What is art? Are you saying the mechanics in a game are artful? Is being clever in your creation of a situation really art?

What role does aesthetics play in the creation of a game? By aesthetics I don’t mean “what makes it pretty” I mean what makes it aesthetically pleasing which is much deeper then “pretty”.

If you make a definition of art to broad it becomes useless. If you make a definition of art to narrow it becomes useless.

“that art is anything that is a form of expression, constrained with a medium”

This is a useless definition in that it is too broad. I shit on the sidewalk and claim it is my expression of disgust for fastfood corporations. This is a form of expression perhaps within the constraints of a slab of pavement. I wouldn’t hazard to honestly call this art, I would say it is just gross and stinky.

What is it a game is expressing? An idea, an emotion? I suppose a game like Monopoly (sorry to use this filthy word) could be considered to be satirizing the way businesses run in America. A game like Jetsetter (first thing to come to mind) doesn’t really express anything and thus is not art.

Purpose as definition seems like a pretty good line of thinking though. The problem is you need artistic purpose, manipulating numbers and statistics and such to create a situation that is mentally challenging is not artful though. It suffers the same problem as your first definition too, it makes everyone an artist if they so deem it. Too broad.

So is it possible for a game to be art? I’d say yes but the majority of games are merely meant to be entertainment. A truly artistic game would have to have all the elements of classic (aesthetic on some level) art but may not have the elements of a successful game. To continue the film analogy, there are plenty of very unsuccessful but highly regarded artistic films. There are also many wildly successful films which are merely entertaining. A high art game may be one which successfully melds the aspects of art with those of game mechanics. I think an important part of any definition of art must include a human aspect to it, not merely a subjective or objective definition.

The first problem is that it is near impossible to determine if what you’re seeing/experiencing was purposeful or not.

Maybe, I wouldn’t say near impossible, there’s plenty of times when analyzing art when I say “oh, I see why he/she did that.” It may be near impossible for a lay person in that field to analyze it, but when subjected to trained scrutiny, I believe it’ll show through. Also, this specific point is not about what makes something art, but instead what makes something Good art. Fiction, in particular, is analyzed this way.

Even the Emergent Properties he brings up are sometimes (often?) accidental and not intended from the beginning.

Not intended from the beginning, but no art is complete from “the beginning.” A game goes through many stages before it’s complete, and by the time it is finished (or, abandoned, as is sometimes said of art) then the emergent properties should be clear to the designer, and desired.

but suppose he accidentally knocked a can of paint onto a canvas the next day, and hung them side-by-side.

Whether I can judge them or not is incidental to my definition. You may define art as being entirely in the Eye of the Beholder (which, as Spankleberry pointed out to me today, can petrify and thus make sculpture.) To me, that’s not art since the artist is not expressing himself since it happened by accident. To me, art is entirely defined by its creator and using it as a mode of expression. Now, as you say, if Jackson Pollock knocks over a can of paint ON PURPOSE to make a point, then I then consider that art.

The true definition of art, if there can be such a thing, is that it is defined by the person who is asking the question.

OK, but, I just defined it by asking the question, and I’m defending it. So by your definition, I’m not wrong, and neither is anyone disagreeing with me. You then go on to say:

The person experiencing something decides if it is art, thusly everything becomes simultaneously art and not-art.

Which would be your definition of art, which you have defined by asking the question, but it is not my definition of art. And by your statement above, both are valid.

Our societal definitions of Art have been challenged and argued time and again

True, though moreso, the definition of Good art has changed as a whole. My definition of art in general works retroactively back to the beginning of Man, and is not bound by society’s acceptance of it.

The true definition of art, if there can be such a thing, is that it is defined by the person who is asking the question. The person experiencing something decides if it is art, thusly everything becomes simultaneously art and not-art. Our societal definitions of Art have been challenged and argued time and again, it should have been perfectly clear in the 60′s and 70′s when they began splattering toilets with paint and displaying them that anything can be Art.

Then again I also agree with The Game, in that I believe there is a marked difference between good art and bad.

Not just my quagmire either: Slashdot posted something about it recently, and references a very good Gamasutra article.

(And those are both in reference to video games)

There is art in the games, definitely. There’s art in almost everything that humans do, but I think it’s secondary with games.