I have a hard time understanding this argument. Firstly, I don’t see how games aren’t art because 1) they lack a human element and 2) they are fun. If anything, videogames are far more akin to work than fun, and problematically so, as most people feel that videogames are fun, but this is only if you take a very problematic view of what fun is. Neither Huizinga or Caillois or Bogost would likely argue that videogames are fun. Bogost even has an entire chapter in Unit Operations dedicated to this problematic assumption, particularly as argued by Raph Koster in A Theory of Fun. Simply put, videogames are largely not fun because of how they exist as fundamental constructions of rules and play-like actions. Videogames are far removed from two children playing a game of tag or even two adults making up rules for a card game because they don’t enjoy the rules as presented (or they are simply trying to put an interesting new spin on the selected game).
Art is fundamentally what creations are, whether or not they are good is up to a community of both peers and those observing those peers. The argument that literature is good art because of the human element is similarly problematic, as poetry could not possibly be art if such an argument were justified. Poetry is about the flow of a construction of words, or the flow of a construction of a set of rules individuals have justified, in some form or another, as a determinant of artistic merit. These constructions are beautiful because they speak to our sensibilities as they relate to those constructs, but whether or not they relate to us as humans is rather irrelevant. The flow of ideas and their related constructs in connection with one another is what’s important in such a form, and the same can be said of any media.
Videogames then are about their flow of ideas, and while it can be said that videogames are not the same artistically as movies or literature, such a statement should be obvious, though looking at the current state of videogames, one may not be able to come to such a conclusion. The problem then is that videogames are not appreciated by their designers as a fundamentally different form from games more generally, and from other media forms, again, more generally. The problem with the argument presented is that it doesn’t take into account the fact that videogames are entirely unrelated in form to books or movies or even music. Creating a videogame with meaningful intent is surprisingly difficult then, without familiar guideposts to lead developers and individuals along to appreciate them on a fundamental level, as a form separate from but related to other media.
Problematically, one often forgets that videogamaes are still a young medium, and aside from being young, they are also far removed from any other media, including games more generally. Literature and movies did not simply burst forth from their creative wombs as an acceptable past-time, and the same is true of other media. However, as time passed, individuals created forms and established meaning around the forms, creating rules for construction of stories and poetry, and even what defined literature as action, adventure, technical, or instructive, amongst many others. The same occurred with musical composition for music and the concept of mise en scene for movies. However, there is still no fundamental criterion which society has agreed upon for judging videogames, and the same is often true of games more generally, leading to a problematic argument of whether or not games or videogames are a good or bad influence on society. The concept is corrupted by a great deal of uncertainty by society because there is not yet a terminology with which to judge videogames as good or bad, and this largely relates, again, to their young nature. The same was true of making movies in the past, and until there was a widely-accepted conception of how to make a movie, many movies generally spent their time experimenting with the camera more than attempting to argue something meaningful about the human experience. This similarly occurred with photography and even architecture.
Finally, videogames are removed from other media because games themselves do not accurately ascribe the same values as videogames, and thus exploring videogames meaningfully is not only new, but entirely different from how a creator is used to exploring interactive states. A videogame is entirely devoid of real choice, which is unlike games more generally, because a videogame must follow rules, while a game can tentatively follow rules. A game can have rules which can be changed by the players at any time, for any reason, and this gives games in a more general sense of their raison d’etre. On the other hand, videogames cannot use such reasoning because they are bound by the limitations of their systems and rules. The entire reason videogames are as popular as they are however, is because the player is given a sense of real control in a videogame, which is something lacking in games, and in society more generally. A player in a videogame has choice in the sense of how they decide to follow or manipulate the rules as laid out, but again the argument leads back to how videogames are far more like work than like fun.
Videogames are about following rules and are justified in how the player decides to manipulate the rules as specified. Perhaps the simplest argument for the manipulation of rules as specified relates to the player running on the ceiling in Super Mario Bros., and being rewarded for having the presence of mind to attempt to explore an artificial boundary presented by the videogame. A videogame then, and its respective raison d’etre, is about exploring the boundaries of rule-states, and how creative exploration leads to an appreciation for the beauty of such rule-states, appreciating both the freedoms and limitations of a creation bound by rules and systems. In other words, videogames are reflecting intimately on the life we are bound to, a life built on systems on top of systems, and our own attempt to understand and manipulate those systems for benefit, in a microcosm. Similarly, videogames become beautiful when we explore the system in unexpected ways, or when we are surprised by systems we did not expect to exist, in the same manner in which there are often systems at play in society which we did not expect. Exploring these systems in a safe environment is what videogames likely have to offer the world, and while most videogames present only simple systems at the moment, there are many videogames attempting to explore and argue the substance of such systems, such as Flower or Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen.
I do not believe that videogames are not art because they are not literature or that they do not explore the human condition. I believe that videogames are simply misunderstood for what they are, and as such are still trying to be developed as something they cannot be. An appreciation for skill and an exploration of systems is what videogames have to offer us, and videogames like Silent Hill 2 or Proteus offer us, in a rudimentary manner. Because the medium is still developing however, these games are more of a glimpse at what might be, rather than a brave new world of what videogames will or should become. In fact, due to the early corporatization of videogames, videogames may never be respected as mainstream art, sharing the same fate as comics (at least in the United States).