The debate about whether or not video games count as art is one that has been raging for quite some time among not just players themselves, but in certain academic and professional circles as well. Well, I’m pleased to announce that the Games-as-Art folk have now got a pretty big trump card in the way of a new change in the guidelines of the National Endowment of the Arts. Namely, the NEA now considers video games and other interactive games to be artistic projects eligible to receive federal funding.
In other words, the U.S. Government just said that video games can be art.
Pretty awesome if you ask me. I’ve always been in the art camp of this particular debate– maybe it’s because I consider myself to be a creative person and tend to see “art” in pretty much anything, but I honestly can’t quite grok how a medium that combines storytelling, visual art, architecture/graphic design, music, animation, and frequently scriptwriting and cinematography (in the form of cutscenes) to be anything but art of the highest order. But then, I suppose it’s all subjective, isn’t it? That’s how art works. It’s why you have people mounting broken toilet seats on a canvas and selling the result for millions of dollars (true story).
Perhaps, then, all the proof we needed about video games being art is the fact that people have been debating it for years.
Regardless, it does feel good to say “suck it Ebert” right about now.
Thoughts?
First Bin Laden, now this! What will those Americans think of next?!
I think Ebert is a fantastic writer and a brilliant analyst of the arts. It just so happens that I disagree with his notion of video games not being art.
It’s about damn time.
If movies count as art, then why not video games? I could see maybe not counting Tetris or something as art…but most video games are closer to movies now than they are to Tetris.