I will never for the life of me understand why so many video game players are so insistent that video games must be art. Why does it matter?
For what it's worth, I don't think that video games can be art for reasons that are far too lengthy for the scope of a comment on here. But that doesn't mean video games can't be good things. I also like sport, newspaper articles, and good beer. Cultural artefacts don't have to be art to be good.
I don't understand either of the polar sides of the 'are video games art?'
'Art' is just a description, no more. No promise of quality, no conferred legitimacy. There is plenty of really crap art out there, that no-one will claim is not art. Every argument I've seen for the 'is not art' camp does some pretty torturous semantic weaving. And articles like this for the other camp that say 'art is shit, who wants that' are equally unenlightening.
I would say that creating video games in general is more of a craft than an art, but there is definitely art involved in getting to the final product.
edit: ugh, I didn't pick that the article was satire. shame on me.
If you're not a game designer, it doesn't really matter that much. But the approach you take to something changes when you decide your creation is a piece of art; there's an aspiration that comes with such a decision. The idea isn't so much that video games must be art, but that they can be art.
For what it's worth, I don't think that video games can be art for reasons that are far too lengthy for the scope of a comment on here. But that doesn't mean video games can't be good things. I also like sport, newspaper articles, and good beer. Cultural artefacts don't have to be art to be good.