oplinger said:
And you never had fun being the character? Never decided to do things your own way, see what you could do? Or did you just do exactly what you were told?
You make your own fun in non-linear games most of the time. The game gives you a direction and a story, but overall it's up to you to have the fun with it. If you played BG or ME, and just went from main quest to main quest, the game's pretty short and boring. You have to explore. You make the choices. You make your character. You act how you want. You RP a little bit if you want, be in character. You make your own fun.
The game is just a tool to enhance your fun. If I played Fallout 2 with an angry scrunchy face of hatred, I doubt I would have liked it.
I had fun playing the games, not "being" the character. I'm not trying to escape from life or be "immersed" into polygons. I don't LARP in video games. The rules and stats are enough to define the character's role. I don't give game companies 60 dollars so that I have to do the work of making their game fun. I'd just play free Minecraft if I wanted an empty world that I have to extract fun out of.
For example, Divine Divinity was fun, because the quests were well written and interesting and the music was beautiful, and I enjoyed the character building and the art and atmosphere, and it seemed like their could be interesting quests and details around every corner -all things the developers provided. The game was huge and still provided the fun, I didn't have to invent my own imaginary scenarios or gameplay challenges. Same with other open world RPGs like Fallout 2, Ultima 7, FF12, Might and Magic 6.
Maybe Elder Scrolls is the exception and I've been approaching them wrong. But at any rate, I don't think the right sales pitch in the OP's case is "you have to make your own fun."