Here's a nice read for you:
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TL;DR: "Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game."
Designer choice. Your laziness is your own issue, deal with it.
Ehem maybe you should stop trying to defend devs decision on every turn and actually read what i'm suggesting? Because i wish for nothing more then the game get better when it potentially can without costing more. (
smth fan shouldn't be short for fanatic)
As for the citation i fundamentally agree but it is just one angle. Civ being the example - the main goal of the game is optimization aka finding the best strategy. Obviously then any glitch or loop hole that allows player to become super strong is detrimental to the experience - if you know the best strategy the aspect of improving is gone and all is left is execution.
However in case of RPG like games it is quite different as players are more into the experience then optimization. A good example i feel is travel / transportation in open world games. Most of them if not all offer player some form of fast travel. Obviously That is the most optimized way of travel right ? But then some players refuse to use it and developers acknowledge that and offer them other means of traveling - like giving them horse or prepare immersive ways of fast traveling - carriages trains etc.
So back to FI, is gallery detrimental to player experience ? for some yes, there is certainly good amount of people that refuse to play the game and only enjoy the gallery. Some of them would play the game if there was none so:
1) Is not having a gallery an option?
Well then you anger the rest that will still refuse to play the game . Now how about players that play the game and then enjoy gallery ? They certainly could prepare themselves saves for scenes they like to revisit but then that is a) a chore to know which save is for what scene b) saves get often broken between patches. (past 1.0 they are supposed to be working but we get warned " use them at your own risk, bugs might occur from using old saves ). No, gallery is pretty much a must.
2) So then would adding "extended" scenes to gallery mean fewer players play the game?
I think those that don't want to play the game already don't play it and only watch gallery, so it will not have such impact. Meanwhile those that only watch gallery and those just want to revisit the scenes would certainly benefit from extended scenes. Again as long it is not too much trouble to add them.
TL;DR: Let players chose how they want to enjoy the game.