And that album is pretty amazing, wow.

I also like your point about truth in art. It reminds me of “real people music”. I can’t wait till people start making the game equivalent of this:
http://www.swanfungus.com/2009/06/jr-and-his-soulettes-psychodelic-sounds.html

This whole discussion is really cool too, compared to the “games as art” discussions of just a year ago it looks like the indie scene is getting somewhere.

I’d rather see games evolve in all directions. Whether or not something has more story or more interaction, I think there’s still a good chance that it can be a valuable experience.

So yes, more games with more interesting interaction, more games with more interesting story integration, more games with strange/unique art styles. More of all of that would be good, I think.

I also don’t think that a creator has to create a work with a specific label in mind to have it be categorized as one thing or another by other people. Whether those other people are right or wrong is a matter of debate, but once a work is released, everyone is free to discuss their opinions of it. The creator effectively gives up the right to control what is thought of their work when it is released.

Whether a creator has respect for a community or their own work or the pope or Cheezits also does not have any bearing on how their work as its own entity is classified.

And in this case in particular, “The Graveyard” has been released as a game, has been reviewed as a game, and is considered by many to be a game. The debate over whether or not it is a good game does not correlate to whether or not it is in fact “a” game. I have not yet seen a reasoned argument about why it is not a game, simply agressive attacks towards it that claim it is not a game as if stating that was a witty insult.

And yes, maybe you would feel more comfortable if we used a term other than “game” to describe certain games that you do not happen to enjoy, but this is the term we have to work with. I don’t mind that it has come to mean more than chess or soccer, but this is a fact that we all accept when we make and play video games. We put art and stories and music into our games. It may be of varying ratios, but we all do it. Very few of us are making computer games that are purely, only mechanics. (see “The Marriage” for one of the closest examples to pure mechanic with very little in-game context [I am of course not including the extensive out-of-game mechanics applied by the author])

I’m also terribly confused about why you would find a creator talking about his particular views on art “offensive”, especially if you are referring to my views. As stated, I have a very open view of art and I consider many things to be art. Games simply fall under that. It is not a question to me in the slightest, its simply a fact. Whether or not a particular game is “good art” on the other hand, is something I would consider to be terribly subjective, and not something that is likely to ever reach an objective conclusion through debate.

I find it, quite frankly, ridiculous that some people are offended by the notion of games being art. Its a waste of energy to feel agression or offense towards people who share a different viewpoint than yourself.

What would be a useful application of that energy would be explaining – in a positive light, what you think is important to explore in this medium. That way others would have a chance to experience your views as an alternative to whatever views you find so inappropriate.

The other benefit of this approach is that you open the door to allowing common understanding and the exchange and synthesis of ideas, which is a quite valuable result to an interaction with a fellow human.

Why call it a game?

Why not call it an opera, or a painting, or a piece of pottery?

The creators don’t even care if you call it a game, they don’t even *want* to make a game and show very little respect for the medium outside of its ability to promote their work.

Yes, game is a very overloaded term but it seems obvious that the reason it and their other work is presented as a game is due to the gullibility of the gamer press and the need for people such as yourself to answer the “games as art” question.

A question that is neither about art or games but more a quest for journalistic validation.

Personally I just find it all incredibly offensive.

Anyway don’t kid yourself, Indie has always been a meaningless label and one that will not scale. Just take heart in the knowledge that more games are being made by more people than ever before. These are good times to be creative.

Surprisingly, I do not wait so much for Marian as I look forward for some small, little games you could create. Hopefully, one day, you will. Maybe it’s because one big project can just fail or succeed, while dozen of projects have a this chance for each and every one of them. And this seems much more exciting to me. At least for today.

Good luck!

I think your point about the integration of story and mechanics is really good. It’s something I’ve definitely thought about, and that got talked about somewhat in reviews I wrote or edited of games when I was the lead editor in the reviews dep’t at StrangeHorizons.com (a reasonably well-regarded online ‘zine; we were nominated for the Best Website Hugo in ’02, and a lot of the stories published the ‘zine have been nominated for or won major awards — Hugo, Nebula, Tiptree, inclusion in the Dozois or Datlow/Windling “Year’s Best” collections, etc). I’m not sure we ever put it so succinctly, though, as a statement about games in general. Though upon reflection, I think I _did_ say something very similar in a review I wrote at Amazon, about some adventure game. Possibly Zork Nemesis. Adventures in the Sierra mold or the Myst-like Interactive Movie mold are particularly sensitive to conflict between the storyline and the mechanics. Myst itself actually isn’t all that great in this regard — a lot of the “find the code for the lock” puzzles on the main island feel ridiculously contrived. If you released it today, it would likely be considered fairly humdrum; it’s considered a classic because it was breaking new ground, or at least new to most players. (There were a couple of similar titles before it, including Cyan’s own “The Manhole”.)

Unrelatedly — the site tells me that registration is currently not allowed, so I can’t create a profile for quickly providing my comment metadata in future… Is there a reason for that?