Games As Art

I don’t think there’s going to be an answer in my lifetime, but I still think it’s worth considering. Since people now acknowledge that movies and comic books can aspire to Art, why is it that games are still in the cultural ghetto?

The thing that confuses me about this even more is that most people acknowledge that one of art’s greatest strengths is it’s ability to influence people. If you go by that reckoning, games obviously have an enormous influence as America struggles to control the violence and sexual content found in the more adult oriented games. Why then, do people refuse to think of video games as anything other than a “toy” and yet at the same time, regard it as one of the most dangerous influences in modern society? When someone goes and kills another person because they read Catcher In The Rye or watched Taxi Driver people usually talk about how weak-minded the individual who did it was, and marvel at the power of art. When someone shoots a bunch of people because they claim Grand Theft Auto or Doom gave them the idea, people talk about how games warp people’s minds as if somehow video games have an ability to steal the decision process in people and manipulate them, whereas “regular” influences like literature and film merely tap into built-in psychological deficits.

I really wish someone would definitively and rationally explain to me exactly why games are not art when everyone thinks they have more power and influence than any art currently in existence. Or at least, that’s what America seems to believe, anyway…