Museum of Modern Art now catalogues videogames.

The debate of whether videogames are art or not has waged for decades. Personally, I think all creation is art (why is this still a god damned discussion?). Well, apparently the Museum of Modern Art agrees with me, seeing as they recently opened up their videogame collection.

Currently at 14 games, the MoMA has recognized videogames as art and wants to continue to expand their collection over the next few years.

• Pac-Man (released in 1980)
• Tetris (1984)
• Another World (1991)
• Myst (1993)
• SimCity 2000 (1994)
• vib-ribbon (1999)
• The Sims (2000)
• Katamari Damacy (2004)
• EVE Online (2003)
• Dwarf Fortress (2006)
• Portal (2007)
• flOw (2006)
• Passage (2008) [really?]
• Canabalt (2009)

The museum wants to eventually add the likes of The Legend of Zelda (1986), Super Mario Bros. (1985), Chrono Trigger (1995), Grim Fandango (1998), Minecraft (2011), and more. As your can see, they’re going for artistic and cultural significance rather than their status as classics.

“Are video games art? They sure are, but they are also design, and a design approach is what we chose for this new foray into this universe. The games are selected as outstanding examples of interaction design—a field that MoMA has already explored and collected extensively, and one of the most important and oft-discussed expressions of contemporary design creativity.” Claims its website (sourced below).

Is anyone else disappointed that they didn’t add the greatest game of all time?

Source: moma.org

Frank Margarella has his own crappy personal blogs here and here. You can follow him on twitter @Fuhjem.