Ouch, ouch, ouch :*(

My general rule of thumb when it comes to art, as someone who has no artistic ability what so ever, if I can replicate the art myself then its not art.

The thing is, a lot of modern art is all about the concept, more so than the execution. The fact that you or anyone else could easily replicate it doesn't matter, its the idea and motivation behind the art that matters. Your replication lacks that motivation, so it isn't the same as the original, is simply a blank white canvas and therefore is not art. Personally I find that to be a bunch of self-important BS on the part of the artist, but to each his own. Some people must actually like self-important BS, modern art does sell quite well.
BTW - Did I mention I'm a former graphic design student and Assistant Curator to the Museum of American Antiquities at the University of Hartford (sounds more important than it really was, I was one of many assistants)? I used to spend hours debating the merits of modern art with fellow students and professors. Almost no one agreed on what really was art and what was just BS.

As said earlier:
JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKE.
Pretending to be an obnoxious art critic, you know?

Eh. From that perspective (art is an expression that causes emotion) pretty much anything around us is art, it's just not good art or great art.
To me, good art must show some effort, originality, talent or skill AND be able to create an emotional response (the stronger, the better). It's not the same to look at a doodle than it is to look at the Mona Lisa. Doodles are easy to do, are abundant, require no skill and don't really create any emotion (unless it's the first doodle drawn by your son or daughter or something like that, then it's artistic to YOU).
Art doesn't have to be good to be art. However, no one goes to a museum or a gallery to look at bad art or at mundane things thrown together in a jiffy.
I remember me visiting a museum in Minessotta. It had this car wreck in the middle of a room painted in blue. I looked at it from afar and thought "And they call that art?" I thought the artist had just taken a car wreck from a junkyard and painted it blue. Then I got closer and read the little description all paintings and sculptures have, that gave a little explanationj on the piece: He did get a car wreck from a junkyard, then he dissassembled it entirely, made every single piece out of fiberglass, then assembled the fiberglass pieces. The whole thing took him two years.
I looked at it again and my God! What a work of art! It looked exactly like a car wreck! Great stuff!
Art is like beauty. It's in the eye of the beholder.

I've seen waaaayyyyy worse than that. To me, contemporary art is disturbing most of the time. And I believe that this is the point.

" More than seventy percent of American households play video games on a regular basis, and many families now have two generations of computer users, and gamers, at home."
*facepalm*
Videogames were on their way of truly achieveing "arthood" before this happened and it became (mostly) moronic pop culture. And i bet they're going to exhibit games that are shit but are desperately trying to be weird and artsy. Like someone said before, art doesn't come from just trying really hard making it into art, it's more profound than that, and yes, it might even be accidental.

In such cases such as the blank canvas example, I think thats where I think the true art lies, not in the creation of the work but in conning someone to pay far too much for something so worthless. It's a form of P.T Barnum style genius really

Heh, reading it again, I don't know how I didn't spot it! lol I'll put my defensiveness back in its box now lo;
I do think there is a beauty to certain games. I don't just mean the obvious beautiful titles that go for the photo-realistic effort. They are gorgeous to look at sure, but from the Megadrive era for instance, screenshots from that era make me happy inside! lol
I played Metal Slug III on XBLA recently and I think that is a beautiful game.