Console creativity: Museums display video games

PacMan, Tetris, SimCity and 11 other video games made their debut at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City this week. They are just the initial batch acquired by MoMA, which hopes to acquire 40 in the next few years.

The collection, according to curator Paola Antonelli, will "emphasise not only the visual quality and aesthetic experience of each game, but also the elegance of the code and the design of the player's behaviour".

But not everyone thinks these works belong in the same building as Munch and Monet.

The BBC spent the day at the MoMA, at the Casey Kaplan Gallery in Chelsea and asked the opinion of two game designers, Greg Trefry and Mattia Romeo.

Are video games going through the same initial resistance that photography and cinema encountered? And where does it end? Will phone apps soon be considered art too?

Produced by Anna Bressanin. Images by Ilya Shnitser