Watched an interesting video recently deconstructing what it means to have good taste in video games and looking at the status hierarchies that exist in game criticism.
In summary, there is a type of cultural capital that comes with displaying knowledge of games and their contexts, but this capital is not paid equally by all games.
Some games are considered more prestigious than others. There is a broad spectrum (not a binary, a spectrum) of games that has "cold culture" on one end and "hot culture" on the other.
Cold culture is associated more with what is expected from the upper classes. It refers to games that call for more solitary experiences, with analysis and commentary and a need for a certain background to be fully appreciated.
This is the category where you can put games like Disco Elysium, Outer Wilds, Planescape: Torment, Myst, Civilization, Expedition 33, and so on. The "intellectual" types of games that easily lend themselves to video essays that critics can use to flex.
On the other end there are the "hot culture" games of the masses. The kinds of games you usually play with others with more of a focus on immediate pleasure.
In this category you can find games like Mario Kart, FIFA, Madden, Counter-Strike, Just Dance, arcade games, and practically all mobile or idle games.
These are often the most popular games that sell the most copies but they're not considered very intellectual and don't give you as much gaming capital.
The same prestige gap can also be seen in other mediums and follows similar class associations where the works coded as being more "upper class" tend to be considered more artistically legitimate.
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