Are video games art or do they just contain art? I'm leaning towards the latter. People don't call chess art even though it contains a board and pieces that can easily constitute art. The "game" itself is not actually art, even though the surrounding things can be. Video games, like all games, are predicated on player input. The gameplay (player input) is what makes the game and is the most important part of it, and properly speaking I consider that when you talk about a "game" you are talking about gameplay. When you talk about the story, music, or visuals you are talking about something secondary the game has that does not make it a game.
One might bring up visual novels as the story is kind of the point more like in literature but I do not consider them real games because the player input that is essential to making something a game is so shallow, making it akin to a choose your own adventure book. The gameplay has to have precedence over or at the very least equal importance to the other elements for it to be a game, that's why books aren't games just because you need to turn the pages.
This matters because the reason people call games art is mostly because of things outside the gameplay, i.e. story, aesthetics, and music. But the core of video games is gameplay, that is the fundamental element that makes a video game a video game and you cannot have a video game without it. How much you may value other elements is irrelevant, this is a basic definitional thing. You don't hear people say the player input of a video game constitutes art any more than you hear people say kicking a soccer ball around is art in the same way a painting is. So the core of video games being player input (like all games) means they are not art themselves but rather simply contain art in their secondary elements.