[General Discussion] Can video games be considered art?

In my opinion, for a game to be artistic they have to provoke the gamer to feel something. They dont' necessarily have to convey a message, but games that can be branded as "artistic" are games which make the gamer engaged with the world they are playing in.

And there's the difference between an artistic game, and a game that looks stylish. For me, an artistic game is one that envelopes the gamer, but also delivers it in a way so that the gamer is thrust into the world they are playing in.

Although I've played many games which have done that to me, one game that has stuck to me as a "truly artistic" is ICO. Not only did the game make me feel isolated, but it overwhelmed me with a sense of surrealism and the game was that of a dream-like quality. It truly engaged me and not only that, the game played so well as to keep me immersed in the fantasy world created for me to play in. The puzzles thought up using the "two-character" system seemed very real and natural. Yet, the game kept control of you as the gamer because of these very elements. ICO is one of the games I consider to be art.

On the other hand, there are games which are artisically fantastic, but don't play well and don't immerse a gamer. My example is Killer7, where the cel-shading is used brilliantly. Because of the gameplay, however, I wasn't able to get captured into the world of Killer7. Sure, the cel-shading offered a real detective, thriller, surreal feeling to it but as a game which is to be considered "art", it wasn't it. It was just an artistically good-looking game.

And then there's Electroplankton, which I consider to be interactive art, but there are hardly any games like that so I'll just stop here for the time being,

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