Clive Barker still thinks games are art

Wow, we really can't get enough Clive Barker at the moment. Not only is he making one of the coolest and most gory looking titles of this year, Clive Barker's Jericho, but he's also jumping energetically back into the world of gaming with both fists swinging.

Barker is on the offensive still at Roger Ebert over the idea that games cannot be an artform. Established film critic Ebert and Barker have come to (verbal) blows on the topic before after Ebert claimed that games could not count as art because they force players to make choices.

In a recent podcast over at Digital Trends, Barker again called Ebert's views into question and called him a "pompous, arrogant old man...he's not going to stop us from making games or enjoying them or... making them art.".

The gravelly-voiced author of the Hellraiser series also said he thought about writing a nasty letter to Ebert, but decided to be nice after he learned about the critic's on-going battle with cancer. What a guy!

Barker was firm in his belief that games will one day be looked at as an art form and that old games will be treated just as Disney's old animations are now.

Nicely, the discussion coincides with the GameCity event in Nottingham where a number of leading video game artists and directors will be giving talks and showcasing some of their doodles, including developers from Namco, Free Radical Design, Sony and Rare.

So, what's your opinion on the matter? Are games art and how exactly would you classify art anyway? Answers in the forums, if you please.