Gaming as an art form.

[Bodhesatva]

smellygoat said:
The first two lines were the only part of my post that had any relation to the meaning of the word art. The rest was my take on games as art.

Yet you ignored all that as irrelevant and still replied to my first two lines, continuing the discussion.

 You're right, I should have ignored it. It's my fault, and I'm glad we can put that discussion aside.

As to your suggested design philosophy, I very strongly disagree. What you're talking about is, once again, supressing interactivity; you're suggesting that designers craft their games in a way that the user's response is assumed and understood previously. That is, effectively, linear; the designer leads the player on. That's suppressing the player's inherent ability to do what he wants, and you might as well make a movie in that case. 

Instead, I recommend games like "Oil God" or "The Sims" as much better models of where "artsy" games shoudl be going; those games are specifically designed around not knowing what the player will choose to do. There is no goal, no objective, no "winning," just interacting and doing what you want.

Put differently, what you're suggesting is that designers force games into a movie/novel format, where the designer decides what actually happens, and the player only exists as a person that follows the path the designer has left him. Again, in my experience, movies that try to be books (heavy internal dialogue and description) or sculputre that tries to be painting (relief/frescos) or any other attempt to suppress the unique aspects of the medium can be good, but is rarely the apex of the medium; instead, works that choose to embrace the medium of choice are the best.

The specific and peculiar thing about video games is that they are interactive. Do not hide from this -- if you do, you would have been better off making a movie, or a book, or a photo, or a play, or something else that isn't interactive and has other strengths. Story telling, by nature, is at odds with interactivity; telling a story means the story teller (or developer, in this case), is deciding what happens, and not the viewer, since a story isn't being made, it is being told. Obliterate story telling, or tremendously reduce its significance. Replace it with an increased emphasis on interactivity. Trying to suppress interactivity by telling a story is trying to get video games to be what they are not.