Roger Ebert says video games can never be art

[Khuutra]

Metallicube said:

Khuutra said:

Art need not be the primary focus of a work for that work to be art, sir. I would argue that Miyamoto creates art all the time, but he intends nothing of the sort at any point, ever.

The problem is that you think of games as jus being sets of rules like perspective and the ability to move and speed and laws put in place, but it's the crafting and application of these laws that make games fun, and fun is one of those experience that can make a game into art if it is very well-made.

Art is not meant to be passive. Not at all. That's needlessly restrictive and too reductive to be representative of the artistic scene on the whole. Interactivity does not preclude art.

In regards to the bold.. this line of thinking is not only flawed when refering to games, but it can actually harm games because developers who think they are these sophisitcated artists are now making games in the mindset that  they are art first, and games second, and thus making the gameplay secondary and inferior to what it could be.

This is why I think it is so important to establish that games are NOT art, because then you get these game developers who get the idea in their head that put the art before the gameplay and making the gameplay suffer as a result of focusing too much on the exterior. 

You're argument of "primary focus" works when you are refering to art.. but problem there is games are NOT art.

I don't think people played Pacman and pong because they were art, and I don't think anything has changed since then. Just the technology has changed. But art should be timeless shouldn't it? So how could games be art NOW, but not in the days of Pacman?

You haven't actually said why games are not art, outside of "games are not art". That's not actually reasoning for the point.

I agree that cetain directors need to be broken of this mentality, not beause gams aren't art but beause trying to mimic art from other media makes games less fun, which ruins the whole point of the art in the first place.

Nobody plays games because they are art - few people do anything solely for the sake of experiencing art. But they do do things - including meaningfully consume art - for the sake of experience. Therein lies the important thing: Pac-Man is still art because the essential experience of it has not changed and has not been diluted over time.