Some say 'art' promotes a message, others say 'art' promotes discussion, but the truth is, that makes just about everything art, there's nothing we can't turn into an argument, it's both one of the strengths and the weaknesses of the species. I think the problem is that whole fact that we need to even ask what is art and what is not, not based on the grounds of identification, but purely on the grounds of protecting the product from legislation.
The truth is that it is immaterial whether games are art or not, though I've stated my personal opinion earlier, because it's trying to add relevance to something using sleight of hand. Books, movies, games, they are all ways of telling stories, and without stories we'd be nothing more than bright monkeys, violence has always been an inherent part of those stories, Homer described the cutting up of a newborn child and the throwing of its remains into the ocean to delay a pursuing king, since the child could not enter Hades unless the whole body was found, the question we should really be asking is 'how did this become an issue?'.