Yes, it confirmed that the key was conveying a complex and intentional artistic vision through the gameplay. If a game is effective, but removing the gameplay makes it ineffective, then, as a game, it's art.

Ikaruga and Journey should be mentioned in the same conversation. More recently, Undertale and Death Stranding, pick up similar conceptual throughlines ("choice" and "connection", respectively), albeit in less elegant ways, owing to their expanded scope.