I'll make this quick, because I've written about it before. Recently, I was listening to a favorite movie podcast of mine, which I won't name because I think they do awesome work and I'm not really trying to start a net beef. Anyway, during this podcast they decide to semi re-kindle that Games-as-Art debate. They were, and I hope this is not giving too much away, talking about, and I'm paraphrasing here, how Bioshock is the one of the only games that comes close to becoming an art form, or for that matter proving that games can be art at all. They've talked about this before and I sense no condescension at all. For the most part they're fairly respectful. That being said, i realized something as they were discussing the merits of the game and its artistic qualifications. Underneath all their layers of argument stood what formed the very foundation of their whole thesis.

A game is art so long as it resembles artistic cinema.

Though they didn't say it, it was fairly apparent that their criteria for art games consisted of the same criteria they judged art cinema with. Which is total BULLSHIT. I get the feeling from listening to these guys every week that they probably don't visit art museums on a regular basis. I also think that maybe a little perspective on art history might be important when debating a whole mediums place within that history. After all I do believe it was Duchamp who placed a urinal in a gallery and called it art, a move which I'm wholeheartedly behind. All philistinism aside, my thesis is this: If someone declares something art then it becomes so. Of course this doesn't account for taste; we can argue all day subjective terms like good or bad. We can't, however, be dismissive of the fact that art is simply a declaration.
Now if these chaps had been to a museum recently, then they probably would've noticed that the goal of many contemporary artists has been to be completely interactive. We don't just go to museums and look at stuff on the wall anymore. Now we step into spaces, walk around them and interact with the artist by way of the art. Which, in reality, is what we've always done, but now the interaction is more tactile. Art is meant do give experience one way or another. And if you ask me, which I should remind everyone that no one has, this is exactly what videogames are all about. Maybe more apparently now than in the days of Tetris or Pong which actually did provide an experience, albeit one that we're quick to discredit. And, in fact, there is increasing mingling across the divide of game design, computer graphics, and art. Just look at John Gerrard's work. So yeah, maybe pong does belong in a gallery, and I'm sure in one context or another it has been in one already. And I'm fine with that.