I think you miss a third point of view here. There is some truth to seeking self validation, and some truth to defending the industry in a high-minded sense. There is also the other point of view that the people attacking video games for not being art also usually say that they cannot ever be art, and do so with the agenda of trying to belittle them as part of an effort to impose more controls on them. I think the whole "games as art" issue involves more facets than your giving it credit for. For those tending towards the "Jack Thomson" school of thought the problem with video games even having the potential to be art is that this would afford them the same level of protection as other forms of art and would make them harder to regulate.
I say this because I care less about high minded principle of wanting games to be accepted as art, than I do about the central issue of free speech, and free speech includes the abillity to be offensive, hateful, and irreverant, without any need for such things to be associated with art. Since I feel it was long ago established that anything could be considered art if hyped the right way, I think the arguement has always beem more about semantics than anything.
-
As a side note I would like to point out that the bit you demean about the guy promoting a game as being the "ultimate male fantasy" is an artistic statement on a lot of levels. Today we typically see more statements from a feminist perspective and "what it is to be a woman" and listen to people ranting on like Dan Brown did in his books about the oppression of the "sacred feminine" or whatever else. People tend to forget about warrior poets and such and people who have explored the issue of what it means to be a man.
In today's society we're rapidly seeing men being forced to rein in their desires and instincts, being turned into so called "meterosexuals". We live in a society where it's increasingly becoming wrong to deal with problems directly, everyone minces words and hides behind bureaucracy and impersonal legal systems. While women will go on endlessly about their sexuality in books, movies, prose, and philsophy, men are basically forced to oppress ours, we live in a society where you could be sued or thrown in jail for coming on to some girl. In general male sexuality tends to only be expressed in a crude, and offensive fashion, if at all. Heck, in fiction today aggressive men are almot always portrayed as the bad guys, a definate differance between the heroes of yesterday in the mould of "Don Juan" who could be said to appeal to both genders.
A game like you describe does sort of make a statement if I understand it properly. Guys being able to express their sexuality towards women without danger (and by this I don't mean rape), very direct and rational solutions to problems. There have been many people who have written about how being frank and direct is a manifestation of manliness, as well as some very interesting explanations as to why duels of honor and such are not a bad thing. Oh sure we all know the problems with "Samurai Justice", "Duels', and affairs of honor like that but for all the problems with that kind of system it can also be pointed out that today's bureucratic system of justice has as many problems where instead of "might makes right" we face a situation that's just as bad where he who hires the biggest rat to argue semantics for him wins. It might be a differant kind of might, but when you look at duelling lawyers with pens and documents from a certain perspective it's really no differant than a couple of Gladiators going at it. You can't even say today that nobody gets hurt in this way of doing things since lives can be ruined, massive jail sentences can be inflicted, and arguably in some cases death might have been preferable.
The point being that games like this can be seen to make a statement. The very fact that some people consider a character like Conan "immature" when he was once considered to be pretty serious sword and sorcery material is sort of the point of making a game like that in response. What's more, ask yourself what is fundementally wrong with a guy being found attractive and picking up girls? Nobody bats an eye when some paranormal romance heroine has her legions of adoring Vampires and Werewolves or whatever, but when the situation is reversed and you have this dude who has tons of sex with all these hot girls people scream that there is something horribly wrong and immature about it. Why?
I respect your opinion that you don't like that game's hype/proposal/whatever it was, I mean everyone has their opinion, I guess what I'm saying is that in a lot of respects making a clear statement or analysis of a concept through a medium is what art is all about. Arguably your arguement against something being art, seems to involve a very direct example of something being art even if you don't agree with the artist's apparent message of exploring unfettered masculinity.
I doubt you (or many people) have read this far, but just in case I'll state this is simply my opinion, and apologize (ahead of time) to any it might offend.
At any rate I seriously look forward to the arrival of a game that gives me the oppertunity to let my hair down, and not only hack up a bunch of bad guys, but have babes all over me while I play it without pulling any punches or acting like I should feel guilty. I mean heck, the teen girls have their fantasies about Edward and Jacob, I have mine about the gorgeous twin princesses I save from the evil overlord and want to show me their gratitude.
