It took decades for film to become accepted as a legitimate art form.
Gaming has...let's say a really long way to go.
A useful distinction that is made in film studies is to divide the history of film (along with analysis and criticism) into "movies," "film," and "cinema."
1. "Movie" - nature of industrial organization, technology, infrastructure of filmmaking; key feature is the commodification of work.
2. "Film" - the politics of film; how it relates to us on a general level (sociopolitical) and on a personal or individual level (psychoanalytic/psychopolitics, though I hate that term). Films seen as products of particular moments in time, with obvious and not so obvious political messages. Just as important to understand what isn't said as what is said.
3. "Cinema" the aesthetics of film. Realism vs expressionism; theatricality versus neorealism; genre vs auteur; editing techniques, blocking, use of color, etc etc.
I think the same sort of categorization can perhaps be applied to video games. For lack of better names, I'll keep it simple.
1. "Industry" - games are made almost entirely by large groups of individuals under a corporate banner which seeks, above all else, to make a profit. There are different forms, but in general the nature of the industry means that quality comes secondary. Technology, like in film, doesn't necessarily make things better or worse.
2. "Political" - generally speaking, games are seen as a form of leisure, mostly for children and young men. This is slowly, inexorably changing, but it will remain that way for a while. On a mass level, it is part of a post-industrial capitalist pop culture, where nostalgia and recognizable icons (re: successful branding) are part of a shared, mass culture controlled by corporations with a stranglehold on their IP.
3. "Interactivity" - video games' sufficient and necessary condition, visual interactivity shapes makes a video game a video game and not something else. Games mostly pit people against one another in a test of reflexes, basic strategy, calculation, memorization, and fairly simplistic problem solving.
So, you have corporations shoving out a product meant mostly for children that has, as of late, been using changes in technology to build on the spectacle rather than the level of interactivity of games.
A somewhat helpful parallel is to see video games as stuck in the "Golden Age of Hollywood" phrase right:
- Technology (3D graphics - widescreen, sound, color) of the art has matured.
- Large developers/studios (EA/Ubisoft/Activision/major Japanese studios - MGM/WarnerBros/Paramount/etc) push out varying shades of garbage, with the occasional gem. Products are big and flashy, and the general public eats it up.
- Aping another art form (theater in the case of film; film in the case of games).
- Money men with the last say.
This isn't a perfect analogy, but I think it generally holds true. Personally, I don't hold out much hope a "New Hollywood" or "New Wave" renaissance. A key difference is that most indie developers are falling into the same sort of trap. They're recycling nostalgia for sprites, recycling game mechanics, and generally trying to recreate older games on a much smaller budget. Those who say they are trying to move the genre "forward" are like those conceptual artists who replaced technique and form with half-baked politics.
If AAA trite, Gone Home, and half-finished early access and greenlight games are what the future will hold, burn it all down.