V da Mighty Taco said:
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Let me get this straight - your theory on why many people are getting sick of realism in video games is that they don't actually have a problem with it, but that they're being convinced by people with political motivations that they do? That there isn't a genuine interest in an "old-school comeback" as you put it or that the oversaturation of gritty games with primarily grey-brown color palettes isn't wearing out it's welcome for many people, but that the "left wing" is trying to brainwash the entire industry into believing something it doesn't?
This is pretty much why I sometimes wonder why I bother.
Ignoring your tone, your close. It's just that in your efforts to oppose the political slant I put on some of it your tossing around terms like "brainwashing" and the like when it's nothing like that. It's more a matter of the gaming industry itself deciding to push things in a less realistic direction to avoid political confrontations. The manipulation involved is simply the use of advertising by the gaming industry to create the perception that what it wants to do on it's own is because this is what people want. The idea being that if people can be convinced that everyone else wants something a certain way, they will decide they want it that way out of a desire to fit in with the trends. It's a very old technique used by a lot of companies for a lot of things, and it continues because it works.
It's sort of like how a company making say a shoe might want to make changes to signature parts of their footwear in order to cut costs. They don't just say "we're doing this because it's cheaper" they tout the changes as new, revolutionary, and act like they are doing it due to popular demand so all of the teenage shoeheads will think that it's what everyone else into shoes wants (there is a whole subculture for this believe it or not). They will even go so far to do things like pay off peridicals, shoe critics, etc... to reinforce the illusion by claiming that these changes are actually things they really wanted and were looking forward to for years.... when something like this works a company can make radical changes in it's own best interests that might even wind up screwing the consumer, and get the
consumer base to love them for it.
You are probably just opposed to what I'm saying because I am pointing fingers at a specific part of the left wing that is getting increasing amounts of attention and power because of things like the "Sandy Hook Massacre".
Another critic (Jazzjack2) who I am also addressing here to some what to avoid writing more than one response on some levels reinforces my point even if it wasn't my intention. The height of anti-video game hysteria was years ago, during the 1990s with protests over games like "Night Trap" of course that was loud mostly because the games industry stood up for itself and won. That kind of fighting is expensive though, and later criticisms like the whole controversies over "Manhunt" and "Hot Coffee" lead to the video game industry capitulating and allowing precedents to be established rather than fighting, conceding to censor/further lock out things instead of defending things like the unlockable "sex scenes" in San Andreas as rating appropriate caused the industry to lose a lot of steam and stop pushing the envelope as much as they used to. The biggest recent battle being over the goverment's right to criminally enforce game ratings which saw a victory in the supreme court (and was arguably the most signifigant battle but it did little for the content itself). At any rate the desire to shy away from realism continues the policy of trying to avoid confrontation, the idea being that if the games become less realistic they present less of a target during a period of relative anti-gun hysteria in the USA. Not to mention international criticisms about the level of violence in games made for a US audience including the oft quoted zinger about how it's fine in a video game to have brutal mass murders rendered in loving detail, but show full frontal nudity and a sex scene and people freak out (and the irony of this). With some of the censorship coming from Germany, Australia, etc... and the non confrontational attitudes of the gaming industry nowadays when it comes to such things it's easier from a business perspective to develop with those kinds of sentiments in mind (reducing the realistic violence, not adding more sex) than to battle censors, or release multiple versions of the game with certain content adjusted by region (which of course causes other issues that can come back on the company when the uncensored versions inevitably get circulated globally).
Now do not get me wrong, there ARE others reasons for this, especially when it comes to MMOs. With MMOs the logic is a bit different, unlike games that are designed for a quick sequel grindmill or fast consumption followed by people buying another game, MMOs need to be able to survive for multiple years on end. "Realistic" graphics age quickly which is a problem when looking at a game intended for long term use as opposed to quick "of the moment" appeal. World Of Warcraft demonstrated how a highly stylized art style can allow a game to seem fairly decent even as it becomes increasingly antiquidated, mainly because by not trying to be realistic you can't put up another newer "realistic" game and show how it looks like refried turds now compared to the state of the art. MMOS thus increasingly aren't even trying to look realistic and are instead trying to come up with cartoony art styles that convey the material specifically so the game won't look as bad when it's hopefully still floating around in 5 years and trying to get people to spend money on it.
