Last Friday, I was an emergency fill-in on a panel for the AGD on the topic as to whether or not games are art, where I was a speaker alongside Scott Jennings and Allen Varney. Being as I didn’t know at 5:00 that I was speaking on a panel at 7:30, it was an interesting panel, and one which I felt remarkably unprepared for. Still, we had a good discussion (J has posted his notes on Gamasutra).

The topic was specifically about Roger Ebert’s rather catty and self-important quotes claiming that games will never be as important as other mediums, for a variety of reasons.

There is a structural reason for that: Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control.

I am prepared to believe that video games can be elegant, subtle, sophisticated, challenging and visually wonderful. But I believe the nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art. To my knowledge, no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers. That a game can aspire to artistic importance as a visual experience, I accept. But for most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic.

Needless to say, the panel was full of much righteous indignation, as you might expect after you tell a bunch of game designers that games aren’t worthy of art. J captures the gist of much of what was said. Still, there are some things that were only glossed over that I wished we had captured more.

One thing that is interesting to me is that, reading over Ebert’s quote, it’s clear that he finds the interactivity to be what mutes gaming as an artistic experience – i.e. the artist doesn’t have full control over his message. But that complaint doesn’t truly address whether or not games are art – definitions of art describe a ‘creative endeavor’ or a ‘thing of beauty’. Even more to the point, many of the best works of art are in some level interactive on some level – consider, for example, how movies like The Crying Game andThe Usual Suspects interact with the viewer. Likewise, modern art is a movement built upon abstraction and interpretation – the second being a very introspective form of interaction with the art piece.

It is true that games do not tell stories as well as movies or books do. However, that has more to do with the inherent properties of the medium than whether or not games are ‘art’ or ‘important’. Movies could not do justice to the prose in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The Tolkien books and the recent LOTR movies take vastly different paths to give a sense of epicness. Games are their own medium, one of interactivity. They certainly can carry a message at least as well as Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.

Also not mentioned is how movie-centric Ebert’s little world actually is. Sure, Ebert doesn’t know of any games that can hope to capture the same sense of artistry of the great filmmakers of the present day. Neither can my mom. Here’s the rub, though: my mom also couldn’t give a rat’s fig about who Scorcese, Tarantino or Coppola are – she just watches the films and enjoy them for what they are worth. On the flip side, people who love games the way Ebert loves movies could quickly point out the artistry found in Zelda and the Shadow of the Colossus, or the wizardry of Will Wright or Shigaru Miyamoto.

Predictably, the part that rankled me the most was the last part.

That a game can aspire to artistic importance as a visual experience, I accept. But for most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic.

Describing any piece of entertainment as ‘important’ has always struck me as wrong-headed. Let’s face it – Shakespeare’s plays and Copolla’s films are about sex, murder, treason, and betrayal. What makes exploring those themes in Shakespeare more important than exploring them in Grand Theft Auto? Can’t we all just acknowledge that entertainment is inherently a time-wasting activity? The fact that art isn’t important is kind of, to me, what defines it as art.

Original comments thread is here.