So lets get this topic off the ground with a little discussion. I've been thinking a lot lately about artistic games and what they do so differently compared to other games that people try to use as examples of art. Before this I didn't put much thought into it and only looked towards things like narrative or story or theming to support the idea that video games could be art, but that was a bit flawed.

In reality it seems like the single best definition of video games as art comes from titles that use gameplay to support the narrative and theming rather than apply some elements of a random genre to a decent story. Video games need to go a bit further in proving themselves as art because they maintain an added element: gameplay. In no other medium can a person have such interactivity with the work as they would with a video game. You don't make decisions for movies or books, or try to achieve something. The audience in those mediums is kept separate from the world portrayed, and everything that's going to happen is already laid out.

So it stands to reason that a game with appropriate gameplay given the message being conveyed would be art. Having appropriate gameplay means that the player is forced to think a certain way to receive the message clearly, rather than being lost in some type of subtext.