Yeah, it's called shovelware. So much of it this gen.

David Cage is the extreme opposite to David Jaffe,. I'm a Jaffe guy.

David Jaffe: "I don't give a shit about game mechanics and you know what else? You don't need a fucking gun just to be successful".

Here is one area in which Sony is leaps and bounds ahead of Nintendo.

Some companies have taken the no-gun direction too far, and haven't found a decent middle-ground. I found that Skyward Sword, despite its flaws, got very close to emotion, story and score to where I expect Nintendo to move closer to.

These kinds of games are important for the variety of a platform, even if they don't sell so much (Heavy Rain sold 2.09M, much less than the bigger IPs), these are the kinds of offerings that keep the industry alive. The industry can't survive forever on just fun, fun, fun, otherwise we would be watching Mary Popins 5 at the movies this year.

The movie industry is like the games industry, only with 90-some years of experience. If movies are being produced with constantly new IPs with varying themes and deep, captivating story and theme, the same is an eventuality for video games. Look at what games caused in the movie industry? We have seen so many remakes in the past few years, leading to a flooding of poor content in Hollywood. The reverse influence needs to happen, where an infusion of Hollywood's top quality vision can be some day found in games.

Even if they are just games, and have a layer of interactivity, it doesn't mean they aren't to be as deep and as compelling as an excellent movie or drama. That is the future of video games, when they can take their full form that way and become the mature segment of media they are meant to be.

Which is essentially saying that a game is getting in the way of making his game an animated movie.

down to specific styles of gaming... not...

but I think you'd want to limit gaming to well... games.

Something like Heavy Rain fits "interactive movie" far more then "Video game".

Like how a "Choose your own adventure book" isn't ever described as a board game or game... it's an interactive novel.

That's not at all what he was intending to say. If you read his interview too literally, you will read that he does not like game mechanics, but if you read between the lines, you'll see that he's actually trying to say that he doesn't like traditional game mechanics, in that it's a set action scheme from the get-go. He'd like to see more variety, more context-driven actions (maybe like Conker for instance?)

Conker?  Not sure what you mean.

Though I know what he means.  He wants games to be Visual novels.

Visual novels aren't really games.  They're interactive movies... because they hold far more in common with movies then games.

Also, there are a decent number of them.  They're just mostly PC only and never leave Japan.

No, that's not it! Think of it more, broaden your spectrum. He's thinking of using your environment much more to perform actions, use the surrounding objects to your purposes.

Maybe conquer was a bad example, but I am short of ideas.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3q3dmPcPEJk

Here's a scene where conquer drinks beer, and when has been loaded enough, he can piss on dancing boulders to move them. These actions are limited only to this segment of the game and are never reused. He may be referring to something like this.

Now I've never played shenmue, but something tells me he's asking for something like Shemue.

In the movie sectory, what's bolded would be like your equivalent of Xmen: The Last stand in the movie industry, while games like The Last of Us would be the closest you can get to a flic like No Country for Old Men. It's important to see the difference as we get closer to the heart of this debate.

Of course there is a place for fun, but that's just it, its place. Ultimately, the games industry needs to come to a place where it becomes the mature platform for entertainment it was meant to be, and reach the needs of people in general, which is for one to tap into the emotions of well-built fictional characters so as to find more meaning for their own lives. Interactivity is just a component of gaming.

The fact that the Wii was Uncle Scrooge this gen only went to prove three things ultimately: 1) That fun has an important place in the industry, 2) that many demographics were not adequately reached, and 3) that Sony, MS and many 3rd parties overshot in both HW and SW offerings, and so they lost money. A good story need not good graphics, as a book will prove. Mind you, graphics do help, and what is actually displayed should be of high visual quality, even if in 2D.