Tranquility Lane

In April 2010, the now deceased and probably most influential US film critic Roger Ebert wrote a short article on his blog in which he denied computer games or games in general the possibility of ever fulfilling the essential characteristics of a work of art. To date, the article has received over 5000 comments. Until a few years ago, computer games had mainly negative connotations in public debates, but now the discourse on the perception of titles is shifting towards relevant cultural artifacts. Recently, several publications have appeared that also explicitly describe large commercial works in the field of art and locate them in the process of avant-garde education (Thomas Hensel) or even draft their own philosophy of computer games (Martin Feige). Nevertheless, this assessment is still controversial, especially in the field of visual arts (Stephan Schwingeler). This text will illustrate this line of argumentation with the concrete description of a section of the game Fallout 3 (Bethesda Softworks) and argue in favor of understanding games as artistic artifacts.