The International House of Mojo

Sorry for double-post: Psychonauts can be voted on, so get on to it.

First off: Ebert's has withdrawn his statements since making them. Secondly, in light of interactive computer music, interactive sculpture, interactive installations, and interactive dance the notions that art REQUIRES NARRATIVE and that INTERACTIVITY HINDERS ARTISTIC DESIGN are silly, vacant, and so obviously false that it's surprising that any "debate" lasted as long as it has. What art requires, however, is artistic intent (thank you Duchamp) and many of modern games are just as devoid of that as most of modern films, music, and whatever else.

In terms of the exhibition: far from the best of what the medium has to offer. I personally hope for the VGA version of SoMI as it's the best looking version of the original vision. Lack of Rohrer / Blow / Carlsen-Jensen / Chahi / Ancel / Ueda / and countless others that altered, matured, and developed the medium beyond the cookie-cutter clichés is worth questioning.

Don't get me wrong - I love Super Mario Brothers, and I enjoyed Myst quite a bit. It's just it's 2011 right now, and we've sort of had developments in the last 20 years that aren't at all embodied by World of Warcraft.

Off-topic: IGN has revealed Telltale's new games already

http://pc.ign.com/articles/115/1150947p1.html

The thing about this exhibition is that you probably shouldn't view it as an art exhibition, but as an exhibition detailing the history of video games (as a cultural phenomenon). As for games as art, well there are plenty of examples of interactive art out there that are fun to play with, so anyone who says games can't be art is stupid and has their head firmly up their backside. It's just that those art installations are a different type of game than the video games we play, just like going to the opera is not the same as listening to a jukebox, or having a poster on your wall being different from going to look at paintings in a museum.

To be honest, and I'm super-excited that SoMI is one of the selected playable games, I find this whole exhibition pretty repulsive and I honestly think the poorly-thought and pandering nature of its presentation would probably help Ebert's case upon closer examination. Though Ebert's almost certainly wrong, his argument raises some interesting and valuable points about the intersection of gameplay and narrative, and more importantly the intersection of authorial intent and player agency. Putting up a gallery of games "with a focus on striking visual effects" seems completely beside the point.

That, or maybe I'm just cross about having to choose between Grim Fandango and Fallout. ;)