I don't buy any hard criteria for accepting something as "art". Ultimately it's just a status contest. Will the hip folks accept video games into "high culture"

I don't buy any hard criteria for accepting something as "art". Ultimately it's just a status contest. Will the hip folks accept video games into "high culture", or will they keep sneering? Post facto excuses can be made for either choice, but the deal maker is the opportunity for social differentiation. The best way to elevate the status of games is not by making art games like Gone Home that try to tackle social issues with a veneer of interactivity. That's a transparently wannabe tactic. Instead, gamers could project a hipster-like appreciation of pure gameplay as something that takes effort to enjoy. There's a good case to be made that the unwashed masses don't actually enjoy gameplay once you remove all the set dressing (art, music, plot...), so there's an opportunity for an informed minority to claim better taste. Such hipsterism could sow the seeds for eventually accepting games into the high culture pantheon. As a bonus, creating pure gameplay is much easier than asset-heavy games. It's well within reach of a single brooding artist on drugs, and you can credibly sell it as a momentary flash of inspiration later. That's convenient, because picking out the name of one auteur from ten pages of credits is a real mood killer.