You say that as if it is a pejorative. In many ways, the demo scene is more demanding of excellence than game development.

Yes, there are differences in priorities between demos and games, but by creating a technically excellent demo that is also a game that "plays really well", they've shown that they are "demodevs" who are also "gamedevs".

And art comes in many forms. Besides the obvious visual/animation/audio artistic aspects of demos, the awe felt at the technical superiority of a great software demo is very similar to the inspirational effects of great physical architecture, but not everyone feels that emotion.

The Taj Mahal is a physical "demo" that demonstrates great "technical superiority", but even people who don't care for architecture tend to recognize it as art.