This stream-of-consciousness article seems like it was slapped together while the author was hopped up on raspberry goofballs.

More please!

I think the problem here is that the way you are using the word "art" is not the same as the way Ebert is using the word "art". The word you're using here seems to be very much a synonym of the ancient Greek word "techne", out of which eventually arose the word "technique". You are saying games are art because games are amalgamations of the "art" of animation, the "art" of programming, the "art" of design, so on and so forth. If all of the things that make up the game are called art, then surely the final product is itself art. This is definitely true of our industrial art friend (step-father???) movies, but I believe that is because movies have proven that their end product can not be "art", but "high art" as well. I think defining art as the technique of any individual artisan removes us from the definition of art as a creation whose purpose is an expression of one or more aspects of human experience.

Ebert has conceded that games are "art" because Andy Warhol's Campbells Chicken Noodle soup label is "art". What he says games are not (he says cannot be, which I disagree with, but that's besides the point) is "high art". He never really gave a great definition of what high art is, but Jason Rohrer was able to parse out a number of the elements that makes up Ebert's notion of "high art". Ebert thinks that "high art makes ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic. Additionally, high art might cause us to become more complex, thoughtful, insightful, witty, empathetic, intelligent, philosophical (and so on)". I think this has it right, as all the greatest expressive creations of the arts accomplish a number of these, in addition to being "artful" in the mastery of their respective techniques.

This belief is echoed by at least one game designer's definition of art, Rod Humble, who also put it art into with context of entertainment. Rod said "Entertainment is giving enjoyment to the maximum number of people you can. Art is that which can make at least one person a better human being. Long may they both prosper." I think very few games fall under even Rod's definition of art, and even fewer (if any at all) fall under Ebert's definition. As Rod said, I don't think there's anything wrong with entertainment, but I don't think our industry as it stands is very capable of producing "high art" in the sense Ebert defines it.

Well I'm glad he thinks it's art but I never understand why people call it sport. To me a sport MUST be a physically athletic activity, otherwise why do we need both words, sport and game. If the words are interchangable then we only need one, I don't believe in true synonyms as there is always some difference in meaning and or usage if you look hard enough. Is a sport art? I don't think so but I believe some games can be.
Anyways, this article feels like the introduction to an article, it stopped just when it felt like it had concluded an introduction to some bigger analysis.
Thanks for the comment about throwing the controller and crying, I think most readers have done that ;)

I realize I sound very anti "games as art", but my problem is not with games on a fundamental level, as Ebert's is. My problem is with games as they stand today and how they're made and understood. I think we don't produce games that are truly "art" very often because very few people have an understanding of the basic nature of games and how to exploit their natural proficiency to resemble and imitate human experience and then mold that representation into powerful expression. I actually think games are more than capable of being "art", their ability to directly and interactively simulate aspects of our reality makes them incredibly powerful modes of expression, we just have no idea what we're doing when it comes to making games that accomplish this. Even more than that our design conventions and traditions, some have called it games' and games designer's tendencies of cultural inbreeding, prevent us from accomplishing this.

So I agree that the "art" (techne) of games have come a long way but I don't think we as creators have come nearly as far.

Games are above art, art its overrated, period.

Meh, semantics. We could argue until the cyber-cows come home on what is art and what isn't art and it wouldn't change either the perception of games, or the games themselves.

@Raymond: I agree that I wouldn't see games as 'sport' either, but I don't quite agree with your reasoning. For ages, hunting has been called 'sport' not so much for the physicality of it (I'd equate the physicality of hunting to the physicality of walking outside my house and into my car) but for the competitive nature of it. Man vs. beast; will man be able to out wit, out last, the beast? 'Sport' can also mean a lot of different things, it can mean in jest, being taken lightly, or recreation; in addition to the act of physical prowess.

I can see how games can be considered 'sport' on some levels, just not in the current popular definition of the term (as you said).

@Scott: Interesting article, I tend to be on the side of reasoning that believes that if we just don't try and achieve it, it will come on its own. Nice christmas tree, I don't think you suck at ascii art at all. ;)

As I've said before, technically speaking, anything we create is art. High art, low art, good art, bad art... all that is subjective (aside from technical quality of parts that make up the creation, perhaps) and changes over time based on standards of excellence at any specific point in time.

@Scott: I must say that I found the comments about witch-burning to be a bit bothersome as far as establishing a flow for the point of your comments. I think that you would have been better off choosing a different example.

@Raymond: Sports do not have to be physically athletic, really. Fishing, for example... just basic fishing, mind you, not something like deep sea fishing. Also, sports are often called game by consumers, commentators, and partcipants. Finally, many games are also physically athletic in various ways. Still, I fail to see why anyone wishes to restrict the concept of "sport" to physical activity when mental activity actually requires more energy (nerve cells require more energy to fire than muscle cells).

Hehe, for all you sport != games people. So what is it when you play a game of sport. Or go to watch a football game? A sport is in no way defined by it's physicality, it's defined by being a competitive game. For instance, what is it when you watch "motor sports", effectively that's very similar to a person playing a video game, just the interface is different. It's the entire square-rectangle thing again, a game is not a sport but a sport IS a game. That said though, a game can be a sport. Just as a rectangle can be a square when they're attributes are the same (so to explain the metaphor, when a game is competitive, multiplayer or no, it can be a sport).

But I'd have to agree with some of what David is saying. I think the potential of the medium is there, it's just that the medium is underutilised in regards to it's possible artistic impact. And in truth that's more about the developers AND the public growing to be capable of producing and consuming artistic games, not the medium growing to become more art oriented.

Interestnig piece. I for one think that games have not achived the cathegory of art. They have the potential but still aren't, I will explain myself.

Games in the realm of art would fall in the narrative branch, as novels and films, that are fundamentaly different from the typical sensual arts, plastic arts and music (the cathegories are invented but I will explain). The while the Creamcast could fall in the second part for the definition used and the statemnts in the text, as it is a piece that uses the skill to create aesthetics and imagination to convey a feeling from a single piece. But the narrative arts need are fundamented in the story, as the name suggests. (An acalration, these calsifications are very blured as music may be narrative, and even a painting can tell a whole story, and film and novels take certain moments without narrative to convey emotions to the public, but I will stick with this oversimplified separation).

While videogames have approached the sensual arts with experiences that try to convey emotions, i find the sotries far from being in the level that should be for having a narrative art. Yes, I've had my good share of emotions with videogames. I've cried with the death of characters and laughed with their actions. I've grown very attached to several of them, but alas while that connection is necessary I wouldn't clasify a novel that made me cry a certain death as art. True art, classics of the narrative arts have deeper stories.

The story factor of this great works are so that even while not reading them (or viewing them) you still can think about the story and make serious considerations. The true masters of narrative not only make compelling characters and develop them correctly, they make a person reflect upon humanity and the world he lives in (or give you a very personal view of the author's time). They are stories of reflection. A couple of examples. In "The Karamazov Brothers" even if you're and atheist or a believer very compelling views fo the world are presented and you are invited to make you're own reflections about those themes, with the controversial but strangely compelling "The Great Inquisitor" a "poem" by one of the characters (the atheist) when he explains his views on humanity and religion to his younger brother that is going for priesthood. In the classics of classics, "The Odyssey" we see the idea of the trials that has been so embeded in our culture that it is done in videogames without notice, but it also presents a the frailty of humans and their decision as Calypso has to send Odysseus away as even while he longs for his land he doesn't do anything in that moment, or the greed of the tripulation that even while they are told that they will never go home if they screw with tha land of Helios their insticts get the better of them, finally condeming them. And while I've missed a lot of games (even classics) I can't think of an example fo a game with a story that deep. And films have a lot of examples like this too.

We have Ico and SotC but their stories are simple sotries of an outcast and of a lost love. While interesting and very well told, they aren´t deep wnough to my liking. Most RPGs stay in the fantastic literature topics, with big bads at the end. Shooters are alwasy bad guys against us. The good ones have their twitches, the relations are more developed, but I've never felt that any game has reached the levels to be considered a narrative art. The human dilemmas are ussauly solved, not open ended and to the consideration of the player, we don't reflect our reality into games (we rarely do critizism to our world, and even that is usually in sacrasm and very light). For a starter I don't think that game stories have multiple interpretations, which is very important in this kind of art.

Now even when today I can't think of games that are for the standar, I see no reason why there couldn't be games that fullfill it (well sales, but I'm thinking of technical limitations). They have the potential, and some light tries to approaching it have been done, but it isn't fulfilled yet. We can even take a step, with multiple endings open to interpretation (not that the story isn't finished, an other kind of interpetation), and have the advantage of a more easy inmersion as the player is actively involved with the game. Games have a great oportunitty to be art, they are not just there in this moment.

And int the end maybe my opinion is very similar to David's.

@Raymond:

Well it seems that sport as Will Wright stated and the author is using it is more akin to just competition and to an activity that while compiting you also perfect a method to achive victory. A very wide definition of sport, if you ask me.

@David Ravel: I think I'm on the same page with you on this subject. Mostly. While I absolutely agree that there needs be more effort in the industry as a whole to move towards more "artistic" (in Ebert's sense) games, I am skeptical of whether games can really become something worth labelled "high art." This is because what I believe is the definite characteristics of any games: goals and rules. I'm not so sure if these two things can be used in any expressive ways. However, interactive nature of games do open up endless possibilities. Used properly, in some ways that we haven't ventured yet, I think it'll bring something so compelling and utterly powerful than anything we've seen.