I’m sick of the “are games art yet?” argument. Of course, as an avid game player, I get upset when people like Roger Ebert say that video games can never be art. His lack of understanding of the work that goes into current video games and saying that they will never compare is a short sighted argument. In one of his articles, he states “The three games she chooses as examples do not raise my hopes for a video game that will deserve my attention long enough to play it. They are, I regret to say, pathetic.” He shows his contempt for the medium by simply dismissing them all based on a few arbitrary choices by Kellee Santiago. Those choices being Waco Resurrection, Braid, and Flower. Personally I have no idea why Resurrection was included in this list, and I always thought Braid was too pretentious. Flower, on the other hand, hits the right mark. Ebert questions the game because he could not find out how to ‘win’ at Flower or define what the purpose was. And this is where people who ‘define’ art become flummoxed. Games are a different sort of art, an art that comes at us from a different angle. Flower is a game about freedom and riding the wind, and there are no ‘lose’ conditions. It is one of many games that have left the region of ‘win/lose’ that Ebert is so convinced is all games will be. (more…)