There are two largely accepted definitions of art. The first is the view of art simply as the mastery of a certain action or craft. The second is the view of ar

There are two largely accepted definitions of art. The first is the view of art simply as the mastery of a certain action or craft. The second is the view of art as something that changes the person that sees it. By the first definition, video games are inherently piece of art so long as there is an objective standard behind games. There's an art form behind, say, the comprehensive control scheme from Super Mario 64, which is in my opinion the best platforming control scheme I've ever used. There's an art to creating responsive and beautiful worlds. By the second definition, games still qualify, but we're in a poor position in that thus far games are still parroting movies by-and-large. The large advancements that we've seen in gaming - I'll cite Shadow of the Colossus and Grand Theft Auto IV as the two pinnacles - are ones that, in terms of message, are still parroting movies. Shadow of the Colossus gives us the sense of loss, Grand Theft Auto IV gives us the sympathetic - and fully-fleshed - character. These things can be compared dismissively towards movies, since they're far more primitive in nature. That's not to say that video games will remain as such. People are entering the field with ambitious minds right now. Many games are starting to hint at an expansion towards the sorts of things that gaming and gaming alone has to offer. I think that the "are games high art" argument will be moot 20 years from now, if not sooner. The gap is closing. (I'll also say that if not the games themselves, music in video games is the least compromised that any forum of music has been for a century. I'm thinking of Nobuo Uematsu, whose soundtracks are regularly 4 discs+ long, who releases piano arrangements and orchestral and rock arrangements of all his pieces, and who - unlike, say John Williams - is given an incredibly wide scape of emotions to portray with every game he works on. His output is impressive, as is the output of Koji Kondo, though he isn't nearly as evocative in my opinion.)