[QUOTE="Jared2720"]In my opinion, you're doing a disservice to the industry by clinging to such outmoded nomenclature. It's no wonder that "gamers" have the reputation that they do. Reducing these works of art to something called a "video game" is counterproductive. Interactive media will become the literary tradition of the 21st Century, I believe, the way film was the literature of the 20th Century, but you're not doing the medium any favors with your semantics.Greatgone12
As Wittgenstein explained, if you do not define your terms precisely, then your statement is nonsensical. In this case, the term "video game" is, indeed, a nonsensical term, because we cannot define a game. After all, if it is merely something that is defined by rules, then isn't everything a game? Because ultimately, all rules occur after the fact, as a result of humans defining them. And if "game" is a synonym of "everything", then the word "game" itself is meaningless -- ultimately, any statement that takes the word "game" at anything but face value is a nonsensical statement.
Secondly, "literature" is written work. Film is not the "literature" of the 20th century -- it is the film of the 20th century, or, if you want to be more precise, it is the adaptation of theater onto a medium that allows for greater suspension of disbelief. As with video games, they are ultimately the adaptation of games onto a medium that allows for certain greater possibilities. That does not change the fact that they are games.
Thirdly, the implied statement of your post is that "games are art", but then we must define every single term in the statement. In this case, we know that the word "game" is meaningless, and from that point of view, we can determine that the whole statement is nonsensical. But even if you forget that for a moment, we must then look at the definition of the word "art". Any basic dictionary search will reveal many definitions, which proves only that something is amiss. Indeed, it is: the word "art" does not have a universal definition. Again, as Wittgenstein explained with the "Beetle in the Box", words must have consensus in order to mean anything. A word cannot mean something only to you, because then the word does not actually have any meaning.
So now we can look at how the word "art" is, by consensus, understood: as a craft (the art of war, painting) or as something of outstanding quality ("your sister is a work of art"). Developing a video game can be described as an art, but then it loses all legitimacy, because everybody is an artist in that case. An excellent video game is also art, but it does not represent video games as a whole. It does not add legitimacy, either.
Fourthly, you are only proving your ignorance by disapproving of semantics, because it is the most important barrier to any and all discussion that wishes to be anything more than superficial. Now who is it that's doing this industry a disservice?
"Video game", taken as anything but at face value, means nothing. As an industry, the word "video game" means something that exists with a graphical component is defined by rules. That is it. Nothing is being inhibited or whatever.
This is mostly gibberish. 
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