I wouldn't rule out video games simply because they are often designed to win...after all I've met a few artists in my time who have made it clear that their purpose, with their art, is to win.

Can't struggle simply be a part of the experience that we consume? It might be presented in a different form than in, say, an action movie, but isn't it similar?

If an art piece is interactive in any way, isn't it being given a goal similar to a video game?

Or is it just that you don't want your bosses telling you to go play some video game for a future art review?

But to win what, Ryan? :)

Arsenic7: Art with goals is always a problem. Not a bad problem, right? But a problem. It's the same reason agitprop doesn't always make the cut.

But at the same time I totally acknowledge your point that I'm talking about video games from the outside looking in, while Sharon is clearly talking as an insider.

Oh, yeah, I understand, and I'm not interested necessarily in changing you or Ebert's mind, per se. I'm not particularly interested in certain art forms. My point is just that I at least concede that other people like those things in an artistic way. But I think "gamer's" get caught up in people like Ebert's opinions about their favorite passtime/artform when they should really understand that his opinion about art is exactly 1 in 6 billion, considering there can never really be an expert in what-is-art-ology.

oh man, I'm totally a gamer nerd for sure. :)

I think historically art does have pretty clear goals - the difference is they aren't goals of interactive ambition as they sometimes are in video games (but as pointed out, winning is not always the point).

Compelling works of art move people because they can place themselves in the context of the piece to which they are reacting. If this is the case, then how much more so can a video game environment actually place and influence the viewer in that context?

When discussing the philosophical term "sublime", I can recount innumerable moments [in game] when faced with something so unbelievably awesome (me, filled with actual awe), what I've experienced surpasses quite a lot of other emotions I've felt when viewing art. I attribute this feeling to my actual participation - something I just can't do when I'm merely looking at art.

Fame, I think, is what they want to win;)

Fame and hot tubs full of champagne. (thanks Andy).

All those artists out there who really just want to be rock stars but don't have the rhythm, or stylist, of a Lady Gaga-type...they all just seem to want to win.

On the other hand most of those type move to LA, so maybe we are in better shape around here.

(yeah for needless LA bashing!)

Come to think of it, I could use a hot tub full of champagne myself!

The big point seems to be that you can't "win" art- but people win art all the time. When you finish a book or a movie you win- in one sense, the protagonist completes his or her journey and they win, and you win right along with them. You have to keep going so that they keep going- I mean if you stop a book partway through you don't know if they win or not. Participating in a game is like turning the pages of a book- except that you can turn to more pages than the physical realities of a book is set up to turn. The win that you have in the game can be as unexpected and beautiful as you make it.

Sometimes the hardest, most difficult and torturous films and books- I mean the ones about really hard situations- Dogville comes to mind- can feel like a win to even finish. Maybe that's just me.

Arsenic7: You asked my opinion! I guess what I should say is that I don't think cool visuals are great art. They can be art, sure, but as you point out, that category is pretty meaningless.

What they can't be, if they're nothing more than cool visuals, is great art. And I stand by that.

Do you like existential questions, Jen? I know I do!

Yeah, I'd agree with you here. A lot of games are pretty bad when it comes to their artistry. A lot of time the only area they might excel in is the creation of excitement or a sense of competition, qualities that don't make for GREAT pieces of art, in most peoples eyes.

It brings to mind, though, an experience I had walking through the SAM with a former girlfriend, who happened to be an artist. She was disparaging of the quality of some of the modern art and it made me think that the quality of the art, completely a subjective thing, probably isn't as much the reason the art is there for display. It's there because it's a unique SORT of art. A sort of art probably very few people enjoy...meaning it may even be BAD art.

But I think most artists can probably agree that there is value in accepting that there are sorts of art that need to be acknowledged, if not accepted, by them personally.

Intent is everything that makes the really good stuff good, and I suppose all mediums will have their overlap into the decorative.

This is a very interesting answer!

Or, here's a free example that's pretty great:
http://www.abc.net.au/gameon/tork/default.htm

To be clear, I'm trying to say that a lot of them (in my examples) are already at a level of high art and there's no reason they shouldn't be. Like you said, new medium - we're in agreement here.

And who doesn't freaking love Katamari?

Hell yes!!!!!!!