Jimquisition about movie comparisons, crunch and TLOU2

[The_Liquid_Laser]

The Fury said:

DonFerrari said:

I love how much hate cinematic and heavy story telling gets on vgc.

"it isn't videogame"

"the focus should be gameplay"

"photorealism is bad"

I think this is very much a sign of the times. The idea of Cinematic gameplay was a very Gen 7 thing. Heavy set piece, story driven games with Uncharted being onf of the biggest and The Last of Us being a swan song to the gen, games with only 5-6 hour campaigns. The gameplays were usually quite generic and the stories not much different but they had their place. For all it's dislike and rather generic story, I liked Detroit: Become Human as it looked great and the way it was played and how you could form a story was well done, it really is just a 'cinematic' game.

Of course we as a community also hate Battle Royales and they are the bread winners at the moment, games with literally zero story, so what do we know?

I think you are right, but I also understand how he feels.  I've seen plenty of genres fade that used to be at the height of popularity.  Early arcade games were mostly shmups and maze games like Pac Man.  They hardly even make these games anymore.  Gen 3 and 4 were mostly about 2D platformers.  They still make these games, but they don't get the budget and flagship attention like they used to.  Gen 5 was when turn based RPGs were at their height.  Now I'm told that turn based combat is outdated, and of course these types of games don't get the budget and flagship attention that they used to.  Not even Final Fantasy wants to be a turn based RPG anymore.  It's only natural that cinematic action games are going to fade from popularity, because that is what happens to all popular genres.  But if this is your favorite genre then it can be pretty disappointing.

The only genre that never seems to fade in popularity is open world games.  If anything they seem to grow in popularity.  In Gen 3 and 4 open world meant Zelda 1 and Link to the Past, both very popular in their day.  In Gen 5, the Final Fantasy games became open world once you got an airship.  In Gen 6, GTA3 exploded in popularity and GTA popularity still seems to be growing.  MMOs like WoW are essentially gigantic open world games with lots to do and of course lots of other players.  And more recently, people love Skyrim.  People love Minecraft.  People love Breath of the Wild.  For whatever reason, gamers can't seem to get enough of open world games as long as they are well made.