> There is a reason why Skyrim, Mount&Blade, GTAV, etc are still dominating playtime charts years after release. Good enough graphics + deep, flexible mechanics is a much better combination in my opinion.
Those are all sandbox games that you effectively never stop playing. People tell me that there's a story and an endgame in Skyrim, but I've played a few hundred hours without doing any main-line quests past the first city. Mount&Blade I've sunk even more into - there isn't even the pretense of a story there, so you're pretty much on your own if you want to role-play, or just take in the enjoyment of riding around, hacking at people, and looting their corpses.
Those were just 3 of the more mainstream games with semi-limited graphics I could think of, but you're right they do share a sandbox style. Overwatch would be another example of a game where they put "good enough" graphics combined with much more refined mechanics (depending on who you ask, this last patch...eh) to achieve success
Anyway, the point I was going for the last thing we need is having them spend even more effort trying to make pretty looking but mediocre playing games.
Those are all sandbox games that you effectively never stop playing. People tell me that there's a story and an endgame in Skyrim, but I've played a few hundred hours without doing any main-line quests past the first city. Mount&Blade I've sunk even more into - there isn't even the pretense of a story there, so you're pretty much on your own if you want to role-play, or just take in the enjoyment of riding around, hacking at people, and looting their corpses.