I think not calling games art might be a bit offensive to all the ARTISTS that work on them...
It's an art.
So is photography and food preparation.

uhh, nope?

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Yea, I'ma go with nope.

We should just stop using the word "art" who's with me because WHO FUCKING CARES

@secondpersonshooter:

Presumably, the people discussing this care quite a bit.

I didn't necessarily mean to be dismissive and hostile, but I think when most people view games, or anything else as "art", it's because it speaks to them as an emotional experience. I think arguing the semantics of the actual word "art" is a pointless exercise and we should just get back to discussing what video games provide for us that we feel is worthwhile, I don't really care if you can definitively call it "art" or not.

I just want someone to give me a reason why this discussion is worth having. I read all of Roger Ebert's posts on the subject and I read this one, and I don't see why I just don't see why it's worth arguing about. People will be affected by games no matter what label you think it should fit in.

Personally I think everything that man-made that people have subjective opinions on is "art"

As opposed to objective opinions?

(Hey, I'm a nit-picker. I pick nits, and this is most definitely a nit.)

Well yeah, I think the idea that we're capable of having subjective opinions and personal tastes is what defines art for each of us in the first place.

Like, take culinary arts for example. A cake is made to eat and it will provide a transfer of energy by which you will have gained something. That's looking at it objectively

Asking each individual person how they feel about the taste of the cake is the subjective opinion and what defines it as "art"

Art is both the process of appealing to opinions (be they yours or an audiences), as well as forming opinions and deriving meaning out of them, that is both the creative and the passive side of art.

But again, this is just how I personally think about it.

@secondpersonshooter:

I was referring to opinions, by definition, being subjective.

Oh shit guys! People are catching on that this "art" idea we invented to get money is a bunch of shit! Time to redefine it. Quick everyone write down all your verbose and illogical mental masturbations and get them published ASAP.

I found it super instructive to learn about "art" in ancient civilizations and their attitude towards it.

Ah, of course. I just phrased myself improperly.

You made me look stupid :'(

Oh hey, this old chestnut.

The concept that the OP was trying to explain (albeit rather poorly) does make some sense, in that the final product, or the work, is a representation of the physical, emotional, psychological etc. input into the work, and that this is where the art can stem from. A great piece need not be the most aesthetically pleasing, by that definition. As such, the work could be seen as not being art, and so video games are not art but are merely representations of the work put in to them instead.

Bu it could also be said that the emotional etc. reaction to the experience of witnessing the work, watching an "artistic" film, playing a game, allows for the product to be art in and of itself. If it weren't for their existence, they would not eschew the reactions; therefore, they are art and create art.

Basically, this is all waffle that amounts to how a lot of opinion about art is opinionated and open to opinion. There's no correct answer, really. Or that may just be my opinion.

This website is not a community. No one is actually communicating, you are reading things that people already typed anywhere from 1 second to a few hours to sometimes even years ago.

This is art attack. This is art attack. This IS...Art Attack!

Pretty much. Good job OP?

I loved that show!

Wow...... that's REALLY interesting.

Dude, if a chair leaning up against a wall is art (saw it in Boston) then anything can be art. People pay millions for some paint splashed onto a canvas. It's all hella subjective.

I have to be on lots of illegal drugs to understand this post, right?

Why is it always people with 1 post that bring up such old threads?

It's settled then. VIDEOGAMES IS PEOPLE!

Did you just get out of your first day of college?

They find them through google and create an account just to reply, presumably.

Hell of a show!!

Everything made by someone is considered art . That is the definition.

However can video games be considered a more higher form of art? Yes it can. Most of all Stuff like movies, music and also video games are entertainment in our world. However something can be so good or influential that it can become this higher form of art.

I took some art courses in college. One of the first things the instructor would always ask, "how do you define art?" The first time I heard that I thought it was kind of a half clever, really lazy method of opening up discussion. As years went by I realized how condescending and limited people who have to put art some tiny fucking box are. Now each time somebody wants to wax philosophical about the definition of art, I assume they just got out of the first day of Art History 101 and want to know what to tell their teacher. Here's what to tell them "stop ruining shit." Boxing up what something can be limits what we appreciate as a society and what creatives allow themselves to do. If you say something can't be art, that's not because that thing is limited, it's because you're not an imaginative person enough to be able to see it.

Quit wasting my time scumbag!

I'd say that's a problem with everything in general. I'm not quite sure how to explain it. That communication is inherently fucked because we all assume that people can intuit our conceptions of key terms we use in our arguments, and we generally don't assume that people have their own definitions that they're gonna work from instead? And that because of this, productive conversation is incredibly difficult to enact?

@video_game_king said:

Well if you don't have a clear idea of what the terms you're using in your argument mean then you don't have an argument anyway. That's not really a communication problem, but a way more fundamental issue in your thinking. As for us having different definitions, that can be a problem in some areas, but I really think it's a specific thing and I don't think you can begin to say that it can be applied to everything. If we're having a discussion about "God" or "Art" or "Morality" then sure, those are things we might well need to define, and in this specific "Is X art?" discussion it's absolutely vital, but the very large majority of discussions aren't getting tripped up by this problem.

Or it's an alt account by the original poster who didn't feel like his post got enough discussion or respect or didn't get the response he wanted or whatever. That's what I keep thinking of, anyway, though I guess you could still come across this in a Google search or something.

Sesquipedalian loquaciousness in action, here. You could have just said "that's a problem with everything because not everyone understands terms in the same way; this makes productive conversation nearly impossible". Which is a pretty false thing to say - if it was a problem with everything then science couldn't advance nor communicate its findings and we wouldn't have reams of essays and books on practically everything humankind knows and thinks.

Communication is hardly fucked, it just depends on the communicator to present his thoughts and ideas clearly and simply.