"It's just a game"

It's just a perspective that one can have. To deliberately not invest oneself in the story that a game tries to tell - I do it often, just turn off my brain and play - or to pay attention and live along these characters.
To paint yourself among them, live among them in their world. Invest yourself in their lives as you would do with friends and family in the real world.

We've kinda left the era of big monsters or insurmountable odds. Sure, we still have DOOM and other "simple" games for a reason, but most titles want to tell a story. Stories of grief and hardship or of victory and pride. It's not so much brain-dead fun anymore as it is to bring people an experience; like theatre or an event. It's no longer to spend time, but to witness.

Who am I kidding? We know damn Well that video games as a medium have grown incredibly fast. We can sling around big words all we want, but we all know that games are more than just the play: it's an event now.