I politely disagree with your opinion, as I am a firm believer that games can be considered works of art, sometimes even moreso than certain works of cinema or literature.
I would first like to point out that the three games cited above are not good examples. Waco Resurrection, while possibly a way of communicating the developer's thoughts and feelings about the event, seems more likely to be a game created for the sole purpose of gaining sales through controversial imagery.
Braid is the closest, but while it's music, level design and imagery were all art by themselves, the game tended to keep the plot to a minimum. Instead of allowing the player to experience the plot through their actions as the game unfolded, it used walls of text between levels to tell us what we were supposed to be experiencing.
Flower, in my opinion, is art, but is not a game. It's more an interactive experience, and while each of it's parts added up to create an artistic expression of each flower's quest for freedom, I never once felt that I had a goal to reach for or an overall objective.
So with that out of the way, what would I define as art? I personally, would define it as "a work created by one or more people with the aim to express an idea and/or elicit an emotion from the person experiencing it".
My first example, and my personal favourite game, is Silent Hill 2. The plot concerns a man named James Sunderland who receives a letter from his dead wife, instructing him to meet her in the town of Silent Hill. Along the way the player, as James, meets various characters and fights various monsters, all while trying to unravel the mystery of how he could have received this letter. The player is in control of James, as opposed to merely observing him such as in a film, and as a result we feel a deeper emotional connection to him as a character. Each character and monster is a reflection of part of James' shattered psyche, and as we have an active role in the plot unfolding, we have a more personal stake in the end result. Thus, the player feels the impact of each success or failure more than if we were merely watching from the sidelines.
My second example is Grand Theft Auto. It's a completely different take on the same idea, but it is something I consider art. For example, in the latest iteration of the series, Grand Theft Auto IV, we play as Niko Bellic, a European immigrant who is new to 'Liberty City' a fictional city modeled on New York. Throughout the course of the game, we discover that Niko is in Liberty City, hunting for a man who betrayed his army unit in the Yugoslav Wars. As the story unfolds, again we control Niko's actions, allowing us to become more emotionally invested in his quest for revenge and ultimately redemption. To add another layer, we eventually decide whether to execute the traitor for his crimes, or let him (and the troubled past) go. This adds emotional investment that simply would not be possible in a film, which is limited to a linear narrative.
The final way that Grand Theft Auto IV is art is that the backdrop of the game is a parody of the real New York City. It shows us a view of America that we may not have considered, and is therefore an artistic expression of how the game developers see the world, albeit exaggerated for comedic effect.
In conclusion, while I doubt this is likely to change your mind on the issue, I at least hope you will consider my views and opinions with an open mind, in the same way I considered yours, even though we respectfully disagree with each other.
