How bad is MGS4 for the image of our hobby?

[jman8]

Garcian Smith said:

jman8 said:
How could MGS4 be bad for gaming? What game according to you wannabe videogame elitists is good for gaming? I pity the fool who apparently thinks 99.999999% of videogames don't have any merit. Why even play games?

 

Let me make it clear that I'm talking more about the fanbase that the MGS games inspire, rather than the games themselves. I actually enjoyed the first two MGS games on the same level that I enjoy, say, the Indiana Jones movies: as entertainment, rather than as art. What people shouldn't be doing is confusing the two, because that's what's hurting gaming as a medium.

Who exactly is trying to push the games as art agenda? Yeah, there's some, but not many. Kojima himself has said his games aren't art. The fanbase is big and loyal because the games are great games, with interesting stories and novel gameplay. You're clearly blind if you don't see that games like MGS are pushing the boundaries of what games can be. People in this thread and elsewhere who are dismissing MGS don't have the vision to see that. They would rather pigeonhole the medium and have all of us play only games like Mario Galaxy.