I think a thought I thunk.

Okay, so the jist of Aristotle's argument in the Poetics is that there is a right way and a wrong way to write a play, right? And that since this is so, playwriting is a masterable discipline and therefore a craft, right? And by the Platonic definition of the term craftwork is the highest art, right? So it strikes me that the same is true when dealing with video games...if there's a right way and a wrong way to make a video game, and the difference between these two ways is apparent in the final product, then the techniques involved in video-game writing are something of a craft and therefore a type of art, which makes their product an artwork (albeit in much the same way that horseshoes are works of art). But wait, there's more! In the Platonic scheme of things, art is that which is beautiful and useful: in his Poetics Aristotle was dedicated to showing that catharsis is a useful emotive means to calm and discipline the viewer: that is, that catharsis allows us to substitute the highly unreal characters of a play (or in this case, a videogame) for the very real characters of the real world when we need to vent, more or less. That catharsis is a sort of bracing feeling. ...This is a use, Aristotle tells us, and therefore, aha, plays are both beautiful and useful and therefore a quite legit work of art. And since the arguments Aristotle applied to plays, which in his day were a quite novel art form look like they can be equally well applied to videogames, one wonders if there's any reason not to think that videogames are art.

Puzzles are art? Who says? Puzzle games like Tetris may be games of skill, but that is not art. Tetris consists of puzzle pieces moving across the screen and it is up to the player to supply whatever skill he has to maniupulate them efficiently. He may even play a beautiful game of Tetris which may be admired. If he stretches before the game, I may even call it a sport. On the other hand, the script of Final Fantasy alone could be read apart from the game and would amount to many pages. There is a lot of dialogue, plot, and theme. Final Fantasy demands skill too, but as much as Tetris? I don't think so. RPGs and puzzle games are different animals just like art and sport.

A definition of art from the Merriam-Webster dictionary:
4 a : the conscious use of skill and creative imagination especially in the production of aesthetic objects; also : works so produced b (1) : fine arts

Someone consciously used skill and creativity to create Tetris, Tetris is therefore art.

I am wondering why this discussion is so popular? This is by no means an attack on those who have responded here, but a question as to why "this" topic continues to be discussed? Do those who get pleasure in video games, or are inspired to contemplation by them, wish to make games "art" because they feel guilty for their enjoyment? So that they might spare their "intellectualist" reputation from those who will immediately judge them fools for such a "worthless" interest? If they are pleasurable to you, they are meaningful. But why ask "art"? Those who do not enjoy them, or are not impressed by them, will shoot this move down to assert their own "higher taste".

Or is art by committee, any sort of committee, not art at all?

I open the floor.

Playing the video-game would not be considered an art. Creating it however might be.
"It is self-evident that nothing concerning art is self-evident."

Playing the video-game would not be considered an art. Creating it however might be.
"It is self-evident that nothing concerning art is self-evident."

Playing the video-game would not be considered an art. Creating it however might be.
"It is self-evident that nothing concerning art is self-evident."

In the sense of the virtuoso, video gaming can be an art form, much the same as appreciating the way Michael Jordan played ball, or Yo Yo Ma plays cello. Virtuosos don't necessarily create a lasting record of their art, they perform their art in the media in which they are inspired.

Although I detest this game and and what it stands for, this is none the less impressive and could by many be considered awe inspiring art.

Its guitar hero, and i was being dramatic, I just have issues with the people addicted to it who don't bother to spend all the time they use to perfect it when they could just learn guitar.