Games as a True Artform.

[PeterStarr]

Games can't really be considered art. I thought they could at first, but if you think about it, there's no content without the player's interference. Sure, it can look nice, but they're not gonna be hanging screenshots up in art galleries any time soon.

You could say the exact same thing about books.

Well, that's true. I've never looked at books at an art form, anyway. Sure, in both cases, a sort of "artist's touch" is used to get the perfect effect out of each thing, but without actually doing anything--Letting your character sit, or letting the book lie on the table--there isn't anything really artistic about it. Looking at a painting, however, you can see that what is there is artistic.

What you said is contradictive. The book, when it is read, becomes art, and the game, when you play it, becomes art, exactly in the way the painting, when it is looked at becomes art.

I can see what you're trying to say, but actually in each case it is the experience which makes something art. If a painting is there, sure it still exists, and yes it took skill to make it, but the idea of it being 'artistic' is down to who looks at it and appreciates it as art.

I think what you're trying to say is that if a book is just sitting there, or a game for that matter, it exists and took skill to make it, but if no-one reads or plays it then it is not art, as it depends on the nature of the person that experiences it. I would say the exact same thing is true of paintings or sculpture - if they not experienced then they are just physical objects created using skill. It is when they are looked at and appreciated that they become art. Artistic value is not inherent - it is something created by the experience of an author.

All that is different in your example is the way in which the thing is experienced: A game has to be played, a book has to be read, but equally a painting has to be looked at.