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Originally Posted by Bastich
It's kind of like bringing a movie camera to a stage play, recording it from your seat, and calling it an artistic film because the play had a great thought-provoking story, great acting, a wonderfully immersive score, and great effects and backdrops. The reality is that such a recording, no matter how great the content, would be utterly devoid of artistic merit as a film as it doesn't express anything in the language of film.
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Sorry, this statement ruins your otherwise decent post. You have obviously not seen Ingmar Bergman's The Magic Flute. He films the play he directed. Granted, he doesn't use a single, unbroken shot or film from a seat in the audience. There is editing, but it's essentially a stage production on film. A pretty good one at that. Of course I realize that the addition of editing probably means I'm supporting your point instead of refuting it, but it's still on a stage, with the play backdrops, and people floating around with strings and what not.
Now, to be honest, I see your point perfectly, I just don't agree with it. What is the artistic merit of radio? It's all sound effects, voices, and music. We can get all of that by turning off a TV screen and leaving the audio on. But radio, music, whatever is still its own medium even though all of its attributes are seen in another mediums. Videogames take it a step further, in a sense. Like film did with music and stage plays. Videogames take all of the attributes of film, and make them interactive. Some in a more limited respect than others, but by giving the viewer/player CHOICES or allowing them to solve puzzles to progress the story, they are already doing something that other art forms do not.
I agree that videogames are an imperfect art form at this point and most of them are far, far from being art. I'm simply saying the medium itself is one where art can be created. I agree with Squarejaw that two of the best pure pieces of art in gaming are ICO and Shadow of the Colossus. They are both very interactive, they do the "game" thing quite well, and they also excel in the areas of art direction and imagination. They are complete packages, so to speak.
