Realism, or Lack Thereof?

I'm writing this as I play more of a few old kart racers. Kart racers have been my bigger fancy of racing titles, because I love the arcade-y approach, skill 'balancing'. (I love rubber-band A.I.), and the overall charm of the games. Diddy Kong Racing, Crash Team Racing, MotorToon, Double Dash, and more recently ModNation Racers. Not just Kart Racers, it's more with any arcade influenced sports title, and man have we been getting quite a few! The return of NBA Jam and NFL Blitz, SSX, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD (which honestly isn't all that rewarding, but post patch it's a bit more tolerable.), Sonic and SEGA All-Stars Racing: Transformed, and among others. We're getting more praise and recognition from both the internet, community and journalism alike.

Then we get to the sports 'sims.' -- your Maddens, your 2Ks, your NHLs and all of that jazz. It seems that their relevance is really beginning to thin out. Not even the internet, just in the gaming environment in general. No more overzealous hypings of the next Madden or NCAA title, no 'pro' endorsements that are vocal like previous years. I've been noticing this decline, and it was around 2009 where we see Sports Sims becoming more pushed out the gaming cycle, if that makes any sense.

Is....this...a good thing?



I mean you people know me enough to know that I despise realism and authenticity in video-games. Games are meant to be unrealistic, in my eyes. So, you would think that having these games lose it's hype and recognition would be a good thing for me? Well, it is, but it's a bigger thing more than just losing a few sports sims. I'm speaking of the concept of 'realism' in video-games. Titles like ARMA, Battlefield, Heavy Rain, those off-beat fishing titles not made by SEGA that no one cares about--it feels as if last year was surprisingly mute of those types of titles. No 'photorealistic' environments or detailed facial expressions, no pitch-perfect simulation of weight and less shimmering. Though there was plenty of bloom. People sure love their bloom.

2012, for me, was more of a showing of it's style due to the massive variety of titles. These colorful, offbeat games that release prove to be successful for both the developer and publisher, whereas these multimillion feats of 'visual representations of real-life' tend to do sell a lot less, no matter how "good." (Spec-Ops: The Line.) or "bad." (Medal of Honor: Warfighterwarefieldvengance) they are made. Let's focus on Spec-Ops. While I haven't played it, I've heard very good things about the story and how vastly different the game is from other tried and true third person shooters. Though how it presented itself to the consumer miiiight have been the reason why it did extremely poorly in sales. Same with Warfighter, but that game was bad in general so disregard that.



So, why am I bringing this up? Isn't losing the realism a good thing? Well, popularity is a double edged sword when it comes to videogames. You're guaranteed sales, yes, but it will lead to an abundant oversaturation of titles and imitators. The ones that are different from the others get destroyed sales while, no matter how much praise it gets. Bulletstorm is a fine example. Now it's 2013, and we're gearing enough for another apocalyptic fall-o-geddon with Battlefield 4 and CoD /10/ leading the pack. We've already had a wonderful start of a variety of titles, good and bad releasing, so this could possibly be the year where 'realism' finally takes another backseat to variety? Possibly.

But could 'variety' fall into another trap as 'realism' has? Will Madden sales finally see stop enough for EA to rethink the genre? And what of the Skylanders series, as it's getting imitators such as Disney Infinity. Will we start seeing a synthesis of games and toys more and will that saturate the market? I mean, honestly, you know there will be people who would buy CoD toy guns if it means to use the gun in-game and the alloted perks with it. Perhaps that's what they're planning with Destiny! DO ALIENS EXIST?! DID GREEDO SHOOT FIRST?!



Maybe this is just nonsensical rambling and I'm worrying a bit too much.