Originally Posted by Ayvah
Originally Posted by LordGiggles
No man, no-one would ever buy an RPG without full PC voice acting and over the top cinematics. Please ignore that skyrim sold like a billion copies. Clearly you cannot make a successful RPG without choices OP personally likes, because he represents the will of the people unlike us dirty DnD players. Please also ignore how popular 5e is, it's clearly just not viable for a company to make dnd anymore, only disgusting convention goers enjoy that sort of stuff.
The problem with this fixation on "true RPG games" is that the genre label has no real definition. It's an aesthetic. An RPG video game is just something that feels like an RPG video game.

Strictly speaking, if we say that an RPG is about "roleplaying", then The Sims is a better roleplaying game than 99% of RPGs, and it's generally not classified as an RPG only because it has the wrong aesthetic and the wrong target audience.

If you go by strict definitions, Baldur's Gate has never been an RPG. Rather, it's a story-driven tactical combat game in a fantasy setting with minor roleplaying elements.

If you're going to fixate on the definition of "RPG" then I challenge you to give me a definition of the genre that doesn't lead to the conclusion that The Sims is the definitive RPG series.

I feel as if you responded to the wrong post? I didn't mention "true RPGs" or give a definition of what makes something an RPG?