Why do people want games to be realistic?

[GigaHz]

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Part of me wants to say "Video Games are an escape and should set out to be as far out and awesome as possible."

But the other part of me wants to say "Realism can still be considered an important aspect of the experience, depending on the genre."

It all boils down to creativity in general. The more grounded in reality something is, the more believable and accessible it will be to your audience. It's why some of the greatest fantasy movies or novels start small and become more fantastical as it progresses. If things start out too whimsical, you risk alienating a large chunk of the audience.

The opposite of this would be the Uncanny Valley effect where an attempt at being too realistic creates a grey area.

Gaming didn't start out with its roots in reality. Some of the first games released actively involved your imagination to make things work. You had the elements there for you on the screen, but they wouldn't fully represent what they were. Having this reverse accessibility approach allowed games to be as crazy and imaginative as possible, simply because gamers viewed this as "par for the course".

With advances in technology, developers realized they had the potential to make games more believable. That's exactly what they set out to do. Now games rarely need you to think outside the box to believe what's in front of you. There are still elements of fantasy, sure, but it's not nearly as prevalent as it used to be. Thus, games became more accessible.

 

[mikey7339]

Why do people want games to be realistic?


Maybe it is because some people forgot that gaming is about having fun and that some people take gaming too seriously.

I could throw in a little barb, suggesting anyone who disagrees is too much of a child and too young to have experienced gaming when realism was just an afterthought and game development was focused on making the game FUN, not realistic.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

Me:"Hey are you going to buy the new SSX?"
People:"No, it's to unrealistic."

I honestly don't get why some people want to play a realistic snowboard simulator.

What happened to the times when people wanted to play something unrealistic and just have fun? Now the games are all about the graphics and how close it is to real life, and I find it sad that people tell me with a straight face that they would rather play something like Shaun White's Snowboarding than SSX.

So Escapist, what's your take on SSX and Realism in games in general?

To be honest, despite SSX having a more 'realistic' tone compared to previous installments, all is done for a reason. Adding this realism to a game that still manages to break all the known laws of physics when gaining big air and pulling off impossible tricks creates a unique gameplay feel to a sports game genre that has been dead for too long.

It makes the game grounded while having a goofy vibe and an awesome game and musical flow.

 

[Weaver]

I've basically stopped playing "realistic" games. That is, games that mimic reality. For example, a Dark Fantasy RPG is "serious" in a sense, but it's still wholly unrealistic.

Though if I could stay in the realm of the bizzare like say, Disgaea, for most of my games I'd gladly do that.

 

[Jdb]

I don't know; however, I do know realism doesn't belong everywhere - usually in fictional settings. Hawken might become an example of this. The newest game play video features a new HuD and more "realistic" shaking effects to simulate intense combat. Problem is, everything shakes so much the HuD becomes useless and it's difficult to concentrate on anything except the enemy's health bar. Here's what I mean:

New HuD

Old HuD


Big difference.

 

[Therumancer]

Me:"Hey are you going to buy the new SSX?"
People:"No, it's to unrealistic."

I honestly don't get why some people want to play a realistic snowboard simulator.

What happened to the times when people wanted to play something unrealistic and just have fun? Now the games are all about the graphics and how close it is to real life, and I find it sad that people tell me with a straight face that they would rather play something like Shaun White's Snowboarding than SSX.

So Escapist, what's your take on SSX and Realism in games in general?

A wish fulfillment fantasy I think, if things get too wild it can be hard to suspend disbelief. When your dealing with something like a sports simulator in paticular, the crazier it gets the harder it is to take seriously as the sport in question.

If your say a snowboarding fan, and someone a game like SSX or Shaun White is presumably aimed at, you kind of wish you were one of the guys out there doing that stuff and that's what you want to simulate. If you start routinely doing things that would probably be impossible for the real top of the line athletes in the sport to pull off reliably, that kind of ruins it. If you can say outpoint a world class snowboarder's record in a game that should be an epic feat, not something you just do in day or so of play.

The appeal of realism (not to be confused with being utterly realistic or a simulation) in games varies with the genere. The trick to a good game is to get you to suspend disbelief within the context of it's reality, to have the game convince you this COULD happen at least for a while, some games are just too crazy for that to happen despite pretensions of being based on realistic subject matter like sports.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this on The Escapist, but one thing I've talked about before is how I kind of wish they would remove mechanics like the "dodge roll" from various games simply because full body rolls like that, especially one after another, are not a casual manuver and when linked into a combat system in a game otherwise going for a sense of realism they tend to break immersion for me to a great degree.

I think one of the worst examples for me was "Silent Hill: Homecoming", see, I don't mind the idea of there being a combat capable protaganist in Silent Hill who can kill monsters a little more easily than others that have ventured there. But some of the specific moves he used were what ruined the immersion. If they had paid more attention to the choreography but otherwise kept the game itself, I think the game would have been better received... as one example from a non-sports game.

 

[TehCookie]

Because some of us are into that.

I could just as readily ask, "Why do people want all their games to look like a Saturday morning cartoon?"

Oh, and maybe for good measure I could throw in a little barb at the end, suggesting that anyone who disagrees with me has childish tastes.

And I could answer that with I like the colors and the art. I play games to escape reality, I don't want them to mimic it.

It's a question about why you have that opinion, what makes realistic games more appealing to you. You may disagree with me, but that doesn't make either of us wrong (though some people would like to think so). I dunno can still be correct, but it's just a lazy way to answer. Think and elaborate a little.

 

[pilouuuu]

Because they want an unreal experience

 

[NinjaKirby1322]

I, personally, like to see realism in games advance, but not necessarily want my games to be realistic. Seeing games evolve as they have already has been amazing, and I like seeing how far the technology can be pushed. However, that doesn't mean I want all games to trend that way.

If you're going to make a game, the overall feel of the game is the most important. Want to make LA Noire a realistic-looking detective story that plays like a movie? Go for it! Try the same thing with cartoon-style graphics, though, and it just comes off strange. It works the other way, too. A game like Monday Night Combat or Team Fortress 2 is better off being stylized the way it is.

As long as it fits the feel of the game, I don't care what the graphics are.

 

[FalloutJack]

Well, I'll tell you... I have no interest in snowboarding games at all. Total realism is overrated, though. Some is fine, but the great FalloutJack wants his super mutants to fly apart weirdly when he critically shoots an ARM. It's funnier that way.

You know what a realism game is? REAL LIFE! Go play that and save your money. I'll be summoning my persona to kill deadly shadows and fighting a gun that never runs out of bullets.