[quote name='WildWop']That's like saying that movies should be relegated to Action and nothing more. Video games are becoming a comprehensive source of entertainment -- Shenmue is the "Eternal Sunshine" or "Lost in Translation" to your "Predator." When you pigeonhole entertainment provided through an input device as a "game" you lose the ability to enjoy the game (need a better word -- entertainment medium?) as the experience they are starting to become.
A greater level of immersion in a game makes it transcend the pure definition of "game."[/QUOTE]
No it's not. Sure, games are becoming more comprehensive. But ultimately, I 'play' a 'game' because it's 'fun'. Shenmue wasn't fun for me, that is, I didn't enjoy it. Any entertainment medium or item should be 'enjoyed' by the person experiencing it. "Enjoyment" is defined by the user.
I watch a movie because I like it--maybe sometimes I like the big bam booms; maybe sometimes I like to be provoked and challenged mentally; maybe sometimes I like the things it says about society or people or whatever.
Do you like to play games that aren't 'fun', however you define that? Fun to you might be 'experiencing a living world' in a game. That's not fun to me. It's still a game. Is lifting very heavy things over your head 'fun' for you? Not to me, but it is to a bodybuilder. Millions of people watch 'reality' shows every night, those aren't 'fun' or 'enjoyable' to me either.
You are quite defensive; I was quite conciliatory in saying Shenmue was a quality work and that I just didn't like it, and here you are implying I'm some sort of action-movie minded Joe SixPack buffoon simply because I don't agree with your opinion that Shenmue is the god of games, that I somehow don't have the 'ability' to 'enjoy' the game.
I'm glad you used Lost in Translation and Eternal Sunshine in your post; I haven't seen them yet. Had you used Royal Tenenbaums, which is sometimes mentioned in the same breath as the first two, I would have had to heartily disagree as well, and say I found RT a boring, noninteresting waste of a disk. Again, not saying it's objectively a 'bad film', just saying what my subjective opinion of it was. Which is apparently 'wrong'.
And, this goes for games, movies, books as well--Sometimes things take a while to 'get started'. How long is a while? I've read books where the first 9 of 10 chapters were dreadful, and the final chapter was actually decent; other ones where I couldn't get into even the first chapter, so I'd put it down and maybe come back and try later. How long should the user be expected to stick with the 'boring' parts before getting to the 'good stuff'? I think that depends on the user, and while certainly 5 or 10 minutes isn't enough, 2 or 3 hours should be more than enough to at least show the promise of getting 'better' [ie, more fun or enjoyable for that specific person.] If I play a game for, say, 3 hours, or 'immerse' myself in it, and don't 'enjoy' it for any of that time, or see improvement in my level of enjoyment, that's pretty much it for me. Again, I can still say "Wow, that was an immersive experience,", or "Hey, that really felt like a virtual world,", but at the end of the day, if I don't *like* that feeling or that experience, I'm not going to "like" the game/experience/media. There are many classic authors whom I can respect for their mark on literature, but whom I don't "like". Many musicians/groups, for instance, are the same way. I don't have to like everything, and I don't need validation that other people like or don't like the same thing I do.