What do you think of art in games?

AND WHY?

I'm thinking here specifically at noisms over at Monsters and Manuals, whom I would consider the head of the Puritan Iconoclasts, those who think the need for art if games is overblown.

- It costs a bomb (which keeps the prices of development high and arguably keeps poorer creators out of the market).

- It stops people imagining stuff for themselves. Why do you need it in a game communicated almost entirely through words?

- It seals the 'vision' of what a thing is in one particular way, the 'approved' idea of a thing.

- Other arguments I forgot.

Personally I find myself, by intuition and desire, almost entirely on the Cavalier Idolater side - I fucking love art in games and prioritise it when I can.

HOWEVER

My arguments for doing so are less coherent than the Puritans against.

SO -

What do you think, and why do you think it?