R.I.P. Roger Ebert. I enjoyed your movie reviews on "At the Movies". Although I never agreed with your opinion of video games, I respected your professionalism. The world of film critique is poorer for your loss.

If painting, composing music, writing / storytelling are considered art then so are games as you do all of that and much more to make a game. Simple.

R.I.P

Of course I think video games can be art. Roger Ebert said a stupid comment and he even admitted that he shouldn't have said that despite never playing video games.

There are tiny elements of art in some games but I don't consider games themselves as "art" or the idea of playing games as consumption of art.

Do you consider movies art? 

art  

There are a few, mostly indie, games that consider pure art. There are more that I consider artistic. Most games are like most movies. Fun, entertaining, even touching, but not art. They take artists to make and are full of art assets, but puting it all together does not automaticly make games art no more than it automaticly makes movies art.

However, because games can be art I would argue that they should be given the same respect that film, literature, musics, etc. are afforded. Not every painting is art, but we consider the concept of painting to be art.

The problem is that people think the definition of art is black and white. It's all art or it all isn't art. That's a falacy. What I consider fine art someone else considered pop art. Art can be anything, but not just anything is art.

To some and very varying degree. There can be such strong intention to make the visuals, photography or storytelling in them to be art that the whole movie could be considered "art" or artistic, but most Hollywood movies are definitely not art and never even intended to.

Same with litterature. Just because you type words and tell a story it doesn't mean it's art. But some books are written in an artistic manner on purpose, and some accomplish it to such a degree that it can be called art.

By the same reasoning for the gaming world, I can accept that the very few games with actually large elements of art, like Journey, can be qualified to be called art.

Observe:
http://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/archive/2012/games/

Superb post. I agree 100%.