Video games can still be games and have a strong message. Here's a game who is a statement against war:

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/cannon_fodder

It starts with the name itself, the title song, and plays like a tongue in cheeks real-time strategy game. But as the campaign move along, soldiers are dying as survivors are promoted, and their tombstones are gradely filling the hills behind the next recruits waiting in lines.

You are like a general, sending a squad to dangerous missions. You loose, you retry, you win, you go on to the next mission, but with the death toll climbing, you start to actually care for your soldiers, you don't want to loose them, you want them to make it for every mission, to the end.

As a medium, the video game brings something here, pushing you to experience something a movie or a book won't, and be or not moved by it.

Funny that this thread surfaced just now. I read a judgement a few minutes ago, where the court decided that even commisioned art falls under the artists prerogative, as long as he sticks to the instructions given. The case was that a woman came to a painter and wanted him to paint a hallway "in his usual style". After he was done, the woman didn't like it, even though it was in his usual style (*insert sexist joke). He went to court for his payment and won, because it was irrelevant if she liked it or not (on an artistic level, not in actual quality), as long as it was within her instructions.

Therefore, even commissioned art is art before a german court.

Not to refute anything, but I'm sure that this case was less a question of "what is art" and was instead a matter of "did this work-for-hire fall within the guidelines given the worker"? Yes? Case closed.

It would have been the same if the man had been building cabinets or paving driveways.

I still hold to this definition. Art has nothing to do with the mindset of the person consuming, but more with the one producing.

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but art comes from the mind of the creator.

Not exactly, the point was she said:

"Do it like those paintings you did before but don't copy them". In her instructions was an explicit room for interpretation by the artist and that isn't "judgeable" by the "buyer". Which clearly gave artistic room in an commissioned work.

In contrast to handywork you couldn't judge the quality based on artistic values (as long as it was on par in quality with his other works). Handywork can easily be judged in quality by professionals, there is no interpretation. An pavement full of potholes is just bad carftsmenship.

In a german court the pavement issue would have been decided in favour of the city. A craftsmen must do work that is actually "useable". In your case he either had to do a work above the minimum specifications or he would have to tell the city that the minimum requirement was to low for proper function. Only if the city would have still demanded on the minimum requirements, he would be in his rights to do sub par work.

The differnce to the art case is, as you have proven yourself in your post, is that the "art" part of art is not up for debate or measurement. The pavement on the road was. You can't demand "good art", because the good is in the eye of the beholder. But you can expect "good craftsmanship".

A city's guidelines are based upon recommendations from people in the business, at least in theory. Those people were obviously wrong in this case and I imagine they no longer advise the city, but i didn't follow the case that closely. The city, however, was still stuck with the bill.

That said, I definitely agree with the German courts for the case you quoted, just for a different, but related, reason. :)

art (and politics) can't be entertaining?

Why?

Not quite, art does follow its rules as well, just because they are not easily quantifiable by the average joe doen't mean they aren't there.

Let's say I commissioned a realistic portrait of a Clint Eastwood. I don't care about composition, background and tecnique used, I don't even specify the age, the only thing that matters is that it looks like him.
One week later the artist presents the portrait of what seems to be of a random old man. Looking closer I see that's because shading is inconsistent, proportions are wrong and perspective deformed.
I, of course, would refuse that. That's not artistic interpretation, it's plain bad work.

Where did the idea come about that art can't be entertaining?

Is this another of those silly "true art is ___" things. Alongside "angsty," "sad," and "incomprehensible," we now have to add "not fun." This obnoxious idea that the only art that counts is the art that is so deep.

Going with "Entertaining", "Political", and "Artful" :

1) these three aren't mutually exclusive (cf. political satire);
2) so games can be any of theses, even the three at the same time*;
3) even if, alas, too many games aren't any of theses.

* just look at "Nuclear War", bombing the Earth into oblivion along ten caricatured chief of states...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_War_(video_game)

edit: broken link

So we find again it hinges on what a person considers to be art or not. i.e. if only "high art" can be seen as art or all outputs of a creative activity can be art.

By the way, do you mean that whatever Elvis did, it can not be considered art?

So you admit video games are art...

That's not an answer to my question. So, why couldn't a game bearing a message be fun?