I'm reading through the comments here before reading the actual Atlantic story, so I didn't see the author's name until you mention it:

> Bogost's statement is akin to calling the Amiga 500 the only home computer to be called beautiful.

Oh! That's Ian Bogost, who is a great writer of how our relationship with technology can evoke truth and beauty. The canonical work is his deep dive on the Atari 2600 and the early 1980s revolution "Racing the Beam":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racing_the_Beam

Bogost wrote a number of books while working with MIT, arguing that video games were a new medium of communication back when that was a controversial point of view.

(I will need to re-subscribe to The Atlantic at some point. It seems churlish, but it's been an expensive year...)