Games as a form of art

This is a very hot topic at the moment and one that a lot of people have posted opinion on. I have my own opinions, but they basically boil down to that a good games makes you feel something (be it excitement, intrigue or success) but an art game makes you feel something that is not necessarily regarded as a positive feeling. For example, you could make the case that Fable is an art game because you feel responsibility, sadness at loss etc.

I have more to say about it, but I really posted this to link to an interesting post of the Zen of Design about this topic.

I largely agree with what it says. I think it is practically true that just because we have plenty of games that definitely aren't art (Gears of War 2) the same is true for all artistic mediums. In books, we have the Olaf Stapledon but then we also have Andy McNab. Does that mean that books can't be a form of art. No. There are hundereds of pictures that are just well painted nice landscapes, which I wouldn't call art. Or rather I would, which is part of the problem, as I see them as the painting eqivalent of Gears of War, nice to look at but won't make you think.

That is also the other thing, everyone has a different deffinition of art, which futher complicates the matter and risks reducing the arguement to one of pointless semantics.

[Sorry for the lack of posts recently, been on a French Exchange and going back to France in two days!]