[hzzn]

Games are mechanisms for play. Play is not art. Play is dynamic, art is static. Play engages, art coerces.

I think Ebert is mostly right, but we shouldn't give much serious attention to someone who has had so little experience with games. That's like arguing about Hermann Hesse with someone who staunchly refuses to read anything longer than a road sign. We should be proud of the distinction between play and art. If we're going to argue at all, our position should be that play is potentially as important as art, if not more so.

---

(Emphasis on "potentially". Game developers still have a lot of ground to cover. The linked article was praising games like Dragon Age and Mass Effect as positive examples of storytelling in games. Yikes.)

    BioWare has got lost in the dense tangle of what it was trying to
    accomplish. It hasn't been able to see the wood for the trees. It
    has summoned an entire world into existence in the most meticulous
    detail, but failed to give it an identity beyond the blandest
    cliché. It has created living characters that respond like humans,
    but speak like dictionaries and move like mannequins. It has
    engineered solidly absorbing RPG gameplay and character progression
    and stranded them in a succession of hackneyed and hide-bound
    scenarios.
    
    http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/dragon-age-origins-review

[InclinedPlane]

Play is not art... why?

Art is static? So fountains, kinetic sculptures, improvisational comedy, and rose gardens are not art? I find your definitions lacking.

[nikgregory]

Fine art is (generally) static, but film and theatre are not, they're the performing arts and this is where I believe video games fall. Where is the difference between Titanic and Avatar? Is Avatar not art or is it excluded because of graphics? Is Shreck not art because it's even more computerised? Where is the line? There isn't one, people insist there is a line somewhere yet they, like Ebert, fail to define where and why that line is.

As I said, there are many things I wouldn't consider art, but I know for a fact 90% of people disagree with me.

[jasonlotito]

"If we're going to argue at all, our position should be that play is potentially as important as art, if not more so."

I think that's an interesting point to make. What does art bring that play doesn't do so more?

Play has, for centuries, been the way of passing down history via stories and songs. It's been part of culture so much more than mere pictures, which can be destroyed.

While you won't be popular because of your stance against games being art, hopefully people won't stop before the end of your comment and will ponder this point.