An exerpt from Aaron Smuts 'Video Games and the Philosophy of Art'

'Video Games and the Philosophy of Art'

'Unfortunately, there has been no sustained argument on either side of the video games as art debate. An early attempt to defend the notion of games as art can be found in Chris Crawford's book The Art of Computer Game Design. Although academics have not sustained the debate, the issue has remained active in court cases involving video games and the First Amendment. For instance, in American Amusement vs Kendrick, Richard Posner argues that video games should be given full First Amendment protection partly because they share themes with the history of literature and they often try to evoke similar emotional responses from their audiences. Although there have also been several journalistic attempts to declare video games outside the realm of art - and a comparable number of court cases in agreement - no one has carefully sorted out the issue. Making matters worse, the caliber of the debate is fairly low: most arguments against the video- games-as-art position merely repeat some form of the primitive entertainment-art distinction.'



Unfortunately I couldn't find the date for when this was written but it seems that this question has been asked before and at least up to the stage this was written no definitive answer has been reached. The 'primitive entertainment-art distinction' could mean that the artistic worth of something is reduced if it is seen to be a form of mess entertainment. If this is true then it must also hold true for a lot of music and film to. Or is it not so much the medium but the commercial success of the specific work that renders it unworthy as art? This can't be true, as most successful artists both contemporary and deceased would become non-artists purely by the fact that there work had created revenue.

Or is it the fact that Games are driven by companies who aim to make a profit? The intention not being to create something of artistic merit but to maximize revenue. Is this even the case?