This is something I don't quite understand and is probably the reason video games will always be seen as entertainment and not art. No other medium, when we look at films or especially books and paintings would have this. Maybe because it can't be changed on the whim, only with a new release, re-press, after it left the publishing house.
In video games though, you see character descriptions changed because someone on Twitter was offended. You see hidden jokes removed completely because a certain community felt offended over something only 0,0001% would ever found. You see in-game, in-universe artwork changed because people felt offended over police/gay mockery. You see a Confederate flag changed, you see anti Xi Jinping poster changed. In German versions of (historical) games you wouldn't see any swastikas.
Developers have often so little respect for the art they created originally that it is sometimes hard to take them serious when they talk of their "vision" of a game. There's no """vision""". The only vision you have is to make as many people buy your game and make as much money as possible. And if it means to removed or alter something than they happily do that.
I'm not as familiar with the other mediums you mentioned to comment on whether or not they suffer the same fate of post-release changes.
Though I do know that in the case of movies director's cuts are often the result of the theatrical cut not being what the director wanted. Same thing with music and their radio edits and full versions (I forgot what the name for the latter is).
Or how some songs have been truncated for their music video versions (eg. Smells Like Teen Spirit, Sweet Child O' Mine; I've never heard a music video version that I preferred over the original take, the extra repetitions/lengthier solos make the song IMO.)
Obviously they're not entirely the same types of changes, but ultimately media gets adjusted to better suit its audience; the goal is to deliver the media to the audience in a way that is most suitable (according to the wisdom of whoever's producing/releasing it).
Long ago, I too got caught up in the idea of videogames being (acknowledged as) art and all that jazz. But over time I realized it doesn't matter if they're considered art or not; what matters is what they mean to me.
Art in itself is a fairly nebulous term and my own take on it is that art means something where the skill of the maker/s can be observed, dissected and appreciated. So basically, if I can't appreciate the thing at the moment, it's not art to me, though it's entirely possible I'll learn to appreciate it over time.
And to lead into my final point, let me use an example: God Hand was made with Shinji Mikami's passionate direction and vision (his talk about it on
Archipel is a must watch if you have any interest) and yet, the game has two separate versions:
Another game that has similar differences is Ninja Gaiden. The JP version does not have decapitation for cultural reasons (most JP versions of games omit decapitations). Somehow Itagaki managed to override this in NGII but I don't remember how he did it lol.
So my point is that things get abridged all the time and sometimes you might be upset about it because of the reason behind the change/s, other times it might be a good idea to ask yourself if you can still enjoy the essence of the game or if those changes really matters that much to you.
P.S. I do dislike some stuff, like the Tokyo Mirage Sessions changes, not so much because it's pandering to SJW ideals but because the message of the game suffers somewhat with it too. Still, I did enjoy my playthrough on the Wii U but never saw fit to get it again on Switch and their refusal to revert the changes is part of it.
