In another part of their special on Art Games, Artificial has a list of notables that they warn "is not in any way exhaustive but meant as an inspiration." Some of these you've seen here before, such as Alison Mealey's Unreal Art made using custom maps, bots, code, and creativity, and Samarost, the predecessor of the highly-praised and beautiful Samarost 2.
In a later contribution to the series, musician and media critic Mathias Fuchs explains the fundamental distinction between art games and commercial video games writing, "...there are fundamental differences between games as commodities and art games. The art world seeks to find new media and new platforms of artistic discourse, explore new ways of making art, and also includes a large number of people dedicated to education, criticism and preservation of what has been made to date... The game industry, however, is mostly composed of technologically challenged programmers and designers, and exists to attract its audience for the sake of commercialized entertainment."
While I would agree with much of Fuchs' assertion, the notion that commercial games never seek to find new media and new platforms of artistic discourse is dubious. I think there are still game designers who take risks, like the oft-praised Keita Takahashi and Katamari Damacy, or Japanese artist Toshio Iwai's commercially available sound and sight creation "game" Electroplankton. Though they are perhaps commercially obligated to provide an experience that is attractive to a larger audience, how is this any different than the genre conventions placed on -- or chosen by -- commercial filmmakers? Creating something fun and exciting, in addition to beautiful or contemplative, is indeed part of the art of video games.
Here is the entire series:
Special: Art Games - An Introduction
Special: Art Games - Recommendations
Special: Art Games - Generating Art from a Computer Game
Special: Art Games - From an Artist's Perspective
