Worried about possibly too much gameplay in MGS4.

[greenmedic88]

That's what independent cinema is for.

You know, all those movies that rarely ever gross millions at the box office. Those extreme niche movies that generally speak to a limited audience.

There are games out there like this that focus on what are not the typical mainstays of gaming; game play and graphics.

Yes, there is a portion of gamers who value story, character development, atmosphere and all the standard things within film making that makes good films good, but this is not the typical player. And because of this, it is rarely the focus of any given game, particularly for those that are being designed with the idea in mind to be a potential million seller.

That's just the nature of game making.

Budget plays a large hand in this as well, and not just from a dollar allotment, but from a time standpoint as well (although longer development time is synonymous with larger budget, assuming you are using a full sized development team).

In the case of games like Heavenly Sword, it's clear that a significant portion of the budget went towards hiring the acting talent (and score), going so far as to have a recognizable name in the CGI acting field on board as the "dramatic director."

It's also the reason why the game wasn't twice as long because the script was essentially written like a standard 3 act film script. The only reason why we didn't end up with a 2 and a half hour game is because the game play sequences were like watching unedited fight scenes during all action sequences.

So what was that result? The majority of reviews panned it for being too short. It would seem that most players (the mass gaming consumer) value a longer game over greater depth when it comes to story crafting. Deviate from what sells, and you may end up with a very expensive production game that does not produce a profit or even recoup the development budget.

When that happens, you're almost guaranteed to see a "safer" (using tried and true plots, character archetypes, etc.) project as a follow up. This is likely the reason why there is so little variation within the Final Fantasy series. It's fans like to see specific things in these games and when the developers step too far out of bounds, the fans react negatively.

Ironically, the biggest leap the FF series ever took was for the Spirits Within movie, and everyone knows how that turned out. Nothing wrong with the production, concept or execution, it just had little to nothing in common with the Final Fantasy universe "feel." And FF fans generally hated it.

But there are still good games out there that focus on plot, script, dialog, character development, etc (all the elements of good stories), but the market for players who place priority on this is still pretty limited.