I disagree. You may not succeed in a full "victory", but salient points will usually stick in one form or another and will have minute to major impact in the future. We are a conglomeration of our experience, after all.
You disagree that internet arguments don't produce significant shifts in position? Ok, but that's certainly been my experience and that's what this research showed.
I guess it depends on what level of change you're talking about. There would be minor changes. Like, for instance, I forgot to mention ReCore, and Kvally corrected me on that. Ok, my mind "changed" about that (or I was reminded of something I knew). But that's not a shift in position. I'm not suddenly thinking, "Kvally is right; MS has been killing it lately and Sony is lame." Kvally is still full of sh1t (lol).
I'm talking about a significant shift in position in console war arguments. Think about your own. How often do you take a strong position on one side of the console wars, with another person arguing against you, and you come away from that argument with a significant shift in your position? I'll tell you what happens to me -- I go away with the same opinion I arrived with, and I'm pretty sure the other guy does, too.
We have a lot of console war discussions/arguments here. Has anyone here ever changed their console war position in a significant way, as a result of an argument? I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has. I'm not picking on this forum, but when I come here, I know I'll see the same 40 guys saying the same 40 things, over and over. Including me! I see an avatar, and I can predict the viewpoint I'm going to hear. I see plenty of console war arguments, but little or no change of position. And I believe that even the minor shifts are usually not the result of arguments but because of real-world changes (e.g., one of the companies is performing better or worse than they were before).
It depends on the topic. If something is new, like freshly poured concrete, argument may serve to shape positions. But once the concrete has set (as it has with console war stuff -- most people have established their positions years ago), I don't think arguments on the internet do much to change them.
Whatever we're doing with console war arguments -- and I enjoy them as much as the next guy -- we shouldn't kid ourselves that we're persuading anyone. Not anyone who wasn't persuaded already. I think they mostly serve to self-validate the opinions we already hold.
p.s. About your other point, when I say creative/artistic range, I'm not just talking about avante garde "art school" games like Journey or Flower. I'm talking about the whole range of creativity. The last two games I played can serve as examples: Persona 5 is incredibly creative, and Horizon is visually beautiful, creative, and risk-taking. Or think of Nier: Automata. Or Dreams, or The Last of Us, or Detroit, or Yakuza, or Gravity Rush, or Dreamfall. (Notice I didn't mention any indies.) So I'm not thinking in narrow terms about creativity and variety. I'm talking about the range of creativity within the whole catalog.