> It's a double standard because people don't think of code as creative.
It's more like the code is the scaffolding and support, the art and experience is the core product. When you're watching a play you don't generally give a thought to the technical expertise that went into building the stage and the hall and its logistics, you are only there to appreciate the performance itself - even if said performance would have been impossible to deliver without the aforementioned factors.
I would disagree, code is as much the product in games as the assets.
Games always have their game engine touch and often for indie games it's a good part of the process. See for example Clair Obscur here which clearly has the UE5 caracter hair. It's what the game can and cannot do and shapes the experience.
Then the gameplay itself depend a lot on how the code was made and iterations on the code also shape the gameplay.
To further this: You can even feel the org structure in games.
- Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth clearly had two completely decoupled teams working on the main game and the open world design respectively
- Cyberpunk 2077 is filled with small shoeboxes of interactable content