As a gamer I am of course sympathetic to efforts to correct misconceptions about gaming. However, I can't support countering one flawed argument or misconception, with another flawed argument or misconception. Nearly all arguments in favor of games being "art" fail to make a distinction between something that is art, and something that merely contains artistic elements. A magazine is not an artistic work. It is a creative work, in that it can be copyrighted, but there is nothing particularly artistic about it. Even if the magazine is about art, and features a work of art on every page, the magazine itself is still not art. While it contains art, the way that those components are put together is deliberate and pragmatic (intended to achieve practical objectives like increasing circulation, attracting advertisers, motivating donations or support, etc.), not artistic, in nature. Anyone that has worked in publishing knows this. It is more engineering than art. When you make a distinction between something that is art, and something that merely incorporates artistic elements, it becomes far less clear that games are, or even can be, art themselves. No one disputes that video games contain artistic elements, so the entire debate is really centered on the flawed conclusion that if something contains artistic elements, then it is art. No one in the art world is ever going to agree with that, because frankly it is just wrong by definition.
A video game is, at the most fundamental level, a piece of software. Creating a piece of software is not considered an artistic activity, for any other type of software. Software, like a magazine, is considered a creative work, but not an artistic one. Software has function, and the function must on some level take priority over form, otherwise the software is useless. That is what makes it not art. Art can exist for its own sake, as nothing more than an expression of the artist's thoughts and personality. Software, including games, cannot. Software has to do certain things at a certain level of competence, otherwise it is objectively worthless. Art is never objectively worthless, because art isn't supposed to serve any objective purpose. You may think it has no worth, but there is always room for others to disagree, because appreciation of art is entirely subjective. You can create objective criteria by which to judge art, but art remains art no matter how poorly it is executed. Game software that crashes at the start screen isn't a game at all. It is just a useless piece of broken software.
What makes a video game art when all other forms of software are not? The fact that it has a script and voice actors? Instructional software often has a script and voice actors. That doesn't make instructional software art. A script is art, and so is acting, but that just makes games (and instructional software) a construct that contains art. Not a piece of art itself. The same goes for the graphics, sound, and everything else that the artists on the development team create. They are artistic elements incorporated into the game. No amount of that will make the game as a whole art, just like the art magazine. Games are judged by certain criteria, and it isn't the criteria by which art is judged. Certainly the quality of artistic elements such as graphics, sound (including voice acting), and writing are considered; but so are things like controls, level design, game-play balance, replay-value, and stability. Those things are engineering, not art. Video games, like all software, are an engineered product. Not an artistic one. Art doesn't need a QA team. If even one person thinks that it works, then it does.
Even if some games were art, five examples (BioShock, Ocarina of Time, etc.) do not prove that video games in general are art. Twenty examples would not prove it either. No number of examples proves a generalization. Generalizations have to be proved logically based on established facts. Games-as-art advocates haven't even made a credible attempt at that. Cirque du Soleil, and Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus; are both circuses. I could make a case that Cirque du Soleil's performances are art. Ringling Brothers? Not so much. Are circuses art? At best, the answer is; they can be, but to be successful they only need to be entertainment, and most of them aren't intended to be anything more than entertainment. The same is true of video games at this point, and that may always be the case.
