you're supposed to stare in amazement at the animations playing in front of you. It's like the devs are going clockwork orange and going "APPRECIATE OUR WORK! APPRECIATE IT!"
That's mostly likely it. The gameplay hours thing makes less sense because you know they would still count the cutscenes even if they were skippable. No, it's because the devs don't want you to skip their beautiful handiwork. I think this is why we don't get complex branching storylines in most games either. What I appreciate is when there are entire sections of the game you can miss because you took a different path from somebody else. Now lots of players don't like that either, and that's one reason we don't get it often. But another is that it's not acceptable to most developers to put in work that players won't see.
That's mostly likely it. The gameplay hours thing makes less sense because you know they would still count the cutscenes even if they were skippable. No, it's because the devs don't want you to skip their beautiful handiwork. I think this is why we don't get complex branching storylines in most games either. What I appreciate is when there are entire sections of the game you can miss because you took a different path from somebody else. Now lots of players don't like that either, and that's one reason we don't get it often. But another is that it's not acceptable to most developers to put in work that players won't see.