Is More Realistic More Fun?

As the video games we play creep ever so slowly towards emulating reality, we must stop and ask: is this really a good thing? While yes, a realistic video game draws the player in more, making them feel like they're actually shooting, stabbing or kicking enemies, the increased realism doesn't necessarily make the game more fun.

Now, I'm not saying that realistic games are less fun than unrealistic games. Take Team Fortress 2 and Arma 2, two games at opposite ends of the spectrum. Where Team Fortress 2 uses a creative visual style and extremely unrealistic gameplay mechanics, ARMA tries it's best to recreate combat in the real world. Even though these two games take extremely different approaches to attract players, they have both done very well.

While TF2 and Arma 2 are quite different games, there is certainly an audience overlap. If anything it's TF2 that's pushing it's way into the realistic game's audience, rather than the other way around. I believe that an unrealistic game appeals to a wider audience than a realistic one, but the realistic game would probably have a more devoted and "hardcore" playerbase. The players of a more casual, less realistic game probably won't spend all of their gaming time on a single game, whereas those who play more hardcore, realistic games are more likely to devote large amounts of their game time to a single game. This is because a lot of the reward in a serious, realistic game is based in the results, and in order to achieve good results, one must play the game quite a lot.

I know when I play a realistic game, I play it much differently from a less realistic game. The more realistic the game, the more I concentrate on playing it, and the less I play it laughing and with a smile on my face. Because of this, when I am doing well in a realistic game, such as Insurgency, or even down on the scale, Call of Duty, I feel accomplished. Whereas in Team Fortress 2, I don't really care how well I'm doing. Of course you can still play a less realistic game with a serious face, but it's not quite the same.

So, as with most things in the entertainment world, it all comes down to what the end-user wants. If they wanted to laugh in the face of gravity, I'd point them in the direction of the Scout class in TF2. If they wanted to do some serious gaming, I present sniping in Call of Duty. And if they want to die a horrible painful death from an unknown direction, there's always Insurgency: Modern Infantry Combat.