Does anyone else feel this way? The more realism is added in games the more I realise how much I hate it when I see it especially if the 'realistic' aspects of games can't be turned off and I think I'm slowly developing a list of things that piss me off and I'm of the view being a gamer you should always have an option to turn this stuff off and not have it forced on you if it's not multiplayer especially if it turns out it saves tons on performance and is just gimmicky.

Some examples of what I've been thinking of lately:

. Hair growth
. Soft body vehicle physics/damage
. Travel Time
. Fuel
. Ammo ( Depends on the type of game this one but in some non-survival genres I feel it just doesn't belong or drags the game out far too much )
. Floaty or Clunky character movement
. 'Realistic' physics of any kind
. Gun Sights
. General graphic fidelity

Some of these features can even make gaming a total chore, does anyone remember the Witcher 3 and beard growth? That annoyed the hell out of me yet people were praising it like it was a genius feature.

Realism in games = Simulation

Simulation games are not actually fun in itself, or have enough content like other game types, its ment to please people that wants a simulation of real life experience.

tip: If you are not a player that likes simulation, you will not enjoy making a simulation.

Like ray tracing and that kind of thing, it's just a waste of processor power and I can't even see it. Physics always seems too slow. The games I play anymore are completely abstract, like Free Cell, Chess, stuff like that. Still, I'm working on a turn based rpg, but I want the battles to be heavy on strategy.

Apart from stuff like Cassette Beasts, which was done in Godot apparently, I hate turn based combat, PSO on the Dreamcast put me off forever.

    Maybe you're playing the wrong games. There are like 100's of games released every day on Steam and Itch, and most of them aren't like that.

    GodotBeginnerRich I hardly ever play turn based strategy, or any games. I don't like the turn based where you start these factories and all that, and I want it to be position based on a grid, not lined up. Then it's just a matter of strategy involving position and resources, like only so many spells, or arrows or whatever. And none of those endless animations.

      I totally get it. I got bullied pretty hard back in middle school when the kids were discovering call of duty and GTA. It took me years to get around to trying those kinds of games because they looked so boring(realistic).
      Loved Halo though.

        Unsolicited opinion:
        Games have the potential and at times can be an art form and some of the best completely throw realism out the window. What's the point of learning how to build a world if its something you've already seen before? What Remains of Edith Finch i think is a great example of a game that has a healthy splash of realism but not so much where it becomes boring.

        I think realism is good in a game if it serves a purpose towards the gameplay. I can definitely see where you come from about it being wasteful in some/lots of cases. I've played plenty of "pretty" or realistic games that were quite hollow when it came to substance. That being said...

        Example of "good" realism:
        The physics of impact when a sword hits your shield. A recoil feels good and keeps you engaged with haptic feedback, like a controller vibration, to communicate the hit with more than sound.

        Example of completely pointless realism:
        When a fighting game with female characters wastes time on their "jiggling" physics of anatomy that are not important to combat.

        The only games I still play are all turn-based and two-dimensional. Realistic adventures are not fun. Just like real warfare, they consist of long periods of boredom followed by short bouts of terror.

        However, you have to have realism when you want a player to be able to intuit the next move. If your puzzle isn't based on physics, then you have to spell out every option for the player -- not a problem, as long as you take the time to do it.

        The second use for unnecessary realism is creating an emotional reaction. Humans are wired to react to real humans with hair and jiggling and all. If you don't see that in the game, your player's back-brain is thinking, "mannequin!", the whole time. You can still have emotional reactions to simple games, of course, but it's arguably stronger to a realistic character.

        The worst drawback to realism (apart from computer requirements) is that any flaw becomes that much more obvious. Even state of the art games tend to suffer from this.

          I'm usually not a big fan of playing realist games, but some really do catch my eye.
          This new FPS game that got famous recently for being crazy realist, Unrecord, looks hella exciting.

          That's quite a limited, reductive opinion IMHO, but anyway OP and everyone are free to have their own, right ?

          I could say it's depend, some game MUST be accurate as much as possible, like Virtual Pool 3 & 4, because an arcade pool game quite sucks (Arcade Pool on Amiga from Team 17 for instance have great visual but that's all, I never really enjoyed this game), same for some kind of sport game (darts, racing sim obviously, flight sim, ...) Accuracy in other game depend, FPS in which player is pretty much invincible and can run like a champion with a few bullets in the legs are ridiculous, they were good in the 90s, but now, it would be just a shame UNLESS it was made this way on purpose.

          To balance that, full accuracy is also not wanted as a monitor doesn't allow to have the same view as our eyes, saves might be useful because we cannot afford to spend a full month behind a game to play in real time, games are still very very limited, even with VR I guess, it could be also boring to die of an infection from a little splinter for a bullet impact nearby whereas it could happen in real life. Lost Patrol also on Amiga quite simulate this kind of insane accuracy and it was not an intense action game.

          After all, the purpose of a game is to have fun in a way or another, for casual player as well as hardcore insane crazy ones.

          duane I think your second use of realism doesn't work, maybe not anymore. Speaking as a certified kid, we don't connect with real humans well. Speaking as myself, I don't connect emotionally at all. I don't connect with depictions of real humans either. At all. Instead, I emotionally connect better with non-animate objects and animals. But when I put it that way, I'm not connecting, am I? It's reactionary, meaning it's probably autism.
          There's this experiment back in 1944:

          I'm spoiling the next paragraph in case you want to try it yourself. Just watch it and think about how you feel watching it.
          Logically, you see shapes moving around. But most who saw this animation back in 1944, and I, instead saw a story of domestic abuse with a good ending. Thanks to zero attempt to make the characters appear human, I emotionally reacted more than I would otherwise. When I see real domestic abuse, I feel the urge to stop it, but no underlying rage or fear. It's just a human being human. With these shapes, I never hated a large equilateral triangle more in my life.
          Others could be different. I don't ask often, because apparently it outs me as some kind of sociopath.

            GodotBeginnerRich For most of my friends, COD introduced them to guns, which introduced them to tanks, which led to a rabbithole to discover they love planes, ultimately resulting in most of them being electrical or aerospace engineers.
            It also gave a few a gaming addiction, so I don't see it as any better or worse than a caffeine habit.

                That video is going to give me nightmares. Someone should make a whole game like that.

                  Playing mature games is not actually illegal for kids. It's a voluntary ratings system that only dictates what can be sold. If a parent buys their child COD, that's fine.

                    GodotBeginnerRich COD is 18 rated, kids aren't legally allowed to play it... But of course they do anyway due to idiot Parents who let their kids play age rated games.

                    So it's the parents who are considered idiots, not those who passed the idiotic law?

                    cybereality If a parent buys their child COD, that's fine.

                    Common sense prevails.

                        GodotBeginnerRich kids aren't legally allowed to play it

                        AFAIK in most of the world that is not true. The ratings(PEGI and similar) are industries own creation and self regulated(as a group) and they are meant to be indicative. Parental advisory sort of thing. So the parents decide what to buy and let their kids play, or so it's intended at least.

                            Megalomaniak In the UK, it's a crime to "supply" a minor with a "mature video presentation" (games included), unless it's "exempted supply".
                            I'm not a lawyer, nor british, but I'm pretty sure that means the only "crime" in underage gaming is whoever sells/gives the kid Battlefield 3 while holding some legal status that involves giving stuff away or selling stuff. Stores, government, charities.
                            it's under section 11
                            https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1984/39/section/11
                            Basically, it's not a crime to buy your 15 year old Halo Infinite for christmas. Not that it matters since no one actually enforces the law
                            In America there's no law at all as far as I know, it's purely a "this game's kinda violent" message to the parent. In fact, my first COD game was for the Wii, and I got it because my mom asked the dude at Gamestop what to get a 13 year old.

                            Imagine if you had to send Steam your state ID to prove you can legally buy the big boy games.

                                packrat In the UK, it's a crime to "supply" a minor with a "mature video presentation" (games included), unless it's "exempted supply".

                                Yes, I implied that the parent would be buying it. As in a T for Teen game to a pre-teen say for an example. Mature in that ahem kinda way is a way different thing.

                                  packrat Not that it matters since no one actually enforces the law

                                  In Russia there is a saying: The cruelty of laws is compensated by their non-enforcement.

                                      Tomcat I'm glad. Do you know how many years in jail I've got from "trespassing" cuz the sun sets a little faster than I expect? Oregon wetlands are beautiful at night, it shouldn't be a crime.

                                          Tomcat The trouble with that is they are only enforced for people they don't like. That's why they are so terrible. They allow discrimination.

                                            When I'm playing Euro Truck Simulator 2 with my force feedback wheel and a VR headset, I start thinking about how much I wish it used OpenStreetMap to build the road networks so the map is more realistic (like how X-Plane uses OpenStreetMap for the entire planet).

                                            packrat Yeah my sister in law's sister lives over there with her husband and 2 kids.

                                            She says it's nice.

                                            Although there's one place in the US I'd really like to visit, Hershey, PA, I've had Hershey's chocolate before and it's really nice.

                                                GodotBeginnerRich As an American and a chocolate enthusiast, that's the last place I would have expected anyone to want to visit.
                                                In America, we/I like to bully "fake food". We/I also like bullying corporation, and we/I especially love bullying BIG corporation.
                                                Food's complicated, so I won't get into why Hershey's is barely chocolate, but I will urge you to visit Oregon and one of our millions of whole food stores. How they make 90% cacao chocolate taste so sweet is bizarre. It's a brick of pure choco. It's super bitter for a split second, then you crunch on a big sugar crystal. Suddenly, your whole mouth is sweet. It's awesome.
                                                I think the brand is "Alter Eco" or something yuppie/hippie sounding like that.

                                                I just looked up Hershey, Pennsylvania. It's super americana. Call me a terrorist but I really dislike the americana vision. Therefore my opinion is heavily biased and the smart thing to do would be to ignore it.

                                                    I think the reason for all this dislike toward realism is because abstraction is a tool that a lot of major game studios have just kind of forgotten how to use. red dead redemption 2 is a peak example of what I mean. in real life it takes a dedicated amount of time and effort to get on and off a horse, so the game makes it take a while. thing is, if you have to get on your horse, realize you forgot something, and then get back on, it's way more time consuming and annoying than in a game where it's a simple 1 second "hop on/hop off". and the game is littered with moments like these, little touches that add to realism but make the game even more of a chore to play. I consider it the culmination of everything wrong with gaming realism and I'm still shocked it was so loved when it came out. I didn't expect people to hate it or anything, but it seemed like everyone just didn't care that literally everything was such a slog because of how long the animations took!

                                                    it just seems like developers these days forget that the old guard did stuff like use dynamite explosions for gun sounds because they sounded more like how guns sound in our head, and made it feel more real even though it was actually more fake!

                                                    granted, it's not always a negative. stuff like "snake = poison" or "man with armor is harder to kill" are excellent uses of realism, because they play on our perceptions to give us quick and easy visual identifiers for important stuff.

                                                    cybereality check the game "thomas was alone" if you don't know it already, uses a similar concept of only simple shapes allowed.

                                                      packrat so I won't get into why Hershey's is barely chocolate

                                                      There's a video for that:

                                                        Chocolate is overrated, although highly addictive. All the worship it gets is just rationalization of sugar+cocoa addiction. If you go cold turkey for a couple of months and then put one of those things in your mouth again, they all taste like sugared-up vomit or bitter cardboard. Even the fancy European ones. Being from Europe, I can only imagine the horrors of Hershey's taste for an unconditioned palate.

                                                          Yes, Witcher 3 marks the time when AAA games started becoming too realistic, and I never even noticed the hair and beard growth. It still looked good, but later games became so realistic they actually looked bad, and they spend billions of dollars on artwork (is it even 'art' when it's all mocap, photo textures, and 3D scans?) while neglecting gameplay.

                                                          However, I make RPGs so I have to strike a balance; I can't simply say "no realism". Most RPGs have fuel and ammo. Anything that adds an interesting challenge is good realism, but excessive simulation adds nothing to gameplay or worse, leads to hair-splitting decisions or overly-precise aiming. If it's an open world RPG without fast travel, players will denigrate it as a "walking simulator". It also needs to look good by RPG afficionado standards, which are pretty forgiving compared to the latest normie AAA standards.

                                                            synthnostate (is it even 'art' when it's all mocap, photo textures, and 3D scans?)

                                                            Yes, because art is about composition and meaning. In other words, it matters more how it's all brought together rather than how it's produced in the first place.

                                                            synthnostate If it's an open world RPG without fast travel, players will denigrate it as a "walking simulator".

                                                            Not necessarily. So long as you have meaningful challenges and interactions show up regularly along the way.

                                                                The Stone Soup developers had some really good rules about what makes a good game and what should be thrown out. If there's a "best" option, let alone a "required" one, it doesn't belong in the game. If any activity doesn't directly reflect a strategy, it doesn't belong. If something can be done by a simple algorithm, it doesn't belong (or should be automated).

                                                                Of course, by their standards, MMOs should have all died out a long time ago. (I have a hard time disagreeing with that.)

                                                                  "Realism" is a very broad concept. Saying "realism=bad" is so generalized a statement that it almost makes no sense.

                                                                  Engaging gameplay is the defining characteristic of games, that sets them apart from other forms of art and media. So everything that supports the gameplay is good for a game. "Realism" can do a lot in that respect. Every "bad" thing listed in the OP can be cleverly woven into game rules, instead of being just realistic for the sake of being realistic.

                                                                  Even when used as mere gimmicks, realistic aspects can add to one other important dimension - the atmosphere. It's secondary to gameplay but still essential for satisfying gaming experience in many of genres.

                                                                    xyz ooh my precious belgian chocolate

                                                                      DJM True.

                                                                      This is what annoys me about Sony, most of their big sellers, other than COD, are "walking sim" or "narrative driven" adventure games like TLOU (The Last of Us).

                                                                      Don't get me wrong I'm an adventure game fan from way back, but most of the good ones are PS exclusive, and I'm an Xbox guy.

                                                                        xyz Maybe you've never had quality dark chocolate. I'd describe it as "fruity" or "exotic" way before I'd say "cardboard". But it's also true I'm weird. Maybe even a freak. I love earthy/medicinal flavors so much, I'm the kind of guy that seeks out protein bars for the flavor.
                                                                        I understand where you're coming from if you're talking about milk chocolate, the average mars chocolate bar. 60% sugar, 10% dried milk, 20% cocoa butter and only 10% cocoa mass, concocted as punishment for man's gravest sins on earth.
                                                                        Or maybe you're talking about fake "chocolate", the kind that has no real chocolate at all. No cocoa mass, no cocoa butter, but a brick of hydrogenated vegetable oil flavored with chemicals some dudes in a lab thought tasted kinda like chocolate, with a pinch of cocoa powder.

                                                                          duane

                                                                          If there's a "best" option, let alone a "required" one, it doesn't belong in the game.

                                                                          that's way easier said than done. the life cycle of any online game is someone finding a dominant strategy that the developers attempt to fix, and if they manage it then someone else finds a new one, and it just repeats ad infinitum. and single player games are only better in the sense that there's not nearly as many people try-harding them into oblivion... normally.

                                                                          xyz I understand what you're saying, but I struggle to figure out how something like "horse balls shrink in cold areas" (an actual example from RDR2, that took a surprising amount of resources to accomplish) could ever do any of that. if there is a line to cross, that game leaped over it with acrobatic prowess.

                                                                                samuraidan Some dudes wanna play with their movies. Other dudes like their alternate realities to be a close cousin to ours. Others just want a puzzle to play with that has a pretty coat of paint. Ultimately if the machine can take it, someone gets paid for the work and someone enjoys it, I never saw the harm.
                                                                                Besides that, shrinking horse balls was an awesome PR move. Do you know how many sites were talking about that?