The Smithsonian is seeking a videogame impresario: you.

Museums are awesome. They’re full of great stuff like dinosaurs, pictures of naked people (curse you fig leaves!) and cool artifacts that come to life whenever Ben Stiller’s around. Soon, they will feature video games. Praise to the Smithsonian—the museumiest of museums—for understanding that video games deserve to hang on the walls of its art museum, right alongside works by great masters and signs pointing you to the nearest restroom.

Being that it's the fans that make a game great (or not), the exhibit's curators are asking for your help to decide which games will be included in this historical moment. The Art of Video Games won’t roll into public view until March of 2012, but everyone can vote right now on which games deserve to get hung. Here’s how it works: an advisory panel—made up of folks from places like EA, Bioware and Penny Arcade—selected an initial group of 240 games from the various eras in The History Of Fragging. In response, the Smithsonian set up a voting website where you can cast a ballot for your 80 favorites. Choices range from the likes of God of War and Diablo II to The Legend of Zelda and Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker.

The final exhibit will explore the place of video games in the broader culture and the various influences on game designers. And it will give you definitive proof that for all those hours you’ve spent staring at a screen, you haven’t been wasting your life. The next time someone gives you guff for playing too much Tetris, you can now legitimately say you haven't been goofing off; you’ve been appreciating fine art.

Oprah were is the Smithsonian at again?

Too bad video games only have 9 months to be featured in museums.

Oprah were is the Smithsonian at again?