Can video games be considered art?

It's funny the way that expressing an opinion on some subjects online can blow up unexpectedly. One is the question of whether video games can be legitimately considered art, as I found this morning, having circulated the URL for a blogpost by US film critic Roger Ebert. (For those not on Twitter, this is called re-tweeting, a simple device via which the user can instantly pass on other people' messages and links - similar to the "share" function on Facebook.)

After originally circulating the Ebert link about 2 days ago to little apparent interest, out of the blue someone hit back at me, rather than the author of the blogpost, with a strongly-worded objection. Seconds later there I was foolishly answering.

Within minutes this had turned into about 10 people simultaneously flooding me with objections, to which I crazily tried to argue back, triggering yet more argument. There is, it seems, nothing like a video gamer who feels spurned. I have no interest in playing video games and have little knowledge of their latest incarnations but my objections are conceptual, so please hear me out.

I have nothing against video gaming and believe it almost certainly stimulates cognitive fucntioning. That's not the same as believing it's the same thing as art.

There's a simple reason for this: games and art have been parallel practices throughout human history and to the best of my knowledge never have the former been mistaken for the latter.

If this has suddenly changed with the development of video games, it is up to members of the gaming community to explain why this radical shift in conceptual reasoning has come about. The argument needs some sophistication and subtlety (John Birmingham exhibited both in a recent exploration of the topic in the Fairfax media. It didn't convince me but it was certainly a serious argument).

The backgammon board may be beautifully designed, aesthetically pleasing in its own way, and a soccer player may exhibit tremendous grace on the pitch. But that does not turn backgammon - the game - or a great session of soccer into an art form that can be discussed alongside the painting and sculpture of Picasso or the music of Miles Davis.

I was grateful when one of the debaters sent me a personal message and proceded to write a long and considered reply via email. Lee Zachariah has kindly given me permission to reprint his thoughtful comments, so here they are. My reply follows in the separate post below.

Lee Zachariah:
"Why do we always do this? Enter into a debate that requires thought, nuance and verbosity, and then both realise -- only after we're hip-deep -- that Twitter is not the place for such a debate? We shall never learn! And hooray for that.

"A few points I wanted to cover going in...

"I need to define how I am using the word art in this context.

"I am not using it as hyperbole or an adjective. As in, 'The way you shouted the name of the murderer at the same time the lightening struck, that was pure art!'. I believe you can call the way a football player catches a ball 'artistic', but only in a hyperbolic sense.

"Nor am I using it (in this instance) as a definition of what I like and what I don't like. I thought Transformers 2 was about the worst thing I'd ever been forced to sit through, and was an insult to every part of my being that enjoys good story and character and, well, coherent storytelling. But it is still art.

"I do not know exactly what a Lady Gaga is, and I seem to be the only person in the world who has avoided her music, but even if she does turn out to be a manufactured, poppy, irritating so-and-so, the fact that she creates music still makes her an artist. What she does is still art, regardless of how I feel about it.

"I am in no way a 'gamer'. I like Tetris. I occasionally (ie: once every few years) get sucked into a computer game that someone has managed to get me playing. But this is a very rare occurrence, and the world of video games is one I consider largely foreign to me. My claim that video games is art does not come from a place of self-justification, as I have no personal investment in them whatsoever. I entered the fray purely because a part of me really enjoys the occasional theoretical, academic debate.

"So, here's where I believe the crux of the argument lies: the act of playing the video game is not art. It is not art in the same way that the act of reading a book is not art, the act of watching a movie is not art, the act of listening to music... etc, etc.

"However, the creative, created element of the game -- ie: the story, the characters, the design, the music -- is art. It is a creative piece that stands on its own, regardless of how the user interacts with it. If the user does not touch the controls and their character stands there for an hour as the trees swish in the distance, that is art. Not great art, but as with the Transformers/Gaga definition above, art doesn't have to be good to be art.

"I have to disagree with your assertion that the definition of art hinges on what it says about the human condition. Not because I necessarily agree or disagree, but because it is unprovable. It is an entirely subjective viewpoint.

"I use the BBC series Snuff Box as an example here, purely because the DVD is sitting next to my computer: I can make an argument that Snuff Box does reveal a lot about the human condition, yet I can also see someone countering that argument by saying it's simply a lot of silly sketches with too much sex and swearing in them. Nobody can be proven right in that argument, because it is purely subjective. Art is open to interpretation, and the interpretation lies with the beholder.

"Comparing video games to chess, I will repeat my Twitter point purely for the sake of completeness, that the act of playing chess is, like the act of playing video games, not art. But the act of fashioning the pieces on a chess board is, indeed, art. When I argue that video games are art, I am speaking of their creation, not what happens to them once they are released into the world.

"You asked why video games are art if sports are not. Very good question, and one that I spent a bit of time thinking about. I noticed Daniel Knight responded to you by saying "Computer games are a work of fiction. Football is not." I do agree with that to an extent, but if I'm also counting, oh, say, Tetris as an example, the care with which some Tetris games are designed (the contours and colours of the shapes, the background, the now-iconic music), it can't really be considered fiction. But then neither can chess pieces.

"If we remove the interactive element from computer games, they remain art. In fact, my argument is that the interactive element has no bearing on its position as art. If we remove the interactive element from sport, however, nothing remains.

"You could argue that the creation of, say, the ball is as much art as the creation of chess pieces, but the regulations surrounding what a ball must be restricts the creativity of what a ball can be. In fact, it doesn't restrict is so much as it eliminates creativity altogether! There may be artistry in the design of the players' outfits, but that is a negligible element. The clothing is not essential. (Please ignore the mental images that this conjures up. It's a bit disquieting.)

"Essentially, the boil down the above waffling to a coherent, cohesive statement: if you remove the interactivity from sport, it ceases to exist. If you remove it from video games, they remain a creative piece, and must therefore be considered art."

(Lee Zachariah ends)