Yeah, his understanding of culture is extremely flawed. Culture is inextricably linked to both commerce and politics. He'd maybe understand it better if it was described to him as a marketplace of normative ideas.

As a quick example, which came first: Women viewing themselves as being the equals of men or women being equal under the law? The cultural idea of gender equality must have preceded the legal change.

I think Malstrom said something like that once...

BTW, while I enjoy his articles, it is amazing how people try to treat them as some sort of holy scripture, for example the Bible:

They give "interpretations", the opposition searches for contradictions, the believers explain that "this part is metaphorical", or "we must take into account the age when the Wiikly articles were created". 

I read it and anyone who's calling bullshit on this should read the whole thing.

Lol! is so funny to read all the people here that hates this article because THEY ARE EXACTLY THE KIND OF PEOPLE HE IS DESCRIBING.

But more fun is that they claim that "they didn't read it all" and yet they hate it.

DUH!

Videogames are not art. GET REAL! They are entertainment. Many of the reasons he says about journalists are the same reasons why I stopped reading videogame magazines. He is right about the definition of culture that those journalists had. Is stupid, twisted and eliitist. It seems to them that neither MS or sony make mistakes but Nintendo is always wrong when in reality IS THE EXACT OPPOSITE.

The same can be said of E!Television. Damn! I hate that channel! It has probably one of the worst entertainmente journalism I have ever seen! Videogame magazines are in the same path.

I love videogames and I want to see became a better and healthy industry. That's why I love Nintendo. Is the only one to have the balls to do that.

And that's why I do like to read Malstrom. He is the only one that makes sense in this videogame-world mad house.

Cry all what you want hardkorez. He is right and you know it. There's nothing you can do about that.

That might be your opinion, but trying to present it as some universal fact doesn't earn you any points. Maybe you do not look for art or culture in your games but some consumers (such as me) and some developers such as Jonathan Blow do. The fact that we have both developers and consumers pushing hard to elevate games to an accepted artistic level means that there is a market and demand there, and thus truth in it.

 So if bunch of people get together and say that "punching walls is an art-form" and this group agrees that it is, then it is automatically art? What do you define as "art" or not "art"? If everything can be a art form as long as people argee on it than art is nothing.

The only ones that defines something as art are

1)the mainstream people

2)Time

Do you think that photography was seemed as an art form when it started? of course not!

I took its time to get accepted and mature so it started to be shaped as an art form. The same can be said of movies.

Will videogames became art? yes, but they have to keep in touch with the mainstream flow so it can start growing.

Why do people listen to this guy?
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Could it be because he is the only analyst that has actuallt been right this generation?

Great points Bobbuffalo and Helios!

"The hatred for Nintendo, this being the SNES, N64, and Gamecube, is the counterculture gaming hating the originator. Notice that all of Nintendo’s competitors, and I do mean ALL, advertised and marketed themselves as a counterculture: Sega, Sony, and Microsoft. The damnation of Nintendo being ‘kiddy’ and not being ‘adult’ was the damnation of the self-seen ‘high culture’ condemning what they saw as Nintendo’s games being ‘non-culture’. "



I've been saying this for years. Nintendo created gaming as we know it today. And they did it on the principles of just making games fun--they didn't use games as a political statement, a parody, a thought-provoker, etc. There is absolutely nothing wrong with games that do those things, but here's how history went:

Along comes SEGA, with their "SEGA does what Nintendon't!" attitude. They were literally telling the consumer that 'We're better, they suck, they're for kids'. That strategy worked, as they were able to knock Nintendo down from about 95% marketshare to roughly 60%.

Then Sony comes in and says, HA! We've got the REAL games for TRUE gamers! Look at Metal Gear Solid! Look at this 'artistic' death scene in Final Fantasy VII (OMG did she just DIE?!?!)! Clearly we're better than all of you.

Then Microsoft came in and is just exacerbating what Sony did, and those two are duking it out roughly evenly right now.

Nintendo has just sat there and allowed it, and have never, EVER, run such a terrible smear campaign against their competitors. The most they've ever done is '(exagerrated comical voice) Look at this cool game that you won't find anywhere else--SEGA and Sony are in big trouble!' I was referring to the Star Fox 64 infomercial there, and that's really the worst thing Nintendo has ever done.

Even now, as they royally dominate the industry, they never resort to outright insults or patronization of their competitors.

So yes, Nintendo's competition has only succeeded by badmouthing them and creating a counterculture.

Art is defined by the meaning we ascribe to it. It's symbolism, and therefore requires interpretation. Symbols are inherently subjective, so your search for an objective definition of art is doomed to fail.

In other words, yes, if everybody agrees that punching walls is an art form, then it is.