Well, I think the debate is rather pointless because any creative endeavor is art by definition (art is anything you create). Debating whether one product is "good art" or "poor art" is another matter that is largely contextual and sometimes subjective. "Sometimes" because any creative work can be evaluated based on the technical quality of materials used and certain other objective criteria (albeit within the context of what was available when the work was created). Obviously, even a work that has high technical value may not function well overall when other aspects are included as part of the whole.

You can see an example of my statements in the film "Mona Lisa Smile". Julia Roberts plays an art professor at Wellesley in the 1950s, but she's just come there from California. The young women in her course tear apart her first lecture. She attempted to use the textbook and its examples, but they were completely prepared with information and analysis from having read the text prior to her lecture. She turns the tables on them the next lecture by offering examples of art that are not in the textbook and that have not been formally analyzed by some academic someplace. For example, she uses a picture she drew as a child and that her mother thought was a terrific piece of art. She forces the young women to critically think about creative works rather than merely regurgitate what others think or have said, and in this way helps them to learn rather than memorize.

Why question the artistic merits of a game featuring bikini-clad female samurai chopping through endless hordes of zombies? It's certainly at least as artistic as a game featuring a nameless, steroid-poisoned soldier blasting his way through endless hordes of demons. Or a game featuring a few pixels that simulate a tennis court, ball, and rackets. All are creative works and thus all are art. Personal preferences may vary, but that's another matter entirely.

I agree generally with Dave, but I don't think art is merely anything which is created, though in the past I've used that definition myself. If that were the case, the grilled cheese sandwich I had for dinner last night would be art, and if our definition of art is that wide, it becomes essentially meaningless. Certainly there is a difference between a grilled cheese sandwich and a novel, isn't there? I think that art is anything creative whose purpose is *expression*. It is not merely creation, but expression through creation that denotes something as art, to me. Though you're both quite right that in the end it's sort of a silly debate.

There are those who might argue, Adam, that the grilled-cheeze sandwich you made *is*, in fact art. That's one of the things about art, "Art is in the eye of the beholder." The definition of art is highly subjective, even amongst artists creating "traditional" art, the discussion rages on. There's never going to be a winner here, but that doesn't mean the discussion is pointless. Every generation of artists (and the general populace) goes through this learning process, they learn to define art for themselves through this type of discussion.

Truthfully, I think one of the things that defines art is time. When the dadist movement (generally regarded these days as "art") first came to life, the same discussion raged around its existence. Now, decades later, it is (some what grudgingly in some cases) accepted as art. The same goes for Jackson Pollock, or VanGogh, to use "classic" examples.

However (da**, this is getting long) there is also the difference between Art and Design to consider. Games might better be categorised as "Design" rather than "Art" because of the production element, they are a product produced through a process to serve a fundamentally commercial purpose.

I say keep discussing, time will out :)

http://s3.amazonaws.com/readers/webupon/2007/12/31/95226_0.jpg

But seriously. People say that particular forms of expression are not art because they want a "valid" reason for their dislike of a medium or they are just elitist in their views.

Some people appreciate the art of Chopin, some the art of Dragonforce. If we keep creating, the close minded people will eventually have to grudgingly admit that games can be an art form, and then we win.

I think that the important concept here is that the ability of the medium to be used to express meaningful ideas makes the medium "art."

The focus here is that it's the medium, not an individual work within the medium, that is or is not art. So if it's possible for a painting to express a meaningful idea, then paintings are categorically art. It doesn't matter if my painting is garbage or a masterpiece. You can say that my painting is terrible if you want to, but that doesn't change that paintings are art.

I'd also like to cast aside the ridiculous "anything in the entire world is art, even if it's just a naturally-occurring object" perspective. The purpose of a having a word with a definition is so that separate things into categories. We already have the word "everything," and we don't need "art" to act as a redundant word. I have a feeling that this is veering off-topic, but my main point is that even if we don't use the "everything is art" cop-out, video games are still unarguably capable, as a medium, of conveying ideas, and are therefore art.

Wow, thanks for the comments guys. These are all really good, and so I'll try to break up my response so I'm not too wordy.

Kimberly: You really touched on what I am trying to get at. I really didn't want to start off the whole what is art/are games art debate again. That said, a lot of the comments are arguments I'd never considered before, and they're awesome, so I guess I take that back. But my larger point in the article is that most games do serve a fundamental commercial purpose, and that's going to impact the existence or non-existence of art. I never really considered if being for a commercial purpose takes something from art to design. My take would be no. Michaelangelo's David was work for hire, and I'm not about to risk being murdered by an art history major by calling it design. But whatever you call it, the market is going to impact what comes out of a development studio, and that's the crux of what I am getting at. There's no problem if you take Dave's ultra-inclusive definition of art, because we're already there. Or if you take my view, which is fairly exclusive, that is to say, that games have to reach a certain sophistication of idea and production value, and that will happen too, namely because there are going to be enough fellow snobs out there who vote with their wallet.

Dave: Your point about your definition of art is much of what I'm trying to address in the article. You have a pretty broad definition of art, others (not to mention the other people in the comments) have other ones. My point in bringing up Onechanbara, and you're right, there are plenty of other titles I could have used, is that, to my personal definition of art, it doesn't come close. But I then I concede that for others it might. There is so much subjectivity, the discussion of what "is" and "is not" art ultimately does get bogged down. Which is why I look to the market. Developers responding to economic opportunity ought to produce games that will scratch every itch. You're lucky. Everything you play is art. But for a snob like me, the breadth of the market gives me options too.

Adam: Do you think the fact that is for a commercial endeavor, though, corrupts any of its qualities? And what about if you're making it with an eye towards how it is received publicly. If you're making something specifically with the goal that a wide swath of people will love it, is the sophistication of expression required making that art even if there's, at the end, a very material and commercial goal... i.e. making tons of dough.

Jeff: That was one hellacious looking sandwich. That's the basic rub of the problem, isn't it? Everyone has their definition of what is "art", or even more plainly what is "good". And sometimes they guard that turf pretty intensely (uhm, my apologies to any Nickleback fans out there!). And as for acceptance in public culture a large... the games industry is on pace to net over $20B in revenue. It's going to overtake film, and it's coming up on music. There was, and still is, debate about whether various types of film and music are art. The greater point is, who cares. Gaming is such a powerful industry at this point, that power creates its own legitimacy. Just as economic power means that everyone involved in the industry, from producer to consumer, will have their conception of art fulfilled, it also grants the industry a robust legitimacy that makes even the snarkiest comment by a non-gamer seem ill-informed.

Bob: I agree with you totally on the definition of art. To use your painting analogy, what do you think happens when you add the commercial element? Let's say you're shopping around that painting (because, hey, you have to eat something other than your art supplies), and I think your painting sucks, how do you respond? Do you say, "this is art, screw you, you pedantic bastard!" and hope someone comes along? If I'm the only art collector in town, you might be screwed. Maybe you'd redo the painting to suit my tastes (which are very poor, I might add), or you might starve with integrity. But if everyone in town's an art collector, you'd likely give me the finger, and wait till someone with a little more enlightenment comes along. I'd argue that the first scenario has been, to varying degrees, what the game industry has experienced for most of its history. Things have grown so large though, that we're essentially in a seachange. That is another reason, I think, for the rise of the indies. Everyone's buying now, and so there's enough breadth of interest to match the breadth of designers, artists, writers and programmers' imaginations.

@Logan

What you're getting at here seems more to be about *quality* of art rather than whether or not something is, fundamentally, art. Does something being intended as a commercial product change its status as art? Not necessarily. Is it creative? Was it created with the intent of expressing something? If so, it's art, even if it becomes commodified in the process. As an example, authors such as Dostoevski and Dickens were at times paid by the word. So obviously some of their works were created with the commercial possibilities entirely in mind. But we still consider their novels to be art, right? I'd say the same is true of games. As long as the designer(s) or the team behind the game was trying to use their game to express something, it's art.

The fact that a game is created as a commercial endeavour doesn't affect its status as art, though that may affect its quality, worth, or meaning.

@Logan and Adam:

Both of you are focusing on the point I was attempting to make in my reply. Specifically, that anything created is art. Yes, even a basic grilled cheese sandwich. In fact, in many cultures, food is considered art even if it is basic, simple daily meals, and it is prepared and presented in specific ways due to that cultural approach. At the same time, both of your personal views about any created product will reflect your definitions of whether or not you consider such products to be art or not. I use the definition I offered because I cannot (or should not) attempt to draw a line and try to force my views about how that line defines the limits of what can be accepted as "art" onto anyone else, at least not in the interest of mutual, positive discussion. If I attempt to do such a thing, the only result will be meaningless debate about how to define such a line and how to draw it. There's a difference between a grilled cheese sandwich and a novel, but only in the type of creative endeavor that was employed in order to achieve the final product (specific materials, final construction, etc). Art can be very simple and functional or extremely complex (in fact, so complex that the compexity actually interferes and inhibits any genuine functionality a work might have had).

Artists create because they need to do so. We often use the phrase "starving artists" for a reason, after all; art is not solely a commercial endeavor. Throughout history there have been numerous artists who were not recognized while they were alive but became celebrated after they died. It's fairly safe to assume that the odds are in favor of there being far more who were excellent but continue to be neglected.

There are games that are not created as commercial endeavors, too. Some of these might be used for training or education, for example, or even released as free to play downloads. Of course, there are also very simple and very complex mods to existing games that were never created as commercial efforts.