Who even decides what the "point" of a media is beside the people creating stuff in the media?
What I'm saying is that a medium should play to the strengths of the unique thing that it offers over other mediums.
What do video games uniquely offer? Interactivity. Therfore, the video game medium should focus on offering interactivity that would be impossible to get in any other medium.
To the Moon[1] and Dear Esther[2] won awards and high praise from critics and players alike, despite lacklustre interactivity.
It enhanced the story and immersed me.
Thanks for the great example.
Anecdotal report of what you thought doesn’t advance the conversation. I can just say it was a boring game for me (it was) and we’re back to square one.
I feel that if you call Dear Esther’s interactivity “amazing”, you either haven’t played enough games to be able to expound judgement, or have a definition of “interactivity” different from most players. Some quotes from the Wikipedia page, based on multiple published sources:
> The gameplay in Dear Esther is minimal, with the only task being (…)
> Despite questioning whether it truly constitutes a video game (…)
> (…) critics were divided by the suitability of the video game medium for conveying the story of Dear Esther.
> (…) stating that the game "would be better as a short film" (…)
> The limited interactivity between the player and the narrative (…)
The consensus is that it’s a good work of art, with a good story, visuals, and sound design, but that there isn’t much to interact with.
I don't know what this means. If it is an insult, I am too stupid to understand it.
>I feel that if you call Dear Esther’s interactivity “amazing”, you either haven’t played enough games to be able to expound judgement, or have a definition of “interactivity” different from most players.
You could not experience the game without interacting with it. It's in first person. You move the story along as you discover new story elements. You experience emotions and perspectives first-hand.
>The consensus is that it’s a good work of art, with a good story, visuals, and sound design, but that there isn’t much to interact with.
Dear Esther would not work in any other medium. It would be extremely boring without the interactivity.
So if we're circling back to the original comment that spawned this discussion: Interactivity is what makes the medium of video games unique. Dear Esther focuses on interactivity by making the entire story unravel as you choose to explore it yourself... interactively.
Your point would stand if Dear Esther put you on rails and you barely pushed any buttons (like a Hideo Kojima cutscene). But that's not how the game is designed.
There's no single point to the medium. It's a powerful medium exactly because it's so flexible.
Yes, there should be a symphony of sound and visual working together. But the whole point of the medium of Motion Pictures is to tell stories through... motion pictures.