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Are Games Art Chat Log Available at Manifesto Games

Sometime back Gamasutra posted a news item regardinga discussion about games as art held at Manifesto Games.

Are games art? If not, why not? And if so, why? Is thinking of games as art useful or actually a hindrance for game developers? If games are art, what should our aspirations for the form be?

MIT’s Henry Jenkins, video game theory professor Jesper Juul, game designer Santiago Siri and gameLab’s Eric Zimmerman were invited to argue whether or not games could be considered art and who gets to define it as such. It was a playful discussion, with comments ranging from the humorous to the serious. While nothing definitive was decided, it did show that labeling video games as a form of art is difficult, but it is not because they are inherently not artistic, as Roger Ebert would claim.

The complete chat log can be found at Manifesto Games.

5 replies on “Are Games Art Chat Log Available at Manifesto Games”

Video games are as much art as movies are. Some movies are artistic. Some aren’t. Some are absolute crap. Some focus on the art rather than the story. Some are an excuse for showing big explosions. Some barely have a story. Some are all about the story and everything else takes a back seat.

Wait, was I talking about movies or video games? It applies to both. Just because a game is interactive doesn’t change the equation.

I think the usual argument that games can’t be art is because they’re for entertainment, and “mere entertainment’ is not “real” art. Such a view is nonsense.

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