When Spiderweb Software's Jeff Vogel isn't crafting engrossing, gigantic RPGs such as Avernum for the Mac, he likes to write columns. His latest Grumpy Gamer column at CDMag deals with a question that is very dear to many game designers -- are the creations that they slave over for months, perhaps years, to be taken seriously as artistic endeavors? Or are these merely entertainments, to cast aside like a Frasier rerun?

Vogel remains objective about the subject matter, and believes that games are still in their early, crude stages as works of art. Just as the first scratchings on a cave wall led to the Mona Lisa, games are progressing similarly towards true expression and communication. Here is an excerpt:

In many ways, computer games are crude things, fairly simply constructs that don’t hold up under close examination. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t art, just that they still have a way to go before they have the complexity and power of, say, a really good movie. However, that is clearly the direction they are heading.

I defy any reasonable person to look at the writing of Torment, the complex analysis of human interactions in The Sims, or the stunning visuals of Ultima IX, and tell me that computer games don’t have the potential to be just as deep a form of communication as movies, or books, or anything else people study in college. I think that computer games are the real deal, and I won’t apologize for this medium in any way.

Grumpy Gamer: The Big "Computer Games Are Art" Rant

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