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If the problem you were solving was fun, there's be an open source project that was solving it.
Not if it's the sort of problem which for-fun coders aren't going to notice exists in the first place. (Or just won't have the necessary technical specifications.)
1) They are the two main ways of doing "imagine if the world was different" fiction.
2) Because of this, there is a large amount of very good fiction (less so in literature perhaps, which seems to attract the purer forms of each, but certainly in media generally) which combines the two. Drawing a line between them would be impossible.
3) And combining the two is actually a quite good idea, because each counters the weaknesses of the other. Science fiction which gets too hard can lose drama by becoming unrelateable and missing dramatic opportunities which don't seem plausible enough, and fantasy which gets too soft can lose drama by making cause and effect too arbitrary, which undermines narrative.
but from a usability perspective it's hard to argue that one button is less usable than six.
It's quite easy to argue that if you can't use the button they've left you with.
I remember when words like 'racist', and others such as 'discrimination' were only used against people who were prejudiced, who were acting according to ideas which only existed within their own heads. I'm pretty sure the idea that Jews are more likely to support Israel than non-Jews is actually factual. It's not anything special about Jews; almost all groups of people have a tendency to support the organisations of those similar to them, but it's true nevertheless. And the existence of counterexamples doesn't mean you can't observe a general rule.
If someone was to make a similar observation about something non-emotive - say, "that guy supporting the American sports team? He's an American citizen. What do you expect?" I doubt anyone would be jumping to point that counterexamples exist and suggesting the observation was racist.
The game corporations will claim that there is no right to play, and maybe even insert a clause that means roughly that into the EULA. It is their right: if you don't agree with their offer, don't buy it!
You shouldn't have to decrypt a load of legalese (which you may not even have access to) in order to work out whether an offer to sell a game is genuine. Purporting to sell a product but designing it so that it refuses to work in certain situations should just be illegal.
Hordes of derivative and uninspired entries in the lower half of the market is a given in practically any media market and age. You ignore them, and pay attention to what the top guys are doing. And once upon a time, untested "IP" as you call it was frequently found. I don't know much about the console scene, but I'm sure today, if a game such as, say, Gods arrived, with rarely or never seen ingredients on the level of its "help bonuses" for struggling players, and monsters which avoid firepower and pick objects up, its level of innovation would be regarded as most acceptable, even rather praiseworthy. In its own day, the Bitmaps were criticised for not pushing the boat out as much as other developers of similar levels of talent.
We've classified games into genres almost forever. The modern complete lack of innovation is a more recent phenomenon, probably brought about by the graphics arms race and the greater budgets which have resulted; the more money you're spending, the more corporates and committees need to be convinced it's going to bring in a return.
I think it started happening at about the same time that it started to become common for games to have multiple sequels. I remember once observing that you never saw fourth versions of things. See them all the time now.
BECAUSE IF A VIDEO GAME CHARACTER IS NOT REAL, WHY DO YOU DELIGHT IN HURTING IT?
Well, hurting things which are real is wrong.
(Extra text because this filter can't tell all the capitals are in a quote.)
System going down at 1:45 this afternoon for disk crashing.