I still remember. Daddy Ebert got so many death threats at that time, he had to recant. He deserved to be called out, yes; death threats, no. Yet some of those same people that complained went overboard in either direction. You have those that claim art until it's the game or characters they like. Then it's all "It's just game, character, or that's how the genre goes!" in a panicky and overly defensive state. The other side. meanwhile, has to double down on the art and act as if games need to be exactly like cinema, instead of being inspired by. While acting as if no other forms of gaming exists or that they are lesser games, because they don't conform to their own views.
What these assholes on all sides seem to forget, or are too young to know, is that plenty of games have messages or art since the beginning. It's just a matter of appreciating it before or until later in life.
Spec-Ops may have been the "starting" point, but it did not start getting more recognition until a few years later. The message almost no one listened to unless you played it personally, because most (this includes me too) saw it as a generic cover shooter. Messages and themes aside, that is what it is. I've made it clear I dislike The Line, but do have minor respect for at least trying something and not being afraid of politics.
Not that Brawlman will likely see this having said he'd put me on ignore before but I want to add something to this discussion
Part of the issue is the idea of the message being the most important part of a work these days. It's not a new thing this happened in theatre too and was pushed / promoted by Brecht (whose work I enjoy but I'm reliably informed he nearly destroyed the theatre industry with his ideas). The weird thing is the concern people will miss the message and no creator going "OK so what if they do? Does it matter? Let people engage as deeply as they want with the metaphysical ideas of the text and don't consider it a mark against a persons character. If they want to just have fun with the work because who are we creative, in our bubble with cares far different to the everyman to be mad that people won't engage with a message that chances are is more about something they've dealt with in their lives anyway and know is a problem and we only ever sometimes read of happening in newspapers."
People have taken up the attitude of
^that because some people and some in creative circles think the arts are how they'll save the world and will have this great influence on people. The problem being the closer to real life it becomes and the less of an allegory the less effective it ends up being at persuading people.
Worse you have people not really seemingly getting the idea of abstraction from events and just using media almost like twitter. It's not explaining their view, it's not critically thought out it's as an example from 2 different games "Brexit happening will turn the UK into a dystopian fascist hellscape". Rather than "Here's how fictional space colony leaving the united colonies slowly descended into a dystopian fascist hellscape of a colony".
It was either Oscar Wilde or Charles Dickens (I can't remember which) who in their essays on the nature of criticism were critical of theatre critics for rating plays based on agreeing with their politics or not and celebrating ones that were statements on the political issues of the day. They (Wilde or Dickens) lamented how such criticism was encouraging people to make plays about the current events more and not so much a deeper exploration of the human condition and the reasons said events happen. They said about why Shakespeare endured being due to the universally human issues explored that people could related to scenarios time and time again throughout history. Ideas of love being able to cross the bitterest if rivalries and the harm said rivalries can do to love. Ideas of peoples own greed and pride becoming their downfall.
In gaming with walking simulators there was little but the message and they were getting praise by some critics for the messaging of the titles not how well they were executed seemingly. It's this weird worry or concern that the people at the back might not get what it is about and not realising that is what good media critics should be doing, helping the audience learn about the ideas and see and understanding the symbolism. But only if said audience wants to.
You can make the case quite easily for Resident Evil 7 being about the Oil industry but few people ever have. Plenty of games do have themes and messages but they get little coverage because an easily searchable event in the new which is SEO friendly is far tastier for many companies. Why cover a game that examines the idea of the butterfly effect (the Butterfly flapping its wings one not specifically applied to time travel) and how different peoples lives impact one another when you can cover the game were the evil warlord Donaldus Trumpetous and his legion of red and orange wreak havok upon an innocent town and how some character rises up to fight them and likely get better SEO returns and therefore hits for covering it?
All of this also isn't helped by people who were pushing the idea of "Only some games (those with overt messaging) were truly art"
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