Mike Barthel, writing for The Awl:
These are the lines on which the critical battle-lines have been drawn: narrative-heavy AAA games get pushed to a mainstream audience as breathtaking advances in realism and size; critics respond by championing the difficult and the handmade. Each side represents a competing argument about how games can justify themselves as art. AAA games, and consumer game reviewers, use the logic of Hollywood blockbusters: big budgets, big successes, big names, big pictures…
…Indie games, on the other hand, are justified in the same terms as mid-century modernist art, especially poetry. They are not for the masses, but for a discerning elite. They are intentionally out of step with current trends. They are by single creators, generally, and those creators are lauded as heroic…
…Both of these approaches feel incomplete.
Great, thoughtful piece.