Are video games a form of art? Many avid video gamers would be quick respond a “resounding” yes. For those who are skeptical, they can go visit the “Art of Video Games” exhibit that will be organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C. in 2012.

The exhibit is expected to outline the history of video games over a 40 year period as an “artistic medium.” The particularity of this display is that the video games chosen to be exposed will be the result of voting. The Smithsonian as put up a website where video game fans can go and vote on which video games should be displayed in the exhibition, according to The Washington post. Curator Chris Melissinos, who is also a video game collector and founder of Pat Pixels, was joined by industry leaders and journalists to put together a ballot of 240 games that will be voted on. Voters can then choose up to 80 games based on console type and from 5 different video game eras.

MTV News reports that the five categories will be broken down by time period. Era 1 will be called “Start!” and will cover the 1970s to early 1980s. Era 2 is “8-Bit” which will be from the early 1980s to 1990s. The third Era is “Bit Wars!” which will span the early 1990s to the mid 1990s. Era 4, dubbed “Transition” will take into account the mid 1990s to the early 2000s and finally the fifth era “Next Generation” will cover the early 2000s to today.

The Art of Video Games website is encouraging voters to pick the eighty games that “will be represented in the exhibition. Remember, this is an art exhibition, so be sure to vote for games that you think are visually spectacular or boast innovative design!” Video game aficionados will need to register to vote, to avoid spam voting. Due to traffic the website has repeatedly crashed since its launch, but is working as of 9 am Wednesday. It has already had 250,000 unique views, 19,000 registered users and 240,000 votes according to museum spokeswoman Laura Baptiste for The Washington post.

The exhibit will run from March 16, 2012 to September 30, 2012.