| Did you actually watch the entire story or just a lets play/review? Wolfenstein isn't that great of an example despite having a story it's not exactly a story rich game. I'm not sure the same thing would hold for a game like the Witcher 3, HzD etc.
A game that I've just watched the edited cutscene & cinematics movie for is Halo Wars 2 I'm somewhat of a fan of the Halo franchise primarily if I can get the story I don't really feel the need to play that game since to me for that specific game the story would be the main benefit rather than the actual game mechanics. Another example would be Star Wars Battlefront 2, I've cancelled the pre-Order after the debacle with the loot boxes so I just watches the single player game, I have a few friends that watched the Mass Effect Andromeda main story made into a movie instead of buying it both because of the bad press and the time. And it's funny that you've mentioned Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, I've bought the game (well preordered it because both of Ninja Theory and their GDC demos) my GF watched me play it, and 10+ friends I know just watched it on youtube rather than buy it mostly again because of the same excuse "I don't have time for that" despite I know exactly how much time they sit on their PS4/XboxOne/PC because I can see when they are online. But they much rather play CoD/BF/CS:GO/WoW etc. in the bulk of their time and consume games via effectively binge watching instead of playing, I don't know how much they enjoy it but at least they don't feel out of picture when people are discussing games heck I've seen entire "discussions" on discord about games like HB:SS or HzD where the vast majority of participants if not all of them didn't play the game or didn't even buy it. So I'm happy that you've bought Wolfenstein but it looks like you've bought it for the mechanics, It's also nice that a demo convinced you to buy it but sadly demos have shown to reduce game purchases not increase them especially these days. And given the purchasing behaviours of both myself, my friends, and my acquaintances I understand quite well why publishers want to effectively kill turning their games into a movie, and for anyone one that claims fair use it's not. |
I didn't buy Wolfenstein in the end – you must have misread that – and it was a combination of already knowing the story and the game play not being compelling enough for me to want to it "again" as it were, that made me back out of purchasing. Had I only played the demo however, there's a good chance I would've bought the game, because I did want to see the story and the gameplay although not incredibly exciting was still enjoyable. Instead, I watched it for free on YouTube, like a movie. I absolutely understand why publishers want to make this go away, and frankly I support that.
I still like to try before I buy though, and unfortunately since very few games have proper demos I can try I'm left with either reviews which give me next to no useful information or play throughs. Unfortunately the latter is just as likely to make me not buy the game because I might just not be compelled enough to play it "again" (even though I only watched it the first time) whereas a well made demo (e.g. the first 30 minutes of the game or so) is much more likely to get me to buy right then and there just to see what's next. Mileage varies of course, not everyone is like me. Just providing some anecdotes here.