I don't like the direction Sony is taking

[DevilRising]

I play games for gameplay and concept first and foremost. Everything else, story, music, graphics, are secondary. An ugly looking game with blah music and poor to no real story, that is still a BLAST to play, is still a fun game. A game that is gorgeous or has a "great story", but plays like utter shit, is a bad game, at the end of the day.

The problem I've personally had since the PS2 generation, though it certainly got worse in the PS3 gen, is the rise of 1. games with Quick-Time Events, aka "lazy game development", where developers would rather have scene play out how they want, without actually bothering to figure out how to make it work so the player can PLAY through that scene. So instead they have the player just press the button at a couple keep points to FEEL like they're playing. And 2., more and more "narrative focused" games basically trying their best to be "Playable Movies". I'm sorry, but a game like The Last of Us, if it wasn't for the storyline that some seem to feel is "genius", most people would likely see it as a very "meh" game that is more style than substance. It's the kind of game you play through once to see the story, maybe go back to get "trophies", but then never touch again, because you've beaten it once, and it wasn't that fun to begin with. Maybe not ALL gamers feel that way, but that is how a lot of these modern games are. You play them once to see this "great" storyline, and once you've seen the ending, you don't feel like ever playing the game again, because the actual GAME itself, wasn't all that fun to play through.

And not to just pick on one game, but if The Last of Us were a movie, and not a game? It would be either a direct to video film, or a box office bomb, because the story itself ISN'T all that great. But many gamers are far more forgiving than movie audiences, and have far lower standards in what they consider "great story" or "great acting". The vast majority of modern games that try to be movies, in fact, AS movies, would be direct to video crap. Not blockbuster successes at the theater. And that's not that hard to understand, when to stop to consider that while there are a LOT of garbage movies out there, filmmakers are honed in specifically on telling a good story, providing character growth, having good acting, providing dramatic tension, etc. etc. Game developers, regardless of who they bring on board, are not.

To me, I don't play games to get a "movie like" experience out of it. I play games to play GAMES. I want an interactive experience. I want to get lost in the game world, and I want the gameplay to be FUN and functional to use, so that I want to keep playing. When a game keeps taking breaks to show me "movie scenes", or has me do all of these NEVER fun and pointless QTE scenes, it is usually very jarring, and takes you OUT of the game world experience. To me, that shit should be a lot more seamless. Developers should be talented enough to come up with boss battles where YOU, the player, actually fights the enemy, and everything the character DOES in the battle, is actually something YOU the player, can do within the game's engine. You should never be left, as the player, watching a cut scene or QTE, feeling like "why can't I do that in the game?"