So getting back to the question "Can games be art?" (which to make sense of we now read as "Can games be good?"), the only acceptable answer to this question would be, "Of course, and so can anything." Music, movies and even food can be art (but only good music, movies and food). Books can be art (but only good books, and we even have a fancy name for them: we call them Literature). War can be art (The Art of War). Sex can be art (The Art of Love). Even my cock can be art when I am in the right mood, et cetera, et cetera.
The next question of course would have to be, "So which kinds of games are art then?", and the answer to that question should by now be obviously, "The good ones." So Deus Ex is art, Elite is art, and Ketsui is art. Wing Commander and Pikmin and Master of Magic are art, et cetera, et cetera.
So this is all that needs to be said on the subject of games as art. But why all the hoopla in the gaming press these days, if the issue is so trivial? Well, the hoopla is due to the fact that practically everyone who writes about games today is a slobbering, uneducated, mentally retarded fuckwit, and therefore incapable of grasping the simple facts I just explained here. Today "serious" game writing is all about little kids desperate to have their little hobbies validated by their moms and dads in order to feel good about wasting so much time on them, instead of going out in the world and doing, you know, something useful. "Yes, little Johnny, my angel, it's okay to keep playing your favorite videogames past your bedtime, because they are art. There's absolutely nothing wrong with a grown man spending a whole freaking week as a plumber who frolics around a happy pretend mushroom kingdom, killing off cartoony animals by jumping on their heads -- nothing wrong at all. Carry on, dear."