Video games have evolved from two paddles and a ball to mind-blowing visuals and insane amounts of game-play, and the way players see the world of gaming is changing accordingly. Games are no longer a simple form of entertainment to simply pass time, but individual experiences that offer things which no other form of media can provide. (Or, at least the good ones anyway. I don’t want anyone to think that I’m head over heels about games like Damnation)
So what is a good game, and what makes it into interactive art? Good games are games that keep me interested and entertained from start to finish. Interactive art encompasses games that truly draw me in. 
These are the games that make me feel like I’m witnessing something special. Great narratives, compelling characters, and beautiful visuals are tell-tale signs of interactive art. Few games so far have been able to accomplish such feats, but the ones that have are increasing in volume as time goes on. Final Fantasy VII was perhaps the first true example of this. When Aeris died, players experienced something that they never had before, emotion derived from playing a game! The creators of Final Fantasy had done what no one else had come close to doing before. They drew their players into their universe, introduced them to the characters, made them care about what was happening, and played with their emotions.
This has paved the way for other games to aim just as high, and there are some games released recently that reflect the desires of developers to reach gamers on a deeper level than blood, guts, and gore. Bioshock, Mass Effect, and even Grand Theft Auto are examples of what can be accomplished.
Videogames are changing, and I can’t wait to see where they go.
Merin on 
Captain Z on 
Benton Sartore on 
Very glad to have you here, Craig, and looking forward to what you have to say about video games.
I really don’t think that Final Fantasy VII was the first game to elicit an emotional response from gamers. Even within the Final Fantasy series, there’s a lot of great moments from the previous games, like the sacrifices that Tellah, Pollum, and Porum make for the party in Final Fantasy IV, or the beautiful and allegorical Opera sequence from Final Fantasy VI. Maybe I’m alone in this, but I thought that the sacrifice of the Baby Metroid in Super Metroid was very touching, even if it happened entirely without dialogue in a largely action game.
Most traditional games in the pre-3D era are pretty non-emotional: it’s all about gameplay and feats of skill, with what plot there is often relegated to background noise. But some games had it, and there’s a small mountain of Adventure Games and RPGs that came out well before FFVII that had great emotional moments.
Oh, that opera scene in in Final Fantasy 3 (6? – bah) is still one of the most emotional, moving, well orchestrated sequences in a video game IMO. And there are plenty of good computer games pre-Nintendo that were very well done as well, with story and emotional impact -
but, arguably, I think what Craig is hitting at is that FFVII, for most American gamers (read: console gamers) was probably the introduction to gaming beyond stuff like Goldeneye (or Street Fighter, or Space Invaders, you get my point) – a game that could move you with story.
It’d be like saying Akira introduced many Americans to anime (even though Speed Racer, Battle of the Planets, etc, were in America well before Akira arrived.) If you catch my drift.
Being a computer gamer from long back, I know that amazing stories existed before Sony made the Playstation, but I think Craig picked a good breaking point. If nothing else, the Final Fantasy series showed American gamers (again, console gamers) that story and character development were fun in a game and developed a desire in many gamers for a deeper involvement/commitment to their game.
I do agree that the Aeris death scene is a pivotal moment in mainstream gaming, but I guess it’s just this line: “The creators of Final Fantasy had done what no one else had come close to doing before”.
That’s a pretty harsh statement. Now, if it read as “The creators of Final Fantasy had shown the emotional impact of video games to a greater audience then ever before!” that would make perfect sense to me, because it would be entirely true. But the Final Fantasy creators themselves had been doing exactly that kind of high quality storytelling for years before FFVII.
Oh, I get that.
Every time someone proclaims how Grand Theft Auto changed gaming with the open sandbox style of game that allows you to do “whatever you like” and “ignore the linear storyline” I just want to throttle someone.
These are people who’ve NEVER played a CRPG before. Like, say, Ultima.
So I get the being upset.
It’s a similar course of evolution in any medium. Take comics for instance. We can point to moments from the silver and bronze age (the death of Gwen Stacy, Green Lantern/Green Arrow, etc.) as being comparable developments to the added depth in post-16 bit gaming, but those moments rest upon the narrative developments of the golden age in comics, and in 16-bit technology in the gaming world. In order to tell stories which are emotionally resonant and intellectually stimulating, every medium must first refine it’s methods for telling stories, period.