The Escapist: Almost Art

That's a... very narrow view of art...

The article is bullshit. It's not even well thought out bullshit or interesting bullshit. It's just bullshit.

As has been said before the only criteria for art is creation. If something is made from an idea, then that thing being made is art. Doesn't matter if the original idea was a means toward a different end, it's still art. Yes that means invention is included in art, as is advertising, merchandising, place settings at a table. If something is made out of an idea, it is art.

In terms of the true art idea, video games have long since passed all boundaries that can reasonably be set. In order to be considered Art, with a capital A, though I don't think this idea really exist, it needs:

• Creativity
  • This is basically the original definition. Someone needs to have an idea and something needs to be produced from that idea. Ideally the idea should set challenges for the creator that need to be overcome, often in unexpected ways. This leads to end products which are distinct, or at least distinct enough to be considered the creator's work.

• Experimentation within the medium.
  • This has been done from day 1. Video games as a medium have been evolving and still are. This evolution presupposes some experimentation. If people play with the mechanics, the aesthetics, the story-structure, the subject matter, etc. We are where we are in gaming because there have been people who have tried different things. A lot of them failed. Some of them worked. The things that worked affected the next group. This is how all art works.

• A message
  • This doesn't mean An Aesop. This means that there's something to be taken out of the work besides the fact that it's there. It could be saying something about the human condition, it could be providing a "what if" scenario. It could be saying something about the medium itself. Those have been popular for a long time. Games have long since past this. They went from "Let's just have fun" to "Let's beat up those bad guys over here" to "Let's tell an actual story with this" (this point was hit in the 70s and perfected in the 80s) to "Let's really involve the audience in what we're doing" (mid 80s). As such, we've had games that have tried to discover the deeper human interactions, games that have experimented with the human psyche, games that have had a definite message, and games which try to reveal something about the nature of video games.

Not Art. "Art".

http://insomnia.ac/commentary/for_artfags_only/

Obligatory.