If there is one video game I'd go so far as to art, I'd have to say [i]This War of Mine.[/i] That's a game that is much more than just a game: it's social commentary, it makes us think about what we're doing and why we're doing it, and it does it all by simply replacing the zombie element of zombie games with a human one. Hell, playing that game brought out emotions in me I didn't think a video game could make me feel. It made me think about the price of war, and it at one point made me so angry at a character - and I'm a calm person - that I forgot all my rational planning in that level and rushed at the bad guy with a gun wielding only a hatchet. I didn't even sneak up on him, that's how angry I was.

(And I died, of course.)

Would I put this video game on display? Well... Honestly, yes. If I had more money and ever wanted to run a video game museum of sorts, I'd be sure to put this video game on its own special console and let people play it. See, like a lot of great works of art, I feel like [i]This War of Mine[/i] is something that people should experience and is something that both comes from and speaks of a unique point in human history. Its gameplay encapsulates so much so elegantly, and while I can't replay the game very often, neither do I go back and look at my favorite paintings over and over. It's an experience, and I want to share it.

And perhaps the only thing that prevents video games like [i]This War of Mine[/i] from being "fine art" is that fine art is, by its very nature, typically kept at a hands off distance. It's meant to be observed, not touched, and this helps make it refined. A video game is meant to be interacted with, to be engaged with. That, I believe, is the critical component that makes people see even the most artistic, colorful, and expressive video games as "just a game."

Extra Credits is a channel that talks about this, and they do it better than I do. I hope that one day the general populace can view certain video games as art. But I think that will be a long time from now if that ever happens.