Sometime around the PS3/360-era, we started getting waves of AAA games that were trying to be more “cinematic.”

They had lengthier cutscenes. They had linear “setpiece” moments. They had full voice acting, sometimes motion-capture animation. They started writing their stories more like films.

After this happened, I noticed a divide between people who were into that change of direction and people who weren’t.

One common critique I’ve seen from people who don’t like that direction goes something like this:

“The gameplay is so basic and your choices don’t matter, they should’ve just made a movie instead of a video game.”

I used to agree strongly. Years later, I’ve changed my mind.

Also around that time: writing, forum discussions, and Youtube videos about games became more fleshed out. People were talking about game design, interactivity, stuff like that.

These changes came to a head in terms like “ludonarrative dissonance” and “flow state.” Or in games like The Stanley Parable. The things that “make a game a game” were clearly now on a lot of people’s minds in the English-speaking internet.

I started to notice a growing definition of what a good game was and what a good game wasn’t.

Good games were interactive. Your choices mattered. The gameplay mechanics intertwined with the narrative. There was a perfect difficulty curve that kept you engaged.

Mario Galaxy and Super Meat Boy? Now THOSE were games. Uncharted? Well…the jury was still out.

The gold medal of a good game was that it “couldn’t be presented in any other medium of art than a game.”

I love games like that. I always have, and I hope people keep making them.

But I no longer care about whether games fit that criteria.

I’ve seen people say that certain big AAA games should’ve just “been a movie.” I’ve similarly seen people bash visual novels that didn’t have branching choices by saying it should’ve just “been a comic.”

The point they’re making is that these games they didn’t like weren’t living up to the potential of what a game could/should be.

But at this point in my life, I literally don’t care.

1. When people make a piece of art, they can’t just swap to a completely different medium. Making a film is COMPLETELY different than making a game. It requires a completely different crew of people, different processes, etc.

2. If a person or team has the skills and experience to make one particular type of media (say, a game), then I think they should just make what they want. If someone puts on a play with their theater troupe, it’s not helpful to be like “nice stage play, but this would’ve been so dope as an animated cartoon, did you consider doing that?” Their skills are in live theater.

3. The business of making a living in different industries, and distributing your art in different industries, is totally different. Getting people to buy your indie game is tough, but have you tried getting people to buy tickets to your indie film festival? For a lot of teams, I think releasing a game is just much more realistic, even if their idea doesnt have a lot of interactivity.

And perhaps most importantly…

4. Different types of media reach totally different people.

I don’t watch films much. I don’t read books much. I want to do those things more (and I will), but for now that means that I’m mostly not exposed to the stories told in those two forms.

So, to be frank, I don’t care if a linear visual novel I’m playing “could’ve just been a book or graphic novel” because the dialogue choices didn’t branch the story. If it was a book, I probably wouldn’t have stumbled on it. The developer wanted to make a game, I wanted to buy a game, their game found my attention on a game store and now I’m enjoying it.

Why care what it “could have” been?

And the same goes the other way around. If you prefer to work in comics, make a comic. If you prefer to make short films, make short films.

Preferences could even be as small as “I prefer to hold a controller and press A to advance the story more than I like holding a book and flipping a piece of paper.”

Making these things and experiencing these things are different and they resonate with different people. It shouldn’t matter if a book is perfectly living up to the potential of literature as a form of art.

I’m purposely mentioning both massive AAA games and indie visual novels because for me, the scale doesn’t matter, my feeling is the same.

It just doesn’t matter if a game isn’t as interactive and unique as the medium has the potential to be.

Developers should just make whatever they want.