Passive vs Active, Hardcore vs Mainstream

Why is it that so many passive entertainment mediums (tv, movies, books, ...) are far more popular than games?

First, I would say it is b/c of our culture's stigma against "computer games". This may in part be b/c of the relative newness of computer gaming. I have seen a definite trend towards accepting computer gaming but it has been slow. A vast majority of the populous considers gamers to all be nerds and computer geeks with no social skills. This stems from the fact that not long ago, if you wanted to play games, you had to be a computer "geek" to a certain extent (I learned most of what I know about computer hardware from working on my computers to get them to play more games =). I think that given time though this will slowly change as more and more people get into games. Part of the problem is that most game makers are hardcore game players who want to make more hardcore games. The majority of the gaming industry leaves non-hardcore games to people who just want to make money and aren't interested in the games themselves. it is very rare to see the successful development teams make light-weight games. We have this mentality that games should be big bold titles so thick with depth and story and complexity, that they should take 20+ hours to beat and should cost $40+ dollars. Why is it that the average game budget is measured in the millions and requires 30 man teams to make? And why is it that so many games are so hard? If I spent all day at work and was tired, I don't want to come home and play a game that makes me tense and to work hard to beat it. Like Jeff said in another post, "I didn't have to work too hard and they were extremely entertaining." Too many games focus on work and skill and not on being entertaining. I do believe that we need to take advantage of the medium- we need to make it interactive but sometimes it would be fun just to be entertained without the work. For example, I was playing through Alice not long ago and there is this section where you ride a giant leaf down a stream. I thought to myself, "Wow! This could be pretty cool! It could be a wild ride down a raging river with lots of neat scenery!" Well, I got the wild ride and I got the scenery but I didn't enjoy it b/c I spent the whole time fighting off enemies.

Have you ever walked into a section of a game and gone, "Man, this is going to be hard!" and you really didn't want to do it (can we say jumping puzzles). What if sometimes the developer made it easy for you. Imagine how good it would feel and how much it would refresh the game. You could only do it a couple of times in the game or they'd come to expect it but if it were done right, the relief the player would feel would go a long way towards energizing them for what the rest of the game is going to bring.

I think that a good design philosphy would be to ask yourself, "Will this be entertaining?" before you add anything to your game.

I know this post kinda went all over the place but these are some things I have been thinking about. I may expand upon them some more later.