[danso]

I love Passage. It really is a game as a piece of art, even if it is not fun by traditional gaming standards. But I've seen few games so effectively show how the viewer's interactivity can add a whole new, thoughtful dimension to experiencing art.

[kibwen]

You're right, though my objection is mainly that I don't consider it a "game" if it isn't actually fun. :) I could call it "interactive art" instead, but now we're just arguing semantics...

[danso]

Your comment brought to mind how immature a stage that games as art are...nearly every game on that list is a critical rave, with possibly the exception of Passage. They may not all be popular, such as DF, but they are good at serving their niche.

If you go to the MoMA today, you'll see at least three or four "paintings" which are basically blank. There's even an entire wall devoted to the absence of any art...more of a made-you-look kind of thing...which was even less than the entire wall I once saw devoted to a yogurt cup...

So when video games that are e equivalent of a "blank wall" show up, then games will have definitely broken into the art scene.

And no, ET doesn't count because it wasn't intended to be a steaming pile of shot...allegedly...

[kibwen]

I think there's an important insight hiding here. Art-world folk are perhaps overeager to shoehorn games into their definition of "art" (which is naturally rather nebulous). Just because a piece of software has NES-era graphics and allows you to use the keyboard to move a sprite around does not, to my mind, instantly qualify it as a game.

By a similar token, a box containing a blank white board and a single six-sided die does not instantly attain the status of a board game. And even though it is, perhaps, art--and fully something I'd expect to see in a board game exhibit in a museum of modern art--I wouldn't begrudge board game enthusiasts (of which I know many) if they grumbled at how such a "useless" exhibit was soaking up attention that could have been devoted to a game that was more substantial, more influential, and more representative of what board games really are.

But at the end of the day we're still just disagreeing over the definition of "art", which is perhaps the least constructive argument that has ever taken place in the history of humanity. :)