WTF happened to games

Video games are not games anymore.  I don't know what they are, but they aren't games.  No matter how much of a graphical facade a video game has on the outside, the real game is about an abstract goal which is achieved through twitch skill or mental skill.  The true fun in video games comes from success and failure of doing these acts.  Any enjoyment from the graphical facade - like an emotionally engaging story or the splattering of gratuitous blood - is merely an added bonus and it is not meant to deliver the main 'fill' of the game.

Too many modern video games have an absolutely crap game underneath.  All these games have to offer is the graphical facade: the story, the characters, the explosions and the particle effects.  To make up for the shit gameplay these types of games try to succeed (and often do) by making the presentation beautiful so that no one stops to notice/care about the mentally retarded gameplay.  It is a cinematic video game disease.  It is especially common in post FF7 RPG's and post half-life FPS's.

Video gamers have already diverged into those who buy into empty shell graphical facades and those who don't.  I don't know what the fuck happened.  The empty shell camp seems to be winning too.

>>25
This is right on the money.

In my view, a game can engage the players primarily in two ways: stategy/puzzle mental stimulation and quasi-physical twitch stimulation. Plot lines, graphics, etc are arguably inferior sources of engagement.

Final Fantasy 7 is probably an example of one of the best RPGs. There's some depth to the strategy (such as with the materia system and some minigames), at least for an RPG. Contrast that with FF1 that has mindless grinding and FF12 that is inspired by brainless MMOs. It's modest, but I don't agree that it's the worst of the lot.

What the genre needs is a realization that it isn't a real genre. Strategy-RPGs like Disgaea can succeed (despite their faults) because they actually engage the player. Imagine for a moment that Disgaea was without grinding, and was instead a hardcore strategy game like Vantage Master. While it would be even more of a niche product, it would be a solid game with good potential. Cinematics and other plot components would be seen as they should be- as a just reward for going through the difficulty of the game, rather than as filler. Action-RPGs have a similar situation.

FPS games have always had the problem that they cannot and will never be able to match the twitch quality of a true shooting game (R-Type), while at the same time they're too fast-paced (and when it comes down to it, too myopic in terms of what the player sees) to have compelling strategy/puzzle components. Thus, the FPS needs graphical quality and multiplayer competition in order to engage the player.

Gameplay is advancing, but at a slower pace than graphical quality. This isn't a fault of the industry- it's just intrinsic to how things are. Gameplay innovations require a spark of creativity; better graphics just need better technology, since it just means that the artists have fewer artificial limitations to work under.

I agree that it's too bad that 'facade-based' games are getting so much attention, but that really is just a product of what the market desires. Developers would love to pump out cheap games like Killer 7 (which I realize is an all-fluff game, but at least has value thematically) and Disgaea, but the games that get attention are the ones with the big technology. Naturally, those are also the ones that cost the most to make, so we see that split in the industry. When all the kids care about is how many polygons are on the screen, developers are going to play it safe in terms of gameplay, and they're going to focus on genres that are approachable and benefit well from better graphics (FPS, sports).

On the plus side, pretty soon photo-realism in games will be a reality. I think there will be a complete shift in the industry at that point, as graphics will no longer be a selling point at all.