"games as an art form" was truly disastrous for the industry. it is totally okay to make your game have a lot of artistic value, but it also needs to justify its existence as a game instead of some other type of media, like a movie for instance. if all you do is move the stick around and push a button every now and then in between exposition and cutscenes it's almost like your game would be better as a movie... just something to watch instead of play.

@susie visual novels aren't games. they're visual novels. that's why a lot of people have started calling particularly cutscene-heavy games "interactive films" lol.