Game designer Ernest Adams has written an excellent analysis of the types of products which players view as "highbrow" computer games. I commiserate with his dismay of the attitudes of many of the people who wrote in to argue that games should not be high art because they do their job for them and that should be enough (what a short-sighted, small-minded view). I'm also saddened that there are still so few truly great artistic efforts in the annals of interactive entertainment. Those titles which Adams received from a call in a column at Gamasutra are the same ones that keep coming up again and again and again. While this attests to their universal acceptance as the best of the best, it's not encouraging.
He also discusses some of the reasons why to date it's been so difficult to produce highbrow games. In all, his analysis is excellent, and worth a read.
