I wanted to stay out of politics for the most part in this cblog because it is highly unlikely that anything productive will ever come out of such a topic. However, I am getting very irritated by this ‘Games as Art’ debate that does not want to go away. For the record I am neither an art major nor an art critic and, in fact, outside of music my exposure to what is universally accepted as art is admittedly limited. However, I think that examining the structure of the ‘Games as Art’ debate is much more important than my personal experience with art for this post.

The main issue I see with this debate is that many people are trying to argue for or against games as an acceptable art medium without having first defined what art is. Before debating any subject you need to follow certain procedures. First, define your terms for yourself by asking some basic questions: Is art subjective or objective? If it is objective what properties must something have in order to be considered art? Next, you must reach a compromise with the other side of the debate on the definition of art. Any debate will be completely fruitless if there is not a mutual agreement to the definition of terms used in the debate. Only once both sides agree to these definitions can they begin to make arguments for and against why games might have the requisite properties for inclusion in the ‘art’ category.

To summarize, these things must be done in order to have a productive debate:

1) Define your terms
2) Agree to common terms
3) Debate

Supposing that this happened (and it never will), supposing gaming enthusiasts and people like Roger Ebert and Michael Dirda came together and agreed to some common terms, I think the ‘Games as Art’ debate would be quite easily resolved. If art is subjective (as I am inclined to believe) then anything can be art, including games, and the debate is over. If art is objective then it is merely an issue of defining what properties something must have to be considered art and seeing if games have those properties.

Naturally, agreeing on what art is and isn’t will be the most difficult part of this debate, however, it is this part of the debate that should be focused on; not whether or not games are some as of yet undefined thing. In other words, the ‘Games as Art’ debate should be the ‘What is Art’ debate, and once that debate has been resolved determining whether or not games are art will be trivial.