I skimmed over some replys so I'll probably repeat stuff but I want to argue against the "photo realism in gaming is boring" due to "real life being boring".
Persoanly I find real life amazing to look at! why? because I see how detailed and truely amazing its creation actually is. Yes you can see textures, but do you really see them? you can see colours but are you really looking at the colours? Your post only shows how shalow your perception is of the world around you.
Real life is crazely detailed to the utmost limit! and man kind strives to reflect its creativity through his/her own creativity. As real life is the limit to which any creative work can be judged artists strive to reach this limit of photo realism. Its like winning first place, theres nothing higher then first place. As theres nothing higher then complete realism.
So yes you can join the army to experience a real life army experience lol, but you cant then just turn off that experience, get up off your couch and go and eat pizza. The endeavour of bringing real life to your finger tips while being in the comfort of your home is a huge goal in the gaming industry.
I really enjoy medieval themed games and racing games, but I have no means of going back in time to relive a knights life, and nore do I have the money to buy a ferrari and race around some of the world best race tracks. But realistic graphics can turn thoes desires into some what of a reality.
Mankind just seems to want to replicate the things around him in any way he can, artifical intelegence, robots simulating real life creatures, virtual worlds, paintings of perfect scenes.
If at first you don't succeed, you fail
