This, exactly. Take Skyrim, for example. It can legitimately be described as a sandbox game. However, the things you can do in it with your characters are extremely repetitive – you can chop wood, explore dungeons that are very similar to one another, complete Radiant quests that are all the same. Sandboxes are so huge that the creativity of the developers are stretched thin in them, whereas in railroaded games developers are forced to load the constricted levels with more content. It would take many years to fill sandbox games with the same "density" of content.

Also, people often confuse linearity and non-linearity due to some superficial choices. People say KotOR is non-linear because you can choose the order in which to explore the planets, but each planet is very linear in itself. Linear plots don't need to have exposition dumps, and non-linearity can't be achieved merely by writing the plot in form of journals and scattering them all over the levels.

better strict short linear rollercoast than monotonic bland open sandbox.

"Openess" isnt automatically better by any means.

I always disliked the GTA games because they forced me to play boring story missions in order to open up fun parts. All those damn blocked bridges that deliberately prevented you from reaching other parts of the map until you completed the missions, for example.

As for linearity vs open world, it depends on the game and how well it's designed. I had no problem with a pure on-the-rails game like HL2, but that's done well; it's on the rails but rarely feels like it is. The worst are games like Trespasser, which was designed as an open world, but then they added invisible walls to force the player to play silly physics puzzles to progress linearly through levels instead of just walking up the mountain from the beach to the end of the game.

Or, more recently, Borderlands 2, which is mind-blowingly on-the-rails so far. 'Go to the diamond, follow Claptrap, shoot things until you get to the next diamond, etc'. I don't remember the original being anywhere near as bad.

I'm one of the people who doesn't like the trend toward open world "immersive" games. I'd much rather have the controls on screen and markers telling me who to talk to to advance the story. It wouldn't be so bad if half the "extra" people or places didn't end up being completely pointless (talk to 10 people. One of them gives you a quest, the rest just spout generic greetings. Either put in just one person or mark the one that gives the quest dang it).

Even most of those still have a main storyline you have to playthrough any. For me though the rest just makes it easier to get lost and miss important stuff along the way. (Where did awesome item X come from? Oh it came from that cave over yonder that random NPC sends you to if you wave at her).

I don't mind either one as long as it's entertaining me.

Unlike the poster above though, I enjoy talking to "usless" NPCs (not the generic single answer ones like the "Pay your taxes" guards in Ultima)
I actually wouldn't mind MORE NPCs that don't necessarily have a quest for you as long as they have some unique dialog. I guess I just don't worry about getting to the finish really quickly. Voice acted NPCs are a HUGE bonus as well.

I have so many hours in Skyrim and STILL have a few quests that I never completed from some of the DLCs, the real upside to these open games though to me is you are free to ignore the "main" quest for as long as you like. Want to go kill a bandit camp? Ok! Want to earn the house in Riften? Sure! Assassin thread? Why not! Mine up some ebony ore and make yourself some armor? No issues! But hey, what about those Dragons? I'll get to it, but right now I'm boning Lydia! (that takes an extra mod, BTW)

I played Oblivion on and off for about four years before I thought 'oh, hang on, wasn't there something about gates to Hell I was supposed to be closing?' Once I found one, it was actually one of the dullest parts of the game, just clearing out a bunch of demon things in towers.

Of course I had so many mods installed that it bore little resemblance to the original game; I'm not sure whether there's enough side content to do that in the base game.

same thing with me and Skyrim mine's modded to death, and I've restarted several times adding or subtracting mods I wanted to try, liked, hated, or just didn't want to use again. Plus I have all the DLCs and am only now really playing any of the Dragonborn stuff
This was the first game I really got into all the modding stuff, maybe one day I'll stop being lazy and even learn to do some myself! these modders really make some awesome stuff! I'd go as far as to say much of it is better than the original content! (Although I understand they are trying to maintain lore, which I really don't worry much about)

That's an odd choice of example. The level design in Doom is always held up as a comparison to modern corridor shooters to illustrate how lazy level designers have gotten in the intervening years.

Personally, it depends a lot on the genre and what do you call linear. For me, it doesn´t matter a lot if the game is "go from point A to point B". What matters is how many different choices I have to follow that path.

In 3D games like Action games or FPS, obviously having something more than narrow corridors without different paths are a must. For example, early games like Doom where mostly in closed areas, but they featured complex maps and you can approach each room differently. That´s a key point: If I watch people playing the game, and all the videos look exactly the same, that´s generally bad. The game should let you play it differently.

In games like platformers, you are going to have a "go from point A to point B" 99% of the times. The number of paths and gameplay choices are what matters here. Even "Metroidvania" games are basically get from point A to point B, but they feature many paths and player abilities, so each one play the game differently.

Lastly, another example: Shmups. Nearly all have just one path, but I wouldn´t say they are linear. While the level is exactly the same for different players, the amount of choices you can make on a second on each part of the screen makes most playthroughs totally different. So the game is technically linear, the levels are linear, but the gameplay isn´t. That´s what matters for me.

What is generally bad, is total linearity, which some games have: You watch just one plathrough, you have seen them all. That usually means that the game have no replay value, because all playthroughs are exactly the same or nearly the same. Of course, it depends on the genre and what you call linearity.

It was the first FPS that came to mind, and now that I think about it you're right. :O OOOOPS!

I suppose the original Wolfenstein 3D would be a better example, or even Duke 3D which did require you to go through certain doors in a certain order.

I greatly prefer linear games.

When I read reviews I mentally +1 every time I see the word "linear" (regardless of the reviewer's POV) and -1 every time I see "open world".

I am playing now Shadowrun Returns, which is clearly an extreme in linearity and enjoying it a lot (would have preferred a few more battles, but that's OK). The fact that every couple of screens the plot advances cogently (not just a filler) keeps me interested and involved.

I attempted playing The Witcher three times. The prologue I rather enjoyed (it being quite linear), but once I reached the first village and was faced with a whole slew of "free-to-choose" Fedex quests, a world where I seemingly "could go anywhere", and meaningless activities such as drinking contests and pugilism (all of which I had to explore, because I'm a completionist), I lost interest. I never made it much beyond that point on all three attempts.

I attempted playing Fallout three times and every time gave up when I reached the Hub and had to click on screenfuls of people with irrelevant "colourful" dialogues. On the other hand, Fallout Tactics (with its linear sequence of ~20 battles) is one of my all-time favourite games.

For me, a game is about story-driven gameplay, first and foremost. A lot of gameplay (preferably, micromanaging at the tactical level) and a modicum of plot is the best for me. Too much "freedom" detracts from it.

Good examples on GOG are Etherlords 2, Fantasy Wars, King's Bounty: The Legend, Aarklash, Fallout Tactics, Freedom Force vs 3rd Reich.
Outside GOG, the SSI Goldbox, Hoshigami, Final Fantasy Tactics, Vagrant Story.

I don't play many point-and-click adventures, but for RPG and tactics games (my seitan-and-potatoes), the linearer, the better.

Fallout 1+2 and Gothic 1+2 are perfect examples that a nonlinear story can be good and enables better immersion.
Everytime I played (and of course finished) those games, I saw something slightly different and that's what replay value is about for me most of the time.

If it's not about RPGs, I don't care as much but nonlinear is always a big plus.

I like a wide variety of games and depending on how I feel and how much free time I have, I want to play different types of games. What I really hate is when a game gives me false expectations because then I choose to play it when I want something that it doesn't deliver on. But if a game's advertising and description are honest about what I can expect from the game, then I'll play it when that's what I want and I'll probably enjoy it.

For example, the Telltale Walking Dead games are so linear that they've stopped calling themselves games now (the latest episode referred to itself as an "interactive story") but I enjoy them anyway because the story is really interesting and I don't have any false expectations about gameplay going into it so it doesn't disappoint me.

But if I was to play a game that's supposed to be all about exploration and it was extremely linear just following the main path constantly going forward, then I would hate it. An exploration-based game should at least create the illusion of non-linearity. Even if there is only one path through the level, if there are some dead-ends to explore and a little bit of backtracking (not excessive, but at least a bit) then that doesn't feel linear even though it technically is.

But a lot of games lately just have one path which is clearly signposted (there's no other way to go, and then on top of that there are usually blatant visual prompts like bright colors or icons to point out the path). So that feels significantly more linear and restrictive to that point that it's a bad thing for me. I don't mind optional hints like that arrow in BioShock 1 because I could turn that off, but I hate when the game has mandatory icons that ruin the atmosphere and remove any need for me to explore on my own.

Regarding story, I don't think of "linear" when I'm describing a story because that's pretty much the default. I expect stories to be preset unless the game says otherwise. I do enjoy when games offer choices, but I don't expect it outside of RPG's (and even then, I expect the choices to affect secondary plots and/or characters rather than the main plot -- I'd love it if a game had a lot of real choices that affect the main plot too, but I don't expect it in general so that I'm not disappointed when games don't do it).

And with adventure games, I don't expect the story to change and there probably is one path through it, but I like it when the game makes me feel like I figured it out on my own (where to go and how to solve the puzzles). If I was to say an adventure game is "linear" then that would mean that it drags the player through the plot without giving us a chance to think on our own, which defeats the purpose of an adventure game.

I'm pretty much done with linear games, I don't enjoy them as much and nowadays they all try to be like movies. I just don't have fun playing them.

Western RPGs and open world shooters are what I limit myself to, for the most part.

I'm with you on this one. Never understood people whining about linear games. It's a new trend, like 60 fps and zombie survival that will wear off eventually (I hope so).

So IMHO: don't make a game open world just because of pier pressure. If it works on it's own linear way, that will probably ruin it. It's what the market wants for some reason, but it also ruins games and experiences. Most of the time open world means empty barren wastelands, with nothing to do, but nice little rock textures and repetative, procedurally generated (another trend nowadays) caves. So no, if a game is much better at storytelling or gameplay being linear, then just leave it that way. Otherwise what works for GTA doesn't really work for others.