That other thread that mentioned Bubble Bobble bubbled these feelings to my mind.

I'm assuming I'm one of the maybe ten people here who actually grew up in the 1980s and got to experience gaming from its infancy to the DRM, online-pass bloated corporate monster it's become today. And to be honest, I wonder how this medium is even staying afloat. In the last E3, Sony won a major victory by basically promising that on their console, you'll be able to play any game you want, whenever you want, and trade freely, without restrictions... it's funny how the way it's always been is suddenly a selling point, and that's sad.

What makes it worse is the actual games. This point I can demonstrate very easily.

Here's a classic, Doom, being played the way it was meant to be played.

In stark contrast, here is "if Doom were made today."

Seriously, how can anyone look at that second one, and honest-to-Celestia say its preferable, unless they've simply never played Doom before.

And this is every genre, not just FPS games. RPGs went through something similar--they used to be straightforward and fun, but now they're overly convoluted busywork that often feel more like movies you click through. Oh, and Dragon's Lair in 1983 was criticized for its lack of interactivity.. and yet its basic gameplay is the basis for the modern "Quick-Time Event." I won't say older games were more challenging or innovative, but they at least respected the player's intelligence--they didn't need to tell you to take cover or to shoot the imp because doing so is what any reasonably intelligent person would do.

But maybe modern gaming has a point--I have seen people whine and moan that older games don't hold their hands enough and expect them to *gasp* actually THINK. Especially anyone from TV Tropes, who won't even tackle an ultra-scripted Call of Duty game without a printed FAQ handy.

People like to complain that the industry is running out of ideas, but the truth is the fault is the consumers. They know gaming is in a terrible place but they keep supporting it. They make excuses, like "I like new things" and "well, I'll be bored otherwise." Or maybe they'll simply have withdrawals if they don't spend exhorbitant amounts of money, sort of like a drug addict looking for his next fix.

I'm proud to say I have never owned an X-Box 360, a PS3, or a Wii, and I'm not gonna own their successors, or their successors successors. When I write Gamer Luna, she plays the SNES, and she knows what a Cacodemon is, and she says "newbie" instead of n00b. I don't see the point in paying $60 (on top of the hundreds for the consoles themselves, which are likely to malfunction) for games that aren't that different from what the PS2 and Gamecube offered, except for the slim advantage of having "high definition graphics." Which aren't enough to make them worthwhile. That's like buying a book based on how many pages it has.

So, people here who remember GOOD gaming, speak up! Let our voices be heard! Let our neighs resound throughout the land, enlightening those who have never experienced the joy of casting Luminaire for the first time, never the thrill of eliminating a room full of demons with a blast from the BFG! Let us unite, and fight the good fight!

1109946
No offense but what the hell does this thread have to do with "struggling authors"?
Also, clearly you are biased so this isn't going to be a very interesting discussion anyway. Things are in the toilet right now for modern gaming but it's not like this hasn't happened before.

Meh, I still play the very first Mario on my NES.

1109946

Hey, come now!

... I grew up in the '90s, and don't own anything later than a PS2 (minus the succession of laptops I've been through) either. The library of games I regularly play is-

1. Left 4 Dead 2
2. Final Fantasy 4/5/6 (via emulator)
3. Final Fantasy 7/8/9 (also via emulator)
4. Sonic 2, Sonic 3 and Sonic Adventure 2, and an assortment of Genesis games like Earthworm Jim (all of these, again, via emulator)
5. Warcraft III and Command & Conquer: Generals and Zero Hour

You're not alone.

1109947 That's a good question actually. Although I asked the same thing of some other threads.

(Just wondering, is there a group where this kind of thing is more appropriate?)

1109951 Warcraft 3 is best Warcraft. I have the original sitting on a shelf, somewhere, but never played it.

1109947

While I agree this thread is completely impertinent to the group, he isn't biased. He has the pool of experience to actually make a valid comparison, something <15s whose first and only console is of the "always online, single player game is hosted as part of the network and is subject to security and connection issues, and you can't play if it needs to update, anti-piracy control features" generation can't claim to.

1109946 Shut your whiny little mouth, cockbag.

1109962

Is there a counterargument somewhere in there?

1109951
. Left 4 Dead 2 came after PS2.

1109955
Console Gamers group.

1109969

Shoulda specified any CONSOLE after the PS2 then. Left 4 Dead 2 and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive are the only two modern games I play.

1109946>>1109961
Ya know, there are recent games that are entertaining and require at least some thought.

Portal 2

Braid

Qube(eh)

The Cave

Doom WAS great, Goldeneye WAS great, but the thing is, while these were incredible back then, nowadays the controls are comparatively clunky.

1109956 The original Warcraft: Orcs and Humans has controls that take some getting used to, but its good fun. I always felt Warcraft II (particularly the later Battle.net edition) was the best game in the series tho.

1109963 I don't see a counterargument either, but to be honest reactions like that aren't unusual.

It's a symptom of people not really enjoying their games and needing to convince themselves that the high financial cost was worth it.

Currently I only play post-PS2 games if they'll run on my laptop. So far that's included all of Penumbra... and some freeware titles.

... Wondering if I should move this topic to the Console Gamers group.

1109971
Left 4 Dead 2 is a mindless FPS though...

1109973

Oh, I never said all modern games were bad. =D
It's just there's a saturation in FPS clones with, as my friend put it, "in-built tutorials for mechanics you'll use once, and a glowing path down the sole linear pathway to the end."

He made this point while we were watching a playthrough of Metal Gear Solid 2, incidentally.

L4D2 isn't a mindless FPS. It's not run-and-gun with regenerating health where everyone only cares about their own score and getting one shot kills with a knife. It's about teamwork and patience.

1109978
That one was really more directed at Captain Nostalgia Glasses.

I suppose as far as L4D goes, it really depends on what mood I'm in.

1109946 I have to disagree with certain parts of your argument. Yes we do have easy, pos first party games all over the market but there are many gems you can find. You can't tell me that 'old school gaming' didn't have shitty games cause it did. For every, Mario, Sonic, Quake. You had your Daikatana's, ET's and a tonne of other bad games. Another thing is that modern gaming is mainstream, they have to cater games to parents with kids, families, people with full-time jobs and all our military gamers. That means they don't have massive amounts of hours for running around and learning all the controls. If they catered for only the hardcore gamer they would lose out more then they would gain, especially given the price of keeping new refreshing sequels (cod doesn't count) in the market. or you end up like Sega, THQ and many other companies that go bankrupt.

People like to complain that the industry is running out of ideas, but the truth is the fault is the consumers. They know gaming is in a terrible place but they keep supporting it. They make excuses, like "I like new things" and "well, I'll be bored otherwise." Or maybe they'll simply have withdrawals if they don't spend exhorbitant amounts of money, sort of like a drug addict looking for his next fix.

BS, likening gamers to drug addicts is stupid... if all we so much cared about spending money and not a fun console then why all the Xbox1 hate hmm? Not to mention giving no blame to companies is stupid... especially given EA, Activision, and Blizzards cheap money making schemes.

And if you hate new games so much, there are countless indy games on the market that cater to your desires. I'm tired of old school gamers shitting on the later generations. Its like if we went around the internet whining about the other MLP gens...

1109975

Doom is clunky, awful, boring, and it was fucking revolutionary.

CoD is beautiful, tight, and action-packed, but it's a washboard title.

Doom was beautiful, but nowadays I can find a flash game with better controls. You claim that modern gamers suffer from "this game suck, but I need to make myself feel like it was worth $60" well, you happen to have a big pair of nostalgia goggles on. I own a SNES, and I own an N64. I grew up with GameCube and PS2, hell, even the Genesis was a big part of my life. There are bad games today, nobody will dispute that, but there are hundreds of amazing games too.

The original Super Mario was wonderful, but it can't compare to Galaxy.

Sure, now that gaming is mainstream, the games have been dumbed down, but they've all seemed to replace that with atmosphere and raw emotion.

Games like SMB, Sonic, hell, even some GameCube titles such as Sunshine and Luigi's Mansion(both of which I love to death) can't apply real feeling to a game like Bioshock, Mass Effect, or Portal can.

I love older games to death, don't get me wrong, but when I go back and play them, they just aren't as good as I remember.

The memory is always stronger than the action.

1109946 I think you are being a bit unfair, just because CoD isn't very fun that doesn't mean every single modern game is like that. Have you for example tried Half Life, Portal or Team Fortress 2? Companies not bound to EA or Activision tend to be better than their competitors.
I'm born after the "golden era" of videogames, and I enjoy Doom, Megaman, c&c Red Alert 2 and Super Mario Bros (The original)

1109994

For the record, when I hear modern gaming discussed with disdain, Portal, Mass Effect and Bioshock usually aren't cited as examples of the bad.

1109973 ... Okay, I can buy "comparatively clunky controls" for Goldeneye (I hated all the stupid mappings and limitations even back when it was new), but DOOM allows you to custom-map each function to whatever key or mouse button you like, so there's no reason the controls should be clunky.

1109988 I was kinda nodding my head in "I don't agree but I understand his point" like mode until I got to this part:

That means they don't have massive amounts of hours for running around and learning all the controls.

... Was this simply a confusing choice of words or are you seriously suggesting that modern gaming has controls LESS complicated than older games?

1110004
It doesn't matter what keys you use, Doomguy moves like he's on a slip n' slide.

1109998

Bad modern Games: Halo 3:ODST

CoD 3-what number are they at now?

SOCOM

Every new Sonic game except colors.

Is that enough?

1109998
Giant robots seems to think all modern games or bad, so of course I'm going to list good ones as a counter.

1110004 on a technical stand point yes, compare a snes controller with a ps controller... it has more buttons, more stuff to remember even if it is easier to learn. I know this kinda doesn't count but an mmo uses plenty more keys then Doom. I'm not saying that games should spoon-feed us but throwing us into certain games with no basic outline of controls would be frustrating. FPS probably doesn't need it unless it is stealthy or has combo-presses for certain abilities.

I am a 1985 model, I have owned every Nintendo from the NES forward and they still work. This generation I own all three consoles. On the Wii I've enjoyed the Zelda games, Smash bros and a few others. On the PS3 I have about 15 games none purchased for more than 30$ and most of those are enjoyable, Valkyria Chronicles being my favorite. The X-box 360 I have several games for mostly because I won local tournaments at my collage that were sponsored by Game Stop or Hastings. I will agree that a plethora games that I own are overly easy even on the hardest mode. While difficulty may not be a challenge I enjoyed them for longer than a 2-hour movie that I could have purchased for the same price.

In closing I will say this, there are gems out there you just have to find them. There are still games being made that have the quality of FFIII for the Super, FFVI everywhere else. Nintendo hard is still there but you have to find the right game, and games don't have to cost $60 if you are smart about shopping.

1109996 I've played the original Half-Life, and actually liked it. I never played the sequel because it requires you to be online to install it, and I hate that sort of DRM and won't support any game that has it. Same goes for Portal BTW.

1109994 I'm mostly nodding in understanding (though not agreement) with your points, but I'm still plenty confused about the issues re: Doom's controls. I just don't see how they're "clunky."

And to be honest, the "nostalgia" argument is tiring. It's based entirely on several false premises and is honestly pretty insulting. It's no better than my "drug addict" comparison. Especially since I've presented objective data and most of what I've heard in response is the names of five or so good modern games--which is irrelevent because I've criticized trends, not games.

1109946

If all you play are mainstream titles, sure. The other day I was playing a surrealist game where all the dialogue was in French, you walked on a beach, and sometimes you went in a little beach house and played chess with one of your exes.

No bullshit.

I've also played at least a dozen spiffy little puzzle games that were thought provoking in their own way. I've also played nifty little art games built around bizarre mechanics. I replayed a game the other day that was ostensibly about a relationship but was actually a metaphor about self-injury.

Play Frozen Synapse. Play either Portal (and then weep, for there shall never be a Portal 3). Play Alan Wake. Play Spec Ops: The Line. (That last one, I have not played, but sweet merciful fuck, I think anyone should play that at least once.)

Modern games are like restaurants. There's niche, there's fringe, there's fusion. There are midrange places putting out occasionally amazing stuff, and there are super-restaurants run by big stars who've become complacent. And, of course, there's McDonald's. If the only restaurant you go to is McDonald's, sure, everything looks the same.

Go to some other restaurants. Modern games blow old games right out of the water.

1110025 You don't need to be online, you can play it with Steam in offline mode. I did that, that's how VALVe rolls.
If you start steam without any internet, it will ask if you want to quit, retry connection or start in offline mode, you can still play single player games in offline mode, but you can't buy anything or earn any achievements.
So you can play Portal as well as HL2 without supporting online-requirement.

1110007 CoD 53 Modern Warfare 13: Return of the Warrior Returns: Extra MLG Quickscope Prestige DLC Pack.

1109961 I'm 15, and I haven't played many games like that.
I grew up with the older Lego games: Lego Rock Raiders for the PC, Lego Stunt Rally for example.
Oh, and I enjoy the NES, SNES, N64 and Gameboy.

1109946 Well, the corporate trends are horrible, but gaming itself is not necessarily worse today. (At least, until the new consoles show up, that's my opinion.) Not in its entirety.

I just finished Bioshock Infinite, and it is the best game I've played this console generation (beating out the original Bioshock, Mass Effect, and Fallout 3, all of which I liked a lot).

Storytelling has vastly improved. Graphics are beautiful. (Okay, I don't really care about graphics. It's the stories and characters and moments of awesome that define a game for me. But it's nice when they look good.) The sounds and music may not be as iconic, but games do sound better today than they did in the SNES generation and before.

I'm horrified that Internet connectivity is going to be mandatory, used games are about to become a thing of the past, and all those other awful trends are happening. Gaming is about to become a lot less fun, even as the games themselves have the potential to be better than ever.

My favorite game is Final Fantasy VII. I've been waiting for over a decade for a game to offer me an experience that steals its crown.

I guess I'm saying that the trends you describe really are poised to ruin a lot of great things, but in every gaming generation there are games that stand out, really awesome experiences that shouldn't be missed, and this will continue.

I just wish that the next batch of them wouldn't have to be purchased full-price and played on machines that have to be connected to the Internet constantly.

And JRPGs have not been good lately, which really disappoints me. I remember when I used to prefer them to any other genre of game, but I'd take a Mass Effect or Bioshock game over anything that's coming out of Japan today. (Still... Kingdom Hearts 3 has been officially announced!)

1110063

My stipulation of that age specifically wasn't thoroughly thought-out, and obviously exceptions exist.

My first experience with consoles was my cousin's Master System. I was 4-5. I'm talking about kids that age whose first console is a Wii.

1109946
Sturgeons Law: 90% of everything is crud.

No exceptions.

This includes the games of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Future.

What you have done is compared the best games from the 80's and 90's to the worst games of the present era. That is not a fair comparision. There are plenty of good and bad games from each era.

I'm not going to argue that there are a lot of bad games out today. That's true. This is mainly because there are more games out now than in the past. According to Sturgeons law, if you make 100 games, 90 will be crud. if you make 1,000,000 games, then 900,000 will be crud. However, the reverse is true. 10 games out of a 100 will be great. 100,000 out of 1,000,000 will be great. And those are not numbers to sniff at. Even if they are aproximated and overexagerated.

So yeah, there are a lot of [insert game you wish to bash here] clones out there. That's because there are a lot of games out there. There are plenty of good games that rival, or even beat my rose tinted memories of games from my childhood. Lets look through my colloection of 360 games, shall we?
Gears of War 1, Lost Oddessy, Bayonetta, The Force Unleashed, Mass Effect 1,2 and 3 (yes, even 3), Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, Resonance of Fate (even if it is as challenging as fuck—not for your casual gamer), Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, Alan Wake, Portal 1 and 2, Dead Space 1 and 2 (not played 3 yet), Dragon's Age: Origins, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fable 3, Bioshock.

Now, this list is personalised to my tastes, and you may disagree on some or even all of them. And that's okay. But to me, they are all good games that rival, and in some cases, beat the games of the past.

So yeah, lots of crapy games out there. Lots of good games as well. And it has always been like that. Today is no different from yesterday or tomorrow.

1110055 Really? I might actually have to try them, then.

1110041 Indie games are a mixed bag for me. That said, I consider them outside the scope of this discussion, for the same reason that manga would be outside the scope of a "comics: silver age vs bronze age" discussion. They're literally they're own world, isolated (by choice) from what the rest of gaming is doing.

Incidentally, indie programmers still make games for the Dreamcast, which is awesome.

1110065

And JRPGs have not been good lately, which really disappoints me.

I feel your pain, sister. They used to be one of my favorite genres. In fact, to me the 16-bit era was dominated by RPGs. It still is, in a way--Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy VI are among my favorite games of all time, and I'm still discovering new classics (just got Lunar II for the Sega CD... it's quite good). Final Fantasy SEVEN... ummm, it was playable but to me it didn't stand out. As for all the Final Fantasy games after that, I think The Spoony Experiment covered them adequately. To make a long story short... Final Fantasy Eight and Chrono Cross represent everything I hate about the modern JRPG. Tons of busywork, having to do complicated tasks for things that used to be basic functions in older games, systems that are supposed to add depth but are really just hiding how simplistic the engine is, and storylines that feel like they're trying too hard to be accepted as "art."

Actually, its a lot like my problem with modern FPSes... the games are just too convoluted, and claim to be deeper while actually detracting elements that gave the original games depth (AI scripts vs monsters you can actually trick into fighting each other, etc.)

I feel like modern game designers think that "complicated" is synonymous with "deep," and yet the deepest game ever made is Go, and its play mechanics couldn't be any more dirt-simple. Seriously, anyone who fancies themselves a game designer should play Go, preferably until they attain an 18kyu rank on a 13x13 board in this program. You don't really understand game design until you understand Go.

And I'm gonna call it a night now. Goodnight.

1110085

Oh, but when they work, dude, oh, the beauty.

I mean, it takes a really big company to make a technically awesome but pointlessly repetitive RPG/FPS/sports game, and even then they're still going to have a certain chance of failing. Whereas a tiny, agile company can make a game with far less investment, probably recoup it, and they've always got the chance of making the next Angry Birds or something.

If I'm given the choice between TECHNICAL EXCELLENCE BUT POINTLESSNESS and MIGHT BE GOOD BUT MIGHT BE SPECTACULAR, I'll take the latter. I'm aimin' for the sky.

Every now and then, you find the most brilliant stars.

1110058
The Reveangance

1110025

And to be honest, the "nostalgia" argument is tiring.

To be fair, so is the "You can't admit it's shit" argument.

1110072

Sturgeons Law: 90% of everything is crud.

Stole the words right out of my mouth.

Browse a list of NES games, or troll through an abandonware site for old PC games. What you'll find is rank upon rank of total crap. Or failed attempts to copy the good stuff. Most of it being totally unplayable and clunky compared to modern games in the same genre. Especially in things like playability. The controls and interfaces of old games make it painful to go back to most of them. Even ones I have the thickest nostalgia goggles on for.

Do big budget games play it a bit too safe these days? Yeah, usually.
It's harder to justify taking risks or alienating customers when you're talking about slinging a hundred million dollars making a game, rather than a hundred thousand of previous times.

But has the actual art of making games improved since times of old? Yep.
Are there some amazing games in the past? Sure. I even think some are still the best in their genre compared to newer games. But lessons have been learned from them. And from the terrible ones too. On the whole, I think progress has been made. If you took the best game of a year from the eighties, and the best game of a year from the current era, and set it in front of someone who has never played a game before, the person would probably prefer the newer one.

1110066 Heh, I see...
My first console was a PlayStation 2, it had some good titles.
Ratchet & Clank (platforming, puzzles and third person shooting blended together perfectly)
Sly Cooper (Assassin's Creed, but goofier.)
Star Wars Battlefront 1 & 2 (The second one is a MUST HAVE for every PS2 owner, one of the best fps games out there, can dunk CoD any day.)

1110116

Devil May Cry? Devil May Cry.

1110072 Man, would we get along. Love every one of those games you listed XD

1109951 FF8 was good?

1110137

Yus. I'm tied between 7, 8 and 9 for that generation, while 6 beats out 4 and 5 in my eyes. 10 is standalone.

1110139pffffffffffffffffttasrefvsrbsrb 10

1110104

If you took the best game of a year from the eighties, and the best game of a year from the current era, and set it in front of someone who has never played a game before, the person would probably prefer the newer one.

Just gonna nitpick here, depending on who your test subject is, this might not prove anything more than that he's superficial and shallow, and just picking the one that looks the purrrdiest.

After all, you could make the same comparison, but instead of games using books: sit a copy of Three Kingdoms (preferably the Moss Roberts translation) and a copy of, say, Star Wars: Heir to the Empire, and your average person would rather read the latter. Probably for no reason other than because of the brand recognition and it having a flashier cover. But that doesn't mean its the better book.

On that same note, while its obvious the technology of gaming has advanced, I'm not so convinced that entails the art has advanced as well. Although, I will concede what others have said--maybe I've simply played the wrong games.

1110176
I somehow doubt Heir to the Empire was the book of any year.

Besides, it's not exactly a fair comparison. Not just one being a classic, and the other probably being one of those quick-cash-in novels. Not for being in very different genres. It's just because writing is a rather old art. The 'rules' for making a good story have been well explored for centuries.

Gaming isn't like that. It's a very new form of art. And we're talking about games from closer to its infancy from when it's gained some small measure of maturity.

When the first writers were putting chisel to stone to immortalize some story, things like taking serious time to consider character, pacing, and emotion would have been laughable. The art was too young and unsophisticated. Now we worry and talk about those things as amateurs on an online forum. So it was with gaming. Nobody making some game in their garage took a lot of time to hash out how their game controlled, or how it displayed information to the user, or how the action ramped up and down, or how the game was taught. Or even how the story was provided. It was more like... 'Uh... we'll just slap some numbers here and here. And put the story up on a static image of mountains at the start. People will figure out the rest. Done.'.

Now those topics are expected to be addressed as the game is being made. Things are actually taken seriously. Serious classes are taught on game theory, and game design and game history.

Meh, here, it's an eye opener. Also, entertaining:
Extra Credits

1109946
Yeah, I understand your argument, but, at the same time, I enjoy some of these new games. It's true that there are a lot of clones of FPS games that say "go here and shoot this" and don't even get me started on the death of survival horror, but at the same times there are good games out there now that survive on their own merits.

And then there's indie games. Indie companies are already a rather large part of the industry, and I think their influence is just going to grow, because they don't necessarily have the restrictions of one of the big companies breathing down their necks. They can mess around with mechanics and things that a lot of bigger studios can't, if only because they'll get in trouble if they do. Plus, with Steam's support for them, and Sony's as well, indie games have a viable platform to sell from, and most of the ones I have played are very enjoyable.

The thing is, you can't judge the state of the industry by the forefront; the media powerhouses that take every chance to hype what they have. If you look at it that way, the book industry is being really weird (Twilight and Fifty Shades of Gray) and the TV industry is all crime dramas, retarded cartoons, and teenagers being dumbasses. (Actually, on second thought, ignore that last point, I'm not sure it's false.) Sometimes, you have to step inside a little bit, see what companies and studios on the inside are doing, and you might be surprised what you find. You may be surprised to find that someone is always innovating, always pushing what they, and you, can do. Such as the two very different takes on co-op; the very cooperative-driven portal 2 mode, and then Magicka, where they use co-op as the loosest term you can imagine.

For that matter, not all FPSs are bad, either. I personally own a copy of one of the newer CoD games, just to have something splitscreen for when the guys come over. Or Battlefield, to just mess around with friends. Part of your problem isn't the gaming industry, part of your problem is that you don't seem to be willing to step back, relax, and just try to enjoy what you're playing, instead preferring to constantly compare it to older games, some of which were really good, I agree, and then get upset that things have changed in twenty years. After all, change is neither inherently bad or good, it is only what you make of it.

As a last parting note,

In the last E3, Sony won a major victory by basically promising that on their console, you'll be able to play any game you want, whenever you want, and trade freely, without restrictions... it's funny how the way it's always been is suddenly a selling point, and that's sad.

Sony only won said victory, because of the XboxOne. Like I said earlier, don't judge the entire industry by the one idiot in the room. And yes, I know the PS3 was missing a whole generation of backwards compatibility, and I'm not happy about it, but I am happy to know that the people in charge of the next generation found a way to fix the problem. It shows that someone is listening, and shows that some companies still care what their consumers want.

1109946
This seems like a rant against triple-A FPS's, (basically CoD and Battlefield) not modern gaming. Go play some titles by unknown indie devs. There are thousands of them I'm sure you've yet to try, but like many who are nostalgia-biased, handwave them off because they're made in this generation. Go play games without the features you're griping about. ArmA is one modern FPS without silly cutscenes, random Michael-Bay-eqsue set piece explosions and the like.

The only reason triple-A titles are the way they are is because that it what sells. The purpose of companies is to make money, art be damned. Back at gaming's inception, it wasn't a super-profitable bustling industry, and the only people who worked at it were those who did it for fun, and as an art.

Besides, if somebody just wants a flashy game to shoot people in, who cares? That's just what they enjoy. It's what they want. If they don't like it, they won't play it or buy it anymore.