[tman]

Very few films are "art". Who's the video game equivalent of Kubrick or Kurosawa or Bergman?

Penny Arcade's comment on this is wonderfully wrong: "If a hundred artists create art for five years, how could the result not be art?"

Interestingly, that's exactly the sort of film that fails to be art. Great films are, without exception, products of a single driving vision, not designed by committee.

The only way to really claim that video games are art is to say, "Here, this game X is the equivalent to The Seven Samurai." Only that's not going to happen, because it doesn't exist. And because it doesn't exist, Ebert gets pummeled with long screeds of gamer angst rather than the only answer that would matter: "Game X is art."

[jasonlotito]

Half Life is the equivalent to The Seven Samurai.

I have Half Life. Yes, I have The Seven Samurai, in its black and white goodness. They both helped define in their respective areas the future. Half Life was that game for me. I still remember the feeling of finally seeing the soldiers, and then coming to a firm realization in horror that they were trying to kill me as well. The entire pulled me in at the time.

Art is, at it's core, something someone creates to experience. A painting is art because you experience it with your eyes. A song is art because you experience it with your ears. Both were creations intended to be experienced.

Architecture is art, not just because you can see it, but because you can actually feel it, move through it, use it. Beautiful architecture can be functional, and usually is. It solves a problem while being beautiful.

So, why does a game not become art? Winning, as described by Ebert? Architecture's goal isn't being art, it's to be a structure. The purpose of the art doesn't dictate whether it's art. The Mona Lisa isn't less art because it was commissioned. The goal of the Mona Lisa was in celebration of a birth, but does this diminish it's artistic value? The 'players' here used the painting for another purpose.

So, it can't be the goal. Winning isn't why I played Half Life. The story was why I played, the emotions it pulled on.

You make the argument that great films are driven by a single vision. But The Seven Samurai was not driven by a single person. So, if a game is designed by a single vision, can it become art?

The argument against games as an art is not new. Movies weren't art. Pictures weren't art. So many things weren't art before their time, and had to become art, evolve to art.

No. Discounting games as art diminishes all other forms of art.

[gommm]

Could you say that the Mona Lisa is the equivalent to The Seven Samurai? If so in what way is it equivalent? How do you define art?

I for one would say that the Longest Journey, Grim Fandango, the Secret of Monkey Island and Sanitarium are art. But that's according to my definition of Art... I feel that they are games with great stories, great vision and that make me feel emotions.

[ktf]

Kurosawa worked with a team of writers, cinematographers, actors, assistants, producers. Seven Samurai was designed by committee -- Kurosawa just happened to have been at the head of that committee.

This is true for almost every film in existence. Certainly every widely distributed film.

This is also true for games. Some of the best games are driven by a single person -- think Kojima and Metal Gear or Miyamoto and Mario -- but they are the product of many, many talented artists working their asses off.