That's certainly true, but I think this approach becomes overly literal, especially with more story-focused mediums: films and novels for example aren't being perceived when they're sitting on our shelves, outside their front covers. On the other hand, we have a whole host of performance art (including music) too that literally can't be perceived when not in practice. As a side point, the interactivity we have is often too viewed as an implementation of the artist.
As an example, when ME3 came out, we had reviewers come out and say that they were against changing the ending on artistic integrity. Fans pointed out that ME was essentially a choose your own adventure book, but they countered that technically-speaking every decision was Bioware's, not ours, even in that context. In effect, every decision we are given was the creative decision of an artist, in some capacity. Bioware may have given us a number of different ways to interact with Garrus Vakarian, as an example (more than we typically associate with other mediums), but even in the context of not talking to him all, pushing him paragon, or pushing him renegade, we had some artist involved laying out the dialogue for Garrus, the dialogue for Shepard, and how he feels the scenario should play out. The sheer amount of artistic control in terms of writing characters, setting, and the overall narrative makes the chess comparison a bit more difficult.
To be clear, I don't recall that being pushed as the objective truth (will double check). It was put out as being an option which the creator could view as making for an improved experience. In describing naked fine sculpting, the point was not necessarily to illustrate that all naked sculpting is objectively better, but to illustrate that there is an entire artistic medium where it's looked on as a positive. It's meant to provide credence to the idea that it's a legitimate option for an artist.
In other words, I think there's a difference between saying "but what's the point of making them naked?", which is why people point out a long-standing/highly respected practice, and saying "Aristic integrity be damned, I don't want naked people in my games". I generally fall into the latter camp.
So far I agree with what you've said, and that's a very interesting way of looking at it (referring to your second paragraph). Not really a way I'd thought about it tbh.
To be clear, I don't recall that being pushed as the objective truth (will double check). It was put out as being an option which the creator could view as making for an improved experience. In describing naked fine sculpting, the point was not necessarily to illustrate that all naked sculpting is objectively better, but to illustrate that there is an entire artistic medium where it's looked on as a positive. It's meant to provide credence to the idea that it's a legitimate option for an artist.
In other words, I think there's a difference between saying "but what's the point of making them naked?", which is why people point out a long-standing/highly respected practice, and saying "Aristic integrity be damned, I don't want naked people in my games". I generally fall into the latter camp.
In regards to the artist analogy, I understand the intent behind it and the point is well taken. But, in my opinion it still doesn't really deal with my point, because it doesn't itself validate why nudity would be in any specific situation. I'm saying I specifically feel (personally), that forced nudity in the Cassandra case was uncalled for and seemed to be done for less-than-noble reasons. Since I personally concede that nudity can be artistically beneficial and respectable (as people might not have yet realized, I'm pretty far from a prude rofl), I just don't think it usually is in video games. That's why I take umbrage with the art example, because although it demonstrates that one point you mention, I feel a secondary intention was to say "nudity is artistic itself, unless you have a good reason for saying it's not artistic, then it's a positive" which is not uncommon to hear in these types of discussions. I may have been mistaken, but that's why I was jumping on that comparison.
In regards to the objective truth thing, since I'm a bit of a philosophy nerd, I tend to assume when people say "x is true", they're meaning objectively true. I was referring to Gwynedd's discussion specifically on that one (which is what brought up all these other discussions, as I replied to it and others then replied to me).
hit on this a bit above, but I'm not sure how much benefit we get from the distinction, going back to traditionally story-focused media. With a book, the words might exist, but the medium is inherently more subjective since the story can only call so many details to the mind's eye, at which point the viewer makes up the rest. Likewise, the book sitting on our shelf or the movie we watch isn't really doing anything, until we interact with it, at which point our interpretive approach takes hold.
Putting that aside too, we run into issues like the Halo example, which does go out of its way to render aesthetically amazing cut-scenes, which are within the full control of the writer. As a player, you have two options: watch the cut-scene or don't. And in Bioware's case, they make a substantially greater effort at implementing companion characters with story arcs, designing the general world, and providing plot points for players.
I think, for what you're suggesting to apply, the developers would have to feel little to no control over the story/experience they're shaping and I'm not sure how well that works even in the context of Bioware games. Even going back to your Mordin example, some writer put together the overall arching plot on who Mordin was, how he felt regarding certain matters, how he would respond to Shepard's inputs, as well as how his story could potentially conclude.
I might be misunderstanding what you're saying but I'll do my best to address it as I understand it.
It's true that, given any choice we do make in the game, what we witness is created by the developers and is fully intentional (barring bugs and whatnot). This means that in one sense it is like art, that they have control over how things play out. However, my original point of bringing up this distinction was to back up my claim that a Bioware game even has more in common with your average board game than your average piece of art. Sure, it has in some sense elements of both, and to compare it directly to either would be a waste of time because they're not the same. But, the way a Bioware game is 'consumed' ultimately is very similar to the way a board game is 'consumed', but not much at all like the way a piece of art is.
It's the difference in how we consume it, not how they created it, that in my opinion brings Bioware games closer to board games than art. Bioware games in specific, not unlike board games, intensely focus on player choice and control. While games can't give ultimate control generally speaking, and usually have more restrictions that board games (this is pretty much by default true if there's any narrative whatsoever), it is still ultimately very akin to the way an average board game works.
As I said I may be misunderstanding, communication isn't always a strong point of mine x.x.
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