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The hall went silent as the envelope was opened. "The BaftaAn award given at the British Academy Film Awards ceremony. for the Game of the Year goes to Baldur's Gate 3!" 

Last night saw the Bafta Games Awards, a ceremony celebrating the video game industry. For many gamers, the people it rewards are more important than any Hollywood star.

Gaming is doing well. Last year, UK sales reached a record £4.7bn - double those of the music industry and almost as much as video.¹

Some of the best games ever were in the running: the fantasy adventures Baldur's Gate 3 and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom; web-slinging superhero caper Spiderman 3; horror survival game Alan Wake 2 and the surprise hit Dave the Diver, in which players collect ingredients for a sushi restaurant.

For decades games were not taken seriously. Novelist Ray Bradbury called them "a waste of time for men with nothing else to do".

Now things have changed. Games are mainstream, and they command respect.

Many think video games should be considered a form of art, like music, painting or poetry. In 2011 the US Supreme Court ruled that video games should have the same legal status as artworks.

Some visual art insiders believe that games are the art of our time. As curator Hans Ulrich Obrist says: "Video games are to the 21st century what movies were to the 20th century and novels to the 19th".

Yet there are those who would disagree. PlatoOne of the most important Ancient Greek philosophers.  believed that art copies ordinary life. Yet video games often place us in larger-than-life situations, whether fantasy worlds or Premier League pitches. They offer fantasy, not a comment on reality.

"A work of art," says art critic Jonathan Jones, "is one person's reaction to life". A game, on the other hand, is a work created by many using computer programmes. Gaming fans could point out that many artworks are also collaborations between many people.

Are video games art?

Yes: Our idea of art is always expanding. Novels were once seen as low-brow. The Impressionists were called amateur painters. It is now the turn of games, even if some  critics disagree.

No: Games look a little like art. But there is one big difference that keeps them apart. Games have rules, scores and tests of skill. You can win or lose a game. Art has no such rules.

Or... It depends on the game. Just as there is a world of difference between Middlemarch and a trashy airport novel, there is a huge gap between the most artistic games and those which are just simple fun.