Over the past few months we’ve seen the debate about whether or not videogames are art take a few twists and turns, not least of all when Roger Ebert declared “video games can never be art” . So, I thought I would weigh in on this matter seeing as though I am both an artist and a gamer I feel that my views are not only insightful, but conclusive. Let’s put this one to rest.

It is not only my belief that games are in fact art, but the newest, most swiftly evolving and accessible forms of art ever to emerge in the history of human civilization.

I will say that I can understand that a few people have problems with classing video games as an art form (I personally don’t think dance is an art form, it’s a sport – and a shit sport at that, it’s one step removed from running), I recently heard a sports commentator refer to a play in a game of NRL as “a fine display of the art of football” this made me cringe, because football is not an art. Football has nothing in common with art, not even bad art, because it is a sport. I said before that I understood that people would have trouble coming to terms with video games being classified as art, film was not considered an art form until many years after it’s inception. Does that mean that any films made before it was accepted as an art form weren’t art? of course not.

It has been said that games may eventually gain recognition as a legitimate art form, once a gaming magnum opus has been constructed and the gaming industry births some grandiose game changer (no pun intended) even people in the industry have started to accept that theory. Kellee Santiago of Thatgamecompany has compared current video games to early cave paintings, primitive in their construction but showing potential to one day be something truly artistic. I disagree, current video games already use the elements and principles of art in a way that is recognizably and aesthetically artistic. They are art.

I am not going to say that games are art simply because close to 150 million current generation gaming consoles have been sold across the western world, or that games like Modern Warfare 2 should be considered art because it sold more copies in it’s opening weekend than anything that has ever gone on sale since people started selling things. Those things are separate matters, they deal with popularity not with recognition, and it is recognition that games deserve.

All art is open to interpretation; songs, films, sculptures and paintings, stories and plays all have the governing quality of being able to be interpreted differently by those seeing them, video games are no different. In fact games have taken this to an entirely new level with titles like Mass Effect2, Oblivion and Heavy Rain not only can you interpret the story and characters, but according to the way you interpret them and play the game you will be awarded one of several endings. Great art evolves as you spend more time looking at it or listening to it, seeing things that you hadn’t noticed the last time or hearing that slight key change that you never heard previously, and with games the experience not only evolves but it changes throughout the entire course of your interacting with it.

There is surprising beauty to be found in a lot of games as well, take some recent Arcade offerings like Braid or the Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom. Both have style, character, immersion and story that drove both their creation and the player to continue through to the end. Games like Flower and Auditorium take the visual power of gaming and combine that with music and motion to create an atmosphere that you can get lost in while at the same time you are influencing and manipulating the very factors that are captivating you.

Let’s not forget the greatly varied ways games can be presented visually, there are hundreds of different graphical styles that can be employed by developers to enhance the atmosphere and impact of their game, the same way artists can choose to work in oil or watercolour, marble or clay. When you couple this with the choices made in music direction, sound effects and voice acting, all different contributing factors with their own additions to the way the game affects you and you have not only a work of art, but something that as the sum of it’s parts is a functional and masterful conglomerate of several separate works of art.

A few months ago I was lucky enough to see Van Gogh’s Starry Night in person, before seeing it I had a deep dislike of all Van Gogh’s works. However, standing in that crowded gallery among the excited and awed crowd I was shocked to find my cynicism melted away and I was left staring at this amazing painting, and it may sound strange and insulting but the first thing I thought of was the first time I played Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver… I’m not saying Soul Reaver is the gaming equivalent of Van Gough, but the two are now inextricably linked in my head.

This brings me to my next point. People say that games aren’t art because there are no games that can match the great works. There is no game equivalent to Romeo and Juliet, like that is a valid point. I am yet to see a film equivalent to Michelangelo’s David, that doesn’t mean film isn’t art. I am yet to read a book that i regard as highly as Bernini’s Apollo and Daphne, that doesn’t mean I don’t read books or that literature is not an art form. I’ve never heard a song that made me think the way most of the works of William Blake do. And yet music is still seen as an art. Cross discipline comparison in art is not a viable way to conclude one thing’s validity and another’s illegitimacy.

Games can be beautiful, terrifying and genuinely touching. There have been times when playing Assassin’s Creed 2 that I have had to stop and marvel at the amazingly realized vistas, or mourned the loss of a comrade that had provided my character support and guidance like losing any of your support team in the Mass Effect games or been truly terrified like I was the entire way through the Shalebridge Cradle in Thief: Deadly Shadows. Games can transport us to places we couldn’t imagine and give us powers we could only dream of, they let us experience things incomprehensible to the human mind and grant us control of armies, elements, heroes, villains and gods. They don’t just stand static making us wonder what could be, they take us by the hand and launch us into what could be. Games are vibrant, encapsulating, thought provoking, mesmerizing and absorbing, they have- as their core -the qualities and principles that all good art should have.

Finally I would like to say this to one Mr. Roger Ebert and his ilk; you may not see video games as an art form, but you are a critic and while you may have carved out a level of notoriety as such it takes no skill to have and voice an opinion. Video games are crafted by teams of people, toiling for countless hours to make, and perfect that which they have made. Even the least enjoyable games, or the poorest selling games take talent and passion and dedication to see completion. Games can tell stories to and be interpreted in varied ways by the thousands who view them, if this makes you view them in any way differently from Picasso’s Guernica or Rodin’s The Thinker or even Saving Private Ryan then in my opinion you have to take a step back and revise the way you interpret and what you define as “art”.

Thank you for not interrupting.