there seems to be a confusion between the basic concept of ART and what is considered HIGH ART. The problem is HIGH ART is purely cultural and subjective, case and point: The Barnes Art collection originally was ridiculed but ultimately became the most impressive art collection ever assembled. At one time it was considered garbage and now it's considered the pinnacle of high art but arguably at all times it was an ART collection (just some thought it was BAD ART but boy were they wrong, or at least i consider them wrong).
Also you and ebert seem to think games should aspire to be cinematic experience, then and only then can they be considered ART (in which i think you mean HIGH art). This is a flawed assumption, games are first and foremost interactive experiences, the true ART is in the interaction or as most people call it the Game Design. The Art is in the playing. In fact i would go so far as to say cinema strives to be interactive, all the ploys of cinema are designed to INVOLVE the audience, games do this inherently.
A great example of emotional quality of a game would be the street fighter 3 third strike tournament video between justin wong and daigo the beast. the crowd erupts in a primal fervor thats rarely seen in movies. I would go so far as games are probably one of the few mediums that can touch people in such a way, sports would be another (but last time I checked sports are games... go figure).
So back to the definition of art, any creative endeavor is art, period. there is art in how people dress every morning (fashion students learn this early on), there is art in how people move to music. Art is a big red square canvas, or primal scrawls on a door. Art can be noise if there is intent behind it. Pong is art, every decision in pong was meant to illicit a response from the player, Pac Man is art of the highest level, Tetris is art. There are 7 pieces in tetris for a reason (human mind can easily remember up to 7 pieces of information). And yes even heavy rain is art though i think its quite dull and boring I cannot deny that it's a creative endeavor much like pong, pacman and tetris are. I just wouldn't call it HIGH ART for the gaming medium as it's not interactive-centric game design (but thats a whole different article lol)
i'm a big fan of ebert but as most new ART FORMS they are sometimes met with opposition from those who should embrace it. Bebop was met the same way, Hip Hop as well, Rock and Roll also, and now video games.
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Lucas: To say Good art uses this medium to good effect is a purely subjective statement.
"For instance, something like passage is good art because it uses the interactive nature of the game as part of the message" Having a message doesn't not make something a better art, take beethoven's ninth, what's the message there? none, but you can't deny it's art.
whats wrong with the winning/losing evoking emotions in the crowd? what is emotional content but something that evokes emotions?? its the INTERACTION that evokes emotions not the story. If you take story out of bioshock or halflife you SHOULD still have a good game, if you don't then what you have is a medicore game with a good story.
The craft of game design is an art, pac-man's design is an expression of the creators just as much as any other work of art. they chose to evoke emotion through the winning and losing - just like an action movie invokes emotion through life or death scenarios. Sure interaction lends itself to driving certain emotions over others (also the fact that this is a commercial art).
The sports set of rules and regulations i contend is an art form designed to create a certain experience. the playing of a sport is commonly considered art as well, it's commonly said michael jordan's playing is an art, amongst other examples.
What i see is a limited view on what art is, usually constrained to passive non-interactive forms. This is probably because there are not many interactive art forms out there, and those that do exist are commonly not considered art. Games are not a new art, but video games is a new medium. Another possibility is the commonality of the art, its just recently accepted that comics are an art form and quite a valid one, some 70 years after its inception. So i guess we have an other 30 40 years before games will be accepted as art.
Anything that is created with the deliberate goal of giving your participant or audience an experience should be considered art. There is art everywhere, from industrial design to graphic design to game design.
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