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well, it's his own kid!

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most people playing videogames treat it more like a sport than enjoying art anyway.

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I wasn't really trolling, I was being completely serious. and completely cynical.

I'm not even arguing what is or isn't art, so maybe people misunderstood me. I think it's a bit pointless anyway, so I don't find it very fun to argue on that. what I'm going at here is how do you get something to be publicly accepted as an "art"

okay yeah that has a billion definitions i know, but i mean it in some general sense. look at movies, this culture kind of absorbs them as an art form. 95% of movie-watchers don't really care, they just want to have fun. it's something to do while on a date. and on the other side are all the artsy critics and film makers and whatever. both sides hate each other. I already forgot where I'm going with this analogy.

even if they won't stamp their feet and defend moving pictures as an art form, most people seem to accept it as one. aren't the Academy Awards a pretty big deal? they think it's something worth judging. just like popular music, or TV shows (and to a lesser extent these days, books!)

imagine a hypothetical award for "best fast food franchise kid's meal toy of the year" and how everyone would go "big deal. what's the difference?"

so I guess I'm saying that you've somehow got to appeal to old college professors and Time magazine writers who've never had any interest in _______ medium because they think it's a waste of time and nothing serious. they don't want something fun and whimsical, a good way to spend some time, they want something serious and pretentious. (I'm not even using 'pretentious' as an insult here, it's rather neutral to me) want to convince the elite of society that comic books can have artistic merit? BUST OUT THE WATCHMEN. and um..... Maus... (Maus is not at all pretentious, but it certainly is more serious than about having fun). they'll champion these examples and the word will spread, and everyone can feel confident about calling their comics an "art" instead of shunning their hobby. "here read Watchmen" and if they didn't like it and still don't think of comics as an art, well they're just a big doo-doo head! millions of fans say so!

you can't really do that with videogames right now. there's nothing quite good enough (pretentious enough) that everyone can rally behind with confidence to prove something to the rest of the world. maybe soon! it would get low ratings for not being that much fun to play. it'll probably be a jRPG, like by someone who played too much Xenogears.


I guess the stupid point I'm trying to make here is that the only difference between movies and videogames is that "serious" aspect of it. how much of it there is, how well known it is. only a handful of videogame fans consider it an art, and almost all of them are critics instead of creators.

It'll get to a ridiculous point where the serious stuff will still be celebrated as art while the fun stuff will be considered a crude watered-down form of art intended for mass consumption. man I hate that.

anyway, that's why I hate Watchmen! not that I actually hate it. just the part how being more wordy and pretentious than anything else is widely considered the acme of the comics species. yech. it gathered more attention than anything made for fun. the same thing will happen to videogames, I swear.


I'm just being way too cynical because I have a nihilistic view on talking about art, and so I think it's really pointless and doesn't matter what I say. On the other hand, I'm very optimistic about games themselves! Honest, I'm not pessimistic about them at all. I believe they'll only get better in the future. it won't matter what's called art and what isn't, who cares what will be popular. the game designers will do what they believe. their actions speak louder than words.

(I don't really hate Watchmen or anything else I call pretentious, I actually love them for what they are. Except GitS, I really do hate that crap. I'm glad it's been largely forgotten today.)