There's one reason why not many people seem to be into horror games...

[DEAD34345]

Well, the reason I avoid horror games is because they tend to have relatively poor gameplay, and the type of horror usually used in video-games is precisely the kind of horror that doesn't frighten me in the slightest. I know there's no monsters in my closet, or in my ventilation shafts (in fact, I don't even have ventilation shafts), so why are these things supposed to scare me?

What gets me is the kind of horror that is semi-believable. Serial killers or cultists, or anything involving people doing wicked stuff to other people sometimes scares me, just because it is within the realms of reality. A game that successfully pulled that off would not be a game, since it would pretty much require the player to be subdued and unable to do anything for the horror to work.

 

[Ritalynn]

Bioshock isn't a horror game. Dead Space is on the edge of horror/fps/sci-fi or Fatal Frame would be good to classify as horror.

Resident evil has turned into gameplay that i just literally don't enjoy to play at all. It's to a point to where it's not horror. It's just a target practice with a few puzzles that takes alot of time to get used to.

If a fatal frame gets released for the Kinect, i highly doubt i'll even be able to play it since watching it freaks me out. I dunno why i just find alot of those things in the game very disturbing.

 

[staika]

I don't play horror games because they scare me, I don't play them because I get startled very easily and whenever I get startled you can tell because I literally almost jump. I once played a horror game (Condemned 1) and my brother came in the room and started to watch me play like he does from time to time and after about a half hour he stopped watching the game and started watching me because I jumped so much and he found it hilarious. And thats why I don't usually play horror games.

 

[Seishisha]

Stimulating fear in people can be a great way of making a game, film or whatever more enjoyable, the notion of a threat real or otherwise causes more primitive instincts to kick in like self preservation, these things can be great for building immersion and can lead to truely great gameplay, i guess the only real reason why people wouldnt want to play horror games is because they dont want to be scared, its a basic but perfectly understandable logic.

Another reason could be that alot of modern horror games and some older ones arnt infact that scary, i could recount several titles* off hand right now that fail greatly at horror but claim to be anyway, generaly they can startle you but you never actualy feel that vunerable espicaly when you know the nearby corpse is going to jump at you and your just gonna shoot it regaurdless.

*
Doom3
Deadspace
AVP
Resident Evil(though personaly i dont think scaring people was ever an intention in resi evil)

 

[thelastmccabe]

What OP says is true of me. I don't like to be scared, so I don't play scary games. Even Bioshock was a little too scary for me. I feel like I'm missing out, but there's not much I can do.