First of all, I was commenting on the quote out of context. That's why I objected to "the way it's phrased." I don't like the phrasing, whatever the context. There is no reason whatsoever that games need to give up mastery. None.

Reading comprehension, bro.

That being said, even in context, it's dumb. He's saying games need to stop "pandering to the player’s desire for mastery" to qualify as art. That's silly. I'm not an art relativist or anything, but this is an unnecessarily narrow definition of art: "a work must lack a specific thing to qualify as art." How stupid is that? The author just wants video games to be something they're not, and that's fine, but he is just saying whatever his judgmental gut is telling him to say, which is causing him to say stupid and patently incorrect things.