This is something that bugs me:

- Why the assumption that in order for something to be "art" it has to be all deep and profound?
- Why the assumption that something has to touch you on an emotional level in order for it's creator to have expressed him/herself?
- Why does a game narrative have to sucker punch you emotionally in order to qualify as artistic narrative?
- Why the broad assumption that something that makes you laugh can't also make you think?
- Do games have to do these things in order to live up to their so-called potential? Why?

This is a large part of why the Walking Dead discussion got to be so cloying. This type of clamoring for some sort of legitimacy is completely missing the point. It's especially baffling coming from Garnett, a guy who clearly loves his electronic dance music... a genre that is often broadly labeled as shallow.

The art world, for it's part, had this amazing thing known as the 20th century, which saw many artists and groups of artists deconstructing and challenging many of the notions of art that are now being held up as the supposed virtues of art-house indie video games.

Creating this false distinction between DmC and Proteus is like saying that Dark Side of the Moon can't be art because rock and roll doesn't qualify.

Could the mainstream audience stand to tolerate a broader range of game experiences? Sure, but holding up this one particular ideal of what an artistic game ought to be is inherently broader, it's a narrower range of experience, one that leaves little room for game creators to say anything that isn't in line with some black haired teenage slam poetry notion of what it means to be deep.