New York’s Museum of Modern Art now does games. Now that’s a big stamp of legitimacy planted on my misspent youth.

In their announcement, the museum tackles gaming sceptics head-on: “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.”

They’ve shared the list of games that they’re beginning their collection with. It includes a whole bunch of progressive games – from the ubiquitous (Pac-Man) to the niche (Dwarf Fortress):

• Pac-Man (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)
• Canabalt (2009)

As well as this, they’re announced their plans to expand on their collection, hoping to include the following:

“Spacewar! (1962), an assortment of games for the Magnavox Odyssey console (1972), Pong (1972), Snake (originally designed in the 1970s; Nokia phone version dates from 1997), Space Invaders (1978), Asteroids (1979), Zork (1979), Tempest (1981), Donkey Kong (1981), Yars’ Revenge (1982), M.U.L.E. (1983), Core War (1984), Marble Madness (1984), Super Mario Bros. (1985), The Legend of Zelda (1986), NetHack (1987), Street Fighter II (1991), Chrono Trigger (1995), Super Mario 64 (1996), Grim Fandango (1998), Animal Crossing (2001), and Minecraft (2011).”

New York game fans will probably want to check this one out.