Poll: Is Spec Ops: the Line overrated?

[TilMorrow]

Not trying to ridicule you, but did you in fact play Spec Ops: The Line? Just how on earth do these two plots compare? I'm really curious about the parallels.

As for the message... Most players agree that it had a strong message, they just disagree what exactly it was. Was Spec Ops pointing out the flaw in the modern war shooter genre? Was it asking the question, whether the player is responsible for doing something bad in a game? Some say that it criticized war and its brutality, others say that it focuses on PTSD and the effects of war on the psyche of soldiers.

It was marketed as a competitor to COD, but never meant to be one. The tacked on multiplayer makes me irrationally angry, since those resources could have been spent much better elsewhere. It's the story which shines, not the gameplay (although I enjoyed that one too).

Yes, I in fact did play Spec Ops: The Line. I even went through each of the endings after doing the first one I chose and still wondered why people thought this game was any good.
The plots both have lots of similarities. They both have the phantom/dead mentor/antagonist floating around that you don't actually find out about until the literal end of the game (although Spec Ops makes the stupid mistake of sticking Konrad in a place he shouldn't have been halfway through the game making the 'twist' at the end unsurprising), both the main characters go through a lot of wartime shit that makes them crazy(Mason goes through conditioning, prison and Nam, Walker apparently was involved in some shit before the game that Konrad helped his team pull out of and he killed people), both of the plots of the game revolve around saving large numbers of people except BlOps is about the whole of America rather than just the survivors holed up in Dubai. There really isn't that much difference between the two except that Black Ops made a lot more sense. Why? Because there was a number of moments in Spec Ops that don't link up even if you factor in that Konrad hasn't really been speaking to Walker throughout the whole game. For example, the moment at the bridge after rappelling down from the room that Walker acquired the walkie-talkie in. According to the plot, those snipers shouldn't actually be there meaning that Walker should not have been hurt by them and that Lugo and Adams wouldn't have been able to see or fire on them then however that point is refuted if you decided to try and save/ignore both of the 'hanging men' and get hurt by their shots and your companions can actually kill the four snipers without asking Walker if he was fucking insane. Additionally the ambush that comes 2 minutes later makes no sense either if you follow your 'orders'.

...Okay I'm completely lost regarding this supposed message or messages. What flaw was it trying to point out? It was neither a parody of modern shooter genre or truly grim realistic shooter and seemed frankly stupid at some points. I'm equally lost on the player responsibility point. The game forces you to choose from a list of preset choices, most of which lead to the same outcome anyway which really ticked me off. I mean there was plenty of moments when I thought why can't we choose to have Walker stop, turn his ass around and do what he was originally ordered to do, namely report there were people in Dubai and get them out. But nope says the game. You have to follow my stupid plot and blow things up cause I say so which also pissed me off as one of the endings showed it was highly possible to get evac conveys into the city with no trouble. On the war and brutality and PTSD points, the game makes a poor criticism/investigation if any into those themes by not only making the game not about war but rather stupid conflicts between people all from the same side with an apparent one man army (cause your companions barely do anything worthwhile) and clumsily rushing through Walker's descent into 'supposed' insanity.

I'm also kinda lost at your last point, if the developers intended the game to be a competitor to COD and even marketed it with that intent then how was it never meant to be one? (Which it wasn't as Activision isn't exactly shaking in it's boots). Though I agree about the tacked on Multiplayer, especially when it's empty, that it could have been ignored to try and make the game better than it was.

Though you want a game with a good story? Try the Zero Escape series, preferably Virtue's Last Reward. The story in that? Fucking Amazing compared to Spec Ops.

 

[Zen Toombs]

No problem [user]Brotha Desmond[/user], just letting you know. ^_^

Not trying to ridicule you, but did you in fact play Spec Ops: The Line? Just how on earth do these two plots compare? I'm really curious about the parallels.

As for the message... Most players agree that it had a strong message, they just disagree what exactly it was. Was Spec Ops pointing out the flaw in the modern war shooter genre? Was it asking the question, whether the player is responsible for doing something bad in a game? Some say that it criticized war and its brutality, others say that it focuses on PTSD and the effects of war on the psyche of soldiers.

It was marketed as a competitor to COD, but never meant to be one. The tacked on multiplayer makes me irrationally angry, since those resources could have been spent much better elsewhere. It's the story which shines, not the gameplay (although I enjoyed that one too).

The main two parallels I can think of (at least for BLOPERS #1, didn't play the second) is "just cause you're the PC doesn't make you a good guy" (glass + mouth + face punching = fun times?) and "just cause you experience it doesn't make it real", a la

Spoiler: OMG SPOILERS

Walkers hallucinations of corpses being living people and the Colonel's voice from the radio

VS

The PC's hallucination of his buddy who died in a soviet prison, the names of whom I cannot recall.

As for the tacked on multiplayer, the developers hated it too. They actually didn't spend any assets on creating the multiplayer, another group actually made it. Also, you might have noticed that every achievement has a "single player only" requirement.

 

[Lt._nefarious]

Well Spec Ops The Line was far from perfect. Lot's of the great story-driven videogames are far from perfect. Silent Hill 2 had nauseating game play, The Walking Dead had a couple of pretty bad bits, Amnesia could back you into an inescapable corner if you didn't save regularly, Uncharted's (yes, Uncharted, good story) protagonist was an utter douche, Lone Survivor had baffling-ly odd design, etc. But none of those games are over-rated, their modern gaming classics. You wouldn't say The Usual Suspects was bad because the boat bit wasn't that great, you wouldn't say Aliens is over rated because the characters consisted largely of morons.

And, in the end, Spec Ops and these other games are better than lot's of AAA movies these days. Considering Syndicate would have had an above average story if it were as blockbuster film then Spec Ops is out Hurt Locker, Silent Hill 2 is out Memento, The Walking Dead is our The Walking Dead. Uncharted is out Indiana Jones. Be thankful.

 

[afroebob]

I think its a goddamn brilliant game. However, its hard for this game to be overrated due to its polarized opinions. People who say this is the best video game narrative of all time and whatnot is in my opinion overrated. However, most people brushed over it and many critics wrote it off as a Call of Duty clone and bashed its multiplayer so that is, to me, underrated.

 

[awdrifter]

Maybe my expectations where too high because of all the reviews, but this game is way overrated imo. I'm not rating this as anything else, it's a game. But a game can tell a story, it can create an emotional impact, it can be fun or serious. This game fails at most aspects that makes a game good. This developer obviously has very little experience with PC controls, binding the sprint button, action button, and cover button to the same key is bs. Also, not letting players use the number keys to switch weapons is also bs. Once you started sprinting, they won't let you stop the run animation. These are the most basic third person shooter elements, and they got it wrong. I have so many bs deaths because I accidentally got into cover rather than keep running, or I can swap the weapon quickly when one runs out of ammo. Or when I wanted to use the turret but it snapped me out of cover instead.

I know this game is supposed to be story driven and it's trying to tell a serious story, but when the basic game mechanics is buggy, the player can't be immersed into the game, because the controls are fighting you every step of the way. Maybe because I just played Far Cry 3, which was a far better game in terms of the shooting mechanics, but the deaths in Spec Ops just feels like cheap bs deaths and it serves to frustrate the player. I would say this game is at most worth a 6, which is average. The shooting mechanics is below average, but I can appreciate the game is trying to tell a serious story.

 

[Dango]

Yes. I think it's a pretty bad game, and I will laugh in the face of anyone who considers it art.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

Yes. I think it's a pretty bad game, and I will laugh in the face of anyone who considers it art.

If there isn't at least one person saying it ain't art...it ain't art.

 

[blindthrall]

I will say this much. This game would not have existed if not for Farcry 2. They both build on Heart of Darkness, and they both make you question why you enjoy virtual murder. I was acutely aware of Spec Ops's agenda before the phosphorus scene, and Burn Ward Madonna With Child still fucked with me. I knew I could always stop playing. Know why I didn't? Curiosity. I needed to see the bloody end of things, Spec Ops complete argument, "the horror" as Brando put it. And I'm glad I did. Because I loved the end. It has my third favorite line from a game(What is a drop of rain compared to the storm/The only frontier that has ever existed is the Self)-

Walker: This isn't real. You're just in my head.

Konrad: Are you sure? Maybe it's all in mine.

And it struck me. The (agent) 47 dead were worth it for this moment of clarity.

The player's Konrad.

 

[Jezzascmezza]

I think the impact of the game is kind of ruined if you go into it expecting it to be profound, deep, and moving. The people who raved about it the most seemed to be those who went in expecting just another ho-hum generic military shooter.
I went in expecting a disturbing, moving story, so therefore I wasn't blown away when I got almost exactly what I was expecting.
Plus of course the game-play wasn't really anything amazing, and in all honesty a lot of the characters felt a little under-developed. Plus it was over in less than 5 hours (playing on normal difficulty).
It still deserves a lot of praise though for trying new things and evoking emotions scarcely felt while playing games, but I wasn't absolutely blown away by it as a whole.

 

[awdrifter]

So I went back to some of the earlier chapters to cause I just wanted to shoot something, but man, the second time around where I'm not focused on the narrative really highlighted how bad the gameplay mechanics are. I died so many BS deaths. I think even the 6 that I gave it in my earlier post was too high, this is a 4 or 5 game (out of 10). I'm going to uninstall this game and forget about it, even thinking about how bad the gameplay is makes me mad.

 

[veloper]

*Puts on flame suit, hides behind bullet proof glass*

Okay, I liked Spec Ops. It was good, some of the time. However, every time it pops up on these forums people call it "A SHOW OF HOW OUR MEDIUM IS ART AND BETTER THAN MOVIES!!!!" I felt like the game was hindered by all the delays and a lower budget than it deserved. The gameplay was ok, just not standout.

This is where I'll get controversial. The STORY IS NOT THE BEST. In fact, if it was a film, I think it wouldn't be praised. The twist at the end felt like the bad Twilight Zone episodes, and the "emotional" moments were good, but not "more effective than Schindler's List" (which I was told). THe characters just felt generic even near the end, when they were supposed to be all crazy, except Walker. I also had a creeping feeling they were trying to make Konrad like Andrew Ryan in the sense you talk to him and never see him, which didn't do much for me.

The game's satire isn't exactly the video game Animal Farm, and I felt if you sort of cut out the white phosphorous stuff and the lynching, it just could have been another generic shooter.

I think I'm way too harsh, but maybe we were too easy.

You're observing nothing new here. Gamers have especially low standards when it comes to stories in games. We generally don't compare to other media like film and literature, we compare only to the crap that's come before in videogames.
This is how a game like this becomes nominated and how another game like TWD gets the GOTYs.

So instead at every new year we've created our own para-olympics of story telling.
Completely unnecesary because the strength of our medium was always gameplay, but the players interested in that are becoming a minority.

Yeah, our medium delivers more hours per dollar than the cinema, but the quality is likewise more thin. Our crappy polygon characters cannot compete with real, flesh and blood actors and the game industry doesn't attract the best writers either. The game industry is becoming a magnet for people who would rather make films or write books, but couldn't make it there.

Games are Art like McDonalds is haute cuisine and it's our doing.

 

[Karoshi]

So instead at every new year we've created our own para-olympics of story telling.
Completely unnecesary because the strength of our medium was always gameplay, but the players interested in that are becoming a minority.

Yeah, our medium delivers more hours per dollar than the cinema, but the quality is likewise more thin. Our crappy polygon characters cannot compete with real, flesh and blood actors and the game industry doesn't attract the best writers either. The game industry is becoming a magnet for people who would rather make films or write books, but couldn't make it there.

Games are Art like McDonalds is haute cuisine and it's our doing.

I'm not sure what you suggest should happen. Yes, most games have shitty writing and attract mostly mediocre writers. Should developers ignore story and focus on gameplay? As for the consumers, what are they doing wrong? Should they stop craving good stories?

What's the main fault of the consumer base? The fact that they praise story-driven games too much and ignore its gameplay? Is that not more or less the first step towards omproving the writing quality of the games in general?

 

[Colt47]

I don't think it is over rated. Spec Ops is largely regarded well for the message it sends about other games in the genre: nothing more, nothing less. I like to think of it in the same way as the Fatal Frame series: we look at the high points while acknowledging the game has some issues here and there.

 

[veloper]

So instead at every new year we've created our own para-olympics of story telling.
Completely unnecesary because the strength of our medium was always gameplay, but the players interested in that are becoming a minority.

Yeah, our medium delivers more hours per dollar than the cinema, but the quality is likewise more thin. Our crappy polygon characters cannot compete with real, flesh and blood actors and the game industry doesn't attract the best writers either. The game industry is becoming a magnet for people who would rather make films or write books, but couldn't make it there.

Games are Art like McDonalds is haute cuisine and it's our doing.

I'm not sure what you suggest should happen. Yes, most games have shitty writing and attract mostly mediocre writers. Should developers ignore story and focus on gameplay? As for the consumers, what are they doing wrong? Should they stop craving good stories?

What's the main fault of the consumer base? The fact that they praise story-driven games too much and ignore its gameplay? Is that not more or less the first step towards omproving the writing quality of the games in general?

What more gamers should do, is look outside the medium of gaming and not just stick to sci-fi and fantasy stories either, but really broaden their interests.
If you want a story, a genuinely good story, you can do so much better than Spec OPs the Line and the Walking Dead.

Show SOL and TWD as the pinnacle of your hobby to a movie buff or a bookworm and you will be laughed away.
So many Escapists want games to be recognized as art. You want Art? First learn to be more critical.
Triple-A games right now are like fastfood chains are to restaurants and we praise them.

For games there's two paths to develop in order for this medium to stay relevant:
1. the indie way: come up with new ideas for original gameplay and keep players interested that way

2. the hard way: no book or movie can give the viewer agency, like those choices and consequences that such RPG companies like Bioware and Obsidian try their hand on, only with limited succes. Perfect that and you'll also have something worthwhile.

Do 1 or 2 instead and those mediocre, derived and cliched stories can perfectly serve to give some context to player goals and actions and all will be well. The story won't be the point of playing of playing the game, it will only add some flavor then and as such doesn't need to be great.

What games cannot do is compete directly with cinema, because games will always be worse at being movies. Game developers should not try to do so and we shouldn't encourage them.

 

[G-Force]

What games cannot do is compete directly with cinema, because games will always be worse at being movies. Game developers should not try to do so and we shouldn't encourage them.

I think this is where Spec Ops succeeded as the narrative was told through the game's mechanics as much as the narrative did as walker's state and actions reflect the player. With the WP scene, Walker laments that he did not have a choice and shifts blame to his circumstances. Look back at this thread and see all the critiques against that scene as players said they should not feel bad due to the fact they did not have a say in the matter. The game's mechanics and choices are there to reinforce it's message which is effectively delivered because the game is interactive. Players don't question why Walker doesn't simply leave despite the fact the situation grows worse each mission and his orders explicitly say so and it is this lack of questioning the game wants to bring to your attention.

 

[Karoshi]

What more gamers should do, is look outside the medium of gaming and not just stick to sci-fi and fantasy stories either, but really broaden their interests.
If you want a story, a genuinely good story, you can do so much better than Spec OPs the Line and the Walking Dead.

It would be easier for me to understand if you gave me an example of good or great stories in movies and books. What do you mean by a "good story"? What genres? Does it have to evoke serious thinking or are we still talking about "hero saves world"- power fantasies?

Show SOL and TWD as the pinnacle of your hobby to a movie buff or a bookworm and you will be laughed away.
So many Escapists want games to be recognized as art. You want Art? First learn to be more critical.
Triple-A games right now are like fastfood chains are to restaurants and we praise them.

Show me a movie that you might consider the pinnacle of cinematography and I will watch it, agree that it a quality product, but stay unimpressed. Different media rates differently for people. I dislike movies, but I like games and love books. Spec Ops: The Line will never have as big an impact as a book, yet I consider it damn impressive for it gave me a new prespective.

It was not the story which blew me away (which probably the book is much better at conveying). It's just the first time in my life I felt guilt like never before. No movie or book could have accomplished that. It was me who was carrying out the orders and I had to bear the consequences. Many players complained that it felt forced and ridiculous, but for me it worked.

Second thing. Games right now are kinda in their teenagehood. It took movies a lot of time to evolve from black-and-white comedies to its current form and many technological improvements had to be made. Does technological advancement mean mental maturity? Not really, but it gives room for such. In ten years we might see more games that don't milk the sci-fi, fantasy or military genre and perhaps try being original.

For games there's two paths to develop in order for this medium to stay relevant:
1. the indie way: come up with new ideas for original gameplay and keep players interested that way

2. the hard way: no book or movie can give the viewer agency, like those choices and consequences that such RPG companies like Bioware and Obsidian try their hand on, only with limited succes. Perfect that and you'll also have something worthwhile.

We all love new and interesting gameplay ideas and we all love choices. Yet branching storylines cost money (especially fully voiced) and only when becomes cheaper to develop games we will see major improvements. I would love to see more of that.

Do 1 or 2 instead and those mediocre, derived and cliched stories can perfectly serve to give some context to player goals and actions and all will be well. The story won't be the point of playing of playing the game, it will only add some flavor then and as such doesn't need to be great.

What games cannot do is compete directly with cinema, because games will always be worse at being movies. Game developers should not try to do so and we shouldn't encourage them.

Aaand here we disagree. Personally, I find it silly to say that games "should" be one way or another. It's a big world! Some developers place story above gameplay, for others it's the other way around. Everyone will find their game genre. Demanding that only certain type of games were to be made is as of people came to bookstores and began burning romance novellas because they think that more sci-fi books should be written.

I play primarily for the story and find that games have strengths that no other media has. Choices, immersion and exploration are the big three for me. For others it's something else.

 

[veloper]

What more gamers should do, is look outside the medium of gaming and not just stick to sci-fi and fantasy stories either, but really broaden their interests.
If you want a story, a genuinely good story, you can do so much better than Spec OPs the Line and the Walking Dead.

It would be easier for me to understand if you gave me an example of good or great stories in movies and books. What do you mean by a "good story"? What genres? Does it have to evoke serious thinking or are we still talking about "hero saves world"- power fantasies?

Power fantasies? NO! Such stories are right up there with fan-fictions featuring mary-sue.
A good story should always have an original theme, such as an underlying philosophy or a new idea, perhaps a new and unusual setting to observe the main characters. It has to be more than mere entertainment to be good.

Take all that away then you can still have a decent, entertaining story, if the plot is engaging enough and the dialogues still hold up. TWD is at that level: the dialogues are the only thing keeping the game together; the setting is poor and unoriginal and the theme, same as the comics, is very weak. The terrible gameplay doesn't help.

I'm not even asking for War and Peace here, videogame storytelling hasn't even reached the levels of Platoon.
Even our fantasy and sci-fi games cannot begin to compare to the better books in these lowly genres, such as the works by George Martin and Heinlein.

The problem here is the power fantasy. Gameplay is like an obstacle course and unless you make the game so hard that all the story lovers will drop out anyway, players are going to get very good at it. You will succeed and you'll feel good about it (unless there's little or no challenge at all, which makes busy work).
Gameplay and good storytelling may very well be incompatible because of this.

Show SOL and TWD as the pinnacle of your hobby to a movie buff or a bookworm and you will be laughed away.
So many Escapists want games to be recognized as art. You want Art? First learn to be more critical.
Triple-A games right now are like fastfood chains are to restaurants and we praise them.

Show me a movie that you might consider the pinnacle of cinematography and I will watch it, agree that it a quality product, but stay unimpressed. Different media rates differently for people. I dislike movies, but I like games and love books. Spec Ops: The Line will never have as big an impact as a book, yet I consider it damn impressive for it gave me a new prespective.

It was not the story which blew me away (which probably the book is much better at conveying). It's just the first time in my life I felt guilt like never before. No movie or book could have accomplished that. It was me who was carrying out the orders and I had to bear the consequences. Many players complained that it felt forced and ridiculous, but for me it worked.

The narrative is on rails and you had no player agency. It is surprising that you would feel guilt.
I consider it a cheap trick and not a profound message.

Second thing. Games right now are kinda in their teenagehood. It took movies a lot of time to evolve from black-and-white comedies to its current form and many technological improvements had to be made. Does technological advancement mean mental maturity? Not really, but it gives room for such. In ten years we might see more games that don't milk the sci-fi, fantasy or military genre and perhaps try being original.

To some, myself included, the golden age of gaming was the late 90's and early noughts.

We have had great games for decades. There's all time greats like Master of Orion 2 and Jagged Alliance 2 that still haven't been surpassed by newer games.
Love gameplay over graphics plus story and gaming history is nothing to be embarrassed about.

For games there's two paths to develop in order for this medium to stay relevant:
1. the indie way: come up with new ideas for original gameplay and keep players interested that way

2. the hard way: no book or movie can give the viewer agency, like those choices and consequences that such RPG companies like Bioware and Obsidian try their hand on, only with limited succes. Perfect that and you'll also have something worthwhile.

We all love new and interesting gameplay ideas and we all love choices. Yet branching storylines cost money (especially fully voiced) and only when becomes cheaper to develop games we will see major improvements. I would love to see more of that.

Yes it's hard and expensive to do C&C right, especially if you must have fancy gfx and full VO, but it's also the only narrative approach where I can see the point.
Here game narratives can excel, in theory. CRPGs. Bugs and broken combat, usually, but also the promise and appeal of being a contributing part to the story. I can see where Bioware fans are coming from even if the actual experience always turns out to be mediocre.

Do 1 or 2 instead and those mediocre, derived and cliched stories can perfectly serve to give some context to player goals and actions and all will be well. The story won't be the point of playing of playing the game, it will only add some flavor then and as such doesn't need to be great.

What games cannot do is compete directly with cinema, because games will always be worse at being movies. Game developers should not try to do so and we shouldn't encourage them.

Aaand here we disagree. Personally, I find it silly to say that games "should" be one way or another. It's a big world! Some developers place story above gameplay, for others it's the other way around. Everyone will find their game genre. Demanding that only certain type of games were to be made is as of people came to bookstores and began burning romance novellas because they think that more sci-fi books should be written.

I play primarily for the story and find that games have strengths that no other media has. Choices, immersion and exploration are the big three for me. For others it's something else.

You may like everything you want. You may like fastfood. Just don't expect it to get any better. Don't expect to get recognition for it.

If low grade fiction is your thing and you don't buy all that games=art crap, then you are in luck, because that's the future of gaming we are heading towards. All the charts point to more cinematic experiences and easier gameplay.
We can expect to see some more "exceptional" titles with fairly decent story telling and minimal gameplay. That and lots of mediocrity too.

 

[veloper]

What games cannot do is compete directly with cinema, because games will always be worse at being movies. Game developers should not try to do so and we shouldn't encourage them.

I think this is where Spec Ops succeeded as the narrative was told through the game's mechanics as much as the narrative did as walker's state and actions reflect the player. With the WP scene, Walker laments that he did not have a choice and shifts blame to his circumstances. Look back at this thread and see all the critiques against that scene as players said they should not feel bad due to the fact they did not have a say in the matter. The game's mechanics and choices are there to reinforce it's message which is effectively delivered because the game is interactive. Players don't question why Walker doesn't simply leave despite the fact the situation grows worse each mission and his orders explicitly say so and it is this lack of questioning the game wants to bring to your attention.

Only, the FPS genre, Call of Duty and similar series, are works of fiction. The only thing that effectively works against fiction, is parody, not this.

 

[Goofguy]

I started the game yesterday so I may not be in the best position to respond having not beaten the game yet. However, while the story is good enough, the gameplay is very sub-par. I feel as though all I do is go from one cover-based engagement to an other always trying to spot ammo for my favourite guns. There are no tactics to it, just keep your head down and fire back when you have the opportunity. The AI also leaves something to be desired as my squadmates just love rushing the enemies and getting themselves incapacitated. Either that or just do nothing at all from behind cover.

I see potential for the story and can see the general direction it is going; it looks promising and I want to see this through for that sole reason. I am just utterly unimpressed by the gameplay.

 

[Karoshi]

The narrative is on rails and you had no player agency. It is surprising that you would feel guilt.
I consider it a cheap trick and not a profound message.

There was this one guy who ranted at DmC and mentioned the new pretty levels. "Bullshit" - he called out "The contrast between blue and orange is a cheap trick into tricking the eye into liking it." Remember kids, choosing colours and contrasts is a cheap trick for artists to succeed.

Player agency is always defined by how involved the player is. My motivations aligned with Walker's. The narrative is linear, no doubt about it, but there was another cheap trick. It fooled me by giving me the illusion of choice and for some time I did not realize how railroaded I was - until it all became one big trainwreck.

This is one of the games where I understand when somebody absolutely hates it. In order for a narrative to work, you gotta allow it to fool you. 1984 is a great book, yet if you absolutely refuse to believe in the possibility of such a scenario - refuse to be fooled by it - it will fly over your head.

You may like everything you want. You may like fastfood. Just don't expect it to get any better. Don't expect to get recognition for it.

If low grade fiction is your thing and you don't buy all that games=art crap, then you are in luck, because that's the future of gaming we are heading towards. All the charts point to more cinematic experiences and easier gameplay.
We can expect to see some more "exceptional" titles with fairly decent story telling and minimal gameplay. That and lots of mediocrity too.

The gaming community is too reliant on outsider prespective. There is no big authority that examines each music, painting or book and after a careful evaluation proclaims it to be art. Most people still call abstract paintings bullshit yet that doesn't keep museums from obtaining such pieces of art. Games don't need recognition in my opinion.

Games are art and that doesn't mean much. They can be bad or good, shitty or great. Art is a common product and a source of entertainment these days.