In his article “Video Games Can Never Be Art”, Rodger Ebert claims that there is a serious difference between video games and art. His arguments were solid, saying that the two will always be separated because games have rules and a clear winner while art is more of an experience or journey. I admit, it has been a long time since I could call myself a gamer. There was a time when the new Halo or Grand Theft Auto made me cross off months on my calendar and retreat into my little man-cave, but that all ended when I graduated high school. Now, aside from when I occasionally brush the dust off my old-school N64, I no longer spend my time with video games. It doesn’t offend me that he refuses to see video games as art. Heck, the games I always enjoyed the most were classic shoot-em-ups with the healthy amount of gore. Those games (and most others) are about as far from art as can be.
However, there is one category of games that I believe do fit into his category of “art” and it is surprisingly the category that I have the least familiarity with. RPGs (or Role Playing Games) are games that I consider to be art. Unfortunately, the only game I can fairly draw experience from is “The Sims” so I will use them as an example as needed. First, there is no real goal or boundary to these types of games, not anymore than there is a real goal or boundary to real life. The goal is simply to exist and thrive as best you can. Not only is it meeting Plato’s definition of life imitating nature, it meets Ebert’s definition of altering nature. We can, in a sense, live through these games (and I’m sure there are members of the population that live solely through their WOW accounts) and they get to alter the lives they have chosen for themselves onscreen. There is a reason so many people give up everything they have in the real world to become a different person on Second Life or Runescape.
In conclusion, RPGs take you through a journey of experience much like a book, movie, or painting. With them, you can build your own world with your own life and it can be said that life is the greatest form of art. The ability to express who you are can be seen as the most artistic thing you can do. These types of games go places that first-person-shooters and sports games simply cannot go.
