Why Do We All Want Roger Ebert to Concede That There are Games That are Art?
In essence, because as Joseph Campbell has stated, we want to feel like we are in harmony with others around us and to be a part of our society. If we are not, we're crazy or just wrong. Roger Ebert is the perceived voice of a large faction of our typical upper middle class society. It is that representation that I think many of us feel a longing to convince, not just Roger Ebert himself. I myself, could not really care either way what Ebert really thinks but I do care what everyone else thinks and there are many who goes along with his suggestion that games cannot be art. Why? Simply I want to be right and this is, as much as I don’t want to admit it, a subjective thing that a large group of people have to agree on. If I’m the only one at the party that thinks I’m right. I’m likely the one at the party who is actually wrong.
Good? Got that out of the way?
Okay so to all of you that agree with Ebert I won’t fall into the more obvious trappings. The Bioshocks. Not even my beloved Ico and Shadows of the Colossus. I’ve been playing videogames since the original Nintendo. That classifies me as experienced. Do I think Ebert is going to really grasp Shadows often times confusing camera controls when we all know he doesn’t actually plop down and play a game like that all the way through? My guess is he wouldn’t even slay the first beast and if he did, he likely will be so focused in wrapping his head around the climbing, grabbing and stabbing controls that he won’t really absorb the deed. So if you can clearly see why I suggest we need something simple, short and playable by a first time gamer without the need for a video game console and specific game etc. Unless the Eberts of the world are unusually open minded (their point about games seems to suggest they’re not) and unless they have a scrappy niece or nephew that just won’t give the point up, they’re not going to see a regular game.
Flash and online Games!
Jobs’ despised online media format can become the silver bullet in our war against the haters. So where does that leave us? With quite the treasure trove actually. There’s closure, today I die, passage, The Graveyard and I’m guessing “Sleep is Death” although I have not played it. Today however I am going to talk about “Everyday the Same Dream” by Paolo Pedercini of Molle Industria.
This game fits the bill nicely. It’s not stuck on death which could be viewed as a little bit of a cop out in that everyone is afraid of their mortality. Mortality being the one factor to pin a story on could be viewed as a little bit of an emotional cheat code. This game is more of an interactive short movie. You need only to use the arrow controls to move left or right and the space key to select. You cannot die. You can explore the various outcomes of the story at your leisure. Hell, you can even just stop playing the game for an hour and let the great music play as a soundtrack to your life in the background....like me....while sit here typing this in an office...surrounded by cubicles....which brings me to my next point. The story of this game. I don’t want to spoil it completely. As Roger Ebert understands, the best way to experience a great movie whether feature length or a mere short, is to jump right in without knowing the whole story.
So let’s just say if you’re like me and you live every day the same way and dream about breaking out of the confines of your life and doing something new then go play this game and I think you will find something to connect with emotionally as you would a piece of art. I know I have. That’s why I got up the gumption to write this article. I’m not a writer.
http://www.molleindustria.org/everydaythesamedream/everydaythesamedream.html
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