The question has been debated for about two decades.

The countless arguments, debates, flame wars, and trolls all boil down to two words:

Define art.

I've had a bit of time to reflect and watch that video. On a side note, I love "Extra Credits". I've never watched that episode though. I don't know how I missed it.

To follow up with my response from earlier, do I think the act of playing chess cold be considered art? No, I don't I think using that example, the act of playing chess would be considered art. The mechanics, the chess set, the rules of the game, they all define the art. They set the boundaries like Picasso would do with his malformed shapes of humans. The define what it is. But the act of playing is more like experiencing an installation. It's more like walking into the Lincoln Memorial and viewing it from the inside.

I think games are much the same. The act of playing a video game is the act of experiencing the art. The mechanics define the boundaries of that particular piece. The same with the music, textures, models, etc...

Going back to the video posted, that exemplifies my definition I think. The only dialogue in Missile Command is 'Start' and 'The End' that I remember. That's all the narration that communicates with the player beside the score board. Yet, as Extra Credits points out, it still offers a message. It pushes an emotional response. It makes the player feel something.

I'd contrast that with a game like The Last of Us. Would that be considered art? That's harder to say. It's a beautiful game. I would consider it more of a narration though. The game does a wonderful job by interweaving the conversations during game play instead of limiting it to cut scenes. It felt more like a natural way to tell a story in a game. It almost crosses the line into a book or an interactive entertainment movie though. It has the interactive game moments and such. It doesn't call for an emotional response though. It's a story about the growth, or lack there of, of a specific character.It's harder to say if I would consider this game a piece of art.

The question has been debated for about two decades.

The countless arguments, debates, flame wars, and trolls all boil down to two words:

Define art.

Exactly. It's hard to do, much less with games. This form of media is still very much in it's infancy compared to others. It doesn't help that the scope and technical advances keep it evolving faster then any other media either. I'm sure it's a debate that we will continue to have for a long time and not something solved by this thread. I'm curious to see what others think and engage in that conversation though.

There's an obvious controversy because art is controversial, it is drama, it is hardcore drama, like the kind of thing people sit around in a parlor joking about until someone's opinion is so different an argument starts: If you made it past the first sentence and read this far I'd have to say I must not have come strong enough so here are two weights to carry:

Pro art: Emotion and maybe some wasted time and effort has gone into games, you can picture the blood sweat an tears that poured down the fingers of the graphic artists, and the gigabytes of canvas wiped clean by programmers trying to make.

Against: There's a market, a huge one. At least one game developer thought they would make money, as a sole motivation, rather than dying in poverty and wishing his game would simply exist. He went to a university, learned how to make games, and sold them based on an equation a company fed him.

But this is like the other issue, which is silly to think long about: What should be considered a game?

You should be expecting a strong "yes" or a logical argument because you posted in a video game forum. I'm going to say nyos.

Why is there even a debate? How can you tell that one particular medium cannot possibly produce art..? That no matter what they do in that medium, it won't be artistic, they can't be an artist by working with it? That in this particular medium, it is impossible to express the imagination and human spirit? That creativity is not possible inside a particular medium?

That's just a ridiculous statement to say to someone (and offensive if they consider themselves an artist within your declared medium), which is obviously false without need for debate.

Instead of "is this medium art", which is a yes/no question, where both yes and no are wrong... a better discussion would be, "which works within this medium do you consider to be great art"

Why do people even want games to be art?
Why do people seem to get so defensive when claiming that videogames should be art?

Can't games just be ..... games?

Why do people think that calling them art would elevate them to some new greatness that they cannot already claim.

Art does not imply skill. Just look at a Tracy Emin, a Damien Hirst or a Banksy. There isn't a huge amount of skill involved in creating art of this nature (maybe a little creativeness but not much). Mr Brainwash prooved this.

There is also just as many discusions on the internet regarding wheather or not games should be Sport.

Games are just games stop trying to put them in some kind of alternative niche and just accept them for being games.

A trivial question.

Video games can be used to express yourself, your ideas, values, opinions and convey them. Video games consist of mediums that are considered art: images, videos, music. You can look at some video games like Final Fantasy and the first thing that comes into mind is "Wow, this is art."

Definition of art may be blurry but trying to fit everything in or out is pointless except for the sake of argument.

BTW pottery is art as well as architecture and both can be used to "share a message". For buildings these are often linked to wealth or social position.

There is a funny read. It shows how pointless this question is through a little irony.

Should all paintings be considered art?

Should all statues be considered art?

Should all architecture be considered art?

Probably not.

Can they be art?

Yes, ofcourse

Same thing with games, or any other medium of expression...

Wintertime's link was worth the read. Saw a comment that I liked:

"I’ve noticed there’s a very obvious trend of people no longer giving a shit over this debate, which is nice, maybe we’re actually making progress"