundamental question: what is art? What characteristics makes something ‘art’ but something similar ‘not art’? This is a very important question, not only with regard to the general pursuit of knowledge, but also with regard to attempting to categorize any specific videogame as either art or not. But I don’t think the question is of too much importance in our current task. It is enough, I think, that we note these points about Ebert’s view of art: one, that Ebert clearly thinks that there are objective criteria for what he calls “high art”, and, two, that in general literature and film are capable of attaining this status. If we accept these premises for the sake of argument, then it follows that videogames, too, are capable of being high art.
Why can’t videogames be considered ‘art’? In answering this question, Ebert says:
How do I know this? How many games have I played? I know it by the definition of the vast majority of games. They tend to involve (1) point and shoot in many variations and plotlines, (2) treasure or scavenger hunts, as in "Myst," and (3) player control of the outcome. I don't think these attributes have much to do with art; they have more in common with sports.

This response is problematic for two reasons. First off, Ebert is already making a shift from making a claim about what any videogame could possibly be to a claim about what most videogames right now happen to be. Even if we assume that it is true that, right now, most videogames involve ‘scavenger hunts’, or are nothing but empty shooters, this doesn’t seem to show that videogames can’t be art any more than if it were the case that most literature right now consisted of trashy romance novels. It is also unclear why “point and shoot” mechanics or treasure hunts ought to be grounds to disqualify a game from being considered art. These mechanics, as well as combat mechanics, puzzles, etc. constitute the “active” elements of gaming that makes videogames interactive in a way that novels and films are not. But so what? These are just what makes videogames games, and make them distinct from, say, movies. Ebert has given us no reason to believe that such elements detract from being art, and why should they? If a videogame can tell a story of the same caliber as a novel or movie, why does it matter that you actively “play through” parts of the story (assuming that your play doesn’t change the story—Ebert’s points about ‘player control of the outcome’ may have some merit, and will be addressed later).
Let us move on to some of Ebert’s other points. Many of Ebert’s points in this article are written as a response to comments by Clive Barker, and here Ebert responds to Barkers’s claim that Ebert has a prejudiced view of videogames:

I might suggest that gamers have a prejudiced view of their medium, and particularly what it can be. Games may not be Shakespeare quite yet, but I have the prejudice that they never will be, and some gamers are prejudiced that they will.

Note that, again, Ebert equivocates between claims about what videogames can be and claims about what they are (or will be). He begins by stating that he thinks that gamers have a prejudiced (“misguided”) idea of what games can be, but then claims that he thinks games will not achieve the level of Shakespeare (implying that they of course could).
This aside, does Ebert have a prejudiced view of videogames? Honestly, I wouldn’t know, and I doubt there’s enough information in this article to make that claim. However, I do think that Ebert is pretty ignorant about videogames, and I don’t mean for this comment to be particularly mean or disparaging. After all, he implies that he has never played a videogame, and many of his points in this article belie the fact that he has a misguided view of what many videogames are like. So while I would not call Ebert’s view prejudiced, I would describe it as misinformed.

Let us look at perhaps the most important criticism of videogames-as-art that Ebert makes, one which connects with his earlier point about player-controlled outcome:

I believe art is created by an artist. If you change it, you become the artist. Would "Romeo and Juliet" have been better with a different ending? Rewritten versions of the play were actually produced with happy endings. "King Lear" was also subjected to rewrites; it's such a downer. At this point, taste comes into play. Which version of "Romeo and Juliet," Shakespeare's or Barker's, is superior, deeper, more moving, more "artistic"?

In general, I believe that his point is a good one. In other words, art, on a fundamental level, is created by the artist, and experiences in which a story is left open for someone else to decide (be it a videogame or even a “choose your own adventure” novel) aren’t “high art.” But I question how relevant this point is to videogames in general—while some videogames certainly fall into this category, not all of them do. And more importantly, videogame don’t necessarily involve player control of the outcome, at least in any significant manner. Allow me to expand on this point: it ought to be clear that some changes made by a person don’t affect a work of art’s status as art. If I am reading a Shakespeare play online, and change the text color from black to red, I clearly haven’t made any artistically significant changes. Similarly, if we allow for the moment that a videogame might be art, how I play through the game (how I solve puzzles, what characters I use in battles, whether or not I complete sidequests, etc.) will have no bearing on the game’s esthetic values. The only player-induced changes that could affect a game’s standing as art, I think, are those that are significant changes to the plot or theme of the game’s story. But this isn’t enough to disqualify videogames as a medium from being considered art, since a) many “artistic” games (by which I mean games that one might defeasibly consider art) don’t have any significant player control of outcome (Final Fantasy VII, Metal Gear Solid 2, and Shadow of the Colossus come to mind), and b) many games that have player control of outcome shouldn’t disqualify a game from being considered art. Let me explain what I mean by this. Let us take the game Bioshock as an example, and put aside questions of whether is game ought to be considered art. The point I want to make is that whether or not this game is considered art should have nothing to do with the fact that player choice determines the outcome. Why? Because very little about the story hinges on whether you play the ‘good’ or ‘evil’ route—it pretty much affects only the ending on the most literal interpretation. But what makes Bioshock such an interesting game—the eerie music, the deco-art style, and the twisting and turning story—depends little on how the game “wraps itself up”, so to speak. And Bioshock is not alone, I think, among videogames in which the portion of the outcome that a player can “decide” is really a rather insignificant portion (or which the path the player chooses is disparate enough that making a different choice amounts to playing two different games).

Thus, I do not think it is fair to claim that videogames cannot be art. This isn’t to say that none of Ebert’s points are valid; on the contrary, I think his general insights (and I say “general” partly because he doesn’t discuss this in great depth) on what elements are a necessary component of “high art.” And I would agree that a lot of great video games—perhaps even some of the best video games—could not be considered “high art.” But I vehemently disagree with Ebert’s claim that no video games could ever be considered high art. I think, even on Ebert’s own position, this claim is ultimately untenable. Video games come in all varieties, and many have the same artistic goals (and use similar means to attain these goals) as films and novels.