I lay the blame for the anti-game-y sentiment squarely at the feet of Hollywood. Or, rather, at the feet of developers who feel they have a mandate to make their games "more cinematic". By this, they mean a certain look and feel to the way the game's story plays out, both in cutscenes and during in-game play. Somewhere along the line, the industry seemed to decide that making their games feel more like the movies would either make them better games, or endear them to the general non-gaming audience. Worst of all, everyone seemed to jump on the bandwagon without any support from the audience. I certainly don't recall seeing a great demand from the game-playing community for this sea change.

And why would we want our games to be anything other than games? Playing a video game is its own challenge and its own reward. I can think of no other pastime where part of the experience is figuring out how to experience it. Let me explain what I mean.

Though this might no longer be the case with modern video games, given the number of gameplay mechanics that get re-used, there used to be a time when you might have approached a new arcade game with no idea how to play it. Sure, there might be a joystick, and there were probably buttons, but in the early days of game development, there were few standards. So you couldn't necessarily expect that, for example, pushing down on the joystick in a flight simulation-type game would send you diving toward the ground. Most of the times it would; sometimes it wouldn't. Or you might be playing a platformer and find that pushing the jump button caused your character to jump to the same height every time. A different game might allow for jumps of varying heights depending on how long the button is depressed.