There's a decent argument to be made that games can't be art, due to the nature of game mechanics themselves. I don't think I buy that argument, but I do think a true art-game would have to do something quite different with game mechanics than we've seen up to this point.

Looking at your comments, I think my original post talked too much about narrative and not enough about gameplay—probably because narrative is what I've always latched onto / cared about in games I've played before.

re: game design as an art/skill: might be interesting to look at German board game creators in this regard. They take their stuff super seriously; there's some Wired article I read that interviewed the creator of Settlers of Catan, and it was interesting how much thought he put into every detail of the game.

Thanks for the Greg Weir stuff; I hadn't seen his name before.

Possibly relevant to your interests: Anna Anthropy's blog highlights a bunch of stuff coming out of the weird/indie/artsy game scene, with some thoughts on game design itself and frequent snark.

also I just spent like ten minutes trying to find this one really interesting IF game I liked, but I failed. I'll send the link your way if I can find it (and probably many more; I think I've got a pile of relevant bookmarks lying around on my laptop).