I've had a bit of time to reflect and watch that video. On a side note, I love "Extra Credits". I've never watched that episode though. I don't know how I missed it.

To follow up with my response from earlier, do I think the act of playing chess cold be considered art? No, I don't I think using that example, the act of playing chess would be considered art. The mechanics, the chess set, the rules of the game, they all define the art. They set the boundaries like Picasso would do with his malformed shapes of humans. The define what it is. But the act of playing is more like experiencing an installation. It's more like walking into the Lincoln Memorial and viewing it from the inside.

I think games are much the same. The act of playing a video game is the act of experiencing the art. The mechanics define the boundaries of that particular piece. The same with the music, textures, models, etc...

Going back to the video posted, that exemplifies my definition I think. The only dialogue in Missile Command is 'Start' and 'The End' that I remember. That's all the narration that communicates with the player beside the score board. Yet, as Extra Credits points out, it still offers a message. It pushes an emotional response. It makes the player feel something.

I'd contrast that with a game like The Last of Us. Would that be considered art? That's harder to say. It's a beautiful game. I would consider it more of a narration though. The game does a wonderful job by interweaving the conversations during game play instead of limiting it to cut scenes. It felt more like a natural way to tell a story in a game. It almost crosses the line into a book or an interactive entertainment movie though. It has the interactive game moments and such. It doesn't call for an emotional response though. It's a story about the growth, or lack there of, of a specific character.It's harder to say if I would consider this game a piece of art.

The question has been debated for about two decades.

The countless arguments, debates, flame wars, and trolls all boil down to two words:

Define art.

Exactly. It's hard to do, much less with games. This form of media is still very much in it's infancy compared to others. It doesn't help that the scope and technical advances keep it evolving faster then any other media either. I'm sure it's a debate that we will continue to have for a long time and not something solved by this thread. I'm curious to see what others think and engage in that conversation though.

Why is there even a debate? How can you tell that one particular medium cannot possibly produce art..? That no matter what they do in that medium, it won't be artistic, they can't be an artist by working with it? That in this particular medium, it is impossible to express the imagination and human spirit? That creativity is not possible inside a particular medium?

That's just a ridiculous statement to say to someone (and offensive if they consider themselves an artist within your declared medium), which is obviously false without need for debate.

Instead of "is this medium art", which is a yes/no question, where both yes and no are wrong... a better discussion would be, "which works within this medium do you consider to be great art"

Wintertime's link was worth the read. Saw a comment that I liked:

"I’ve noticed there’s a very obvious trend of people no longer giving a shit over this debate, which is nice, maybe we’re actually making progress"