Revenge Of The Highbrow Games

simoniker writes "In the follow-up to last month's popular 'Where's Our Merchant Ivory?' feature, The Designer's Notebook author Ernest Adams responds to the wealth of feedback submitted by further examining what a 'Highbrow Game' might be, and categorizing the potential audience for such a product." From the article: "Several people pointed out that much of what we see as high culture achieved that status because it's old. Longevity imbues a work of art with respectability regardless of its original purpose — and of course, time tends to weed out the inferior works. For every Mozart there are dozens of classical composers who went to their graves and are forgotten."

Comments

Games are not art

[Anonymous Coward]

Games are not a form of art. A work of art is a product of self-expression, it is an attempt (more or less successful, depending on quality) to communicate. A game is a set of rules. The purpose of a game is to constrain human behaivor. We enroll kids in Little League in order to "keep them out of trouble".

There are never going to be any videogames that rival Mozart or Shakespeare for the same reason there have never been any board games or card games that rival Mozart or Shakespeare: because games are not art.

Now can we drop this silly discussion and concentrate on making games that don't suck? How many goddamn first- and third-person shooters does the world need?