clippen05 said:
So I play a variety of shooters, everything from Halo and Battlefield to Red Orchestra and ARMA. Sometimes I prefer some running and gunning, while other times, (Most of the time in my case), I prefer to play a more tactical and challenging game. And whenever I read topics about shooters on other forums, almost every time the word realism is mentioned, someone follows up with, "If you want realism, go join the army!" I don't understand what's so wrong with wanting a bit of realism in shooters. If you don't like realistic shooters, you don't have to play them. They obviously won't be replacing arcade shooters any time soon.
Is there any particular reason people hate realism in shooters?
People don't, the US left wing anti-gun lobby does.
To explain something, which a lot of people won't like, you might notice that there have been increasing amounts of anti-gun propaganda out there along with pressure being aimed at video games as murder simulators and so on. Things like the "Sandy Hook Massacre" and even the "Zimmerman Trial" have just continued to make things worse. While the gaming industry has successfully defended itself against most serious challengers, it has also been bending to pressure, and realizing that it's an expensive proposition to defend itself, along with the simple fact that at least in the US which is still the biggest market all it takes is one victory by the other side to establish laws and precedents, nothing effectively puts a gag on people representing an issue once they lose, they can just rally again and again until they succeed... one of the major problems with our system. The industry could win twenty times, and it won't matter if they lose once.
As a result you've seen a tendency for games to move away from realism, with them becoming increasingly cartoony and stylized, and more of a focus on the over the top rather than being realistic. The sheer unreality of the entire thing allowing a strong defense against the criticisms leveled that these games could act as a teaching tool for people to commit real violence. The gaming industry as a whole understands advertising however, and doesn't want to admit to capitulation of a sort to those that have vehemently defended it. Instead it's been working on creating an artificial reality, that is a marking technique by which it has the media and shills inserted into social media effectively tell people "this is what is cool, and what you want" by acting like everyone else is saying it, to create false trends
which people will follow to not be left out and effectively creating the environment the gaming industry wants. This is not to say that ALL gaming companies within the industry are doing this and forsaking realism in things like shooters, but a lot are. You'll notice the almost complete about face over a fairly short period of time when it comes to realism in these kinds of games which tend to match political trends. I'm not the first person to comment on it, and while you won't like my explanations I don't think, your pretty much noticing the trend and going "hold on, wait a second, what's going on here" as quite a few people have done before you.
The funny thing is that at one time there actually was a demand for the "old school shooter" to make more of a come back, most of the people wanting this got old(er) and started pushing as hard before things reversed, being a mere whimper of what they once were before this "old school comeback" which seems largely to be motivated by what companies can get away with. I mean you can't yell at say "Serious Sam" for being realistic, and "The Alien Hordes Of Mental" are a way of skirting around the whole issue of left wing hand wringing over any group selected to be the bad guys. Not to mention that when your guns look like cheap toys from K Mart and lack much in the way of concession to reality (range, recoil, etc...) it becomes hard to say "hey, this is just like what this dude did when he opened fire at his school!!!".
