To simulate physical reality is an extremely complicated endeavour and the closer people try to get to it the more complex the underlying code/systems/resources will have to be. There is on easy simple way to simulate its intricacies using a computer. There will still be companies that will keep expanding it until you have all realtime super-high-definition ultra-smooth billions of polygons raytraced HDR lit fractal bla bla bla trying to make it `immersive`.
I think people are bored with realism because they are trying to escape into fantasy. That's what a game is all about - an escape into illusions and fantasy. An escape from what? Reality. So at some point, it's actually counterproductive to be `too real` because then people start realizing that the realism blows the illusion. People want something that is `unreal` in enough ways as possible, which doesn't mean mirroring physical reality with precicely accurate physics and graphics. Doing so is more `science` than fantasy. Who would care if you had a perfectly real looking environment on the computer screen, the very kinds of behaviors that the `real` physics produces would not be interesting or exciting. People want things to be blown out of proportion, to be exaggerated, to be idealized, to be fantastic, to be larger than life, to present challenges that are impossible in physical reality, to pursue dreams that cannot exist as a physical reality, to get lost in an illusory daydream world that allows them to be what reality doesn't let them be. Who wants to be a totally photorealistic football player when you can be a totally unrealistic but thoroughly escapist wierd cartoon character. People don't want to buy reality, they want to buy dreams.
I think people are bored with realism because they are trying to escape into fantasy. That's what a game is all about - an escape into illusions and fantasy. An escape from what? Reality. So at some point, it's actually counterproductive to be `too real` because then people start realizing that the realism blows the illusion. People want something that is `unreal` in enough ways as possible, which doesn't mean mirroring physical reality with precicely accurate physics and graphics. Doing so is more `science` than fantasy. Who would care if you had a perfectly real looking environment on the computer screen, the very kinds of behaviors that the `real` physics produces would not be interesting or exciting. People want things to be blown out of proportion, to be exaggerated, to be idealized, to be fantastic, to be larger than life, to present challenges that are impossible in physical reality, to pursue dreams that cannot exist as a physical reality, to get lost in an illusory daydream world that allows them to be what reality doesn't let them be. Who wants to be a totally photorealistic football player when you can be a totally unrealistic but thoroughly escapist wierd cartoon character. People don't want to buy reality, they want to buy dreams.