Originally Posted by Moi
I propose that games can be art. I make this proposition not because of graphics, sound, or other such elements - which might be art in their own right but which do not form the core component of the thing, any more than a camera angle justifies cinema as art. I make this proposition in part because games possess an element (one which I readily concede is still very much in its infancy) which other media cannot, at least in my experience, replicate.
Games can provoke internal conflicts in the player. To take an example most will be familiar with, in any of the first three Resident Evil games you are fully aware that going down a corridor or into a new room has a chance of you encountering some unpleasant creature. However! You cannot progress through the game without doing so. In other media one might experience this vicariously; in games it is a direct conflict within and on the part of the player.
But RE is a simplistic example. In Shadow of the Colossus, you are given a very minimal presentation of your goal; ressurect a girl. You do this by killing a series of absolutely beautiful, often forlorn creatures, these being the titular Colossi. They do you no harm until you seek them out and kill them for your own ends. In other games this might be incidental or irrelevant, but in Shadow of the Colossus many players feel guilty for doing so. I almost was unable to finish playing the game due to the feelings of guilt. The only times I have felt unable to finish anything else (barring for reasons of quality, of course), be it a film or book or what have you, is because it is disgusting and exploitative.
In the old X-Com games you are the overseer of X-Com, a special forces unit tasked with repulsing a secret alien invasion. Many players of this classic will tell you that few experiences match it. First, because the tension is masterful. You do not know what will be behind any door you might open, or corner you might round. Anything could lead to the death of crewmembers. But it is your hands, and you make your own stories here. And that leads me to the second point: You form an attachment to your team which is almost unmatched in any fictional setting. When you have commanded them through dozens of battles, repelled alien attacks on major cities, breached imposing UFOs, and they get killed because of an alien which should be irrelevant but simply proved lucky, there is a serious sense of loss and despair. This comes about in a game whose plot barely meets the standard of a 50s B-movie, by the way. The player forms these attachments and has these experiences because of their own playing of the game, unique to them.
The great majority of games have no particular artistic merits, being simply fun (Or not) to play. But the great majority of TV and films and books have no particular artistic merits either. It is the rare few which do stand out that allow us to call the medium in question art, not the vast bulk of them. If you pick any random game off the shelf then you are unlikely to find much artistic worth in it. If you play the right games, however, you might. Again, the industry is rather nascent and examples remain rare, but they do exist, and games have something which can be used to increase their artistic power - player interaction.
I feel that with your criticism of Braid you misapprehend the purpose of the mechanic, or indeed games as a whole. Writing Braid off because you can undo your moves and that's not what games are supposed to do is nonsensical; games are each individual and whilst conventions exist they also each have their own internal structure and dynamic. The uniqueness of Braid, one of the reasons it is put forth as art, is partly because of the very gameplay mechanics you deride. The criticism you offer seems to be equivalent to criticizing Watchmen because the 'heroes' fail to stop Ozymandias' plan from being enacted. Part of what makes games art is that they have their own stock elements, tropes, characteristics, and that these can be subverted. Without playing games until you are familiar with these it is difficult to appreciate why a subversion matters or, indeed, to even recognize it as such. Without understanding how First Person Shooters work it's difficult to understand the impact of Call of Duty 4, where one level is spend crawling around, without weapons or enemies, in the aftermath of a nuclear explosion, before dying.
