Journey is art. It's the only game that I can think of to which I can legitimately apply that label. There is no dialogue, no combat (unless you count avoiding the one type of enemy), and only minor puzzle elements. For much of the game, there is only you, trekking through deserts, ruins, and eventually up a mountainside. Along the way, you may encounter other players, with whom you cannot communicate by voice or text; you are free to aid or ignore them as you will, and they have the same freedom. From time to time you encounter shrines, which show you visions of the rise and fall of the civilization that created the ruins through which you travel.

Journey is neither a long nor a complex game; it is essentially an interactive tone poem. At the beginning, it evokes a mood of curiosity: where are you, what is that mountain in the distance, what can you learn or gain? As you set out, the astonishing vistas inspire wonder, and the creatures (all made of the same gold-bordered red cloth as the player's garments) a sense of whimsy. Later, as the history of the fallen civilization unfolds, a sense of wistfulness and melancholy sets in. When you encounter the first enemies, fear! You cannot die, but if they catch you... well, that would be a spoiler. I won't tell you about the ending, except to say that it is well worth the experience.

Journey is a gem of indie game development. The art design is strikingly gorgeous, the soundtrack wonderfully done and perfectly fitting, and the game design both simple and elegant. Roger Ebert is wrong: games can be art. Thatgamecompany have proved it.

Bottom line: I rate this game Excellent (5/5).

I think that video game is art in the same way cinema is art: a video game is a creation that evokes feelings and emotions. Sure, most video games, just like most movies, don't score very high on the "Art" scale. They're more about entertainment than art.

Few games are able to mix together the gaming part and the art part. Most "artistic" games either have a very limited gameplay (Passage, Dear Esther, Dreamfall, Amanita's games) or have their artistic elements inside custscenes, the rest of the game having nothing really artistic about it.

There are still a few games that are actually highly artistic and still have a solid gameplay. On the top of my head: Rez, Pathologic, The Void...

Ebert is wrong about plenty of things, but his views on what art is isn't one of them.

A game, by nature, is always going to be a subjective experience. This precludes it from being art. You might *reallllly* like the game, but that doesn't make it art.

Being considered art isn't a validation of the medium though. That's where video gamers tend to get the most angst. Journey might be an awesome game, and I *know* that it's better then a lot of things that are correctly labeled 'Art', but the quality isn't what makes it art or not. It's an objective experience.

What would you consider video games then?

"Interactive Fiction" works for a good number of them...

EDIT: Art is a subjective experience as well, BTW.

This. There is no form of art that isn't subjective.

Fun? Entertaining? Tied neck and neck with hockey blowjobs for my most favorite thing?

I present you art. What I present to you, is what I mean to present to you. How you feel about that is subjective, but the experience that took place is an objective one. The object of art is always going to be what it is. If you could cast some reality breaking spell on the Mona Lisa, grab the picture frame and treat it like window into that world, spin it around, and stair at the artist, you wouldn't be engaging in art any more, you'd be having a subjective experience.

Please though, don't take my argument to be me putting art above video games, or that Art is some gold standard. I hate art. I probably qualify for a minor in it. It's so fucking stupid, and the art community? Jeepers. I thought the dumbfuck gamers over on Joystiq were annoying. All stereotypes you have of rich folks at art gallerys? Are true. And worse then you imagine.

A) I could not disagree more, and B) I think your argument is kind of self-negating. Yes, the Mona Lisa is always the Mona Lisa, but by the same token, Journey is always Journey. Of course everyone has a different experience of Journey, but everyone has a different experience of the Mona Lisa, as well. Each viewer focuses on different parts of the painting, each has a different idea about the meaning of her smile, each feels a different set of emotions, etc. The subjectivity of the experience is an integral part of what art is; the fact that the experience of a game is even more subjective is a difference of degree only.

Especially when you start looking at the different spectrums they've been able to record the Mona Lisa in.

I found the thermographic one quite powerful.

You're so weird sometimes man.

Sometimes?

And there was a huge Leo demonstration in my town recently, I got to see quite a bit of stuff that I didn't know.

Yeah, I saw that exhibit in Edmonton a couple of years back. Great show, but many of the 'working' models had been man-(read: child-) handled into disfunction.

We're entering that discussion about whether art is art if there is no audience. God help us all.

The models kept working in Winnipeg at least.