If you answered (4):

Your views are kinda shared by: Jim Preston.

The final view covered here can be elegantly reiterated thusly: "Does it even matter?" After all, the debate has been raging for a while but seems less likely to come to a close than the conflict in the Middle East. To be certain, a lot of industry bigwigs seem to be getting tired of the whole issue themselves.

However, they generally state that as tired of the debate as they may be, they still regard it as important. In this regard, EA's Jim Preston stands out as the voice of contention with this fascinating Gamasutra essay that explains in a nutshell how everybody is clearly being really, really silly about a really, really silly issue.

Well, those are our words, not his. He puts it far more tactfully: "Most gamers think of their plight this way: there's this really great club downtown called the Arty Party and all the cool people are in it." Not only is this a self-inflicted plight, but he goes on to explain that the definition of art has become so broad – and so mixed up with a menagerie of different views based on culture, ethnicity and personal taste – that the art question becomes basically meaningless and that we really shouldn't overly bother ourselves about the whole issue.

In fact, he sums up Ebert's point of view with the following: "Ignore him."

That's not to say that Preston doesn't care about art – he presents a point of view that has given the matter its due consideration. His conclusion, however, is that we're all beating a dead horse.

In the end...

Art games are a huge subject, and while this piece has done its best to incorporate as much juicy info as possible with the people and articles highlighted above, it would be naïve to suggest that this is a truly comprehensive view of the debate. Rather, it's serving as one of those oh-so-snobby overviews of a very deep discussion. Every game is different, and often brings something new to the debate.

Suffice to say, there's a lot of interesting points raised on both sides of the matter, and quite a few more mentioned by people who prefer to evangelise points of view that don't fit into either X or Y. Whatever your opinion may be, it seems undeniable that the debate is going to rage on for a long time to come.

In the words of Jason Rohrer: "[Art] is a discussion worth having. So let's keep having it. It's not just semantics – it's about putting something into words that we all understand but cannot quite explain. What is love? Is there a God? What is art? We desperately need to keep these discussion fires burning – it's part of what makes us human."

That, and it makes for loads of entertaining arguments.