They probably aren't. We should start with a frank acceptance of the fact that video games are entertainment, not art. Not everything has to be art to be worthwhile. Sure, I'll play along.

Shakespeare gets made into something he's not - a whole lot. He was a panderer to the masses. His stories were *not* high art. High art was opera; Latin and Greek theater; and works of contemporary authors like Marlowe. Mostly we don't know those things, because what Shakespeare *was* exceeded high art - he was entertainment for the public. You want a revenge story with loss and madness, like Hamlet? Look to the Warcraft (and World of Warcraft) character Illildan Stormrage, who is a tragic antihero or villain, depending on your read. If you'd rather have a story of unlikely comrades helping each other through a difficult journey, like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, then have a go with Enslaved: Odyssey to the West (bonus: contains infinity% more Andy Serkis than Chaucer did).

Despite their legacy, which cannot be overstated, the Iliad and Odyssey are very limited pieces. They would make terrible games; their setting, of course, is another matter - it did just fine for God of War. But you don't want to play Odysseus; play Baldur from Too Human (which always felt like a retelling of David Drake's Northworld to me) instead; and ask the questions Dick asked in that book they made into Blade Runner. Or play Planescape: Torment, and be the hero with a thousand faces, yourself; the very monomyth, across a backdrop of universes.

Art isn't the goal. Don't act like you'd have fun playing "John Cage's 4'33": The Game" or something like that. Video games need to be interactive, or else they're just more episodes of Xenosaga, AKA The Game With The Longest Cutscenes Ever In A Game (yeah, seriously. It's hours and hours of cutscenes). Most of the story-driven games are cut from the same cloth that old literature and poem came from; but you have to change *so much* to take it from whatever it was, and turn it into a game.

We don't need what's already been done, put into pixels. We have great stories, told specifically for the medium; we have out Ultima 7, our Planescape, Enslaved, Fallout, and many others. Don't ask "Where is the Shakespeare?" Don't say we need more Homer (poet, not nuclear plant operator) in our games. If what you want is so-called "intelligent" gaming, then ask instead what happened to the golden age of the story-driven RPG.

Jesus. Wall of Text crits you for 317,499. You die.

Elitism. Every human expression that can be aprecciated is art. Like it or not is another problem. We are too used to confuse art with erudition.

I think a lot of people are afraid that if this thing they like isn't art, it must be somehow less. The definition you gave, btw, is much more appropriate for aesthetics than it is for art.

There's nothing wrong with not being art.

そうだな。

However, I shall try to add to the conversation: Tetsuya Takahashi always throws a metric tonne of philosophy into his stories. Actually a lot of games get really preachy with their philosophies and their social justice causes and whatnot. There are also plenty of games praised up and down more than 90% of deities, examples include the Half Life series, The Last of Us, and Ocarina of Time. These games might even be good, but to constantly hear about the omega life changing experience that they are is kinda annoying. That said I suppose I have games that I might revere, mine is Chibi Robo, but the point does remain that video games can and often are perceived in similar ways as classical works.

I have talked about this Video Game Art Dilemma outside internet...
Funny how there are so strict opinions out there, and also on opposite sides.
"Video Games are entertainment. Not Art."
"Video Games are Art. Take x for an example."

But there are things to consider if you are serious about introducing games as art.
Think of a culture where something is banned, say non-religious music played publicly - then somewhere else this music is no big deal, it's everyday life. Certain kind of imagery was or is still considered something that is definetely not art, but things change. Fifty years ago nudity in tv was kinda outrageuos I think, and today it's no big deal. Things take time to evolve. Then sometimes they evolve to obscurity again.

So I'd guess there is no real stopping power anywhere keeping video and computer games from becoming art taught in school. It's the attitude that needs to change. And once people find enjoying computer games as art, it's as if that was always the case.

But then again, there's a lot to go for too. If most of the gamers are complete mad antisocial loons, who smell like they last had a bath in the 90's, incapable of coherent speech - then that may give some bad impressions to people considering the case. Also Developers have some power in this. If 99% of developers aim for a quick fix fill for the consumer and hope to make a quick buck, repeating this ad infinitum... it's more the path to make games look like an addiction and purely entertainment.

I am sure there are already tons of examples of Games As Art, though.
Some of the older JRPG's actually were quite moving, almost got me to tears a few times. And isn't that what art is too? Take Xenogears. Just the introduction and early tutorials, learning the controls, but you also get this amazing, even sad backstory. There are horrible consequences to seemingly innocent acts. Sounds like Greek mythology!

And joy is also part of art! Looking at a painting, a masterpiece in a museum, one might feel very alive and happy. Same thing with games. So if GTAV makes one feel great and passionate and energetic, who's to say this is just entertainment? :p

I think that it's just too early to discuss gaming classics. It's like if someone asked in 1930 what the classic films are.

Why do you need to hide behind Japanese to show your support to what misteryo said?

You want to say that you agree with him, you say it out loud (figuratively) or you write it down in English.
I can deal with misteryo's trolling but I find your post insults my intelligence and that of everyone else able to use google to find a translation.
However if you actually think that secret codes to form a language barrier really help making the world a better place you have my sympathy.

Because that phrase was the first thing that came to mind and I felt it expressed my opinion the best.

I second Misteryo's motion, there, I said it.

I suppose I should say that I did not mean to insult your intelligence, I figured anyone could use a translator or ask me what I said and I would have no problem explaining what I said. And besides I just kinda like when people post in more than one language sometimes.

Reading back, I don't really understand the point of the discussion. Adaptations of works from another art form are rarely (or never) the high point of a form of art. So this sentence doesn't make much sense to me.

That's an interesting point. Out of curiosity, what do you think about such movies such as Gone with the Wind (just an example) which itself was an adaption of a novel in relation to the art form of film-making?

Given that I think he was paraphrasing one of the more popular hymns by Elwood Stokes, a co-founder of a US National Historical site, I think it's interesting that you would call that trolling.

It was, point of order, art.

[url= EDIT: double checked myself. He was a CO-FOUNDER, not "the founder" as I originally wrote.][/url]

Gone Home is a good example I thought of something a little more intelligent.

What I find surprising is that people would argue about such a thing at all. It is completely illogical, and the reason being is that one would first have to define what exactly "art" is in order to have a solid definition with which to compare anything out there with to see if a given thing matches the accepted definition. But if you ask 1000 people to define exactly precisely what "art" is, you'll probably get 1000 different answers meaning that even the concept of art itself is purely subjective. One need not even bring up whether video games are art at that point because the subjectivity of the definition of art itself can not be resolved to a single non-arbitrary non-subjective scientific test.

One can only conclude then that however any individual subjectively defines art in their own mind, others will define it differently and there is no universal consensus with which to be right or wrong, and because of that any debate about what is and is not art is and can only ever be completely irrational. :)

Begging the question

Argumentum ad ignorantiam

Assuming the conclusion

Honestly, for starting with a claim that someone's point is illogical, you sure went overboard with the fallacies.

The mechanics of play is what gaming is all about and while people can always appreciate the art and music that goes into a game artistically; games at heart will always be mechanically driven. So for me a game like civilization is a classic in that the art and music fit the theme so well, the mechanics are simple but compelling with many choices and each play experience opens up new ways of 'seeing' and 'constructing' a shared world. This experience of play can be enjoyed and cathartic but that is not enough to make it art. For a game art can only be part of the experience.