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Originally Posted by RLacey
I think people spend too much time trying to make gaming an "art form" and not enough time asking for games that are fun to play, well designed and interesting. Which is why I hate the "Are games art?" discussion, because I don't feel that art is what I got into gaming for.
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Shallow fun is nice, but niceness and simple escapism are worthless to me. A work of art is a conversation between an artist and a spectator (or a player) and the object on your end is to "get" what the artist is saying. The artist in turn needs to figure out a way to "say" what's on his mind, to say anything at all, and not bludgeon you with some agenda (but I guess the not getting bludgeoned by an agenda part is just my preference). There doesn't have to be a feeling, it doesn't have to be painted, it doesn't have to be pretty or beautiful (in fact, ugliness works better), it just has to do something on some transcendent level, not just on a tactile, immediate level most games work on. There is no such thing as art about nothing. I would say there are paintings that aren't art.
That said, I think both the Longest Journey and Syberia are awful examples of games as art.