Personally I feel ‘art’ is anything a life form, or any other natural process, thinks, does or experiences. Art is cause and effect. The floor affects my existence as does the manner in which my cat meows or what my friend says in an email. Our current thoughts are altering emotional and physical reality in subtle almost imperceptible fashion. So limiting the word ‘art’ to the realm of film, painting, sculpture, poems, video games, music, etc. I feel is unfair.

To further push the idea of language/words being a problem, as our consciousness evolves, words like science, sport, art, politics, etc. will merge into one grand concept. This grand conjunction or unification of separate categories will bring forth advancements that current humans would consider magic. Perhaps then our current spoken and written language systems will be depreciated and a new more powerful language system based on pictures will emerge. Think ‘techlepathy’ although I prefer true telepathy since techlepathy could backfire (further enslavement of humanity). Anyways I am tangenting a bit.

Personally, I think possible the best example as gaming as an art form is Flower. You don’t need to play the game to have fun, you can just sit back and take in the atmosphere. To me that’s what it’s all about and Flower, along with many other games, has done that so much better than some of the movies, music and paintings I’ve seen over the years.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Roger-Ebert-doesnt-know-games-because-he-doesnt-play-them/111219238918791

Firstly, I’m not sure you chose particularly strong examples. Flower is arguably not a game – it was approached as art first, and there is little for the player to do (though much for them to experience). Waco: Resurrection is about violence and is, frankly, not very good looking – both of which would make it trickier to sell as art (IMO). Braid…OK, I’ll give you Braid. Though I’d say Braid is hampered by its mediocre story presentation (in-between level text? Really? Are we playing Tyrian?).

These examples are also quite recent. If you want to make the argument for games being art, I would argue that there are many examples which are much older. Off the top of my head, a lot of the old Black Isle products were art (including the original Fallouts and Planescape Torment), many adventure games would qualify (Grim Fandango, Full Throttle, even King’s Quest), a lot of modern Bioware games (KOTOR being perhaps one of the best examples), what about Sid Meier with Alpha Centauri? Or Pirates?, and Team Ico stuff (Ico, Shadow of the Colossus).

There’s an entire history of gaming to draw on. Choosing examples from the past few years needlessly hampers your argument. I think it would be difficult to argue that Planescape Torment isn’t art – it’s a story presentation that relies intrinsically on player interaction. Shadow of the Colossus has beautiful art direction and visceral presentation. Grim Fandango has unique and original ideas and a quirky aesthetic. And that’s the ones I can think of. I have no doubt here are plenty more. Furthermore, it means you concede a point you might not need to – the whole “not comparing to the masters” thing. Gaming has its honored classics, and its titans of the field – Tim Schaefer or Chris Avellone both spring to mind, as does Sid Meier or even Peter Molyneux. People do haul out their old games and replay them – and the experience is not appreciably hampered by age. The enduring experience of many of these games is a point towards games being art.

All of the games mentioned can (and usually do) evoke an emotional reaction in the player (other than controller-snapping rage, which nearly all games can evoke ). All received a lot of effort visually and in their story. Hell, Planescape: Torment stayed on a lot of top ten lists until OBLIVION came along. That’s almost ten years. And it did that on the strength of its story and experience.

These are games pointed to as great by the community (or at least by journalists). And I’ve got to wonder why you didn’t take advantage of that? Gaming, like other forms of art, also has a rich history. And like other art forms, what was and was not art is more agreed upon than what is and is not art at this particular moment. Going back to pick the best examples of gaming three, five, ten, or even fifteen years ago would be a much better way of both demonstrating the artistry of gaming and of demonstrating the history and long existence of that artistry.

I think you weakened your argument unnecessarily. Not that I think it would have made a difference to Ebert, mind you.

Like with any art form, some games are better than others.

http://etherealclarity.livejournal.com/263518.html