Thinking back to how thing used to be done in computer games, in the retro period and the early days, there was only a very loose association between what you did in the game and something you do in real life. There was no advanced physics engines and texture mapping or correct lighting. You could draw a few pixels on the screen roughly in the shape of a `something` and you were able to figure that it actually was that thing. The old 8-bit games and even prior to that were not exactly running a simulation of planet earth. It's been very popular in games to move beyond the limitations of accurate physics.
Think of a game like worms where you have pieces of land that float in the sky. Clearly it's not physically accurate or even realistic looking but it's fun. Or a platform game where the main character jumps extra high or far with non-realistic gravity. It would be all very well to implement totally realistic physics and realistic graphics in these games but then some elements of the gameplay would be near enough impossible. Physics, if done correctly, clamps down on `unreality` and requires that everything work like it does in `real life`. That would go a long way toward obliterating many many activities and behaviors that defy reality that you would otherwise have fun doing in a game, and indeed maybe games are fun because of that very ability to defy gravity or pass through walls or do things that physics can't do. Realistic representations of real life behavior is not necessarily a good thing for games. Maybe for some kinds of games, that are basically simulations, and try to make things happen how the would happen in real life. But that's not all games by any means and it'd be a very sorry state if it were.
Things go in 3 steps - thesis, antithesis and synthesis. The thesis was what we started out with where computers very strictly defined the form of a game due to hardware limits and the player had to use lots of `interpretation` and imagination. The antithesis is to totally abstractify everything and center everything around the player and be totally `realistic` with physics so nothing is left to the imagination other than that models may be of things that don't really exist. I think the synthesis, where these two extremes come together, will be that you have some form of accurate physics and graphics, but with artistic styling, and the ability to perform `magic`, which means defying the physics and and using it creatively knowing that it's all a controlled illusion. Some genre's already do that.
Think of a game like worms where you have pieces of land that float in the sky. Clearly it's not physically accurate or even realistic looking but it's fun. Or a platform game where the main character jumps extra high or far with non-realistic gravity. It would be all very well to implement totally realistic physics and realistic graphics in these games but then some elements of the gameplay would be near enough impossible. Physics, if done correctly, clamps down on `unreality` and requires that everything work like it does in `real life`. That would go a long way toward obliterating many many activities and behaviors that defy reality that you would otherwise have fun doing in a game, and indeed maybe games are fun because of that very ability to defy gravity or pass through walls or do things that physics can't do. Realistic representations of real life behavior is not necessarily a good thing for games. Maybe for some kinds of games, that are basically simulations, and try to make things happen how the would happen in real life. But that's not all games by any means and it'd be a very sorry state if it were.
Things go in 3 steps - thesis, antithesis and synthesis. The thesis was what we started out with where computers very strictly defined the form of a game due to hardware limits and the player had to use lots of `interpretation` and imagination. The antithesis is to totally abstractify everything and center everything around the player and be totally `realistic` with physics so nothing is left to the imagination other than that models may be of things that don't really exist. I think the synthesis, where these two extremes come together, will be that you have some form of accurate physics and graphics, but with artistic styling, and the ability to perform `magic`, which means defying the physics and and using it creatively knowing that it's all a controlled illusion. Some genre's already do that.