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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!" The room erupts into cheers as a large crowd of ordinary-looking people take to the stage.

Last night saw the Bafta Games Awards, a ceremony honouring outstanding achievement in the video game industry. There were no red carpet celebrities at this. But for many gamers, the people it celebrates are more important than any Hollywood star.

Gaming is riding high. 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 released: 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".

But now things have changed, as games are mainstream. And they are increasingly praised as creative and intelligent.

Blockbuster games have almost life-like graphics, enormous explorable worlds and sophisticated stories. Last year the game series The Last of Us even became a critically-acclaimed TV drama.

Meanwhile, indie gamesComputer games created by independent developers. have tackled topics such as mental health,² climate change and border policy.³

Many believe that 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 other creative forms of expression.

Games are, arguably, as fundamental to human life as any other art form. The oldest known board game, the Royal Game of Ur, originated around 4,600 years ago in ancient MesopotamiaA historical region of the Middle East, mostly centred on modern-day Iraq, Kuwait and parts of Syria and Turkey. The name "Mesopotamia" in Greek means "between rivers" because of the Tigris and Euphrates that run through it..

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". In 2012, New York's Museum of Modern Art started collecting games. There are even artists who use games within their work.⁴

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

Game developers Michael Samyn and Auriea Harvey are also sceptical. They argue that games satisfy our physiologicalRelating to the way in which the body functions. need for play. But art provides a higher purpose that goes beyond biological need. As long as games satisfy primal urges, they cannot be art.

"A work of art," claims 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 - films, theatre productions, gothic cathedrals - are also collaborations between countless 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 do not agree.

No: Games can have artistic elements. But there is one fundamental 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.