How Realistic Should Games Get?

[Koh]

Something I thought would be interesting to discuss. So there are people who are for furthering the concept of putting humans into digital worlds, so that they can experience the game as if they were literally there, while the other side of the fence is that games shouldn't get too realistic. What is your position, and why do you feel this way?

[Kitsu]

As realistic as people want them to be.
As long as other people who don't want to make realistic games can still make not-realistic games.

[puggsoy]

Kitsu's basically summed it up. If people want to make a game that's as realistic as real life and they can, there's no reason to stop them. Unless the user isn't aware that it's a game (i.e. thinks it's real life for whatever reason), I don't see anything dangerous or negative about it. People who want lifelike experiences can have them, and those who don't aren't forced to play the game.

It's a matter of personal preference more than "should it be that way", and I don't think anyone deserves to say which is overall "right" or "better". I personally don't play many games that try to be realistic because that's not what I look for in games, but if it was done well and it had interesting mechanics, I might enjoy it.

[Koh]

I've been hearing about an anime called Sword Art Online from the same thread topic I've made on other forums, and I'm assuming it has that super high level of entry for the players into the game world. I've also heard stories that they're actually working on nervegear, to have you get an actual feeling from interacting in the game world. It just frightens me a bit, that games will becomes so realistic, that there will hardly be much distinguishing from the Real World and the Virtual World, or that having pain in the Virtual World causes you to feel pain in the Real World.

[puggsoy]

I've heard of Sword Art Online, I know what you mean. If they do end up making nervegear, there will be a lot of restrictions on the extent to which it can actually affect you; connecting electrical equipment to your nervous system obviously has a lot of health risks and an immense amount of caution would need to be taken to ensure that it's safe. I'm not sure it'll even come to that point (it might just not be possible to do it safely for home use) but if it does then I'm confident that it will be more like discomfort or small electrical shocks rather than actual pain. The very function of pain is to tell you that something is wrong with your body, so even fake pain wouldn't be advised as it could cause you to ignore real pain (either if you somehow hurt yourself while playing, or outside of playing just because you've become accustomed to subconsciously dismissing it as fake).

As for the immersion, I don't think it's really bad. Gaming should always be taken in moderation, realistic or not, and I don't think lifelike gaming will or should change that. There are already serious cases of people being unhealthily addicted to games (World of Warcraft being an obvious example), which are far from realistic.
Any gaming system that is fully immersive should have precautions that ensure that people don't get consumed by the game, probably by some notification or forced break feature. The developers should care about the well-being of their customers and think about these things.

Note I'm saying the word "should" a lot; I obviously don't know how it will turn out. I share your concerns and I'm definitely not trying to shoot them down, but I feel that if people are smart enough to provide a completely realistic experience, they are also smart enough to consider the consequences and take precautions for them. At the very least, if developers don't do something about it themselves, others will insist that they do.

[Jinzo-Advance]

Meh, I don't care about realism as much as fun. One of the problems with games these days is they cost a lot of money to make. My guess is that they are going too far chasing realistic graphics. If they can't go after realism because of money, I'd suggest just going for fun instead.

Also, puggsoy, I know of one game from the 1990s with that feature. Earthbound had Ness's dad call every two hours to suggest taking a break.