2012 was an important year for video games. Prime examples of the form were curated for the first time by museums such as the Smithsonian, the Museum of the Moving Image, and the Museum of Modern Art—with the MoMA even going so far as to add video games to its permanent collection. This is not to say that videogames were not art beforehand, or even to accept that “art” is the best term to use in describing video games. Video games are still, on some level, “ones and zeroes.” And they always will be. But it’s nonetheless culturally significant that a curator from an institution as hallowed as the MoMA finally said that they are also “ones and zeroes that get to form whole spatial structures and whole experiences.”

Reflecting on 2012 in video game terms, I first tried to make a standard list—something like a pure and simple “top ten” games or something more functionally specific like the “ten best indie games” or “ten most ridiculous shooters.” But the timing of the MoMA’s and the Smithsonian’s decisions, spread throughout this year as they were, stuck with me because I think that video games are at an important crossroads in their history right now. The current console generation is aging fast, with next-generation consoles like the Wii U doing their best to revive industry stalwarts like Nintendo in fits and starts Microsoft and Sony’s plays to capture a changing marketplace once again are widely expected to come out some time next year. Activision’s iconic “Call of Duty” series broke yet another sales record this year, but analysts still wonder if the franchise is slowing down. And the social game icon Zynga rose to prominence almost as rapidly as it fell from its position atop the Facebook app food-chain, casting doubt on whether or not free-to-play social and mobile gaming is actually the alternative many hoped it would be to the perilous financial climate of AAA game development. And then, of course, there is the indie scene, which is as weird and vibrant as it has ever been.

The games I chose for this list therefore show some of modern video games’ greatest strengths, and perhaps more importantly, their future direction. Some of the games in this list are flawed, even deeply so. But part of their power is how they realize their inherent shortcomings and either work within their current limits or strive to overcome them. It’s an exciting time for video games because, as Ian Bogost told me when I spoke to him about Borderlands 2, we are reaching a new “level of sophistication with games”—both in terms of how they are understood and played, and also ultimately how they are made.

So without further ado, here are my top ten games of 2012—the titles that showed me how games can be works of art in the year that video games officially became works of art. Well, for everyone but Roger Ebert.