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"if people want to argue about the importance of gameplay to game, go make a game that's only gameplay" masterclass in strawman i commend it. here, let's translate this to other mediums

"if people want to argue about the importance of prose to poetry, go make a poem that's nothing but prose" "if people want to argue about the importance of imagery to painting, make a painting that's nothing but random imagery" see how swiftly this argument falls apart when you realize you're treating gameplay as a system of buttons instead of an art in itself? obviously a video game is a collection of different mediums composed into a single piece and all of those mediums matter, but guess what!!! gameplay is one of those mediums!!!! if gameplay wasn't one of those mediums games wouldn't be art, they would be things that have art in them! if you believe video games aren't art and just things with art in them, i respect your freedom to have an opinion and also have no interest in engaging with you about any kind of art ever at all

Also like, even if that wasn't true. People very visibly do care about "pushing buttons on the correct timing," even despite how obvious a reduction that is. Esports. Speedrunning. TAS playthroughs of games, the drive to find glitches and bugs and exploit them as much as possible, the drive to optimize low tiers in fighting games, making off-meta builds and strategies, the idea of challenge runs like nuzlockes and "can I beat Mario with only one button"s and time trial modes and literally fucking high scores in the first games ever made. And these, just like sports, can be just as interesting and meaningful to people as art. Obviously they're not the same as "Pure Art" (whatever this silly reduction of things to a games-art spectrum actually means) but from the pure, brass tacks battles of strategy and perfect execution, which is already extremely interesting and intriguing on its own or else there wouldn't be a gigantic market for them, stories just naturally emerge from the nature of human beings engaging in an activity involving other human beings or an obstacle to be overcome. You might not feel like sports are bigger than just the game when you kick the ball around. Ken Griffey Jr.  felt it when he led the Mariners past the Yankees who he swore never to play for. Bob Beamon felt it when he completely shattered the world record in long jump after his track career nearly disappeared due to the racist policies of track clubs across America and being dropped from his university track team for boycotting. Lebron James felt it when he returned to the city that hated him so much and brought them the city's first championship (in any sport) in 50 years, and everyone who's ever cared for a sports team literally ever has felt it. All of these stories emerged entirely through people in gyms or on fields making their bodies move in specific ways on the highest level they could and how it affected their lives. If you want to pretend like none of this has any actual meaning then you can go ahead and think that. If you want to pretend nobody cares about sportball or e-sportball go ahead and think that. Be the news anchor who told the first person to beat Tetris as tribute to his father to "go outside."