A film critic says “video games are lame” and we all get upset. Why? He’s a film critic, his specialty is film, not television or sculpture, or music. Film. Clearly his opinion about other art mediums is of nominal value and most likely, utterly useless. But nevertheless it spawns lots of argument and feedback and defensive posturing on this ‘attack’ against the legitimacy of the medium. Last time I checked mediums were not ‘legitimate’. One does not praise the paint, or the canvas, nor does one praise those paintings that hang in your local coffee house. So let’s get this straight, video games as a generalization just like ‘movies’ as a generalization don’t evoke any notion of ‘art’ in the popular imagination. They are for the vast majority, entertainment. Perhaps you would like to make the distinguish between ‘movies’ and ‘film’ one aiming to entertain its audience, the other engage it’s viewer in searching for some greater understand of the subject matter it presents or reflects. (more…)