Hearthstone exhibited as modern art at the V&A Museum in London

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ars.AD.queue.push(["xrailTop", {sz:"300x251", kws:["bottom"], collapse: true}]);LONDON—Last Friday, I found myself in Room 48a of the Victoria and Albert Museum, in the shadow of some of the finest and most valuable works of art in the world: giant 500-year-old paintings by Rafael that would later be turned into tapestries that adorn the lower walls of the Sistine Chapel. In the centre of the room, simple wooden benches have been arranged like pews—but instead of an altar or some other religious transfixion, they face a brightly lit stage. On the stage is a long table, and at each end of the table there is a Surface tablet. Sitting behind one tablet is a professional e-sports gamer; behind the other tablet... oh, wait, that's me.

We're playing Hearthstone, Blizzard's rather popular collectible card game (CCG). The latest expansion, The Grand Tournament, has just been released—and honestly, while I played the game for a few weeks last year, I'm not very good. I should've done some more research about the new mechanics (Inspire and Joust). The professional gamer beats me easily. With a little polite applause from the audience, we get up and shake hands in front of the table. "Good game," I say, and then mumble something about drawing bad cards: the easiest (and lamest) excuse that you can always fall back on after losing at a CCG.

The Victoria and Albert Museum (the V&A), one of the world's largest (and best) museums of decorative arts and design, is definitely not the usual locale for an e-sports event. Once a month, on the last Friday of every month, the museum hosts a special late-night exhibition. In this case, the exhibition was called Pushing Buttons. "Explore the rebellious world of altgames through to the massive cultural phenomenon of e-sports," exhorted the promotional flyer—and so, of course, I did.