Videogames are art

Contrary to the opinion of a popular, deceased film-critic, videogames are art, and thus should not be judged purely from a left-brained, mathematical perspective.

This left-brained thinking seeped into even the development-side of things, especially in the last generation. When viewed solely as products, many developers and publishers rushed to include features from competing games, just for the sake of competition. For example, the Tomb Raider reboot included unnecessary multiplayer. Why? To discourage people from trading it in to Gamestop or selling it, and to check-off a box which increasing amounts of companies sought to check off, which was including online multiplayer modes for the sake of them.

This capitalistic scramble to 'keep up' has increased the production-costs of games, but they have not necessarily benefited the gamer nor the evolution or amelioration of gameplay as a whole. Because developers constantly look at other games and copy them, many games, especially in the 'AAA' space, feel and look the same.

From a consumer-standpoint, many consumers judge games based on how many hours the single-player campaign is, or how many maps the multiplayer-mode has. This is such a counterproductive and immature way of looking at games that it makes me sick. We don't judge movies based on how long they are; of course, they are all of similar length. Maybe there is an understated expectation of how long a game should be, but that is only when the gamer is judging it solely from a capitalistic perspective. This must change.

As consumers, we are taught that we are always right, and we must demand as much as we can for our dollar. I do not necessarily agree with this, but the point is that it's the mindset of many individuals. Thus, these sheep demand extra things and more of the same things they already have, just because they think it's their right to demand them, whether it's good for them or not. In the case of games, they demand longer campaigns, even if it means the campaign gets repetitive or unsatisfying (e.g. Alien Isolation). People criticized Splatoon for only launching with however many maps, completely disregarding the innovative appeal of the game, as well as the point of a slow map-dispersal being to acclimate the players to each map.

You cannot judge videogames like they are simply products to be bested by another, because they are art. They were not designed to simply have more pixels than the other game, have more maps, nor more campaign-hours. They were designed to be fun, and thus to judge something in a way that they were not designed to be judged is foolish and unfair.