@K_Douglas
I said I wasn’t a fan of choicegames, which is a lot different than saying I don’t like interactive fiction, period. The Wolf Among Us, Indigo Prophecy, and G-senjou no Maou are great examples of IF games I do enjoy. They all feature established, pro-active characters, who are inherently interesting and by no means blank-slates.
Across these forums, I’ve written plenty of posts about why I dislike second-person perspective so much. Those reasons are why I’m not a fan of choicegames. It doesn’t matter how many stats “You” have; if “You” are in the story, then your character is a walking placeholder. As I get older, I find I have less patience for this sort of protagonist.
@phimseto
I would be very interested in knowing what the average number of play-throughs a typical choicegame has. If we take out the outliers, like those who didn’t finish and those who’ve played through it dozens of times for achievements and perfect stats, my guess is that the number would be something like ‘1.x’.
In a popularity battle between “wide, but short” choicegames versus “narrow, but long” ones, it’s not even a fight. It’s a massacre. Long, narrow choicegames, like SoH, aren’t just better suited for the casual audience who will only play through it once, it’s also (as you’ve pointed out) ideal and necessary for creating a series.
This was a conscious design decision I made years ago, because I was very much a casual fan myself. And I think that’s been more of a boon than a bane.