[J Koning]

Hello everyone,
I'm relatively new here, used to visit this site often years ago.
I'm interested in the discussion if games can be seen as art, real art with the same beauty as let's say... Bach, Rembrandt... well you'll get the point.
I'm posting this on this adventuregames forum, because in my opinion adventuregames is the genre which has the most potential to be treated as art. But in my opinion you may also discuss non-adventure titles, if that's not violating forum rules.
Also note that I'm not aware of an existing discussion about this topic so I'm sorry if there is one.
How do you think about these matters? Are there already games made which could really be seen as art? What would make the difference between just a fun computer game, or art? Where's the thin line? Which elements should a true computer game artwork have?
And what other questions can you add to these
I'm looking forward to a serious discussion on this topic...

[Squinky]

Originally Posted by Jouke Koning

I'm interested in the discussion if games can be seen as art, real art with the same beauty as let's say... Bach, Rembrandt... well you'll get the point.

Yes.

[J Koning]

Hehe well I guess your reaction is ironic... and if I re-read my post I see that I probably should have made myself more clear. I was just pointing out that it's easy to say that computergames as a whole or adventuregames as a genre can easily be called art, but that I want to take a deeper look and discuss how far the genre could evolve, can it take the measures of real masterpieces, true art?

I think games are definitly and almost entertainment, though some bad games could bore you to death. But still they're always entertainment. And I'd like to quote my favorite comedian Bill Hicks on this:

"Entertainment is suspension of time and space
so that you realize your true nature
which is spaceless and timeless"

Art is probably always entertainment too, I think it's just a higher form of entertainment, which really touches you much more than common entertainment does. Art can expand the way you think about things, the way you live, the way you act... it motivates you to change, revolt... and seeing/hearing/feeling/playing it can be an experience way more intense than almost everything else in life.

[eXo]

According to Marcel Duchamp a toilet on the wall is art.

So, the next question is - what do you consider to be art?

I personally do not think a toilet on the wall is art. I also think Jackson Pollack and Mark Rothko are a load of crap.

Many art appreciators would disagree with me - but ultimately, neither of us will ever be "right" in whether or not it is art or not.

And so, I think your question faces the exact same problems. Everyone on the boards can come weigh in on this, but the very fact that this is a gaming fansite skews the answers of your question towards a blatant yes.

Might as well go ask people on i-love-pants.com if they love pants.

[insane_cobra]

Originally Posted by Jouke Koning

Art can expand the way you think about things, the way you live, the way you act...

That's what Deus Ex and Deus Ex: Invisible War did for me so potential is definitely there.

[J Koning]

eXo: I see what you mean, it's always the observer who will interpret wheter or not he calls something art based on his frame of reference. For instance, the western world thinks a Van Gogh is art. But place one of his paintings in the jungle and let some bushmen view it and they will find it crap.
Still we do have a general idea about art I think so we could start from there. I mean, would you disagree with me on the difference between Bach and Britney Spears?

Insane Cobra: Deus Ex sounds interesting, tell me more

[MoriartyL]

Are adventure games art like Bach and Rembrandt? No, and the question is unfair. Bach did not invent music, and Rembrandt did not invent painting. There had been countless millions of musicians and painters before them. But the adventure game has only existed for thirty years, and its greatest achievements were more than ten years ago. So no, I repeat, adventure games are not art like Bach and Rembrandt. Adventure games are art like cavemen hitting on rocks and cavemen scratching on walls. We're at the beginning of history here. The potential is there for works on the level of Bach or Rembrandt (or more appropriately Shakespeare, since adventures tell stories), but it could be centuries before we get there.

Now, in order to see where the different types of games stand in a big historical perspective (hint: they're all primitive), you need to understand that videogames are not one art form but many forms of art and entertainment. The progress of one doesn't normally have any impact on the progress on another. For instance, if adventures were to overnight reach the peak of their potential (an impossibility, of course- this is theoretical), it should have no impact whatsoever on, say, the simulation. And vice versa, when Will Wright's Spore is released and brings the simulation to a new level of genius, it should have no impact whatsoever on the adventure. So don't be fooled by the sheer quantity of videogames out there; if you want to see the progress we've made, you've gotta look at each individual type of game, and you'll find that within most forms very little progress has been made at all.

Which is, as I implied, to be expected considering how new each of these forms actually is. You've got to remember how long it took for music to reach Bach. I don't know a specific time frame, but Wikipedia informs me that music "predates the written word" so I'm guessing it was long. And I bet you the works of music from the first millenium or two weren't anything remotely resembling "suspension of time and space so that you realize your true nature".

In my not-so-humble-opinion-which-is-sure-to-be-disagreed-with, videogames have had exactly three "gamists" worth remembering for the ages:
Shigeru Miyamoto (for Super Mario Bros., Yoshi's Island, The Legend of Zelda, and Pikmin),
Will Wright (for SimCity, The Sims and probably the upcoming Spore), and
Michel Ancel (for Rayman 2 and Beyond Good & Evil).
This is not to say that there aren't any other brilliant gamists, of course; just that they're the only ones whose contributions have been comparable to the influential artists in history.

Anyway, none of these three dealt in adventures. So if you look at the early text adventures, and the most refined graphical adventures of the past few years, there's not all that much advancement. Sure, there are lots of superficial improvements like graphics and interfaces. But we still don't have any games with very good adventure storytelling -that is, storytelling which is unique to the adventure and plays to its strengths while doing away with its weaknesses as a storytelling medium. The most we can ever hope for is storytelling which is "almost as good" as movies, an awkward imitation of movies diluted with puzzles and other forms of (what is for the purpose of telling a story) filler. I believe that adventure games could be a more sophisticated storytelling medium, with time. "Time" here is the keyword. It will take time for the genius who could push adventures forward to even be born, let alone be accepted and successful.


So let's shift our attention to a medium which has gotten somewhere (though not very far) in its history- platformers. As mentioned, I attribute its growth to just two individuals: Miyamoto realized the beginnings of its potential in Super Mario Bros., perfected it in Super Mario Bros. 3, and pushed it in a viable long-term direction (completely ignored afterward, sadly!) in Yoshi's Island, while Ancel finally defined it clearly in Rayman 2. (A remarkably similar pattern can be seen with the metalude: Miyamoto realized its potential with Zelda, perfected it with Ocarina of Time, and pushed it into what should be its long-term direction with Pikmin, while Ancel defined it clearly in BG&E.) Since the platformer was fortunate enough to have these two visionaries working on it, you can look at some of the imitations and see admirable works of art. Well, not if your standard of quality is Bach. But if you're willing to look for it, there's plenty of artistic quality to be found in games like Donkey Kong: Jungle Beat, Pac-Man World 2 (Maybe the first also, but I haven't played it so I can't say.), and Gish.

Now, no platformer can yet survive a comparison with dance (the platformer's closest old-art relative), but if you're willing to recognize subtle artistic expression in control you'll see it there. There's still so far to go- dynamic controls to indicate mood, more abstract world designs, more complex controls which let the player express himself, and so on. But if you look hard at what we've already got, you can find some good art there.

[MoriartyL]

Originally Posted by Jouke Koning

Still we do have a general idea about art I think so we could start from there. I mean, would you disagree with me on the difference between Bach and Britney Spears?

The difference is that one is good art and one is bad art. Since music is an art form, maybe we have to look at all works of music as works of art, and just acknowledge extreme differences in quality. It's terribly confusing, isn't it?

[MoriartyL]

By the way, I should add a quick note to my previous long post and note that the simulation is being developed as an art form on the player's side- that is, the player can use a simulation to create art of his own, while being entertained by the process.

[samIamsad]

Oh, that art thing again. You'll notice the moment video games start being art immediately. It's when its creators start feeling embarassed and angry about seeing all of their precious works of creation and imagination immediately lumped into made-up categories and adressed with silly little terms like "action-adventure", "jump and run", "adventure game", "Myst clone", "GTA game" or (TEH horror) "FPS-RPG" ASAP.



Seriously!

"Rayman2" is indeed bliss, art or not, and that's all that matters.

[eXo]

Originally Posted by MoriartyL

By the way, I should add a quick note to my previous long post and note that the simulation is being developed as an art form on the player's side- that is, the player can use a simulation to create art of his own, while being entertained by the process.

That exact statement is exactly why Roger Ebart claims video games can never be art - the simple fact that the user has any input/control in the first place.

Obviously he has decided to go with a definition of art somewhere along the lines of it being a defined experience, not to be tampered or changed.

Although 'decaying' art has been very common in art movements recently, where the exact idea is that every day the art has shifted a bit until it either rots/fallas apart completely. Still - the user in this example has not caused the shift themselves.

Going back to the Bach/Brittany comparision, Moriarty is exactly right - they are just two different types of art. If you did a general poll around the world asking people's opinions you would recieve a combination of the following:

Is this art?
Bach | Brittany
No No
Yes Yes
Yes No
No Yes

Point being? You didn't get anywhere - while one may end up with a few more yes's then no's, there are many who will claim both are good art or that both are bad art, or due to their definition of art - one or both are not art at all.

Art is such a variable term that it can be led to mean anything. To debate what is or is not art is completely pointless unless the word art itself holds to a constant, universally accepted, definition.

[MoriartyL]

Originally Posted by samIamsad

Oh, that art thing again. You'll notice the moment video games start being art immediately. It's when its creators start feeling embarassed and angry about seeing all of their precious works of creation and imagination immediately lumped into made-up categories and adressed with silly little terms like "action-adventure", "jump and run", "adventure game", "Myst clone", "GTA game" or (TEH horror) "FPS-RPG" ASAP.



Seriously!

You're right! So that's why the only comic books worth anything are the ones called "graphic novels"! Now I understand- it's all about how you frame it, isn't it? If it's got a silly name, then it's not art, and if its creators are embarassed to use a silly name then it is art. Suddenly the whole question of what is art becomes so clear. Thanks!



But seriously...

Whether or not something is interactive should not effect the question of whether or not it's art. Music is interactive, dance is interactive, acting is interactive. And adventure games, for instance, are barely more interactive than movies, considering that the player doesn't really decide how the story will progress or what the characterizations are like (with some exceptions, of course). The significance of interactivity has been blown out of proportion on all sides, I think.

Now, I don't know how you define art, but I don't think it depends on whether outsiders like Ebert think it's art. Early on in any art form's history, it's primitive and everyone knows it's primitive and anyone on the outside is only going to see that primitive beginning and not the potential. A person on the outside wouldn't care about potential. So with every new art form, at first it's not considered an art form by the outside. But really, what difference does it make? The ways different types of games need to develop into the future are the same whether you call them "art" or "entertainment"- progress is progress. And when that progress is made, once the art form reaches its potential, well, by that point most people will agree that it's art. So I'm not too bothered by the general public not recognizing it now. Just give it time.

[After a brisk nap]

The caveman comparison is a bit misleading, I think. It's not like computer games, or any particular type of computer game, has to recapitulate the entire history of cultural development. Just like cinema and comic books haven't had to start from scratch in terms of storytelling and visual language.

Games existed before computer games, and stories existed before computer games. We may still be at an early stage of development, but at 30-some years, it's not that early. At the same age, cinema, which we can date to around 1895, was starting to reach a level of maturity. A few movies from the 1920s are regularly watched today (notably some of the silent movies of German Expressionism, and perhaps some of the Chaplin comedies), and once we get into the age of talkies in the 1930s, we have a whole slew of films that are still well known.

[MoriartyL]

Originally Posted by After a brisk nap

The caveman comparison is a bit misleading, I think. It's not like computer games, or any particular type of computer game, has to recapitulate the entire history of cultural development. Just like cinema and comic books haven't had to start from scratch in terms of storytelling and visual language.

They didn't? Look, I'm no historian, but I find it hard to believe that either medium developed overnight. Didn't comic books struggled for a long time with just getting motion right? And if you look at early film animation, you may find that the creators were still so proud of themselves for getting pictures to move that they didn't know exactly why they were doing it.

We may still be at an early stage of development, but at 30-some years, it's not that early. At the same age, cinema, which we can date to around 1895, was starting to reach a level of maturity.

I can't say, not having much knowledge of movies. So I'll take your word for it. Still, it would be overly optimistic to expect videogames to develop at the same pace as movies.

First, videogames are many barely-related art forms, and yet among all of them there are only a few creators who make much progress. (I'm sure you don't agree with me when I say there are only three, but there can't be more than ten.) These few pioneers are distributed among the many new art forms, each with its distinct set of rules. Movies were one art form, with the rules discovered applying to all movies made by the industry. So progress would naturally be faster.

Secondly, movies were using old traditions from theater, which was a roughly similar medium. With many types of games, which old traditions ought to be used is still widely unclear. Adventures are faintly related to movies, so developers have been able to fall back on those old traditions for games like Grim Fandango. But take the platformer. It should be following the traditions of dance, and here developers also try to follow the traditions of movies. Even strategy games, which ought to be learning from games like chess, is also falling back on movie traditions! Since videogames are still seen as one entity rather than many, even the best game creators are still having trouble recognizing what each type of game's heritage is. They think it all should come from movies, and that's holding them back rather than giving them a head-start.

So games are moving forward at a very slow rate.

I acknowledge that there are some games which -despite not having all the answers- work amazingly well taken on their own merits. Real classics. I'm sure people will still be playing and enjoying the original Super Mario Bros. in fifty years, for instance. Nevertheless, in the bigger picture we're still in caveman times.

[After a brisk nap]

Originally Posted by MoriartyL

They didn't? Look, I'm no historian, but I find it hard to believe that either medium developed overnight.

Of course they didn't, and that's not what I said. But they started from a point far ahead of zero, because they were able to build on the traditions of existing art forms. Can you imagine what comic books would be like today if they had to develop both the art of illustration and the art of storytelling from scratch?

I can't say, not having much knowledge of movies. So I'll take your word for it. Still, it would be overly optimistic to expect videogames to develop at the same pace as movies.

First, videogames are many barely-related art forms,

...

Movies were one art form, with the rules discovered applying to all movies made by the industry. So progress would naturally be faster.

I think you're flat out wrong to say that film is one art form while games are many barely related ones. The term is ambiguous in English, referring either to the medium of expression, or a particular format of expression in that medium (the novel seen as a different art form than the poem, for instance). All computer games are broadly in the same medium, and film supports multiple different formats. Documentaries are different from fiction films, film serials are different from stand-alone movies, music videos (of which at least one, Fantasia, has had a theatrical run) are different from silent films, and so on. The film medium also includes commercials, trailers, shorts, and newsreels. And while certainly many developments are applicable to several of these (the same way a new literary technique--say an "unreliable narrator"--can be used in a poem, a novel and a short story), many are specific to the particular form.

I don't see that as very different from computer games, which I think is more meaningfully thought of as one or at most a couple of art forms with many different genres. Although there are genre-specific developments, a lot of improvements in one type of game quickly spread to others.

and yet among all of them there are only a few creators who make much progress. (I'm sure you don't agree with me when I say there are only three, but there can't be more than ten.) These few pioneers are distributed among the many new art forms, each with its distinct set of rules.

Don't buy it. Maybe only a few pioneers make "much" progress, as in each of their games are leaps and bounds beyond anything done before, but I feel pretty confident that most of the progress comes from the more modest improvements made by typical, non-heroic designers.

Secondly, movies were using old traditions from theater, which was a roughly similar medium. With many types of games, which old traditions ought to be used is still widely unclear.

Just to point out that movies, as a visual 2D medium, also drew on painting and illustration (and the ever-so-slightly older art form of photography), and for storytelling techniques on literature. Theater is a pretty good starting point, but it won't tell you a whole lot about how you frame your shot.

Adventures are faintly related to movies, so developers have been able to fall back on those old traditions for games like Grim Fandango. But take the platformer. It should be following the traditions of dance, and here developers also try to follow the traditions of movies. Even strategy games, which ought to be learning from games like chess, is also falling back on movie traditions! Since videogames are still seen as one entity rather than many, even the best game creators are still having trouble recognizing what each type of game's heritage is. They think it all should come from movies, and that's holding them back rather than giving them a head-start.

I see no evidence that designers think that it should "all" come from movies. If you look at the art forms that have provided input on computer games, movies is certainly an important one, but you have a lot of important baggage from other media as well.

A lot of the attention on artistic value of games has focused on storytelling aspects. There we see the starting point in literature (for text-heavy games), comic books, theater, and movies and television (which we may group together). If we consider role-playing games an artform, that's another major influence to keep in mind (as probably the only highly interactive form of fictional narrative, outside of improvisational theater, to predate sophisticated computer games). It is not wrong for a computer game, even a platform game, to refer back to these traditions for its narrative aspects. In contrast, basing storytelling techniques mainly on the traditions of dance would by very limiting (although quite possibly an interesting experiment).

In terms of visuals and space, computer games borrow from painting, visual design, comics, sculpture, architecture, theater, and cinema. In terms of movement, from animation, dance (yes), martial arts, architecture, theater, puppet theater and cinema. In terms of sound, from all of music, as well as theater, animation, cinema, radio plays, and really any other art form that uses sound.

And of course, the biggest influence on computer games is something that hasn't traditionally been considered art at all: games, including puzzles and sports. I think it's pretty obvious that whether or not Tiger Woods Golf draws more heavily on cinema or on dance, its primary inspiration is... golf. Multiplayer FPSs are virtual games of Lasertag or paintball, essentially a form of hide-and-seek. Strategy games derive directly from strategy board games as well as war games. Bejeweled has much in common with Rubik's cube. Can these aspects, the most interactive ones, ever approach art? Or is art in computer games limited to the narrative, crafting the environment and to presentation? It probably doesn't matter, and I doubt that computer gameplay will benefit at all from recognition as an art.

So games are moving forward at a very slow rate.

I acknowledge that there are some games which -despite not having all the answers- work amazingly well taken on their own merits. Real classics. I'm sure people will still be playing and enjoying the original Super Mario Bros. in fifty years, for instance. Nevertheless, in the bigger picture we're still in caveman times.

On the contrary, I think computer games have made tremendous strides, and if progress has slowed recently, that may be because it has more or less found its form.

Which is not the same as saying it has achieved its full artistic potential. Comics were more or less fully developed soon after WWII, in the sense that they had found the effective techniques of the medium, established conventions and a vocabulary, and produced examples of most of the major genres that would come to dominate it up to this day (with the exception, as far as I am aware, of the autobiographical comics that are an important part of the comix and indie scenes). However, while early masters like McKay, Herriman and Segar had created notable works, and others like Barks, Hergé and (particularly) Eisner were just starting to reach great heights, most of the high-quality work was very much to come.

[TangentBlack]

Video games are intrinsically linked with multiple technological improvements (AI, manufacturing efficiency, computer parts maintanence, just to name a few.) So it would not be suprising to me that computer games will move at a pace that could reflect only a fraction of these said technological improvements and still increase exponentially. Movies are now able to imploy technology that is of the highest caliber because of the capital they can back, so to will video games grow faster because of its vast income and growing popularity with ALL walks of life. If video games aren't an art form now, then surely when our culture is even more based on the virtual world, even Roger Ebert will think differently.

I must also note that I don't think any art form has reached its maturity. The big picture dictates that nothing is over until everything is over. Sure certain stages of artwork may have reached a mature plateau (impressionism, cubism, fauvism, and the like) but who's to say that we won't undergo another Renessiance or two...or four (perhaps of the technological sort) in which new art forms are just waiting to be discovered? Of course, we won't really ever know until after what's now is then and historians poke their noses around and come up with more catorgorization of history. I think however, that you, Brisk, ARE talking about the certain stages of art rather than art as a whole (at least, canvas art.) I just wanted to make sure.

Very good topic by the way to whoever created it.

[MoriartyL]

After A Brisk Nap, I don't think we're really disagreeing about many things. Just one main point- you think games are all one art form separate from other mediums, and I think that's ridiculous since the various types of games are so different from each other. Adventures and RPGs tell stories, simulations give players the experience of creating something, platformers are an abstract art form built around stylized controls (Incidentally, platformers should rarely tell stories.), sports games are imitations of real-life championship sports, and so on. You may think these are as closely related as documentaries and commercials, but I think they are as far apart as movies, dance and sports. This is the one main point we disagree on. And since I think the industry has yet to figure out what the direction of each form should be, and where to learn from the past, I think they're in a more primitive state than you do.

And yet, we don't really disagree that much at all. We both agree that there have been great works of art in videogames, do we not? And do we not also both agree that the best is yet to come?

[J Koning]

Very interesting reactions, and I think we can all agree on the fact that games consist of multiple elements brought together.
I understand the cavemen comparisation because videogames are relatively new, but I think I agree with "After a brisk nap" with this: videogames combine old traditions of gameplay and storytelling etc. and take them further, adding new elements of interaction and visualization. So we do have developed knowledge in this already.

But one of the reasons I've made this topic was this.
I loved adventuregames for years, played lots of them. And though there are very fantastic works between them (Gabriel Knight, Grim Fandango, Monkey Island for instance), I just always felt like the adventuregame could be taken so much more further than this.
Focus always seemed to much on entertaining the player, rather than the deeper approach which could change lives, visions, and experiences.

That's where the difference between good plain entertainment and art lies, and I yearn for more than just entertainment.

[Christian IV]

Jouke, excellent topic, I can say as a professional artist all my adult life, a painter and now working in 3D and games design, that games are indeed an art form, and many games have elements that rise to the level of Fine Art. I expect this to continue as there are many very creative and very skilled people working in games development, story creation and games publishing who appreciate art in all its aspects. Art is fortunately something that is created by an entire culture, and not under the control of the opinions of any individual or group of individuals, and one of my greatest challenges as a professional artist during my career has been to be patient during discussion of art by those who neither practice it, and know about the intricacies and traditions and what makes Fine Art and those who criticize and try to pass judgement on it in any one area, such as this. You can be assured games are Art and will continue to be so.

[After a brisk nap]

Originally Posted by MoriartyL

After A Brisk Nap, I don't think we're really disagreeing about many things. Just one main point- you think games are all one art form separate from other mediums, and I think that's ridiculous since the various types of games are so different from each other. Adventures and RPGs tell stories, simulations give players the experience of creating something, platformers are an abstract art form built around stylized controls (Incidentally, platformers should rarely tell stories.), sports games are imitations of real-life championship sports, and so on. You may think these are as closely related as documentaries and commercials, but I think they are as far apart as movies, dance and sports. This is the one main point we disagree on. And since I think the industry has yet to figure out what the direction of each form should be, and where to learn from the past, I think they're in a more primitive state than you do.

And yet, we don't really disagree that much at all. We both agree that there have been great works of art in videogames, do we not? And do we not also both agree that the best is yet to come?

I'm not sure I do agree with that, as a matter of fact.

I believe that there have been great computer games, but I wouldn't call any of them works of art. That's because a great computer game, in my opinion, is defined by great gameplay, and while gameplay design may be an art, it's not Art. It's unreasonable to expect football (soccer) to produce great dance pieces, even though there's certainly grace, "choreography" and acrobatics involved in the game.

That is also why I think computer games are more similar than they are different. Their status as "things to be played" unites them. In fact, many principles of game design can be widely applied across games that are superficially different, such as those associated with challenge/reward, exploration, and player competition. But the aims of gameplay, to provide a "play experience" (some call it "flow"), are too simple to be classed as art, in my view.

That's not to say that computer games are not an artform. I mentioned architecture earlier, and I think that's a useful analogy. The primary aim of architecture is to design and construct buildings and other useful structures (bridges, walls, tunnels, etc.). A successful piece of architecture is, in the simplest terms, one which fulfills its purposes of shelter, transportation, defense or whatever. That has not stopped architects from drawing buildings that are beautiful pieces of art. But this is mostly a matter of decoration, taking a plain, functional structure and "tarting it up", often incorporating other artforms such as sculpture, mosaics and other forms of illustration.

I would claim that the same is true for games. Like architecture, and unlike music, literature, painting, and so on, games are not inherently a form of expression or communication. That's a secondary possibility. You can make an excellent game that doesn't contain one iota of art (e.g. Tetris without the music), just like you can build an excellent house that doesn't aspire to art at all.

If the art component of computer games is limited to decoration, it makes perfect sense that it would borrow most heavily from film and television. After all, the medium of presentation is the same (moving images on a screen with sound), so it shares many of the same constraints and possibilities. At a time when many computer games were limited to text display, they borrowed more heavily from books. With the advent of 3D graphics, I'm starting to see signs of increasing influence of sculpture and architecture. (In the sole game design class I took at university, we were required to read architecture texts, which were held to be relevant to level design in particular.)

OK, this is where I back away slightly from some of the bolder claims that I've just made. First of all, there's often a complex interplay between what I have called "function" and "decoration". The aesthetic component is an important part of the function of many structures, especially monumental architecture such as temples, palaces, ... err, monuments, etc. And in the best examples, "decoration" is deeply integrated into the design, such as in the grace of the Parthenon even without its painted friezes, gold decorations and cloth hangings. So while the architect doesn't have to be an artist, he can only create great art by letting the artistic suffuse the totality of the work.

Also, an architect has some techniques available that most other artists don't have access to. For instance, the flow of people through the structure can be manipulated by the design, for deliberate artistic effect. So creating architecture as art is not just a matter of using other artforms or the principles of other artforms as decoration.

The same could be true of computer games. While the main role of art in game will be for decoration, decoration and gameplay are perhaps even more tightly intertwined than decoration and architectural function. We see this clearly in adventure games, where storytelling and gameplay challenges ideally form an organic whole such that the gameplay provides important parts of the story while the story provides a convincing justification for the gameplay. And the unique possibilities and restrictions of computer games will surely lead to new artistic techniques, whether they involve manipulating the gameplay aspect or not (for example, a possibility more or less unique to computer games but not necessarily tied to gameplay is that of huge shifts in perspective, from the microscopic to the cosmic, such as in Katamari Damacy or Spore).

In conclusion: Are computer games art? Yes, but only incidentally. The field of computer games could be fully mature without necessarily producing any games that are works of art, just like the game of chess is mature without ever having turned into an artform.

Oh, one final thing. I said that the aims of gameplay are too simple and restricted to aspire to art. Maybe a more interesting question would be if pure gameplay itself is capable of more than just stimulating the reward centers in our brains. Is it possible to express complex ideas, sophisticated point of views and fine emotions just by crafting pure gameplay? If it is, then art could perhaps become an essential part of games.