not so sure about it being "art"
As a game developer, I've always felt uncomfortable saying that what the games industry produces is "art". I always have this little Rik Mayal in the back of my head saying things like "Art? Arty farty farty! How far up your backside is your head!?" It just sounds too pretentious trying to make out that what we do, is to be taken seriously and has something more to say than "play me and have fun".
It doesn't help that a great many designers are usually failed film makers in some way or form. As much as I admire the work that Kojima has produced, especially the Metal Gear series, you can't ignore the fact that his overly developed cut-scenes and trashy dialog are the product of somebody who would rather be making movies.
If you take the individual elements of a video game, some of them can rightly be considered art in their own right, especially the graphics and overall visual style. But the gameplay isn't art, I'm sorry. It's something completely different, more directly related to great board games than it is to any sort of "art form" in my opinion.
The sooner the games industry stops trying to validate itself by comparing what it does to the music or film industry, by trying to aim for some sort of "high brow" validation by saying that it is art, the better. Given the amount of money the industry generates as a whole, and it's pretty small size, I would say that this is all the validation that we need. We make games, things that people enjoy. Isn't that enough?
Biting the hand that feeds IT
