Chris Crawford - On Game Design

Chris Crawford's book On Game Design has an interesting chapter titled Creativity: The missing ingredient. In this chapter Crawford explains how "Nowadays, games design itself is a cold mechanical process requiring little in the way of creativity." He is not referring to game designers as not being creative people but that "The problem is that in the long grind from inspiration to product, the most creative aspects of the design are ground away until the final result is little more than yesterday's big hit with a few minor embellishments" He describes that as budgets have gone up designers are less likely to take risks than they would do with smaller budgets and thus the creativity of games is affected, money making over innovation and creativity. After-all a majority of games are made to make money. Does this mean they have the right to earn an artist status?