Video Games Is Art

2009-11-23

Video games is art. The conversation may be tiresome, but it must be had, and we must qualify our claims.

The term high art is prescriptive and insulting. In my previous article, The Art of Assumption, I attempted to castrate its power by defining it into a corner, causing much consternation. Now, I prefer to abandon it altogether, because I have no conception of it as a useful term.

I previously used a straw man. I am not alone in this; it is easy to erect a Roger Ebert as a phantom opponent for video game critics to bash with eschatological rhetoric whenever they have an opinion. I apologize. I want to move away from this kind of lazy writing.

I use the term art to describe anything created by a conscious being. Individual video games are art, because they are created by humans, which are conscious beings. So, too, are soap operas and turds art.

Now let us stop using jargon as a shortcut to legitimacy and just talk about the things we care about. N