> There, I've said it. Most 'games' are in fact interactive movies, with very little game in them. That's what Game Engines enable.
While I disagree with your argument about game engines being bad for games, you bring up an interesting point. Game engines are becoming cinematic movie engines.
Right now, they're a bit sub-standard. They shouldn't be built for consumer hardware at all, but rather live in the cloud where they have access to a lot of GPU compute for rendering.
The thing they get right is the reduction in film production complexity. Less going to set, less setting up lighting, cameras, etc. Easy tweaking in post, and an almost complete inversion of the production pipeline where directors, actors, and animators can work in lock-step with one another in fast iteration.
Unreal Engine is being stretched to do film things, but it's ultimately a local optimum. We're going to see a lot of new tools emerge in this space. (I'm building one!)
In the near future, films shot on cinema cameras and glass will be in the minority of visual media produced. It's just too time consuming. It'll become an artisanal pastime that directors like Wes Anderson remain attracted to.
The really interesting thing will be what happens to studios like Disney and Netflix that bank on in-house content and IP. Once media is no longer expensive and kids at home are making Star Wars of their own, the linear content moat is gone. Franchises and major IP will probably move to difficult-to-produce (for now) mediums, such as games, since films will turn into something more closely resembling novels - a huge basket of works, a wide distribution of quality, and a very long tail of interests that are catered to.
The next decade is going to be a wild ride.