I would be fine if cutscenes were feedback, or reward for gameplay.

But that doesn’t explain games where as soon as you start it up for the first time, there’s a minimum of 20 minutes of (often unskippable) cutscenes before you can even control a character. Or cutscenes at the beginning of a level/mission where you kinda have to watch it to know what’s going on at all, but they’re like 10 minutes long, so you’re gonna be there a while. Sometimes even those ones are unskippable. I remember playing Jedi Fallen Order and I just left the couch and cleaned the kitchen for a while because I could not have given a shit less about the story they were pushing on me, and I came down and it was still going.

Games need to respect my time. You turn the NES on, press start, and there’s Mario on the left side of the screen. You’re playing now. You turn on Forza Horizon 6 or whatever and it’s 20 minutes before you can control a car, at minimum. And that’s a fucking racing game, with no story I would ever possibly give a shit about.

This goes back to the motivations thing. For those who are motivated by narrative stuff, that opening works well. It sets up uncertainties and ambiguities that engage curiosity and prediction.

But you don't like those sorts of problems as much (or don't want them in that moment). Which is fine. No game works for everyone the same way.

(There is also an offhand remark in the article about gamemakers being failed moviemakers... ;) )

> But that doesn’t explain games where as soon as you start it up for the first time, there’s a minimum of 20 minutes of (often unskippable) cutscenes before you can even control a character

I honestly wonder if this is done to reduce returns. Steam, for example has a <2hrs policy.

Put 30+ minutes of cut scene in, 60 minutes of intro/tutorial, and you’re past 2 hours of game launched time before discovering the game itself just isn’t fun for you (too predictable? Grindy? Too easy? Too hard?)