Debate for an art game

I was reading Serious Games by Ritterfeld, Cody, and Vorderer and was think about motivation to play a game. Why play a game with a 'message'? I came up with 3 ways to market it.

• Ninja the message in.
• Declare this is a serious game.
• Call it an art game.

Ninja the message in:  For this to work, the game would have to stand on its own as a good, solid game. While a great way to get a message 'out there', it requires a very solid game, well polished and marketed. And this simply isn't what my project is about, its too much of a detour.
Declare this is a serious game: Again, the game would have to be a solid game, well polished. On top of that, the 'message' would have to be iron-clad, here-is-my-message kind of thing. Again not really what I want to do.
Call it an Art Game: This means it is not commercialized, does not have to sell itself as a game for masses to pick up. It does not required masses of polish and can be far more ambiguous. This method would allow me to concentrate on the design of the mechanics and gameplay, rather than spending all the time creating cutesy graphics to just get someone to pick the game up in the first place.
Now the question arises, am I allowed to do an art game? It is a Bachelor of Design, after all - not fine arts. I suppose the argument would lead to 'designing of mechanics'.
:D