Gethsemani said:
Game writers are getting older and are forming families, of course it is bound to reflect in the stories that they write and the characters within them. I mean, the writing in games is still sort of shit when compared to other media, but at least the average protagonist isn't a late-20's/early-30's dude with anger management problems, an edgy attitude and an inability to function in any social situation that doesn't involve hurting other people anymore.
This is how I see it, we are past the age where a lot of designers and writers were in their late teens or early 20's, the average age of video game players is climbing, so we end up with an industry where more people are writing with a different age and mindset. You could see some of this years ago as some games appealed to the archetype even in the 90's, but now there's a greater concentration of older male writers and designers that are married and have kids, so their priorities and interests change, and that's reflected in their art.
Of course that's just a trend within certain segments and companies, there are still plenty of young people entering the industry who are writing the old style action heroes like new Dante, the Farcry protagonists, the upcoming Doom reboot space marine. I'd imagine part of this trend might also just be people aping the success of bioshock and TLOU where the appeal of the fatherly character seems to have attracted interest from fans, especially Joel, who got shitloads of praise from gamers.
