While many generic games may have been reduced to, 'shitty movies', I think developers have evolved gaming into a medium that would have been hard to imagine twenty years ago. Games like Fallout 3 or Mass Effect 2 are brilliantly designed hybrids of action, adventure, startegy, puzzle and rpg elements all wrapped in gorgeous, well written and immersive worlds built to evolve around a player's individual play style.

Even the base concept of challenge is not a given in modern gaming with titles like Little Big Planet where creating games is a major focus, or Kinectimals in which atmosphere and light hearted play trump all (actually, that second title could use even less, 'forced' challenge, IMO).

I applaud modern developers for constantly pushing the limits of what it means to 'experience' a game, rather than just play one as we have in the past.

That said, Zork totally rules! I've always thought there was room for Interactive Fiction in the modern world, it's just a matter of how/when (I hope!).