I had a big reply days ago and then you locked it. Bastard.
To sum it up:
-If you have an extended tutorial and extended cutscenes, you're doing something wrong.
-Doing more with less is an artistic concept, yet 'artist' Kojima had to have a western dev come in and refine his gameplay down. This is an example of how the 'elites' fail at even making art while getting uppity about it, and that it is not just a western dev problem.
-Each media has its artistic tool. Literature has prose, film has the camera, videogames have gameplay. The prose of a book like Gardner' Grendel helps shape the mindset and world of the monster. The static f=viewpoint used in the early Nosferatu films when Dracula walks makes the audience face the monster coming towards them. You can see videogames using both prose and camera techniques within their games, but then completely fall on their face on translating any meaning or message through the gameplay. Dyack goes on about art, then just mindlessly slaps action/diablo gameplay into his 'epic'.
-So ultimately, the game 'artists' don't even understand the art of their own media. Likely because the industry is more filled with craftsmen than artists.
-The definition used as 'hardcore' is not really hardcore. It is the construct of Microsoft PR circa the first Xbox. Before then, hardcore would have no problem playing a Cooking Mama, because it was a fresh quirky idea. Hardcore either means one of two things: (1)An interest and openness to games so great they try most everything, searching out rare to find or off the road type of games in addition to the popular run of the mill games. (2) Someone absolutely devoted to mastering a genre and becoming the best at it, such as a top tier Street Fighter player.