[ungzd]

Computer games strive to look like movies, borrowing established means of expression and cliches from movies (specifically, Hollywood movies). This includes narrow depth of field in cutscenes, color keying by genre (usually orange and blue) and imitation of chemical film colors. AAA games look very unrealistic, but everyone is too accustomed to this look.

Static graphics, rendered with non real-time methods, usually imitate photos, so depth of field is added too. They tend to look more realistic than games.

[kazinator]

Narrow depth of field occurs in human vision, like when looking at very close objects under well-lit conditions. (We have flexible lenses in our eyes for a reason, and when they don't work well, we have corrective lenses for a reason.)

The effect has been imitated in static rendering (e.g. raytracing) long before it appeared in games and full length animations.

It is a real-world optical effect that requires extra work to simulate; when that is not included in the algorithms, you get wide depth of field by default. Everything going back to Gouraud-shaded polygons and wire-frame is effectively wide depth of field.