The lack of Civilization on the list truly is an oversight. Sadly, in this day and age of my "grown up" job, I don't have a lot of time for video games--but the one I still play regularly is Civilization (in this case, IV with expansions) and I think it has probably taken as much of my time as all other video games combined. I don't know if that makes it Citizen Kane, but it makes it extremely engaging and downright fun.
 

I can't believe they took Ultima III over Ultima IV. Being a 'Citizen Kane' doesn't mean people rip off your ideas, being a 'Citizen Kane' means you leave a lasting unique impression on an audiance and a industry. In my opinon, Ultima IV did that much more than Ultima III.
 

First off if I had to pick from that list I would pick Everquest.

In general I think video games ARE considered an art form. Movies are so static... they never change much. Games on the other hand are soooo diverse. Like you said the sims... the sims is an amazing game. IMO the game industry has some of the most innovative minds and creations than painting! Games do what paintings TRY to do... put the user in a fantasy world.

Though I wouldn't pick just one game I will say that I think in general MMORPGS are the defining "art" piece in games. You bring together so many people, in most cases the visuals change as a user plays more and it sucks in the user to thinking they are actually living in another world (a little bit dramatic but gets the point across). Tell me of one painting or even one movie that has brought together so many people as say WoW... yes some people will just say "oh, its a video game" but ask those that have played the game... not the ones that haven't. Video games are masters of their own art...
 

I think the honour should go to Monkey Island.
 

it should be seaman on the dreamcast. it must be something obscure and crunchy. all those other games listed are too mainstream.
 

Personally, I'm sick of everyone trying to compare games to Citizen Kane -- I tried to watch that and thought it was rather lame. (I think I fell asleep.) =P

That said, I think his list was fairly good; yes, there are some questionable/missing bits, but over-all he nails many of the important defining moments for video games.

As for whether video games can be considered art... I think we can safely say that art -- whether film, food, music, sculpture, etc. -- is anything that can create an emotional response. Given that definition, video games can unequivocally be considered art! And we don't need some watershed moment to realize that.
 

I really don't know what is the importance of Citizen Kane to cinema (I still have to see it and study how was cinema when it was shown to really understand its impact) but, like xenovore said, we shouldn't be searching for games that are as important as Citizen Kane, or trying to make a game like it. We should simply recognize some games as good and/or influential and try to make good games.

Some games of the list aren't even that special, in my opinion.
- Tomb Raider and mario 64 did, at their core, the same thing. Running, jumping, killing things and solving puzzles in 3D.
- With Final Fantasy and Metal Gear Solid, the author talks about "sky-high production values and pre-rendered, movie-style cutscenes" and "extensive voice acting, expressive character portraits and in-game cutscenes used to elicit emotional responses". If the game didn't have FMVs, voice acting and even if they weren't in 3D the game by itself wouldn't change. Same mechanics, same story, same content. It would just be shown in a different way.
- Half Life. I think the good things in HL1 are perfected in HL2, but the author talks about the easiness to make mods. This has nothing to do with the game. I can make a crapy game with awesome mod making tools and that doesn't make it a good game.
- KOTOR. The same as FF7 and MGS. Just showing stuff a different way. About the moral choices, I believe some games did it also and better before.
- Resident Evil 4 and Devil May Cry. Really good games, but nothing really new. Realy good game though.

Also, sometimes he seems somewhat misguided:
- Ocarina of Time it did the same as the other Zeldas before but it incorporated the 3D in the mechanics. I believe it to be the best 2D to 3D transition ever. Mario 64 doesn't feel like mario, but OOT feels like Zelda.
- In Resident Evil, Mario 64, Tomb Raider, Everquest, they only introduced mechanics and features that became a staple in the genre but have been perfected later.

But, to conclude, it doesn't make sense to do this kind of thing. With the diversity of games and genres we have, its impossible to find "THE BEST GAME EVER". Try to gather a Jazz expert, a Metal expert and an Electro expert to discuss what is the best album ever. I would be really difficult (maybe even impossible) for them to reach a consensus.

Now to reply to CodeJustin. I usually don't like to consider MMORPGs in my "games as art" thinking. They are too dependant in external factors (people) to succeed. Would WOW be as good if there was only one person playing it? Hard to tell, as so much of its content and mechanics are based on the existence of other people.

*whew* This was long... I apoligise for some of my "engrish" as it's not my natural language.
 

One problem is that there is so much disagreement and subjective opinion as to which games are influential. Why is Donkey Kong "paper-thin melodrama" while Pac Man's cutscenes are just "goofy"? Why do previous RPG suffer from "small characters" when the screenshot for FF7 in the article show the characters from far away? (Because the 3D characters look awful when close up.)

Even in the comments here we see some of this. Ultima 3 launched the Japanese RPG industry according to the article, yet the argument is made that Ultima 4 is better, despite not being quite so influential. Or MaxTeel's suggestion that MMOs can't count as art because they are multplayer; most board games require multiple people, are they disqualified from being art?

When it comes down to it, every gamer has games they consider more "worthy" than others. I don't think this is simple genre preference, either. I think it's the sign of a lack of serious critique of games. While not every movie aficionado may like Citizen Kane, most can appreciate its role in the development of movies. Try getting gamers, even "professional reviewers" to do the same with different games.
 

I'd have to disagree with MaxTeel, at least slightly. He said, "it doesn't make sense to do this kind of thing." True, as you say, it's just like the impossibility of finding "the best game ever," but I still think both are entertaining.

Yeah, this kind of thing doesn't mean a whole lot. I fully agree with that. And another person would likely choose different games, entirely. But it's still fun.

Personally, I'd like to see Civilization (I still play Civ II sometimes, despite also owning Civ IV) and X-Com: UFO Defense on the list. (Ultima IV was incredible, but doesn't it seem like game developers ignored the best features of that?) And it seemed weighted towards action games, which I don't like (but then, they do seem to be almost everything available these days).

But you can't help but wonder which of today's games will be most influential. I expect that Dwarf Fortress and Mount&Blade will have a big impact on gaming,... but maybe not in mainstream productions.
 

The premise of this list was sound, but as it went on it seemed that the writer had pulled a bait-and-switch. He set the bar very, very low for what constituted a "Citizen Kane" game. Yes, CK was significant primarily for its technical masterfulness (i.e. cinematography, structure, narrative framing) rather than its dialogue or compelling characterization. And it is seen restrospectively as having brought cinema out of the shadow of live theatre -- here, finally, was a work that clearly did things the stage could not, and not simply by using gimmicks and special effects, but by playing crazy games with the nature of the medium itself.

But the games listed by the writer here are mostly one-trick ponies. Side-scrolling? Who cares? Yes, it's a fundamental advance in the craft, but so was the idea of shooting a movie outside instead of on a sound stage. There were plenty of films before and after CK that introduced technical innovations, but CK stands out as having really realized their potential and demonstrated to the world what experiences cinema was capable of creating compared to other existing media. There may be games that have done this, but most of the 25 on that list don't qualify.

That being said, I remember the moments that convinced me that games had a tremendous capacity for making interesting art. Opening the door to the prison block in Quake 2 and hearing the screaming of the prisoners. Riding the monorail into Black Mesa at the start of Half-Life. Running through Max Payne's nightmares. Switching between identities in a split screen in Indigo Prophecy. Going into thermal-imaging mode in Aliens vs. Predator. It's not surprising to me that these are some of the more cinematic moments in games -- I think I'm most attracted to the "interactive cinema" potential of games. But I'm still wiating for a game to be produced with dialogue and storyline on par with a bargain-bin B-movie. Even the best games don't usually meet that very, very low standard. And I think that, while games will develop in all kinds of different directions, inasmuch as they aspire to narrative the producers have to learn a little discipline and invest in developing a way of writing for games that allows for compelling gameplay but doesn't result in hackneyed characters and stories.