Poll: Are videogames art?

[Timpossible]

Yes. Videogames are art. Like Movies, like Literature, like art.

But in my view the term "Art" is more or less neutral.
Art for me means at first: Someone expressing him/herself. By Story, Dialogue, Music, Design, gameplay etc.
So it's still a matter of debate what games are trivial bullshit and what games are great
pieces of a modern form of art. For me every game even the facebook ones are art. But that does not mean that those game arn't trivial bullshit and should be ignored. Just because something is silly, stupid, cheap, pretentious or something like this does not mean it's not art. It means it is bad...stupid, silly, cheap, pretentious. The attribute "art" does not make something imune to or stand above criticism.


Like this word of "the citizen Kane of Games". I don't think there will be ever just one single game that is for games what citizen Kane was for Movies. But we are in an era of "Citizen Kane of Games".
Games grow up faster and faster in many aspect. We have a big "indipendet" scene where crative people and artists and truly express themselfs. But we also have big AAA Games like The Last of Us. Games that try to be more than just a fun but trivial piece of sparetime. Even with all the bad and stupid things happening in the gaming industrie and Gaming journalism I believe or want to believe that games are becoming more and more a form of art of their own.

Well. Hope you get my point. Games were art, are art and will stay art. They've come a long was and there is a long way ahead. But I think the Medium of Games is here to stay and will grow in it's truly own form of arts.
At some point people will stop always comparing games to movies.


@the Topic of David Cage:
I don't have a problem with his aproach to gameplay. The Walking Dead does a similar thing and get's praise for it. Yeah...Mr. Cages Games could have a more fluid gameplay but the concept itself is no problem for me.
The Problem I have with David Cage are two things:

1. He can't write. Every Game he made and I played fucked up the story in some way.
Indigo Prophecy/Fahrenheit lost it's shit in the end and became so over the top that is was just silly.
Heavy Rain (Still his best) had so many huuuuuuuge plotholes. It was still fun...but there where so many plotpoints that made no sense at all.
And Beyond had a fucked up Storystelling. He chopped up his story. And the only reason was that players wound't know the "big twist" after the second mission.
2. He things "more polygones=more emotions". And that's just fucking stupid.

 

[SanguiniusMagnificum]

Innovators such as David Cage spearhead gaming's march toward enlightenment, with his magnum opus Beyond: Two Souls showing us the kind of storytelling games are capable of. B:TS is a piece of transcendental fiction - slipping the bonds of it's medium and becoming something greater than both games and movies, a piece of true art.

Oh god... my sides, they're killing me! Christ, OP, if I wasn't dying of laughter right I'd sue you for involuntary manslaughter!

Right, back on the more serious topics. Why is this even discussion? Why is this a question? Movies can be art. Books can be art. Paintings and drawings can be art. So why can't videogames be art? I mean, just because The Big E once said that games aren't art (something that he has now refuted) doesn't mean that they aren't art. And no, this doesn't deserve a bigger discussion. Mostly because the discussion is already fucking huge. I remember that this was like the hottest topic on a lot of 'garme jurnalism' sites just about a year ago.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

No they are not. Because if they were people wouldnt moan and force ME3 to change the ending or claim about lack of woman etc etc People would accept the game as the developer intended it to be. Personally i think art is something made for the sake of itself and not as something to sell for money. Im sure people feel differently and thats fine also. Again its about an individuals feeling, their are some works of art that go for millions and considered classic art pieces. For others, these pieces are worthless crap that you wouldnt even buy for a £1.

If people see games as art, thats great. But those people shouldnt feel the need to change others opinions.

 

[DrOswald]

No they are not. Because if they were people wouldnt moan and force ME3 to change the ending or claim about lack of woman etc etc People would accept the game as the developer intended it to be. Personally i think art is something made for the sake of itself and not as something to sell for money. Im sure people feel differently and thats fine also. Again its about an individuals feeling, their are some works of art that go for millions and considered classic art pieces. For others, these pieces are worthless crap that you wouldnt even buy for a £1.

If people see games as art, thats great. But those people shouldnt feel the need to change others opinions.

So, games are not art because a bunch of people didn't like a game once? Yeah, gonna need a more convincing argument than "if people don't like it then it isn't art."

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

No they are not. Because if they were people wouldnt moan and force ME3 to change the ending or claim about lack of woman etc etc People would accept the game as the developer intended it to be. Personally i think art is something made for the sake of itself and not as something to sell for money. Im sure people feel differently and thats fine also. Again its about an individuals feeling, their are some works of art that go for millions and considered classic art pieces. For others, these pieces are worthless crap that you wouldnt even buy for a £1.

If people see games as art, thats great. But those people shouldnt feel the need to change others opinions.

So, games are not art because a bunch of people didn't like a game once? Yeah, gonna need a more convincing argument than "if people don't like it then it isn't art."

No, it wasnt that they didnt like it. Its that they moan and make developers change. Would people do the same to the Mona Lisa? I dont need a better argument as its my opinion. Games are not art, they would not exist if they wernt made for money. Dont care how pretty the game looks. With out millions of investment that game wouldnt exist.

Again read the last sentence in original post. If you think its art, great. But trying to prove to everyone and change their opinion is meaningless as no one elses opinion matter apart from what you think about what games mean to you.

 

[DoPo]

No, it wasnt that they didnt like it. Its that they moan and make developers change. Would people do the same to the Mona Lisa?

Umm...yes, yes they did. OK, not Mona Lisa specifically (to my knowledge, at least), but people have moaned about books and movies and stuff for a while. Like centuries. As a notable example, Sherlock Holmes died and then Doyle had to pull off "Erm, I only pretended to be dead. Ha-ha fooled you" because guess who moaned. I'll give you a hint - starts with "peo" and ends in "ple", rhymes with, erm, "meople".

As a different example, most recently (just because I read some news article about it in the past day or so), George R. R. Martin has been badgered to write new books. On a similar note, the actress who plays Arya Stark (forgot her name, sorry) had an interview and mentioned how people moaned to them (as in the people related to the TV series) how it is not like the books, therefore it sucks.

And just because I saw the name right now in the Latest Content highlights in the bottom of the page: Douglas Adams. He also faced the moans of the people after H2G2's end. And even started writing another book (And Another Thing...) to appease the crowd a bit. Unfortunately, he passed away in the process of doing so, then that-guy-I-can't-remember-the-name-of picked it up and...actually, now that I think about it, I think he finished it. Erm, probably a while ago. I probably should check out how it turned out.

Anyway, it's hardly new, it's hardly isolated to games, it's hardly a valid argument.

I dont need a better argument as its my opinion.

You do if you try to justify it using arguments. Look, it may be my opinion that Mariah Carrey is a good cook, but if I say it is because the elephants are orange, that doesn't make much sense, now does it.

Games are not art, they would not exist if they wernt made for money.

Funnily, the same can be said about architecture. Or a lot of other works of art.

Dont care how pretty the game looks. With out millions of investment that game wouldnt exist.

Ri-i-ight. That's true for all games except those games that don't need millions of investment, correct? Because I would have thought that the games that don't require millions of investments don't...require millions of investment.

Again read the last sentence in original post. If you think its art, great. But trying to prove to everyone and change their opinion is meaningless as no one elses opinion matter apart from what you think about what games mean to you.

To me it matters people don't just spout random, incoherent and illogical sentences when they actually try to justify something. You can feel a certain way and not spout random, incoherent and illogical sentences to justify it.

 

[Cowabungaa]

The available answers are too black and white, the question formulated wrongly and the answer a lot more relative than most people really like for their tastes.

Because in truth, videogames are a medium. Nothing more, nothing less.

In that regard they are exactly the same as movies, books, paintings, sculptures, music and poetry. The question whether something is art is not a question asked about the entire medium, it's asked for individual works within a specific medium. You're not going to call every book a work of art, or every movie, or every videogame. Not to mention that the term 'art' is anything but solidly defined so that doesn't help the question either.

 

[Something Amyss]

I'm not sure if the original post is serious (MLK and Phil Fish? Really?) But games are an artistic medium. The answer to "are games art" is the same as the question posed for movies, books, and music. As a medium, it is art. An individual game doesn't have to be art, however.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Snip

Personally if you change something due to people moaning then its not what you intended as the original vision of the artist. You can hate it or love it but it shouldnt be changed. Like you said about Sherlock being brought back to life, the writer should of left him dead as that was his original vision. You are trying to prove an opinion based on a feeling towards something. You will never ever convenience me that games are art because i see them only as entertainment. You have yet to give me a reason why i think they should be considered art. Look at your Mariah as a cook comment, if you love her food but i dont, does that mean she sucks as a cook? No. It just means i didnt like it. Again, its down to personal thoughts and opinions and not something that can be proven with argument. After all im sure there are people that see other things as art that you wouldnt agree with. Its all down to personal feeling and not something you can say is because of x reasons.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

The answer to "are games art" is the same as the question posed for movies, books, and music. As a medium, it is art. An individual game doesn't have to be art, however.

I think this comment nailed it. Well as can be with people differing on whether it is or not (wish you had wrote this earlier) ;-)

 

[ayvee]

Personally if you change something due to people moaning then its not what you intended as the original vision of the artist.

I just want to single this out because it comes up a lot in these conversations but it's not really true. Creative people aren't omniscient. Someone who is writing a book or making a game or anything else isn't always going to be aware of every implication of their creative decisions, and as such it's possible for something to have unintended implications. If I'm a creative and someone points those implications out to me and it's not something I ever intended to have come across, changing it isn't swaying away from my artistic vision, it's bringing the work more in line with it. If anything I find it more ridiculous that people seem to insist that once an artist releases their work into the wild it becomes some kind of sacred monolith that is beyond even the artists reach, and any further attempt to alter it is inherently weakening.

And it's not even just a "social justice" thing. I finished my term at a design school this spring, and shortly before graduation a friend of mine was having me critique a logo he'd been working on. The design was supposed to be a reductive image of some kind of cat's face. I shared my thoughts (since collaboration and in-group criticism is also a thing that artists do when they make art) on how he could improve it, but it wasn't until a third classmate came along and noticed that the thing vaguely resembled a uterus, something that (hilariously, in retrospect) had gone unnoticed by the both of us. He'd already been in a back-and-forth with his client on that design, and the final product very well could have come out looking like it did, but the resemblance most definitely would not have been his "vision."

 

[Dragonbums]

Videogames are art sure, but I feel that it is undeserving of the title yet.

Why, you ask?

Because us of the gaming community want videogames to have the label of art, but they dont' want their games to be criticized like any other medium under the "artistic" label.

They don't want to talk about how videogames, or certain videogames impact or are influenced by the culture it was created in (and yes, videogames are born from the culture it was made in. There is no such thing as art made in a void.)

We don't want to talk about vidoegames on how it can impact the players perceptions about the real world positively or negatively.

We don't want outsiders to criticize videogames. I'm sorry, but once you put in the label art, you are also allowing many other groups to give their interpretation on they see videogames. And often times that clashes a lot with what gamers see. Sorry, but science major isn't going to look at 30 years worth of videogames, just so he/she can talk about how they perceive videogames today.

Until gamers can accept these types of discussion rationally, and without frothing at the mouth at any man or women outside of videogames, saying opposites of what you think videogames are, videogames don't get the title of art.

If you "just want to play vidya" than you aren't playing art. Your playing a piece of entertainment that has no merit nor warrants anyone's attention outside of your little gaming sphere, and to extension, will look kiddish and shallow.

 

[Dragonbums]

If you can sign a urinal and call it art I think games more than qualify.

The thing with Duchamp fine art though (the man that did the urinal piece.) he was actively criticizing the way the fine arts scene back in the 1930's was.

In fact, that piece in and of itself is controversial not because he called a urinal art, but because he claimed it was some random piece of shit he found in a dumpster. Yet when people tried to find that specific model of urinal created during that time, they couldn't find any matches. Which means that there is a high possibility that Duchamp actually made a functional looking urinal by hand, claimed it was "found" somewhere and signed his name on it. Which would be even more ironic.

 

[Dragonbums]

No they are not. Because if they were people wouldnt moan and force ME3 to change the ending or claim about lack of woman etc etc People would accept the game as the developer intended it to be. Personally i think art is something made for the sake of itself and not as something to sell for money. Im sure people feel differently and thats fine also. Again its about an individuals feeling, their are some works of art that go for millions and considered classic art pieces. For others, these pieces are worthless crap that you wouldnt even buy for a £1.

If people see games as art, thats great. But those people shouldnt feel the need to change others opinions.

Except that all art was complained about. All of it. Even renaissance paintings caused controversy, had to be changed due to mass outrage etc. etc.

The notion that art is what the "creator inteneded" is full of bollocks. I've said this in another thread, and I'll say it again- read up on the history of many artistic works. Many of them were hidden, widely unaccepted, or censored. Punishments for doing extreme cases often involved death of the creator. Not just whining on internet forums that you can easily ignore. The concept of art for the self only came about during the age of mass production and the rise of the middle class.

Back then your entire artistic freedom was regulated to a private sketchbook. All of your public work was dictated by the wealthy, the church and the king. Guess what they wanted to do 9/10? I'll give you a guess, it had nothing to do with space aliens, and boob armor ladies.

Oh, but what about people like Michelangelo? He was an exception. Literally. The time he was born and lived in was a time where religious fanatics had everyone gripped by the fucking balls. You couldn't dissect people, you couldn't do science all that much, if shit questioned religion your ass better not say anything about it. The only reason why Michel got away with anything he did was because he was on good standing with a very notable upper class family who let his shit slide "unnoticed". Anyone else who did what he did would find themselves on the business end of a beheader. The end.


Art is born of the culture it was created in. Your either making something that was influenced by that, or actively goes against it.

When Frankenstein was first written and published, it was universally praised. Than the moment they found out that a woman wrote it, it was almost universally ignored and panned by critics because of inherent sexist ideals about women and what they were able to do.


If you want to cry and moan and say "I want to make art how I WANT" and tell anyone who criticises you to go away, than do yourself a good favor and stay away from the art field, and don't try to claim your stuff is art. At that point it's self pandering to you and your niche audience. You aren't making art your making shallow entertainment.

If you do want your work to be considered art, than you better be ready to accept all the baggage that comes with it. And that includes outrage, critique, possible censorship, alterations, etc. etc.

Seriously. You all need to take an art history class sometimes. You'll quickly realize how much more freedom artists have in this day and age. And perhaps reflect on the fact that angry "SJW's" are leagues better than getting executed for drawing some dumb shit like Jesus in high heels.

 

[DoPo]

You are trying to prove an opinion based on a feeling towards something.

I am?

You have yet to give me a reason why i think they should be considered art.

I do? Erm, what message did you read and why did you decide to attribute it to me. See, I know you aren't replying to mine, because see here

Look at your Mariah as a cook comment

This one

Look, it may be my opinion that Mariah Carrey is a good cook, but if I say it is because the elephants are orange, that doesn't make much sense, now does it.

if you love her food but i dont, does that mean she sucks as a cook? No. It just means i didnt like it.

How does that fit in with what I said? My comment was "My opinion is X because something nonsensical". Which is what you said.

Again, its down to personal thoughts and opinions and not something that can be proven with argument.

You say than and then you also go around spouting "arguments". Which I also addressed before.

I dont need a better argument as its my opinion.

You do if you try to justify it using arguments.

Its all down to personal feeling and not something you can say is because of x reasons.

SOMETHING THAT WAS, LIKE, IN MY POST, RIGHT?

To me it matters people don't just spout random, incoherent and illogical sentences when they actually try to justify something. You can feel a certain way and not spout random, incoherent and illogical sentences to justify it.

AND SOMETHING YOU ACTUALLY DIDN'T DO, CORRECT? Yes. Case closed.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

I read Ebert's game articles and well, he does have some good arguments (and some bad ones). This kind of question is really unanswerable, I think it's more important as a questioning of what art is and why we really need to call things art and other things not-art, and get upset over the whole thing. It's a little bit silly if you ask me, the way we do that.

One thing I will say is that Braid is rubbish, a painful game to play and no more advanced than Mario in conception. I liked Thomas Was Alone, however.

 

[Batou667]

Think about the Civil Rights Movement. What if Martin Luther King Jr. didn't have the courage to fight for what he thought was right? Now think of Phil Fish. Do you think he could have told his story? Fought for what he thought was right? Think of Edmund. Could he have fulfilled his awesome vision? Video games are a main reason people in today's society are strong. Video games are the reason why we have solidarity; fighting transphobia, homophobia, sexism, transsexism, racism, and classism is a rally behind the media of video games and developers like BioWare. I would even argue that we are stronger than we were in the 60's. No one is a Ku Klux Klan member if they have video games.

U wot m8?

Video games are definitely media, probably an artform, but what they're not is some kind of social panacea. Not only shouldn't they be - judging a piece of art on how well it pushes your agenda rather than on its artistic content is a very slippery slope indeed - but I also don't think they really could be if they tried. People overwhelmingly don't play games for edification. People play for fun, for excitement, for catharsis, for competition, to kill time. If you reach the end credits of a game and you're less racist that's a happy byproduct, but that's emphatically NOT what gaming is about.

Your statements are, no offense, a bit naive at any rate. Many people in society, especially the type of person who is likely to wield actual political power, don't play games. And when was the last time news of a spree killing wasn't accompanied by "the killer is understood to have enjoyed[X videogame]"? Of course KKK members play video games. They also listen to music and watch movies. I think you underestimate peoples capacity for both passive consumption of media, and their ability to compartmentalise.

Once upon a time, to make a game you'd need the money only a huge corporate publisher could give. Which type of people got this money, you ask? Typically, men - white men - and their interests showed through in their games. In those dark days, the only games being made were those featuring angry white men shooting giant guns. Videogames were seen as the medium of children, providing meaningless, thoughtless entertainment. No more. It should be noted that studies have shown that 63% of gamers are female. While previously they could not be represented thanks to the kind of people making the games, with the rise of indie games anyone can make their own game - whether they are in a position of privilege or not - and the results are clear for all to see. No longer the sickeningly masculine, bull-headed fare they once were, the videogames of today are a beautiful reflection of the human experience.

More starry-eyed inaccuracy, I'm afraid. Once upon a time, to make a game you needed a computer, and the time, ability and inclination to sit in a room (often a bedroom, often alone) and type hundreds of lines of BASIC. Solo coders and small shoestring-budget teams were synonymous with early gaming - what nowadays we'd call Indie devs have always existed. And yes, most of them were white, as are the majority in the Western world, and most of them were male, the demographic that back then was overwhelmingly associated with the geeky pursuits of computer ownership and coding[footnote]Yes, owning a home PC was once as weird and obsessive as owning, say, a 50-foot radio mast and relay station in your back garden, or your own printing press, or some similar example of hardware that's not usually associated with public use[/footnote] - and you don't seriously expect those early pioneers to be ashamed of their skin colour or genitals, I hope, because identifying a lack of diversity and jumping to the conclusion that conscious exclusion is at play is a very disingenuous thing to do.

For a long time the money and mass-market appeal lay in the arcades, then in the late 80s home consoles gained momentum, there was the undignified population explosion and mass extinction of consoles in the mid-90s, and the REAL mass-market commodification of video games only really started in the mid-late 90s with the PlayStation. And the industry has been doing its best to emulate Hollywood ever since, with much the same target demographic and employing many of the same conventions, tropes and so on. It's a bit of a limitation, but you can't blame the companies for identifying a market and catering to it.

63% of gamers are female? Citation needed, please, and if we're counting secretaries playing Minesweeper I'll be rather disappointed.

Also, I've got one last bone to pick with you - "meaningless, thoughtless entertainment"? My friend, have you actually played anything from before 1995? You're entitled to an opinion but please do at least a little research before jumping to conclusions. Try some Monkey Island, or Zork, or Lemmings, or King's Quest (created by a woman, if it matters), or Tetris, or Dungeon Keeper, or any of the early JRPGs, or heck, even play "angry white man simulator" Doom, and tell me with a straight face that games have always been a homogenous set of grey, formulaic and risk-averse blockbusters. Historically there was a LOT of variety and innovation.

I pose to you the question, then - has this moment arrived? Are games yet art, or have we yet to wait longer for validation? Perhaps you think that masterworks such as Bioshock: Infinite have already shown the way, or perhaps you think that we are on the cusp of being an artform, but have some ways to go yet? I've been tossing this question over and over in my mind for a while now, and thought this would be a good forum to ask.

In my opinion games have always been art. If similar media like literature and film are art, then games certainly qualify. Sure, the majority of games don't represent particularly good art, but then a lot of art isn't good art either (Pollock, Emin, Warhol...).

 

[FrostDragon]

U wot m8?

Video games are definitely media, probably an artform, but what they're not is some kind of social panacea. Not only shouldn't they be - judging a piece of art on how well it pushes your agenda rather than on its artistic content is a very slippery slope indeed - but I also don't think they really could be if they tried. People overwhelmingly don't play games for edification. People play for fun, for excitement, for catharsis, for competition, to kill time. If you reach the end credits of a game and you're less racist that's a happy byproduct, but that's emphatically NOT what gaming is about.

Your statements are, no offense, a bit naive at any rate. Many people in society, especially the type of person who is likely to wield actual political power, don't play games. And when was the last time news of a spree killing wasn't accompanied by "the killer is understood to have enjoyed[X videogame]"? Of course KKK members play video games. They also listen to music and watch movies. I think you underestimate peoples capacity for both passive consumption of media, and their ability to compartmentalise.

Attitudes like those displayed here are part of the reason videogames are not widely accepted. Film originally went through a similar thing - "movies aren't some kind of social panacea", the naysayers would squawk. "They're JUST entertainment!" Then, of course, as we know, Citizen Kane came along and changed all of that.

I do not know any KKK members, but if they do play videogames (I doubt this) then they are clearly not absorbing the layered social commentary that so many games of the modern age are loaded with. If they were to play a masterwork like Phil Fish's magnum opus "FEZ" or the wonderful "Braid", the error of their ways may become clear to them. After all, as South Park said, does fiction not affect the way we conduct ourselves in so-called "real" life?

And yes, most of them were white, as are the majority in the Western world, and most of them were male, the demographic that back then was overwhelmingly associated with the geeky pursuits of computer ownership and coding[1] - and you don't seriously expect those early pioneers to be ashamed of their skin colour or genitals, I hope, because identifying a lack of diversity and jumping to the conclusion that conscious exclusion is at play is a very disingenuous thing to do.

Do you mean to say diversity is a bad thing? Straight white men have straight white male interests, typically male power fantasies played out in the most revolting fashion imaginable. Only when developers became more diverse did games truly take a turn for the better - for the art.

63% of gamers are female? Citation needed, please, and if we're counting secretaries playing Minesweeper I'll be rather disappointed.

I'll simply pretend I didn't notice the blatant misogyny in your post. The source for this study is here: http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2012.pdf Admittedly, that one has the percentage of 47% rather than 63%. Alas I cannot find my original source.

Also, I've got one last bone to pick with you - "meaningless, thoughtless entertainment"? My friend, have you actually played anything from before 1995? You're entitled to an opinion but please do at least a little research before jumping to conclusions. Try some Monkey Island, or Zork, or Lemmings, or King's Quest (created by a woman, if it matters), or Tetris, or Dungeon Keeper, or any of the early JRPGs, or heck, even play "angry white man simulator" Doom, and tell me with a straight face that games have always been a homogenous set of grey, formulaic and risk-averse blockbusters. Historically there was a LOT of variety and innovation.

Monkey Island? Can adventure games even be considered games? They are simply interactive pictures - and no, this is not similar to David Cage, who uses many cinematic techniques inspired by Welles and Hitchcock to draw the player in.

Zork? A text adventure? Primitive, lacking the visual feedback any game needs to lend it an emotional punch.

Lemmings? I refuse to play this on principle as it enables the racist and animal-abuse-endorsing Disney movie White Wilderness.

King's Quest? See Monkey Island.

Tetris? How can this be art? Come now.

Dungeon Keeper? Need I say more?

Early JRPGs? Note the "J", for Japanese. These games were not made by white men, and the quality shows.

DooM is a terrible game - the definition of a male power fantasy. Despite doing some favours for FPS design, it must be regarded today as a relic.

In my opinion games have always been art. If similar media like literature and film are art, then games certainly qualify. Sure, the majority of games don't represent particularly good art, but then a lot of art isn't good art either (Pollock, Emin, Warhol...).

Good art? What are your criterion for "Good" art? Art comes from the soul, an expression of the artist, a look into the mind of a poet, a creative. Videogames are the best medium to accomplish this - but to say that the majority of pre-1995 games are art would be a lie.

Also, as an extra note, nobody wrote "hundreds of lines of BASIC". They actually wrote THOUSANDS of lines of ASSEMBLY.

 

[Batou667]

Attitudes like those displayed here are part of the reason videogames are not widely accepted. Film originally went through a similar thing - "movies aren't some kind of social panacea", the naysayers would squawk. "They're JUST entertainment!" Then, of course, as we know, Citizen Kane came along and changed all of that.

So some films are an effective way of promoting a certain issue, or raising awareness, or making the viewer reassess their values. And that's great, but we need to acknowledge that isn't what movies are FOR. What they're for is to make money, and they make money primarily through attracting cinemagoers, and they achieve that by being entertaining. Part of a film's remit or raison d'etre isn't necessarily to be educational or socially correcting - and if it were, how would you reconcile that with the existence of films that glorify violence, or reinforce stereotypes, or exist simply as untaxing popcorn fare like, say, the Spongebob Squarepants Movie? Some films change the way people think. But not all.

And anyway, even though many games now consciously replicate a movie-like experience, we're at the risk of comparing apples and oranges. A movie is passive entertainment that's typically experienced from start to completion in one sitting. Video games are interactive and generally represent at least a dozen hours worth of play, usually experienced in chunks of a couple of hours at a time. That's important to note because games are already constrained in how much exposition and storytelling they can reasonably achieve, and therefore rely a lot more on culturally-engrained memes and tropes.

I do not know any KKK members, but if they do play videogames (I doubt this) then they are clearly not absorbing the layered social commentary that so many games of the modern age are loaded with. If they were to play a masterwork like Phil Fish's magnum opus "FEZ" or the wonderful "Braid", the error of their ways may become clear to them. After all, as South Park said, does fiction not affect the way we conduct ourselves in so-called "real" life?

Dude, I assure you KKK members play videogames, watch movies, listen to music and order takeout just like the rest of us. The same applies to Socialists, Black Supremacists, and preteen Muslim girls. The individual pieces of media being consumed undoubtedly vary, but we're talking about a medium with mass-market appeal - the pdf you linked says as much. Yes, fiction affects how we act in real-life, but we also tend to select fiction based on our existing tastes, beliefs and values.

(The mental image of a KKK member in full ceremonial garb sitting down for a nice evening playing FEZ is quite a funny one though).

Do you mean to say diversity is a bad thing? Straight white men have straight white male interests, typically male power fantasies played out in the most revolting fashion imaginable. Only when developers became more diverse did games truly take a turn for the better - for the art.

I never said diversity was bad. But which type of diversity are we talking about? The ethnic diversity of developers, or the diversity of game protagonists, or the diversity of game genres and narrative, or the diversity of players? Because relative homogeneity in one area doesn't preclude diversity in another. And again, that list of retro games I gave you - can you honestly say that's not a diverse selection?

You also seem to have a bizarre prejudice against straight white males, to the point where if you were making these statements about women or any other sexual orientation or race, people would be outraged. What does a straight white male look like? What are "straight white male interests"? Football? I can't stand it. Beer? I have friends who are teetotal. Women? Some of my friends are celibate. It's cheap and dishonest of you to make such prejudiced generalisations and you ought to know better. And please, how is Myst (for example) a "male power fantasy played out in the most revolting fashion imaginable"?

Again, I think you're suffering either from naive Millennial optimism, or are woefully uninformed about how games evolved to their present state, or both. Retro gaming is on the whole a lot closer to Fez than the modern mainstream is. How would you like to quantify male power fantasy present in games? Sexual content? More games than ever have explicit scenes, partly due to the better graphics these days and also the aging core demographic. There's a reason everybody's heard of Custer's Revenge: it was a freak release in the age of pixellated spaceships and pac-man. Violence? Modern shooters are routinely much more grisly than Doom ever was. Bad language? Swearing in games is a remarkably modern phenomenon. Have I made my point, or would you like me to go on?

I'll simply pretend I didn't notice the blatant misogyny in your post. The source for this study is here: http://www.theesa.com/facts/pdfs/ESA_EF_2012.pdf Admittedly, that one has the percentage of 47% rather than 63%. Alas I cannot find my original source.

I wasn't being misogynistic, I was invoking a stereotype. There's usually some truth to stereotypes. The ESA have a more up-to-date version of that data here, this time the figure is 48% female gamers.

Annoyingly neither the infographic nor the site itself seem to have the raw data available to see which gender is playing which genres. However, I have a strong suspicion that video game (console) gamers are mostly men, and mobile and computer game players account for the majority of women counted. For example, the most popular genres of videogame are shooter, action and sports, genres usually associated with male gamers. Best-selling computer game genres are strategy and casual, most popular online and mobile games were Casual, Social, Puzzle, Board Game, Trivia and Card Games (see where the Minesweeper suggestion comes from now?) Now, none of this disproves your point that women are playing games. My hypothesis is that women gamers are primarily NOT buying and playing triple-A console releases, but are instead making up the majority of players of puzzle, casual, and simulation games on PC, browser and mobile devices. So, these gaming masterpieces shaping our society? Bluntly: I don't think many women are playing them.

Monkey Island? Can adventure games even be considered games? They are simply interactive pictures - and no, this is not similar to David Cage, who uses many cinematic techniques inspired by Welles and Hitchcock to draw the player in.

Of course adventure games are games (the clue's in the name). They're interactive, they present the player with challenge, and there's "play" in exploring and experimenting in the game world. If you have a different definition of what a "real" game ought to encompass, I'd love to hear it? And I'm a little surprised you're so hard on adventure games as, if anything, they provide many of the examples of socially-aware, emotionally punchy "games as art" you were lauding. Tell me The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, and earlier stuff like the Bladerunner game, didn't make players stop and think about issues of morality, pragmatism, existentialism and so on.

Zork? A text adventure? Primitive, lacking the visual feedback any game needs to lend it an emotional punch.

Again, I think you and I may be operating on very different definitions of the word "game".

Lemmings? I refuse to play this on principle as it enables the racist and animal-abuse-endorsing Disney movie White Wilderness.

If I'm even a slightly good judge of character, I don't believe you're joking. And that's terrifying.

King's Quest? See Monkey Island.

You're discounting a pioneering and critically-acclaimed series of cerebral and innovative games created by one of the first successful women in the industry, but fine. On your head be it.

Tetris? How can this be art? Come now.

My assertion wasn't that it was art, I was listing games that weren't the "thoughtless, meaningless entertainment" you claimed games historically have been. But for the record, I do think it's art.

Dungeon Keeper? Need I say more?

...yes? Mainly because I have no clue what point you're trying to make here?

Early JRPGs? Note the "J", for Japanese. These games were not made by white men, and the quality shows.

A bit racist.

DooM is a terrible game - the definition of a male power fantasy. Despite doing some favours for FPS design, it must be regarded today as a relic.

Luckily you don't get to decide that, and actually the Doom franchise is still doing well today, alongside the likes of Serious Sam and Painkiller. What's wrong with male power fantasy, anyway?

Good art? What are your criterion for "Good" art? Art comes from the soul, an expression of the artist, a look into the mind of a poet, a creative. Videogames are the best medium to accomplish this - but to say that the majority of pre-1995 games are art would be a lie.

My idea of "good" art is basically the definition of Fine Art: something that required skill to make, inspires an aesthetic response, and successfully communicates what the artist intended. Not because I think I'm objectively correct, but I'm a snob and I don't have time to admire canvasses covered in paint that has been squirted out of the artist's rectum, or look at unmade beds. Heck, I read an article the other day that an artist intends to sleep with a different stranger for 100 consecutive nights and considers that performance art. Forget that.

I don't believe games are the best medium for art. They're a novel and interactive medium but I think that's often as much of a constraint as it is a benefit, because gameplay is generally the enemy of narrative: play is free and unstructured, narrative is linear.